the police headquarters like a lot of towns did. >> we'll look at the history and literary life of st. louis, missouri, throughout the weekend on c-span's book tv and on american history tv on c-span3. for over 35 years, c-span brings public affairs from washington to you putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences. and offering them complete gavel to gavel coverage of the u.s. house. all as a public service of private industry. we're c-span. created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago. and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in h.d., like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. >> next a conversation with ralph reed, the founder of the faith and freedom coalition. from washington journal this is just under 30 minutes. >> "washington journal"

continues. >> raffle reed is the founder of the faith and freedom coalition and joins us live from just down the potomac river at national harbor where his group has been holding his road to ma majority conference. >> glad you could join us. yesterday kevin mccarthy addressed your conference. i wonder how you think conservatives faired in the house we would like to see the scommouse senate do more, this is not my first rodeo. this was not my first leadership race. and i can tell you

categorically this is the most pro-life, pro-family and pro marriage house in the history of the modern political history of the country. we've passed legislation in the house, not just with the support of our organization. but many others. that would ban abortion after the fifth month of pregnancy, when a child in the womb can feel pain during an abortion. and when many children can survive outside the womb. we've zeroed out funding for planned parenthood the largest abortion provider in the western world. we've reaffirmed support for marriage after the supreme court decision. putting the house on record that they believe marriage should be defined as a man and a woman. and repealed obamacare. and we can't get those things through the senate. so i guess in a nutshell, what i would say is we didn't have a role in the leadership race. we worked very well with eric cantor. he was a friend of mine. i've known him since he came to congress. and known him since before he

came to congress. i've known kevin mccarthy since virtually the time he was elected. he's a good friend. he has 100% score on our most recent faith and freedom congressional scorecard. congressional score card. so on the issues that we care about, kevin mccarthy has been there. and i'm looking forward to working with him as majority leader and he gave a great speech here yesterday. >> in your introduction of him yesterday you noted that 1003r9s rating obyour scorecard. he said we will unite. how big is the divide between the establishment and the right wing of the party here? how big is that gap that he wants to unite? of ell, i guess it's kind deja vu all over again. it's not a new story. if you go back to i guess i'm dating myself i actually wasn't involved in this campaign. but if you go back to the 1952

race between robert taft and eisenhower, then you go to goldwater in 64 and then reagan in 68 and especially 76 and 0 you've always had this tension in the republican party between what conservatives have labeled e eastern establishment that gave us dueie and rock feller and folks like that. and the grassroots. and as the center of gravity in post world war ii period and particularly since the 1960s has shifted to the south and the west, so in 1946, when you had a republican majority in the house, 25% of the members of that caucus came from each of the major regions of the country. the west, the midwest, the northeast/flim and the south.

-- mid-atlantic and the south. today you look and overwhelmingly it's midwest, west, and south. and those members tend to be more conservative. candidly more of them tend to be evangelical protestants or faithful catholics. i think there is no question that there is a much greater sort of evangelical flavor into the party by which i don't mean evangelical protestants but also a much greater percentage of faithful catholics than when i came in. so this thing continues to play out. it's a long story. and i think the -- what's likely to happen is that you're going to have the grass roots win some and you're going to have the establishment win some. and that's the way it's always been. so the grass roots are going to have victories like ted cruz in texas and dan patrick who defeated david due hurts in texas a few weeks ago in a

runoff. he was here last night, ted cruz was here on thursday. you're going to have victories like marco rubio defeating charlie kris. rand paul. but then you're also going to have the sort of more established candidates who are going to win some. so -- and from our standpoint from faith and freedom's standpoint we have a dog in that fight. but sometimes we don't have a dog in that fight. we have so-called establishment candidates who have -- i mean, mitch mcconnell for example has a 91% rating on the faith and freedom congressional scorecard. he's been with us on iran sanctions, on tax cuts, on life, on marriage, he's been solid. is he as conservative as say a ted cruz? probably not. but 91% when i was in high school was an a. so we can work with both sides. >> we've got raffle reed here this morning on the "washington journal" and he's the founder

