is affecting international relations and diplomacy. we will talk with the council on foreign relations. "washington journal" is next. morning and welcome on the sunday, november 10. we will kick off "washington journal closed quote with a look ahead to 2016. it may be early that nonetheless the election results in virginia and new jersey -- we will look ahead at what it means for the white house. we want to hear from republicans only. if you live in eastern central part of the country, 202-585-

3880, for the mountain pacific 3881. 202-585- you can post on twitter or facebook and e-mail us at journal@c-span.org. in "the washington post" -- we want to hear from all of you this morning, what do you think? who are your leading candidates? republicans only. we did democrats only yesterday, talking about the next election cycle for 2014 and 2016. today, the white house in 2016. back to "the washington post" --

what do you think about who are the leading gop contenders for 2016? times" -- york

vote is only this morning, who

are your leading gop candidates for president in 2016? in "thel has written up ," saying thest plagiarism charges may hinder the candidate. the senator this week in a hearing, while talking about drawing tourist back to --

that is the republican senator taking a jab at chris christie, who was reelected in a second term in a landslide last week. and that the boston sunday globe this morning has a profile piece talking about the white house and the candidates for it. there have been some lengthy piece about mitt romney in 2012. he has a piece about senator ted cruz. the piece goes on to take a look at ted cruz at harvard. it says --

virgin who is your leading presidential eitherte?ia, caller: marco rubio or chris christie. i wanted to make a comment about mr. cruise. although i do agree with what he is fighting for, i think he

makes the republican party looks dysfunctional. the thing we need right now are candidates that can run against -- to even possibly win by bringing together minority groups, having a plan for that, and having heart decisions made by republicans that still make us feel that everyone in this country is going to benefit. chris christie and marco rubio are the brightest i have seen in a long time. a report that marco rubio is backing off comprehensive immigration reform. caller: that is the first i have heard of that. i think we definitely need this reform. if that is the case, i will have to rethink mr. rubio. i don't think he's going to

actually -- i don't think that's real. i just don't believe that. i don't think his biggest supporters would allow him to do something like that. go, whofore you was the leading democratic candidate, the one that would give the republicans the most difficult time? caller: obviously clinton. host: why? caller: i think a lot of people believe the reason her husband was such a good president was because she was just as good as he was. what is the matchup like with clinton versus rubio? clinton would win. host: clinton versus chris

christie? caller: that would be a struggle. host: vance from oklahoma. caller: i think the best candidate for republicans in 2016 will be rand paul. i think a lot of the plagarism charges against him are really focused. aligned in extra -- extemporaneous speeches. this is really a concerted campaign to bring rand paul down. he is the oene candidate that the establishment hates the most. ns the wholet h

progressive empire. and that is the regime we live in, a aggressive empire. they are leading a kind of political narrative that is at odds with what is promoted in the mainstream media, and on which isr that matter, a cheerleader for the progressive empire. host: if rand paul is the candidate, who should he pick as the vp? caller: just in a mosh from michigan would be the best -- just in a mosh from michigan would be the best candidate -- from michigan

would be the best candidate. would be the kind of candidate that would take on the entire system in such a way that would allow americans to see that we do not have to live under never-ending debt, and list surveillance, continuous overseas war, and a never ending that is avalanche and upon the american people. host: we are with republicans only. hillary clinton is featured in today's "washington post" --

their presence helped lenny kravitz's group raised $10 million. let's go to mickey in the walkie. -- in no walkie. walkie.ll since 2004 i voted straight republican. at this time i am extremely discouraged by my party. i was disappointed that immigration reform was not passed. i like chris christie but he is going to have to change his tone of voice. i don't believe he will be able to win california and new york. we are still winning the middle of the country. none of the candidates excite me.

there is going to have to be a very strong independent party. i am really disheartened. this is wrong. the government shuts down. defund it, that is why they want to shut down the government. host: you said chris christie has to change his tone, what do you mean by that? of years agople they were at the national press club. he would commit suicide before he runs. these are not good things. people taking a

people, shooting people, i do not want to hear this. she will have that he will have to lose weight. obese got elected president. host: where are you from? in 1979. moved here when did you become a citizen and how many years have you been voting? i voted in 1988, for far -- for ross perot. since 2004, straight republican? caller: absolutely. host: alice from florida. caller: i don't think hillary clinton will win against chris

christie. i believe she will lose because she is too connected to obama. president obama has done a lot of damage in this country with medical care, benghazi, the irs, there's no sense in me going on like that. shame -- iis a believe that is going to hurt her. clintoncare for hillary because i like her husband bill clinton. i thought he was a great president. personal life his personal life but i think as far as the economy, he was wonderful. all people ofr all classes and all color. christie is in the middle. she is too far to the left. toshe wants to the ash wants be president she's to come to the middle. if she wants to be president

she needs to come to the middle. i think ted cruz is stubborn. the believe he hurt republican party. i believe his intentions were good. go tou have to be able to the middle and look at both parties. i don't think he is willing to do that. i like senator rubio. people came here illegally, they brought their children with them. i know they say they want to do good for these people, i think it has to do with votes more than it has to do with the people. i think that will hurt rubio. is resident ofe material. -- presidential material. kerry clinton blew her

chance. that is all i have to say. -- i think hillary clinton blew her chance. who is leading your party for the white house in 2016? first, some other headlines for you. a lot of papers about "the affordable care act -- about the affordable care act. in "the los angeles times" -- that is courtesy of the museum. , this headline -- hi there is "the atlanta

journal-constitution. -- "the washington post" this morning, their editorial weighs in on lost coverage in the affordable care act. it says --

the front page of the newspaper this morning, -- that is in "the washington post" this morning. , this is "theing ," courtesy ofs .ewsreader it says --

back to your phone calls, republicans only, who is leading the party for 2016? randy in wisconsin. good morning. caller: i will tell you what, you think maybe the united states would have been better off with hillary clinton in the present -- than the president administration -- hillary clinton than the present administration. take a look at hillary. four people got killed in benghazi and she says, "what difference does this make?" -- randthink she can paul is probably a very strong runner. they are sure pumping up chris christie, the news media is, because maybe she can beat chris christie. i have not paid

much attention to him. the news media knocked her last time she ran. paul?why do you like rand mainstreamis not the republican or democrat? like a real republican, like this country was set up for. we are getting so far off track with washington right now, this whole country is. it is terrible. c-span and the rest of the news media put obama in there and look at what we have. ,f we can have a true campaign i don't think the democrats will ever get back in there. allies, -- the lies, deceit's,

the empty chair presidency -- the tea party took a hit in the virginia race. caller: c-span has talked a lot about -- you talk to some of the move -- some of the news media, bob schieffer. they talk about ted cruz in the tea party. host: i'm asking you to respond to that. caller: that was a close race. if any of the national committee would have got behind ken cuccinelli, he would have won easily. there was nobody around, he ran all by himself. they made up stories about him. i'm sorry who they got for governor out in virginia. you might be interested in

this piece in "the washington post" -- chuck grassley sat down for our

newsmakers program. he talked about the election last week and the influence of the tea party going forward. [video clip] flex is going to be a big part of the debate in iowa, but also people that have been dissatisfied with the direction of the party in iowa are going to be active to get more involved. i think you are going to have a more balanced approach. >> what are the dissatisfied with? >> the tea party people in iowa caucus offguard. >> in what way? -- the inactivity in activity. we need to regenerate arise -- to re-energize the tea party.

senator chuck grassley on newsmakers, this sunday at 10 a.m. eastern time, following "washington journal." it will re-air at 6 p.m.. sam is a republican in florida. who is leading the party and 2016? i think rand paul would be the best candidate. the thing is what they have done, both parties, they have brought shame and nothing else. rand paul is a real genuine person. i hope he brings it up, especially after dick cheney and all those. he is a real genuine person. i wish him all the best luck. maybe this country will survive and host: -- will survive. host: let's go to david in new

jersey. i consider myself a conservative more than a republican. i think ted cruz would be a better leader. we have done all this compromise and getting along with the democrats. they have proven they want a socialist police state. it is time we get back to the principles of this country, defending and standing up for them and govern by them in -- by them. it is a narrow defeat for the tea party in virginia. because the republican establishment didn't back them up like they should have, they spent too much time compromising and giving away this country instead of fighting tooth and nail for it.

that's it. as far as what is happened in arginia, they got themselves hard core socialist lulu has shown his hatred for tea party and anybody that opposes him. is man will abuse his power. 7 sandra in alabama. good morning. is if chrisomment christie gets in, they are going to lose a lot of votes for republicans. i voted for john mccain and the .ast one we wasted our votes. i cannot stand the thought of another one of those elections. chris christie is a democrat.

they are all progressives trying to get into the republican party. they need to go with rand paul, ted cruz, somebody who is different from the democrats. the democrats goes on the shows and say the republicans are going to lose because they vote for these people, that is why they are doing that. they don't want republicans voting for them. it makes me so angry. charles from connecticut, republican, go ahead. caller: good morning. to see tom coburn. i have watched him for years on television and on c-span on the senate floor. he makes more sense than all the rest of them combined. they have to draft him because he is not going to run again for the senate. he is probably the most intelligent and wise is man on

the senate floor. that is really all i have to say. louis,ob from st. republican, what do you have to say? caller: i think it's time to have two governors run, and i think christie with huckabee would be a great ticket. host: that leaves a senator rubio and rand paul out? caller: you have to have somebody that has that experience making it budget. -- making a budget. obama does not have the extremes to run a staff and all of the things administrative person has to do. i think huckabee romney would've been a great ticket. once paul ryan gotten their it went downhill.

