plus handling of the ebola cases in the u.s. we will take your calls and you can >> good morning. with 23 days to go before election day, our campaign coverage continues on c-span. we will have the arkansas senate debate this afternoon. we will have the last virginia senate the bait at 7:00. we'll have the kentucky senate debate at 8:30 p.m. we will begin with ebola. the dallas nurse is testing positive. f americanare rising

hospitals are prepared to deal with this. we have a fourth line for doctors and nurses. the you feel that the hospital or clinic you work at is able to respond to ebola? do you enjoy the conversation on a twitter. let's take a wiki front page of the "new york times." the cdc held a news conference yesterday. they talked about what happens now. >> there are four things we're

doing at this point. first, we want to make sure that we do everything possible to care for this individual. second, assessing her possible contacts from the moment she developed symptoms. the cdc team lead for the dallas investigation has interviewed her and it appears that at this time there were only one contact to may have had contact with her while she may have been infectious. of that individual is under active monitoring. third, we are evaluating other potential health care workers exposure. ,f this individual was exposed which they were, it is possible that others were exposed. we know that this individual did provide care to the index patient on the multiple occasions.

that care included extensive contact. fourth, we will undertake a complete investigation of how this may have occurred. that is so important so we can understand that are and intervene to prevent this from happening in the future. the head of the cdc there talking about what happens next after a dallas nurses tested positive. the cdc will give another update today at noon. we will cover it here on c-span. will hear again from the cdc director about what is next for preparing hospitals to deal with ebola. you heard the doctor speaking about an investigation. present obama called for that investigation yesterday. the "new york times" is saying this this morning.

our first color on this -- caller on this. caller: i believe they can handle it. media ishappens, the scaring the dickens out of the american public. i remember when this country had a president who said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

fear, let'ssoning not give way to blind unreasoning fear. have a great day. host: what gives you confidence? my late wife was up at the cleveland clinic in 2012. they did a wonderful job. she had deterioration of the lower spine. the had some wonderful doctors. i wish in columbus we had a cleveland clinic. doctors, the only thing they don't do and i wish "u would cover this book the politics of cancer." do ising we need to educate the public, don't scare the be jabber's out of them.

the new york times has this article. that is from a piece in "the new yorker" magazine. confidencen is your toamerican hospitals ability respond to ebola.

we want to hear from nurses and doctors as well. we would go to maxine in new york. good morning. confidence is strong. this is the netted states. diedend that man home that when he had a 103 degree temperature and he was telling you he was in one of the african countries that had it? i think if you are a person of color you will die with it. i don't understand why he was allowed to die. i hope this nurse that treated him is white, if not she will die. host: gilbert is in alabama. thanks for c-span.

cdc.iggest problem is that victim, to blame the the nurse. a my vela scene the incompetence and this man? they had an interview with a guy out of minnesota. he said in his past time that the world health organization flightsquarantining the . we are on the verge of a pandemic. that the head of the cdc is an incompetent individual, this is our problem. i really let c-span allowing me to expose this guy. host: what about having some

sort of ebola czar? replace this man. he doesn't have a clue. the issue of having one person who is in charge was brought up by john mccain. he was on a state of the union. >> my constituents and not comforted. there must be more reassurance given to them. charge. know who is in there has to be some sort of star. i think we have to look at people coming into the added states, not just at our airports but the places where they leave from. there are not direct flights from africa. americans have to be reassured.

i don't think we are comforted by the fact that we were told there would never be a case of ebola in the united states and that is not correct. i was impressed by your panel. i would like to know who is in charge among other things. mccain on ar john cnn talking about having one person in charge of ebola in this country. we are getting your thoughts in the confidence level of u.s. hospitals to respond to ebola. the "new york times" has this headline.

it will cosponsored training for 5000 people, including nurses and environmental health care workers. this'll be streamed live to hospitals across the country.

that is from "the new york times" about what the cdc is doing. there will be another update from atlanta. we will hear from them again about what they are doing and what they plan to do to respond to ebola. christina is calling from alabama. go ahead. i like the shirt that you are wearing today. host: what is your confidence level? caller: very low. duncan's death should be training these health care workers more on the ebola situation. host: you don't think there has

been enough training? where should be done it? should the hospitals, these privately hospitals, should they be doing this? or the government? caller: both of them. host: john is calling from new jersey. good morning to you. stopr: i think we need to the flights from coming in. we are too politically correct. we need to have people running the government instead of empathetic people. we have a president who dislikes the army. and an attorney general the dislikes law enforcement. host: what about the hospitals? are you there question mark caller: they should be isolated. each hospital is not equipped red i wouldn't want my local hospital to be accepting ebola

patients if i have to go there. it is not an easy problem. we need to be tougher and things we do and not empathetic. host: let me ask you another thing about new jersey. this is a headline from the ."aily news it do the health apartment to crack down and put her and her team that was in a country, liberia, in a mandatory isolation. i just saw that this morning. it is appalling and shocking that someone of that intelligence and experience would disregard something. it is arrogant. host: what you think about

government? a texas judge had to do the same thing. the do you think about governments putting people in mandatory isolation or quarantines? --ler: we need our clinical political rights and we understand that. there are times when stupid people make mistakes. i am chagrined that they are blaming the victim. i don't know that she did anything wrong. the nurse in dallas. they told her what to do. it shows me that while we have to put out public comments and talk and say we've got it under fears, itd allay the is not always accurate.

you are always on your own. people have to understand that. the bottom line is you have to protect yourself and your family. angelaet's hear from the who is a doctor in texas. i work in a hospital. is your hospital prepared? caller: absolutely. they have done everything to make sure that this virus has not spread. they have made it the facilities are up to par. this information they are receiving from the media is just being over exaggerated. we have done everything to make sure that the patient's and the

nurses surrounding that patient is given the care and the compassion that they need. making sure. we are praying and making sure that they are covered. host: do you work at the hospital where these patients were? you work at that hospital? of rumorsere are lots and things running rampant. you have to always remain focused. remain centered. we are working toward the objectives. they are strategizing. that whataking sure needs to happen across dallas occurs. nurse.ell us about the what happened when thomas duncan came in?

he was sent home. a lot of media and our viewers are wondering about that as well. can you clear up any misinformation there? in,er: when he first came you get the form and you write on the form exactly what your ailments are. he tried to hide some of the facts. what was thet down cause of his reasoning for coming in. he came to the emergency room and thought he needed a quick shot. he did not give any specific details. doctors, we cannot assess a case unless we know thoroughly what that patient has arrived for.

we have a variety of methodologies that we need to take when a patient comes in. when he came in as a patient, he was not forthcoming. host: what about his travel history? caller: when he traveled before he got here to the united states, that was taken care of before they did the testing before he left. flight, het on the had another agenda. what about the nurses? do they feel they have enough tech gear to deal with any bola patient? how did this nurse contracted? caller: that is a rumor. there is no truth to that.

never directly interacted with him. how did she test positive for ebola? caller: there were no bodily fluids. this is an over exaggeration. how are they going to have sex? host: let's move on to carl. ebola has been well-known in act for go for 40 years. the two doctors that supposedly .ad it were miraculously cured way.'t see other trackrite a $20 billion

-- check from the treasury and vote for democrats on the election. ebola will disappear the day that 20 billion dollar check is written by obama. there is no other way. up.a is being built we have no idea people are dying. epidemic in this people were three bought here by the government itself for treatment when there is no cure. they are locked in a nice hospital room. build a lot of hospitals in africa and save us the trouble of bringing them here. host: that is carl a republican. caller: good morning. inthing is that john called and he was blaming the president and the attorney general.

we should get a surgeon general that can speak for all of us. have different't conversations all the time could we need a surgeon general. we need to get a surgeon general. they need to relay that information to john mccain. here are some headlines from local newspapers about whether or not their hospitals are prepared to deal with ebola. this is the "des moines register." then you have the "baltimore sun." then you also have the "los saying that out of california. idea of whatu some the local newspapers are reporting on this.

is your confidence level in hospitals to respond to ebola now that hair has been this dallas nurse who treated thomas duncan. she tested positive for ebola. congressionalthe part of this. lastis a headline from wednesday.

richard blumenthal from a connecticut is tweeting this out. that was senator blumenthal. there is a picture of it right there. it would help health officials care for any bola patient and have that plastic containment area around the patient themselves. senators are putting out there on twitter what they think

companies in their states could be doing to help with this situation. we have an independent color in new york. caller: good morning. we have little knowledge of how this virus has evolved in africa. it can go to any part of africa. to worry only about west africa is missing the big take your. it is going to be all over africa. how it can be easily transmitted. -- thised states has to

is a problem that is not going to go. even the hospitals cannot handle it. imagine what poor hospitals in africa would be overwhelmed. we need to work with the international community. i don't see other countries coming to the plate. where is china? host: tom is in dayton, ohio. caller: it concerns me a little bit. said that the rights of the many outweigh the rights of the few. i think maybe should put a quarantine on flights coming in. it makes no sense to me to fly sick people all over the world when we could contain in one area. hospital,ople to the

flu season is coming. we need to take that $212 million and build in america. we can keep them in certain areas. host: do you think that the cdc if somebody comes in to a hospital that is not prepared or does not specialize in dealing with this situation, they should be transferred to a different hospital? caller: there should be certain places that that is all they are working with. i do know if the cdc is in every hospital. they say continue traveling. it makes no sense to me at all. four hospitals in the

united states those with four hospitals in the united states that specialize in this type of care.

the "wall street journal" says that screen began at jfk airport in new york. by the way, nurses groups and complaining that they don't feel they are adequately

trained and have the right equipment to treat ebola patients. unitetional nurses continued to sound the alarm and call for hazardous material suits and all hospitals. that is what that unit would like see happen. let's go to tom. thank you for c-span. i've been listening to a lot of this on different news programs. if mr. duncand had insurance or not. they sent him home. in my experience, if you don't have insurance at the hospital, they get you in and get you out. they don't want to incur any

costs. host: i haven't seen that story either. hi brenda. we as americans, ever since this present has come in office, we have not been able to come together around anything. outbreak of an infectious disease and we are bickering over if it's obama's fault and what he needs to do while we have congress sitting allome making money off of of this and will not do their job. we are in a crisis. they have cut off funding. they are threatening again to shut the government down. congress and why do we

keep voting for these people who keep spreading fear and won't do any of their jobs? "ost: the "washington post has this headline. we are getting your thoughts on your confidence level. phone lines are open. we have met 15 minutes left it your thoughts. start dialing in now. i would do some of the news this morning. that is on isis. this is the front page of the "wall street journal." militants are advancing.

then the latest from turkey. this is a breakthrough after negotiations between turkey and the united states. the front page of "the washington times" has the headline. the investigation into bowe bergdahl. the review is done and the

results will not be released to the media anytime soon. part of this investigation found that the administration was deemed in violation of the law by a watchdog for not notifying congress of the prisoner swap. those are some of the headlines this morning. we will be covering many more debates on c-span. congressfor control of and the states. covering this afternoon the arkansas senate debate and night we have the virginia senate debate. that is the final one in that state. be able to watch the kentucky senate debate. all of that on c-span. c-span.org foro more coverage.