and chair of the faith and freedom coalition. we want to get to as many of your calls as possible. the numbers are on the screen if you want to call in. but we'll get to gene calling in from detroit, michigan on our line for democrats. caller: thank you for having me on and good morning. i just have a couple of comments to make. i feel very strongly that the sabatsdz day needs to be restored. the sabatsdz is more to help to instill family values. when i grew up everything was closed on sunday so you went to church, you came home, you had a big dinner. in some cases you went to the movies. but it was a family day. and i feel a lot of times we talk about what hollywood has done to destroy the value. i sometimes feel that business has done more to destroy the family values in that everything is open on sunday. people don't want to

necessarily work on sunday but they have to. and just one other thing. we were talking about this abortion thing. i remember before row v. wade came into place and i wrote a paper on abortion. and one of the things is that women went to such extreme lengths to get abortions. it's been here forever, always will. so when you close these clinics all you're doing is pushing them underground and making them have to go to back alley doctors, use methods that are injure yuss to their health. because i remember reading about how they use scissors and coat hangers. >> we'll let raffle respond to your comments. guest: let me start with the second one first tchs the abortion issue. speaking as an historian, which is my academic background and what i intended to do, never got to do it but my goal was to be a history professor.

there's no question that abortion has always existed. it's existed for as long as we have recorded history. as long as it's been possible for women to get pregnant there have been quote/unquote inconvenient pregnancies that have been intentionally terminated. we know that's a fact. it's an historic fact. and if abortion were banned tomorrow, there would still be abortion just like people violate all laws. there are laws against murder. people still murder. there are laws against stealing. people still steal. there's laws against fraud. that doesn't mean we shouldn't have the law because the law creates a norm for society. the law also plays an important role as a teacher. and i guess the question is, what principle, what value do we seek to teach with pro life laws? it's really very simple.

you find it in the declaration of independence. it is that all men and women are created equal. and they're endowed by their creator with certain inalienable right. the first of which is the right to life. and we believe that that life extends to the unborn in the womb. we believe they are persons, they are genetically unique. they are unique in every way. and they have an untold and un tapped potential for our society to better our society. now, we're not naive. we recognize that abortions will happen. but what we want to do is reduce the number of abortions and what we want to do is create what pope jean-paul ii called a culture of life. and we believe and social scientists teach us that if the law affirms life there are people who will affirm life simply out of respect for the

law. and the good news is what we've done in reforming the law and in correcting this balance to basically after row v. wade that abortion could take place for any reason or for no reason at all at any stage of pregnancy including for gender selection. so a little girl in their mother's womb could be -- their life could be taken simply because somebody didn't want to have a girl. or any other reason. late-term abortions. and so forth. we've now reduced the abortion rate by 50% since roughly the late 70s as a percentage of women of child bearing age per thousand women. and we've reduced the raw number of abortions by about a third. so we're making progress. we're clearly winning on this issue. and as time magazine pointed out in a cover story i guess last year, they said the supreme court legalized abortion in 1973 and the pro

choice movement has been losingr since. and there's no question about that. in the last three years there has been more pro life legislation passed at the state level from 2010 to -- well, roughly 2011 through this year, than from 1973 to 2010. and we've elected a lot of pro life legislators. so i think that's going to continue. i think it's going to be gradual. i don't think it's going to happen in one fell swoop but it is clearly happening. host: joining us from the road to majority conference down at national harbor some of the featured speakers there include michelle bachmann, kevin mccarthy, chris christie. bob jindle. why no liberal elected officials invited to speak at your conference to present an opposing point of view? guest: the purpose of this

conference is to equip and to energize and to mobilize our grassroots supporters. so the purpose of this conference is not really to present both sides. the purpose of this conference is to take pro family and prolife activists and energize them and equip them to go back to their states and communities and organize. we have in the past had democratic elected officials. we'll do so in the future. i'm on record as saying at next year's conference if hillary clinton is announced as next year's candidate that we will inviolet her. i doubt she is likely to want to come or she is likely to get an enthusiastic reception. but we'll certainly invite her. i invited her husband when he was running for president. he never came. but we will be happy to invite her. and we do have democrats on the