-- got in there it went downhill. the governor is proving to be much more popular in the congress and presidency lately. is "the new york times" national section -- look at president obama's approval rating.

we are talking to republicans only, who are your leading gop candidates for the white house in 2016? front page of "the new york times" this morning. in conmen prey on confusion the health care act. this one about fraud. the reporters write -- overseas this morning --

at talks have been going on to have been put on hold. secretary of state john kerry will be appearing on "meet the press" today, talking about the way forward with iran, syria, and other issues. let's go to dennis in south .akota who is leading the party? thank you. i would like to see jeb bush run for president in 2016. host: why? is not for one thing he a senator. i like rand paul and ted cruz, but i think we need to have all of the republican senators and the senate as we -- republican senators in the senate.

the way the democrats don't take over the senate. host: next is john in staten island. caller: i am tired of all politicians so i would love to see dr. ben carson run for president with ted cruz as his vice presidential candidate. host: why? caller: dr. ben carson is very intelligent from what i have seen of his interviews. he can fix the health care system. in whatrs to be rooted the united states was formed as far as constitutional government the democratsrom who seem to be leaning towards socialism. perhaps as ted cruz with his partner we can fix the economy and get back to where we are in the black instead of in the red. host: linda in apple valley, california. caller: i would like to see jeb

bush and mike huckabee. host: why is that? are both think they good. jeb bush should have been president when george bush was president. that is my comment. host: do you see jeb bush as a moderate republican? caller: i see him as a conservative. and also mike huckabee, as well. host: jeff in florida, we are talking to republicans only. caller: good morning. party --he republican they are going to need to put somebody like christie or even giuliani in there. the conservative republicans, like the tea party, are more concerned about socialism that our government. killing the is

republican party. giuliani did not make it to the primaries because he was pro- choice and not anti-gay. host: fred barnes writes a piece in "the weekly standard," "the great divide compel he writes about strategy going forward -- "the great divide," he writes about the strategy going forward --

caller: i don't believe republicans have a war against themselves. i think during the first presidency we have more women in his cabinet or first -- or personal stash -- or personal staff. this wholeerstand women thing. if someone doesn't believe in something, it is a war on women. if you don't agree with dave writes, you are anti-gay. rights, you are anti-gay. we go to one in the -- to juan in houston. willr: i believe hillary

be an equally good contender but i believe and rand paul read host: why? caller: hillary is very intelligent and mr. paul is intelligent as well. the democrats a door hillary. everybody has faults. as far as paul, yes he has experience. articulate his points as well as hillary does. i believe they are equally matched. host: greg in colorado, what do you think? caller: greta, my choice would be colonel allen west. he is a conservative thinker. he has the ability to convey conservative thoughts to the american people in such a way that is not going to be demeaning and will bring people together. he can absolutely hold his own

in any debate. -- colonel allen west. we have a few minutes to get your thoughts on who is leading the party, who are the contenders? "the huffington post" has this picture and headline on their , it says --

that is what the president was up to. he was at fundraisers in florida on friday night. he returned to washington yesterday afternoon. take a look at some headlines after last week's election results. says -- front page of "washington post close quote has this headline -- " has thisgton post headline --

and then there was this -- also, the front page of "the new york times close quote on thursday -- of "the new york times close quote on thursday -- of "the new york times" on thursday -- and usa today, front page --

we are talking to republicans republicans -- only. in ohio, what are your thoughts, david? the democrats and the republican party -- they do not work together. do not try to accomplish anything for the country. that at the time, if i was voting for a republican president it would be chris christie. i am sick and tired of the way they are running this country. overhaule need an change in our government. we need people who can make right decisions that will satisfy the whole country.

the wayk and tired of the government has been run. we need to sweep them all out of the office and put new people in. i think they are letting their guard down by not supporting our defense. i think this is a terrible situation for this nation. i blame the democrats for trying to cut that out. i truly think we need a change in government. bob in arizona. i have been a republican conservative for almost 73 years and i'm considered a republican party -- i consider the republican party surrender monkeys. i believe we need to win the

color blue back from democrats. everybody knows blue dog democrats are named because of the color. red is the sign of revolution that belongs to democrats, and always has. and the colonel would make good candidates. they need to get our color back. mention blue and red states, i have to flip it over in my mind. it does not make any sense. it is symbolic but very important for the party. host: winston in texas, republican caller. caller: good morning. this is winston from houston. i am trying to get republicans to understand that in the beginning, if we would have just done the right thing after

president bush and put people in prison for stealing a couple trillion dollars, driving the -- theyinto the whole need to realize that the republicans were at fault. they were driving this ship when they drove the country over the cliff. none of my republican friends, -- none of the banks, nobody went to prison. for our next conversation, independents and democrats to join us. we are going to be talking to matt lewis, a senior contributor at the daily caller. will talk about our electoral system and how it leads to gridlock in washington.

first, what is coming up on the sunday shows with c-span radio. >> today's sunday network television talk shows, but topics include politics, the health-care law, foreign policy, and veterans day. you can hear rebroadcasts of the program on c-span radio beginning at noon eastern time with nbc's "meet the press. co guests include chris christie, who won reelection this week. he's making the rounds of most of the shows today. also illinois democratic senator durbin, tennessee senator bob corker, and maryland democratic congresswoman dominant -- cumbersome and donna edwards. chris christie and texas governor rick perry, also bob menendez of new jersey. at 2 p.m. it is "fox news sunday" with chris christie, ron curry, vice stephen president of the planning services company.

state of the union follows at 3 p.m.. candy crowley sits down with lindsey graham and former republican senator bob dole. also democratic senator robbie scholz and -- at 4 p.m. it is "face the nation" from cbs. bob schieffer talks with chris christie and former defense secretary leon panetta. network talk shows are on c-span radio. they are brought to you as a public service by the network and c-span. rebroadcasts of the show begin at noon eastern with nbc's "meet week," at" 1:00 "this sunday," and 4s p.m. "face the nation" from cbs. listen to them at 91 point f m washington area. download our free app for your

smart phone or listen online. flex -- >> she is known as a style icon. mrs. kennedy put a lot of thought into her work -- into her wardrobe. she would think about what colors would mean something to the country. canada sheit to chose this red suit as a gesture of respect for the red of the canadian maple leaf. thought sheire the put into her wardrobe. >> first lady jacqueline kennedy, monday night, live at 9:00 eastern on c-span and c- span 3.ree -- and c-

>> c-span, we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you. during you in the room congressional hearings and conferences, and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. we are c-span, created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. and now, you can watch us in hd. >> "washington journal" continues. >> matt lewis is back at our table this morning. he writes a column for the daily caller called "the week." let's begin with what happened last week during the november 2013 off year election. what do you make? guest: it is interesting. republicans you have three big races to talk about. the least was in alabama, which

was a special election congressional race, a primary where you had bradley byrne, the more business backed republican, defeat a guy named dean young, which was the tea party candidate. that was "the empire strikes back your code that was the republican party reasserting its authority -- "the empire strikes back." the republican party reasserting its authority. how does a republican win a blue margin? such a wide great news if you are here public and. in virginia, i have seen opportunity. i think republicans have a chance to pick up, to win that race did -- that race. it was a perfect storm of problems that conspire to defeat ken cuccinelli. he'll ended up losing by a very narrow margin. everyone thought it was going to be -- he ended up losing by a very narrow margin. he was goingght

to end up winning. -- everyone thought it was going to be a blowout. agree -- had they done so he would have won a? guest: the funny thing is you can also blame the tea party. i think the shutdown also hurt ken cuccinelli. in northern virginia, especially, a lot of government employees. exit polls show a lot of them were shut -- were upset about the shutdown. they were upset with republicans, it hurt the brand in virginia. it also delayed people being upset about obama care. begun onbamacare october 1, the whole debacle of the rollout and exchanges, you might have had a month of ken cuccinelli running with the wind at his back.

he might have had eight free to last month. the money might have flowed in and he might have one. i think it was interesting but virginia republicans can blame both the establishment and the tea party. it is a real missed opportunity. what do you think domestic is for both parties? caller: there are several messages. i like ken cuccinelli a lot. i was rooting for him as a conservative. i think there are several lessons. things that are happening at the national level clearly have impacted what is happening at these local races. especially in virginia, right across the potomac from washington dc. the shutdown hurt him. there were a lot of things along the way. here is one thing republicans need to learn is the trend i am seeing. it happened in alabama and virginia.

ken cuccinelli, the reason he was a republican nominee was because he outmaneuvered the lieutenant governor. though bolan thought it was his turn to be governor. there were some hurt feelings. instead of the moderates coming together and saying, that's rally around the republican nominee, we may not like -- we may not like can fitch analogy, let's come together. i did not do that. he is fighting this two front war against an establishment and against the democrats. the opposite thing happened in alabama. a more business friendly republican defeated dean dion. concession speech, dean young said he is not even going to vote.

the point is this is a trend. wins, the party guy moderate people take their ball and go home. if an establishment candidate party -- i would just say fight out in the primaries. you have to come together if you want to win general elections. the president was in new orleans, talking about the economy. he was also pushing for congress to act on a couple of pieces of legislation. i want to show you what he had to say and talk about what it means for 2014. [video clip] then let the unemployment rate still ticked up. -- >> the unemployment rate is still ticked up. it could be down because of what happened in washington. that makes no sense.

inflicted wounds do not have to happen. they should not happen again. we should not be injuring ourselves every few months, we should be investing in ourselves. we should be building, not tearing things down. rather than fighting the same old battles again and again, we should be fighting to make sure that everybody who works hard in chance, that they have a to get ahead. that is what we should be focused on. [applause] host: matt lewis, does that play into 2014? guest: i don't think so. everybody knows barack obama is a good speaker. i don't know he is going to wow us with his rhetoric anymore. dark going to be realities he has to face. tohink republicans are going win a lot of seats in the midterm. i think it has nothing to do with rhetoric, it has to do with

action and obama care. i think it is entirely possible. an insurance to industry insider on friday, who told me nobody in the industry believes that obama exchanges november 30. by problems, ihe other think it is very possible that you will have full world will red state democrats -- you'll will have for whirlpool red state democrats -- you will have vulnerable red state democrats. they are you going to jump off the ship and turn on this health-care law or they will probably go down. is very likely that republicans could have a very good 2014. if that happens, nothing succeeds like success.