this is from the "washington st" this morning. these of the top spending groups in this election cycle. this is the pac for harry reid. they are spending the most so far. leader ofn with the that organization. this is a little bit about how they spend the money. be throttlingwill in michigan.nding states.the it looks like there could be something going on in south dakota. it is probably going to be those six states.

let's get to south dakota. it's a crazy situation. s'morere going to gauge data. in makingurselves efficient choices based on data. we will go in c that there could be a path for us. people had written off. here we are through a set and it seems to be tightening up. that is what we are doing now. we are gathering the research. i assume in the next five days or so we will be making what he isons we make. host: the campaign director for the senate majority pack group. if you missed it and want to watch it, you can go to our

website and you can find newsmakers on there. we are getting your confidence level in u.s. hospitals to respond to ebola. mike is in a salem. caller: this is a good example of why we need universal health care. i have a lot of confidence and we will be able to stop ebola byause it is contracted bodily fluids of some type. if we have a future pandemic that is airborne and we are sending these patients home because it of have insurance, that is a danger to our whole society. universal health care is what is going to stop this. host: john is in maryland. good morning to you. confidenceave 100% in our hospital system. i am in the hospital now because of an infection.

isolated.n i feel that the hospital system is not the problem. tsa and the laws that we have about incoming immigration and people who are coming from. this is not a racial thing. i am married to a filipino. -- our government needs to be stricter about how we screen people coming in. especially the immigrants coming from over the borders. way, "usa today" has this on their opinion page.

we've heard this from our viewers as well. the u.k. has canceled direct flights from sierra leone. that is from "the guardian haircut we are getting your confidence level in u.s. hospitals to deal with the outbreak of ebola in west africa and then the first transmitted case here in the united states. usa today."m " . they did a survey and found that 80% of public health officials

said government agencies like the cdc have helped with preparation. state officials were providing that aid. roseig inconsistency that was the screening process. officials say they were improving screening. others mentioned updating computerized screening tools. that is from "usa today." u.s. is resisting calls for wider ebola testing. officials fear that if you were ,o test more people for ebola that could raise more false positives and lead to more panic. also, we want to give he some headlines out of africa. this is from liberia.

some of the teams sent to retrieve bodies are collecting cash instead. they are accepting bribes. "the wall street journal" has this headline. that is an liberia from "the wall street journal." your confidence level in u.s. hospitals being able to respond? i think the president

can do something to encourage ,ospitals to provide training not just to the nurses and doctors, but to all the staff. that isjust training online or in an e-mail. person-to-person that training. i think it would be great if the president gave a speech to the public or to the hospitals. what he has been saying is that everything is going to be ok. and wehave this death know it is going to spread here. lot.nk there is a i disagree with the woman who says that people are trying to blame everything on the president. i don't think that is the case here at i figured be great if

the president would step up. what kind of relationship does the president have with the hospitals? the cdc will be but giving a briefing at noon today. they are also going to do a conference call with thousands of health officials tuesday so people can connecting with the cdc through that about guidelines. at these numbers. this is from gallup. 26% said they are confident. 35% said somewhat. 20% said not to confident. seven cap -- 17% said not

confident at all. .onfidence kenneth is in florida. i am concerned about the way we are trying to isolate and trace individual cases rather than going to the source of infection which is mount l gone between uganda and kenya. africa have traced .t to that particular location this disease is traveled the same way from the aids highway. it goes across africa. people get the disease and they travel on the highway and they

spread out. our is why it is getting resources and go there and isolate the cause of the actual ebola virus. patient at the va hospital here in tampa. in, i had an infectious problem. i contracted a virus myself which made me stay in for 10 more days. they finally got it under control. it took 10 days of strong antibiotics. that is what you don't want to do. i do think the hospital here is ready for ebola. i'm sure i speak for others. just usingd about us our resources on individual cases. debbie is in ohio. nobody should be allowed

in this country. canada has already shut down their borders. they won't let us in. they won't let us in their borders. .e have no leadership that's all they want to do. they are not protecting america. believe it there. we will talk with matt kibbe from freedom works. later, we will take a look at court rulings on voter id laws and early voting. first, take a look at the headline from "the detroit free press" this morning.

this is from the michigan governors debate we covered last night. they talked about the recent decision to refuse to hear same-sex marriage cases out of several states. this is what they had to say. >> there are separate offices. we have a choice. i will wait for the opinion to come down. i will respect the happens in our court system. >> where you stand on the issue? >> i am waiting on the outcome of the courts. >> i think the voters deserve to know or the governor will stand on tough issues. you may not agree with me. you may not agree with me on marriage equality or any discrimination against people based on who they love. discrimination will lay no part in my office as governor. statement made you believe that he has no position. this governor through his own

legislature banned domestic part or benefits for gay and lesbian state employees. his tough choices are tough on the wrong people. i support marriage equality. opened hermate office to marry same-sex couples. it is not only the right thing to do, it is an economic issue in our state to discriminate against people, talented people we need to rebuild detroit and our communities. i have talked to parents to have adult children who are professionals and live in other states who won't come here because we have backwards policies. you have appealed the decision. you are opposing marriage equality in michigan and i disagree. >> congressman?

a little bit from the michigan governors debate last night. we are bringing more than 100 debates and we continue that tonight at 8:00 with the kentucky senate race between allisonconnell and grimes. about thel be talking campaign with matt kibbe. he will talk about the tea party in the selection cycle. where are you guys playing with the election cycle? guest: the big goal is the senate to replace harry reid with a republican majority. the other half of the puzzle is the makeup of the house and senate. i think one of the underreported

stories in the cycle is what is happening in the house races. size going to double in after the 2014 election. we are looking at places where you can make a difference. one of my favorite candidates is in washington state. what is the liberty caucus? guest: it is the libertarian wing of the gop. they are focused on economics and reining in the size of government. they also care about civil liberties issues. the liberty caucus is representative of that perspective. it is the rand paul wing of the republican party. i think the liberty caucus is broader. i think the evolution of the tea party since 2009 has really morphed into something that is

bigger and broader and more local. think about the ron paul movement. fiscal and constitutional conservatives. host: you set a goal in a 2010. quote recently. the goal remains the same for freedom works. he keeps his eye on that goal. this is not a junior partnership. this is a hostile takeover of it. i think the parties have been captured by washington, d.c. interest. job is to replace the old goals with young fiscal conservatives that are coming to washington to reform problem's. if you look at the makeup of the senate and the house, its

historically unprecedented to have a rand paul and a mike lee and a ted cruz and a jeff flake blockmarco rubio that fiscal conservatives. all policy change happens at the margin. we are repopulating the republican party and the conversation fault from that. host: are you trying to get lit of the -- rid of the leadership? guest: it depends. supported others. it is a numbers game. it is a question of seasoning. you have to have replacements for whoever the leader is. we have not gotten there yet. host: what about in the senate?

republicans take care of the senate, would you be behind mitch mcconnell as majority leader? guest: i think it's a moot point. he will be the majority leader. host: why is it a moot point? do you see any other text within the senate? fail: if mcconnell were to to take the majority, everything would be up for grabs and it would be chaos and you would see someone like ron johnson or emerge like marco rubio as an alternative to mcconnell. thatof them would suggest they are willing to do that today. the landscape today makes it so that mcconnell wins if republicans win. host: if the reverse happens and the republicans do not control the senate, to ca challenge to his leadership? guest: i think that would be a

logical follow-through. it is been a lackluster performance in this election. that sounds counterintuitive -- thingt says that should not be as close as they are. host: let's take a look at this headline from fox news. are you playing with the establishment republican party in where they put money? activistsssroots decide where they are going to fight. of different goals in the primaries. the goal is to replace democrats in red states that voted for obama care with republicans. that is what is happening right now. the question that is most interesting is what would republicans do with the majority?

obamas the alternative to care? how are they going to balance the budget? those are still? ' questions. host: what do you want to see happen? seet: i would like to somebody be a standardbearer for that alternative to obamacare. in this cycletion in that he is been willing to talk specifics. he has acknowledged it is not just to repeal obama care. now that so much chaos has been , republic is the to come up with an alternative. they need to put it on the republican's desk. host: what about physical battles russian mark \ guest: i don't know what they are going to do.

nextthink that the republican nominee for president needs that plan. he is going to be asked about it. $17 trillion in a national debt is not acceptable in a presidential year when it is not enough to turn up the republican base. you have to grow the community. rand paul is doing some innovative things reaching out to new constituents. what about the continuing resolution? back, this runs out. them: i would like to see come up with real spending cuts and stand up to the present. problem for house republicans is they broadcast far and wide their unwillingness to fight over the budget. that gives the democrats a great deal of negotiating power.

if republicans take the senate, they will not roll over for harry reid. we will wait and see. we will be pushing for actual savings. as we add on all of these emergency spending programs that they always add on. host: do you want to see sequestration stay? guest: deathly. that is the only thing that they have accomplished. it is a small haircut on total spending. it is a small reduction in the growth of spending. evil -- even do that, what is the goal? how you get to a balanced budget? it has to be a combination of growth and restraint. this is the promise they made going back to 2010. we are talking about the

campaign. the phone lines are open. you can start dialing in. you can also send us a tweet or e-mail. about emergency spending. there is a stilley -- story in the paper about holding up money to fight ebola. do you agree with that decision? even when you have a nurse in this country who seems to have contracted ebola by trying to deal with a patient in dallas. guest: what's frustrating about the process is we always face challenges that are unexpected. these are things that need to be funded that we did not know about.

why isn't that built into the process? why do we spend more money than we have and when there is a crisis we add on to that? i agree with senator vitter. at a cat should come from existing funds. theuld also suggest that natural proclivity to simply give a failing agency more money because they failed as a frustrating aspect of washington. host: the cdc has failed? test: it failed the first which was isolation. they let these patients back into the country. that -- we should take that seriously. you will find these numbers. .ontributions made

what does that mean? what you doing with that? dwoip that's one of the organizations that fits under the freedom works banner. ours is different because we typically don't do the tv ad buys that say karl rove's american crossroads with you. our job is to provide the tools and resources that activists ask for in order to get out the vote on the ground. so typically that means yard signs, it means a lot of social media, connecting people with each other, it means door hangers and also just training on how to have an impact because remember most of the members in my organization are new to politics. they haven't been seasoned political pros so they're trying to figure out how to have an impaket in the election cycle.