program this weekend. i don't think we have an elected democrat but we have democrats who we work with on criminal justice reform, on education, reform. really when you get right down to it, outside of some of the more polarizing issues like life and marriage, and even marriage there's a lot of bipartisan consensus there at the local level. we don't have a partisan agenda. our criminal justice reform, we work with a lot of democrats on to try to make sure that nonviolent and first offenders and youthful offenders don't get ware housed in prisons where all that happens is that they are taught to be criminals. look at immigration reform. we've proposed some steps in immigration reform that we think are biblical and faith-based that strengthen marriage, family, the rule of law, and american national security. host: if folks want to read more on faith and freedom alition the website some 700,000 members as of 2013.

we've got raffle reed for a few more minutes and we'll go to george waiting in maryland on our line for independents. aller: good morning. host: deborah in florida. good morning you're on with ralph reid. caller: i saw you on c-span last night and you were amazing. we need to see more of that in this country. absolutely. i'm an evangelical christian. i love the lord jesus christ and we need to bring god back into our country. that's the reason our more or less have declined. a lot of people might not believe that. but try it, you'll see. speakers.all of the i was listening to chris christie talking about you know what, you take the child from the womb, all the way to the

adult. he's right. that's exactly what the -- >> host: talking about some of the speakers at the faith and freedom coalition's road to majority conference. raffle reed, who among those sounded presidential to you? guest: i think a lot of them sounded presidential. rand paul gave a great speech. he gave a great speech last year. he's appeared a number of times. marco rubio was a big hit here. of course ted cruz is one of the brightest stars in the national political affirmment right now. i think one of the most intriguing was governor christie's. i think a lot of people were surprised he got a good reception

what governor what governor christie talked about was her rehabilitation. we have a problem with addiction. addiction to drugs, alcohol. other chemical substances. it is destroying a lot of lives. there are few families in america that have not been touched by this disease. being pro-life beings both in the charitable sphere, the religious sphere, and in public policy. tong everything we can liberate people from the scores of addiction. >> let's go to carolyn.

good morning. you are on the show. >> thanks for being on the show. question with regard to right to life. it comes up during elections. people look at the issue on paper. my question to you is, what do withpecifically plan to do the babies that women do not want? i have two kids. raising kids is hard. i wanted my children. i can't imagine somebody being forced to have a baby when they were not planning on it. secondly, i want you to ask -- you talk about planned parenthood. a portion is preventable. but then you are trying to cut funding for them. i'm saying, if you give them money and education upfront, you

will not have to worry about abortion on the backend. understand me. and principle. i want some practical information on how you plan to solve the problem you are raising. raising. guest: i would be happy to address that. our reasons for not wanting to see taxpayer funding go to planned parenthood are threefold. one, planned parenthood has been involved, it's even in court papers in a great deal of illegal activity including medicaid fraud and other things of that nature. they settled i believe two years ago a huge settlement with the state of texas where they were involved in medicaid fraud. they have been involved in -- and this has been recorded by journalists working undercover. they've been involved in counseling young women who were potentially involved in human sex trafficking and things of

that nature. and we just think that if you are somebody who is demonstrated that you're a bad actor and that you are involved in thing that is we don't want to be encouraging as a government that we shouldn't be providing you with funding. that's number one. number two, planned parenthood is the largest abortion provider not only in the united states but in the western world. we believe in an ethic of life. we know that planned parenthood -- and again this is a documented fact by congressional committees, by their oversight and by other investigations. that they encourage young women and girls to have abortions and in many cases pressure them to have abortions and they don't really give them a true choice. and then thirdly and finally we think planned parenthood's role in women's health is greatly exaggerated. one of the things that came out as a fact during the susan g komen controversy, i guess now a couple years ago where susan

