i have worked many different jobs to where i've been around a lot of different type of immigrant people. -- for a couple of years. are people i work with were not complaining about the situation. -- who are not complaining about the situation. i've worked with a lot of mexican people left him across rder and they brag about how they get over on the united states. host: still be our line for border state residents. calling in from texas. on our line for border state residents. caller: i want to make my comment about the children coming across the border. i look at them as refugees. power law states that they

should have a hearing to determine whether they should be allowed to stay in the united states or be deported. law states. there is no compassion for these children. intend to do with the national guard along the border? i see the children walking calmlythe border very and in orderly manner and they are walking on our roads. what is the national guard going to do? shoot them or kick them and toss them across the line? why would you be spending on our g our money on the national guard to send them to the border when we need compassionate people who are christians and really listen to the bible when

it says to welcome the border and stranger into your land? host: we end with dwight from illinois on our line for independents. a great segue. i watched nancy pelosi last night. it was comic relief. i love people who quote the bible in trying to make a heartfelt string to pull on someone. if you disagree with someone, you obviously hit children. the story ofused the good samaritan in order to make her point that republicans are evil. she said reread the story, so i took her challenge. theess we have to rewrite story in order for nancy pelosi to make sense. was the goodually

samaritan took money out of his own pocket, pay the bills, took money out of his own pocket and took care of that person and told that the innkeeper, if there is anything that is owed you when i come back to my will pay that as well. --, i will pay that as well. be another one who is struggling next to him who had lots of money, which would be the united states. pick their pockets empty, take that money, take care of the stranger. if there is anything left over, we will take that as well to take care of whoever else is coming across the border. the woman who called right before me, i pray that she would be the one who would rather watch that child come across the border but invite the child into her home and pay for his schooling and teach them english and get him a job and love him and make sure he never goes on government assistance.

i am the son of an immigrant. my grandfather was an immigrant. he came here with nothing, took nothing, expect nothing, gave to this country. if they want to open the borders, we need to take away every single penny the government gives away. you want to come here and be free? you can't take a penny. not one single penny from the government to do it. host: our last caller. next, todd akin joins us to talk about his new book, firing back. protecting our faith and freedom. later, we talk about this crisis the executivewith director of the american immigration lawyers association. but first, on newsmakers, we were joined by the ranking

member of the environment and public works committee. him is a preview of hav discussing the lawsuit against president obama. [video clip] >> it's a broken system. people with no coverage at all have other -- have better health outcomes. forward withe fundamental reforms through some reforms, tied to those i would look at that. the fundamental challenge is significant reform. another prerequisite for me is that we are not draining additional state resources away --m other priorities like the growth and hair care costs -- health care costs has drained state resources in the health

care -- and the health care away. we can't afford for that trend to continue. >> staying on the health care law, the house voted yesterday to begin a lawsuit against the executive branch over its decision to delay the employer mandate? does that suit help the party? take theoing to radical approach of focusing on the substance first instead of the politics. that suit is right. president obama is picking and choosing what law to enforce and what parts would nor. -- to ignore. that lawsuit is exactly right. , he signed itlaw

into law. you can't after-the-fact pick and choose what he is going to enforce. what deadline he is going to live by and which one he is going to ignore. by todd are joined now akin. the author of "firing back." much of your book is about sunday, august 19, 2012. what happened on that day? guest: that is just the first chapter. the interview was cut on a friday afternoon. i could tell by looking back at the tape, i was a bit tired. i did not see anything that seemed to outstandingly that people would jump on.

the talkshow host was a very liberal guy. and atest sunday morning guy that had been following me during the whole campaign picked up on the word "legitimate rape." sunday morning, everything was fine. , my assistanting campaign manager called me and defcon 1.on one -- within a couple of days, i've gone from the respectable congressmen to somebody that was considered some sort of world pariah. that was for missed using some words. i should have specified rape. i was trying to separate the idea of statutory rape from a rape that causes stress. stress affects pregnancy, which preface to get you to

the gotcha question. host: these words caused a social explosion. let's play a clip from that interview. [video clip] >> if an abortion could be considered in the case of pregnancy, what about the case of rape? people always want to try to make that one of the things, how do you slice this particularly top ethical -- tough ethical question? , the's a legitimate rape female body has ways to shut that whole thing down. i think there should be some punishment on the rapist and not attacking child. the point is this -- he