given the treatment leading up superpack is type of might have an increased importance to activists because they're afraid. they're trying to comply with the laws. they don't quite understand the complexity of campaign finance. i think the system's designed this way. host: so they can donate without being disclosed? guest: no, no, it is disclosed and we have close to 80,000 individual donors that have contributed in this cycle. host: and average donation? guest: i don't know ha it is but it's low, it's about $25. host: is that where you get most of your donation? guest: certainly from our super pack. we have about a hundred thousand individual owners and there are some larger ones in there but the average gift is declining every year because of the internet. the same reason that rande paul

is a senator is the basis for freedom works funding. host: let's get to phone calls. independent caller from new jersey. bill, go ahead. caller: thank you, good morning. the question i'd like to ask you is this. when the tea party came onto the scene, they were about spending and fiscal issues. you guys wore funny hats but you were harmless. but from that point you joined with second amendment groups and evangelical groups and moved into social issues. why did you move there and why didn't you just stick to fiscal issues, because once you moved on i think you lost all credibility. guest: yeah, i think i think that's a great question. i think that's a bit of a mythology about the tea party. keep in mind we surveyed our six and a half million members on a regular basis, and i can tell you that a lot of people care about social issues but the issues that motivate our folks

are very much fiscal. very much civil liberties. i was looking at this survey this morning actually that a professor had done of our membership, and questions like gay marriage and abortion barely show up on the radar screens of our activists. i think the reason that we're characterized as social conservatives is that's the strawman that the left can attack. they can't attack citizens that would actually like the government to stay out of their health care, would like the government to balance its own books. would like to get that individual liberty back into the political equation, and we're worried that neither party really represents that. that doesn't mean that social issues aren't important. it means that politics is a horrible way to manage really important social institutions. it's push and pull, it's dependent on special interests. i would suggest that social issues belong in church, they belong in your synagogue. it's a question between you and

your pastor, not your congressman or senator. host: to wayne in chicago. democratic caller. hi wane. caller: this amazes me how people like they come on the air and try and act like there's some grand organization. it's nothing more than -- host: wayne, i'm going to have matt respond to that. guest: we've sever received a penny from the coke brothers since the founding of freedom works in 2003. this is one of those talking points that the left is trying to use. they're trying to make it all about the coke brothers. i'm not sure it's working but as i said earlier, our support is very broad based. it's actually primarily grassroots funded and that's the way we like it.

host: do you agree with the coke brothers and the americas for prosperity do you agree with their agenda? guest: yeah, there's a lot of overlap where i would stand philosophically and charles coke. i love the fact they're offering a counter balance to big money coming from the crowd on the left. money is in politics. corporations show up in politics, they show up on both sides and this idea that you shouldn't have individuals spend their money in the political process, i think actually undermines the purpose of democracy. host: 23 days to go before november 4. where have you decided to change gears? what races and decide we're not going to play here anymore we need to shift over to this state? guest: i think the senate races that we're most interested in are places like iowa. a lot of the senate races are close, shifting a lot of

resources right now i'm not sure makes a lot of sense. the opportunities might be in some of the house races. neck and neck with an establishment republican, i think that one's really important. i think a number of other races, let's say marilyn garcia is still competitive, she seems to be trending in new hampshire. that's an important race. what the house does as the originator of the budget, as the originator of key legislation is very important coming out. but, i would argue that it's about turn out in this cycle. i wouldn't count any senate race in the republican column. it's trending republican but anything goes. host: what do you make of the republicans having to defend seats in kentucky, georgia, kansas? guest: yeah, i think that's sort of proves a point that the tea party has been making for several cycles now. just because you have 34 years of experience doesn't mean that

that makes you a competitive candidate in the general election. pat roberts actually has had trouble because he really lives in washington, d.c. and not kansas. the american people are rightly ready to turn over the old generation and bring in new blood. i think that's a very rational response. i also think that it's frustrating for those of us that are focused on these feats of the margin that mitch mcconnell spend about $40 million plus in kentucky, which is a remarkable amount of money. why are we spending money in kansas, why would we have to spend money in georgia? that money should be spent at the margin to pick up seats. host: you think the republican party should cut them loose? guest: they should stand on their own, absolutely. host: we're covering that kentucky senate debate here on c-span. one that's closely watched. we'll go to colorado, republican caller. go ahead owen.

caller: good morning. i just wanted to say you know i've been a victim of reverse interolerance if you want to call it that. i was fired from my job because i said something i believed about gay marriage and they thought it was hate. all i did was express my feelings about the law of god you know. an attorney cannot use common law process because of his restriction, but a christian can demand can. without an attorney still use the process of pleading of common law. the substance required is found only in the law of god. any christian out there, just please don't pay your taxes this next year and you won't be paying into it. that would be great. host: all right. matt, don't pay your taxes? guest: the point that the caller raises is important. i love free speech, and i love push and pull of an open debate, this is why i like social media so much. i think that's more healthy than

someone deciding for you what's acceptable to say and what's not, and i find the modern progressive movement to be insanely intolerant of diversity of speech. that's frustrating to me. i don't think that's the american way of doing things. we should have these debates in the public square and everyone should be allowed to speak their mind and have if appropriate response. that doesn't happen so much anymore. it's frustrating. ost: here's a tweet. guest: those are two different issues. the health care is how to get services to people in an economically efficient way. i think everything that the government has done literally going back to the 1930's has inserted a middle man into the process. if you don't like the idea of government deciding your right

to choose, if you don't like the idea of some faceless government agent deciding whether or not you get that cancer treatment when you desperately need it, you want to get middle men out of the process. that might mean insurance companies but it also means the federal government which is why the right solutions on health care are simple things like legalizing the tax treatment. let's get the middle men out of the way so that people decide, not brats. >> you don't see the same line of thinking for this decision of abortion or contraception, et cetera? guest: i don't understand why politics decide these really important issues, i really don't. you're talking about 4 pa men and women who haven't been able to balance the budget and we want them to decide really important moral issues, to decide marriage. we want them to decide whether or not grandma gets the health care she needs. i think it's wrong headed.

host: hi mark, canton, ohio. caller: good morning. i have one question really. the department of commerce my understanding is that the department of commerce's role is to help with trade treaties and things like that. we've been running a trade deficit in the billions for a number of decade, i believe. my question to you do you believe the department of commerce and the department, i'm going to throw another department, the department of education should be eliminated? that's my question. guest: yes. the department of commerce is almost a carkt sure of a failed agency. it doesn't do anything, it doesn't accomplish anything. it tends to be a place where political apointees go to hang their hat after a new president wins election. it needs to go, and i don't think anyone would notice it was missing. education is more important because i don't think that the department of education does nothing, but i think it actually

does real damage to the cause of actually educating children. it adds layers of the bureaucracy, issues like common core, which through the obama stimulus were imposed on the states. this takes away the parents decision rights, and an ability at the local level to make educational decisions. if you look at the trend in spending at the department of education, as it goes up, learning goes down. i don't think that's an accident. i think we need to get the federal government out of education and really empower parents at the loyal level. >> go to st. louis missouri. an independent caller. caller: good morning. with so many candidates coming up for election, and so many people asking for your help, what are the most important races to you, maybe two or three, that you're going to focus a good best of your efforts or resources on? guest: sure, i'll name two senate races, iowa, and alaska,

sullivan. those are 2 two races that i think are very much up in the air. i'm worried about democratic get out the vote efforts in alaska, and i mentioned two house races already that i think are essential, washington state and new hampshire. host: jodie, pennsylvania, democratic caller, good morning. caller: good morning. remember when cheney was in, he said deficits don't matter. i mean, where were you then? i mean it seems that all this tea party nonsense is all about a black president in the white house. and i wonder if in your meetings you guys don't wear white sheets. guest: no, we don't and that's one of those strawmen that the left love to throw at the tea party. if you would actually go back and look at the history you would discover that the tea party arose from opposition to the bush-cheney bailout of wall

street. if you talk to any tea party, if you're willing to talk to a tea party about what they believe you would discover they were frustrated with republican overspending long before president obama was sworn into office. i hate the fact that racial jell s is used as a cud when we should be talking about the common interests. it doesn't matter the color of your skin or who your parents are or who you know in washington, d.c. the cause of fiscal responsible, the cause of individual opportunity and the ability of anybody to do anything in america is far more important than these devicive politics that people like you use. host: we'll go down to florida, democratic caller. caller: yes. host: you're on the air. care forced young

people to buy -- young people to buy the health care that they don't need. inaudible] young kids drive on the highway. inaudible] young people to -- host: ok. guest: ok, this is an interesting question, you mentioned car insurance and home insurance. those are catastrophic plans. those are very low input plans designed for that moment when things go horriblely wrong.

let's apply that logic to health care. young people are generally healthy but they don't earn much money. the reason we would like to move from a one size fits all individual mandate that forces young people to buy something that they can't afford and can't need to an individualized plan that allows them to save for that day when they do have either children or some sort of a health care crisis is that health care needs to be there when you need it over a lifetime. it's not something that a typical 22-year-old needs. you don't need a cadillac plan or gold plated plan. what obama care does is it transfers money from young healthy people to older, more wealthy people. i think that's wrong and i think we need to go from that one size fits all where government agency decides for you to something that empowers young people, gives them an opportunity to climb the economic ladder and allows them to save for their

health care needs when they actually need it. host: we'll go to jeff, republican caller. caller: yes, good morning. i'm wondering why the president and congress and senate don't go with a simple plan like six year for sis forecasting method taxation. before all this overspending became such a problem? guest: well, i wish they would. i wish they would do long term budgets and i wish they would acknowledge the insane amount of unfunded liabilities in medicare and medicaid and now obama care. you're talking about over a hundred trillion dollars that are not on the books. if we did our budgetting in an honest way we would appreciate two things. one, we're spending at an unsustainable measure.

and there's only so much that the federal government has historically been able to extract from taxpayers. so you're stuck in a sense that the more you raise taxes the march will return and the rate of growth goes down. so we have to live within a certain means and we haven't done that right now. the net result is $17 trillion in debt and growing. host: what about diff spending, the pentagon doesn't have great accounting over there as well to keep track of how they're spending the money. military spending is the single biggest cause of budget shortfall and debt. guest: it's not the single biggest but i would put defense spending on the table and i think any federal agency, no matter how important it is, and keep in mind defense is one of the core functions of a limited government. but that doesn't mean they get a blank check. any bureaucracy will waste money if there isn't accountability

and scarcity forces priority zation. i think we should do that at d.o.d. as well. host: do you think the president's strategy against isis, or the threat of isis, is worthy of this strategy and the resources that are being spent? the money being spend? host: i think rande paul has that one right. we need to take a step back and look at the whole history of the last 10, 20, 30 years and realize the mistakes that we've made intervening in a lot of these battles. it seems like if we don't learn from what we've done we're never going to get it right and there's always going to be a war. i think lee yon panetta has talked about this is going to be a 30 year war. this goes back to the fiscal question. if you believe in american strength, if you believe in american leadership, it is not the case that you can continue to spend all this money that you don't have. because there is a relationship between economic strength and fiscal strength, and our ability

to project leadership in the world. host: we'll go to jim next who's in north carolina, an independent caller. you're on the air with the president and c.e.o. of freedom works. go ahead. caller: this year any different than the past years, our education cuts. i mean, if they keep cutting them and want to bring jobs back they need to stop cutting the education because without education you can't get a job. host: are you referring to loans? like pell grant loans? or education spending in general? caller: educational spending, they're cutting a lot of programs in schools. the transportation for schools. host: and jim thinks this is hurting our competition. guest: it sounds like you're talking about local spending cuts and that would be different in different areas. but i can tell you from a

federal perspective there are no cuts to education. education spending continues to grow. i mentioned this earlier, it's not always the case that more spending leads to better education. i would like to move those dollars from the bureaucracy, whether it be the department of education, or even the state educational bureaucracies and depth that money back to parents, give parents more choices about where their children can receive education because that's where the accountability is. parents care most about their kids and the one size fits all school system is failing. that's not necessarily a function of money. host: north carolina, greg democratic caller. hi there. caller: hello, excuse me, independent caller. host: ok, independent go ahead. caller: when i initially heard about the tea party a long time ago i thought it was about a campaign finance reform. oh on temporary.