g komen was indicated they wanted to phase out their funding of planned parenthood it turned out planned parenthood doesn't do breast cancer screenings at their own clinic. if a woman comes in and she's concerned or worried that she may be suffering from breast cancer, they just refer her to another clinic anyway. so planned parenthood exists primarily to promote abortion. and we don't think look wherever you stand on this issue, and i recognize this is a tough issue, and there's a diversity of views on this and people of good will disagree. and i understand that. but i don't think our tax dollars should be provided to an organization that has a track record of promoting abortion and attempting to encourage young women to have abortions. i don't think we should be doing that with our tax dollars. we provide over $500 million a year in federal and state tax

dollars to planned parenthood. it's a $1 billion operation. they don't need our money. they've got plenty of money especially when here in washington we can't balance our budget. you know, when we're borrowing money from the chinese should we really be borrowing money in order to do that? is that really a priority? i just don't think it is. host: we showed our viewers earlier in the show a headline from the "washington post" this morning. guest: i think our position is not that inconsistent with some of the things that anthony kennedy said in the majority opinion in the windsor case which is that historicically marriage has been determined by the states. now, when we supported the

defense of marriage act in the 90s, a bill that by the way passed by margins large enough to pass a constitutional amendment joe biden voted for it the senate majority leader voted for it. it was signed into law by a democratic president. the main purpose of the defense of marriage act was to make sure that if one state legalized same sex marriage, that they could not force another state to recognize that marriage. so if somebody got married, a same sex couple in massachusetts or new york or vermont, they couldn't move to oklahoma or utah and force that state to recognize that marriage. i think that's a pretty simple federalist concept. and marriage and family law has always been a state matter. and by the way, the supreme court did not overturn that provision of the defense of marriage act. it only said -- and let's be clear about what the court said. it only said that in a state where same sex marriage has

been legalized, that the federal government couldn't deny benefits to those couples. only in those states. so it only affected 17 states. and by the way, only six of those states have redefined marriage by ballot initiative or legislation. in every other case it's been imposed by the court. >> is your message resonating? here's a poll from late last month. you can see the trend lines in that poll moving towards support. guest: for now. but 0 years ago, we -- 0 years ago we were losing the pro life issue and today we're winning it. ten years ago we were winning the marriage issue. now they've made a little bit of a comeback. ten years from now we may be winning it again. you can't take a poll and

freeze frame it and extrap late the results and say for all time this is where it is. because on the marriage issue on the life issue on legalization of drugs and on lots of issues these things move. and by the way, these poll numbers are greatly exaggerated by the media and by the left. and let me just give an example. take the gallup poll. that's all adults. ok? it's anybody over the age of 1. that's not voters. you screen that poll for voters and that poll goes to about maybe 52, 53 for same sex marriage. you screen it for likely voters and it comes our way. if you don't believe me look at the politico poll a few weeks ago that polled likely voters in ballotground senate states and battleground congressional districts these are the voters who will go to the polls in november and by 52 to 48%, a majority, said they supported

traditional marriage. so i know there's a lot of people in the press and in the sort of opinion elite who want to say that this issue is over and it's done. let me ask this. if they're so confident they're winning why are they having to impose their views by the courts? why won't they qualify ballot initiatives? how come they're not trying to qualify a ballot initiative anywhere in the country in 2014? if they believe they are winning how come all the talk about the ballot initiative in ohio stopped and there's not going to be one? how come there's no attempt to qualify one in florida? how come they never tried to qualify a ballot initiative in california one of the most liberal states in america. you want to know why? i'll tell you why. because they did their own polling and their own polling showed they might lose. so if our message is if we're going to decide an issue this important -- and this is a very important issue in which there are some very strongly held views and some honestly held views these are honest real

differences of people of good will at a minimum let the people decide. don't do this by court opinion and then create a marriage version of row v. wade where it's imposed by the courts, the people don't get any role, and then we fight about it for another 40 or 50 years. that's a bad way to pursue public policy particularly on an issue this important. getting ready for another day at the road to majori >> he offers a history of the sunnis, she is, and gerdes -- shias, and kurds.