is asking a very hard question. what happens if a woman is raped? child that is conceived in rape have the same right to life as a child conceived in love? that is the question. if abortion is wrong, it is wrong. the person punished should be the rapist and not the child. of a woman becoming pregnant from rape are somewhat reduced because of stress. people argue about that. i give you some common sense. you know families who got married and could not have kids. they adopt a kid. then the woman gets pregnant and has a child. that'sf people say because the woman was feeling stress and when they were relieved, they were able to have children. competitives really

in the triathlons -- she's a beautiful gal. she drives her body very hard to the point that she is almost sterile, according to her husband, because her body is under stress all the time. that was my case. does the child conceived in rape have the same right to life as a child who is conceived in love? my case was yes. host: part of your book is firing back at the media elite. a quote from your book. same pundits who criticize the lack of clarity and substance in political campaigns are the ones to attack people like me who have tried it to add both.

to add both." guest: one of the interesting contrasts on this -- we believe in free speech. somebody gets on a program it choose his words poorly, is still just speaking. jump forward two weeks later, ill clinton as the keynote speaker at the democratic national convention. you have a guy who has a series of accounts of sexual impropriety and he is getting applause. there is a difference between saying some words and actually

abusing a woman. seems like the democrats are the ones with the war on women. hillary clinton defended a rapist of a 12-year-old girl. that's ok for a lawyer. she demeaned the testimony of the 12-year-old girl who is looking for justice. hook.t the rapist off the 10 years afterwards, she is talking about it on a media interview and she is laughing about it. to me, that is the democrats war on women. i don't think the national media is very balanced. goes to the point of keeping the public intentionally ignorant of some of the things that are done and said by people on the liberal side. todd akin here to take

your questions and comments. going through your life and involvement in politics. republicans can call (202) 585-3881. democrats, (202) 585-3880. .ndependents, (202) 585-3882 outside the u.s., (202) 585-3832 . we start in texas on our line for independents. rachel, good morning. if my 12-year-old , and ir was to get raped was to take her to the emergency, they could not give her the morning after pill so she would have to go through her after having been

raped -- it is up to you to make the laws. that has been brutally raped goes through it every day of her life. these guys spend two years in prison and get out. it is up to you to make the laws to wear that does not happen.

>> that's why it's a horrible crime. >> bill is from corpus christi. good morning, sir. >> i listened to you when you made your statement about women and i've listened to your explanation and quite frankly, you used doctors to your advantage in your first statement and now you're using doctors again by saying, oh, i'm not one. you got in trouble because of your ignorance. you are expected to know more and better than others and you don't.

host: john, that's a -- the question of rape. the item of stress, there have been at least six new studies that have come out that say stress does play a part in pregnancy. to me, it's very much of a passing point. not something that i want to die over particularly. and i do know so many people that i've heard that story about that they adopted a child and suddenly they could get pregnant and i think that's a matter of debate between obgyns and medical doctors as to what is the affect of stress on pregnancy. but i acknowledge that people can still get pregnant when being raped. it was reported in the media that i said people couldn't get pregnant if raped but i said the exact opposite.

host: what was the purpose of this book? >> i'm trying to bring forward truth. i believe there's a difference between good ideas and bad ideas. it's sort of the war between good and evil. i never thought of the people i served with as good and evil, but the ideas were. so this book is to try to bring light and clarity to a number of different situations. one of them is like carl rove and others say no conservative can get elected to the u.s. senate. just look at todd akin. the truth is i was a reagan conservative for 12 years in the state house and also in congress. never pretended to be

anything but a reagan conservative. so i'm an example that, yeah, you can get elected. second of all where they took that is -- and this is why firing back is relevant -- and that is you go to a place like mississippi and the senate leadership in mississippi is putting money into the senate primary race in order to pick the candidate they want. that's not a good idea. you should not use republican money against republicans. second, you're a republican in mississippi and you're not backing a guy that the establishment wants, you're going to be irritated and not want to work for the party because the big guys in washington have jumped in and said we don't want primary elections. we want selections

