that really is what motivated me to be involved. that part. my husband and i had just moved into a rental home in february of 2009. we had come out of personal bankruptcy and lost everything. we decided after the bankruptcy, we were offered fannie or freddie money, i don't remember which it was, to bring us current in our mortgage. we realized we had a house that we could no longer afford and it wasn't right for our neighbors to be paying for a house that we couldn't afford with their tax dollars. we wound up losing our house as well as everything else, moved into a rental home and were starting over. >> how did you go bankrupt? >> it was related to issues with personal guarantees. >> what was the business? >> temporary staffing.

>> in other words, recruiter type? >> it was for warehouses and factories. >> what were you doing when he was in business? >> initially, i used to work for -- do programming. i am a complete and total geek. i like politics and computers and technology. i programmed for home depot and was a project manager. i left corporate america as we went to fertility treatments. at the time that we were going through bankruptcy, i was a stay-at-home mom. >> fertility treatments? >> we ran into issues like many couples do when trying to get pregnant. we had to have some assistance. it worked out ok. we have twins now. >> i have heard this so often, fertility treatments often end

up with twins? >> they increase ovulation so sometimes there is more than one egg. i wanted to have twins so i could not have been more pleased. i found out a week into the pregnancy that i was pregnant with two. >> when do you remember having your first political thought? >> wow. i think really my first political thought was when i was nine or 10 years old during the hostage crisis in iran. i was from georgia and jimmy carter was our president at the time. i remember watching the news and hearing about that and asking my father questions. he answered my questions instead of treating me like a child and blowing off my questions. he went into a lot of detail. i just kept watching the news and asking more questions. i started paying attention to elections and current evidence throughout high school. once you get that political bug

in your body, it is hard to let it go. >> what were your mom and dad doing when you were nine years old? >> my father is still a methodist minister. he was a methodist minister and my mom was a stay-at-home mom, very active in pta. >> how many kids in the family? >> i am the oldest of four. >> how would you define the way you were raised? give me some things that happened that made the difference to you. >> wow. i grew up in the church. literally in the church. we lived in a parsonage that the church owned. we moved a few times in my childhood. not as often as some ministers children and certainly not as often as military kids, but several times. i grew up in atlanta and a smaller city in northwest georgia.

a lot of the experiences i had during that time impacted me. in atlanta, i was in a really large school and larger high schools. then i moved to rome and it was a much smaller school. i got the experience of a large metropolitan area and a smaller city. >> which do you prefer? >> the larger metropolitan area. there is a little bit more anonymity. in a smaller city, everyone knows you and everything you do. >> you graduated from high school what year? >> 1988. >> then where did you go? >> i went first to reinhardt college in georgia. then i went on and graduated from the university of georgia. i had bba in mis management information systems and started programming computers after graduating from college.

>> where did you meet your husband? >> at reinhardt college. >> what were the circumstances? >> we both were freshmen together. reinhardt, you lived on campus, so we lived on campus and it was a small school. you knew everybody. we just got to know each other and were pretty good friends and started dating about a month before the kindness of our sophomore year. we got engaged while we were seniors in college. >> what was it like to go bankrupt? >> it was -- it is a little bit of a scary process. you don't know exactly what is going to happen.

i remember exactly where i was when my husband said he was going to have to shut his business down. we had discussed that if he did that, the cash flow would stop and the money borrowing that was going on would stop as well, but it forced us to have to file for bankruptcy. it was on father's day in 2007, i believe. we were on our way to brunch. he said that he was going to have to close the business. at that point, i knew we were kind of headed that way. i actually had a miscarriage. in about a two-month span, i got pregnant, had a miscarriage, close the business and realized we were going to be filing for bankruptcy. it was a very, very stressful period in our lives. we focused on what was good. we focused on what we could do. we realized -- especially because of the upbringing i had, i knew the material things are not everything. it is relationships and family and our children that were more

important. >> were you ever out of money? >> when we first close of the business, we had enough to get by for a while. but by the summer of 2008, we still did not have enough money together that we could actually file for bankruptcy. it took us until october of that year to have enough to file for bankruptcy. because we were dealing with so much from his business, it wasn't just a simple bankruptcy. there were a lot of things that we had to deal with and we needed to make sure we had the proper legal representation. we got to a point where it was in the middle of the recession, he was looking for additional work, there wasn't a lot of work to be found. we were watching neighbors in our community losing their homes.