we'll take your calls and you can join the conversation at facebook and twitter. washington journal, live at 7:00 a.m.. >> during the friday session of the freedom conference, minnesota congresswoman to show bob and criticized -- michele bachmann resized president obama's foreign policy. -- she alsocked attacked hillary clinton. this is about 15 minutes. good morning, everyone. what a great group assembled here today. are you feeling good? i am, too. thank you for the warm and art auction -- warm introduction. it i may be losing -- i may be

leaving the congress but i am not leading the fight. god bless you all. i'm sure the last couple of weeks, you have been following hillary clinton's hauteur -- book tour. it has been a toward a force. -- tour de force. errors that so many barack obama is considering making her his vice president. and i do have a lot in common. both of us were members of the senate. -- congress. we have served of their. we are both the only women to have participated in a presidential debate. she on the democratic side, me on the republican side. i am proud of that. i made a contribution. many of the men on the stage

with me, believe it or not, will worked for the -- were not for the repeal of obamacare. most importantly, both mrs. clinton and myself are obsessed over by msnbc. today,tingly, as we see the obama ship is sinking. it is 2016.e his presidency is virtually over. we can say amen to that. the approval ratings are at an all-time low, even in my left-leaning state of minnesota. why is that? the american people do not trust him. it is not hard to figure out why.

by some weird, freak coincidence, the irs announced they mysteriously missed two years of e-mails from people central to the scandal investigation. apparently, it is not an obstruction of justice when your attorney general believes the laws of the land apply to only one political party. now -- the va is failing the greatest generation while managing to give themselves huge bonuses while they were busy cooking e-books -- the books. liberties are virtually under full-scale attack, every day of the week. as well as our first amendment rights. legacynt obama possible -- president obama's legacy will be the establishment of

lawlessness in the u.s. especially when it comes to the issue of rewriting obamacare. that is his legacy. that is not our legacy. we are going to fight back at every turn on his establishment of lawlessness. it is not who we are. we are for the rule of law and unashamedly so. here is the understatement of the year. the u.s. border is not secure. thousands of illegals are pouring over the southern border. it it is being reported that hundreds of illegal aliens i the hour are surging across the southern border -- that is with no resistance from our government. hey, let's spend our time talking about a football mascot. that is what is important to a lot of the democratic senators.

i serve on the intelligence committee. we deal with the classified secrets of our nation. we deal with the credit -- threat of worldwide terrorism. we are living in profoundly dangerous times. unlike anything any of us have seen in the course of our lifetime. but we have a president andy former secretary of state and a former -- secretary of state who think releasing five taliban poses no security risk. i they do differ. -- i bade to differ. hillary clinton who reinforces daily to the american people she is not commander-in-chief material. confidenceo inspire in practically anything she has

touched. her record as secretary of state, including her failure and ming does he -- in benghazi, should disqualify her from the presidency. mrs. clinton has to explain to the american people why she repeatedly ignored requests for at theed security compound. she has to explain why, when americans were under attack, she failed to pick up the phone and called the commander-in-chief and demand he send in military reinforcements to rescue our brave americans on the ground. she has to explain why she continues to blame a internet

knew whon she says we it was from the beginning. knew he was part of the process even that night. she can't keep her story straight. even though the a media obsesses for a realis time interview. that interview will come with accountability from the american people. [applause] let's review where hillary clinton's foreign policy has got us to date. terrorists are on the march in iraq. it was last week when we found out that the worst of the worst, terrorists so brutal and violent that even al qaeda has renounced isis,m, they are called

these terrorists took over one third of iraq. in a stunning display. they have taken not only american tanks, trucks, are-powered weapons, they also taking over chemical weapon cachet's. -- caches. this is a direct failure of obama and clinton. rolling into are the ukraine. iran is continuing its nuclear weapons program. nothing has changed. recognize iran will have a nuclear weapon unless we have a new commander-in-chief who understands and appreciates the risk. stops the nuclear program in iran. [applause] terrorist are actively

