representative diana todegette talks the contraception mandate case. plus, your phone calls and comments and tweets. >>post: good morning. it is "the washington journal." the house in at 10:00. the obama administration says something -- some who have trouble getting insurance from healthcare.gov will have a short delay. those who become part of the special moment will be part of a new category. not only do we want to get your

thoughts on this, but we want to get --

we are going to replace it again -- that has changed again. i hear are senator from georgia go on "morning joe" and say how his daughter, son-in-law, and three children have a policy for

$500 per month. my neighbor works for blue cross blue shield florida. he tells me there is no such policy. they don't have a replacement for what is here. until they get real and quit throwing garbage out there, i was a republican. i am tired of the republican party listening to the extremists. host: todd, beavercreek oregon. good morning. are you there? caller: yes, i am here. host: go ahead, please. caller: so, what is going on with this deal? host: talk a little bit about your sign-up. have you had trouble signing up? caller: ya think?

host: james, fort lauderdale, florida. independent line. caller: i work for one of the largest health care organizations in south florida. i am a manager. i have to manage the navigators. the aca people who sign people up. what we have been experiencing is that you have patients who are doing paper applications or phone applications and they are getting visa application numbers and they are being told that if you do an application online, then you get a result of whether you qualify or not, but if you do a paper application for iphone application, there are delays in response back. because we offer grant programs

in our county, until the individual can provide proof that they have applied they are not eligible for the subsidy. you have individuals waiting for chemotherapy, in the middle of chemotherapy, have to get medications, and so on. they should have it set up in such a way that you're getting an application number, you should be able to go online and look up your results. it was not thought through properly. because there was no support from the republicans, it was just democratic ideas. i think it could have been thought through more thoroughly. they really need to think this through before they just brought delays or do anything that harms people every day. i have to deal with people every day who have cancer, in the middle of their care, they are being told that we are going to

have to cut you off because we don't know if you qualify for the affordable care act yet or something like that. this is ridiculous. republicans need to understand that there are sick people out there who even go to work while they are sick because they have to put food on the table to take care of the kids. when i hear a lot of these things, i am saddened because i have to hear about people going through these things. and then people are talking about lazy people in this and that on c-span. there are no jobs out there. it is scary what is going on in this country. host: that is james from florida. the march 31 deadline still stands. a short to live for those -- delay for those having trouble signing up on the website. we are getting your thoughts. we have set aside a line for

those who have had experience signing up on healthcare.gov. (202) 585-3883. we will resume calls in a few moments. we want to talk about data collection by the nsa. several plans were announced. joining us is the national security reporter from the washington post. thanks for joining us. guest: thanks for having me. host: can you talk about the president's plan in the house intelligence committee, but where those two plans compare and contrast? guest: the president's plan has not yet been revealed. we do know that oath plans -- both plans would end the mass

collection of american phone records. the differences are in how far they would go and what the degree of judicial review they would get and when. the president's plan would and the collection of phone metadata . but not thehe is stressing that it would require a judge to approve every phone number the government wants to submit to the phone company to be searched on before it is searched. the plan that was unveiled yesterday by the leaders of the house intelligence committee would have the judge look at the numbers after they were submitted. promptly after, but after. that is a key difference. host: as far as the president's

plan, who will hold information ultimately? guest: in both cases the phone companies would continue to hold the information, just as they always have. they collect data on our phone call whenever we make them. rather than turning all of that data over daily, as they do now rather than doing that, they would just hold onto it. they would not hold onto it any longer than they do now, which is key. the key difference here is that the government will no longer be connecting all of that data -- collecting all of the data and mass and storing and in a database and searching through the numbers. they would have to ask the companies to return them information on specific phone numbers. host: one of the things

referenced yesterday is something called hops. what is that and what does that mean to these various proposals? guest: both proposals would limit the queries to two hops. when you submit a number to be searched on that is the first hop, the set of numbers returned. the second hop is finding out all the numbers that could be in contact with the first hop that first set of results. so you can build out an

exponential form, the chain of contacts for people who were called. does that make sense? host: because it would aid in investigations? guest: yes, that is right. to find out who was in contact with him, what is the community of contacts. maybe they are in touch with someone who is a suspected terrorist and we did not know that. that is partly where we have privacy concerns. the further out you go in those hops, the wider you are casting the net, and the greater chance you will pick up innocent, law-abiding people. there is a third version of legislation that would not allow hops beyoundnd first hop.

it would end all bull collection and require judicial approval upfront. host: some details of the president's plan being put out there. when do we expect a formal announcement? guest: the white house is not saying. they're working on a proposal. the president has given his attorney general deadline, this friday, to come up with options. let's see what they come up with . there are some lawmakers to say the president does not have to have legislation and that he can do that now administratively. they want to take advantage of the sendoff opportunity to get

broader reforms to change the underlying law. so that it could be clear that it cannot be interpreted to allow mass collection of all types of data, as well. host: the national security reporter for the washington post. thanks for your time. guest: thank you. host: we should let you know that today in the senate there is a hearing on consumer data privacy. that is set for 2:30. some of the featured guests include john mulligan of target corporation and the university of maryland -- both having issues with privacy issues. you can see that live on c-span 3 starting today at 2:30.

back to our calls on this announced a lay for some people having trouble signing up on healthcare.gov. a short delay announced. xander, hello. caller: hello. i am so sorry to circle back to the health care decision. i wanted to give a point that has not been talked about before. i am a 20 five-year-old, turning 26. i'm still on my parent self care. and now with my birthday coming up i am going to have to switch over to the health care plan. i'm a democrat, obviously. just hearing all of the different issues that people have been having has kind of raised some concern with what i'm going to have to be dealing with in the next couple of months and everything. a, i am a small guy.

there are health issues involved with that. host: his caustic concern? -- his cost a concern? caller:i have a small penis -- host: eric, democrats line. caller: i am not worried about it. i want to talk about the health care issue. ted cruz was born on socialized medicine in canada. these are the same people coming out demagogue-ing about health insurance. all of these people are going to the emergency room i am paying for it, you are paying for it. if it is so bad why don't you

get someone to explain to them how they get care when they do not have insurance? you don't have insurance, go to the emergency room, you are in a car wreck -- somebody is going to have to pay for this. when the illegals get sick, pedro, they still have to go to the hospital. this is the kind of health care it is. it comes from everywhere. host: can i ask you a question? i think he is gone. claude in south carolina. attempted to sign up through the exchange. republican line. hello. good morning. caller: i'm sorry, i didn't hear you. i was going to comment on what

the first guy said. i can't hardly talk. i'm 100% disabled with ms. my wife and i called and tried to sign up and wecan can't sign up because we don't make enough money, i get a pension from the v.a. that is all we have and she does not make any money because she has to take care of me. i am trying to survive i am 100% disabled, homebound. i have to have attendeds because i cannot walk. i have to use a walker to get to the bathroom. i can't drive or do anything anymore. i have trouble speaking, as you can tell. we called and talked to them and they basically told us that there was not anything they could do for us. they said our state has not

approved the medicare or medicaid or whatever it is. it is just a frustrating thing for us and it is lots of people like us and all of us are just stuck with nothing that we can do. i'm just waiting. i hope and pray that our local politicians will pass a law or something so that we can get my wife medicaid or medicare or whatever to be able to cover her. host: a story in the detroit free press talking about the status of gay marriages in that state. 300 couples will face a longer way to whether they will learn whether their valves will be legally valid. the u.s. circuit court of

appeals extended a stay that struck down the michigan ban on same-sex marriage. the 2-1 decision will likely make its way to the supreme court before the couples know whether their marriages will be legally recognized. that decision will not come up until the summer of 2015 at the earliest. that is according to an attorney with the aclu. good morning, from remington washington. caller: hello. it is olympia, washington. host: go ahead. caller: the health care is good for me. i signed up, i got help signing up, it is great. if it was not for that, i would never be able to get health care. the gentleman mentioned the health care situation, with

people going in without insurance. i never have insurance in my life. host: how long does it take you to sign up? caller: not even a day. it took 10-15 minutes. host: and you did not have insurance before. caller: i never have insurance. i am 38 years old. host: have you may 1 payment? -- made a first payment? caller: i don't make any income. i qualify automatically. it has been difficult for me to

find work because when i go to apply for work they don't comment tobacco they put somebody else in. host: so the insurance you received, you do not pay anything for. caller: no. in washington state, you sign up in the washington plan for individuals who do not have any income coming in in the state and the state helps by subsidizing their health care. if it comes time to where your health care runs out, you can go . if things change you can put it on the computer saying. host: we are talking about announced delays for the affordable care act. this is a delay on the march 31

deadline. the administration has announced a short delay for those who have had trouble with the enrollment period. in short delay was announced for them that is in the washington post and other papers. we want to get your reaction plus get your experiences with signing up. (202) 585-3880, democrats. (202) 585-3881, republicans. (202) 585-3882 independents. for those of you who want to share your experiences, (202) 585-3883. taylor from missouri. independent line. hi there. caller: i read the article about this recently about ms comeau. -- an on dream eskimo.

i'm sure this will be on youtube. host: tom from minneapolis, minnesota. caller: i'm from minnesota where we still have hard, frozen snow on the ground. we are a little different up here then down in texas and florida. i am lucky. i got on minnesota care, are state-sponsored program. i did have a huge amount of problems getting through the first time i tried, right at the beginning. in october, whenever it was. i got so frustrated. there were terrible problems. the server went down for a month

and it was just depressing. i tried again later on and i sti ll had problems. finally, i got through ion new year's eve, so i could qualify for january 1 coverage. it was about $1500 per month. that is not a lot of money in today's society. i think that they should delay the enrollment program. i fought hard and i am smart. i work on information systems. i was trying to get through the website. there are a lot of people who give up screaming. i was yelling at the computer. host: what is it like, as far as

what you got? caller: ok, minnesota has a fantastic program. it is for lower income people. i get a very nice co-pay, it is very reasonable. it is restrictive. that is fine with me. i have had coverage and health care for the first time in almost 16 years. host: do you receive a subsidy? guest:caller: i do. my premium is $21 per month. it is subsidized. i am the make $1500 per month. a lot of people pay more than that in taxes than a month. host: that is tom talking about

his experience. he is also mentioned the cold weather and the winter chill on the housing market. the story in "the wall street journal." johnny, from texas. caller: hello. i am johnny sanders. i signed my grandson up on obamacare in november. it took me 15 minutes. i got him out of foster care a fewdicaid. he is in texas. unfortunately. he is one of the kids they

kicked off medicaid. i signed him up on obamacare and he has good insurance. it did not take me long. i have been paying since january 1. they kicked them off of medicaid on december 1. it was december 20 that i signed him up. they have been taking money out of my check since january 1. i pay $152 per month. he has vision, dental, mental, and health. host: does he get subsidies? caller: no. host: did you need any outside help to guide you through the process? caller: no. i am not computer literate either. host: that is johnny from texas. on the senate side, you may have heard about that package for ukraine.