-- nothing exceeds like success. if you are on a football team that is losing, you're picturing in the locker room -- you are bickering in the locker room, all of a sudden that goes away. he could be a problem republicans had in fighting in the civil war. it is just winning selections. feelings could subside. let me show a digital ad put together by the gop main street advocacy, mocking tea party candidates from past elections. [video clip] >> it is only the special few that enters the senate candidates hall of shame. >> that horrible situation of rape is something that god intended to happen. ,> if it is a legitimate rape the female body has ways to try

to shut that whole thing down. >> i am not a which. >> what are they thinking? timeime to act now -- the is now to act now. host: what do you think of that? guest: this is like the empire striking back. the is it helpful -- is it helpful? no. there are other conservative groups, like the senate conservative spot, who have been targeting republicans and beating up on them and. -- and beating up on them. say it costguably him to jelly the good editorial race in virginia. it is one of those things where

we are in the midst of this civil war and both sides are pushing back. it is certainly not helpful. it is possible that they may actually have a positive result. it is a thing where grassroots conservatives have been beating up on the establishment for a long time. the establishment was hoping they would go away. mcconnell, who faces a primary and general election challenge coming up in he is the senate minority leader who happens to be former bull -- who happens to be vulnerable. i think he tried to co-opt the tea party initially. he hired a guy named jesse and 10 -- jesse benton. i was hoping they can make peace with tea party. maybe find an area of agreement

and commonality. it did not work. mcconnell, conservatives running ads attacking mitch .cconnell i think the national republican senatorial committee and other s have decided we need to fight back. there was an effort that jonathan martin at the new york times reported on the other week , where the national senate editorial committee is blacklisting a republican consulting firm that is running ads attacking republicans and attacking establishment republicans. i know this is like baseball. be -- it is an interesting story. if they can get past this and put some points on the board and win some races, there could be healing over time. host: let's get our viewers

involved. darrell in florida. good morning. caller: caller: i was a democrat the first two times that obama was elected but i switched after the health care act. i recently got employed by a good company. the company took advantage of the exemption for employers. i felt that if they created the health-care law, employers would buy it but many employers nowadays are telling their employees --. don't use healthcaregov. at someone my age, it starts $207 per month. that is almost a $6,400 deductible per year. that is ridiculous. personally, i changed to republican just because of how

this health-care law went. there are some good things in it like being able to keep your kids on your coverage until they are 26. however, i think ultimately this thing will shaft the younger people like me. guest: i think that's totally true. was sold asare law a win-win. there has to be winners and losers which is the truth. some of the winners are for people who are uninsured but a lot of the winners are older people. the losers have to be younger people. this was created by design to transfer wealth from young people to older people. it does not work unless there are enough young people in the pool who are healthy food don't probably need the insurance -- healthy and probably don't need the insurance pre-it this only works if young people pick up the tab for older people.

until the affordable care act past, you would have a situation where an older person might be ratio, at at seveno 3 more than a younger person. there is a provision in this law which says it is now 3 to 1, without getting into the weeds too much, that means if you are young and healthy, your insurance is going up to subsidize older people. i think it is really ironic that president obama was elected and by inspiringlly young people to support him. in many ways, they are the biggest losers of his presidency. i would say obamacare is only one part of that story. i am working on a column right now about this very topic. it will be interesting to see if young people begin to flee en masse because they will be the victims of this law in many ways. successful, what

does that mean for 2014 elections? think thatctually the 2014 elections -- the cake is baked, so to speak. first of all, there have already been stumbles out of the gate. people are going to be upset even if obamacare theoretically works. they will already be upset because he said if you like your health insurance you can keep it and that was not true. there will be a lot of people like this caller who are not going to be happy. even if it works theoretically, it will work in the long-term, there will be stumbles and there have been stumbles along the way. now, the windight is at republicans back. if obamacare turns out to be a huge success over time, that really cements president obama's legacy. i think it would clearly help democrats going further. they benefit from americans believing that big government

can make the world better and can take care of its citizens. if it works, eventually that will help democrats. host: here are two tweets -- the:we first of alll,l, person who agreed with me is clearly right. in terms of the second point, i think that's true. there is tea party and there's tea party. sadly, i think they get to flick it. can cucinelli are lumped into this national narrative is being tea party. was a state senator for many terms and was a virginia attorney general and is a patent attorney.

he was trained as an engineer and is clearly a credible and competent legislator who happened to be very conservative. deanyoung in alabama was essentially a political consultant who had been part of the chief justice war machine who had been a perpetual candidate and ran many times and lost. i agree, it's probably not fair to lump tea party in. loss for an young variety of reasons and i think they probably nominated the better candidate in alabama. host: springfield, missouri, independent color. -- caller. caller: i think we very much have a corporate congress. whether they are democrat or republican or independent or tea party, they are there to be a public servant.

they make more money than the average american. they have more benefits. when they shut down the government, they did not lose their pay. they did not lose their healthcare. it's about who has the most money. the lobbyists work for these corporations. if you don't have millions of dollars, what chance do you have of even getting something heard by your congressman? that thisht, i think is a common laments, that the game is rigged. whether you are a democrat or republican, you sort of work for the lobbyists, yadda, yadda, and there is probably true to that. thatnk it's important people need to remember that the house of representatives, the republicans won their elections to. i'd make it is perfectly fair

for them to try to change policy , to push back against obamacare. clearly, we have seen it has been a debacle. i give republicans credit for seeing this was going to be a debacle. ironically, they would have been better suited to let it go forward on october 1 and let the american public see how bad it was. extent that conservatives have this civil war over the shut down, it was really a matter of strategy. a lot of conservatives believe that they should not fight it and don't shut the government. you can make an argument, not my argument, but you can make an argument that if you really believe that obamacare is that for this country and it's going to hurt people, you have to do whatever it takes to stop this. if that's what you believe, you would say ted cruz is a hero so he was willing to do whatever it took to stop obamacare from

being implemented. i happen to think that was an unwise strategy but it is not an absurd point. you could say it is heroic. host: there is a tweet -- we go to georgia, democratic caller. caller: is this c-span? great, i have listened for years. it is a pleasure to be on and good morning to all americans out there. america andere in no job bill has come to the floor. only bills against obamacare. people need to go to work there . we want people to bring job hills. how many congressmen have bring job bills to the floor? how many people are out of work

and we could grow our way out of this thing. where is the optimism? host: what about jobs legislation? people call him a lot about that. members of congress on the hill talk about jobs but have we seen legislation? guest: i would argue that republicans, when they tried to fight obamacare, are fighting for jobs legislation. what stops jobs from being created? in many cases, it's regulation and having to comply with regulations. there are a lot of policies that are not seen as jobs bills. i would argue and this would be controversial but you could say that raising the minimum wage is a job killer. you may have fewer people making a little more money but people who own a small business and you have to pay your employees more money, by law, you have to, rather than just rewording folks who deserve it, you may hire fewer people.

republicans do not get credit for this. they are not very good at getting good publicity or pr and it looks like they are being recalcitrant and a party of no. in fairness to them, a lot of the stuff -- a lot of the bills they try to kill, the things they try to fight, especially on regulation, are actually an attempt to help businesses thrive. give you a local example in washington, dc which i just wrote about. cara huge fan ofuber service where you can use your smart phone, order a car, they have gps so they know where you are. they have had a really difficult time in the nation's capital companies, thei dc taxi commission, stands to lose.

it becomes a political fight. you have this innovation that i think is a smart and fun i do it benefits the consumer you have incumbent companies who want to stifle it. this goes back to the whole theory of creative destruction. it used to be their workforces and buggies and that the automobile automobile came along and put them out of business. be horses and buggies and the automobile industry came along and put them out of business. now there is a better service. sometimes what liberal policies do is try to prop up and save failing ideas. they do it under the guise of compassion. think this is a big philosophical and theoretical debate that takes place. you see republicans voting no and getting bad publicity, what they are really doing is trying to stop things that would prohibit job growth. i agree with the caller. we talk about deficits and debt

and we can cut but the way we fix the economy is to actually grow it. host: from twitter -- guest: that's a loaded question. example of a race that i think sort of defies that question. arkansas, arguably the most exciting republican running this year is a guy named tom cotton. to say if he is a tea party guy. he is an incumbent member of the house. he is a former military guy. in many ways, >> serving his first term? >> serving his first term and a mansion republican but also i would reject the binary choice whether he is a tea party guy or

an establishment guy. i think he is maybe in that marco rubio sweet spot which means he could appeal to a wide swathe and possibly turn off the people marco rubio managed to do this year. i really think it is a false choice to have to choose. ultimately, what i hope happens is that conservatives find a way to elect smart, mature, butrvatives, not rhinos conservatives who go to washington and govern as opposed to just being in it for the theatrics and the gimmickry. i reject the notion that you either get the tea party or the establishment. i think we can get solid conservatives who are fresh and energetic but also want to get things done. host: on our line for republicans, connecticut -- caller: i just want to thank you so much for what you are saying.

i have thought the same thing about the republicans leaving cold andelli in the not doing anything to help them. how do you get your word out to the public? my friends in virginia and they feel that i am naive about the tea party and it's not really made up of grassroots mom and pops and it's some kind of sinister movement. they did not vote for cucinelli and i said i didn't understand. i asked for they are getting their information. i think you have a an important message. i was a flaming democrat while i lived in new york and i always admired -- i can't think of his name -- he said you can have your own opinion but you cannot have your own fax -- daniel moynihan. you how you can get your wonderful analysis out more? that's my question. guest: follow me on twitter.

tell your friends and click the ads. send us some money. i think this is hopefully a message -- as someone who writes, it is awesome. my dad was a correctional officer. he literally went to prison for 30 years. voluntarily. so that i could get to write and opine about politics. i feel really honored and privileged to get to do what i do. i hope it makes some small difference. we just have to keep reaching it. i do think that there are a lot of mistakes made in virginia in this race. i will say that the negative ads that terry mcauliffe and other democrats ran against cucinelli utterly destroyed and crushed him in northern virginia. unfortunately, a lot of them are false. a lot of the social issues, for example, there was a notion that he wanted to ban all contraception.

politifact called a pants on fire lie. most people believe tv ads. more money pushing back on those negative ads, we might have had a different result. sadly, not everyone reads my log or they might know that. host: fred barnes wrote in the weekly standard about that very issue -- guest: democrats have figured out that this is the way to win elections. barack obama now terry mcauliffe used it very effectively. look at the demographics of who elected terry mcauliffe, look at the cohort for unmarried women. that by 40%.n it's ridiculous.