we realized we were looking at the same prospect. we wound up starting to clean our neighbors' homes and repair computers. i remember sitting down and i said, we have got cleaning supplies, we have a copy machine, we have blank paper and we know how to repair computers. why don't we put a flyer together? we did that and put flyers around our neighborhood and got some business that way, so that we would have enough money to pay for utilities and food. at that point, what we were looking for was enough money to pay for utilities and food and keep the basic necessities under control. >> what kind of money were you making cleaning houses? >> we would make between $75 and

$100 a house. it took a few hours to clean a house. >> what did you think about then? >> i just thought, you have to sometimes roll up your sleeves and do what it takes to make ends meet. i wanted to make sure i was setting an example for my children. you don't look at difficult circumstances and think, woe is me and have a pity party. you have a little pity party but then you get over that and get to work and figure out what is it that i can do and how can i move onto the next thing. >> what were you thinking about, the cause of all this? how much of it did you blame on yourself or on outsiders? >> i had a very good friend -- you know you have a good friend who can be honest with you and tell you things that you may not

even be ready to hear. right as we were closing the business, he was also going through some financial crisis of his own. at first he said, here is the thing, lee went into business, he chose to do that. you chose to support him. at the end of the day, you have to accept responsibility for it. you have to be able to accept that responsibility because then you can move past this. you don't want to stay in a place where you are angry or frustrated. that is what i needed to hear. it is easy to go back and point blame at other people but at the end of the day, i supported him when he made the decision of starting a business. >> and the marriage survived all that? how many years? >> we have been married for 22 years.

>> and the kids are 11. we have to get into the tea party. i am going to jump to a speech you made a couple months ago at the western conservative summit. here you are several years later in front of the public. >> unfortunately, those in washington are responding to the border crisis in the way they always do. grow the bureaucracy, concentrate more power in washington, commission studies rather than taking action, and spend more of our hard-earned

tax dollars. the bank bailouts were used to pay off special interests. the $3.7 billion border bailout rewards the president's allies, filled the centralized bureaucracy and concentrates more power in the hands of the government. we would be opposed to it even if it were free. we don't need it, we don't want it, we oppose it. no border bailout. bailout. [applause] >> how did you get there? and what was that conference? >> that was the western conservative conference in denver. it is a conference that he party patriots sponsored for the last two years. there are a couple thousand people that attend and it is a really good event. i was excited to be able to speak again this year. and what was that conference? >> that was the western the tea party patriots are literally just coming from being down on the border in texas. we are doing a documentary right now on the border states of

america. our documentary team was down on the border, meeting with sheriff's and local residents, ranchers, and interviewing them and finding out what is going on on the border. what is the crisis that we are hearing about with the unaccompanied minors? i came back from that and it is all i could think about. i was calling everyone on our team and i said, i have to talk about this and make sure people understand what is going on on our border. there are american citizens who own property, some of them for generations, and their homes are being vandalized. they have crime happening in their backyard. this is not what we should be seeing happen in our country. >> how did tea party patriots start and how does that fit into the whole tea party movement? >> tea party patriots started in

large part because we had an out-of-control debt and our government is overspending and we have so much debt in america right now. it started in large part based on economic issues. we wanted to make sure we have more personal freedom, economic freedom and a debt-free future. when it comes to the border, part of the way you have personal freedom in america is that you obey the law. for a country to have laws, that means you have to respect the constitution. you have to respect the laws that are in place. we are not seeing that happen on the border. last year, in 2013 when the senate was pushing the gang of eight bill, the tea party patriots had been very much opposed to obama care, a bill that moved through without many committee hearings and was pushed through even though the majority of americans did not want that to happen.