i completely disagree with you about education, education shouldn't be about owl the children in the united states who are americans who are having opportunities regardless of how much or who their parents are. and you do like the second amendment, but what about the fourth amendment? thank you. guest: i got to take the last one first, freedom works, you may not know is the co sponsor of a class action lawsuit against president obama and the n.n.s.a. with senator rande paul in defense of the fourth amendment. i like them all. and i think the first amendment's pretty important. you mention campaign finance reform. one of the most interesting things happening in american politics today which i don't think either political party has really gotten a handle on is what's known as this

intermediation. more and more power is shifting from the parties, away from the insiders in washington, d.c. back to the in user, the voter, because of social media, your ability to get sources from multiple places and that's what the disruption is all about. that's where the tea party came from. the same thing is happening on left. gressive it's not about how much money karl rove can raise. it's how many people are willing to educate themselves and show up in elections. i think we're just starting to see what is going to be a very healthy process of giving more people more voice. t's not about money. st: one person writes --

guest: yeah, we're definitely going to fight about priorities but keep in mind so if the tea party priorities are plansing the budget and replacing obama care with the patient drin system there would be other ones as well. let's focus on those two because polling i've seen shown those are the priorities. balancing the budget is difficult regardless of who's this charge. nobody in washington, d.c. actually likes to put their programs on the table to be either rethought, eliminated or even trend the rate of growth. so we are going to have that fight, and we certainly have seen there are plenty of republicans that are reluctant to do that. a bigger lift is going to be coming up with a health care alternative. there's all sorts of interest in this town. hospital interests, insurance interests. people that now have a mandated

benefit that they didn't have before. these are all well heeled interests. we're not talking about patients showing up in washington. we're talking about people finding over the allocation of scarce resources. yes, we're going to have that fight but i think it's very healthy. host: now that the primaries are over, youing folks like rande paul going to states where they supported a different republican in the primary but going to states like alaska for the republican candidate there, sullivan. and campaigning for them because they're saying we need control of the senate. what sort of clout do you think somebody -- if republicans take control of the senate, what sort of clout, capital, does senator rande paul have then in november? guest: i think it helps him. he's obviously a republican and has a keen interest in achieving a republican majority.

it's spresting to see when a republican candidate gets in trouble, they call rande paul. they don't call john mccain. they call ted cruz who has gone to kansas to help pat robts. the rock stars of the g.o.p. come from the class of 2010, 2012. and the same thing will be soon in 2014. the rock stars the day after the election will be new faces like mia love and marilyn garcia. host: see, the washington times has a picture this morning of senator ted cruz, texas republican speaks during a campaign event for senator pat roberts in kansas. so you have the picture there in the washington times of him campaigning there. and then next to that you've got senator rande paul who went up to new hampshire to campaign for scott brown, the former massachusetts governor. then as you said, below that, want to show our pictures a viewer of mitt romney, introducing mia love, the

republican nominee in utah's fourth congressional district. guest: yeah, yeah, i think it's instructive that if i were in trouble in kansas, i would call rande paul before i could call mitt romney. ost: why's that? guest: the president himself said that this election was all about his agenda. it's not so clear what it is that republicans are winning to do. that's why we're going to have this interesting fight that the day after the election.

it's going to be interesting. host: a lot of the senate races the republicans running against not only the president, but as you said, harry reid, we sat down with a campaign director of mr. reid's superpacket, for news makers. if you missed it, go to our website c-span.org. paul in pennsylvania, a republican. hi paul. caller: good morning. i've raised this point a lot and i've never really had a satisfactory response and based on what he said in this program i may get a good answer. the question is what is the tea party. like, i believe in face tall conservativism, i believe basically in zero basing virtually everything in the budget making process. i believe in the an accountable government, i believe in public education and involvement to give us the best solutions to our public issues. i don't believe in polluting a responsible public dialogue, or

hurting americans by just blindly cutting budgets without due diligence. i would submit the tea party is not a party, it's not an organized, functional organization in our nation. but c-span and the media and even yourself use the termology as if it is. i know it's easier that way because it doesn't require a lot of the hard work, but frankly does the tea party even exist? thank you. guest: that's a great question and i agree with everything you said. the tea party is not a political party. it's the idea that you have as an individual, as a citizen, have a responsibility to show up to get involved, to become educated on what's going on within your government because the responsibility sits on your shoulders. i think the tea party is also a result of the the political disintermediation i've been talking about.

tea moms that run local parties that literally have larger facebook pages than republican parties. this is the new normal. the other thing you said that's so important, i don't think it's a misinformation campaign. but when we started calling it the tea party it sounded as if it were a political party. it's con nating two things. i think people in the media are trying to understand a grassroots social movement. and it's easy to treat it as a third political party, it's not. it's about citizen involvement and constantly morphs and evolves into what was a protest movement in 2009 to get out the vote machine in 2010. today it's far more decentralized. it's focus on things like school board meetings, book clubs. a lot of activists focus on common core. i would argue it's morphed into a broader liberty movement that

is focused on fiscal issues first. host: want to ask you before we let you go about 2016. i know we're not quite there yet but the headline in "the new york times" is the republican right still has doubts about chris christie, the governor from new jersey. it's about social issues, the right to care about social issues, having doubts about chris christie. but from a fiscal perspective and from the tea party perspective, what are your thoughts on governor chris christie? >> i think he's lost a lot of parties. ngst tea when he was tackling the budget, he had a lot of grassroots support early on. that has faded away. what's interesting about the field in 2016 is that the so-called republican establishment is in the same situation that grassroots

activists were in 2012. they sort of abandoned him after bridge gate and flew down to florida to talk to jeb bush and cajole him into running. after that you look into candidates who are by and large who are wholely or partly indebted to activists showing up in their races. obviously rand paul and ted cruz would be two of those. but also marko rubio, also scott walker. even governor's like mike pence of indiana. you're talking about a whole new generation of republican leaders that are post 2009, 2010, 2012. we've repopulated the presidential field for president with young, compelling fiscal conservatives which makes me more optimistic about who that candidate might be. host: would you put paul ryan in that category? guest: yeah, it's interesting. if paul ryan is the compromised middle position between rand

paul and chris christie i would say the fiscal conservatives have succeeded in fixing the republican party. host: all right. more to come on that. we appreciate your time this morning, thank you. coming up next, we're going to talk with the aclu about court rulings on early votings and i.d. laws. and we'll turn our attention oe bowla and washington's response to it. we'll be right back. >> tonight on the communicators, three members of congress talk about their technology legislation. >> back in 2012 we passed a law that makes it possible for the ajor broadcasters to give back some of their spectrum that they've had. gives the f.c.c. the authority to repackage spectrum and

reallocate it. under current law the low power television industry, they are granted licenses, but those licenses are subject to availability, a spectrum in the particular market place. >> what i am concerned about is an improper call for a kill switch on somebody's phone if some government entity or individual decides they want to cut your phone off and it's your phone, i think that you ought to have some protection. so what this bill says is that you certainly can ask your carrier to cut your phone off if you're the primary person who uses the phone, even if you're not the contract owner, you can ask the fobe be cut off. or if you're a government agency you have to get a court order to do so. >> it is very bad behavior where those who are fraud lapt try to -- fraudulent try to trick the public to get information from the public. for example, social security number or tax information, and

this is a growing problem in america, particularly among senior citizens. >> republican representative joe barton from texas, tonight, at 8:00 eastern on the communicators on c-span 2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: up next we are talking about the voting laws, the court rulings recently on early voting and voting i.d. laws. joining us from new york is dale ho, the director of aclu's voting rights project. to talk about that. mr. ho, let's begin with recent court rulings, and let's go through some of the states. let's start with ohio. what has happened there? guest: so in ohio we brought a lawsuit that challenged a number of different changes in cut backs to early voting in that

state. first was the elimination of one week of early voting at the start of the early voting period. it's sometimes referred to as the golden week combaws it's a week that they can vote and cast their ballot in a single trip to the county board of elections. that was eliminated. the state also eliminated any opportunities to vote early on during week day evenings. the state also eliminated weekend early voting opportunities. so we brought a lawsuit challenging all of that. the lower courts ruled in our favor, but 18 hours before early voting was set to start in ohio the supreme court issued a stay, which essentially blocked that ruling and permitted the early voting cuts to go forward for another november election. host: it appears the supreme court is worried about confusion, so close to election day. guest: that's one way of reading what i think the supreme court was doing here.

now, in our view we didn't think that it would cause a whole lot of confusion for ohio to have the same early opportunities that it had during the four previous federal elections, and that if you're worried about confusion, really what you should be worried about are changes to voting laws that make it harder to vote rather than easier. i don't think anyone's going to stay home or stay away from the polls because they end up being open rather than being closed. but some people have high pott sized the reason the supreme court ruled the way it did was because early voting was to start so soon. host: you also have the bipartisan ohio association of election officials who recommended the change, and the ohio secretary of state said lawmaker close the potential for fraud and abuse, saying including the possibility of out of state campaign workers flooding ohio.

they say they do it every two years or every four years. guest: well, so, voter fraud is something people talk about sometimes and obviously we all care about our election systems having the utmost integrity. but here's the thing about same day regulars in ohio. when someone registered to vote and cast the ballot on the same day, that ballot would be kept apart and it wouldn't be counted until the voters information had been verified. and there wasn't a single example in our case that ohio could point to where someone had registered to vote and cast a ballot using same day regulars and that that ballot was fraudulent. so, we knew that thousands of voters had relid upon this means of participation and on the other side of the ledger there was no fraud. we didn't think there was much to say for eliminating same day regulars. host: let's go to wisconsin. what happened there? isst: so in wisconsin, there

one of the strictest laws in the -- but not order acceptable would be most student i.d.'s or veteran i.d. cards. we challenge that law in federal court, and won there. but an appeals court in early september issued a ruling that allowed wisconsin's i.d. law to go into effect for november. we sought an emergency -- we sought emergency review of that in the united states supreme court and that was granted last week. so wisconsin's extremely strict i.d. law will be blocked for november. and part of the reason why that's really important to us is we discovered the 300,000 registered voters in wisconsin don't have one of these forms of identification so it was a really big deal.