clearly, those ads targeting ken he is opposeding to abortion even in cases of rape and incest, these issues when they are run over and over hit home. chris christie was not a victim of this. where irote a piece think he needs to be very careful. he gets in the face of teachers and says to do your job. imagine him doing that in davenport, iowa to a teacher and imagine that teacher big coming -- and that could be the start of a war on women. if chris christie has -- uses his confrontational style which is fun now, you can see very easily how they could take some teacher and make them into a cause celebre and chris christie could be a bully and not in a good way. host: these are the exit polls out of virginia. look at the female vote --

terry mcauliffe got 51% of the female vote. ken cucinelli got 42% from the exit polls in the virginia governor's race. women were ad little bit for terry mcauliffe. unmarried women, dramatically on the democratic side. host: guest here is the headlin- tampa, florida, independent caller. caller: good morning. told you hand the loaded gun somebody who said they wanted to shoot you? i think that's a perfect analogy for the antiestablishment tea party being upset with the establishment for not handing that and that gun. -- handing them that gun. guest: there are a lot of folks who feel that way.

it's amazing. there is a real sense that the republican establishment cannot be trusted. frankly, i am surprised by this. i agree there have been a lot of -- if you go to the george w. bush administration, spending, he did not veto a lot of spending bills, you had the bailouts and tarpon all sorts of things that happened. s -- and alllso sorts of things that happen and cronyism and a lot of reasons why conservatives might reject part d.003, medicare there are many good reasons why conservatives might reject republican party in 2003. bill frist is not in the senate anymore. dentist has to do is not there and george w. bush is not there. in the couple of years, you have elected this incredible crop

from marco rubio to rand paul and susanna martinez and chris christie. there is so many exciting things happening. i don't get why now there is this resentment. maybe they won't be happy until mitch mcconnell and john banner will be gone. i'm not sure but why not have senator pat twomey and kelly ayotte and this new crop of conservatives -- why not give them a chance to get things done? it seems they are being labeled the establishment now, two. why should they pay? 10 years ago, republican was a bad thing but maybe move past that. host: i want to show our viewers the female vote in the new jersey race to compare. for chris vote christie, 57% compared to his female opponent who garnered 42%

of the female vote in that state. guest: absolutely, chris christie had a great night. clearlyg to learn is you can be a conservative. chris christie is a conservative. he defunded planned parenthood in new jersey. and yet his priority has always been helping people in new jersey, standing up for them against washington, helping them overcome the hurricane. you can be a hard-core conservative and also give the sense that you care about getting things done in standing up for your voters. that's a big key. one got the sense in virginia justcucinelli was more it it in ideas and being a cultural warrior. it is harder to talk about helping people when you have not been the governor. chris christie was the incumbent so that was a benefit. as i said, i think there is also a danger chris christie to --ume that now he can

everything he did in new jersey, he can do again if he runs for president and he will win the women vote. very dangerous. against hillary clinton. host: and possibly the hispanic vote. he got 51% of the hispanic vote. --o e-mails for you there is that and then this e- mail from john in pennsylvania. mail about first e-

the binary choice between the establishment and the tea party -- it is messy. it's not that simple. libertarians tend to be pro- immigration reform. that sort of shows how these things get conflated. rand paul did not support this specific senate bill but he has talked very favorably about a path to citizenship and pro- immigration reform and libertarians in general, whether they are tea party or not, tend to be very much in favor of more immigration and of immigration reform. chris christie and susanna martinez would be a very interesting ticket. winners,rnors, two susanna martinez obviously is hispanic but unlike marco rubio who is cuban, she is mexican american and i think that would be very interesting.

we will have to see. the temptation would be for -- it would be like in 1992 when bill clinton became the nominee and rather than balancing the ticket with a northern, liberal, he doubled down and picked al gore. , seen aswo young moderate democrats. they had an interesting brand. chris christie and susanna martinez would be similar. there would be a temptation for him to go to the right to balance the ticket with maybe rand paul or someone in the u.s. senate was a proven conservative. --hink chris christie susanna martinez would double down on a pragmatic version. select c, watch out. new jersey may become in play and new mexico may be in play. this would really change the blue versus red state paradigm we have gotten used to in the past decade. host: battle creek, michigan,

democratic caller -- caller: hello, i wanted to talk about the history of the obamacare and its origins. i am thinking it's kind of a middle-of-the-road health care policy. romneycarerned after which apparently is working in massachusetts. it uses ideas out of the heritage foundation. the individual mandate was originated in the heritage foundation in 1989. ae republicans introduced similar legislation in 1992. you guys are complaining that this is a radical thing. it is filled with republican ideas and the other problem is, you guys have complained for four years and jumping up and down and complaining about how awful obamacare is. there is no republican alternative as far as i know.

there is none that has been passed in the house. you don't have a comprehensive health care plan. the health care costs that we have in the united states have been rising and rising for the past 20 years. they are projected to continue to rise if there is no change. what is the republican alternative to the awful, harvell, terrible, ghastly obamacare which is really romneycare? guest: i think it's true that in the 1990s, there were conservatives who were trying to be proactive and look for ways to solve the healthcare problem. it is wrong to say that all republicans embrace this idea and rally around it but there are certainly some conservative opinion leaders who thought of mandate would be a good idea and they saw a conservative solution. breaking your arm and showing up in an emergency room and expecting other people to pick up the tab is not exactly conservative.

clearly, that idea did not fly. whether it was a matter of opportunism and opposing hillarycare are obamacare or a matter of principle and whether conservatives oppose this on principle. for whatever reason, conservatives today by and large oppose mandates. the question over what is the alternative is a really important one. there have been proposals. congressman price has proposed something. ideas bandied about like allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines. included allowing catastrophic insurance. essentially you could protect yourself from bankruptcy if you were to be diagnosed with cancer. if you were to go to the hospital for something routine or a doctors office, you would pay out-of-pocket. there is a lot of different ideas for for you to do medicaid expansion. having said all that, i will agree with the caller and say that i think republicans need to

very quickly settle. there have been conservative republicanor the version of health care, they have not settled on something. it is important that while you are poking holes in obamacare and is easy to do now that there is a republican alternative that many people buy in on. that will be the problem now with this struggle is to get everyone to buy in on a conservative alternative. host: the house returns to washington this week coming up. on their agenda is a piece of legislation called keep your insurance plan act of 2013. they will be taking this issue of what president obama said over your insurance plan and now these cancellation notices directly to the house floor this week. fort lauderdale, florida, republican caller -- caller: good morning, how are you? that he to tellmatt lives in lala land. republicans, the

socially conservative republicans do not want to party people. we want to get rid of them. you live in lala land and you need to stop your bs, thank you. interestingis because you hear totally different things from different callers. this color essentially says that the tea party is the problem and social conservatives are with the establishment. i think that highlights how messy this thing is. it is not clear cut. what is a tea party candidate versus an establishment candidate? marco rubio was elected in 2010 by the tea party. today, people say he is establishment. what ispat twomey? is he establishment? he wanted to have some gun control. is he a tea party candidate or a conservative or a rhino? at the end of the day, these things -- where you stand

depends on where you set. it's important that conservatives are able to sort of stick together. there is a real danger. as we have seen, the cleavages are not that clear. rhinos and other persons like radical conservative extremists. host: caller: wendy, independent caller. caller:how are you doing? i have a question for mr. lewis. send -- theypanies go overseas to all these countries and they make a pair of nikes that cost $10 and the comeback you're in charge $300 per it why haven't they got in with exxon who sends their monies overseas to a bank and pay no taxes because of loopholes. i am paying taxes for 31 years. i got sick and all of a sudden, my insurance was canceled. i went back to try and get it and it is $400 per month.

what are they doing? obama did try to get the infrastructure putting people to work. they did not want to do that. the republicans don't seem to want to do anything that benefits taxpayers. i paid taxes for 31 years. i never went to the government for nothing. right now, i am in a situation where i need help. they are saying -- what about the money i paid him that is going overseas to these other countries? we are willing to help them but they don't want to help the taxpayers in this country. host: you might be interested in an opinion piece in "the washington post." this is by patty murray who was involved in avoiding another

government shutdown. guest: if you are upset with how things are going, we have had obama for five years. in fact, in 2008, democrats controlled everything. they controlled the presidency, the senate, and the house and they could've done something and were able to push through obamacare through reconciliation. they could have done some sort of tax reform. i think tax reform is really important. there are things that could happen. to make it more fair. you could raise the rate for people for capital gains taxes if you cut the corporate tax. there are many conservatives who would support that. the problem is, democrats are not willing to talk about tax reform unless you put revenues on the table. in other words, democrats will not negotiate over fixing these problems unless republicans are willing to raise your taxes. republicans say they are not going to raise taxes. i am not saying that republicans are always right or conservatives are always right

but i think you have to give your side. it sounds like you're a supporter of democrats and giving them some blame. she was our last caller and matt lewis, thank you very much for your time. coming up next, we will turn our attention to the electoral process and how it works. we will talk with rob richie of fair vote and later, the impact of nsa surveillance programs on u.s. relations overseas. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ >> with the war in europe turning hot in the blitzkrieg took place in the low countries, the u.s. was totally unprepared. george marshall, chief of staff of the army, came to president roosevelt and said we cannot do things we have done in the past. we have to act now. we have to act decisively and you have to do it today. roosevelt went to congress the

next week and said the u.s. must build 50,000 airplanes to protect itself. all the automobile companies were given projects to build engines and airplane parts. was given thepany be 24 bomber which is a problematic airplane. it was the newest airplane we had, it was still in development stages and they wanted to mass- produce this airplane. not just going to build parts. i will build complete airplanes. they took what had been done as individual pieces and they took the engineering drawings and do and a and designed it massive press would knock out thousands of these pieces that would then go on to the assembly line and unskilled assembly workers with a little bit of training could assemble these airplanes. between january and june of 1944, 35% of the ford engine

bombers built in the united states were delivered here at willow run and that was one of 11 factories building the b-24 bomber. piece ofg a little this plant that was so important to that story is just beyond words. i cannot describe the feeling we all have and the big smiles once we pull this off. we did something here in detroit that was not done anywhere else in the world. it literally saved the world from the axis powers. we did that right here. >> michigan's yankee air museum is currently trying to say part of the willow run plant as plans to turn the abandoned plant into its new home. find out more next weekend at booktv and american history tv, look at the history and literary life of ann arbor, michigan on c-span two and three. journal"ington continues -- the: rob richie is executive director of fair vote.

you wrote an an opinion piece in o quote the washington post" recently with the headline -- government shutdown was caused by our electoral system? guest: it was not only the electoral system but you cannot ignore the systems that drive certain behaviors. if you look at the key players in the process, we are being rational responders to rules we have not -- that are put in the statute. as a reformer, i believe we can change these things but if you look at most members of congress who have no chance to lose, we did a new report in which a year before the election, knowing nothing about what the next campaign year will look like, we are calling 373 seats out of