and we're smart enough to know who you should elect. it's insulting to the grassroots so i stand against that. >> you mentioned carl rove and comments he made. among those conservatives, there are republicans who have called for you to step away. who is most surprising to you? >> first the liberal media jumped on this thing, blew it out of proportion to the point that they were saying i said things i clearly didn't say. and it's a method of taking something someone says and misunderstanding it and misinterpreting it and creating a sense of everyone being mad and angry about it. so what's what happens. republicans were afraid of that situation and the establishment didn't just abandon me in the battle field, they came and tried to destroy us. and that's all in firing

back. that's what they did. i'm just putting the truth on the table for people. you can read it. but here's what happened, conservatives all over the country, those people came to our defense. essentially we were fighting a war on two fronts, the republicans and democrats were against us and the conservatives were for us. and basically, there were comments by senator mc-caine saying we don't want him. that was a really powerful ad that the democrats used. host: todd akin here to answer

your questions and take your comments. let's go to derrick waiting in pensacola, florida. >> we're not idiots. we understand exactly what you said. no matter how many times you resay it or try to say it, we understand exactly what you said. now, what you said -- and you continue to say that a woman can choose to get pregnant or not if she's raped. you know, this is something that i don't understand why you continue to say this. and republicans don't want you and the reason you're not re-elected is because you're an idiot. >> i never said that women could choose to be pregnant or not. i never said that. that's when i was talking about my comments beings just taken to absurd i

did ty. i've never said that or implayed that. it's not true. i'm interested in truth. host: scott is waiting from california. good morning, scott. >> hello. host: scott, you with us? >> yes. go ahead, scott. >> i think it's great that someone has the courage to stand up for something. your comments are correct fundmently. host: scott, thank you for that. and, you know, one of the things i try to do in the book firing back and you might be surprised in the conclusion,

john, you think it's going to be political because i was a congressman for 12 years. but my conclusion is really to all of america. what i'm trying to talk to is the people who feel like they're not very big or not very important and they can't do anything but they have this terrible sense their country is on the wrong track. and i'm trying to encourage those people that you don't have to even be involved in politics to make a big difference in america. there's all sorts of things you can do with your lives by just following the dream you have in your heart, doing it the best you can, standing for what's true, right, and beautiful. and when we do that as a group of people, the whole nation gets better. and it's not just political things but it's what you do with your family, your kids, your wife, what you do relative to your faith, church, place of worship. all of those things come together to make this country. that's what i

want to talk about in the conclusion. so maybe you're not really interested in politics but you care about your country, this book is written for you. host: would you talk about those issues from an elected office one day? >> that's quite possible. i've just gone along and did what i felt god wanted me to do. it always seemed logical to run for political office because i was interest and studied a lot about the founding of america. america is off track a lot today from where they started at the beginning. i would argue that america was started on the right track and that's why we have been blessed as much as we have, john. host: jennifer waiting from silver spring. go republicans

fiscal conservetism. i don't understand how they come down on women telling them what to do with their body, how to function, and telling people how to live their life. if god gave us the right to make choices, who is another man to tell me that i can't make a right choice for me and my family. guest: jennifer, that's an interesting question. you say laws tell people what's right and wrong. somebody put a stop sign up near your house and it's wrong to not stop your car at the stop sign. that's the nature of laws. so on what basis do we make laws? in general, we have a law that says you're not supposeded to kill

people. so if we're not supposed to kill people, let me ask you this: first of all, is it ever right to take the life intentionally of an innocent person? we say, no, we're not allowed to do that in america. god gave us the right to be alive. when a woman is in pregnant, what's inside of her? my wife has had six c-sections. so if it's a person inside then doesn't it make sense that those lives should be protected. it's not that we're trying to project somebody's will on a woman's body. it's respecting human life. and i could add the second part, the economic side of the question, the bible says you're not supposed to steal and when government takes money from one person and gives it to another, that's a form of stealing.