host: how could it impact races in wisconsin? guest: i don't follow the polls too closely. i know there are some hotly contested races there. but you know what we do know is that 300,000 registered voters didn't have one of these forms of inch d. and so if you're eligible to vote you can register on election day and vote. so they're another 70,000 eligible voters in wisconsin who don't have one of these forms of identification. altold, 370,000 people that can participate who wouldn't be able to had this law been in effect. what i understand, statewide elections in wisconsin have in the past been pretty close. i think the last election was decided by about a hundred thousand votes. so this can effect the outcome of the election. host: and north carolina, the latest from that state. guest: sure. a lot of twist and turns in a

lot of these cases. so north carolina enacted a very, very broad law that changed elections practices in that state in a number of ways. north carolina was one of the states that up until recently was subject to what we call federal preclearance. under section 5 of the voting rights act, north carolina had to obtain federal approval before making any changes to its voting laws. that was until the supreme court ruled last year in shelby county decision. section fife would no longer apply to most states that were covered under it. so north carolina, the day that that decision was announced started moving forward with a very, very broad election law bill. this bill did a number of things. one, it imposed strict identification laws like wisconsin but it would not go into effect until 2016. it immediately cut seven out of 17 days from the early voting period. it eliminated same day regulars, unlike in ohio, stretched

throughout the early voting period. it eliminated preregulars for 16 and 17-year-olds which means that north carolina allowed 16 and 17-year-olds, for instance when they're getting their drivers licenses to fill out a voter region station form and hold those forms until that voter turned 18 and then automatically became registered to vote at that time. north carolina eliminated that practice and eliminated a high school civics class which was designed to improve regulars among youth. a host of other measures. we challenged these measures in federal court. the district court, the trial level court, declined to change any of those laws for the november election pending a trial on the entire bill next summer. but an appeals court stepped in and said look we're not going to express an opinion about what the trial is doing to look like with respect to the vast majority of these measures, but there are two things north carolina can do in november and should do. one, it should maintain same day

regulars. there was evidence that tens of thousands of voters used to have that in every election, including 20,000 in the last mid term. second, north carolina count ballots cast at the wrong presint. so north carolina used to cast ballots even if they were cast -- i'm sorry, north carolina would count ballots even if they were cast at the wrong presint. so if you were directed to the one place by mistake, and you cast the ballot, north carolina used to count those ballots for any races for which you were eligible. so just to give you an example, a statewide race, governor, enator, something like that. the court said you know what north carolina can go back to counting those ballots just like t has in the past.

again, north carolina stepped in and they stayed that ruling which essentially allows all of the restrictions to go into effect for the november election there. host: richard wolf reports that the latest ruling from the supreme court affects north carolina, scene of a tight senate race that could help decide which party wins control of that chamber for the final two years of president obama's erm. the outcome could impact the outcome of that senate race. we're talking about voter i.d. laws, early voting in this election cycle with aclu's dale ho. randy, you were up first in ohio, a democratic caller. randy, what did you make of

ohio's, the decision in ohio on early voting? have been doing this since clinton's second administration. some of the i.d.'s, i understand, we don't put them in a box, we put them separate, we don't put them in our tabulator. and we do accept, you can use a bill, like a water bill, a light bill. anything that's got an address on it that we will accept, all but a passport. i don't see why people don't want to identify themselves when they vote so that helps us cut down on double voting. we caught people coming to me precinct and they went to another precinct and voted. so that was double voting. host: ok, dale ho? guest: so, you know, people who talk about whether or not

there's any forms of election fraud, right? i think what's important to understand is that identification laws, their purpose is to try to prevent voter impersonation. you show up at the polls, pretend to be somebody you're not, cast a brat in that name and you run away. i.d. laws are supposed to prevent that because you have a photo to compare the voter to. here's the thing, there isn't any evidence that voters are engaging in that. there certainly wasn't any in wisconsin where the state after an entire trial admitted they couldn't come up with a single example of that happening. now there were examples of what the caller just described of people double voting, right? people showing up at one presint voting and then having registered at another presint showing up and voting. ere's the thing. if the two aren't talking to each other they have no idea

you've shown up at two different places. so we agree that election integrity is important. we agree that we should have controls in place to prevent double voting. the thing is voter i.d. law won't do that. it will only prevent the people who don't have this from casting a ballot. host: early voting figures looking bad for ohio democrats. more than three weeks remain until election day but if this pattern continues it's an apparent sign that democrats are ot persuaded their vote. so, just to handicap there of some ohio races and the impact of early votinging. we'll go to anita in louisiana, independent caller. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. i would like him to address the

issue that in the state of louisiana, people are not llowed to vote until the presidential election if they're independents, and i think that's unconstitutional. if you could address that issue, i'd appreciate it. guest: thanks for that question. i haven't recently looked at louisiana's ballot access laws but i would agree with you, we as an institution at the aclu believe in broad ballot access. we have brought cases on behalf of independent candidates and third party candidates to make sure their supporters have enough opportunity to vote in primary and general elections too. so if louisiana's ballot access laws are particularly strict, that's something we would be concerned about. host: dale, you mentioned as we went through some of the states that have had recent court

rulings, ohio, wisconsin, north carolina, aclu has brought these lawsuits against some of these voter i.d. laws or court rulings. how many lawsuits has aclu participated in this year for voting laws, and how much money do you know is being spent by aclu to fight some of these? or fight for them? guest: those three cases that you mentioned are the three i think cases that get the most attention. we have had other lawsuits in places like arkansas challenging that state's i.d. law. in new hampshire, challenging that state's voter registration instructions which told people they had to do certain things in order to register to vote in new hampshire that you actually don't have to do under new hampshire law. it was misinformation from the secretary of state's office. at any given moment we probably have about a dozen lawsuits around the country challenging different kinds of voter

restrictions. so we try to stay pretty active. we're not on every case though. one of the cases that has gotten a lot of headlines recently is a case out of texas that was decided last week after a trial striking that state's voter identification law. host: the washington post reporting last thursday, reporting on this report that voter i.d. laws in kansas and tennessee dropped 2012 turn out by over a hundred thousand votes. in a response from a request of a group of democratic senators, the nonpartisan government accountability office analyzed the effect of voter i.d. laws in kansas and tennessee on the 2012 turn out and their findings as we told you meant one00,000 votes, town out decline by over a hundred thousand votes in those two states. what do you make of the study dale ho? guest: you don't have to take it from us, take it from the independent nonpartisan g.a.o. which has found out the turn out

decline that have the strict identification requirements. this is what we've been worried about all along, the statistic, everywhere we looked at, almost every state we look at show there's a significant number of voters that don't have these limited forms of identification. these voters tend to be voters that are of socioeconomic status and have a harder time adjusts to some of these laws. in wisconsin for instance, the state put on an expert political scientist from the state of georgia and his own research showed that turn out in georgia after the adoption of its identification law dropped by about 20,000 voters from what he would have expected it to have been. have the identification law not been in place. so it's really, really significant and something we've been worried about this entire time. host: we'll go next to colorado. alice is watching us there, republican. hi alice.

caller: hi. i wanted to tell you first of all last week someone made a comment that you were a republican and i can't tell what party affiliation you are but i think you are a wonderful moderator and anybody would be happy to have you on the program. what i wanted to tell you mr. ho is i really, firmly believe in a government form of i. dmple capable of low socioeconomic task lots of government i.d.'s because they have to get food stamps and other things. but you can't buy liquor without an i.d. so this business about 70,000 people not having an i.d., it's very easy to get an firm form of i.d. and just because people can go from one place to another with their picture, if there was something guaranteeing that the social security number or their birth date or i think if print is on there, it's not that hard. i think people want to vote to get a form i.d. would be very

easy. so thank you so much but i don't al i.d. having a form guest: so i think that's a really good question. i see why you would think that. a lot of people share the same view because most people in fact do have these forms of identification. here's the thing, all right. is that in most states, right, the forms of identification that are acceptable to establish who you are at the polls are a pretty wide range of things, right, that most people, that a lot of people, almost everyone has. our problem isn't with showing your identity sort of generally or having any kind of documentation. our problem is about the dozen states or so that have really, really strict forms of identification requirements. and when you look at these forms of identification you start to scratch your head and wonder why

are they limiting it to certain forms of i.d. let me give you an example. texas, right. in texas a concealed weapons permit is an acceptable form of identification. a student i.d. issued by the state of texas itself is not an acceptable form of identification. a veterans administration identification card is not an acceptable form of identification. if you're really concerned with preventing fraud and you're sort of bright line is we need you to have some form of government identification, well the exclusion doesn't make a whole lot of sense. but if instead your goal is to try to change the shape of the electorate, to let some people vote but not others, well then the lines that texas drew start to make a whole lot sense, right. so i would agree entirely with the caller that it's important that people show up at the polls and anniversaryity their identity. that's not something we've ever opposed. our opposition is the limited forms of i.d.

even if a state tries to make a state i.d. card or drivers license pretty widely available, there are underlying documents that you need that cost money to get those kinds of i.d. so for instance, a birth certificate, many most states cost over $20. well the supreme court in a case from the 1960's, virginia, harper lee, poll tax of $1.50 is unconstitutional. so if we're not willing to force people to pay $1.50 to vote, we shouldn't be forcing people to pay $20 to scrounge up a birth certificate and then try to get an i.d. to vote. host: we'll go to danny if louisiana, independent, hi danny you're on the air. caller: well, i don't know what your party affiliation is but i know the mission statement for your program is to educate and i have been a victim of it, i've seen many times people come up there armed and informed with the facts and they're trying to

set the prereck quit is quick thinking concept. you think i think i know where you're going. and you cut them off before you can make the point. now, onto the subject of the day, voter fraud, i remember i'm 66 years old, and i remember when they decided to go to electronic voting machines and the republicans insisted that it would be too expensive to have receipts where people could take it with them. it seems to me that the republicans all down the line are really not for democracy. they are more in favor of a powerful group of people ruling this country. the evidence is that they will tell you that when more people vote, republicans lose. as any fraud on the american fraud was the electronic voting machines, no record, no tallies. i can't understand why anybody would use a democracy to kill a

democracy. host: ok, danny. dale ho? guest: so, let me say i definitely agree that the more people participate in our democracy, the more our government will be representative of the will by leck rate, and that's a good thing. and that we have had some concerns as well about voting machines that don't leave a paper trail. a lot of people have been talking about why can't we vote on the internet. in theory that's a nice idea but there are a lot of security ssues. so let me make one point about the partisan nature of the caller's comments. both parties have engaged in this kind of manipulation or

efforts to gain the system. so, it's not the province of one party alone. ohio, where we were seeking to maintain early voting, when ohio established early voting they did it after the 2004 election in that state which was really a disaster. you had people waiting in line, sometimes eight, nine, 10, 11 hours. the last ballot cast in ohio during the presidential election was the following day after the election, at i think about 4:00 a.m., right? the republican legislator in ohio decided that this was not ok, and that we needed in that state a very broad early voting period. they supported it and they were in favor of it. and we welcomed that. i think the democrats actually opposed it because at that time when you look at the demographics of who had used early voting in the past, early voters tended to skew more conservative, tended to skew older, tended to skew higher income than the median voter and i think democrats were concerned that if you opened up early

voting that that might expand the electorate in ways that may favor them. the demographic has shiftened ah now we see the parties shifting their allegiances in ohio. we think it really shouldn't be left to those sorts of partisan calculations. that a broad voting opportunities, and a broad early voting period are really best for everyone for voters of all stripes and our democracy are best served when more people participate than fewer. host: we're talking with dale ho, the director of aclu's early voting rights. go back to louisiana, nancy in lake charles, a republican. hi nancy. caller: hi. i would like to know how long has it taken the wisconsin people that do not have their i.d., how long has it taken them to get these.