435. those people could lose my primary. that is what they have to think about. primaryey could face a challenge to that drives a certain incentive. you think more of people who might go into a primary which is a small number of people versus who might vote in a general election. that is one incentive. situation where because of our electoral rules, the republican party all most certainly will keep the house even if they have a pretty bad year in 2014. that creates certain dynamics were john banner has to make certain calculations were he does not fear the general electorate in the same kind of way as some people in his own caucus might displace him as speaker. then you have democrats in their own incentives in both artie's were stuck in this zero-sum to joyce came -- to joyce game where they may affect -- two- choice game.

that is the quick summary. we don't have to use these rules permit host: how do you change it? guest: a couple of changes are most important. we want general elections to matter. to make general elections matter, the november electorate where most of us vote and not just the partisans but the independents and the full spectrum, we need to have more people on the general election ballot who are viable. two are oftene just one choice, we don't have much of an election or much of a real choice. we also want more votes to be able to help elect someone. we want more voters to be represented. we are talking about the house of representatives in particular. housef us in the people's should have to elect someone. to do that, we have to change something we have come to accept as the basic way to vote or to hold elections but it is not in

the constitution and not the only way we have done it in history which is not to just have one person representing you but to have more than one person give everyone one potent vote and have more of us be able to have an influence. that is the detail. from onessentially go person representing each area where the red/lou mapp is dominant and most of those districts will not be competitive and go to bigger districts where you might take massachusetts and go from 91 seat districts -- 9 one-seat districts and with three represent is pert districts, give everyone a strong vote where it takes about 1/3 of the overall vote to win a seat and you suddenly can change every part of the country. the general elections really matter.

host: what is the reality of changing the system? how would that get done? guest: it's an act of congress. ultimately, we need a national solution to what is wrong. host: it would not violate this constitution? guest: not at all, and the first 50 years, about 1/4 of representatives were elected in multi member districts. i live in maryland and i have three house members, not one, in our state legislature. as recently as the 1950s, more than half of state legislators came from these multiseat districts. the idea of one person resenting everybody is not part of our constitution. we expected today but it is an expectation that leads to the failure and dysfunction we see in congress. there are other things you have to do within that to drive voter choice and competition but it can be done. host: what is the reality of the kind of change? we have an incredibly

dysfunctional system. what we saw happen this fall as part of a pattern. afraid we will continue to have this happen. we can blame the people and ask the politicians to rise above these incentives that i think say not to ask to care about the political actions. most politicians, that is not really what they will do. we have a deep problem we have to address. if we get to that point and say what can we do to change it? you can look at redistricting and gerrymandering which is a huge problem but to fix that, we think you have to do what we are talking about. we have a rising number of independents and people who are not comfortable within the two parties and yet we don't have ranked choice voting. we have a system or you only get to vote for one person. that limits what people are ready to do. we have basic problems that need

to be addressed and on the flipside, there are constituencies out there -- essentially all of us are part of one of these constituencies -- that would directly benefit from the change. one example is a lot of people would like to participate in meaningful elections even if they live in a lopsided district. but they can't. they might want to affect two controls the house next year. most of them don't live in a district or that is possible. every one of those people have a reason to be part of a system where their vote matters. theyn the major parties, would become better parties, more representative that are system demand. if they were able to compete everywhere and when everywhere and the diversity that exists within their party voters can actually exist electorally and be represented. there are specific groups like women -- we ranked 97th in the world in the number of the percentage of women in congress

which is a drop of almost 5015 years ago -- 50, 15 years ago. a lot of that is driven by a one person only representing each group that limits the opportunities to get differences represented. we also have a real sticky situation on how we and force the voting rights act and representation of our growing percentage of people who are part of racial minorities. the system does not work well there. we have good numbers and good analysis showing what would mean for the voting rights act. host: we can talk more about voting laws but let's turn to some viewers and get their thoughts. we are talking to rob richie of their vote about the u.s. electoral process and congressional gridlock. edward is up first in pennsylvania, democratic caller. caller: hello?

that democrats, republicans -- everybody forgets we are americans. allowed to vote a straight ticket. people should know who they are voting for and vote for people. they should be listed alphabetically or something. what we should be able to do is to tell everyone in every state that congressional districts should be squares or blocks, not gerrymandered where you have a streak of people voting 20 miles from wheremiles away the group is. not seem toust does

say we want to elect the best people. the caller is making a couple of very core points. redistricting and gerrymandering is a huge problem. it is something that we are really alone among the major democracies to do this as poorly as we do, to give partisans the ability to craft their own districts and when one party runs things, to try to stick it to the other party or when we see them collude and stick it to the voters generally by creating safe districts. that should not happen. however, the belief often is that we can make boxed districts will have a we nirvana of fair competition but that is not true. lovelydraw compact looking districts across the country, you will largely have noncompetitive one-party districts. if you look at the partisan

maps, it is very clear there are clear majorities of partisan and we need to find another way to represent. the second part is that he is expressing frustrations that the party seems to be above americans and we should have more putting the individual and the interests of the people first. we have electoral rules that make it hard to do. if you act that way as a member of congress, you may well lose. that butk people to do if they don't stay in office, it's hard to keep doing it. that can be changed with creating different incentives. host: from twitter -- that's an interesting proposal that people should be familiar with. it will be talked about more and more. it was done in washington state and california. louisiana does a version of that

system. but you a first round have primaries but they don't vote in separate races. the just vote in one big race in the top two emerge from that. the value of that for voters as they get more choice in the primaries. if you're stuck in a one-party district, don't just nominate someone from your party who will end up losing in the general election. the problem is that it only advances to people. you mostly have a small electorate that has an effective turnout in a positive way. you still haven't on representative and highly partisan electorate. the party labels still matter like in washington state. they have the system that have been used in 48 statewide and congressional races and 47 of them have been traditional democrat or traditional republican. it does not really change politics. if you advance more than two

that's were the idea of ranked which is something that would make the system more interesting. ranked choice voting is the idea that when you have more than two people, it makes sense to say more than one person. was on theperot ballot in 1992 which is when we started in our former chair a great piece in "the new york times." he suggested ranked choice voting. that was a good example. running well and ultimately he ran so well that of the 50 states, only one state was won with the majority. 49 states were won where the candidate did not have 52% of the general votes. he was doing generally well across the country. he got 19% of the book but he also finished third and people knew he was going to finish third like john anderson when he ran in 1980. if you're voting for that

candidate but you do have a preference between the other two choice allowsnked you to make a choice. if he finishes third, i have a preference and i will rank that person second. that's all they have to do on the ballot. then you count those rankings to simulate an instant runoff. you add up the first choices, ross perot finishes third, he's out, the ballot is tallied for his voters second choice added to the total of the others and you get this comparison of one- on-one. getcan have more choice and a clear, definitive winner in the final round and that has been done now in a number of big cities. it was used in minneapolis. it shows that voters can handle challenges. there were 35 candidates on the minneapolis ballot. they got a clear outcome and voters handle the ballot incredibly well. imagine using that in virginia where they only had three

candidates and people were complaining about the libertarian. they only needed to give him a second choice and they would have completely resolved the problem. host: claremont, california, republican. caller: good morning, i think something is missing that can be answered by watching the video that i got in an e-mail called the agenda, but grinding down of america. it explains how your ideas of this pushing of an agenda like in california. you cannot be a republican, our voices are not heard. they don't care. it almost doesn't matter because you got the republican establishment pushing chris christie and susanna martinez as an ideal when there really isn't an ideal. we need to get back where the populist people are sticking together. what's more amazing is you hear black -- i don't mean to be disrespectful -- but they are so protective of their president. here is a guy who fraudulently got his way into office.

everybody says if he was selling toothpaste, he would be in jail for lying. here we have the whole democratic party pushing an agenda to take away the constitution and take away your rights to freedom and liberty and be told what you have to buy and when to buy and what you have to do and that your children have to be indoctrinated by a court. it's just flat out amazing. i think one way to respond to that is that we need to give voters more power and to give them more choices. this caller has very strong feelings about democrats and barack obama. that does not mean he would support just anyone the same way who might be up against the democrats. our system boils things down to two and we get simplistic politics that does not allow new wants and differences and does not allow us as voters to get

different kinds of representation. the republicans previous program, they were talking about the fights within the party. it's pretty destructive and they are trying to destroy one part of the party instead of figure out ways to represent both sides of the party. that's what these multi seat districts can do. you would institutionalize representation of the left, center, and right of every district and change things. statesnia's like so many becoming a one-party state. it is winner take all and that can happen. 60%-40%, thato seems lopsided that means more than one out of three california's don't don't actually support the democrats but they seem like they are irrelevant because winner take all takes people and throws them away. their boats cannot count. this affects presidential elections and state legislative

elections were almost two out of five state legislative elections , the second-biggest party does not try to run somewhere. we now have uncontested races in more than 1/3 of state races and it is a winner take all system when to change. host: what are your thoughts on the story -- on the cover of "the new york times" last week? guest: it shows that changes in

the air and rules matter. i think that's good. some of the changes that those particular advocates are looking for are trying to bring more voters in. i would urge them to say that the most important place to have that happen as general elections. us do notore of participate in our primaries. they are try to get more people to participate in primaries which is also a good thing but i think the tension that will parties are is that vehicles for people to come together and find their interests and develop but thompson put forward candidates and there's always going to be a lot of people active in those parties who want a nominee to reflect the people who have tried to bring them together. electorally, you want to win election so you want someone who

can maybe be attracted to people beyond their party. you see this push-poll where toe state parties are trying close their primaries. some are trying to open them. we want to look at ways that voters can be in charge. i think there is no one way to do that. host: south carolina, independent caller -- caller: hello. all, we don't live in a representative democracy. we live in a constitutional republic. thatld also like to say you are talking about precedents with the constitution and every thing else. elected by there state legislatures. went aroundndment the constitutional precedent and

made them elected by the electorate while the senate is supposed to be the voice of the states and the house of representatives is supposed to be the voice of the people. onould like to get your take why we cannot go back to pre- 17th amendment but -- where the states actually elect senators again. guest: i want to say that having a representative democracy within a republic is not a contradiction. that was a very central part of the constitutional framers vision. keep in mind that not a single person has ever served in the house of representatives without being popularly elected which is required in the constitution. that is where the representative democracy is supposed to happen and where we are falling so sure today. that's why our focus is on house elections and how to make them live up to that ideal.