we watched the same thing start to happen with the gang of eight bill. it was this massive bill. we were hearing reports that it would be over 1000 pages. senators had not read the bill. they were trying to rush it through. it took a little longer in the senate than planned. it would increase our cost, we would have more costs associated with it. it was a bill that was not being read. it was a bill that was not respecting our constitution. we realize that if we were opposed to obama care on those principles alone, we had to be opposed to this bill. >> who would be the most surprised that you are in front of a crowd like this and helped organize the tea party patriots? your father, mother, teachers? is this where you were headed

all along? >> i am not sure of the answer to that. in some ways, i am because i never set out to be a public speaker or to run a national organization with politics. at other times, i think there are many things along the way that led to where i am. i have been in front of audiences and church congregations and done public speaking in some form my entire life. >> did your dad ever had you get up in front of the church? >> i did speak in front of the church from time to time. not so much my dad was putting me there, but as part of the youth group or whatever i would have along with other teenagers in the church. then, when i get involved in an activity, i mentioned earlier that i went through fertility treatment. we joined a fertility support

group in georgia. i wound up becoming the state president for that. i tend when i get involved in things to take on leadership roles. >> is there an office for the tea party patriots somewhere? >> we do have an office outside atlanta. we have about 11 people who work in that office. we have a few other employees around the country who work out of their homes. most of the staff, except for the people who do most of our programming and technology work, travel a good bit of the time. we go around the country, meet with local groups, meet with leaders in the community, and we do everything we can to support the local groups around the country. >> you were talking about how you were tweeting friends after the santelli rant on cnbc.

were you watching it? >> i did not watch it live. i heard about the rant going in between houses as we were cleaning houses. i heard it on talk radio. i don't remember if it was rush limbaugh or sean hannity. i started tweeting from my phone. i got e-mails about it. i was involved with two groups online that started right after the election in 2008. one was top conservatives on twitter and the other was smart politics. those groups laid the digital foundation for us to organize. that is what i did. i didn't start this group. i participated in them. as the tea party started and we were on that first conference call, i started volunteering to do things. >> are they still alive? >> people still use that.

it is one of the most followed tags on the center-right, to let people know that this tweet is something people should care about. smartphone politics, they just had a conference in atlanta a few weeks ago. we sponsor their evidence. the ladies who started that are friends of mine. >> what does it do? >> they focus primarily on conservative women and encouraging conservative women to get involved in the political process. >> you spoke at a rally in 2013 about the irs targeting conservative groups. here is a little bit of that. >> patriots, you are making a

difference and it shows. [applause] if we were not a force to be reckoned with, the ruling elite wouldn't have turned a blind eye and ignored us. instead, they transformed the irs into an agency that many people fear more than death, into a weapon against us. they used that weapon to set their sights on us, the people of america, because we want a better america. >> what is a patriot? >> someone who loves our country. it doesn't matter what your political beliefs are. >> do you think there are people in the united states that don't love their country? >> i hope there are not. we probably have one of the most patriotic countries, if not the most patriotic in the world.

one thing about americans is that people want to be free. we appreciate our freedom and we love the fact that we live here where we can be free. >> what is the ruling elite? >> the people in washington or in positions of power, whether they are elected or bureaucrats, who act as if they are better than the rest of us. as if the rules somehow don't apply to them. if people do have power, whether it is positions of power because they are elected to office and they use that power to better themselves, even if they are not doing right for the rest of the country. >> how can you tell when somebody thinks they are better than you are? >> it is not as much when they think they are better than us, it is when they are abusing

their power and the trust that is given to them. when you work for the government in america, we typically think of those people as public servants. what we saw with the irs, these were not people who were serving the public. they were serving their own agenda and political ideology. they have taken their position of power and used it and abused it against people who had the audacity to disagree with their political beliefs. >> you gave us an example of where the irs abused their power? >> what happened to tea party patriots, what we learned from the inspector general is that the irs targeted groups, something with the names tea party or patriots, they targeted groups whose mission statement said they wanted to make america better. the way that the targeting