and another thing is in louisiana someone can't afford to get their i.d., they can go to the motor vehicle bureau and get it for free. there is no reason not to get your idea. if you it, you will have everybody in the whole world coming in here with all kinds of things and problems. please think about this. well, i appreciate the comment. louisiana is not one of the states with one of these ultra-strict identification laws, so it is not a state we have challenged. i think the forms of identification that are acceptable in louisiana are much broader than in a state like wisconsin. our concern is not with having voters prove who they are at the pole. our concern is with having a limited range of ideas that are acceptable. let's take a look at wisconsin. some of our clients in that case could not get ideas, period.

it did not matter how much time they were given. give you an example. our lead client in that case, 80 years old, is an elected member, or had been until recently, and elected member for hilly board. her birth certificate as a lling in it. she cannot get an id because of that. she was told it would cost $200 to amend the berkshires of it. $200. just to amend her birth certificate so she can get one of these forms of id. we brought that lawsuit on behalf of her and other people like her. she is not alone. there are other people in wisconsin, just like african-americans, who were born in the jim crow south. they were not born in hospitals, they were born at home. they basically do not have birth certificates at all in their home states.

in those cases, they cannot get one of these forms of id. there were three witnesses at ofal that had those kinds circumstances. so it is not just a matter of time. for some people it is a time -- it is a matter of possibility. >> "the big lie behind the voter id laws." iwritten like this -- don't have health and animal is so the evidence how it would -- -- , when do you think the supreme court takes up this case? guest: i think it is a little

early to say. the texas case you referenced just finished its trial. we just had a trial court rule there. that case has to work its way through the courts of appeal. there may be some bouncing back up and down before anyone can be in a position to ask the supreme court for review. the wisconsin case could reach the supreme court sooner than that, but we are evaluating our options right now. the court has blocked wisconsin's id law for november, so whether or not there will be further proceedings in the courts below or if the case goes to the supreme court, that is something that we know -- that we do not know just yet. jerry, ath carolina, democratic caller. guest: i would like -- caller: i would like to as mr. ho if he doesn't think anyone in the country could get a false id anywhere.

if you make it free, the candidate is going to be elected no matter what. thank you. , you know, obviously there are people who have obtained fake ids -- teenagers who try to buy alcohol and that kind of thing. i think just the point that the caller is getting at is that are not ao id laws silver bullet that prevent any kind of fraud that we are concerned about. you just do not have people showing up at the polling places pretending to be someone that they are not. when there is fraud, it happens primarily through absentee ballots because that is an easier way. an user way to commit fraud. in wisconsin, there was an example of a supporter of the governor who had cast absentee ballots not just in his own name but in his son's name. and i think in his son's

votediend's name, so he multiple times with an absentee ballot. a voter id law will prevent something like that because there is no physical person present to compare the photo on the id to. to the extent there is fraud out there, it is important to get at it, but it is important to have rules that will get to the kind of fraud that we see instead of locking people out of the ballot box. host: mississippi, our line for republicans. donna, good morning to you. caller: i would like to say to mr. ho, i am originally from chicago, and he or nobody else will convince me there is no such thing as voters fraud. over and over when i was in chicago. thank you. mr. ho? guest: again, we have never said

that there is no elections fraud out there. obviously there have been some documented cases of that happening. but what no one has been able to voternt is in-person impersonation. that is the kind of fraud that the voter id law is designed to prevent. there have been instances of people double putting, but id laws are not going to prevent that. there have been cases of people registering fraudulently or submitting absentee ballots fraudulently in someone else's name. one thing that the state of wisconsin has said recently is we do not need to get -- our house does not need to get robbed for we lock the door. the idea being that you do not have to wait until the kind of fraud happens before you try to prevent it. the thing is, you will not lock the door if members of your family do not have keys. we know there are 300,000 registered voters in wisconsin,

people who want to vote who do not have one of these forms of identification. if you are going to institute some sort of new security requirement, it is important that you have mechanisms for those people to get in and participate. id law wass voter one of the laws that had been challenged previously, as you mentioned, in 2008, when it went to the u.s. supreme court. an indigent voter who does not have one of those forms of id could still cast a ballot, and that alec could still be counted if that person's sworn affidavit attests to who they are. i think if you want to implement one of these strict id laws -- and again, i don't think they are necessary because you do not have in-person voter impersonation -- you have to have safety nets for people who do not have one of these forms of id. we do not want them to slip

through their correct -- slip through the cracks and have their voices not to be heard. host: david, welcome to the conversation. caller: the practical side of getting an id anymore is based on the homeland security requirements. i have been getting drivers licenses for 25 years, and since this requirement came into place, and used to be you would walk down to the dmv office and get a new drivers license. you had to have other forms of proof of residence, electric bills, and things of that nature. this has added another level of complication to my life because usually because of these requirements you spend four or five hours in the dmv in an incredibly long line. then they tell you you do not have sufficient information, and informationget the and come back, so it may require

multiple trips. while i agree that the idea of getting a drivers license is perceived as simple, there are many practical convocations, especially in the electronics world where people do things where i'd have not some received -- where i have not received a letter in years, but i got a box and they cannot scan it. outhe other side, fraud is there. just because the state cannot prove it, it may have more to do with the fact that they are not looking to prove it. if i showed there was a bunch of voter fraud in my state, somebody might look critically at the person in charge of and whilee election, that may not be viable, i just think there is more fraud out there than people are willing to proved.cause it is not that does not mean it does not exist. david in wyoming. we go on to damien in pompano

beach, florida, a democratic caller. what are your thoughts this morning? caller: i am 68 years old and i have been voting since i was 21. i moved to florida in 1976, registered to vote. i have voted for every election, every time, local, national, it does not matter. i vote. ok, so they changed the law. ,he drivers license i have now and a drivers license is what they require -- the drivers license i have now, when it expires, i will have to present a berkshire to forget to renew. -- i will have to present a birth certificate to renew. they will not but accept that. the copy is not acceptable. so i contacted the state to get an acceptable birth certificate, and they told me i do not exist. host: dale ho?

guest: the call the color is a terriblyis not uncommon experience, unfortunately. we had a number of witnesses at our trial in wisconsin who encountered the same circumstances. they called their states and their -- they called states vital records, and there is no birth should have a good, period. if that is the case, you will not get one of these forms for identification. a couple of points made by the caller from wyoming who made important issues. to the dmv. going probably the only place that people would rather -- would like to go less than the dmv may be is the dentist, right? so no one likes to go to the dmv to begin with. time, and itt of is extremely complicated, and we do not normally think of the dmv as the agency that you would

trust with the most important right in our democracy. but that is what these states are asking their dmv's to do. they are asking an agency that regulates cars to regulate the franchise. we think that is really problematic. in wisconsin, it was externally complicated. you needed three different documents to prove four different things in order to get one of these forms of id. that in and of itself i think is a challenge for a lot of people because a lot of those documents are free, like a birth certificate, or they do not exist for some people. with respect to the idea that fraud is out there, just because it has not been proven, i think two things. the states where we have looked like wisconsin, for instance -- they have had four different task forces since 2000 that have tried to investigate whether or not there is voter fraud in that state. so it is not for a lack of trying that they have not been able to come up with instances

of in-person voter impersonation. they did find other things. they found double voting, they found ineligible people registering to vote. they found absentee ballot irregularities. when you look, you do find some, but when you look you do not find the kinds of fraud that these id laws are designed to prevent. you do find, on the other hand, hundreds of thousands of voters without this id. so we think that rather than go on speculation about what invisible problems might be out by what theould go statistics actually show, which is that hundreds of thousands of voters do not have these ids, and will you and tennessee, the --e implemented the ids wisconsin and tennessee, that have implemented the ids, voter

turnout drops. jersey, hello.ew apply foren you go to social security benefits or disability, the only thing that is acceptable is a birth certificate and a marriage license, if you happen to be married. instead of going on about all the things that are wrong with voter id, why don't you and people like you make it an effort to get all of these people the identification that and if it involves a cost, why don't you guys ante up and make sure that these people have whatever it is that is keeping them from getting their birth certificate and marriage certificate? i don't really see the problem. guest: i would absolutely agree that getting people id cards is a worthy goal because id cards can serve other purposes in life

other than just voting. so to the extent that there are groups out there that have the resources and capacity to do that, we would support those. the obligation should fall on third-party -- should not fall on third-party organizations, it should fall on the state. if the state should condition the right to vote on some sort of id, the state has to make are those documents and ids widely accessible to everyone, not just people in the middle class or people who fly on airplanes, but everyone. if they were serious about making sure that these id requirements went into effect and did not hurt anyone, they would do that. we have seen time and again that they are not doing that, which leads us to conclude that these states are more interested in changing the state of the vector -- of the electorate that they are of the integrity itself. host: what is going on with arkansas' voting rules? guest: arkansas is another one

of these states that has a strict voter identification law. that law has been challenged by the arkansas aclu. it was charged on two separate ground in state court, so he could not end up in the night united states -- in the united states supreme court. iny won a favorable ruling the trial court, and it was appealed to the arkansas supreme court, where it was argued two weeks ago. we still do not have a ruling, so it is not clear when that court is going to rule or whether arkansas'id law is going to be ruled upon in november. we are waiting on the court's decision. host: thank you very much for your time this morning. you can go to aclu.org for more information. appreciate it. guest: thank you so much for having me on. host: coming up next, we will turn our attention to ebola and

washington's response to it. right after this news update from c-span radio. is 9:16 not: 60 -- it a.m.. the democratic senatorial campaign committee says it had its best september in the history of the committee, raising $16 million and out raising the national republican senatorial committee, which also had a record september. they outraised it by half $1 million. million has been raised in the an rfc. "as the campaign enters final weeks, democrats are in the strong position to hold the majority." defense ministers from the americas and some european wheres meet in peru, defense secretary chuck hagel. about how climate change may affect the military is releasing a report on the issue.

military leaders have long warned that changing climate patterns would have a thought and cost impact of the defense department. an update on people a virus. the world health organization is, evil outbreak of severe, times havein modern -- in modern times." world bank figures show that 90% of world economic costs of any outbreak come from irrational and disorganized efforts of the public to avoid infection. while we will hear the latest on the ebola outbreak in the u.s. today, at noon eastern time, when the cdc holds a briefing. you can watch it live on c-span or listen to it live on c-span radio. those are the latest headlines on c-span radio. c-span's 2014

coverage. follow us on twitter and like us on facebook to get debate scheduled and video clips of key moments. c-span is bringing you over 100 senate, house, and governor debates. you can instantly share your reactions to what the candidates are saying. the battle for control of congress. stay in touch and engaged by following us on twitter and c-span and liking us on facebook, at facebook.com/c-span. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we want to welcome back elise viebeck. we will talk about washington's response to ebola third we have had this nurse in dallas test positive for ebola. what was the reaction from washington yesterday? >> alarm, frankly. this was not expected by public health officials. they felt the controller -- the