i think there is a hard argument to make in the modern era that senators should not be directly elected. i think they should be more fairly elected and i would like to see ranked choice voting for senators but why we went to direct election of senators came from the fact that the indirect process had really broken down werehe state legislatures not always the representative bodies we might want them to be. there were sometimes democratic basket cases in choosing senators. it nationalized state legislative elections in a way that some people who do not like the current system might not like the fact that suddenly you have big national party money trying to take over state legislative races so they can get a senator rather than a state legislature being able to reflect what people want for their state. host: this is on twitter --

guest: that comes out of a regime for running elections. poorly done and there are credible number of great election official struggling to make your system work and yet they are working with an overall regime that is highly problematic. it starts with the very fact that we don't have an explicit right to vote on the constitution, we don't uphold the right to vote with strict scrutiny because of that. we do at times but it is a very decentralized way of protecting poorly funded, inefficiently erratically regulated and if we can get everyone in the room to say let's make it deal.

let's say every voter should be eligible to vote and no one should vote was not ou eligible and make sure every eligible voter has access is not denied the right to vote, we can achieve this. it's the 21st-century grid is like finding a way a way to have good, clean beds -- voter registration rolls are accurate. now we have highly inaccurate voter rolls and only roughly 2/3 of voters are registered. many people are registered more than once in many states. we need to improve. over this would change a lot of we could say that we actually have made agreement that that is how voting should be. it gets granted with the conversation of having a right to vote. host: on your website, you have this headline -- that is our hometown.

we passed a resolution about having a right to vote in the constitution. triggeredconversation a secondary conversation about what that local elections have low turnout . you often get single digits for registered voters. that is not uncommon. as you look at that and you look at your own local elections, they came up with a lot of great ideas. this idea of lowering the voting age to 16 for local elections, the first reaction is, that sounds crazy. then you look at the facts, and there is a second look aspect about the issue. here is one way to look at ultimately what happened.

to 17-year-olds voted four times the amount of registered voters. they will now be going forward older having a tradition of history and voting. democratic caller's joining us. caller: i appreciate mr. topic,s input on this but i think it is all moot until we as a nation come together and amend the constitution. we have to get corporate campaign contributions completely out of the mix. we need to get corporate .obbying out of the mix here a d if you cannot poll a lever in

the voting booth, you should not be able to influence the voting process. guest: there is a passion about trying to change the way we have money in politics. to people whoefer spent a lot of time working on that to figure out what we might be able to do about it. there are a lot of good ideas. we have a lot more power than we might assume. there are huge amounts of money spent, but the reason why most states are so unpredictable in presidential elections and why some districts are predictable, is that the money cannot change the expected outcome. ney cannie -- mitt rom spend $1 billion in maryland, but is billion dollars will not get him to 51%. barack obamag for

in states that are mainly republicans. the voters are not just changing their votes based on whatever the last ad results. some are. you can tell to 4% of the vote by certain tactics and go from winning nothing to everything. 4% becomes incredibly powered. to free the voters to win the representation they're already going to vote for. host: why do they spend so much time on fundraising calls? it can be a special, independent spending at this point. you can be facing a challenge you don't even fear. you have to be ready.

this base to the fact that they are electorally sensitive -- speaks to the fact that they are electorally sensitive. you want to head off any potential things that might hurt you. 75% of these incumbents could probably spend almost nothing on general elections and still win. basicant to do some things, but they don't need to spend money on campaign ads and things. some of them do, but most of them are in districts that killed enough to their side that it is unlikely -- tilt enough to their side that there -- it is unlikely that the other party can have anything be done. reid wilson reports that corporations in some of the wealthiest americans spent more some ofbillion -- and the wealthiest americans spent more than $1 billion in 18

months. dr. bronner's magic soaps spent $2.2 million of the $7 million spent in support of the initiative. guest: one part of the is key is that money is most effective in

ballot measures when you are trying to get a no. you're trying to say, there's a lot of things you don't know about this thing, it might have these unintended consequences, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. it is harder to spend money and get a yes unless people are ready to do a yes. that was money spent to get a no, and they got it right if they were trying to do some affirmative things from their perspective, it would have been harder to spend money and get a yes. today, 24 states allow some form of direct democracy. liberal and conservative activists have used the process to amend state laws and issues. dan, great valley, arizona, republican caller. a comment on your comments concerning the supreme court decision to allow corporations to make unlimited

-- you cannot be more conservative than i am, and that was an erroneous decision. have defined what corporations are. going to the conversation about where i am today, which seems to be an attempt to break up what people call gridlock -- i'm calling to make a point that i like gridlock. the news tends to denigrate gridlock. met gridlock really means to is that one point of view or the other has prevailed over the other. gridlock the undermines the passage of laws that i don't want past. i wish the obamacare had been gridlocked. other times, those laws which i sedld like to see past gridlocked. you are chasing a strawman by

trying to overcome gridlock. all it means is a one party has prevailed in its point of view about the passage of a law, and that's always going to happen. that's what think the founders wantedhen they drafted the constitution, is gridlock? caller: absolutely. they want things to come up for consideration by our elected officials. sometimes those processes to not get all the way to a final vote, and symes -- sometimes they do. some laws get passed, some don't get past. -- passed. guest: i'm going to agree with the caller that our founders did not want a parliamentary system where one party would come in, pass things, and then be held electorally accountable. it's a model we see around the world.

they usually have proportional representation, which gets to justthe caller deals with, one party running things through. if you have a system where, like a germany it takes 5% to win, party has to work in coalition with others and face the voters. we have a system of checks and balances. not to have partisan gridlock, which is where they don't come to agreement on problems where we know we need to address. i'm not going to get into the particulars of what should have been done on health care. you had both major partners -- parties saying, we should make a change. it ended up being an entirely democratic solution.

it would have worked better if it had been one where there was more mix, and some effort for success were you take good ideas from across the spectrum. our congress today is incredibly different from how it was 20 years ago. people have not absorbed the fact that 20 years ago we had much more of a continuum in congress of a spectrum of what people think about things. you had a lot of conservative democrats from the south. spectrum. when issues like this were there, you would see people come together, a limited not be one party or the other -- and it would not be one party or the other. we assume that everyone in one party will be the same. that's a product of a

dysfunctional electoral system. a key part of what we're looking for is to represent that spectrum and allow our system to work as it was intended. henry in michigan, democratic caller. you are on with robert richie of fairvote. caller: i hope the next sunday, c-span will allow such a time span for democrats to call in an air their opinions as you did the republicans this morning. host: we did that yesterday on the "washington journal." caller: i want to talk about the dangerous elements of the opposition party that we have in this country. the taliban and osama bin laden all said they wanted to work very hard to see our country destroyed economically. we have an opposition party right now in the republican tea pain that wants to inflict

upon the american people, especially the poor people, because they voted for barack obama, because they actually wanted health care reform. tohave an element that wants destroy our government, and they will stop at nothing. it is our duty as citizens to stop at nothing to save our government from the enemies that we have within you our domestic enemies, who are trying to gridlock our government -- who domestic enemies, who are trying to gridlock our government. we are not going back to the constitution where only white male property owners have the vote. women get the vote. gays get the vote. blacks get the vote. we're going to move forward in this country, and whatever we have to do to stop you people, where going to stop you. aest: the caller reflects sentiment that a lot of people

have on both sides of the spectrum. there is a lot of very passionate believes about the way we need to move forward, and deep concerns about the other side. you could have someone from the tea party saying something similar about their concerns about democrats and liberal democrats. part of what makes a representative system work is to bring everything to the table and represent them. the need that if we keep this a zero sum, to choice politics, we will continue to have these kinds of fights and that in our constitutional system of checks and balances does not work. as people say, what is he talking about, that we have to show what congressional districts would like that -- look like and compare that to what they look like now, fairvot e.us.

see how they could be with a statutory change. what we expect to see is that members of congress will start publicly supporting this proposal, and we will already have seen it as working at the local level. this conversation can really go to the next level. host: larry in west virginia, republican line. it is supposed to be a union of 50 states. in a union, everyone should be represented equally. i feel that the electoral college should be done away with, and every state should have one vote, and the district of columbia should have one vote. cannot carry 26 votes, you should not be president. see thatwould like to the proportions for electing the president should be people, the individuals.

thedon't need to change constitution to do that. i'm co-author of a book called, "every vote equal." ote.com.tionalpopularv it is passed in nine states. it changes what the state can do to achieve the objective that every voter in every state can cast a vote that counts the same for president, and whoever wins the most votes wins. this wholedeal with swing state, non-swing state problem where they spend 99% of , and time in 10 states make all of us on an equal basis. host: for more information, go to fairvote.org. .hank you, robert richie up next, we will turn our attention to an essay spying on our allies and the fallout for

diplomatic relations. sunday's network tv talk shows, topics include foreign policy in veterans day. rebroadcasts of the programs on c-span radio beginning at noon eastern time with "meet the press." today's guests include john kerry, chris durban, and bob corker. 1:00 p.m., abc's "this week." at 2:00, "fox news sunday" with chris christie and ron pollack. and stephen curry, vice president of the benefit of any services company. "state of the union" follows at 3:00 eastern time. candy crowley sits down with lindsey graham and bob dole.

also debbie wasserman schultz and the chairman of the republican national committee, grand prix this. nation tookface the with leon panetta. rebroadcasts of the shows begin at noon eastern time with "meet the press." 1:00, "this week." sunday.", "fox news 4:00 eastern time, "face the nation took a -- nation." listen to them on 90.1 in the washington, d.c. area, xm radio channel 120. download our free app for your smart phone or listen online at c-spanradio.org. >> one of the things that has

struck in my mind is how dallas has changed in general, just amid political standpoint. and laterly 1960's 1950's, there was probably a much less balanced political environment here. cap say great deal towards the right side. -- perhaps a great deal towards the right side. publication,eing a somebody had bought a full-page ad the day before president with president kennedy's picture on it, and said wanted for treason. who came downctor here six months after the assassination am a represented the warren commission, he was the one that quizzed me -- it would after he came out in the

hall in parkland. he was quizzing me about the entrance wound. said, we have people who will testify they saw him shot from the overpass, but we do not believe they are credible witnesses, and i don't what you saying anything about it. >> marking the 50th anniversary of president kennedy's assassination, eyewitness accounts from the doctors who president -- treated kennedy and lee harvey oswald. this weekend on c-span three. with charlesback kupchan, the former nsa director for european affairs from 1993 to 1994. he teaches as well at georgetown university.