host: mavis, good morning. >> good morning. i would like to say to the congressman, we have a right to decide for ourselves. and the mother being young or not in the position of taking care of that child and they don't want to feed it and help it medically, i mean, you say bring the child into the world but you offer no help. and as a man, you don't tell me as a woman what i can and cannot do with my body. it's my body. you be concerned about your house and i'll be concerned about mine. guest: well, that's the same about the previous caller. what is it that is inside a pregnant

woman? is it a child? if it's a child, then i would say the child has the same right to life as anybody else in our society. and that's the question. so is it the right for a woman to control her own body? of course. but does that right extend to taking the life of an innocent child, i say no, it doesn't. that's what makes me pro life. so also what the caller said is categorically not true. i know in st. louis where a woman with an unwanted pregnancy is taken in area taken care of and nurtured so she can have her child. host: we have about 15 minutes left with former congressman todd akin from missouri taking your calls and questions this

morning. let's go to dave waiting in washington d.c. on our line for democrats. dave, good morning. >> good morning. how are you, mr. akin? guest: i'm great. >> i'm an internist here in d.c. and this is a topic that you really should strongly consider letting go of. i'm sure you have expertise, work that you did before you were in office and work that you're doing now. you're not helping yourself. there are hundreds of variables that go into whether or not a child is going to be born healthy and alive, development, birth weight, strength, gestation, physical environment, fetal growth, abnormal

kerotytes. i know you have five studies, but you can find five studies on anything. it has been entirely disproven that there is any relationship between rape and whether or not a child will or will not be born. host: mr. akin, you can respond. guest: the doctor certainly knows more about the subject than i do. and as i said, i'm familiar with a number of different studies and people that say they think that stress is a factor. okay. if it is or not, i'm not living or dying on that point. it is my understanding that stress does affect it. but there's people going both ways on that and i don't think it changes the overall question a bit. so if dave is right saying stress has

no factor in that, that's fine. i'm not an expert on the subject. host: in 2012, you released an ad apologizing for the rape comment. your wife told you not to apologize for it. and you say you agree with her. >> right. the media took it out of proportion and said i said things i didn't say. for example, they said you think if people are raped, they can't get pregnant. i didn't say that. i had people on my campaign who were children of rape. we didn't have money to explain the comments so we felt the best things to do was some people had been misinformed about what i said and to apologize for anybody who was upset about what they had heard. but it wasn't what i had said. so that was just a decision whether or not

to run that ad and we felt that was the right thing to do in the campaign. the trouble with doing that is it's also saying that in some way what you said is wrong and the only thing i know of is people question whether stress has an effect on pregnancy and that goes back and forth. so the question is do you run the ad or not, and all of our folks except for my wife said, yeah, you probably need to do the apology. on the other hand, it makes it look like you're guilty when in fact all i was trying to say was essentially i think the life of a child has a right to life. that was it. host: let's go to our line for republicans. doug is waiting. doug, good morning. >> good morning. i'd like to say hi to mr. akin. guest: how you doing? >> hanging in there. i'm a

veteran, i'm disabled and i'm curious in what type of republican i am nowadays because i grew up shaking nixon's hand, i even knew president bush, jr., in the air force. shook his hand. and i always consider myself an eisenhower republican. he was for unions. eisenhower was for a lot of things. he felt that our government with everything we're handling now as big as we are we need to have -- not one person can handle this. anyway, my point is i'm for abortions, i don't think they should be taken lightly or done

easily and i believe the husband if the woman is married should be notified that she had one. guest: i appreciate your being a veteran. i am an army veteran. i have three sons in the marine corps. i don't know how to explain that. so i think what i heard you saying is you're a moderate republican. i tend to be more like ronald reagan. if you look a look at the budget of what's happening in this city and how we're spending a trillion dollars a year on a $3.5 trillion budget,

we have more than we can afford. host: we'll go to nell waiting on the line from georgia. >> good morning. guest: hi, how are you? >> i'm fine. blessed. i'm not hearing you now. guest: go ahead with your question or comment. we can hear you. >> i'm very pro-life, i don't believe in abortion. i believe a baby is a baby before it's born and i don't think we have the right to take that life. and you were earlier talking about the kids coming across the border. we should show compassion, we should take care.