happened was that we were applying for a tax status through the irs. when you bring in money, you have to report that in some way. we were doing what we could to obey the law that the irs laid out. we applied for a tax status. prior to 2009, groups could receive their tax status usually within three to four months. when the targeting began, they just delayed and delayed and then started asking all sorts of invasive questions. and questions that were not germane to the process. it took our organization three years to get its tax status. in 2009, it took three months. >> did people show up and talk to you from the irs? >> they did not. largely, in 2011, we hardly heard anything at all. it was radio silence. even in that silence, that was part of the targeting. we couldn't act.

we were applying for two different statuses and one of the statuses, if a person made a donation, they would get a write off on their taxes. 501-c-3. we couldn't even collect money because we didn't know if we were going to collect our tax status. people wouldn't want to donate if they had no clue how it would affect their personal taxes. there were ramifications and dominoes that would fall just by not doing anything. in 2012, we got a lot of questions that required banker boxes full of printed material to send back to the irs. based on those responses, they gave us even more questions. the questions they were asking were out of the box that they should have asked. the cause of the responses we gave, they asked even more.

>> were you functioning as an organization waiting for the tax status? >> for the one where if you donate, you don't get a tax reduction, we were functioning as a 501-c-4 and we were able to raise money. the one that is tea party patriots foundation, that would be a 501-c-3, we did do a summit in 2011. after that summit, we couldn't do anything else. the delay was so long. we did not feel -- we didn't have confidence -- we had confidence that something was going on that was improper and wrong but we did not have confidence in how it would be resolved. because of that, we didn't think we could take money until we knew the resolution. >> the 501-c-3, we sound like we

are getting into the weeds from time to time. the 3 and 4, one can be political, one can't be political. churches are often 501-c-3's and pulpits are often used in politics. is this a charade of the conservatives and liberals to have these foundations and have both a 3 and 4 side-by-side in the same building? >> it is not a charade. there are certain rules that have been in place since a decade before man landed on the moon. they worked the way they were supposed to work on till the irs decided to start targeting us in 2010. they have been in place for years before i was even born. as far as whether this is how it should be after what i have seen, i personally think that we

are dealing with irs regulations that are tens of thousands of pages long, there is no way that a single person can read that much less know every single regulation. i have come to the decision and the conclusion that it is time that we get rid of all that, have a simple, fair, flat tax code that is the same for everyone, and that we reduce all of these regulations so people know whether they are obeying the law or not. >> when keith olbermann was on msnbc, he had some strong things to say about the tea party. i want to get your response. >> look at who is leading uny and look past the self justifications and see the fear, this unspoken, unnecessary fear of those who are different. if you believe there is merit to

your argument, fine, but ask yourself when you go to a tea party rally and listen to a politician or commentator praise these things, is it just a coincidence that they are virtually segregated? ask yourself, where are the black faces? who am i marching with? what are we afraid of? if it really is only the president's policy and not his skin, ask yourself one final question, why are you surrounded by the largest crowd you will see in your life that consists of nothing but people who look exactly like you? >> did you hear that when he said it originally? >> i wonder if he is actually gone to a tea party event. we have coordinators who are not white. we have people in this movement who care about their country.

as long as we agree on the issues, we want more people to come into the tea party movement who agree with us on the issues. when we don't agree on the issues, we want to make sure we can talk to people and find the area of agreement. oftentimes, what we see happen in washington is, the political parties, the democrats and republicans, will find some way, some shiny object. in this case, what we saw is using racism as a shiny object. they will distract us and pit us against one another as americans. when you go and talk to americans, we see that americans don't want the country to the $17 trillion in debt. they are concerned about whether they will be able to keep their health insurance. they think it is outrageous that people in washington who work on

capitol hill are exempt from obamacare while we have to live under it. they are concerned about the border, even. we have huge areas of agreement. the politicians and the pundits often find a way to get us arguing with one another instead of focusing on the areas where we do agree. that is what we seek to do. >> go back to what mr. olbermann said. you hear this often from the critics. they think the tea party is racist. why do you think they are saying that and why do you think they don't participate? we have video of your rallies and there aren't many blacks there. should there be? >> they are certainly more than welcome to attend and i want them to attend. i think one reason that people are pointing this out is that when obamacare was being voted on, the weekend that it was for him and him and passed in