a story in "the guardian." that is from "the guardian." "roll call" talks about unemployment insurance on the senate side. this is from the roll call section.

that vote could take place next week. caller: a man said it was the republicans fault because they did not help the democrats. obviously, he was ill-informed or he would've known that the democrats had a majority in the house and the senate and they rejected all suggestions by the republicans. he needs to understand that the

problems he is experiencing have nothing to do with the republicans. it was solely the democrats who wrote and passed this law. host: what are your thoughts on the delay that has been announced? caller: i think it is ridiculous. i think that if you pass a law it ought to extend to every single american. every single american should be subjected to the same law. i don't think the congressman or anybody else should be exempt from the law. that makes them more equal. host: david in ohio. caller: i think you are misrepresenting the delay. host: we have made that point.

caller: i did not just tune in, but it sounds to me like you saying it is a delay. host: it is a delay for a small part of people, but go ahead. caller: and walmart, if they close the store at 8:30, you will get a chance to finish your purchase. it is the same thing. host: what do you think about the add-on overall? caller: i think it is right. if you started your process and you want to finish it, i think you should be allowed to finish the process. you are not getting any advantage that anybody else has. host: david, madison heights talking about his experiences. hello. caller: thank you very much for taking my call. i am sorry you had to experience a couple real crabnknk calls there. the affordable care act rollout

date, we all remember that ted cruz and the republican shutdown our government. the rollout was going to be bumpy no matter what. president obama give nine months to john boehner and republicans to come up with an alternate plan. john boehner said let's scrap it and start over again after nine months. i wanted to open that woman's eyes up. i had no problem signing my two children up. we have had experiences with older computers having trouble loading. also, the states that did not expand the medicare, they are having problems. the governors that expanded the medicare and people that have pretty much up to date computers

, within 15 minutes, they sign-up. i have had nothing but great experiences. my children were able to stay on my plan until 26 years old. that never happened before. i think this affordable care act is a wonderful thing. can they tweak it? of course they can. they can always tweak any law to make it better. but not to strap it or scrap it. thank you very much. host: that was david from michigan. the supreme court heard two cases yesterday related to birth control issues and religious exemptions. highlighted in "the wall street journal" this morning to tell us what happened inside the courtroom. a lot of reporters closely following it. guest: good morning. thank you for having me. host: could you tell us as far as the questioning goes, talk about the women justices on the court and talk about the male

justices and talk about the nature of the questions. guest: it is an interesting thing. in 1965, when the court heard griswold versus connecticut it was nine male justices. they did not even say the names of contraception's. we have come a long way. there were three women on the supreme court yesterday and they were very, very vocal on the side of the obama administration and the contraception mandate and the real urgent necessity of getting affordable contraception to women. it broke down on gender lines in amazing ways. the four liberals on the court pressing paul clement very hard. on the flipside, you saw the man on the court, particularly chief justice john roberts, justice

scalia, to a lesser degree justice anthony kennedy, much much harder on the obama solicitor general who was trying to defend the contraception mandate. it broke down almost perfectly on gender lines. host: talk about the questions the justices had to face and what decision do they have to make about hobby lobby and conestoga? guest: they have to make a determination that these two religious employers of for-profit corporations are either people are not people for purposes of the religious freedom provisions in the constitution and the first amendment and under the religious freedom restoration act. a lot of the questions were predictable. how do they exercise religion, corporations? a lot of questions were pressing

on the future implications, the slippery slope problem. you had justice kagan and soto mayor pressing paul clement saying, if you're going to grant religious exemptions to employers over birth control what about blood transfusions? what about vaccines? what about civil rights statutes? is this going to allow employers to swamp the totality of the u.s. code if they have religious objections to it? there were a lot of those slippery slope questions. on the other side an enormous amount of questions about, there is a workaround here, there are lots of workarounds. the burden of the government is to create the least restrictive alternative men so why can't they just put people on the exchanges? why can't the government just provide contraception?

host: people focus on justin -- justice kennedy. guest: it was absolutely right to focus on kennedy yesterday. he is in the middle. i think it gave the liberals and the courts some hope. he invoked the rights of the women in this case. he said, why is anyone not thinking about the third parties or having their rights burdened by their employers? he was quite a strong voice for the rights of women. in the second half of the oral argument, he cited quite strongly with the conservative members of the court suggesting while these exemptions?

if the obama administration thought there was a compelling interest and contraception why haven't they grandfathered people out? he said, if you can force an employer to fund contraception can't you force an employer to fund abortion? if you can do that, it is hugely religiously problematic. to the extent that all eyes are on kennedy, he looked like he was still thinking it through, trying to figure out some middle ground to make this not quite as momentous a decision. really struggling. host: are there any cases that deal with this type of issue that might influence the decision? guest: certainly, citizens united from 2010.

the idea that corporations are people from speech purposes opens the idea that corporations are people for religious purposes. the truth of the matter is that there has never been a supreme court case in which the court has afforded religious freedom exercise rights to a corporation. this is untrammeled ground and we will have to see whether the court is going to go there. it did appear that there were four or five judges who might be willing to explore that option at least with regard to these two corporations, which are small, family-owned, closely held corporations. justice roberts said, maybe we leave the case about some huge big corporation, maybe we leave that to another day. host: what happens now? guest: now we wait. they will circulate drafts and

by the end of june, you will have a decision. host: you can see her work on "slate.com." we have been talking to you about a small delay that is a highlight in the washington post this morning. are those who have had trouble signing up on healthcare.gov. what is occurring under the new rules. people will be able to qualify for an extension. we are getting your thoughts not

only on that decision, but if you have experiences signing up yourself, especially on healthcare.gov. the lines. (202) 585-3880, democrats. (202) 585-3881 quacks caroline, from texas, good morning. caller: good morning. you asked for our experiences. i have a daughter in her early 30 posses. she's had a severe problem with her back. she has tried several times since november to sign up for the government healthcare. she has gone through websites several times herein -- several

times. she said she could not afford it because they wanted her to pay soon -- $240 a month. that is for the premium. our children in the state of texas, from the governor and the house of senate, have decided to cancel, to only put down medicaid in this state. they will not expand medicaid. i am having to do a lot of paperwork for my mother and run marathons for her. she is a mobile. she had to get some other kind of medication out of state. the state refused to ask an medicaid to accommodate obama

care. quacks that is the last call we will take on this topic. you heard about the various proposals when it comes to data collection from nsa. president obama plans to make changes soon. how do the various plans look to a civil libertarian yak go later, we hear from the colorado democratic representative who will join us later to talk about her reaction to the supreme court on hobby lobby. we will talk about other issues as well. all that after we return. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] quacks we are on the brink of enacting an independence bill for the disabled america. they will henceforth look to this day and the day when the

president of the united states signs the bill as the independence day for those who have been disabled who have a willingness, a desire, and who are qualified and have an ability, to productively participate in america, in the promise of america, and in this -- pursuit of happiness. there were concerns raised about the bill. there are those who will present a motion to recommit the bill and they're very open. they want to discriminate against individuals. they want to discriminate against individuals who have a disease. the bill does not allow that. it does say you can do that if it poses a risk to the public. that is our responsibility and the bill does exactly that. the united states senate recognize the concern and

adopted an amendment offered i senator dole and senator hatch. the amendment was adopted, 99-1. 99 members concluded, i would suggest, that the public health concern was protected by the amendment, which was adopted in this bill. there was another concern also taking care of. this bill represents the work of the house of representatives. it represents the bipartisan effort of the gentleman who have spoken on behalf of this conference report. i would ask members of this house, on this historic day, to say, now is the time. now is the time to open the door of american light to all the

disabled in our country. today, can night -- tonight, do not delay the bill a minute more. let us act now. let us stand up and say to the disabled, you are fully part of america. reject this amendment which is unnecessary, unwise, discriminatory, arbitrary, and capricious. it is not based on medical evidence. it is opposed by the secretary of the health and human services. let me say this in closing. loading the president of the united states. i today call on the house of representatives to get on with the job of passing the law as embodied in the americans with disabilities act, that is -- that prohibits against discrimination. we are a fight against disease and not people. we must buy in america tolerate discrimination. the motion to recommit tolerates

discrimination, redacted out of hand. move on with the bill and say yes to the disabled and defeat the motion and pass the bill. quacks the gentleman's time is expired. all time is expired. collects find 35 years of house coverage on our facebook age. c-span is brought to you today as a public service by her local satellite provider. "washington journal" continues. host: our guest is a research fellow here to talk about the changes to the nsa. t dub's tracks when it comes to the changes. let's start with the president posses proposal. what is he proposing echo -- proposing yak go -- proposing yak go -- proposing?

quest the idea, a little closer to a pen register, a tooled used to generate real information about specific phonelines calling data. this would be a kind of hybrid with the government would be able to get the court to sign off on prospective and forward-looking orders that would require regular updates on the activity of watch listed numbers, including those that are not members of a particular company. they would be under a regular obligation to search the archives when a judge determined there was reasonable suspicion link to some kind of foreign power. everything important is in the details.

what is exactly the standard the judges have to media october currently, it is of links to specific foreign telegram -- terror groups. a small number of them. there would be something similar here. a reasonable suspicion standard. reasonable suspicion of what the echo on the house side, it breaks the link to an existing authorized investigation. anyone suspected of being a foreign power -- the key on the president's side, he is ending bulk collections. only particular requests. authorized in advance by the pfizer court, and without, some people expected they would in --

impose, any additional data on the companies, to hold data longer than they normally would. collects for the company holding the data is that acceptable to use gecko -- he -- you? guest: they need the ability to track their own usage. that is not a new thing. the concern people had and companies were really balking at is the idea that on top of the 18 months, the fcc makes landmines retain their records for an additional tee dubs, three, or five years. you are required keep the costs. host: the president said -- "

do you think it satisfies that standard yet though -- standard? guest: what standard has to be met before records can be obtained yak of -- can be attained? it guess you potentially very quickly to a large number of innocent people -- it gets you potentially very quickly to a large number of innocent people. the records of suspicious number would be attainable and the records one degree removed would be attainable. that addresses a concern about the overbreadth of the program. really, the commitment of the idea to particular orders, especially bulk collection

ratification. the remaining question is a suspicion of exactly why. host: our guest is here to talk about the proposed changes to the nsa collection. if you want to ask him about the proposed changes -- you can also send us a tweet and in e-mail. the chairman of the house intelligence committee get his information and then get your thoughts on it. quacks they will set the standards for -- >> they will set the standards.