-- this nurse had not been on the highest list of context -- of contacts with thomas eric duncan, who died. the white house is trying to light a fire under the cdc, doing more to help train hospitals and nurses in particular on the front lines of fighting this and that continue to be if we see cases arising in the united states. friedman ism talking about the next steps they are taking because of this nurse testing positive. they will hold a conference call for health officials to do some sort of teleconference training over the phone tomorrow. what are they talking about at the cdc? what does the administration want them to do? guest: the cdc is interested in training health care professionals about taking on and off that protective gear they are using when they train ebola patients. -- when they treat ebola patients.

guidance has circulated around to american hospitals to ensure people are up to date on the best practices. in other parts of the u.s. health care system, really doctors and nurses are so busy, hospitals are so busy, it is rare they take the time to do the special trainings that they might need to do to be prepared for something like an ebola case. the cdc is issuing new recommendations, but so far they to not serving personnel monitor a hospital's response to an ebola patient, which is what some critics are calling for. saying thathers are the cdc might decide that any patient who walks into a possible might have ebola, that that person would get transported to one of these four facilities in the united states have proven they can handle and ebola case. guest: that is definitely on the table from what i hear, but there are only four hospitals in the united states that are specially equipped.

montana,in nebraska, atlanta -- that is emory university, where a patient was treated. at the same time, we know that kind of travel for a patient in critical condition can make them worse, so that is one reason they might be holding back. host: let's talk about money. we read earlier from "the hill," that senator vitter is holding up $1 million the administration wants to use to combat ebola. what is his argument? guest: that the administration is not providing enough detail about how service members will for fighting evil in west africa. if they are exposed, they want to understand exactly how they will be treated -- fighting ebola in west africa. if they are exposed, they want to understand exactly how they will be treated. republicans hearing

that this mission could take more than one year are very concerned, so they are holding up the money. top: is the $1 billion the price so far, the top figure that washington has spent his planning to spend on fighting ebola? guest: so far there is a lot less than that that they we have spent so far. we see the response of the u.s. government go fairly slowly up to this point. we saw president obama plus speech several weeks ago saying that we are going to ramp up with speed and scale, but it is taking quite a bit of time to move u.s. troops to the african continent. november the end of is when all of this will be finished. that is really several more weeks, and we know that patients are dying on the ground and it is a desperate situation. ast: homeland security had earring in texas on friday per what did we learn from that hearing? supporthere is a lot of

among republicans and democrats for the idea of a travel ban from countries that have the epidemic. the u.s. public supports this idea as well. they want to see flights banned from those countries as a way to protect americans. but the administration has pushed very hard back on this idea, saying it would not work and it would further isolate the countries and make the epidemic worse there. this week in washington we will see those calls ramp up even more, and the administration may possibly have to do something else under pressure. another hearing happening in washington, the house oversight and investigations subcommittee of energy and commerce will be holding a hearing as well. who will be testifying? what are they likely to be ?ebating you go guest guest: tim murphy has taken an

interest in doing oversight about exactly what are the ,edical protocols at work here whether they are working at the hospital level. tim murphy himself was a psychologist. he is very interested in the medical community and how they are feeling about this. it is a pretty hefty debate in washington. host: go to c-span.org for coverage of that. many lawmakers not in washington, back home in their districts and in their states campaigning for the november elections, but this subcommittee calling this hearing, possibly hearing from dr. tom friedman, the head of cdc. by the way, cdc will be holding in news coverage from atlanta today at noon eastern time. we will have coverage of that on c-span. will hear an update from the cdc. let's go to mike in pennsylvania, independent color. you are on the air with elise viebeck of "the hill," talking about the u.s. response to

ebola. caller: i tried to call when you theire person on complaining about the cdc. it is the tea party republicans that keep money from the cdc that do not allow it to function, and then they turn around and complain when they are not able to take care of a problem with this. i do not see how that is fair. kibbe was our guest earlier. why should it be agreed to move this money over when the agency has failed its first test? guest: host officials have argut it is hampered -- that it has hampered their ability to respond. there are disease detectors that have been very involved in contacting the family of the

library a man who died. it is not as if there is a medical army employed by the federal government that is able to go in and do all of this work on behalf of hospitals. so we will see a political debate shaping up over this on capitol hill. democrats are hammering republicans for budget cuts, and the idea of cutting funds to public health, they say we just cannot afford to do that at this point because ebola could be a tip of the iceberg for future viruses that threaten the u.s. public. there is a lot we do not know, and maybe now is not the time to be cutting these funds. that is what democrats would argue. host: the cdc is doing screening at airports. three more airports will start screening. is cdc personnel doing it? understanding is that travel officials are doing it. tsa is doing it or it going into help train them, how to do those non-touch temperature screenings. cdc is definitely involved. they are the point agency within

the u.s. government trying to train others how to do this. but it sounds like they are stretched pretty thin at this point. host: what are you hearing about the administration possibly czar? an ebola mccainwe have heard that is calling for that. friedman att tom the cdc is the one effectively communicate with republic. he was the one who traveled to west africa for the administration and urged president obama to do something. i think the administration sees him as the main person. maybe they just need to make that official publicly. host: will the surgeon general? guest: we have not seen the surgeon general really be involved. there is a huge confirmation battle going on on capitol hill right now. pressure onace more that process to really produce

the nominee. host: let's go back to call spiritual it in alabama. caller: thank you for taking my call. --m really concerned about and you just spoke of it a few minutes ago -- about letting people from africa in. theirt understand ifsoning behind it, because protect or nurse cannot themselves from this disease, then how do they expect the public that has absolutely nothing on to protect themselves? take twouys do is tylenol. is one 01, itture will go down to 99 in a certain period of time. that is what this duncan guided.

he knew he was exposed, probably had it, and he came on, and who is not going to pay $800 or $900 to save their life? he came to the united states the otherhat because man survived that he would survive, and he died. it is ae polls show popular idea with the u.s. public, increasing numbers of -- but officials say it would do more to isolate these countries did we had to think of the diplomatic thing happening here, too third we know the leaders of west african countries are pushing back very hard against the idea of a flight ban because it would endanger economies, and further isolate them, perhaps pushing patients underground and making them harder to find and to treat. i think it is a debate that we had not seen the end of. the administration could do more. host: dallas, texas.

a republican. hi, deborah. caller: i appreciate your coverage on the whole election. and every day. i am very tuned into this. my main question is, why this sort of center of operations transferring to parkland and you peace southwestern? because they have a very robust infectious disease component, and it is a world-class facility. , theyhey are doing there know what they are doing there. be --resbyterian seems to my husband had surgery last year there, and it was great. but they seem to be over their

heads. i am wondering when somebody is going to step in and escalate the response to all of this? guest: it is a great question. we have heard the idea come from public health officials that each region should designate a hospital that is most equipped to cope with infectious diseases and their spread. so maybe that is an idea for the dallas area, rather than sending them to texas. we have to remember, in the first instance, to recognize that instances of ebola and greatly traced the travel history of the library and patients. there are a couple of marks on the record at this point. perhaps there is a and argument to be paid for patients to be sent to an hospital -- to a hospital bed is more prepared. host: there was a person yesterday that was not likely to have ebola, but from the "boston

globe" website, outside the harbor vanguard offices, police must fire trucks, ambulances, lined the drive, and the area was cordoned off, saying that ebola protocol is in place. we do not know if he actually has ebola. leftminutes -- the amulets the facility, headed south -- the ambulance left and headed south, and when they returned, the team found a man waiting in his vehicle as they had instructed him to do, and he was put into an implant with seals and plastic sheeting, and the ambulance will be contaminated before his return to service me know if they follow protocol? we think that they did. i will see more false

arms. several cdc area and the rest wet we had several in the -- had several in the d.c. area in the past few weeks. to go through these tests i do not think is a bad thing, and i don't think the public would think it is a bad thing. host: melissa in columbia, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning, everyone. about the travel -- i cannot see why they cannot hold those when they are going to fly over here. why can't they hold them for at least 25 days, and then get rechecked before they fly out? they would thing -- not have to go without supplies and so forth. they could have it all shipped from outside.

but as far as they're coming out, that is when we have to protect themselves. very hard to enforce. people have a right of return, back to go where they came from, their home country. the idea of quarantining people for 20 days is an idea, but it is very difficult to implement. you could not necessarily force those people to stay in a quarantined situation. in the u.s. we have had several cases of people who are potential contact with an ebola patient refused to comply with quarantine orders and they are forced under armed guards to remain out of contact with the public. we saw that with duncan's family and within the context of the who came back with ebola. cracking down on the nbc teams because they're medical

correspondent, dr. nancy snyderman, was out at a restaurant, and the government stepped in and said now it is mandatory. make: the police had to sure these people comply. it is a very hard situation. if you do not think you are sick, you have to go on with your normal life, and it can be very disruptive to 21 days is the incubation period, but we could see police stepping in if they feel there could be a public health risk. cleveland, ohio. shawn, a democratic caller, you are on the air. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to ask a question about and theing for the cdc national institutes of health and whoever else is involved in this. i want to know if there were any other sources of funding for them, and how much the international community is contributing to combat the

outbreak of ebola and other potential serious biological threats. guest: that is a great question. just like the cdc global health institutions, like the world health organization, have undergone major budget cuts in the last few years, we saw the edges ramp up after 9/11 -- we saw there -- we saw their budgets ramp up after 9/11. many people would be surprised to hear that the w h of relies h.o. reliesthe w. on the philanthropy of countries that support them, and those contributions have gone down significantly in the last five or 10 years. so people are operating agencies with less money than they would like. it is a debate whether they deserve more money than they have. host: sl in oakland, california,

an independent caller. caller: i am in oakland, california, and i am in in--- i am an in-home care nurse. one patient had hepatitis. i came home and called the police and kaiser. hader came in and she contacted some kind of infection anduse she was cooking food i had to take antibiotics. but her husband spent six weeks in africa, liberia, and he had a high temperature. i called the district attorney in oakland, and they contacted apartment,lic health they had me go back in again, and kaiser in oakland gave me another antibiotic. but nobody has been taking this stuff serious.