2010, americans did not want this bill. they did not want it to become a law. instead of focusing on that, we saw nancy pelosi and others in congress using racism as a reason why we didn't want it to pass, rather than the fact that we were concerned that washington might control our health care rather than our doctors. him and us making decisions about it. it was much easier to divide us as a people and as a nation rather than focus on the fact that we are united on so many different issues. >> how do you prove that you are not racist? i don't mean that you have to, but when you hear this, does it bother you? >> it does bother me. how do i prove it? i don't know how you prove that you are not something when you are not something. we have -- we do have people in

this movement who are black, who are hispanic, who are not white people. oftentimes, when we have these kind of comments, we ask them to respond rather than us responding. it is a bit easier for them to say this is crazy. we started this because we were tweeting. we were online and we had conference calls. i had no clue who these people were. i could generally tell if it was a man or a woman, but i didn't know the skin color. especially back in 2009, the avatars that were being used, the pictures on facebook and twitter, were cartoons. they were cartoons of people rather than real-life images. i didn't know the skin color. i knew that we cared about the issues. oftentimes, the people i am communicating with our through

-- that i am communicating with our through e-mail. it is about the issues. >> have you ever heard anybody around you that you have worked with say anything racial about our president? >> i have not. if i were to hear it, i would immediately stop it. but i haven't heard that. it isn't about the color of somebody's skin. i don't hear a lot of personal attacks either. for us, this is truly about the issues. we are concerned about our country. >> let me do one more of these and then we will move on. this is charlie rangle, congressman from new york city, the harlem area. here is what he said. [video clip] you suggested in the past, i

don't have the exact quote here, that the opposition to the president is partly race. >> i have been requested not to talk about that too much. i think the reason for it is that it is just too darn obvious. as to what it is all about. i think if you take a look and see which counties and which congressional districts, which areas of the united states had the most prejudice, it would be the slaveholding states. it would be the confederate states. it would be the states that fought the union, those that hated lincoln. if you look at it today, they changed parties. it used to be dixiecrats and they became the tea party. the love and affection of bracing -- the love and affection of embracing the confederate flag. then, your place of birth, a lot of attention was given to him. the fact that people can say, we

have to take our country back, and lawyers know, it is how did you say that in determining what you really meant. [video clip ends] your reaction? >> tim scott is a senator now from south carolina, the governor of south carolina, her parents were from india, they both consider themselves tea partiers. we have marco rubio who is a senator and allen west, a congressman from florida. herman cain ran for president. he is from atlanta. these are people who identify as tea party supporters and they are not white people. they are doing this and they identify themselves as tea party supporters because they agree with us. we want a country where there is more personal freedom, economic freedom, and a debt-free future.

>> where do you keep the confederate flag in your home? >> there is no confederate flag in my home. >> do you ever see somebody swinging a confederate flag? >> i have not seen that at any of the rallies i have been at. if there were, we would have the person remove it. if we didn't, we would surround them with signs. saying that they are not associated with us. >> what would you tell charlie rangel if he were sitting right here? >> come to a tea party event. >> you think he would? >> i doubt it but i would invite him. >> why don't you think he would go? >> he hasn't been yet. he is making accusations about us and judging us without getting to know us. >> have you ever been invited to a congressional black caucus meeting? >> i have not. >> would you expect to be? >> i don't know if i would expect to be or not. i have never really thought about that. >> what do you thing has happened in our society over the years about segregation? is it better today than it was

when you were young? you grew up in one of the states that he is accusing of being a slaveholding state. now it is tea party. >> about segregation, it wasn't -- we live in an integrated society, not a segregated society. certainly in atlanta, where martin luther king is from, i grew up as they were integrating, shortly after that began. martin luther king is from my hometown. he is from atlanta. i remember as a child and a young adult, we didn't look at skin color. we looked at the person. that is what martin luther king encouraged people to do. that is what his dream was about, that we live in a society where we are not looking at the color of people's skin. we are looking at the content of their character.