afghanistan, yemen or fill-in the blank in twentysomething countries where there are on governance -- ungoverned space in the world. the judge would say, here is the requirement you have to meet in order to submit the number. they begin collecting in real-time. the court promptly must review to make sure it meets the standard of the court. if it does not, all the information must be purged. host: it seemsguest: that one key difference is that, while on both sides you have particularized review the actual, specific numbers in the system and the reasons for suspecting those numbers, are still being reviewed by the judge, but in this case, the court approved a procedure that will count as a valid way to select suspicious numbers.

only after they started collection on their own does the court have to ratify for it. the normal way we do it in surges of all kinds is the judge first, records later. that things will happen unless you get right on it. you can start collecting and start searching and ask the judge for approval. in one way, the house proposal is broader than what the president has proposed. on this one program they found out about, fixing people's concerns. the house brings out and

highlights there is a whole range of different kinds of records. it goes a little bit further. it tries to protect all records or internet habits. a few other categories of sensitive records. it does not cover all types of records. it does not leave quite the size of the loophole the president proposal seems to where they said, we fixed to the program you know about. we are not going to alter the authority. you no longer have to be specific. you can get an entire database and decide what is relevant later. host: scott from new york, the democrats line. caller: the nsa overreach is inevitable of the political and

media establishment, letting our government get away with a massive live for 12 years. years need to pass before the media starts to informing the public of the scientific evidence of couldn't -- controlled demolition of building seven, the third tower on 9/11. host: you can answer if you wish. this is part of a campaign to call the program on this topic. anthony, independent line. caller: i am listening to the rules and regulations change. one layer deep, and going to anybody they make the phone call to. the same fisa court authorized phone calls. can we go three layers deep gecko -- deep? it was odd you used the term degree of separation. guest: the fisa court allows the national security to look at

direct contact records to see the second layer and they can look at one more removed to look at the third hop out from the suspicious number. proposals we are looking at lock in the idea there is really just one degree of separation. this is language the senate unanimously approved in 2005. it was changed in the last minute. it would have changed the authority to say, this only applies to records of people directly suspected of being foreign agents or terrorists and people in direct contact with them. that is as far as relevance will get you -- if you are asked, we could talk about the nsa all day everyday, but nothing will change with

these proposal out there, what if likelihood we will see a law come from the proposals echo quacks at this point, we are past that and into the when and exactly how. there seemed to be, at this point, in a remarkable give it, back in the summer, you had the white house unified and unique vocal that these were vital programs that were absolutely legal and did not need to be reformed in any way. you now see a census boat collection needs to end basically because of two does independent panels concluding there were legal questions. i think something is going to happen and it is just a question of whether people are satisfied with this approach of these

slightly different plans or want to go broader like the freedom act sponsored by senator brenner and senator leahy, which has gained a lot of traction. the freedom act was introduced months ago and is quite a bit router. it fixes a range of different authorities. it goes further in establishing various checks, although there is some of that in the house intelligence bill as well. essentially across a range of authorities, it locks in the idea of a standard that says records need to be connected to, a suspect or someone in direct contact with a suspect, for a related order and crucially something the house bill does not touch on at all international security levels,

without judicial approval, simply by fbi agents high field officers issuing on their own. that is a significant difference. it closes the loophole across the board and does not provide a new authority, the extreme line access to records across different carriers. so they can get things quickly by having a format and letting phone companies talk to each other. maybe there is a good argument to adding something like that. but they are different in terms of the extent of protection across authorities. quacks the ranking member of maryland was yesterday talking about their proposal but commented and this is what he had to say. >> under senator breaux, in order for us to have the ability to see who the person is calling

and going to get the information, you have to have an ongoing investigation. that is not an ongoing investigation. right there, we would not have the ability to see terrorists calling the united states because we have an ongoing investigation. that one issue himself. what senator brenner is trying to do is getting information for a probable cause and that type of thing. we have standards of intelligence. we understand, listening to our constituents who have a concern about privacy, and they should you should always be concerned about privacy we are attempting to get the information to move over and have more information if there are bad guys who want to attack us. guest: this seems inconsistent with what they were telling us all along.

how could everyone posses phone records -- everyone's phone records be suspect to investigation yet? these are not just an investigation of joe or some particular phone number. they are investigations of entire organizations. very many records might be relevant to the investigation of the group al qaeda. this is not a very convincing reason for thinking literally billions of phone records will be relevant, but it is reason to think it is not usually the case a safe house affiliated with some terror group overseas, and there is literally no investigation. there is a new group that you found out about, you would open the investigation. remains an important check to

authority. it is not some suspicion of a particular number not anchored to something a larger threat the fbi is actually concerned with. it is really anchored to the test of do you have enough to open a predicated investigation based on facts about a threat or a group wrongdoing and you know someone basically reviewed the evidence when the investigation was opened yet felt? host: this is jp, poughkeepsie, new york, independent line. caller: i have two does questions. a minor one is, i am curious why we -- why anyone is bothering with phone lines anymore. we do not live in an age where

you bill by long-distance calls anymore. i did not make that call to symphysis go and they take it off. that is one thing i am wondering. why we are leaving -- even bothering with it. the fourth amendment is extremely explicit about searches and seizures, what can be searched. sworn affirmation, there has to be a border, everything has to be since -- subscribed in particular. we are going to search everywhere, everything everybody approach. i do not understand. maybe you could explain it to me. guest: so phone records, it does turn out -- it turns out foreign agents sometimes make phone calls and the way the more adept we have become at monitoring the

internet, the more there is reason to think we are at least not worse off using a phone especially between burner thrones -- phones. there is at least a sense, rightly or wrongly, and perhaps less of a sense now, there is a degree of anonymity available for things like disposable thumbs. it seems as though one of the problems nsa is having is increasingly because doing is changing. they are not necessarily billing you by the call or where exactly you dialed area some of them were not maintaining records that had a usable or easily searchable format, which has supposedly decreased to the phone logs. it may or may not be strictly accurate, but one of the things in the house bill is essentially

a set aside for funding to compensate the fundings for whatever technical changes may be required to be able to provide the information the government is looking for. that may be the underlying point of the new authority in making that change, to enable that kind of technological transition. as for the fourth amendment, the problem here is across a range of different intelligence authorities, with all sorts of records in terms of internet monitoring. you see a shift to the founders and framers of the constitution would have looked like general warrants. a broad authority that does not say this house, this person may be searched for evidence of that particular one.

providing for agents to basically make a diligent search of any place. the problem is the supreme court in the late 70 posses, they decided the records turned over to a third-party and essentially have surrendered their expectation of ivc. i do not think anyone actually thinks this way. because i use comcast internet and verizon service, there is a record and that information is basically public. i assume the risk will be shared with the government. that is counterintuitive but that is, at present the guidelines stretched out. one supreme court justice in a

recent opinion suggested it was clear technological change with more data being stored in the hands of their parties like google and facebook, that that doctrine needs to be revisited or there will not be much of the fourth amendment left. it will not be relevant anymore. caller: i do not think the nsa should be allowed to monitor any domestic phone calls. the boston bombers, they had warnings already from russia. pay no attention to that warning. they have many phone calls monitoring and they have not stopped any terrorist acts. even the ones from overseas. the call for public surveillance cameras, the boston bombers, they had pictures of them winning their bombs buried good old-fashioned local police work is much more than all of -- much

more effective than all the nsa monitoring. billions of dollars are spent uselessly on all these. guest: distinguish between monitoring of the phone call themselves, the contents of the calls, and the monitoring of the metadata, records of the calls. they are looking for networks. typically, the nsa does not do true -- totally domestic phone monitoring. they are in charge of international traffic. sometimes, the vacuum cleaner is so asked, they sometimes end up picking up more than they're supposed to. that is the effort the ipod sees job. it is supposed to happen the oversight board that looks in the detail is the caller is

right, the phone records program was initially said to have been really essential to flailing dozens of terrorist attacks and they conceded we meant for it -- prison internet surveillance. there is only about a dozen cases where the phone records program was useful in disrupting attack. as they looked closer, they said actually, mostly this was just used to dig up information the fbi found judicial, targeted , proof methods. there may be one click -- one case in which the program over seven years might have helped us identify someone who was donating money to a somali terror group. not an impressive track record. the consensus seems to be the program has not been very effective at all. host: is there an expiration date on the data collection program yet?