what is the fallout on our relationships overseas of nsa spying? significant, more than most americans appreciate. has been a there sense of we can shift the boundaries between privacy and security in the direction of security. in europe, there's greater sensitivity to the idea that the , in parts watching because of the history of the of nazi germany. they're upset about being spied on. some leaders have allegedly had their phones tapped. outrage a swelling of that i think is forcing the obama administration to make some changes. from nsalearned director general keith alexander that the information that they received came from their nato aware ofhat they were the data collection going on, and some of the information came from the european governments

themselves. guest: there is no question there is a healthy dose of political theater going on here, in the sense that spying has been going on since the beginning of time. spies,up is sending out constantinople was spying on the church in rome. what we're seeing now is not new. when francois hollande or chancellor merkel gets to the office in the morning and i start looking through their papers, they are seeing intelligence gathered against the united states, each other, italy. everyone knows that france spy on friends. what the europeans feel is that this has probably gone too far. it is to say that, he we really need to tap merkel's phone? do we need to download 70 million texts and phone calls of the french? it is causing a debate in the

united states about where the red line should be. host: what has this done to president obama's standing in europe? guest: it is hurting. obama was a rock star as a candidate and when he was a first-term president. there has been some on climateent change, not closing guantanamo, and now this question of security and privacy. obama is still a popular president in europe, more popular than he is in the united states, but this is taking its toll. the way it is coming out, one day we find out about spain, the next day about france. that dragging on in a way is really causing damage to the relationship between the two sides of the atlantic. does it then spillover into negotiations, let's say, over iran? leaders were meeting over iran's nuclear threat, and agreements

already fell apart because of france's president saying, what you're putting together is too weak. guest: i have seen no sign that european threats to hold back on iran or the transatlantic free- trade area. those threats are not serious. they have not led to any serious degradation of the dialogue between the u.s. and europe. several things do appear to be happening. the european parliament is debating legislation to tighten security rules. there have been two plus delegations of europe coming to washington to say, what's up, we need new rules of the road. thus far, no evidence that this is spilling over into issues like iran or free-trade negotiations. host: david iglesias writes, privacy rights -- a may see us - - ignatius writes, privacy

rights for foreigners. if the u.s. made credible minimization procedures, the content of the personal messages can be accessed even if the call records were obtained. how far would this go to repairing the damage? the europeans benefit from american espionage, and they know it. that is because if we hear about a militant cell operating in france or north africa, or we inr about a militant cell germany, and we know that in the 9/11 attackers, they organized in germany -- we call berlin, we call paris and say, you better because wen -- leon intercepted some messages. saying, let'sis find ways here and there, for

example, we will no longer tap the phones of key friendly leaders. these things that are not huge, are whatthan symbolic, we need to bring down the temperature on the other side of the atlantic. quote from the "associated press." she was quoted in an interview, saying, there was only one way to solve this problem. the united states had to apologize for what happened. obama has been trying to build a new report with brazil. -- rapport with brazil. the cancellation of her trip here really set back the

relationship. one can think about the spying landscape in terms of concentric circles. u.s., u.k., canada, new zealand, australia, where we had a nose by agreement. and we have close allies. ,rench, germans, australia japanese. a country like rezulin is probably the next outer circle. we are going to do things with the british or germans that we would not yet do with the brazilians, because were not fully confident about the relationship. it is hard for obama to make residents -- promises to brazil, and he should not unless he can deliver. host: what should the president do? guest: recognize this as a problem trade the reaction in washington was, what is new here? you spy on us, let's go have a beer. that wasn't enough.

now you have the president saying, i would like to see us thisder us extending five i idea -- five-eye idea. saying, possibly extending the rules that apply to americans to others. we don't need huge change. we need some change, significant enough to say to the europeans, we understand why you're angry and we are working to fix it. host: research polls show that the majority of americans to leave it is unacceptable for the u.s. to be monitoring the phones of our allied leaders. rich, gon caller, ahead. since collectively looking at ourselves in the mirror and facing reality as a nation is the only way to make our country great again, isn't it time for members of the

council on foreign relations to face the scientific evidence proving that the world trade center building 7 was taken down with explosives on 9/11, and demand a real investigation of its destruction? i'm actually not someone who believes in american decline. u.s. aredays of the probably still ahead of it because we have immigrants, the best universities, the best entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial capital. the world is changing in a way that we as americans need to debate. on the 9/11 question, i don't sign up to the conspiracy theorists. i think those attacks were carried out by dangerous extremist militants of the sort that this nsa espionage is actually focused on stopping. know that homeland security, that spending on intelligence went up after 9/11. we know that a lot of attacks

have been prevented. the british just had a parliamentary investigation a few weeks ago -- a few days ago -- they said they have 35 concrete attacks that have been stopped in london because of this kind of surveillance that the british and americans have been doing together. host: let's go to andrew in bristol, england. " is "washington journal simulcast on bbc. good morning, thank you for having me on c-span. i would like to .1 or two things out for you guys -- point one or two things out for you guys. allies,, the very notion of you guys spying on us or we spying on you, it is quite sickening.

it does not sit quite right in our stomachs. there should be something of an extension of u.s. law, like you guys protect your citizens from spying. perhaps there should be some sort of legal extension to current existing u.s. laws protecting foreign citizens in those specific countries, as well as our democratically elected leaders. guest: i basically agree with you. i did mention a few minutes ago when i was chatting with greta that we have this so-called five-eyes pact that says that between the u.s. and u.k. and others, we should not be spying on each other's leaders. that goes back to the 1890's, when the u.s. and britain turned from being enemies to friends. we have been close partners ever

since, particularly after world war ii. i agree with you that when it comes to spying on friendly leaders, the question is, is it worth it? what do we get when we listen to the phone call of somebody like angela merkel? the answer is probably not that much. we might know a little bit more about their negotiating position views on freeir trade with america, but i don't think that kind of information is worth the cost. i would agree with you and say, let's extend thisrule -- this it withule and keep these leaders that we trust. host: on this idea of extending our lost to foreign citizens, s, justgnatius writes thi considering this question unsettles u.s. intelligence officials, who have responded to queries about privacy issues with a bland dismissal.

the fourth amendment does not apply to foreigners, they say. the dirty little secret is that the job of spy agencies is to violate other countries' borders to collect information. guest: to your first question could -- question, do we have proof? no. the white house said, we are not spying on merkel now and will not be spying in the future. read that into that what you like. there is a significant body of law that restricts what our intelligence agencies can do here in the u.s. court that the intelligence agencies need to go to to say, we would like to do x, y, and z because there's something going on there. when you get to the water's edge, those laws tend to stop, there is very little law about what intelligence agencies can do a broad. ignatius is saying, let's think

about changing that. there is a fundamental contradiction here. work in theies shadows and do things that others cannot see. that makes it difficult to use lot to get at them, in the sense that they are purposely trying to get around on what they can do. caller: good morning. the money that we spend on everybodynoticed how is squawking about the health care cost. programs were put in place after 9/11, when the nation was very paranoid. it was put on steroids. they we were spying on everybody . obama should have vetted these agencies a lot more. big -- something that

he inherited. he could've done a better job. this is ridiculous. after 9/11, we created homeland security, hundreds of billions of dollars each year just to spy on people. they like to spend money where they make the money. we cannot have the money to put on health care, yet we can find the money to do all the stuff like this. america should know this is the republican's doing. free trade with china, the republican's doing. all these things are destructive for the nation, but the democrats don't do a very good job of pointing it out. the senate next week is

set to begin consideration of president obama's nominee to head of the homeland security department, jeh johnson. caller: it's a waste of money. timothy, you're making a good point. after 9/11, the environment here about intelligence gathering and homeland security was perhaps too permissive, in the sense that we threw a huge amount of money at intelligence gathering, at homeland security, and there was an explosion in technology, internet, cell phones, drones, satellites that allowed a huge of vacuuming in of a lot of information. a lot of people are saying, today go too far? -- did it go too far? even though the intelligence

community itself is very uncomfortable having a light shined on them, it is creating a demand for a debate here among the public and on capitol hill about looking at this issue. let's be honest, i think obama came into office one day to change the conversation away from the war on terror. wanting to change the conversation away from the war on terror. get away fromt to things that are personally bothering him. it is proving practically legally hard, even though he has been working on it. this piece in the "new york times" about what president obama does to not have national security jeopardized. it says, obama's portable zone of secrecy, some assembly required. security tent has opec sides a noisemaking devices inside.

sides and a noisemaking device inside. guest: they in the white house know that people are constantly trying to listen to president obama and his top aides. there was a debate when obama came in office about his blackberry. , like most of us, is very attached to their blackberries and iphones. they found a way to encrypt it so he could keep it. is a sign that this is what nations do, the united states probably does more because we are better at it and spend more money on it, but everybody is spying on everybody. that is why when obama travels, he needs to set up these closed areas where he can make calls and have conversations that he

thinks no one else can listen to. host: american security officials demand that their bosses, members of congress and military offers take such precautions when traveling abroad. john in cleveland, ohio. go ahead. when the leaders of this country, democrat and republicans, put one hand on the bible and swear to defend the constitution against its enemies, foreign and domestic, and then they go and pass these laws like the patriot act, it seems to me they are in violation of their oath. the ranking member of the intelligence committee [no audio] demand that snowden beep brought to justice -- be brought to

justice. demandedur leaders not to -- excuse me. i'm nervous. up don't they have to stand and hold onto their constitution? why are they violating this constitution? question that the founding fathers ask themselves repeatedly, how much jefferson was one who was very fearful that if the united states pursued foreign ambition, build a large army and navy, that it would infringe upon the civil liberties of americans. that asehold, we found the became a great power and build a large army and a large navy and a large intelligence community, the people have said, this has gone too far, you have infringed on our civil liberties. the key here is where is the balance, is the line between doing too much and too little?