i tried to do that and to live my life that way because this man who was a martyr for the cause and for our country, he was from my hometown. i wanted to live up to the sacrifice he made. >> what do you think of the media coverage of the tea party? >> i think when it comes to media coverage, there are people who always agree and won't agree. when we are making a difference, we will get more attention from the media. i think that media coverage is very important and i don't really focus on getting frustrated if it isn't exactly what i may want to hear. we do everything that we can, and i appreciate it when journalists and people in the media treat us fairly, even if they don't agree with us. i also know that we live in a time where we can use social media, e-mail and technology to go around the media if we need to, at a much lower cost than

used to be available and get our message out another way. >> how important is rush limbaugh to your movement? ier?e a tea party o >> i would say rush limbaugh is a tea party or. he is important to the tea party movement and to conservatism. he helps get people excited about conservatism, start talking about it and thinking about it. on afternoon drivetime. i think he is important. i have never met him, i would love to, but i think he is important for conservatism. >> it surprised me when i saw this. i listen to all these talk shows. he talks about this guy named snerdly. at the western summit, smartly shows up and is on a panel. let's get your reaction about

what he has to say. [video clip] >> what we get is this full-fledged war on the tea party since almost day one. i have never seen in my life where you have a majority in an election that can flip the house -- the 2010 midterm elections were historic. there was a seat change. instead, what you have of actual seat changing politically, a backstop to what was going on with the obama administration, you have the republican leadership pretty much ignore the victory that was handed to them and squander what could have been a natural alliance with the tea party. [video clip ends] >> his real name is james

golden. how did you get him to come to the conference? >> to be clear, we sponsored the conference but we did not plan the conference. another group planned it. they arranged all of that. i met him for the first time last year at the conference. we were on a panel together during that time. he is one of us. he understands. he is conservative and he wants a country where there is more freedom and a debt-free future. especially when it comes to the debt-free future part, right after the elections of 2010 when there was this historic victory, the continuing resolution came up in early 2011, around february or march. the republicans promised to cut spending by i think $100 billion, $100 million, it was a fairly small amount compared to the entire budget. they couldn't even do that. their promise was a cut that

would equal to three pennies out of every dollar. it could not even do that much. they attacked us because they were holding them to the promises they made during the campaign. >> why couldn't they do it in your opinion? >> i think they did squander the opportunity they had. there was a political mandate shortly after that election. the election -- these people were very upset about obama care and concern about the government overspending. and the fact that the government kept bailing out big banks and spending money on taking care of their friends rather than looking at what was best for all of america. it is that ruling elite that we talk about. it is easier for the republicans to continue, and the democrats to continue the way they have been doing, rather than realizing that we have to

tighten our belts and do things differently. >> at this same conference, katie pavlic who runs townhall.com, she had something to say about what you are talking about. i want you to define something she said. [video clip] >> i think we have to take a serious look about where this fight on the right comes from. there isn't that big of a difference in washington right now between republicans and democrats. it is time for big government republicans to take a look at the way they are voting. and that they are really in bed with crony capitalism. [applause] it is really easy for people who have been in the senate or in congress for 30 years to poo-poo new ideas from the grassroots and say those ideas are not going to work. i don't think washington is working very well.