guest: yes. one of the few remaining is set to expire there it one of the threats here that the author of the hatred at and now sponsor of perhaps the most sweeping reform bill, the freedom act, was raised several times. he has threatened if you do not work with us, the intelligence community, on getting serious reforms pushed through, you have to consider you will not have the votes to authorize the authority. forget the program. you will lose the authority altogether. does not mean they would lose it altogether. they would revert back to the even more restricted free patriot act standard. they would have records specifically about suspected agents. more restricted because before the patriot act, the government

the fbi, was able to do this but only about a particular suspected foreign agents. it was not you and your friends and your friends friends or even you and your friends. if you are under suspicion, your records would be detained and that was it. you need basically a separate non-intelligence authority. host: democrats line. caller: it is astonishing. tierney is tyranny, whether a german not see with a swastika on his shoulder, whether it is a sickle on his arm or whether it is a global, geopolitical global corporation, which is literally facilitating the destruction of the united states, constitution, the bill of rights area when you listen to the nonsense about the

assertions from your guests, i have got news for you. it does not matter whether or not the spying operations in america and today. the u.s. government already has within its means the kill list that is going to be implemented when they crash the dollar and into -- implement a truly diabolical american state. it is shocking. you know exactly what is taking place. guest: i am not super worried about the kill us and not see comparisons, in general, unless someone is putting people into camps, are seldom illuminating. you worry about the potential of misuse of broad and sweeping architecture surveillance. you seen that systematically in the past. there is every reason to worry about what a more authoritarian

regime in the future might do with the incredible pacitti, but i think usually, when the not see comparisons come out, the conversation has gone down a bad rabbit hole. host: roger green asked -- guest: so no. the freedom of information act is about getting records about government activities and the privacy act is usually what you use to get records of information about yourself. that is good because you do not want other people looking at information about you that might be in government files. there is a broad exception that they basically do not have to turn over files obtained in ongoing intelligence activities. it is not terribly surprising you cannot request the nsa to

disclose exactly what kind of classified collection programs they might have. they are collecting information that might pertain to you in some way. you do not want people who are up to no good to discover how under investigation they are by making requests for their own data. host: here is michael, virginia, independent line. caller: i am of the totally opposite opinion of everyone else so far on this point. i say, i am reminded of the andy griffith show with a telephone operator used to listen into everybody posses conversation and pass around the village. i am also reminded of shakespeare's play, much ado about nothing. i feel that we should let them

have everything they want. they will only put their lawyers on it and twist it around to make it so they get what they want in the first place. it is impractical in a way for a judge to sit and sort through all the telephone calls and decide what is right and what is wrong. by the time it is done it would be over. i say give them what they want let them do what they like, and be aware of the fact they're talking on the phone and thank you very much indeed for your consideration. guest: it is disturbing where we have reached the point -- a widespread attitude of, whatever you make the law in secret, they will interpret it to allow them to do whatever they want so why

bother. from a democratic standpoint, it is chilling that is a widespread seeming view. despite what i just said about the general uselessness of invoking not cease, broadly speaking societies or governments want have -- one access to data, it is not a place you want to live. we see plenty of evidence over decades and repeatedly, surveillance and foreign intelligence authority was systematically abused by those with the power to wield it to benefit those in power and their friends. there is a good reason to not say, let them get whatever they want, especially when, we have had multiple findings where a lot of these programs are so offended at first disclosure, turned out, privacy aside, not

to be with the money. host: one more tweak, the viewer asks -- guest: yes, there is an interesting tension between the things made here suddenly about the disclosure of this program. we had a lot of initial things he is really grievously harmed the national security of the united states by disclosing the existing -- existence of the program. we did not know they were sucking all -- them all in and it is not clear how useful the information has been, and yet, a few months later, we have james clapper, director of national intelligence conceding perhaps it would have been better if we had been transparent upfront. we should have gone to congress or have been first -- forthright

about needing the power to do this abroad instead of doing it in -- the fact that we are seeing almost universal consensus that this program does need to end shows that there was real value to what he says, whether or not you think that program was illegal, it was sufficiently concerning. the system was forced to make concerns once the public became aware. host: thank you for your time. coming up, our next guest will take a look at yesterday possibly in court case, taking a look at holly at -- hobby lobby and conestoga. we will be joined by representative diana degette.

we will talk about the first lady's office and her impact and influence. first, an update from c-span radio. >> a push by congressional democrats to bring a wide array of changes to the international monetary fund has been withdrawn from that legislation providing financial assistance to ukraine. democrats wanted legislation to help ukraine to enhance the imf funding capacity. the senate is on track to improve the sanctions and aid for ukraine. today, the senate contenders -- considers judicial nominations. a series of mixed signals for the economy has undermined investor confidence. that is somewhat accountable for the ups and downs in the stock market.

yesterday, one report showed fewer people bought new homes in february dropping sales to the slowest pace in five months. index measuring consumer confidence rose to the highest level in six years. the major indexes richard games -- registered gains yesterday. finally, an engine snag has delayed the arrival of a russian spacecraft to the international space station. that will be delayed until thursday. a rocket carrying two russians and an american did blastoff successfully earlier today from kazakhstan. the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> i do recognize that islam-phobia exists. negative attitude toward a

community exists. it is part of xenophobia. it is nothing more than xenophobia against one group. it is part of it. what happened is that the islamist lobby have hijacked that notion and made it into a weapon. anybody who is criticizing a policy issue that has nothing to do with a religion, nothing to do with the five pillars they have been accused of islam-phobia. this is what is close to the national socialists in germany would have accused people of in germany. even at the international level, this has become very dangerous. >> saturday night at 10:00 eastern and sunday night at 9:00. on april 6 more discussion on the middle east with bing west.

live in-depth, starting at noon eastern. book tv, every weekend on c-span 2. >> washington journal continues. host: joining us now is representative diana degette of colorado. she is the cochair of the pro-choice caucus. thanks for joining us. yesterday possibly in court case. your thoughts. guest: i was in the courtroom and i watched the argument. i have got to say that if the court decided that private -- public corporations, for-profit corporations, could decide what types of birth control employees used, that would be far beyond current law and it would really open the door to all kinds of mischief. if a corporation could have a

religious objection, they could say that people could not get vaccines, people could not eat pork, all kinds of issues. that is why we have always said that for-profit corporations have to comply with certain laws that we have, antidiscrimination laws, other laws. host: this was originally drafted by congress and approved by conference, this religious objection. guest: that was for not-for-profit religious institutions where the core of that institution is religion. if you are running a church or church school, that is a religious institution and you can be exempt. contrast that with hobby lobby. i have been in hobby lobby stores. there is one right by my house in denver. they are selling craft supplies. they're a for-profit corporation

that is owned by a very religious company. the main goal of that is to make money. i don't think just because the people on the board or the owners have some kind of religious issue, if you are having a for-profit corporation that the core goal is making money i don't think they should have a religious exemption. host: one of the people after the arguments, the cofounder of hobby lobby, here is what she had to say. [video clip] >> our family started hobby lobby built on our face and together as a family. we have kept that tradition for more than 40 years and we want to continue to live out our faith and the way we do business. the choice the government has forced us is unfair and not in keeping with the history of our great nation, founded on religious freedom.

we believe that americans don't lose their religious freedom when they open a family business. we were encouraged by today's arguments. we are thankful that the supreme court took our case and we prayerfully await the justices decision. host: she said the company was built on their face, built on those principles. guest: and she and her family can certainly follow those principles. but if her company is giving birth control to its employees which by the way it did even before the affordable care act even before who gets to decide what types of birth control the employees use? the employees themselves or their bosses? as my boss going to tell me you can use one type of birth control but not another type? that is the real issue that this case presents. i think that the court is going to say that the employee gets to decide what type of birth control.

apparently what these individuals religious belief is that some types of birth control are ok and others are not. the fda has said that all of these things, iuds and birth control pills, as well as the other barrier methods, are all birth control. just because someone thinks something is different, does that mean they do not have to provide it to their employees? she gave her impression --host: she gave her impression, what was your impression? guest: i thought it was a very animated argument. i thought the female justices made very good points. i am a member of the supreme court bar. i have been to a number of arguments. one thing i have learned is that you can never predict what the court is going to do based on the oral argument. host: our guest is

representative diana degette talking about yesterday possibly in the case. if you want to give her a call, (202) 585-3880 on the democrats. (202) 585-3881 independents --republicans. (202) 585-3882 independents. let's go to the first call. joplin, maryland. david on the democrat line. caller: last fall, when you are on this program, you said there were allegations around the world trade center the congress should work together to investigate those. some time ago, constituents met with members of your office. there have been no -- to discuss building seven of 9/11. host: any response? guest: i believe these are the folks of believe there was some kind of conspiracy around the

world trade center. my district director did meet with some folks a few weeks ago. i have spoken with them about it in the last few days. my staff is on top of it. host: st. paul, minnesota. darlene. caller: thanks for taking my call. it is frustrating for me, i am a woman, i am a republican. i turn the tv on and i see this representative immediately misrepresenting hobby lobby's case. shimada, -- she made a comment that if we start letting private businesses stick tape whether or not employees can have them -- can have birth control, that is not what they are saying. they are saying, they do not want to pay for it it is against their religious beliefs to pay for it. here you are, obviously a democrat misrepresenting their case. i think the democrats are in enough trouble for lying lately.

try to maybe be a little more tell us really what is going on and not make stuff up. guest: what has happened is that birth control is listed as one of the benefits for women's health that is covered under the affordable care act. employers, just like they have to pay for vaccinations and other types of medications for blood transfusions, things like that, that all has to be paid for in the insurance policy. what happens is the individual, the company provides insurance for the employees that covers these essential benefits. birth control is one of these essential benefits. my point is that if the hobby lobby folks can say, i am personally opposed to certain types of birth control being part of the essential benefits, then this would open up the door to other people saying, i am

opposed to blood transfusions and i don't think the insurance policies for my employees should cover blood transfusions are vaccinations or any other number of things. my whole point is, when you have a for-profit corporation, not a nonprofit corporation, and the core of the company is to make money, not to foster religious ideals, then the religious owners of the company should not be able to impose their religious views on the employees in receiving these essential core benefits. host: an op-ed in the washington times today. why ha

guest: i don't know what companies he is referring to. there is an exemption for not-for-profit organizations that are religious organizations and the core mission of that organization is religious. what happens in those cases is that the insurance companies themselves are paying for the contraception for the employees not the actual group, usually a religious group. host: john from columbia, maryland. independent line. caller: good morning. i have a couple things. first of all, i would like to ask, what religion are you that would allow it? are you a religious person? is this acceptable under your religion?

guest: my religion is not at an issue here. i am a religious person. i sing in the church choir. that is not the point. the point is trying to make a balance between a for-profit corporation saying what types of contraception their employees can use versus a nonprofit organization that the core mission is religious. that is really the balance we are trying to strike here. i'm a very big supporter of the first amendment, both free exercise of religion and not establishing religion. i think that there is always a balance. when you get to the point where the board or the owners of a for-profit corporation are telling their employees what types of birth control they can get in their insurance, that has gone too far with the rights of the corporation versus the

rights of that individual. host: can the supreme court put limits would satisfy you? guest: i struggle with thinking about how they could do that. the essential question is does the corporation itself have a religious right? i think that is a hard thing to say. with citizens united, we have already gone pretty far in saying that corporations have rights. the last i ever heard corporations are not in another themselves religious. they are not singing in the church choir. host: is this going to extend citizens united? guest: citizens united said that corporations have some first amendment rights of free speech. now the courts will have to decide what do we do with the other part of the first amendment? host: christine in kingston illinois. democrats line.