people came in from december. we did not know anything about ebola. c is infectious. guest: very serious. this sheds light on the idea that people travel into the united states all the time with viruses that can be passed to americans, and usually it does not get as much attention as ebola because ebola has symptoms that are horrifying. what this debate will do is make us ask questions about how prepared we are to cope with a plethora of viruses that come into the united states. --t: governor bobby gimbal governor bobby jindal writes for politico." he writes that hillary clinton recently made that argument. like those made by others, he says she misses the point, that

the cdc has received significant amounts of funding, but they have been diverted away from programs that can fight s andtious disease toward programs far afield from the cdc's original purpose. guest: i think we are going to see likely the agency transfer funds around in order to meet the current threat, what over maybe there is a case to be made that public health agencies in our current world need to be more focused on the idea of these infectious disease threats. your colleague peter sullivan has this this morning -- nihet cuts for the director blames budget cuts for ebola vaccine delay. guest: ebola could have a proven cure at this point, but it does not, and a lot of people blame the idea that our public agencies and research institutions have undergone

budget cuts and are not up to -- operating at the level that the white house would like them to be. i think health officials are resorting to this argument because it is a difficult topic to broach with the american public. a lot of people want to know why is it that we did not develop a vaccine when we knew it could be a potential threat. they tell us there was not the money to do that. -- we will seeax capitol hill attack this issue likely in the next week. host: tammy, a republican caller. good morning. caller: good morning. i am a nurse. i have been an emergency room nurse for 25 years. as far as the question, are we equipped to handle this -- absolutely not. to think that that hospital did anything wrong, which we know nothing about, i think is not right either. this.is no way to control

if you really do research, which i have because most of er nurses are very concerned about it -- if you deeply research -- this has been around a long time, and scientists have even proven that it iscan travel by air if attached to aerosol. it has traveled from monkeys to pigs, which have similar lungs to humans. i also believe that the troops overnt 3500 there bank to bring it right tok -- right over there bring it right back to us. i believe the president is responsible along with everybody in congress. right now we know that most of them will not be in contact with people who have ebola. there is a briefing at the pentagon addressing this precise issue last week, where it was said these will not be troops

involved in patient care. they are not going over there bank as medics. -- they are not going over there as medics. there is a population of troops that are an exception to that rule. they are highly trained medical personnel who will be diagnosing ebola patients. not through direct contact but contact with samples of bodily fluids. these are the people most likely to be at risk, but the pentagon assures the public that they are highly trained. these are people who could operate in a nuclear environment. these really are people at the top of society in terms of their preparedness and effectiveness. again, we hear calls from the public and some on capitol hill wondering about the state of these soldiers. going about their day to day business in liberia, they can contact -- they can contract the virus.

hi, tim. too bad this is a political football. it is just sad. can it be transmitted by insects? guest: there is no evidence that i can be transmitted by insects. it can only be transmitted by bodily fluids, by a person showing ebola symptoms. the cdc has acknowledged that the virus could mutate under certain circumstances and become airborne, but they say this is an extremely slight possibility, and that is what scientists say, too. leaders and viewers who are concerned about this idea that if the virus were to become airborne, we would see signs of that in africa first. that is what the cdc disease detectives on the ground in part. we are not likely to see it in the united states. host: what about animals?

we have learned that the dallas nurse had a dog with her in the home. the dog, if i am not mistaken, was put down because there is concern that the dog carry the virus. dallas has gotten ahead of the debate and has said that the dog will be cared for if there is any risk. it does not sound like the dog will be put down. but it raises an issue because we know that in africa there are carriers of the virus. in fact, the idea of eating bushmeat led to people getting sick. questions there, but it does not like -- it does not sound like this dog in dallas is a risk. dr. tomc director friedman will be going before cameras at noon. what do you expect him to be saying? guest: what he said yesterday and came under criticism for saying is that there was a

breach of protocol here that led the dallas nurse to become ill. that received very strong pushback in the medical community. we are seeing a risk occur between nurses and hospitals and nurses and the cdc because like the caller previously who was an emergency nurse said, they do not feel it equipped. they do not feel like they have been fully prepared to cope with people who are dis-infectious. tom friedman will have to be very careful. his language, to acknowledge that many of these nurses are day to day er nurses and are very often. this is a very rare violence -- this is a very rare virus that is difficult to deal with. protective off clothing -- host: hazmat suits are being called for the frontlines? guest: yes, and they are

threatening walkouts if they do not get to take his gear. we see images of people in africa carrying u.s. patients back to the united states wearing the full hazmat suits are they kind of look like space aliens with huge white plastic garbage, but that is not what people are wearing to treat people in the hospital. it is possible that they were at emory university and nebraska. but most of the time they are wearing gowns that you would see in a surgical environment. mae inet me go to tennessee, a republican. good morning to you. caller: this is the first time i have ever gotten through. i certainly appreciate you taking my call. i only had a couple of comments on this ebola thing. is a form ofhis terrorism, and i have not heard

anybody mention anything about that at all. i keep hearing -- you can hear anything, but i am really frightened and scared about what is happening. host: let's take that point of terrorism. guest: we have had public health officials acknowledging that ebola could be weaponize. it is a very scary thought. acknowledging the possibility that under the right circumstances this could be a weapon of mass destruction essentially. it is not something that could be developed that way by a terrorist group. it would have to be a state sponsor of terrorism. it sounds like a strange distention, but it is very scary, but that is why the cdc and numeral health community is working on containing the virus as soon as possible. host: where is the development of a treatment -- there was

treatment. become your brand out, it was called z-mapp. where does that all stand? guest: countries are working to reduce more of those treatments. one thing that has been successful in treating some of the people who have come back to the united states with ebola is using other transfusions from other survivors of the virus. we have seen that these cases,ful in other instead of using experimental treatment that we might not have enough of. unfortunately, that was not available in case of thomas eric duncan because his blood type was different than that of the other survivors. we have seen these intermediate steps be taken, but we do not have a stockpile of treatments. right now the vaccines are in very early trials. started ay just vaccine trial in africa for the first time. we are really just at the cusp of that development. it will take several more years. "the hill" is reporting on

the first trial being done in africa. in the case of the dallas nurse who has tested positive for ebola, some are saying it is because of the treatment that they had to do for mr. duncan that the risk of being exposed was there. it was higher. guest: that's right. when people are dying of ebola, the virus is producing an enormous amount of bodily fluids to try to transmit itself. that is why it is important for health care workers not to come in contact with those bodily fluids. to talk about, but there are gallons and gallons of bodily fluids at that point. and what can a nurse do, particularly if they are not in full hazmat gear? you can understand why a slight slash of the arm can put them at risk. to find outnted

about the reporter that came back with ebola. average to me the person's insurance would cover everything involved in transporting him back and getting all the care and emergency response associated with it, as well as what happened in dallas and the emergency response. host: this question of insurance. does insurance cover this? is very hard to say. i wish i knew how the nbc cameraman was covered. we know in many of these cases, the care was donated gratis because these were doctors caring for ebola patients in africa. we know thomas eric duncan, so far his care has not been paid for. we do not know if the family will be footing that bill. very expensive procedures. obviously the affordable care act -- there are no lifetime

limits on care and coverage for care, but there are unanswered questions about how much people would have to pay out-of-pocket for these kinds of procedures. host: in usa today, the money --tion, insurance companies some insurance companies are not covering the companies that would normally dispose of hazardous materials if they are going to do that with ebola. this is another big issue. it is amazing to think that about a week ago when we were talking about the apartment where thomas eric duncan stayed were materialse in there for days on end because the dallas officials could not figure out how to get by kn a a regulatory knot -- from the transportation side, companies were limited in their ability to

carry array -- carry away dangerous waste. the obama administration has stepped in to make sure that these regulations and conflict are not a problem. and i imagine regulators are drafting amendment so that in the future they do not have to issue waivers. confrontingssue health officials that you would not even think about. you would not think that waste disposal turns out to be a potential dangerous issue, but it is. that more on the nbc crew is now under mandatory quarantine by the new jersey government. "the new york daily news" reporting that nancy snyderman violated a voluntary quarantine when she was spotted sitting in .er car outside of a restaurant a man with her picked up the take-out order. she is a regular at the grill.

raphael, go ahead. caller: i have been unable to find any evidence of any states issuing a travel ban outside of saudi arabia. i know there are private commercial airlines that have either banned travel outright or restricted it. i was hoping that you could comment on that because there is a lot of misinformation out there. and also if you could just sort of update us on the latest case in boston. what was the information latest case inhe boston, people do not believe it is ebola. they believe it is a false alarm. that has not been fully verified, but the cdc has detected possibly two dozen cases in the past few months in the united states, and only two of them have come back positive. there are going to be a lot of

false alarms. reporting on false alarms in new york city early in the summer. people should be assured that there will be a lot of false alarms. it is true that there are a handful of airlines that have chosen no longer to service those countries affected by ebola. there are a lot of african and middle eastern countries that have travel bans, but the united states and no u.s. state individually has implemented such a policy so far. host: "the guardian" reporting the the u.k. canceled resumption of direct flights to sierra leone. we will go to kevin and caitlin burke -- in gatlinburg, tennessee. we have millions and millions of taxpayer dollars

-- could we not bring ships out and use those for isolation? maybe to keep the stuff off the coast and out of the mainland? guest: some ships are not going to be equipped to treat people who are so infectious. it is an interesting idea. we heard rand paul make an argument that was similar when he worried that some troops when they come back with ebola could ultimately in fact a ship full of soldiers. at the pentagon quickly tamped that down. democraticre next, a caller. caller: on patients -- what happens if it spreads to schools? we will not be prepared for that. how old are you? caller: i am 7. nervous about it?

are your friends nervous about it? caller: i don't really have any friends. i am not nervous about it. i am just saying, what happens if it spreads to schools? guest: it is a very smart question by jason. i think we would see schools closed. that would mean that it would be too much of a risk and we could see schools close in that instance. host: tom, columbia, maryland. good morning. i would like to know if duncan's first visit to the emergency room and his lack of insurance out of theout hospital system, him being treated. host: the lack of insurance? it could have been in

issue, but we know that the er under federal law is required to take people in. what we know about his first visit to the hospital is that the nurse who first treated him did not communicate that he had gone to west africa recently, and doctors ultimately made a decision about whether or not he would be let go. certain electronic health records failed to reconcile themselves, failed to pass that information along to the rest of the care team. andounds like a problem -- why it sells a good problem with medication as opposed to one with insurance. caller: i am interested to see how the cdc handles its message. the idea that there was a transmission of this to a health-care worker in the united states is not really something that people were thinking would happen. so now the cdc officials are under extra pressure in how they explained that he i and interested in what the administration will do for hospitals and nurses to make

sure that they are equipped because, apart from issuing guidelines and recommendations, it seems there are many more actions to be taken. we might hear more about that in the next way for hours. we will have coverage of the briefing again here on c-span. -- theeden, the help head of the cdc, talking to reporters about what is next there. elise viebeck, thank you very much. for more of her reporting, go to thefill.com. l.com.hil that does it for "washington journal." we will see you tomorrow morning. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

heard, the centers for disease control in atlanta will update on the investigation into "case in dallas and other recent cases of infection. live coverage of that briefing starting at noon eastern. also coming up at 3:00, and arkansas senate today between mark pryor and republican tom cotton, nathan lafrentz, and green party candidate mark sweeney. tonight at 8:00, senate minority leader mitch mcconnell, democrat challenger allison grimes, will debate on kentucky education. real clear politics shows senator mcconnell with a narrow lead.