killing christians in syria today. the islamic terror organization boko haram is kidnapping and killing innocent women and children in northern africa. that is a list of the horrible's from the last few weeks. ideas have consequences. decisions have consequences. that is why elections matter. president obama and hillary clinton do not understand what works and does not work in the real world of real bad guys. they believe in fantasy foreign policy, where their good intentions somehow equal success. it is time for a real strategy, not a time for fantasy foreign policy. the obama administration is continuing to thumb its nose at our strongest ally in the world, our friend israel. the nightmare scenario of a

terrorist neighbor through the unity government of hamas and fatah is a reality. that means hamas, the muslim brotherhood violent organization, will become a member of the palestinian authority. it was last week, after our president released the five worst terrorists, when he released those in exchange for bowe bergdahl, it was within a threehat hamas kidnapped jewish teenagers looking for a ride home from school. one of them is an american citizen from new york city. publications not only celebrated the kidnappings, they compared the boys to rats reeled

in by a fishing pole. barack obama thinks israel should be forced to give morland to people who want to exterminate all jews. this is what it means to stand with israel. [applause] quite simply, the united states of america cannot remain silent about the rise of anti-semitism around the globe. even in our own backyard. senior columnist for the jerusalem post wrote a column this week. in the column, she spoke about the rise of anti-semitism. including in new york city, where the metropolitan opera is running a production called be death of klinghoffer. it is a sympathetic portrayal of

terrorism against the jewish people. it is the story of a disabled sincere and -- senior citizen, in american jewish individual in a wheelchair who terrorists chose because of his background. they chose -- they took him and threw him off the cruise ship he was on with his wife. him.ld blood, murdered now the metropolitan opera is running a production sympathetic to the terrorists who did this action. do we understand we are now living in a new age of insane anti-semitism? will we respond to this? we cannot let this go unaddressed. the pat that our president has us on is truly transforming america into a country we know longer recognized.

the path is smothered the american dream at home and projecting weakness across -- abroad. that is not your view of america. not here at home. not abroad. it is not my view of america. hope.s what gives me i know without the shadow of a doubt, if you look across the u.s., and people are scared to death today. two police officers approached me need a before yesterday. day before yesterday. they came up me, recognized to i was. they said mrs. bachman, i don't know what is happening in the white house. you and your colleagues have got to do something in the congress. you can no longer be silent. you have to stand up for us. for america. start doing the right thing. you can't let this president

prevail. if there is one thing we know about americans, is this. americans love america. people they work and sweat to people at -- put in office will stand up for them and against the insanity coming out of the white house. what you do that -- will you do that? i will do that. i believe with the trust in our hands and the living god, the creator god, the alpha and the beginning and the end, the all seeing, the holy god of the universe. with our trust in him. today, it is like not over. it is not too late to read -- too late. we pick up the phone.

we call. we cry out. he is there for us. he is the one that will deliver. with his strong right arm. with that i say amen and amen. god bless you. enjoy your weekend. [applause] >> next, a discussion about political changes in the south over the past 50 years. then the white house goal of honor ceremony for william carpenter. after that, though weekly addresses by president obama and congressman upton. and effort on transparency -- an f on transparency.

the freedom of information process has become a joke. way, prior to the obama administration. this administration has perfected the delay. it is shocking, because i feel strongly the information they protect belongs to the public. we own it. we -- there is no sense of it when you ask for it. they covet it as if they are a hybrid corporation rather than understanding is information they have gathered on our behalf. >> cheryl atkinson on the changing face of network news. on q&a. >> 50 years ago, civil rights activists traveled to mississippi to register people of color to vote. the center for american progress held a discussion on changes in the south. former naacp president moderated

the panel of politicians and civil rights leaders. this is just under one hour. >> good morning. my name is ben jealous. we are here to talk about the report "true south." we are deeply honored this morning to be joined by an all-star panel of leaders from the region who are helping to transform the way that we see the south and the way the people in the south see the prospects for the region. we are joined by stacy abramson will be coming up here to speak in a few minutes to give this