caller: i absolutely don't believe in abortion but if you take the rights away from people , just people, not corporations, you tend to have more problems. i think religion should be private. it should not be involved with company staff. if you employ people, people have the right to have contraception. the lady they call before that said that democrats are lying about everything, i think she is kind of brainwashing must be a republican. there are a lot of flies out there. -- lies out there. corporations are not people. thank you. guest: you know, once you start to say corporations have the same rights as people then you really go down some funny paths. i think this argument that we saw in the supreme court

yesterday is one of those patents. i would like to say something else. a lot of these issues we are grappling with are very difficult issues. i think it is important for people of good faith on both sides to be respect for love each other. you will notice, i don't accuse the republicans are the anti-choice folks of lying. i think many of them have strong convictions. what i think we need to do is come to some kind of a balance. where i come at, when you are talking about birth control coverage, not abortion, birth control coverage for employees of for-profit corporations whose core mission is not religion i think the employees should be able to decide what type of birth control they want. host: the editor of the wall street journal picks up.

guest: there are a couple of things. i have never heard anybody make the argument, well, viagra is cheap, so insurance plans should not have to cover viagra. they only say that about birth control. several of the methods that the owners of hobby lobby want to prohibit their employees from obtaining are quite expensive. iuds are the first thing. iuds are the most effective form of birth control. the owners of hobby lobby are saying, we don't believe in iuds. therefore, we do not think the insurance should allow our employees to get them. they should have to pay for that out of their own pocket. there are other types of birth control that we think would be

ok and we think the insurance could pay for that. that is a decision i'm not sure the women who work for hobby lobby want their employer making. the other point i would make is that there are millions of women in this country who take birth control not for pregnancy prevention, but for other types of health reasons. to say, i am sorry, we are not going to give you that medication that you need for some other type of ailment, i just think that is arbitrary and they think we have tried to be sensitive about religious organizations. i think this goes too far and it tips the balance more toward the corporation and away from the employee. host: john in jacksonville north carolina. independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call.

i worked in medicine for 21 years and i listen to the arguments. i don't understand why someone would think that a business gives up its first amendment rights to religion just because they are not a church. that does not make any sense to me. it is kind of like the gun deal where you say you can have your gun in your house, but when you step out the door, you lose your second amendment right. that is crazy. i think a lot of the misinformation that is being passed is because a lot of people don't know that much about medicine. look, people have choices to make. when you are talking about birth control people can just abstain from having sex. that is a choice. people can go to a drugstore and buy contraceptives. there are many places around -- they give out free contraceptives.

it is not always a black-and-white thing. if you work for this company, you are being denied your rights to contraceptives. guest: i guess my view is that if i am planning to have contraceptives for whatever reason, i should be able to decide what kind of contraceptives i want in conjunction with my doctor and not be having my boss tell me what kind of contraceptives i can take. host: louisville, kentucky. republican mind. caller: yes, good morning. we all have the right to choose what type of contraceptives we do and do not want to use, but we do not have the right to ask people to pay for what is considered an abortion. i have worked in the medical field for 20 years. these are a type of abortion. if you carry this argument to

its logical conclusion, the next case that will come forward is the little sisters of the poor case. you claim there is a religious exemption by saying the insurance company will provide that for free. when the little sisters of the poor pay their premium to an insurance company and the insurance company provides the service for free, that is just naming it for free. but it is a service in exchange for payment. the little sisters of the poor will not participate by -- i predict they will win their case on that will be the correct decision as far as i'm concerned. guest: well, actually, ma'am, as i'm sure you know, the affordable care act does not require insurance companies to pay for policies that cover abortions.

companies are able to purchase insurance policies that do not pay for abortions. some people think that certain forms of birth control are so-called abortifacients. they think that birth control pills, iuds, other things are abortifacients. but in fact, the fda, the nih, the society of ob/gyn's, the scientific organizations have characterized all of these types of birth control as birth control. are you for the chemical of -- the chemical abortion drug is not considered to be part of these. we are talking about birth control. some people might think cause abortions, from a religious standpoint but the scientific community does not. my view is that you have to base

our public policy on science. you cannot base your public policy on something that someone might think, whether it is true scientifically or not. with respect to the little sisters of the poor case, i know quite a bit about that case as well. what is interesting about that case is that under the religious exemption, the little sisters of the poor is a nonprofit, religious organization. what they are complaining about is that under the affordable care act, they have to check off something that says we are a religious organization we don't want to provide birth control to our employees. they are objecting because they do not think that just by doing that check off -- they say that violates their religious beliefs. what is interesting about that case and we will see this come to pass during the oral argument -- or the cases, it is still percolating up through the

courts -- is that they are insured, they are self insured through another religious organization. the organization that is insuring them their insurance company, they do not have to pay for birth control either. there is no way that any employees of the little sisters of the poor have to have birth control and their insurance. i think this will come about as this case moves up in the courts. host: if the supreme court decides in favor of the two companies, does that mean potential changes to the affordable care act overall? guest: there was some suggestion on the part of the petitioners yesterday that if the supreme court decided in favor of these for-profit companies and the insurance companies would also have to then pay for earth control, just at -- birth control, just as they do with the not prefer offer -- not-for-profit religious

organizations. i thought to myself, that is a really unusual road to be going down because if the supreme court does decide that a corporation can make a religious claim, i could see lots of corporations, boards of directors, and so on making the decision that they do not want to pay for all types of medical procedures. i think that would be a lot for the insurance companies to have to subsume. host: representative diana degette of colorado joining us, talking about the hobby lobby conestoga case. i wanted to ask you about the announcement concerning the affordable care act, the delay for those signing up. guest: it is a very small, but reasonable delay. if somebody went online, try to sign up, and for some reason that information did not get transferred to the insurance company or there was a computer glitch, those folks would have a

small grace. -- small grace period especially given some of the problems they have had with the exchanges. host: the washington post said it would create a large loophole and a new category of people signing up for insurance. does that present a problem in your mind? guest: i don't think it will be that large. folks will have to prove that they tried to sign up for the deadline and i think they will be able to work them through quickly. host: do you think 6 million people will be achieved by the deadline? guest: it is hard for me to say. we do not have the final numbers. in my own state of colorado, we have seen a huge uptick in people signing up the last few weeks. host: what about questions from republicans or others about the number of people who have paid their first payment? guest: again as time goes by, more people are starting to pay their premiums. i'm a big believer in facts.

after next monday comes, there will be a little bit of a lag time. within the next month or two, we will get the data to see how many people signed up nationally, how many people were eligible under the expanded medicaid eligibility, how many people pay those premiums and so on. it will start to sort itself out. after a very rocky and disturbing start, it seems like people, things are going better. i was over at the hairdresser last weekend and the lady who cuts my hair said she is 45 years old, she is married, she has a three-year-old daughter. she said i went on the exchange and i signed up for insurance. she said i couldn't believe it. i was able to get a good policy. i was paying $1100 per month and now i am paying $600 per month.

i think we will start to hear more of those anecdotal stories about people who actually did go on the exchange. many were able to get the subsidy. they are finding that they are getting good insurance for less money. host: what about young people? guest: that is going better in the last few weeks. we will have to get the data. it is critical that we get young people signed up or else it messes up all of the pricing on the exchanges. host: charles from tennessee. he is on our independent line. caller: hi there. the women i think should be ashamed of themselves for not affording their own birth control. come on. we have to have the killing machine of all, 56 million babies. you don't brag about that number. you always brag about a lot of numbers.

56 million and counting. slow down. women, please. 50% of the babies in newguest: if men could get pregnant, i have always believed that nobody would question whether insurance could pay for their birth control. think about the medications you take, sir, and i bet almost all of them are covered by insurance. second thing about abortion -- if we have birth control that is available to women and their families throughout the country through insurance and in a cost-effective way, that will reduce the number of abortions. in fact, i just saw a study recently that indicated abortions have gone down in dock this country over the last few years. and the reason is because of more availability of birth control. i think this is great. i do not think anybody likes to

see an abortion. but if you are going to reduce abortions, you have to have really strong family planning programs for women to be able to choose when and how they are going to have their family. host: an e-mail -- no matter how you spin this nobody is taking away the right to go to the store and purchase contraceptives. guest: if i go to my doctor and my doctor says i need a certain type of contraception, just as if i go to my doctor and my doctor says i need medication for high blood pressure or for diabetes or something else, i should be able to get that through my insurance. 99% of american women have used some kind of birth control in their health care over their lives. just like we pay for these other medications, this is not an unusual thing to the women of america. host: oklahoma city, oklahoma democrat line.

caller: you are doing an excellent job this morning. i love the point you just made because i'm convinced that if men carry the baby, you could go to walmart and have a little out clinic place to get an abortion. it is really keeping women down. you see that in the republican party. the other thing is these people will vote this one issue vote republican to stop abortion. but they forget that republicans are more likely to take away food stamps, cut heating oil pollute the environment. they are all about these kids getting here and then they do nothing to help them once they get here. they want to cut headstart programs. i mean, let's focus on the poor and the fact that they need food and housing. guest: i think you make an excellent point. i think there are many other issues. i often say as cochair of the

pro-choice caucus that in the year 2014 i find it shocking that we're talking about birth control. something that 99% of american women have used and certainly the men of america and their families are involved in these decisions. the other thing is for lower-income women, but for all women, you really want to give women the opportunity to choose when they are going to have their children and how large their families are going to be. internationally, that is the number one indicator of how successful a community or a country will be if the women are able to plan their families. to do that, we would much rather have access to good earth control and family planning techniques versus things that do not work. >> richmond, virginia, democrat line. caller: i am interested in what

you were just talking about. how do they feel about male enhancement drugs and other ways that they can make a man have sex better -- how do they feel about that since it is such a religious issue? also, a distinction between the married man or the single man if they do. it is really weird. they are in the government and should follow laws just like everybody else. you still have 80-year-old man marrying 14-year-old girls. they already got it down to 16 right now as the legal age in some states that you can have sex legally, with a 16-year-old. you are -- guest: well, i do not know what the personal views of the owners of hobby lobby are on the male

enhancement drugs. but i do know that that was not an issue that they raised in their court cases or in doubt superior court. and under the affordable care act -- under private insurance -- under insurance policies, any types of drugs that have been approved by the fda are generally made available under those insurance policies if you have prescription insurance under your policy. so people would be able to get those. and nobody is suggesting that we do not cover those. host: cochair of the congressional bipartisan privacy caucus. i want your thoughts on the pending announcements concerning changes about the nsa data collection. guest: you know, after all of the revelations that have come out recently, i think everybody has sort of taken a step back and said -- how can we both

protect americans' privacy and also protect our national security? it seems to us that it has gotten skewed to the other direction. so i welcome the president's announcement. i am looking forward to seeing the details of his plan about protecting americans' telephone records. the issues of -- certainly the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and a lot of bitter attacks, those have not been by -- and a lot of the other attacks, those have not been by americans. collecting the data is not a concern. i like that he is trying to limit the amount of data for regular americans that is being collected. host: the health intelligence committee unveiling their own plan. any thoughts? guest: i have not seen their planned yet. i am looking forward to seeing it and how it dovetails with the president's suggestion. host: steve, independent line.