and these very liberal i guess that's what they're called, people that use -- they don't want prayer, they don't want god or anything but now suddenly the bible says this or the bible says that and to tell you the truth they're picking and choosing. and that child that was aborted to me is just as precious as that child coming across the border. host: i'll let you comment. guest: i think just talking to you i heard your heart and the fact that you love people and you love children. and, you know, it's interesting what you're saying is so in line with what our forefathers did when they set this country up. you know, to them it was so obvious. it's not obvious anymore but we hold these truths to be self-evident. that means everybody agrees with this idea that our creator blessed us with

life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. the reason they listed first is because if you're dead, liberty and the pursuit of happiness doesn't do you any good. so that's basically a foundation for our country, respect for individuals. and the border situation is a tough question. we're also a nation of laws and every nation has laws and the question is do you have wide open borders so anybody can come, terrorists, whatever they're bringing with them. that's a question. but this respect for each other is something i get into in the book firing back and this is something i beat up on republicans and democrats about and that is in the political process, what we'll do, we'll target people and say that, you know, joe blow thinks this is -- now, we know it's not true but we're trying to run his character down so people won't vote for him and that's wrong because we're lying about

another person. we're bearing false witness against a neighbor. and when we do that, we make the country worse for everybody. and i trieded to in firing back i talked about how we ran our campaign in the senate primary. there were opponents comparing me to barack obama. barack obama was the most liberal senators in the u.s. senate and i'm one of the most conservative congressmen. that's a stretch. so the point is why do we say things about people that we know are not true and why is that destructive to our lives around us. so why don't we just sell the benefits of what we have and believe in and let the voters decide. host: who are the politicians in the republican party that you think are the people most aligned with who you're talking about in your book here. who would you support in the 2016

primary? guest: let me say that the people that supported us in our race and probably think the way i think, they would be what i call conservatives, tea party type people. and i've had -- i take the republican leadership on some points to task, particularly in the courage to stand up for what we believe. i don't think we make the country a better country by running away from something we know is wrong or evil. we each need to have the courage to stand to say, wait a minute, i love you but that's a horrible idea. host: shirley is up next from new castle, pennsylvania. good morning. >> good morning. and thank you for c span. mr. akin, i just want to say thank god for people like you who are willing to stand up and say, you know, this

is how i feel, this is what the bible says most importantly. god says that we are not, not to do abortions, we're not to shed innocent blood. and, you know, i understand being raped is absolutely, absolutely terrible. terrible. and the person that commits the crime, i believe should be given the full extent of the law so they don't ever, ever do it again. guest: shirley, i think you're absolutely right and i think that's one of the places where i try to outline in our book, firing back, how can we as just individual citizens, as a congressman, you still feel helpless when you're trying to get the country back on track.

i think we all share a certain frustration. i think if we approach things the way shirley is suggestion, we show love for our neighbor, that, that can have a huge impact on our country. i've given examples in my book. think about winston churchhill's nanny. she was a good christian woman. his parents didn't care about him but this nanny did and he became a guy that brought freedom basically to all of europe. so you can do things that aren't political but have huge political ramifications. host: jerry is on the line for democrats. how are you? guest: i'm fine, thank you.

host: why are you still referring to women as gals? guest: gals, i don't remember saying gals. it's an slang term for women. why do you ask? >> because you're supposed to be an intelligent man and you're still referring to women as gals. guest: well, i don't think that's a reflection to somebody's training or intelligence. what's your point? host: i think we lost the call. we're going to gregg in washington d.c. good morning. >> good morning. i just wanted to make a point and many people have that you might have scientific ignorance but the real issue is rape isn't a scientific question. it's something that can't be defined scientific. it's a social issue and deserves a social definition. so the objection is that you're calling somebody who

was raped -- you're ask whether or not someone has been raped in a social context. that's it. guest: gregg, i think you're getting a little finer. i didn't really follow all your reasoning. my point is i was connecting the idea with stress that with the stress that rape brings. there are rapes that are -- beating a dead horse a little bit, john. the real question is does that life, does the person that's conceived in rape have the same right to life. you know, that's a tough ethical question. i know it. this is a program where it was a got you, i'm going to try to get you to say something and i would have been better to say rape instead of trying to define it

more precisely. host: and todd akin talks about it in his book firing back. appreciate you joining us this morning. guest: john, thank you very much and best wishes to all your listeners. host: up next, crystal williams talks about capital hill. first, all weekend long on book tv and on american history tv, we look at the places and people that our c-span cities tour producers have looked at in 2014. we'll take you to jackson, mississippi where we go to the home of medgar evars to learn about his life and his death today at noon.