[video clip ends] >> crony capitalism, define it. >> it is corruption, making deals between the government and big business and big labor. >> illegal? >> clearly if they are making laws, then it is not illegal because they are passing new legislation. passing laws that benefit each of these big entities, where there are special deals and kickbacks for all the special interests, and yet the americans across the country, the taxpayers are stuck with the burden from it. we are looking at a situation where we are $17 trillion in debt. $58,000 for every single person in this country. that is how much i owe, how much you owe, how much each of our children of those -- how each of owes in debt.

we understand, as americans, go across the country, we understand that it is real money that will have to be paid back. we think the time is now. it is not fair to saddle our children with that debt. >> how much time do you spend on the tea party patriot organization? >> about 18, 19, 20 hours a day working. >> is it a full-time job? >> it is a passion. >> wikipedia says you make a lot of money. >> i do make money now. i am much better off than when i started. we have organizations that are growing. >> who determines what you get paid? you are the head of the whole organization. >> we have a board and they have salary reviews and compensation studies. they make the decision on that. >> are you the sole chief, the president? >> i am the president of tea party patriots and the chairman

of the political action committee. the tea party patriots citizens fund. >> again, who decides that? you put the list together. >> we had a board who elected me as president. there were four of us who started tea party patriots back in 2009. they voted for me to become the president. >> who were the other three? >> amy cramer, mark meckler and rob lapel. >> go back to the beginning again. how did you peace this thing -- ce this thingie together in the beginning? what were some of the nitty-gritty that we don't hear about? >> wow. we -- that first week of conference calls, we literally hung up the phone on friday night thinking there would be

five tea parties around the country. d.c., st. louis, atlanta, california and seattle. the reason we thought it would be in d.c. was, there was some scheduling around the sea pack as it was coming up. i believe also, chicago. maybe we thought there would be six. we wound up with 48 tea parties. as more and more people signed up, were entering their information, putting it on the website, making sure the people who signed up, that they knew what kind of agenda they had, talking points, i had never even been to a protest. the first atlanta tea party, it is pouring down rain, about 500 people showed up. in a weeks time, 500 people. there were business people with suits, dressed a bit like you are, holding umbrellas, and moms with their children. we didn't even know how to protest. there were a few people who had

signs. six weeks later, there were over 850 of the tax day tea parties. e-mails were coming in. my name and phone number and e-mail address was out as someone who would help get things organized. i remember going into the tax day tea parties. for three or four nights, i got maybe 90 minutes or two hours of sleep each night. it reminded me of when my twins were first born and there was no sleep at all. we just did everything we could to help those groups and make sure they were able to start and have a protest. there was so much energy. we wanted to make sure we took that moment in time and continued it. we kept in touch with the people. we continued to do conference calls. we helped them take a single event and turn it into a group and turn a group into something

that would affect legislation. >> how much money do you have to raise a year? >> we raise around $20 million with tea party patriots. i believe the super pac has raised over $10 million now in the last year. the way that we raise the money is through direct mail, telemarketing and e-mail. we had a very small handful of larger donors. anywhere from $10,000 up to around $250,000 donations. we haven't had many of those. >> i want to show you some video. can you tell me what the tea party news network is? >> it is another organization, they have an online website that interviews people.

>> here is somebody that you might recognize. i want to ask you about the things he says. [video clip] >> last week, you made some comments about the tea party. our site has probably called you a few other names. what made you motivated to say that comment? do you really stand by? >> i think the folks who push whatagenda should reassess they are trying to do. i understand how they feel. i think. they want us to save money, to make government smaller, but we have to also make government work. we need to get together and have it happen. you can still have your views about smaller government, but we need to get certain things done. the numbers coming out today on the economy, we have no government involvement in creating jobs. we need to do that.