some of this has to go on because we stop attacks, we stop threats to americans and our allies because we spy, because we gather intelligence. what snowden has done has made that harder. why? because terrorists or others who wish to do us harm know that we are gathering intelligence from google servers or from facebook or from cell phones. they may try to change their mode of communication to stop us from listening to them. fortunately, it's very convenient to have a cell phone, and that is why many people will continue to use them even though we know that we might tap them. we will still get the information we need to keep the country safe. he was recently talking about the fallout from the leaks. [video clip] snowden havefrom

been very damaging. they have put our operations at risk. it is clear that our adversaries are rubbing their hands with glee. al qaeda is lapping it up. i think we night to hear why you feel you are entitled to say to hear why you feel you are entitled to say that. >> my colleagues have clearly set out how the alerting of targets and adversaries to our it becomess means more difficult to acquire the intelligences country needs. guest: i think he was speaking the truth. when i talk to colleagues of mine who are in the intelligence community in the u.s. and washington, or formerly, they say the same thing. one high-ranking former official said to me a few days ago, this

is the most damaging disclosure in american history. in that sense, i'm not someone who believes that snowden is a hero. criminal.owden is a he took an oath to work in the intelligence community. he should've kept that secret. as a sign of how much difference of opinion there is, in germany, they are talking not only about letting him testify, but some german officials have said, let's grant him asylum as a hero. that would really put a strain on relations with washington. because of these revelations that we have been spying on our allies, chancellor merkel and france's president are saying, now you have jeopardized our ability to work together to fight terrorism. thet: we have heard that in past. when george w. bush was president, and there were so- called renditions -- people were captured and taken to black sites.

the european intelligence agencies and governments said, we don't like this. we're going to pull back from intelligence sharing with you. is there any evidence that happened? no. they know this works to their advantage, that when we share intelligence, we mutually stop threats aimed at common interests. host: one viewer on twitter says , if the government cannot make an aca website that works, how can they hope to get useful info from this data collection? democratic caller from tennessee. it's amazing to me how the people of the united states, they want everything so easy. everybody has to pay something for the protection we have. we have people who want people to die for them, but they keep

themselves and their children safe. now everybody is spying on everybody. it's common sense. war is hell. if president obama and homeland security, if they were not doing everything to protect this country, and we were constantly having things happen because of them not doing what they're doing, it would be another story . or itody would be scared if they are so concerned about rights, why don't they do what is right about guantanamo? president obama wants to close it. but they don't want to close it. those people can hurt nobody. thank you for making

those points. at the end of the day, what is going on here is in the pursuit of the safety and welfare of americans. we have prisoners on guantanamo, when we carry out drone strikes in pakistan or yemen, these activities may make us feel uncomfortable from a legal perspective. they may make us question our actions from a world perspective, but the only way we will get this right is to have a national debate where we say, what do we need to do? how do we keep safe, but still preserve our civil liberties? we as a nation are going through that debate right now. i'm glad you pointed out that nobody here is out to make money, to do anything devious. they're serving the national interests of the united states, and it is in that context that we have to have a conversation about finding that middle line between doing too much and doing too little when it comes to spying. wyoming, in casper,

republican. caller: i'm glad for your show. i think our government ought to collect all the information that it can, and keep the leaks from happening. that is what gets people riled up. need to collect all the info we can, whether it is against foreign leaders or people right here in the united states. i'm going to hang up and listen to your comments. i think that the issue of gathering as much as we can, at least for my comfort level, goes too far. we may spend a lot of time and a lot of money doing things that we don't need to do. in that respect, an important part of the conversation is, where can we look to get actionable intelligence when we

listen to the phone call of a friendly leader? are we actually learning things that advance our interests and our welfare is a nation? if the answer to that is a no, it seems to me it's not worth it politically and in terms of the cost. thaterally share your view we should be gathering intelligence on a large scale. we put restrictions on what we do with that intelligence, because it's only when we do that that we have been able to find key connections between individuals who are actually trying to put together plans to hurt the united states. in a world where you have extremists, and the possibility of weapons of mass destruction hands ofhe heads of -- extremists, this intelligence gathering has to take place. a tweet --

al, independent color in michigan. caller: -- caller in michigan. my comments are focused on south america. brazilianned that the president changed her ideas, not visiting the united states. brazil has a large muslim community right now. they're immigrating there every day. it iting to their views, looks to me that they are hostile to the united states. 9/11, they hatched the plans in a country like germany. i bet you that if we don't pay

attention to it, they could hatchet in a country like brazil it in atina -- hatch country like brazil or argentina. we are justified in collecting information, cell phones, internet, from brazil. brazil might not be directly .ostile to us [indiscernible] guest: i would draw a between countries like venezuela, that have a troubled relationship with united states, and have what you might call a hard leftist , whichent, and brazil more or less is on the same page as the u.s. when it comes to an-ticket issues, have economy that is generally open, and trade relationship with the u.s. that is good. one of the problems we have with

a country like brazil is that we have not been working with it in the same way that we have with real allies. by real allies, i mean members of the nato alliance. since the beginning of the cold war, on a day-to-day basis, our military is integrated with their military. our intelligence services are integrated with their intelligence services. when you get to a country like result, we just don't have that thick track record of working together, of knowing each other, of sharing information, and that makes it harder to put brazil into the same category as germany or france. we have to say that consider them as a hostile country. i think there are very much an emerging partner of the u.s. host: an e-mail from mark in washington state. no one can think of where to cut spending.

guest: it is probably safe to say that the intelligence community has ballooned in a way that may be excessive. as we were talking about earlier, the post-9/11 environment was, let's just throw money at this community and let them do what they want. this is an emergency situation. now that cooler heads have prevailed, we might have an important conversation about, do we need that many agencies. can we consolidate, the answer to that is yes, and we have a directory of national intelligence, the dni, but is supposed to pull all this together. that has not worked as well as we might -- maybe we need institutional reform as well. president supposedly thinking about ending the dual leadership role for the person who heads up the nsa and cyber command. right now, general keith alexander is doing both of

those. president obama thinking of putting a civilian in charge of the nsa. what do you think? is one way of trying to get more civilian oversight and civilian control. we have military intelligence, separate intelligence agencies for the services. you have the defense intelligence agency, that is really separate from the cia. one simply has to ask, do we need all these agencies? are we getting duplications? are we getting redundancies? the answer to that is yes. especially with the budget sequester kicking in, we need to lean years ahead across the national security community. host: linda on twitter is wondering about the gathering of so much data. how do they sift through the important from a not important? generally, you come up

with complicated computer programs that churned through millions and millions of pieces of data. generally e-mail, stuff you pick up from wireless phone calls. you run it through these computers. they're looking for certain kinds of connections that would then say, let's put those into a separate category and look at them more closely. when you have someone you are following, let's say someone from al qaeda, and you have your cell phone, there you are actually looking and reading more carefully what is going on there because you know that you might get good intelligence from that individual. inst: we will go to gregory pennsylvania, republican caller. good morning. caller: relative to the subject matter, a bit of an anecdote. is thecan democracy equivalent of confusion. confusion is the source of

profit. recently, andork i was streaming in the crowds along the street. i decided to take a break, so i ducked into a declivity along the straight. there was a gentleman in there with a badge and a helmet and an m-16. i said, excuse me, i don't mean to impose. he says, that's ok. what are you doing in new york? i said, i'm here to enjoy the confusion. he said, why is that? i said, because this is where the profit is. i rested for just a bit, that i was on my merry way. like to think that this is the essence of republican democracy, if you will. thank you. light onu put a nice the situation in the country right now, where our republican democracy is not working quite as well as the founding fathers

may have intended. they created a situation where all these different branches of government are checking each getr so the power did not too centralized. now some people feel that when you take that check and balance system and overlay it with how much partisanship we have in the country today, you get gridlock and paralysis. that's what you are talking about in the previous segment. it is part and parcel of the idea that democracy is the least worst of the options for running a country, and as part of the big challenge of democracy, addressing what we're trying to address this morning, that is how to find the right balance between privacy and security. my own sense is that we have probably gone a little bit too far on the security side, and it's time to pull back, to find that right line. that is part of what the democratic process is about. host: ian in dorset, england.

totally in support of intelligence gathering, wherever it may be. from the nca -- nsa. if you are making cell phone calls, text calls, or e-mails -- if you have nothing to hide, why worry that someone else is listening to it? the guys who are listening to it, they've all got families, girlfriends, maybe lovers, and they're not interested in private little things. they're interested in getting terrorists. u.k. havingmber the to look after all the jewish terrorists. unfortunately, some of them ended up as prime ministers.

northern ireland, where terrorists -- any information we could get from terrorists and ourselves, because, let's face it, the group was sponsored by a lot of people in the u.s.. that let me jump in on point. who is inget in don taylor, michigan. , gretchen.nk you to an extent, being spied on ourselves -- that is what our constitution is about. if we had nothing to hide -- that is ridiculous. what about our senators and congressmen who are being listened to? that can mess with our campaign. it's way overboard. our founding fathers were totally against it.

callers havef the merits to what they're saying. ian is right that some of this has to go on, and will continue to go on. it's a sad fact of life, as the previous caller was saying it. sometimes you walk down the street in washington or new york and you bump into a security officer who is wearing a black jacket and carrying a machine gun. we wish that were not the case, but after 9/11, those sorts of things are more normal than they used to be. maybe we will get to a world where we don't have to have that kind of domestic security, or we don't need to occasionally tap into the phones of americans and foreigners. unfortunately, that's where we are right now. the key is, as we have been trying to discuss this morning, where do we find that right balance? how much should we be spending? what is necessary and what is not necessary?

hopefully, as a result of the anger that the nsa scandal and snowden have inspired abroad, we will have a national conversation that will get us closer to finding the right balance here in the u.s. teaches ates kupchan georgetown university, former national security council director for european affairs. they give for your time. that does it for today's "washington journal." we will be back tomorrow morning, 7:00 eastern time. our focus tomorrow on the challenges facing many of our veterans in this country. we will start with michael of the foreign-policy research institute on whether or not there is a military-civilian divide. ward carroll will talk about employment for returning vets. tarantino will talk about the challenges that face iraqi

and afghanistan veterans as they returned to this country. enjoy the rest of your sunday. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] span,oday on c- "newsmakers." that is followed by testimony from the secretary of the hhs on the health insurance exchanges and later, the u.s. supreme court oral argument examining prayers before government meetings. >>