caller: thank you for taking my call. my concern is more about how the court used corporations. if the court allows corporations to establish religion or to be considered religious, what is to prevent the owners of some business from indicating that their employees, for example, would have to say the lord's prayer before they start work each morning or eat a particular dietary requirement? it seems to me that the court is right on the verge of opening up a giant pandora's box. guest: this is the concern that i have, too, steve. if you say that a corporation can have a religion and will be exempt from federal laws, you can have a situation -- and actually, justice sotomayor raise this during the oral argument -- what if they wanted

to say you cannot eat pork? what if they said our corporation believes in cheri a -- sharia law, so every employee who works here has to dress with a veil in that fashion? what happens if they say our religion does not believe in hiring women so we are just not going to hire women? the whole point we have made after decades of federal laws and legislation is that -- and court cases -- is that if you are a for-profit corporation and you get all the protections of the corporate laws in this country, then you should have to comply with all the rest of the laws of this country. that is really the concept we have had. if suddenly a corporation cannot have a religion, that i think a lot of that goes out the window. a lot of us are concerned with that. what about blood transfusions?

what about vaccines for the children? so on. host: loveland, ohio, republican line. caller: thanks for taking my call. first of all, hobby lobby has given them several choices of birth control. it is not like they do not have choices. i have gone to a doctor for cholesterol, for example, and have gotten medication and it did not work or he told me we have to change it to this is your health insurance does not cover it. hobby lobby and any company can offer vacation, and they determine how much that is going to be. the other thing is you think a corporation is not people. it is made up of people. are you government? or are you a person? you are a person who represents government. so you bring your thoughts and feelings and prejudices to that.

they are paying for it. and the biggest point is religious freedom. we have a president who does not obey the law. he decided he did not like doma. he is not the law-making branch of our country. so what scares me is government -- let's get government out of our beds, our health care. guest: well, i guess in the situation of the employee your trying to choose the birth control, i have got to tell you i am too old for birth control now, but if i were younger, if i were one of my daughters, i would not want my boss telling me what type of birth control i should be using. i would want to decide that in consultation with my doctor. that is the difference. host: tallahassee, florida, republican line. caller: is it true that the

muslims are exempt from the aca? guest: no, i do not believe they are. but this is if you have a christian not-for-profit organization that can be exempt on religious grounds, then so would say a mosque or something like that that is a nonprofit. the aca is not specific to one religion or another. host: this talk about retail pot applications arriving. this talks about your state's experience with recreational marijuana. how is it going? guest: i tell everybody that when the voters of colorado voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use, none of us knew what would happen. it was completely uncharted territory. and the legislature immediately set out to put in place a pretty stringent regulatory framework.

so all of the marijuana is measured. it is all very controlled. there is a tax structure in place. we did not know what would happen. so on january 1, we had long lines at the stores. it was a national story. since then i have not really seen much of a difference at all in my communities. and i have talked -- i talked to my police chief a couple weeks ago and asked if he was seeing a lot more people driving with marijuana in their bloodstreams or are you seeing more problems? and he said we really have not seen any difference. there is still a lot of issues. one issue is it is difficult to measure marijuana versus alcohol in a driver because he can linger in people's bloodstreams. you cannot do a rental as a test. there are practical issues. but in day-to-day life, we have not seen much of a difference. host: is that something you supported?

guest: i was neutral on it. i usually do not take positions on state valid initiatives. but once it passed, i decided i had a responsibility to my constituents in denver, which of the primary part of my district where it passed overwhelmingly. so i introduce legislation that is still pending. it is bipartisan and says that states that have passed marijuana are exempt from the preemption clause of the controlled substances act. what it would mean is if colorado or washington legalized marijuana within the federal government would not preclude that legalization. host: as four states consider this on a state-by-state level entente do you think some type of federal marijuana laws need to be looked at? guest: we do need to look at it from a federal level. we have to respect state laws. we have to respect general -- legitimate efforts by citizens

to legalize this and for the state to regulate it. also, i sense that there is a big movement nationally to have this happen. already, many states are legalizing medical marijuana. i think the next stage will be to try to legalize marijuana for recreational use. but the experience we have had just in the first three months in colorado is that you really do have to put together a strong regulatory framework so that you are doing this in a responsible way. i think we have really tried to do that in my state. host: representative degette of colorado, one more call for you. a call from illinois, independent line. caller: we would not be in the supreme court on these cases if obama had not pushed this insurance deal through. there is no way in the world that this is going to work out.

people are paying through the nose for that insurance, and whenever you have a free market, that is where you get your insurance. everybody was doing fine before this came along. now we have all been pressured into this mess when he cannot even run the country. how can he run an insurance company? thank you. guest: let me just say that for most americans, before the affordable care act, it was true that they were able to get insurance through their employers or other ways. but there were millions of americans who were left without insurance. actually, the affordable care act was based on a republican idea, mitt romney's idea in massachusetts. it is where you would have insurance companies offering insurance to people on exchanges. it is a private market system. it is not a government system. what it does is it lets people buy into these insurance exchanges who did not have

insurance before. i would say -- as a said before i was very disappointed in the rollout of the federal exchange. but now that that exchange is going and now that most of the state exchanges are going, those people who cannot get insurance before -- it was too expensive they cannot buy it on the private market -- and they are being able to get into insurance. we need to work out the kinks no doubt about it. in my committee, the oversight investigation subcommittee i am working with my chairman to get some hearings on how we can try to do this in a bipartisan way. but i think the basic concept of getting all americans into some kind of insurance program either through the exchanges or through their employers or medicaid or medicare, that will both help those folks get health coverage but it will also help bend the curve because you will not have people showing up at the emergency room for their health care. that is the concept.

that is what we need to continue to work to improve. host: representative degette thanks for joining us. our final segment takes a look at a piece recently appearing in the new republic era to look for the office of the first lady michelle obama. reid cherlin will be up for our spotlight on magazines segment. first we will get an update from c-span radio. >> the ap is reporting that the senate intelligence committee three years ago secretly considered but did reject alternate ways for the national security agency to collect and store massive amounts of americans' phone records. one of those options outlined in a classified 2011 nsa analysis was similar to what president obama is now advocating. let the government stop the bulk collection of americans' phone records and instead ask phone companies to search their own business records for possible terrorism connections.

secretary of state kerry has arrived in jordan for meeting with palestinian leader abbas. peace talks are approaching an april 30 deadline for settlement. the palestinians have threatened to walk away before then unless israel releases some prisoners as it agreed to by march 29. secretary kerry will talk to prime minister netanyahu in the next few days. finally, the secret service says it sent three agents home from the netherlands just before president obama's arrival. that is after one agent was found and inebriated in an amsterdam hotel. secret service spokesman added donovan says the incident with prior to the president's arrival monday in the country and it did not copper mines the president's security in any way. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> have you ever heard of

fracking? >> never heard of it. >> hydraulic fracking? fracturing? >> what? what in 2010, robbers ordered the environmental protection agency to look into the dangers posed to water sources used in hydraulic fracturing. it was expected to be completed in 2014. >> epa delayed studies until 2016. >> can we really wait that long, congress? >>we have announced the winners of this year's c-span student cam video competition on what is the most important issue congress should address this year. watch the top 21 winning videos starting next tuesday, april 1 and every weekday throughout the month at 6:50 a.m. eastern on c-span. see all the winning documentaries online. >> c-span -- for 35 years of bringing public affairs events

from washington directly to you. putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefing stumped him and conferences and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. c-span created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. watch as an hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. "washington journal" continues. host: on our regular spotlight on magazines segment, we would get a piece that appears in the new republic. it is called "inside the east wing: who shrank michelle obama." our guest is joining us from new york. reid cherlin, contributor for the new republic. welcome. we start with a little bit of your experience, especially your experience in the white house and the obama administration. guest: sure, i worked on the

obama campaign the first one-time tougher two years. then i worked as a spokesman in the press office. i was a staffer for the president. i did not work directly for the first lady. host: yet your experience looks of the life of the first lady. why focus on her and her office? guest: we thought it was interesting, most people just do not know how the east wing works or what goes on inside the building on that side. mrs. obama, obviously, is an iconic prominent public figure. but where you might have frequent articles about how things work on the presidential side you often -- you do not often see how things work on mrs. obama's side of the building at what goes into making her and her public persona and what her choices are . and because there has been such interest in who she is and what

she stands for and sort of what she is going to do as first lady, we thought it was a good time to take a look at how that works. you see she is traveling in doubt china this week. she is representing the country overseas. and i think when she is here at home, it is a more complicated question what role she wants to play. host: how much of her image in public life is shaped to the workings of the public office? guest: i think it goes both ways. would we talk about in the piece is that, particularly in the beginning of her administration, her office was a pretty rough place to work in a lot of ways. a lot of discontentment pg is a pretty exact thing manager. it is nothing too shocking in washington. but given the limited resources that you have in the first lady's office, the staff is only about 30 people. they are asked to do a lot

with little people. there is often in sermons with whether the first lady is happy with what is presented to her. she's not that thrilled to participate in the political office really. i think that is completely fair. it is a time that has been unkind to her. also, it is 2014 and is not really clear what the role of first lady is supposed to be. it is kind of an anachronistic position. it was designed to be kind of a national hostess type role. obviously, mrs. obama is not -- she is an executive. she is a lawyer. and you can see that at times she sees the constraints of that role. so i think sometimes she seems to be unhappy in the row and that makes staff and happy. sometimes she is still served occasionally by staff.

squabbles or issues. mostly it is a little bit cyclical. you think of sort of a happy kind of open plan, thriving workplace where everyone is going in the same direction and everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing and everyone shares in the satisfaction of reaching those goals, i think they have that sometimes. but more often than they would like, it is not always clear kind of what the goal is. host: one of the things you write is that the first lady's office can be confining frustrating, and even a miserable place to work. jealousy and discontentment have festered -- guest: right time, and -- though head. host:no no, go ahead. guest: one of the unique

potential problems of working in the east wing is mrs. obama is such an icon and has such a magnetic public personality that going to work for her, according to people who have gone to work for her seems to offer this promise of a relationship with her or the excitement of being around her, kind of being part of that reflected excitement. but she is not -- that is not the way that she runs the office. people tell me that she is often absent pg is very focused on what the schedule is but she is not necessarily hanging around the office. she's not necessarily interested in becoming friends with you. the president is not looking to make friends with junior staff in the west wing. but because on the president side you have several thousand people, and is much more clear that a staffer is one of great many. whereas on the east wing site,

because there are so few staffers on, it is a smaller and nominate her if you will. it feels like it is kind of penalizing and also very clear kind of who is at her side and up the meetings and who gets to go on the trips with her. and because the mandate for what she ought to be doing is at times kind of muddled or smaller , little things like who is in favor or who gets to travel on the trips sometimes take on a bigger role. host: reid cherlin is part of our regular spotlight on magazines segment. today, a piece looking at the first lady's office. "inside the east wing: who shrank michelle obama." if you want asking questions, it is 202-585-3880 for democrats. 202-585-3881 for republicans. 202-585-3882 for independents.

you can also e-mail us your thoughts at journal@c-span.org. and you can't tweet us @cspanwj. we have a call. good morning. caller: i am calling because he seems like he says he does not work in first lady michelle obama's office, yet he seems a little negative about how her office works. from what i have heard, people really liked the first lady. even the people that work with her or are in contact with her. so what does he think is the biggest problem? is it the first lady or the people that work for her? guest: sure, that is a great question. mrs. obama has a reputation for being incredibly kind and warm, and she is. i do not claim to be close with her. i have had a handful of interactions with her over the years. i had an opportunity to observe

her as a public figure, and she leaves a great impression on people. and i think she is a very kind person. i do not think the point of the piece was to say that she is unkind. i think the point of the piece was to say, despite the fact that she is very kind, sometimes working in her office is not a happy experience are not a fulfilling experience. that is based on what people who have worked there have told me. a lot of that has to do a structural problems. it is not a big staff. there are few resources compared to what the president has to work with. the first lady often comes under scrutiny at the last minute but does not have the advantage of, you know, a broad planning process like the president might have. it is less fluid, so she can sometimes feel like she's walking into an environment where she is not fully prepared. all that can make for some

discontent. i am not taking a position on her personally, but i think just would you point out, that she just projects such warmth and kindness, that kind of makes it a more interesting story in a way because sometimes what you hear from people who work in the east wing is that it can be really frustrating and that surprises people. host: a tweet -- who decides the first lady's agenda, topics, and scope? guest: she sets up parameters for what she wants to be doing. she wants to make an impact. and that is as broad a statement as it sounds. she obviously has certain initiatives that she works on on an ongoing basis. she has the let's move childhood obesity initiative and she has the joining forces together with mrs. biden, of veterans and

military families and initiative. those are both public and prominent. people know about them. if you ask anyone what michelle obama does with her time, they will be able to tell you about the healthy eating stuff. the questions tend to arise or on what else she should be doing, if there is anything else she should be doing. she wants to work, i am told only a few days a week outside of the home, which is understandable. she has young daughters. but it is not a ton of time. there is a lot of pressure on the staff to use that time wisely. that is standard for washington. nobody wants their time to be wasted. what is interesting is on the president's side or if you are looking at a senator or member of congress, they understand that they are participating in an often dispiriting political process where, by nature, to participate in it is to get dinged up and to have people

criticize you. i believe the first lady is ambivalent about how much she wants to wade into that. she has been criticized in the past for errant, to the way she behaved -- i should say, for errant comments or -- remember, there was a fundraiser in washington where there was a heckler and there was microscopic criticism of the way she handled the heckler. there has even been criticism of how she looks in shorts and that is not a joke or she will walk the dog at the white house and there is a paparazzi shot and they will say that she should not be wearing shorts or she is wearing the wrong thing on the plane. i think that kind of criticism really mounts. it is understandable that it might make you feel iq do not want to be part of this so much if it means i will be criticized for the way i dress or the way i speak. that is completely fair, but i think it makes it hard because she, in a way, cannot change the environment she is in.

politics is politics, and her husband is in the middle of a bunch of divisive fights all the time. it can be hard to sort of navigate a course within that. so the question was -- who sets the scope and the activities? staff suggests activities and suggests a schedule. she has the final say. host: independent line. caller: yes, i would like to ask -- what are the first lady's priorities for the upcoming were year -- the upcoming year? especially regarding the news according to crimea. guest: i do not think the first lady is going to be highly involved in and out -- in the crimea-russia issue. she has not said really at any point that she wants her geopolitics to be prominent in

her per folio. but this week she is touring china. it is what they're calling a person-to-person, more of a people to people kind of agenda were she is doing cultural diplomacy. that kind of thing can be powerful. she is also adding to her speech would you might call political sentiment where she is talking about freedom of expression and equal rights topics that are sensitive and china and often censored out. i think what it shows you is that she has the ability to use her life story and the fourth of her personality to communicate summarily important principles. sometimes, to me anyway, it feels like that is a little bit absent in her domestic agenda. she is launching an education initiative this year where she is going to be talking about why it is so important for young

people to get a college education particularly minority and underprivileged young people. that is a cause she is passionate about. that comes from her biography as a young person from modest means outside of chicago. i do not think we have seen yet what it will be but it will be interesting to watch. host: as part of the china trip the group criticism, saying that the correspondence' association requested information about it. guest: a couple things there. one is the correspondence association, they work hard and it is the job to fight for more access, and they are almost always left short of what they would desire in terms of coverage. the president travels with a protective pool.

anytime he is outside of his home, there is a group of reporters that travels with him to capture footage of whatever it events he is doing, even if they are small. there will be what is called a pool camera in there. there will be wire reporters newspapers and websites can carry news. and they are also there just in case something happens. if the motorcade gets a flat tire or something and they have to pull over. unforeseen things happen. the correspondence association wants a pool there to be up to report on that news, anything unforeseen. i think traveling with a pool seems onerous, seems like a burden. she is a pretty private person. she is traveling with her daughters and her mother. it is not a family vacation, but it is a trip designed to showcase our family relationships according to what i have read. that is deliberate because

particularly in china, family dynamics and intergenerational respect a really important. and you can see why having a bunch of reporters driving around with her would seem like a distraction or seem like a burden. what i said before in terms of times when she has been photographed where people have reported on what she is doing when she does not know she is in public, as it were, she has been stung by that. i think it is understandable that she would sort of balk at having a protective pool. i also understand the concern of this is a major trip. she is a major figure going to one of the most powerful countries on earth to represent our country, and shouldn't she have press traveling with her? i'm not taking a position whether she should or should not. but it is tricky. host: a call from missouri, go-ahead. caller: yes, i was wondering how

exactly the east wing is affecting my life. are they causing my food prices to go up? are they causing my fuel prices to go up? my utility bills? i am wondering if -- [indiscernible] for the talking heads in the fox news network? guest: well, that is a fair comment and certainly an excellent question. how is the east wing affecting your life? that is the central question of the piece that i wrote -- how does the east wing affect us? should there be an agenda that affects you personally? i think the answer -- for you, i do not know about your life. with respect to gas prices and food prices, she is probably not having much of an effect and that is by design. she is talking about healthy eating and digital link the food -- and cajoling the food and

grocery industry, particularly on things like labeling, so you may see changes in the way food is labeled or marketed p or g is out there beating the drum on eating better and avoiding overly processed foods and exercising more. i think you will see companies start to incorporate that message to try and look like they are on the right side of that fight. so she is affecting your life in that way. your questions are -- why write the piece in the first place? certainly, i think the east wing shares your curiosity there. is it just designed to be fodder for talking heads? i think when it comes to -- the white house responded to the story by calling it intriguing and looking at staffing and what goes on behind the scenes. the point of writing an article like this is that people are interested in it or we hope they are. i am. our editors are.

it is just not a view we get everyday. the idea is to take readers to a place they do not get to go to very often, into the rooms and hallways were the first lady's agenda gets made. host: so you heard directly from the white house? guest: i do not hear directly from the white house after the story was published. but they provided a statement to politico yesterday talking about the first lady's agenda and referring to the story. i think they said we will leave palace intrigue to others. i'm not looking at the quote but it is something along those lines. host: who did you talk to generally and what kind of responses did you get from former staffers? guest: i talked to a lot of former staffers, about a dozen from the east wing. i talked to some former white house staffers. i talked to a bunch of current staffers from both east and west wings. no one wanted to use their names. i think that would be a fair

critique of the story to say you should have had people who would use their names. i wish they would have. it became clear to me pretty early on that very few people would be willing to say anything interesting with their name attached to it. part of the reason for that is because, understandably anything that can be construed or read as criticism of the first lady is highly sensitive. and people who work for her do not want to be seen as criticizing her. everyone i talked to her works -- who works for her has great respect for her in great respect for what she has done and for what she can do. but a lot of them also feel frustration about what it was like to work there and how the office works. i wanted to get people the freedom to talk about that in a way that we could share with readers. that meant often that they wanted to be at if i just as former staffer. host: kathy on the independent line. caller: my question is -- why is it that she travels so much and

does have to take so many people with her? my feeling is that she was not on the ballot and why in this time -- there are so many people that are hurting -- why is it that -- this looks like a family trip to me going to china. guest: well, that is a great question. because this is the kind of thing that is debated endlessly in american public life. we live in an era where presidential travel -- whether it is the president or first lady even congressional travel requires an enormous amount of resources. the first lady was criticized during the first term for a family vacation she took with the girls if i am not mistaken. this is not a family vacation. this is a trip sometime what you might call cultural diplomacy. it is a trip that the government is paying very close attention to. they consider it very important

as we progress in our relations with china as a trading partner and as a geopolitical partner. someone like mrs. obama can forge ties, and that is important to the state department into the white house. it is not a family trip. that said, mrs. obama needs to travel with a retinue of staff. for security reasons, she travels with secret service. she travels with scheduling staff. she usually travels with communications staff. it is not as big a group as the president's group. but it is a government aircraft that is expensive to run. it requires law enforcement coordination on the ground and around-the-clock security. it has to be expensive. the question is -- you know -- are we willing to spend a lot of money for our elected leaders to travel? and if you are not an elected leader, as you point out, are we

willing to spend money for you to travel? i think we accept at this stage that the first lady, whichever party she is now or in the future, they are sort of part of the package. and when you are voting for someone for president, you understand that these bouts will be a phase of the administration and a face for the country, particularly overseas, and this is an expense we are willing to undertake as a country to project what you might call soft power. host: elizabeth from ohio democrats line. caller: like on c-span sometime i just, you know, reid, you should maybe throw out there that she is black, too. i think she's a pretty cool lady and people love her. and if they have a problem working in dr. her office -- in her office, it is probably

because she expects them to do some work or something. i think people are more interested in the koch brothers owning 2 million acres in the lower part about burdette. guest: ok. if i'm understanding your question right, this is a critique that mrs. obama is popular and well-liked so we should not write pieces that are critical of her. i would disagree with that respectfully. i certainly understand you are a fan of hers and i consider myself a fan of hers. i work for the administration and campaign for years. i think she is great. i will say that. i think that comes through in the piece. i talk about my experiences on the campaign trail watching her relate to voters and motivate voters that i think very few other people can do. that said, there are sometimes issues in her office. as a journalist, as a writer that is something that you try to show your readers.

it is not a critique or criticism of her as a person. it is a critique of how the office works were just a look into that world. and i think that is fair. host: chattanooga, tennessee, democrats line. caller: good morning. i am sitting here and i am so amazed and stunned at the same time. i am a 65-year-old vietnam veteran. i have got like about 16 years of education which makes me just an average joe. but i want to know where you get off at mr. reid, you being a former staffer for the president's office and you are writing about the first lady -- how is this all cleared and this is all ok? i mean, you contradict yourself in saying she is this and she is that appeared what do y'all need an x-ray of this woman?

like the lady from ohio said yeah, put it out there that she is also black. i guess that is what you are getting at. guest: not at all, sir. first of all, thank you for your service. a second, this is not about her raise at all. the piece is not about mrs. obama's race. i think it is fair to say that her race plays a role in her public persona. it is something that she talks about. she talked about it in china yesterday in a very powerful way. she talked to schoolchildren sang in the country i live some it took nonviolent resistance over years and years for me and my husband and people like us to get the right to have an education. the idea that it would not have been inconceivable only a couple generations ago. race comes in in that way. i do not think it is fair to say that i'm criticizing based on her race. i understand what you say in

terms of me being a former staffer and writing this piece. if you have a problem with that, i think the white house probably was not thrilled about it either. they do not like this kind of story being written about mrs. obama, and i understand that. they also do not like this kind of story being written about the president. i think it is fair to see how things work inside the building and ask whether it can work better. host: how would you characterize her leadership? guest: i think leadership is an interesting word to apply here. there were some tweets yesterday after the story posted online about scheduling and being demanding of staff and is in that leadership -- i think mrs. obama is clearly a leader. i think people gravitate toward her. i have seen her in big political events and rallies. i have seen her in small living rooms on the campaign trail. you know, appealing to voters talking to voters, shading voters -- changing voters' minds are they used to call her the

closer because she could change voters' minds and get voters on board, even more so than her husband could. a certain amount of power comes with the presidential podium. but i think her leadership is palpable. when she is out there and she talks, people listen. the question i raise in the piece is if she is out there talking about healthy eating or she is going on jimmy fallon are going on "the tonight show" in doing a silly sketch, that is all well and good. i think people admire the first lady for being loose and for being willing to be silly for the public good. but for me anyway, i would like to see a little bit more leadership -- i would not say more leadership. i would like to see a little bit more focus on some of the harder issues, issues that she once talked about. early in the first campaign, she talked more about inequality. she talked more about equal rights. to talked about the little girl she had met who sobbed to her about how her country was

leaving her behind, how she knew she was behind her peers in reading and math, that kind of thing. that stuff is very powerful. as a voter, that is often what you want to hear about. but sometimes you do not hear about it as much. it would be equally fair to say that if mrs. obama waded into these issues don't come she would be criticized for it. we look back at hillary clinton as first lady and she was criticized for "meddling" in being too political, speaking with china. mrs. clinton went to china as first lady or secretary clinton when she was first lady, she went to china. she said women's rights are human rights. it was a powerful thing to statement caused a bit of a dustup in china. people are still -- they look back at secretary clinton's tenure as first lady and say she was too political. it is definitely fair to say that the first lady is trapped. that is the subtitle of the piece in the magazine.

as first lady, you are expected to have an agenda here it it is expected to be sort of agreeable. you're not supposed to make waves. but for those of us who watched her for a long time, and i think a lot of americans are watched her for a long time, they can feel a little bit small or diminished that sometimes one could wish -- one could wish for more heft to what she's doing. host: a viewer asked about the tensions and issues that are in the office itself and if you offer examples. guest: it has been getting better as the years go on. they have found step that is comfortable with the role the first lady has to play. at the beginning of the administration the first lady said the staff down and said we do not have to do anything.

so we are not required by statute, by law, by expectation really to do anything in particular. so everything we need to do, we need to do perfectly. that created a lot of pressure on staff, at least as they relate it to me. it was not clear what perfect man. often there was squabbling over what the office ought to be doing some, the first lady at times has not been that happy with how staff have been performing. she has not been happy with the coverage. and because it is such a small group of aides, they can spread thickly. so you will have staffers come and like they are sort of internists in battle or they sort of do not trust each other. again, that kind of thing is not rare in washington but it does kind of cut against them comes a public image that is put out there by the first lady or about the first lady because she is such a warm person. that makes for an interesting story.

that is why you write something like this, to show how it works behind the scenes. host: wheeling, virginia, democrats line. caller: i wanted to make the comment that i support mr. and mrs. obama 100%. and i want to tell you, i just turned 67. i am retired. if it was not for president obama and mrs. obama in the white house, i would not sleep at night. i had the unfortunate chance to turn to c-span yesterday and watched the exorcism done by michele bachmann which made me realize where the crazy lies. so i am thrilled that we have sane people like the obamas in the white house trying to run the country and make progress and take care of us out here and do things. do not think we do not know that. host: boca raton, florida

republican line. caller: ok, come on, reid, i think you are a little bit compensating for whatever you said in the article. you know good and well that she -- the woman has a temper. she is one side that she wants her persona, like her husband she is very thin-skinned. she just wants to show it. you know she wields a lot of power. you know some of these people like daley and the other spokesman for obama and now works for msnbc did not like her. and i do not think rahm emanuel light -- liked her because she does have a temper. guest: well, i think you're

going off of personality traits may be that you have gleaned from coverage. i do not know that i would agree with your statement necessarily. to say that she has a temper and thin skin, i think almost everyone is like that. i did not take the criticism head on in the story because i did not, frankly, get great material on that. people do not really want to talk about how she is personally, and i respect that. i did not want to make allegations that i cannot back up. i'm not saying she is personally cruel. that is not the point of the story. it that is your view of her time, i suppose that is your view of her. they way i see it more is that sometimes the frustration is clear. sometimes it seems to be written on her face or present around her that she is frustrated by the role and trying to figure out how to do it best. host: a call from nevada,

democrats line. caller: good morning. how are you? what i would like to know is that you write this piece about michelle obama -- where there are pieces written about other first ladies like this? like laura bush? or is it that you guys pay special critiques to michelle obama? like you said, sometimes she was critiqued about wearing shorts while she was walking the dog. was there anything about laura bush or any of the other first ladies? or is it just because she is the first african-american first lady? guest: you know, i think the answer is probably both. i confess that i have not gone back through the record to look for coverage of earlier first ladies. i know that there has been unflattering coverage of the

most recent couple of first ladies. hillary clinton, laura bush definitely. how prevalent it was, i am not sure. i know that in secretary clinton's day, there was plenty of criticism about how health care was handled and various other things. you know, she sometimes made comments that people tried to make hay with. so i think the scrutiny has always been there. but i think you're probably right that the first lady and the president came into office with very high expectations and a tremendous amount of pressure to show us in a way what it would be like to have the first african-american president and first lady. i do not know if much of the criticism of the first lady or any of it is really based on her race. i think that anything can sometimes be in the eye of the beholder. and i think if to you it seems like race is a factor in the way

she is covered, i think that is probably a fair observation. i do not really think it is factored in the story that i wrote. but yes, i do believe she faces an unbelievable amount of scrutiny. and i think that because when the obamas came to office there was a sense of history being made, heightened scrutiny on them, not just in terms of the policies but how they work as a family. there has been intense interest over the years on how they work as a family. that has died down somewhat from how it was over the first couple years. you may remember when they got the dog. there was a terminus amount of interest in what kind of puppy they were going to get your people and the first lady's office told me that the story -- handling the story of what puppy they were going to get was hugely taxing. it's a good huge amount of energy. when you or someone for whom there is so much interest in how you are as a family, mom wife, public figure, sure, it leads to

a microscope and some hot lights and a lot of displeasure sometimes. host: for all the people that affect mrs. obama on a daily bases in the east wing, who does she pay close attention to? guest: it varies somewhat. i think it is clear that valerie jarrett is an advisor she listens to a lot. her chief of staff is someone she listens to a lot. her deputy chief of staff melissa winter, has been with her since the earliest days of the first campaign. i think they are very close. i think melissa and tina and valerie are all people but mrs. obama listens to. i think she probably talks business with the president. i do not know whether discussions are, but i am sure she bounces ideas off of him too. she does have a small group of advisors that she listens to closely. even the staff under her, as

small as it is, a bunch of those people are kind of in more functionary type roles, working in the social office sometime doing scheduling time, and they are not necessarily going to be having input on what her schedule should look like. it is a few key voices, and that is why she is major those are people that she trusts. host: do we see more of her in these final years of the administration? how does she play it out for the remainder of the term? guest: i would guess that, yes you will be seeing more of her if for no other reason that she has added initiatives. she has added the education initiative to she will be out there more talking about the importance of getting a college education. and i think with the reelection race over with, particularly once the midterms are over with, there will be less of a risk -- of a sense of riskiness. and they will be looking at legacy. i think they will turn to that

over the last couple of years. it is probably a good bet that you will be seeing more of her. not that you have not seen a lot of her in the past. i think she will be out and about a bit more. i think if you are going to be a slightly increased footprint versus increased data decreased footprint, we might be likely to see a little bit more. i look forward to that. i think that if we use her tenure as a guide, there is often a reluctance and a stubborn pervasiveness of caution. she does not want to do too much. she does not want to do something that will get her in trouble or get hurt criticism of the type that i'm a in this piece. i think she does everything deliberately and consciously. but we may see a little bit more. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] host: thank you for your time.