[video clip ends] >> what do you think? >> when we are $17 trillion in debt and you are concerned about the numbers in the economy, maybe you should look at how you are spending. >> he says we have to make government work. >> and he has been in washington for a very long time. you would think that as an elected official, as a leader in the senate, that he would make government work. that is his job. he isn't making it work. >> he also says, a lot of days on the floor of the senate, it is the koch brothers that is really paying your bills. >> he clearly hasn't looked at our filings to see that it is not. >> what do you -- >> we have thousands of donors. our average donation was around $50. our donations come from tens of thousands of people across this country. >> do you step back in your own life, let's say, 30 years ago,

what are things that did not exist then that exist now that allow you to do what you are doing? how important was twitter? >> twitter was important but let's start with what was most important. the internet and the ability to communicate online. and to communicate instantaneously. i remember when i went to college, my best friend from high school, she and i used to proofread each other's hand written compositions. in college, i kept thinking, it would be so nice if i could send my paper over to jennifer and she could see this. there wasn't a way to do that in college. now, kids write it all online, they can type it and communication is much more seamless. >> 30 years ago, there were very few national talk shows. you point out that sean hannity came to one of your early rallies with his program.

>> he didn't actually speak at any of our events. in 2009, he broadcast his program separate, very much like the way news media -- >> but he promoted the idea that you were going to have a rally. >> he talked about it the same way the news media talks about a republican or democrat convention. >> i am getting at that these talk shows have played a role, haven't they? >> i -- played a role, yes, they play a role. the way a media plays a role in any event. when there is momentum happening and it seems like something is newsworthy, the news media picks it up and talks about it. in that respect, they were reporting the news. they were letting people know that the events were happening.

and they were there to talk about what happened at the events. >> what else is different 30 years later? the tools you have at your -- how about the credit card? how important is that to raising money? >> the credit card is important. i don't know -- i can't say what was happening with credit cards 30 years ago. it really goes to the ability to communicate online. i suppose you would be going back about 30 years, about the time the phone industry was deregulated and there was more competition among phone companies. they started having these new, innovative products. touchtone became much more used than dial-up -- not dial-up, but rotary dial. communication has changed so much.

>> what happened to your husband in this process? does he get back on his feet? >> he takes care of our children and still does computer repair. >> what is the impact of all this on your twins? >> they have been a part of this now for half their life. really, it is what they know. they know they have a mother who is sometimes on the news and does things that are a little bit different than other moms, but they know that i love them and care about them. they know that i am running a business and supporting the family and we live in this great country where we are able to do those things. >> what has changed the most in you during this period? >> i think at heart, things haven't changed.

i am the same person that i was. i have the skills and abilities that i have had and i have the passion for our country. i have gone through very difficult times and survived those times. i am concerned about the debt with our country because i lived through what happens when you have too much debt. i know what happens with that and i don't want to see that happen to our country. i think that i am stronger and i have also seen things happen and understand just how broken the system is in washington, how corrupt so much of what goes on. >> president of the tea party patriots, our guest has been jenny beth martin. thank you. >> thank you.

>> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q-and-a.org. "q&a" programs are also available as c-span podcasts. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> coming up next, your calls and comments live on "washington journal here co. live at 4:00 p.m. eastern, treasury secretary jack lew participate in a the economic effects of climate change. live at 5:30, cbs news chief washington correspondent bob schieffer moderates a discussion regarding isis and other terrorist groups. >> tonight on "the communicators," wade baker,

chief technology officer and communicator -- and communications officer on the home depot,target, and jpmorgan chase. >> we have worked with law enforcement agencies that have busted down doors. inhave also participated fairly large-scale arrests of multiple individuals who are highly connected together, well organized. they each have individual specialties and roles. someone writes malicious of these things, just like physical organized crime. there are others who definitely are working on behalf of the government. they have an office. there are pictures of it, there are recounts photos and all of that sort of thing. they go to that building. their job is to hack into buildings and steel on behalf of the government.

i have seen some photos of some eastern european towns, for just an, that were insane number of people who drive lamborghinis and things like this. a lot of that is the spam, the fake pharmaceuticals, the financial fraud, tax fraud, medicare fraud. it is staggering amounts of money that are at some point along that chain traced back to data that was stolen, stored at a corporation. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> is morning, washington examiner correspondent susan crabtree on homegrown isis threats. helton.eneral hugh sje;tp

as always, we will take your calls, and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter.