and then we have the latest on the kickoff of airbag -- takata airbag recall. ♪ host: good morning to you. it is saturday, june 6. the question is where you get your political news? a new poll finds that six he percent of millennial's get their information through facebook, only about one third watch local tv news. the opposite is true for baby boomers. a majority watch tv. what about you? care of the foam icicle this morning. we are taking your calls so start jamming and now. if you are between the ages of 35 and younger, you can call us at (202) 748-8000.

36-50, allah says -- call us at (202) 748-8001. if you are 51 and over, call us at (202) 748-8002. we are on social media as well give you find is on facebook or you can send us an e-mail at journal@c-span.org. let's look at some be charts compiled. you can see the generational divide between millennial's and baby boomers quite clearly. millennial's get 61% of their news from facebook, while only 37% other political news comes from local tv. for baby boomers, the opposite is true to 39% to their political news from facebook while 60% get the news from local tv. in case you are wondering what exactly defines a millennial or a baby boomer or even gen-x

they divided it this way. the millennial's were born between 1981 in 1996. they range in ages from 18 to 33. gen -x are between 1965 in 1980. the baby boomer generation was born between 1946 in 1964. they are ages 50 to 68. the research center found that there are some implications for the political system according to help people get their news. they find that millennial facebook users are more exposed to political content on social media sites then gen-x'ers or baby boomers. at least half the post they see on the site are related to government and politics to that is more than gen-x visa 18% are

related to government and politics, and more than baby boomers who say only 16% are political in nature and they found a millennial's are less interested in politics than older generations. roughly one quarter of millennial's list them as one of the three topics they are most interested in. while others listed -- with politics and government at a much higher rate. the research center notes this is not unusual for people who are younger. those in the 18-29-year-old age group can't to list politics -- 10 to list politics and government and something their list interested in overall. where do you get your news other than c-span? call us and let us know. 35 and under, you can call us at (202) 748-8000. 36-50, call us at (202) 748-8001 .

if you were 51 and over, call us at (202) 748-8002. you can tweet us find us on facebook, and you can send us an e-mail at journal@c-span.org. while we wait for your phone calls to come in, we will turn to a few other headlines this morning. in the "new york times," there is information about the latest government data breach. the story says that the u.s. was warned that the system was open to cyberattacks multiple times. the story states that the inspector general of the office of personnel management which keeps records and information for millions of current and retired employees that describes the security system as a chinese hackers dream your code it says the agency did not possess the inventory of all the computer service and devices with access to its networks and did not

require anyone gaining access outside to use a kind of basic authentication techniques that most americans use for online banking. it did not regulate scanned a vulnerability in the system and found that 11 of the 47 computer systems that were supposed to meet certified as safe for use last year were not "operating with a valid authorization." the problems are so severe for two systems hosting -- which is responsible for background investigations on officials and contractors were issued security clearances that the inspector general rds that temporarily shutting them down because the security flaws could potentially have national security implications." in "the washington post" there is news about the jobs boom. the jobless rate in may increased slightly, but the number of jobs created also was up quite significantly. "the washington post" says it is

triggering a rebound in housing. it says the resurgence of job growth is helping to power a rebound in the pet -- housing market. turning it into a highlight of the recovery. home sales are at their highest levels since 2006 and housing prices across major areas have increased 30% since bottoming out three years ago. government numbers show that residential construction jumped by 20% in the spring and in some areas the market is so strong that analyst are worried about another housing bubble. meanwhile, "the wall street journal" focuses on the fed and the fact that the jobless report might have on its decision for interest rates here at the headline is "strong gains in hiring puts eyes on the fed." it starts "u.s. employers wrapped up hiring last month, signaling a rebound in overall growth after a bumpy start to the second quarter and nudging the

federal reserve to his first interest rate increase in nearly a decade. -- coupled with a robust job growth is likely to reach her been officials that the economy is healthy enough to raise interest rates from near zero as soon as their september policy meeting." meanwhile, today there will be a funeral for vice president joe biden's son beau biden. the story about the wake for his son entitled "thousands patriot to beau biden." vice president joe biden greeted thousands of mourners in a sanctuary at saint anthony church on friday afternoon as they paid their respects for his beloved oldest son. in addition to several senators and notables, there were numbers -- members of army units in

uniform, lifelike residents of the neighborhood, and employees of various state and federal agencies. they had worked for and with him over a decade. c-span will be providing live coverage of his funeral at 10:30 a.m.. president obama is scheduled to deliver a eulogy at that funeral. and white house spokesman josh earnest was speaking to reporters earlier this week. he talked about the cyber attack and the government data breaches affecting 4 million americans. [video clip] >> they continued to be under investigation by the federal bureau of investigation. they are experts in this field. they are working actively to understand exactly the scope of this particular intrusion, but also to determine who is responsible and to make sure we can take steps that are

necessary to hold these individuals were responsible for this incident. reporter" to: do they believe hackers from china are responsible? >> there are no attributions for this attack at this point. this is something that is still under investigation. obviously, even preliminary aspects of an investigation can steer you in one direction or another. there is still a lot of work in these to be done to get to the bottom of this particular incident. host: that was white house spokesperson josh earnest speaking about the cyber attacks compromised federal employee data early this week. our question for you this morning is where you get your political news? we have broken of the foam is by age. those of you 35 and under can call us at (202) 748-8000. if you are between the ages of 36 and 50, call us at (202) 748-8001.

51 and over, die was at (202) 748-8002. again, we are on social media twitter, facebook, or you can send us an e-mail at journal@c-span.org. our first caller is john from mechanicsburg, pennsylvania. he is in the 51 and older category. it morning to you. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. it is interesting how my perspective -- i'm 51 and older i get my news from the internet. talk radio primarily. i went to college back in the 80's and started -- study journalism and got a degree and i moved away from newspaper and television primarily because i do not believe there is news anymore. i think it is all advocacy points of view with regardless of right, left, and center. they pick points of view and the

news is pretty much nonexistent unless you go on the internet and talk radio and hear what is going on. i go online and that is where i get my news. probably some and 50 and older they think just the opposite. for people in my age bracket that is what they are doing. host: what sites are you visiting to get your information? caller: honestly, very simple to go to youtube. type in a topic you are interested in and there are lots of bloggers out there and special websites with information you never see on television or even hear about on the radio. other sites honestly, al jazeera and their website is excellent reporting and thorough reporting. there is a whole slew of online resources to go to that you just can't get in television and radio or newspaper. that is where i go and a lot of folks i know do the same thing. host: john from mechanicsburg. next up is christina from

lockhart, alabama. christina, where to get your information? caller: cnn. host: you are in the 35 and under age bracket. do you use facebook at all? caller: i do not use facebook. host: most of your political news is through cnn. do you listen to the radio or watch other tv stations at all? caller: i do much of the tv stations like fox news and no. host: next up is clerk from florida. is it merit or herit? caller: host: go ahead. pretty get your blago news? caller: msnbc. i listen to -- and others on

their. -- there. host: do you use facebook at all? caller: i do not have a computer . host: you do not have a computer to get on facebook. caller: no. i don't have a computer. i just pick it up on msnbc. i watch shows like elliott scholz. chris matthews. the others. host: what political party do you identify with if any? caller: democrat. host: you are a democrat watching msnbc. ok. that is clark from merritt island, florida. the research center found that

people -- there is not only according to age, but also according to their political party. the center found that the conservatives have a lower level of trust in media sources. they distrust me get more so than the liberals. -- distrust media more than the liberals. the research center also found that those who are consistently conservative candidate to watch fox news in much greater numbers than those that are consistently liberal. they watch msnbc, cnn, or other news sources. fox news is the most popular new source among consistently conservative viewers who were polled by the research center. our next color is broke from georgia. -- caller is brooke from

georgia. caller: i typically do not watch television news. if i do it is something like npr or public television. intellihub.com is a good side to gives an alternative viewpoint of what is going on. the young turks, youtube channel. they have good, informative news get i found that "the john oliver show" on hbo has good things that people do not talk about on the national scene here. for local news, i go to the newspaper or something like that. host: do you have a facebook account? the use twitter? caller: no. host: what about "the daily show?" caller: i have watched it before.

typically, it is a rehash of something that iparty picked up. they go a little bit more in depth in a funny sort of way. host: that was burke from georgia. next up is dave from dayton, ohio who is 51 and over. good morning to you. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i'm good. where do you get your news other than c-span? caller: free speech tv. "the daily show." msnbc. and i think fox news is a crime. they should be arrested for the lies that they tell on their. -- there. host: i am guessing you do not identify as a conservative. caller: they are horrible. that is what i have to say. host: that is day from dayton ohio.

next is christine from charleston, south carolina. christine, are either? -- are you there? caller: thank you for taking my call. i am in my 20's and i listen to c-span all the time. mainly because i feel like that is the least biased source out there. i feel most of the mainstream media, msc -- msnbc, cnn, pbs all of them are very biased. i think even fox's biased in its own right. i mainly look at internet news. i read drudge report. i think it is important to get a spectrum. i think people who just look at one new source, i think your negative the full picture. i think it is important to look at everything. i also look at pbs and cnn. i look at all of them. unfortunately you kind of have

to sift through every thing to get fax. i feel like a lot of the mainstream media tries to hide a lot of what is going on. benghazi for one. congress been here in south carolina, the chair of the committee, doing a fantastic job of that. you really do not hear much about that going on in the media. it is unfortunate. it should be -- host: christine from charleston south carolina. next up is mary from franken tennessee on the 51 and older line. go ahead. caller: c-span. i watch all three channels. i love -- and a watch of the representatives and senators. i think everyone in this country should watch.

c-span is right from the horse's mouth. it is all the truth. it is what you get. i like tbs, i love pbs. i do watch al jazeera. sometimes it is a little bit too much conflict. bbc news, bbc america. it is really good. i used to watch the young turks. oh, al jazeera bought them out. that is -- the young turks was really good. host: beware the second person to mention that. caller: yeah, he was excellent. he was a real human being.

i don't see much blood in any of the politicians. c-span is extremely addictive. i grew up. i retired inserted watching c-span. host: that is mary from tennessee. we will continue taking your phone calls on way to get your political news. they want to hear from you. we will switch gears now and talk about the breach of federal government ada that compromised 4 million people's personal information. we are joined by tom shoup. he will provide us with the latest on the breach. tom, think he's much for joining us. what data was actually compromised and how big and widespread is the problem?

caller: it is fairly widespread. they estimate about 4 million federal employees and retirees had information accessed. it is not entirely clear quite yet exactly what that information was. but since it was federal personnel records, you can assume it is everything from name, social security number, possibly performance ratings, job assignments, a whole range of information. host: how unusual was an attack like this on a federal government agency? has this happened before? guest: unfortunately, it has. this is the fourth time in the past year that a major federal system has been accessed containing information about federal employees. it is unfortunately not as rare as we would like it to be. that is often -- of concern because federal officials appear to be reasonably convinced that this is the work of chinese

hackers. apparently they are building a database of information about government employees. host: this is the fourth time this is happened. what is the government doing in order to ensure the security of the system? caller: there have been several steps taken to ensure security and in fact these systems had pretty much state-of-the-art intrusion detection software installed. the problem is that this was a type of attack that had not been seen before. a specific type of malware that had not been both -- deployed previously so they were not able to prevent the attack happening. and they were able to eventually detected. host: what are the chances of something like this happening again? caller: you would have to say at this point, since it has happened several times and the office of personnel management itself is been a victim of this

on its systems on at least two different other occasions, that it is happening more frequently and it appears likely it will probably happen again. obviously it is of concerned people in government and there and spending more money to stop these kind of things are happening. but when they think it is state-sponsored, it is very difficult to stay ahead of that kind of concerted effort. host: how was the office of personnel management communicating with employees about the data breach and what happened? caller: beginning next week they will start sending e-mails to the people who were affected and they say it is about 4 million people. they do not necessarily have e-mail addresses for all of them in their system. some people, they will just send regular u.s. mail letters to. presumably those are some retirees. other people will begin to get

an e-mail notification with information about what they can do and how to sign up for free credit monitoring. host: how is this attack different from the attacks we've seen in the private sector such as target and home depot? is a similar? caller: it depends on the intrusion. it is somewhat different than the target or home depot hacks and that it doesn't appear to be aimed necessarily at gathering information to -- for identity theft purposes. it might be more like the anthem health care hack which some federal officials believe is the work of the same group of people . that appears to be more aimed at building this database of people and information about them for possibly purposes of blackmail or just compiling a database of

federal e-mails to be used for spearfishing purposes. that is spoofing some as e-mail dressed to try to gain access to other government systems. host: bottom line, what should someone who is affected due in order to protect themselves and try to guard against future incursions? caller: the first thing is the on the lookout for one of these e-mails if you are a federal employee. you can go to their website from information about that. they say that they urge people to monitor their financial accounts. to sign-up for a free credit report and see if anything is been done on their accounts. to visit the federal trade commission website. identitytheft.gov. and generally to be wary of any unusual activity involving their financial information. host: tom shoop thank for

joining us this morning. host: a little more information on the data breach in the "washington post" this morning. "china compiling americans dated." "china is building a massive database of americans personal information by gathering government agencies and u.s. health-care companies using a high-tech tactic to achieve in age-old goal of espionage. groups of hackers working for the chinese government have copper might the networks of the office of personnel management which holds data on millions of kermit -- current and former employees. the officials and researchers said the story goes on to say that the targeting of large-scale databases is a relatively new tactic used by the chinese government to further its intelligence gathering. it is government as the notch, not commercial espionage.

host: are you reading newspapers at all? we want to know you get your political news. you can call us and let us know. you can call us at (202) 748-8000 if you are 35 and under. those between 36 and 50 can die with that (202) 748-8001. 51 and over, called (202) 748-8002. you can find us on social media on twitter, on facebook, or send us an e-mail at journal@c-span.org. our next caller now is from marshall texas. that is kevin calling on the 51 and overline. he would -- over line. caller: i am the exception to the research because i consider myself conservative but i do not watch fox news all that much. i try to balance. i get my political information everywhere.

talk radio internet, msnbc, al jazeera. there was only one place that i trust. host: where is that? caller: c-span. as the other colors said, c-span is the political news. if you want to know what your politicians are doing or saying, c-span is the place to go. host: that is kevin from texas. next up is paul from appleton, wisconsin calling on the 36-50 line. go ahead. caller: thank you. i usually get a lot of my news from wolf blitzer on cnn. he is great. host: mainly tv for you. have you read newspapers? caller: i subscribe to "time." i

also watch the news shows in the afternoon on cbs. i think wolf blitzer is definitely the best newscaster out there. he is so unbiased did he is so evenhanded. i like listening to him. host: do you use social media at all? caller: not too much, no. once in a while if i met my friends. i'm not a mind of my friends are in sometimes a check it out. i still think cnn is probably the most evenhanded news out there. they are pretty honest. i do not think they are biased. i think they are really -- like you said, they are really evenhanded. thank you. host: that is paul from

wisconsin. a few comments from twitter. "i'm 60 in refuse to get my political news from entertainers on talk radio." another one writes, "i did not know who the duggers were." "i like through various media for reports on policy proposal that corresponded by moral and ethical values, and the source." the next color comes from mineola, kansas. caller: good morning. host: where do you get your news? caller: i get it from many sources. i love c-span. i also watch a lot of msnbc. i listen to npr on the radio. i take a newspaper. host: is it your local newspaper or a national newspaper? caller: it is a statewide newspaper.

we do not have a real local newspaper in the end of the world. i have to get news from a lot of places because this is such a red state that if i want to get another view i need to get it from other sources. i do watch the network news for local, usually abc or nbc for local, and then the evening news that is national. host: what political party do you identify with? caller: i am registered republican but i am a very left reading person -- left-leading person. host: do you watch fox news at all? caller: no, i do not like them. they just seem to yell and do

not really give the news. i get some of the radio stations locally have fox news for the news but generally i do not ever watch talks on tv. host: mary lou from kansas calling on the 51 and overlying. next up is will from illinois, calling on the 35 and overlying. that is a -- and over line. caller: i am 33 years old. host: where do you get your political news? caller: i get it from a variety of sources in the morning. i usually listen to one of my local radio stations to catch up on what is going on in my area. i jump around, i listen to npr. i listen to the local a.m. news talk stations, and then my local television station in the evening.

i do not which any table news in a sense, no fox news, no msnbc because that is propaganda to an extent. there seems to be a lot of editorializing that goes on, on those channels. they do not really report the news. they bring you a news topic and they tell you somebody's opinion on it. host: you are saying this is true on the left and the right? caller: it is. it seems like we've got more polarization in our politics all the time, and i think that is because a couple of different reasons but one of the major driving once as we have a big middle portion of america who cannot find middle ground news. so all you hear are the extremes on either end of the party. people just check out and say, i do not want to hear all of this white noise anymore.

it would be good if people turn back to some of the more local news outlets to an extent because i think some of -- not c-span -- but some of the national news outlets are driving people away from the process. host: that is will from illinois on the 35 and underlying -- and under line. this twitter user agrees with you as well. martha from bowling green, kentucky is calling on the 36 to 50-year-old mind. where do you get your news? caller: i watch a lot of the cable news, c-span in particular, and i watched the congressional committees. i would like to talk just a minute about your news article that you just had on the anthem and the government tax -- the government hacks. saying that the chinese

government was behind it and that it is governmental issues and not commercial issues. our local community as a college and 80 of the employees went to file their income taxes. it had already been accessed by someone filing income taxes other than the employee. these people were insured by rest are -- by western through anthem. if this is a government effort to gather espionage, there also filing against income tax records. host: martha from kentucky. next caller is sally from melbourne, florida, calling on the 51 and overlying. sally, go ahead. caller: good morning. i am a news junkie, raised with newspapers, still believe in newspapers. however, it's the newspapers

have gotten so bad out of necessity, i watch every channel. my dvr is set for all of the sunday programs. those are all opinion, some fact. but i do watch abc news at night. no longer do i watched cbs. unfortunately, having read stonewalled, i agree that there is not any investigative reporting, or at least it is very minimal. the networks do not seem to want to spend the money on that. i miss the real investigative reporting that cbs used to do. cnn is good, i trust them. i do not believe in the old ork and all that. i was raised as a person who really read the news, listens to the news. if i am in the car, i listen to npr. i just wish that on the network

news if you are going to say that there is a tornado in kansas that you would tell us what city. usually they do for tornadoes but when they say a bridge collapsed or a car ran into some ring, they do not tell you especially the networks, they do not tell you what city. i'm from michigan and i would like to know other than just hearing in michigan someone died, i would like to know where. host: sally, do you worry about people only watching news that coincides with their political views? caller: yes. coincides with their local news? host: no, their political views. caller: i agree with your previous caller that the extremes really seem to take the center. our congress does absolutely nothing to calm the atmosphere.

they just grabbed it up. we had lived in the washington area for 40 years, and i really enjoy politics. it is a game, as it is played now. but it seems as though the nation's business is not being done. the media does not help. i really thought that cheryl atkinson's book hit it on the head. there have been some other political books that are very good to have been describing the atmosphere and how it has changed in washington. host: we will have to leave it there to move on to a few more callers. next is rachel from iowa city, iowa. rachel, do you use facebook? caller: actually no. probably the closest thing i would use would be twitter so

no, but i do get my news from a variety of sources. i am really looking for original reporting and journalism. one great thing about the internet is it allows you to look at things like ap and reuters for yourself and i do not think that was possible before the internet. i also get newspapers, i read a national newspaper and a local newspaper every day. i enjoy news like frontline and magazines like "mother jones" that do a lot of original reporting. i think now you can get that kind of news and a lot of different formats. it is trying to find that original reporting, places like c-span for example. host: a few more comments from twitter. this person tweets "the daily show has more news content than any show on fox news."

another person tweets "my trusted source for intelligent and civilized political discourse is dr. show on npr. she commands respect from all viewpoints." a number of callers have brought it up, fox news draws a significant portion of its audience from across the ideological spectrum though 46% is right of center here it 36% of fox news's audience comes with a mix of political views. our next caller is betty from zion illinois, on the 51 and over line. where do you get your political news? caller: i look at all of them, fox news, msnbc cnn. i also have a tablet.

so i get it from all. matter of fact, i was watching fox news last night and day was dealing with the 19 and still counting family. sean hannity, i watch him. if you do not agree with him he cuts you off and talk to someone who agrees with him. i heard him later mention out of south carolina, dealing with hillary's problem with benghazi. i am a 76 euro african-american, born in greenville, south carolina. my memory of that, i will not even go back for a family reunion. i watch all the channels but i can take a little bit of fox news, not much. thank you. host: that is betty from zion

illinois. next is jerry from upper darby pennsylvania, on the 36 to 50 line. where did you get your political news other than c-span? caller: i actually get my news from several sources. amongst them would be radio from al jazeera, ms nbc, but in terms of objectivity and how constructive the news is broadcast, i think c-span would be at the top even though c-span does not really give a regular newscast. most of c-span is talk shows political talk shows. but i think c-span programming

is very, very good, very informative. i wish all of the channels for political news would conduct themselves in a manner in which c-span does. one of the reasons why i tend to switch to radio france, out to zero bbc, for most of the daily cast is because i like my news to be inclusive. what i noticed about c-span and maybe msnbc, yes, they give to some extent objective news but not all of the news is that inclusive. i like my news to be globally inclusive, talking about world issues, europe and africa. as far as fox news is concerned

i wonder, i really wonder the state of mind and the level of objectivity of those who are so into fox news. host: we are going to have to leave it there. next up is carlos from new york, new york, calling on the 51 and over line. caller: i watch the news regularly. i think it is imbalanced. sometimes they have two people speaking only with a moderator. fox news regularly -- and also cnn, i like anderson and i like all the conservatives in cnn. that is what i like. host: our last caller for this

segment will be robert from greenville, north carolina, also calling on the 51 and over line. go ahead. caller: the only two stations that are really allowing everyone to speak and not be biased our c-span and -- our c-span and free speech tv. tom hopman, andy goodman, even pbs, they are receiving funding from the koch brothers. they had on the news yesterday brooke shields and judy woodruff, they were talking about the democratic candidates and they mentioned lincoln chafee, martin o'malley, and hillary clinton, and completely disregarded bernie sanders which is ridiculous. host: robert, do you use social

media at all? caller: i follow a lot on huffington post and radio-wise npr. as far as fox news, fox news is nothing but paid for by republicans. it is not news. they are not journalists, their entertainers, and that is all they do is separate the country by trying to turn one law and one group against the other group. host: that is robert from north carolina. that ends our open phones segment this morning. next up we will talk about the economy. the economy added 280,000 jobs in may. we will discuss this with nelson schwartz, an economics reporter for the new york times. the tsa failed 97% of security guests -- tests.

all weekend long, our book tv and american history tv networks will be featuring the literary life and history of lincoln prescott. here at 6:00, p.m., a look at the personal papers of willa cather. >> will account there is one of the most important american writers of the 20th century. she was given almost every literary award possible in her lifetime before she died. she was known for some of her masterpieces like "the professor's house," "the lost lady," and others. she made a will with a few restrictions. she did not want her letters to be published, quoted in whole or in part.

we left behind at least 300 letters that we know about now and those letters are all over the world in different repositories. we are fortunate some are in nebraska. in her will, she left to the sole and uncontrolled discretion of her insect it is and -- of her executors and trustees whether or not they would follow her wishes. when this first came into the archives and i worked here, i was able to read some words that had never really been available to anyone outside of her family, outside of those who received the letter originally. i thought these words should be part of what we know about how she articulated her work, articulated herself. they should be famous and well-known because they will mean things to people beyond me. >> this summer, tv will cover

book festivals from across the country. this weekend, we are live for the chicago tribune printers row lit fest. lawrence wright, and your phone calls. new the end of june, watch for the annual roosevelt reading festival at the roosevelt presidential library. in the middle of july we are live at the harlem book fair with author interviews and panel discussions. at the beginning of september we're live from the nation's capital for the national book festival, celebrating its 15th year. washington journal continues. host: we are joined now by nelson schwartz, and economics reporter for the new york times. he is here to discuss the latest jobs report with us. guest: great to be here. host: the economy added 280,000

jobs last month, the biggest number so far. what is driving those gains? guest: it was a very strong report because the gains work across a bunch of different areas, professional and business services gained a lot of job. that is white-collar things, engineering, computers. health pack and education was very strong. retail added about 31,000 jobs so that is stores and malls. host: you saw a very broad-based increase. when that seems a little bit confusing is the unemployment rate actually went up last month. how do you have more jobs and higher unemployment? guest: unemployment can go up for good reasons are boundaries -- good reasons or bad reasons. you are not counted as unemployed unless you are looking for work so basically

more people were looking for work last month, which has the effect of driving up the unemployment rate. the labor participation rate, namely people in the search for jobs, went up. that is some of the people that had dropped out over the deep recession and jobless recovery of the early part of the recovery, are beginning to come back a little bit. the return of those people has the effect of driving up the unemployment rate by 1/10 of 1%. host: the unemployment rate is at 5.5%. i want to show you this chart in "the wall street journal," showing the unemployment rate falling from 8% in 2011 to 5.5%, but also shows another line of the broadest measure of unemployment at 10%. what is the difference? guest: the top one, they call that the u-6 is what it is known

by the bureau of labor statistics. that includes people working part-time for economic reasons namely they cannot get a full-time job. it includes some discouraged workers, people who have given up looking for work actively. it is a more realistic picture of the economic condition. you will often hear 5.5 sounds better than it is, and this brought u-6 is between 10 and 11%, it has also come down. it was around 12% a year ago so it is improving but again it suggests how much we have to still go in terms of recovering from the recession. host: we want to open up the phone lines to our viewers now. we are breaking them up in a slightly different way. those who are unemployed can call us at (202) 748-8000 if you are employed full-time

you can call us at (202) 748-8001. employed part-time, call us at (202) 748-8002. all others, (202) 748-8003. what does this mean with the recovery? is it moving full steam ahead? guest: yes, it is returning to the kind of trend growth we had. over the past 12 months we have been gaining an average of 200 and 250,000 jobs per month so we are little bit above that. we had a real slow down in march. we only had about 119,000 jobs. because the beginning of the year was pretty slow, the weather was bad, people were not shopping, the west coast had a

labor dispute. the economy sort of hit an air pocket in the first quarter so there was a lot of concern about whether the hiring would bounce back, and so far it has. host: another article in "the wall street journal" had this headline "american workers ask: where's my raise? " guest: hiring has increased but wages have remained very steady. part of that is because you have so many workers unemployed and so many people looking for work there was really no pressure on employers to raise wages. they figure if you ask for a raise and you could not get one they could find someone who would take your job. as the labor market get tighter and the slack disappears, there is more pressure on employers to raise wages.

we saw actually last month 3/10 of a percent increase in wages. that brings the annual wage increase to about 2.3%. still on the lower side but better. it is up from 2%. there is hope that finally as the unemployment rate goes down, we will see some wage increases for the 95% of us who are employed. host: your a few tweets from lawmakers now, and from the president. president obama tweeted " yesterday the economy added 280,000 jobs in a, working 63 consecutive month of private sector growth." "the u.s. economy added 280,000 jobs in a but the black unemployment rate rose to 10.2%." john boehner wrote "it is always

good news that more americans found work but too many are still looking for steady jobs and better pay." on the phone from silver spring, maryland employed part time. caller: my name is florence and i am calling to find out, right now i'm working just 20 hours a week and i do not know if i am part of the part-time -- i do not consider myself employed. i do not know if i am part of the 5% or 10%. i do not know. i took $40,000 in loans to study services and i am just getting something like, this position.

i do not understand what is going on. we have some numbers that are misleading. host: nelson schwartz? guest: it is a great question. he would be considered part-time for economic reasons. namely, he is working part-time but would like to be full-time. he is not counted as unemployed for the purposes of that 5.5 number but he is counted as unemployed for that 10.6 you showed. that shows you write there the difference between people who have full-time jobs and those who do not but want them. he is doing the right thing in terms of borrowing to study and to get training in the health sector. that has been a real growth area but you really see the difference between people who have a college degree or some college, some training, versus a high school degree or a high school dropout. the unemployment rate goes up

if you have a college degree the unemployment rate is 2.7. if you are high school dropout it is about 8% and it goes steadily along with how much education you have. that is key in this economy. host: next israel's from new york decks -- next is ralph from new york on the unemployed line. caller: i am a seasonal employee , i do taxes. i would like to ask your guests, does your guests have any opinion on the right to work laws that are been passed in michigan indiana wisconsin and the right to work law in missouri. this impact wage earners in the country because it is a war on the wage earners to keep ages low.

if he has any opinions on it, i would appreciate it. host: nelson? guest: i do not cover organize labor or unions so i do not have an opinion on right to work laws themselves, but i will say that in union states like michigan wages tend to be higher because of the union. in nonunion states like the south, south carolina, tennessee, where employers have more power you have lower wages. one effect of that has been many manufacturers have moved jobs to nonunion states. even the states that favor unions are under pressure as well. that is a tension that you have in the market. host: tyrone from connecticut is calling on the other line. caller: i get annoyed when i hear these raw job creation

numbers. i never hear a discussion of the quality of the jobs being created. what is the quality of the jobs being created? 280,000 pounds nice but what is the quality? guest: an excellent question. we have seen the shift since the recovery began. at first it was retail jobs, what they call leisure and accommodation, those jobs tend to pay less. more recently there has been a pickup in areas that pay better, so like professional business services, white collar jobs, high-tech jobs, engineering we had a very strong gain in those. we had 17,000 in construction, a blue-collar area that tends to pay well. we also had strong gains in some other smaller sectors that

again, that pay ok. that is better so it is a broader mix and that is one reason why we had that 3/10 a percent increase in wages. i think we are seeing more hiring, more jobs being created in the higher-paying areas. that is a bit of the shift. host: we are talking with nelson schwartz of "the new york times." the jobs report is something that the federal reserve looks at very closely. here is the headline in the wall street journal "u.s. employers ramped up hiring last month signaling increased growth and nudging the federal reserve toward its first interest rate increase in nearly a decade. it is likely to reassure fed officials that the economy has begun raising interest rates near zero for their september policy meeting."

what is the fed's thinking on the jobs report? caller: that is correct. originally people thought we might raise -- the fed might raise rates in june. the numbers looked weaker and now that expectation has been moved in september. it may or may not come in september. most people think if the numbers continue to come in at this level, slightly lower, or slightly higher but above 200,000, then we will get a rate increase, the first in years in september. host: a few comments from twitter, "when shopping is your big economic strategy you cannot expect a robust recovery." "how do you square the economy contracting by -.7% in q1? also any adjustments to previous months job number?

" guest: some of the contraction in q1 was due to temporary off actors. there was a slowdown in the west coast ports and that have the effect of reducing exports. plus, the weather was pretty that here in new york. people did not go out, did not shop as much. those are some of the reasons. then there was just some economic weakness in the first quarter. that seems to have kind of past to some extent. things seem to be getting better. we actually did have upward revisions for job creation in march and april as part of this report. host: we will hear now from henry from mississippi who is working part time. caller: yes, i called to see about this unemployment, how

hard it is for the blacks. i do believe that c-span is part of it. let me tell you the reason why. we sit down and watch c-span, the black people, many days a week. every day, i do. i do not ever see a black on there. i do not. not on the show. it is just like the lady there now. host: that is henry from mississippi. in may, the unemployment rate broken down by race were these numbers. for black americans it was 10.2%. for hispanics it was 6.7%. for whites, it was 4.7%. our next caller is debbie from west chester pennsylvania, working part-time. caller: yes, i am calling about

this unemployment issue and what i would like to say is just today the whole jobhunting process is kind of broken. i am 56 is old -- 36 years old and it is different than when it was 20 years ago. you have jobs online, on internet, and they tell you why you cannot rely on the internet. a lot of jobs are up there that have already been filled. i have gone on interviews and people do not get back to me. i have had recruiters call me. they do not get back to me. to me, it has been very frustrating. i just think the whole process is -- has been kind of broken.

host: that is debbie from pennsylvania. nelson schwartz, any thoughts? guest: what i would say is you have this tremendous hold up of people looking for work in the aftermath of the great recession. and then a very slow recovery, and you had sort of a bland word that the federal reserve uses, labor slack. that is many, many people who cannot find jobs. there are people who have dropped out entirely. you have this cohort of people who have lost their jobs, were forced to work part-time in the aftermath of the recession and it has taken a long, long time for those people to be able to find jobs to get back in the labor market. the labor secretary calls it the unfinished business of the recovery.

host: next up is john from bronx, new york, who was working full-time. caller: my question has to do with standard of living. the way i see it is that higher-paying jobs, union type of jobs usually translate into a higher standard of living. your guest here is talking about, he sounds as though he is promoting lower paying jobs as being better for people in general as far as standards of living. i do not see that. i see that union jobs, which usually translate into higher standards of living because they usually pay more which means people are more benefits or better benefits, which means they get health care, retirement benefits.

he seems almost like he is promoting lower paying jobs as better than union jobs, which promote a higher standard of living. host: john from new york. allyson schwartz, your thoughts? guest: i think john is totally misinterpreting what i said. i am a member of the union, i pay union dues. i am not saying union jobs are better or not better but nobody thinks lower paid jobs are better. i think what you want is a broad range of jobs. if you had only higher-paying jobs being created than you would have problems for the majority of americans who do not have college degrees. we had something like 40 million or 50 million people who only have a high school diploma or are high school dropouts. that is a big cohort.

those people tend to get lower paying jobs. we want those created as well as higher-paying jobs, which we are seeing created. you need both. i certainly do not think lower paying jobs are better. i do think there has been a tremendous amount of disruption from the new technology in the workforce, and that has affected a lot of people in lower skilled, lower pay jobs. host: next is mike from thompson pennsylvania, on the other line. guest: good morning -- caller: good morning, thank you for c-span. are you there? host: we are here. caller: i am glad that mr. schwartz is on. i just want to ask him a couple of questions. the first, is he familiar with pope francis and his exhortation , the joy of the gospel,

paragraph 52 which talks about trickle-down economics? the second thing is, i have often wondered about this so i'm glad you are on. there is no economy, or there is no money in the world that is over 100 years old. if you take a bill from 100 years ago, it is not something that you can use and exchange. what is it, what will be the mechanism where you could tell me something i could read so i could understand what happens to gigantic debt in countries? because the people who say that the debt is our problem and will not do anything in terms of infrastructure or pay any money out to improve our economy, i do not think -- i am just trying to get an understanding of what happens to debt. host: that was mike from

pennsylvania. guest: basically, debt continues to exist over time. units of currency do exist longer than 100 years. the physical bill might change the dollar has been around than 200 years since after the american revolution. the british pound has been around for hundreds of years. those instruments still continue obviously, the paper and quite change. -- coins change. you have inflation every year so over time that reduces the value of the debt that is out there. the color is correct in that investment in infrastructure is very important and that does boost productivity, which is a key part of growth. if you have investments, if you are borrowing to rebuild

airports highways, mass transit, that makes a difference in terms of economic growth. if you are borrowing to fund obligations and ongoing bills salaries, that is more dangerous for government in the long-term. host: nelson schwartz, here is a headline in "the washington post." it states that "the resurgence of job growth is causing a rebound in the job market home sales are at their highest level since 2006, and housing prices across major matcher areas have increased 30% is bottoming out three years ago. government numbers show that new residential construction jumped ." can you talk to us a little bit about the ways the job growth ripples through the economy

whether it is the housing sector or other parts of the economy? guest: the housing sector was the hardest hit in the recession. it is kind of what led economy downward. it has come back and actually, construction jobs have been very strong gainers in the last year, which is very good, because that was a sector where you had huge job losses in 2008, 2009, 2010, so there is more construction going on. you do see people being hired. as the unemployment rate drops or people have jobs and they feel more comfortable buying a house. that is definitely good. teachers rates are still very low. there's something in economics called the multiplier effect, which is how many times the impact of the job ripples through the economy. certain sectors like

manufacturers or construction, has a higher multiplier effect. that is why going back to the earlier caller, we need jobs that pay well to have a bigger multiplier effect. host: lisa from louisiana is calling on the unemployed line. what is your question? caller: thank you for taking my call. i have worked all of my life. i am 56 years old. i have no job now and they told me that i have no health insurance. i would like to know if you think it is fair for me to go to a community center when i have worked all my life? i do not qualify for subsidies i do not qualify for medicaid, and i want to know why. thank you. host: nelson, any thoughts? guest: i do not cover health care and i'm not familiar with the laws of coverage in louisiana in particular. i will say many employers have

cut back on health care coverage as part of jobs. it used to be, and that is sort of the foundation of our system, if you are employed you have health care and other benefits and that is how you had health insurance. i think in recent years, as we know, to save money many employers have eliminated this kind of benefits. that has made it harder for working people, especially in blue-collar and lower paid jobs. host: here's a question from twitter, "will they continue to prime the pump of stock market or focus elsewhere? " guest: i think with the tweeter is referring to is the federal reserve did this quantitative easing, which is essentially adding liquidity to the economy to promote growth, keeping interest rates very low. the federal reserve is signaling that it is going to start raising rates in the fall so i think the pump priming is at an

end. the hope is that the economy the growth can be more self-sustaining. host: owl from georgia, calling on the unemployed line. al good morning to you. caller: hello. i'm calling regarding an economist and john williams. he goes in and sees with the government is doing to the unemployment figures and he puts it back to the way it used to be pre-clinton. right now he is saying that the unemployment, the real unemployment rate is about 23%. you have 47 million people on food stamps. we need about 160 million jobs with full employment. you have around 20% of people on

food stamps. that means they are broke. the participation rate was about 62%. that is leaving 38% of people not participating. how the government can tell the people that unemployment is between 5% and 6% is ridiculous. they hope people do not pay attention and do not go to alternative sources for their information. there is a lot of people that know that this just is not right. host: al from georgia. nelson schwartz? guest: i am not familiar with mr. williams' work. in terms of the unemployment rate, as we discussed there are different ways of calculating it. there's a 5.5% rate we discussed and then there is the broader

rate between 10% and 11% the u-6 i mentioned. i do not think anyone would consider the unemployment rate as high as 23% but as the caller points out, there are millions of people on food stamps. there has definitely been an increase in poverty and an increase in unemployment among sort of lower skilled workers. that is definitely taken place since the recession. you actually see, i looked this up before i came on, the participation rate for high school dropouts were people with just a high school diploma is much, much lower. the participation rate for people with college degrees is about a 5% so there's a tremendous amount of paying among lower educated workers. if i go on the highway, i do not pay the toll.

there is no toll operator there's easy pass. if i could to the bank, there is an atm. jpmorgan said this week it'll be cutting tellers. these kind of jobs are disappearing. nobody calls the operator for information, 411 anymore. they look online. this is a challenge for the economy, creating enough jobs for all of us. host: this is a technical question from twitter "does u-6 include unemployed moms and dads who want to stay at home with their kids? does it include college kids?" guest: no. taking care of a child, you are not counted as unemployed. same thing for a full-time college student. host: david from columbia missouri. caller: it is good that c-span is still working like this.

i want to ask this gentleman if he has any way of relating this back to john boehner's sequester where it just totally gutted funding for all kinds of different things. thank you. guest: i think the sequester and the pressure on government spending may have held growth back a couple years ago. i think most people would say the government is back to spending at close to normal levels. and actually, the public-sector actually gained about 18,000 jobs in this last report in may. most were local governments that even the federal government is hiring again. the impact of the sequester is definitely behind us. host: the next caller is jose from bradenton florida, and working part-time. caller: i just want to say that

after jobs went to manufacturers overseas, i think the obama administration manufactured infrastructure infrastructure and energy that will bring a lot of jobs. i used to work in south texas. all the jobs went to mexico. millions of jobs we lost. we need those jobs back because we cannot compete, $.57 an hour in malaysia and the other countries. i think that is why we need to also elect bernie sanders

because he can bring jobs to the united states. the republicans can care less. they do not give a monkey's ass. host: nelson schwartz? guest: are has been a tremendous loss of manufacturing jobs to overseas competitors. labor is cheaper overseas. mexico, in particular, after nafta which was past 20 years ago, in the wake of nafta there has been a big move of manufacturing jobs to mexico, which is continuing now. i would just add that i think these are broader economic trends that are not necessarily connected to who is in the white house. maybe these trends are happening under democratic or republican administrations. i would note nafta was passed under bill clinton, a democrat. that was 20 years ago.

even now, free-trade is reported that she supported by some republicans and democrats. it is too simplistic or naive to blame one party or the other. these are broad economic trends. international competition, low labor rates in asia, these are things the country has to deal with no matter who is in the white house. host: james for mississippi calling on the others' line. caller: i wanted to ask you first, i'm going to ask you this question and then i want to follow-up with you about the same question. remember the car companies ford , and the bank debacle, and they pumped that money in to lifted up and get it back on track? the same way with the housing thing with the banks. i need you to tell me the truth. is it wrong for 350 million people to have a stimulus plan where the government can send

out a stimulus plan for the people of america, what is $350 million for the government to send to every american over here. when you focus on it they say no, you need to get people to go to work on their own. on the other stimulus plan, if they were giving that money to them, why is it so bad for the american people to be stimulated from the government when they are helping everyone else? host: that was james. guest: basically, the reason why the government pumped in so much money into the auto sector or the banking sector during the financial crisis and in the recession was basically to stabilize those sectors as they employ millions and millions of people. if the automakers had collapsed gone out of business, you would

have lost millions of jobs that would not have come back necessarily. the bailout for wall street, the bailout for the banks which was big -- tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars -- whether you like that or not you need a banking system. the view was, as problematic and objectionable as lending tens of billions of money to wall street , as much as make people angry the downside of a collapse of a bank would be worse. that would be my take on it. host: from sussex, new jersey told miss -- thomas calling on the unemployed line. caller: it has been a while supply called. i just wanted to give you a hint in my history. i graduated high school in 1978. i am a high school graduate. when i got out of school, there was some factory jobs. they were not high-paying but they were there, take a starting

point for people. in any rate, i muddled through that and back in 1984 i got into construction. what i noticed was during the reagan administration, they were doing this fake economy with military and everything was building up. raytheon and stuff like that in my area have a lot of work. i'm saying that i think we can keep building on fake economies. i am a licensed plumber and i know there is a lot of money to be had. where was the circle of money? there was no circle. to me, everything was in cyberspace as opposed to the money circling. between the fake economy and shipping jobs overseas where back in the 1980's we had the technology rather than ship out

overseas, we probably would have a better population of people and more college graduates. a lot of this technical stuff, i can pretty much fix anything. i have learned how to use my iphone five just the spring and i'm getting pretty good at it. host: we have to leave you there are three can fit in a few more callers. allyson schwartz, do you have comments? guest: i think we have releasing tremendous awards -- rewards for people with high skills. it is kind of a tale of two economies. college graduates, 2.7% unemployment whereas between 5% and 6% for people with just a high school diploma. you are seeing that real bifurcation. i would add in terms of the caller skilled lou koller jobs like plumber electrician definitely in demand but it takes a lot of training to become a plumber. i would not try at home.

it takes years. same with the welder, same with a carpenter. there is demand for those jobs but it is not like someone can walk in off the street and do plumbing or carpentry. i certainly would not want them in my house. host: peter from bel air pennsylvania, he is employed full-time. what are your thoughts? caller: hi, nelson, how are you? guest: hi. caller: have you ever heard of the austrian economist joseph shum peter? and his theory of creative destruction? guest: absolutely. caller: when you commented about the easy pass in the atms, you think the whole industry of service is being distracted? -- distructed? guest: it is one of the reasons i really enjoying covering the economy.

as new industries are born and new jobs take off, others disappear. we are definitely seeing it. the toll takers, the tellers is another. you even see it with the rise of online retailing. you are seeing old line retailers like sears or kmart really struggle. those are real issues. if that is one reason why skills and education i do not necessarily mean a college degree, but i am talking about training in one of those skilled blue-collar jobs. training in computers or health care as a nurse or medical technician, that is really vital because those low skilled jobs are really disappearing. i remember when you would check in at the counter at the airport. now there is a kiosk. this is going on and it will continue to happen, and that is creative destruction. host: our last caller is thomas

calling from fairlawn, new jersey. caller: i want to thank you for taking my call. i went to comment regarding the gentleman that called a couple of calls ago. he is right regarding the real unemployment rate is closer to 23%. unfortunately, there are even more locks unemployed under this current president -- even more blacks under this under current president. and these will do nothing. host: final thoughts? guest: what is going on is -- i would not say the multinationals are controlling all of it. what you have here is really, really profound economic shifts kind of akin to what you had in the first decades of the 20th century with the rise of radio the automobile and all these new technologies. there is creative disruption and it is much better to be on the creative side and the destruction side. you are seen tremendous benefits

flow are highly educated workers that can benefit from the new trends, but there are tremendous pains and dislocation for workers do not have as much training or skills. i think that is a real challenge for our political leaders in the years going forward. host: nelson schwartz, thank you so much for joining us this morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: next up the tsa failed 95% of recent security test. we will be stream with the former director general of the department security department clark can't urban. and then we will get the latest from the to call the air by department. first, senator patrick leahy the co-author of "usa freedom act" that was signed by the president this past week. he talks about the debate still ahead. >> looking ahead to what is next for surveillance reform, we know there is another major authority

in 2017. talk about section 702 -- is there any hope in mitch mcconnell's senate, is there any hope of doing some reform that will get you ahead of the subset or another brinkmanship moment or is it too early? >> it's hard to tell, but i hope. the country is not helped by that. you have less ability to bring parties together but these articles from the last couple of days is being used as the backdoor way of going into american's informational and that will help us. they are going to be two or three major -- [indiscernible]

is a major thing, frankly, i would like to start having a way for americans to know not so much -- not just what the government knows, but i would like them to be able to know what industry is climbing. one happens with information and you go to a grocery store or a major chain and use your credit card. how is not being done? what happens if they are tracking your phone and you are walking near the xyz store and all of a sudden it pops up on your phone that xyz store is having trouble percent offer those who hold such and such

credit card. that scares the hell out of me. >> what is a greater threat to american privacy? the government or private industry? >> the government. i feel private industry is going but you can avoid those stores. i don't want my government spying on me. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now to talk about the tsa is clark kent ervin, secretary-general for the u.s. department of, and security from 2003 to 2004. he is a partner at a global law firm and executive director of the institute of homeland security program. clark kent ervin, thank you for joining us. guest: my pleasure. host: they failed 95% of the recent security test. tell us what happened, how did this occur? guest: this was a classified

report that was recently leaked and the inspector general of the homeland security, my former position, routinely conducts these covert tests to determine how easily potential terrorist can sneak guns, knives, and explosives past the screeners. 67 times out of 70, the screeners fail these tests. this is just the latest in a long line of these tests. i was the inspector general right at the inception of 2003 and 2004 and i remember the very first test i gave to my auditors was to do the same thing. go to these airports and essentially the same results back then as were obtained recently. host: what are these tests like? what exactly did the tsa fail? guest: these auditors concealed a fake guns, knives, and fake explosives in very novel ways, very innovative ways. in order to test the ability of the screeners to spot concealed

they are not obvious test carried they are difficult. they intend to be difficult because of course, terrorists would make it difficult. i must say it is rather disturbing that all of these years after 9/11 and all these many years after the creation of tsa, we are still getting these results. the good news is the action taken. i could not get the secretary of homeland security at the time back in 2003 to even take a briefing from me when we got similar results when i conducted the very first of these series of tests. this time, not only did that happen, but the secretary of homeland security jeh johnson actually saw a briefing when he heard about the results and further, he took with a really commendable and unprecedented step of relieving from getting to acting administrator at tsa to show how serious it is that these results improve. he has taken a number of other suspect that is the most significant because ultimately, the accountability at the tsa means action needs to be taken to improve results. host: why have these problems

been so persistent? as you mentioned, starting from when you were -- guest: i think a number of reasons. the typical response about all of these years, by the way, as you mention, not just the inspector general that conducts these test, the gao and also tsa itself does. the response we got results similar has been three things -- first of all, is not that big of a deal as there are multiple layers of security. that is true as far as it goes, there are lots of layers. host: what are the layers after tsa? guest: a number of things, bomb sniffing dogs in certain airports undercover officers called behavior detection officers who are trained to spot anomalous behavior that might be indicative of terrorist attacks. on certain airport -- on certain arrogance, their air marshals but the problem is that i think the layer is the wrong metaphor. i would argue it is more like a chain.

therefore, the whole security of the chain is only as secure as the weakest link. as these layers go or links go, i would argue the screeners are the most important. after all, that is their job. to spot the guns and knives and explosives before they get on the plane. it could be too late for air marshals to do and frankly not every airplane has an air marshal. even those airplanes that have air marshals do not have multiple air marshals. even if there were multiple air marshals, they cannot be everywhere at the same time. this is the most important link to me. second response, we are already taking action and that is probably to do some degree. my the time we hear about these results, there has been a difference in process between the inspector general's office and tsa. the results have been briefed tsa and probably action, to some degree, has been taken. august the, action has been taken in the past and not sufficient because we continue to get these results. the third response has been these are difficult test.

yes, they are difficult test. terrorists are not going to label something explosive, this is a bomb, pay attention. they are going to train concealed these devices in the most fickle fashion. as i say, i commend the secretary for taking this action. in addition, he has ordered a change in standard operating procedure so the vulnerability reported and are addressed and major results are briefed all federal security director's senior tsa officers who are in charge of security around the country. he is also going to undertake an intensive round of additional training for screeners and supervisors which is also very important. he will personally be meeting with the heads of the various companies that make the technology that failed these tests and also has directed tsa to work with the technology and r&d of the component -- component of the common security to see if there are additional

technologies out there that can be adapted for purposes of addressing these possibilities. he has taken a number of additional steps including appointing a senior leadership team to follow up and make sure there actually is improvement and he will be briefed on a biweekly basis. one other thing -- i don't want the public to be alarmed. host: i was going to ask -- surely be afraid to get on a plane? guest: the answer to that is no. in part -- to be fair to the tsa screeners, there -- it may be an exaggeration to say there is no tougher job in america but it certainly is one of the tougher jobs. this is mind-numbing work. the number of passengers by go through on a daily basis through these checkpoints, the number of items -- there are studies that have shown it is very, very difficult for the human mind past a certain point to be alert for these anomalies. there has to be a combination of human alertness really expert

training and the best cutting edge technology out there. there has to be a try part solution to this. that is the first thing. the alert levels are really up now, screeners are really going to pay attention. this past fiscal year, screeners screen more passengers than ever and they also found more prohibited items than ever. all is not lost, but the combination of the higher alert levels affected now an action has been taken, so a message has been sent throughout the country to every tsa screener and every tsa screener supervisor that they have got to take this seriously. i'm confident that with these steps, things will improve. host: you can join the conversation as well by calling in and sharing your thoughts. republicans can dally in at (202)-784-8001. democrats at (202)-784-8000. independent at (202)-748-8002. you can send us a tweet on

twitter. we on facebook at facebook.com/cease and or you can send us -- facebook.com/c-span or you can send us an e-mail. can you tell us a little bit more about the so-called teams conducting these tests and what they do? guest: yes, when i was inspector general, i had teams and these are typically auditors. not criminal investigators but auditors. that may be an -- a little unusual for your viewers to hear. auditors are typically thought of financial types to look to make sure the money has been proper and there are those kinds of auditors and officers. but there are also what i call program auditors which is to save these are people who are experts in examining things. assessing how well or how poorly programs work. these are men and women trained in security folder abilities in artful ways to conceal guns, knives explosives, and they

went out to a certain number of airports, concealed these devices in innovative ways, and the charge was to see just how easily it would be to state these weapons past screeners. host: you mentioned that the head of homeland security has ordered changes in operating procedures for those tsa screeners, can you tell us a little bit about what the average person might notice that is different in the airports? guest: that's a good question. i'm not sure the average person would notice anything. there might be greater employment screeners at a given checkpoint, particularly like in washington or new york, high target cities. i am not sure any of these changes will be visible and that is probably a good thing. these are internal changes that are primarily focused on making sure that screeners are more alert and more expert in concealing -- in determining these weapons. host: what does that entail? more training? more breaks? guest: all of that. more training for the screeners more training for the

supervisors so they know what to look for when they are evaluating their screeners. changes in operating procedures, actual manner in which the screeners look for these devices , it is changes in equipment making sure the equipment and technology, that we have at the checkpoint is up to snuff and there are no false positives. more importantly, no false negatives. scouring the country to see whether there are better technologies out there that can be deployed immediately or near term to improve screening. that is an important point and i should pause on that. that is, it may be an exaggeration to say that generally speaking there is a reluctance on the government's part to engage too much with the private sector. there is rightly a concern that no particular company be favorite and that is important. there needs to be robust transportation -- competition transparency, but a partnership between government and the private sector because the

private sector has been security technology solutions out there and it's incumbent upon government defined as this technologies and deploy them just as quickly as possible. host: was the failure of these tests than failure of human error or the equivalent they had to do their jobs? guest: that's the good question. i don't know the precise answer to that. this test is pacified but my bet is it is a little bit of both. as i said, it it has to be a number of things working together. the screeners need to be well-trained and even if they are well-trained but not alert and alert all the time, one failure to catch something can be catastrophic, so that is the first. secondly, the security technology needs to be the best technology available and that technology at all times needs to be operational. both those things need to be looked at. host: let's turn to phone lines first up is catherine from wisconsin on the democratic line. captain, go ahead. caller: hi, yes.

i cannot understand out of all the names what they are implying. out of all the things going on with what they placed in line, ok? they are not doing anything as far as targeting other people and letting these fools come in. i cannot understand if they are not doing the training right then they are not going to using what is supposed to be used. i mean these people that they place in there. host: that was catherine from michigan. guest: i think the thing is, how can this happen? i think the answer is, as i have said before, there has not been sufficient attention on improving these results. there has been a test, a collective shrug of the shoulders. these tests are difficult

multiple layers, we are already implementing these recommendations. as i said, the fact that there is so much public attention on this now -- a lot of press interest, rightly so this past week -- and the fact that the secretary has taken unprecedented action i think means we will see improvement. i will be interested to see what the results are the next time they conduct the series of tests. host: on the republican line, go ahead. caller: hi, how are you? guest: good, thanks. caller: ok, my question is -- when you say more prohibited items are caught, are you talking about shampoo bottles and water bottles and stuff like that? is that included in prohibited items? guest: that's a very good question. i don't know the precise answer. yes, there are number of things pivoted as you say, shampoo,

liquids beyond a certain amount are prohibited, so i think it includes the amount that the point is, the more prohibited items that are spotted by screeners, the better and more indicative that is that screeners are alert. you know, the unfortunate thing is that we can't allow for any failure because anyone failure can be potentially catastrophic so it is important to have marked improvement and this is what that is about. host: a little information from our caller from abc news, this article reports that in one test, an undercover agent was stopped after setting off an alarm at a magnetic domain to her -- at a magneticometer. officials would not acknowledge the exact time. next up is mark from conroe texas, on the independent line. mark, you are on the air. caller: yes, i just flew from

houston to the king islands and it was no problem at all. they were polite, checked our bags nothing weird, and then we came back and it was the same thing. it was quick and painless. everybody did their job and there was some small thing -- i had my bag and they said, what is that? i said it was cologne and i had wiped down there and cologne here. there was no problem. with this site and that site, we enjoyed our trip. we really appreciate the intensity but it wasn't that much because we had nothing to hide. guest: that's great. it's very important that the public be cooperative with screeners. as i said earlier, it is a very, very difficult job. they are under a lot of pressure and there is even more pressure on screeners to perform to a

degree that the public understands and is cooperative with screeners and proactive in making sure they don't inadvertently take prohibited items, not just of course guns knives, and explosives, but prohibited items that slow down the process and might make tsa screeners less likely to spot things like guns, knives, and explosives. host: on the tsa website, tsa.gov, there is a list of the prohibited items that you cannot bring on to an airplane. they include some type of sharp objects, sporting goods firearms, martial arts and self-defense items. explosive and flammable materials, and other items as well. the full list is on tsa.gov, but on twitter, there is this question -- guns and knives are illegal for americans to carry why do we lose our rights when they fly? our -- are the terrorists

winning? guest: i would argue that no right is absolute and there needs to be a balancing of rights. it is very important that i would argue that things that can be dangerous and can be used to injure passengers and ultimately result in another 9/11 off to be permitted from -- prohibited from airplanes. law enforcement officers can carry weapons on the planes but argued blake, the average citizen should not be carrying guns and knives i can pose threats to fellow passengers. we saw what happened on 9/11 with knives and box cutters. host: next up is joe from wisconsin. joe, good morning to you. what are your thoughts this morning? caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. it is self evident to me and millions of other americans that if you reduce the volume of people being screened the whole system would be much more

efficient, much more efficacious. as you have are the mentioned how tedious the work is and the tremendous fight of passengers who have to be screened -- as long as the government is gathering information about us, it seems to me that we should be able to just reduce the number of people being screened to fast-track those regular air travelers, the people who do not pose a security threat. that would solve a lot of problems i think. guest: well, that ultimately, is the theory with which many americans are familiar with. the idea behind the program is that those people who are willing to give the government more information about themselves submit to a background check, give their fingerprints or biometrics and pay a fee, are given the privilege of expedited screening through the checkpoint. they don't have to divest themselves of their jackets, take their shoes off, they do --

they are subject to the limits on the amount of liquids that are carried through. they don't have to take those bags out of their baggage as they go through the checkpoint. so there are increasing numbers of americans enrolled in that program. they are not completely exempted from the screening process, i would not argue for that, but there is expedited screening and that allows tsa screeners to get through the huge fine and as it includes -- the huge volume and allows screeners to concentrate their attention on people who pose the greatest risk because those are the people that the government knows the least. that is the balance the tsa has been appropriate reaching. host: john on the democratic line. john, you are on the air with clark kent ervin. caller: yes, good morning both of you. it is disgusting that after one of the worst tragic events this country experiences 9/11, one of the things to come out of it

is this demeaning tax it has put on the american people called the 9/11 security feet when you buy your plane ticket. when are we going to get rid of that tax? here we find out that 95% of these tests fail -- it might as have been 100% because i can guarantee that the 5% it did get caught was caught by accident. when are we going to get rid of that fee that obviously is doing no good, it's only making somebody else richer and really do something about security in our airports? host: john from florida in a related comment from twitter -- the tsa was not about increased security but about doing something after 9/11. guest: let me take the call at first, might not in support of doing away with that see, i would increase it frankly. it's small, around $20 or so on the average ticket. that's important because it in

part compensates he is a but the huge expense of hiring the screen as we have in our country, around 45,000 or so in the 450 or so airports we had and also security equipment. a partially pays for that and it is an expensive proposition that we need to pay for. the security leader notion -- the security the eight or what we have heard since 9/11, since the creation of the department of tsa right after 9/11 in 2002. it was absorbed in the homeland security department in 2003. i am opposed to that idea. it is not security theatre, it is important that these screeners do. yes, there are failures and this is a signal failure and there has got to the improvement, but that is not to say that we can relax our guard and just forget about security entirely because there can never be perfect security. i dropped the opposite conclusion from it.

that we have to redouble efforts to make sure they are doing everything possible to make these screeners as expert as possible at detecting these weapons. security is critical. host: can you give us a sense of what the job of these screeners is like? what is more row like? is there -- what is more row like? is there high turnover? guest: there is a lot of turnover, not very prestigious morale is very low in part because there are reports like this and people going through airports this morning as we speak. they have heard about this and will have a very negative attitude towards greatness because of the conclusion that they are not doing their jobs. i want to be fair to the screeners. it is a very tough job. i think the way to handle this is his training. obvious you, there needs to be more training. intensified training. supervisors need to be trained so they need to be able to know what to look or when they are

assessing their screeners. there need to be consequences for screeners after a period of time when the routinely fail the test. i would raise their salaries. these men and women, these tsa screeners, are on the front line of security. it is they who are really the last line of defense before terrorists that on the airplanes . because as i said, not every airplane has air marshals and even the planes that have air marshals do not have it on every plane. i do not think they are valued compensated, trained adequately and given the importance of their job. host: next up is married from st. petersburg, florida, on the republican line. very, you are on the air. -- mary, you are on the air. caller: i think it is curious that it no failure for -- that there is a consequence for failure and the government job. he did not get fired, he was reassigned.

government salary, government delegates, everything. there is no consequence for failure. nothing will improve if there is no consequence for failure. guest: well, i certainly understand the caller's point of view, but again, this really was unprecedented. even relieving the act of his position as administrator. the life of tsa -- believe me, it sent a very, very strong message that those who are in leadership positions are going to be held accountable. could the secretary have taken additional step and completely fired him from the department of homeland security? that is possible. i would argue that was a step too far this is an acting administrator who was on the job for a limited period of time. as i understand it, he has had a distinguished career and has been involved in government for

40 years or so. there are limits to what a director can do himself or herself. it is a large agency, around 45,000 screeners are so. i think this step was sufficient to indicate how serious this is. there is a new nominee, from the coast guard, he has been nominated by the president for this position and i hope base with the confirm him. it shows the importance of having a confirmed person who has the confidence of the president, secretary johnson secretary -- confidence of the senate and confidence as a whole to do the job and implement these accommodations that the secretary has embraced and make sure they are actually improving aviation security. host: steve is calling from new hampshire, you are on the air. caller: thank you for taking my call. my question is related to one that came up previously.

do they know the particular screeners who failed to see these objects? is there any consequence? guest: i think probably the office of inspector general auditor who conducted these tests know who those screeners were. it is they who conducted the test of the airports. the answer t two that is probably yes. i'm sure one of the things the secretary's team is looking at is whether -- is how to hold those particular screeners accountable. they need to figure out how often was at these particular screeners failed the test and what is their history leading to this particular exercise. going forward, i think there will be a greater effort to assess a screeners performance over a period of time and if there is a pattern of that particular screener, routinely failing these tests, you will see some consequences for that screener and probably for the

supervisor of that screener. host: you mentioned there are innovations in the private market that might be able to help some of these screeners with new technology. guest: largely what we deployed now in airports is what i call of the homily detectors. -- anomaly detectors. these are machines good at finding items that are concealed in novel ways on people's bodies. that is a good thing. that is an advance over magnetometers which simply can't detect whether metal is hidden on the body. the big threat now is nonmetallic devices, these improvised explosive devices. that's what al qaeda terrorists have been working to perfect and sneak through security around the world. what we really need to deploy our explosive detectors. these are machines that can automatically detect whether something is anomalous which may or may not be an explosive but whether something is an explosive. typically what happens is if an

anomaly is shown on a screen and a screener happens to notice it, things stop and someone has to be called over who is expert at determining what the anomaly is and whether it's an explosive. it's a laborious process. it's an additional step we have to afford to take. there should be an automated process to tell screeners instantaneously whether something that looks weird is in fact an explosive. if it is, immediately we can take immediate action. that is the next generation of technology. my understanding is that there is technology out there. i think you will see an effort to embrace that technology. i hope congress works and in glove -- hand in glove with the secretary of homeland security to deploy these technologies which are costly. host: would it be cost prohibitive? guest: we will see. government is a big consumer. the bigger the purchase, the lower the price over time.

despite the still rather tight budgetary times, this is no time for crimping on security given the significance of these ballmer abilities and how intent -- of these vulnerabilities and how intent terrorist are of carrying out another catastrophic terror attack but doing so on aviation. there is a focus on aviation. that's how we were attacked on 9/11 so with we can be a tactic and in the air, it shows we are still vulnerable these many years later. there is more attention and money devoted to the aviation sector than any other since 9/11. another catastrophic attack, it would be a huge public relations boon for terrorists. there is something cinematic about aviation meaning there are pictures, it's dramatic, it would rivet the world's attention if there was another attack. it would potentially kill and injure many people all at once.

for all those reasons, terrorists remain focused on aviation and we likewise must make in our height -- our highest priority. host: mary from our independent line in michigan. caller: good morning, i would like to say that i personally owe a tsa screener who was very good in his job -- he was in the paper a few years ago because he caught someone who had hollowed out a hardcover book and had a large knife blade in their and it went to trial and everything. this young man quit the tsa because he did not like his job. he was prohibited by his superiors from doing his job and told that they would be profiling. he caught a gentleman who had nearly $200,000 taped to his body. when this person pulled him

aside and took him in the back told the supervisor, his supervisor after talking with these people- turned to this person, the screener, and said we don't want to appear as if we are profiling because they were middle eastern. they let them through. it's things like that. you need to speak to ex- employees and find out why they quit and deal with that. detroit metro we happen to have a large population of a segment of society that would like to do us harm. guest: i'm surprised we have not had this question earlier. this issue of profiling often comes up when security screening is discussed. it's important to stress that it's very important to look at everyone.

terrorists come in all sizes and shapes and fashions come every race, every ethnicity, every religious group. there is a tiny minority of people who are terrorists. it is very important that we not profile. one reason is that it is a moral matter and it is also counterproductive from a security perspective because of the vast number of people and backgrounds from which terrorists come. host: next up is earning from deerfield beach, florida on the democratic line. caller: i really think it's a matter of motivation and training. supervisors need to be held accountable. motivation is the key. the people are not motivated in their job. they just do the job. they don't do it well. they do the job to get by, get their check, and go home.

screening is too important for that attitude. that attitude will only change when supervisors are trained properly in motivational techniques for their personnel. this is the most important job we have, to keep terrorists from blowing up another plane, making another spectacle. guest: i agree with that. motivation and there are number of ways to motivate people. there should be higher pay given the importance of the jobs. i think they should be trained repeatedly. i think they should be given the best possible equipment. ultimately, they themselves, their supervisors, and the leadership of tsa should be held accountable. all the steps the secretary has outlined in response to these reports go to one or the other of these steps. host: next up is bruce from virginia on the independent line.

caller: yes, my question is-with people being up there screening other people, before it becomes mind-boggling or numbness, shouldn't they be switched to where they are not so numb? guest: yes, there should be a regular break period for screeners with rotations. part of the difficulty ensuring that happens is there are so many screeners and only so much money to go around. it is a very difficult job that these federal security director that they have to allocate the screeners they have got optimally so that the screeners are fully deployed over the course of 24 hours. at the same time any one screener needs adequate time to

rest and recharge their batteries. host: you mentioned the acting tsa administrator has been reassigned and his replacement is awaiting senate confirmation. who is heading the tsa in the interim? guest: there is a fellow named mark hatfield who is heading the tsa currently. i have heard good things about him. the secretary has confidence in him. i am sure he will do as good a job as he can. it's very important that there be someone permanent in the job so i hope the senate and swiftly confirm mr. nettinger. host: next caller is from washington, d.c. on the republican line. caller: i would like to make two comments -- the inspector general's analysis that terrorists come in all shapes and sizes -- the israeli government knows how to properly screen for terrorism and keep

their airlines safe. the repeated failures that the inspector general reports of documented since the inception of the agency shows that it's broken beyond recognition. we need to start from stretch -- from scratch, bring and smart people from israel who know how to do it and get rid of this incompetent apologetics that would allow the waste of time and resources screening grandmothers and kids and nonsense and having someone in the position as an inspector general talk nonsense like this without acknowledging that there are better systems in the world on far fewer -- expending far

fewer resources. the israeli system, they have an axis dental threat. host: we heard your point. guest: this is a point that is often made that the israelis seem to get it right. the thing to recognize about that is israel is a far different country from ours. it is a tiny country relatively speaking. there is one major airport and one major airline and a consequence is the screeners can spend a huge amount of time on any given test. it is a very intensive process. we could not even if we wanted to and even it were consistent with our values which i would argue it's not, even if we wanted to, we could not do it practically because of the huge volume of passengers they go through american security. are the things we can learn from the israelis?

absolutely. are there things we can learn from them or other countries in terms of security technologies and standard operating procedures? absolutely and we should embrace that but we cannot impose their israeli system in america. it will not work. host: next up is lord, on the independent line. caller: good morning. i have been thinking about this obviously for a decade. when i am at the airport and watching all of this useless checking of children and grandmothers. i have thought for years that if i wanted to, i could get something passed security. in a carry on itself, the metal tubes, the rolling wheel assembly, whatever.

why haven't we eliminated carry-ons across the board? we need to make the luggage compartment under the plane so if there is an explosion, the luggage goes across kansas. the other thing would be to have the captain and the flight personnel that fly the plane enter and exit from outside the airplane and not even be able to enter the airplane. if a terrorist would try to take control of the airplane, they are isolated from the rest of the plane. host: we have to leave it there. what do you think of those proposals? [video clip] guest: a quick comment on the kids and grandmothers. if we carve out this category of people who will not be subjected to any scrutiny, terrorists will

exploit -- will exploit that. they will hide guns and knives and explosives on children and people who appear to be innocent grandmothers. as a practical matter, i don't think that works. the way to handle this is the pre-check program where someone can give more information about themselves and a background check, i think that is the right way to handle it. host: our last color for the segment will be from monticello, florida on the democratic line. caller: yes, i agree with him about the -- it is not enough inspectors in the airport. they should give them more money. i would agree with that. as much as the airline charges the airline should chip in and pay the inspectors. it's their airplane's will get blown up so why can't they put some money in the pot to pay the inspectors? that's all i have to say. guest: airlines do contribute to

security. they do pay some of the costs of this. there is always a struggle as to what the appropriate amount of money is for airlines to pay. there is a very tight industry. it's very difficult to make money and the profit margins are then so that's a perennial issue. host: clark can't irvin,m executive director of the homeland security program, thank you for being with us. guest: thank you. host: up next, we will get the latest on the takata airbag recalls. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ >> this sunday, jim webb who

discusses growing up in a military family and his service as a marine in vietnam, american foreign policy, politics, congress, and what he likes about campaigning. >> i enjoy the face-to-face campaigning. i enjoy getting out into the town hall meetings and talking to people and listening to what their thoughts are and be able to clarify mine. what i don't enjoy his campaign finance. to be very blunt about that. i have actually said when i announced the exploratory committee that one thing i can say is that i will never owe anything to anyone if i am elected but it is a very tough proposition to be able to raise enough funds in order to conduct a viable campaign. that's where the decision point is pretty >> jim webb, this sunday at 6:35 p.m. on "road to the white house 2016" on c-span.

this sunday night on first ladies, we will look into the personal lives of two first ladies from the 1850's, jane pierce and harriet lane. jane pierce loses her son a tragic train accident and she does not attend her husband's inauguration and spends much of her time in the white house writing heartbreaking notes to her son. orphaned at a young age, harriet lane lived with her uncle, sec data state james buchanan and later becomes host as to the white house when he becomes president and the first to be called first lady in print. jane pierce and harriet lane, the sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's original series "first ladies." from martha washington to michelle obama, sundays at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span three. as a compliment, c-span has a new book -- first ladies the

lives of 45 iconic american women. it's available as a hardcover or an e-book through your favorite bookstore online bookseller. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our guest is david shepperton, the washington bureau chief for "the detroit news." thank you for being here this morning. you will talk about the takata airbag recall. didn't this already happened? how is this one different than the one previously question mark guest: deja vu all over again. in 2008, we began a small series of recalls from takata airbags but by last summer, the government required a massive recall of primarily passenger-side airbags. by the end of last year, about 17 million vehicles had been recalled. the company that made these airbags called takata had refused to declare them defective but under government

pressure, the company said yes come all these airbags potentially are defective and announced that 33.8 million vehicles, almost twice the number, could be defective. as a result, 11 auto companies are doubling the size of the recall from last year. every vehicle that has a potentially defective airbag will be fixed although it could take two years to get the parts. host: what exactly is wrong with these airbags? guest: the leading theory that after high humidity over years these airbags are susceptible to deploying with too much force. remember, and airbag is like a jet engine. it has a pretty talented needs to deploy within 1/100 of a second. the propellant is burning too hot and deploying with too much force and as a result, metal fragments in rare cases are coming out of the airbag and hitting people in some cases causing serious injuries or deaths. there are six deaths and over

100 injuries. host: do you have any sense of the types of cars or makes and models of automobiles that are most affected in the recall? guest: number one is honda. we are talking about very large vehicles like the accord. toyota is heavily involved as well as chrysler with suvs and pickups and cars. there so many vehicles affected. the thing that people should do if they are concerned or have not gotten a recall notice is to the government website and see if your vin #applies. host: safercar.gov is the website viewers should go to. what is the airbag manufacturer doing to alert people proactively? host:guest: host: under the law the

automaker has to notify the car owner within 60 days and will say they have parts available eventually. that is an issue the government has raised. should we still be setting letters in the mail that looks like junk mail? what about e-mails and text messages question mark there has been suggestions to bring the recall notification into the 21st century. host: we will be taking your phone calls on this topic. you can join the conversation by dialing in. you can always send us an e-mail at journal@c-span.org. when you talk about the problems with the airbags, how much attention has congress been giving this recall?

are there calls for any changes in the industry? guest: the house energy and commerce committee had a hearing earlier this week in the senate is likely to follow suit. there have been many proposals for sweeping auto safety reforms going back i've years after the toyota sudden acceleration problems. congress is not yet shown a lot of interest but the administration has called for taking the current maximum fine from $35 million to $300 million and giving the government new authority to get unsafe vehicles off the road immediately told imminent hazard authority. there is a cumbersome two-step process right now involving an investigation and engineering analysis and a public hearing. if the company will not recall the vehicle, the government would have to go to court. it is a long process of a company is unwilling to recall vehicles the government things are unsafe. there are calls for new criminal

penalties, new regulatory rules on setting additional safety standards but all that has been on hold because congress has been more interested in other things like the xm bank or various other issues. it's a question of whether congress will focus on this later this year. host: there is a clip from the subcommittee hearing in the energy and commerce subcommittee earlier this week that met to discuss the recalls. [video clip] >> why weren't these issues dealt with the first time? >> it's a fair question and it's a difficult question. i think you have heard from a lot of different people today that it's an extremely complex issue. when we first started seeing some issues back in 2005, we did national recalls on a large number of parts. we thought we had identified the root causes and had gotten everything and thought we were doing the right things. then we started seeing these

sporadic issues in the field. that is what led to the action that started last year. it has been very elusive to us and it has been very difficult to get a consistent pattern that would tell us exactly what the root cause is. >> i have a couple of more questions. how can you possibly ensure consumers, my constituents, the second replacement will be effective and a third replacement will not be necessary question mark can you assure my constituents that will be the case? >> on most of the replacement parts, they will be later designed or from our competitors when we put those in. as part of the consent order, we are still testing the remedy parts to make sure that those are going to be sufficient for the life of the vehicle. and we continue to test outside of the ranges that were in the

dir's that were announced couple of weeks ago. we are trying to cover that but i cannot tell you that everything is done but we are -- we have anticipated that problem we have an agreement with nitsa that allows us to look at that and affection is required, we will take action. host: that was a clip from a meeting of the house energy and commerce subcommittee discussing the need for a second takata airbag recall. this story has the headline -- we are talking with david shepperton, the washington bureau chief of "the detroit news." can you explain it's happening? guest: we've got 34 million total vehicles as part of the recall. of those, 4 million have been

fixed to date. of that number, 400,000 vehicles , an older version of the airbag will need to be re-recalled but those folks are at the end of the line. the company thinks it will take 6-8 years of exposure to timidity before the replacement airbags could become a problem. they will replace the other 30 million vehicles on the list at that point, the last people in line will be the folks who have gotten the replacement airbags that potentially could fail again. it raises two other questions. we still don't know what the root cause is. there are many factors they think are contributing but what is actually causing these small number of airbags to fail? it's a very serious problem but what is it about this small number of airbags that are problematic and how do we know

for certain the replacement airbags will not have the same problem when they are exposed to high humidity in 6-8 years? host: guest: the folks who have the replacement would have to remember to bring their car in after 6-8 years. guest: the government is requiring the auto companies to tell them up front that you've got to do it. they also have to send another notice but realistically, quebec could be 2-3 years from now and someone else could own the car. in some of the recalls, it was a used car in one death in texas that up and sold to someone else in the did not know they had an open recall. it's not against the law to sell someone a used car that has an open recall where as it is against the law to sell someone who does not have the recalls completed. host: our first caller will be built from illinois, good morning to you. caller: good morning.

my question is a follow-up on this previous discussion. my understanding is there were like 6-8 fidelity's. -- fatalities. what is the probability after doing 30 million recalls whatever the airbag is, nothing has a zero failure rate. you have expended billions of dollars and you may still have a prop ability of failure. actually, the expenditure of this amount of money would not save as many lives unless you expended it some other way. guest: i think you are right. we are talking about three 2000 traffic deaths per year and six debts over five years. it's a very small number of the total deaths. on the other hand, none of the other airbag manufactures are having the same problems.

this is a terrible problem when it happens. some of the people who have been killed have been so gruesomely maimed that they look like. gunshot victims i don't think you can minimize the severity of the problem but on a strict cost-benefit analysis, the amount of money being put into save a small number of lives does not have the same impact as recalls have had large numbers of injuries. host: the next caller is from pennsylvania, you are on the air. caller: hi, i bought a car in 2003. my airbags deployed after i was in a car accident. i lost control of the vehicle and could not stop it. it flipped upside down on a bridge and broke my back and my sternum in my lumbar number one and two in the other airbag deployed on the passenger side

and i have what they call closed head injuries. i suffer from chronic pain and i cannot walk downstairs to the driveway is it. i was wondering if you can tell me in 2003, there were 37,000 miles in the car but i'm afraid to drive it. should i have a right to be afraid? guest: i think you raised a good point which is that airbags although there has been serious problems have been one of the single best safety devices to be added to autos with the exception of seatbelts. they have saved thousands of lies -- of lives. when people wary seat belt with a airbag in tandem it's safe. airbags are extremely reliable and the vast majority of them work without incident. if you have any concerns, take your car to your dealer and i'm sorry about your accident. host: the takata airbag recall

has grabbed headlines but are there other recalls that consumers should know about? guest: last year was the year of the recall. 60 million vehicles, twice the all-time record were recalled. i think the key to remember is that there is new vigilance out there. it could be from door latch is not working to rear and fires in older suvs. you are talking last year about 700 recall campaigns. it's important to not ignore your regional notice and check your vin number especially if you're buying a used car to make sure there are no pending recalls. host: the next caller is from connecticut, you are on the air. caller: yes, i am wondering what happened to the old saying -- less is more? who came up with the brainstorm to make these airbags? and what was wrong with just

having seatbelts? they would protect you but would not present these around us things that happen to people. i have a used car myself. my friend called for me and i talked to someone who is in the philippines who assured me that i am ok right now but they will be generating letters within a year. meanwhile, you're sitting on a time bomb hoping you did not get in an accident. what can be done about this? forget about congress, they take too long. how many lives have to be endangered because of this in the meantime? guest: i don't want to minimize this problem. remember, airbags to save thousands of lives. cars are incredibly safer than they were in the 1950's when there were only seatbelts and they weren't even required. the fatality rate over the last six years has fallen by 15

times. the government just announced friday that the fatality rate in current bagels at an all-time low, one point08 debts for 100 -- 1.08 debts for 100 miles traveled. airbags are safe in general. i think they are a critical thing to preventing serious injuries and accidents. host: carol from pennsylvania is up next, go ahead. caller: yes hi, i have a 2003 subaru that i bought out of state. i called the dealer where i purchased my car brand-new. they say they have received a notice from the manufacture that my car is in the recall thing and i went on the nitsa thing and saw it is but they have a notice but until i get some kind of information, i cannot have my car looked at. they gave me the manufacturers number and i all there and left

my name and explained i moved and they said they have no way of getting in touch with me because they don't know my new address. i am trying to find somebody who will look at my vehicle and give me a response. guest: some of the auto companies basically have a staged process where until you have the formal letter of notification from them, the deal will not -- the dealer will not fix them. you are talking about 34 million vehicles across the country and they are prioritizing community areas. contact your auto company and give them your current address and make sure you get the notice and keep checking with your dealer because they should get a notice at the same time. host: this is a comment from twitter -- you mentioned a number of ways that lawmakers might be looking at this to bring the

notification process into the 21st century for guest: that is a great comment. in germany, you are legally required to get your recalls completed before you renew your registration. or has been talk in the u.s. of doing that as well. in some ways, it is posing a safety risk to other people on the road to allow drivers to ignore those recalls. as computers and cars become connected to the internet through various systems, we can certainly have a system where either a recall notification shows up on your dashboard until you get it next or even could prevent the car from being re- registered if you do not get it fixed. host: next call is from st. petersburg, florida, good morning. caller: yes, i have a 2011 toyota tacoma pickup truck that had a recall in the middle part of october.

every time i check with the internet about the recall, i called the toyota dealer and they say they don't have a fixed. how long does the government give them to do this? guest: they typically have 60 days to notify the consumer and a reasonable. of time afterwards. this was last year and we're talking about eight months, i would check again and call your toyota dealer. it has been seven months. by this point, the parts should be available and they should start their recall. that is an unusual campaign of they have not started it. if you are concerned, you can ask your real or for a loaner car until they have the replacement parts. host: this is a story from the front page of "the detroit free press." it's your competitor.

even as we hear about these airbag concerns, folks are still buying vehicles? guest: it's a boom time. the consumer confidence with low unemployment rate and low gas prices has been a perfect combination to continue fueling this unprecedented six or expansion of auto sales. auto sales is an economic indicator that is in a boom/bust cycle. it's unusual we have had such a long time of rising auto sales. i think consumers have been able to -- to divide older vehicles that are not as high quality and of had more recalls from newer vehicles. there is intense competition in the market. new vehicles have gotten much safer. the general motors recalls last year older vehicles for ignition switch problems, the company did not see a drop off a new vehicle sales because was able to save these are old vehicles and we have stopped making them.

there is also a lot of pent up demand. the average age of vehicles is 11 years and people put up car buying during the recession. maybe they have a job again and because interest rates are so low and we are talking about eight year repayment plans -- guest:host: is that a good idea? guest: that is a long-term problem. people could be stuck paying for cars that are not working or they are not using. what happens when interest rates go up and when credit tightens and what happens when peoplehemselves unable to pay these loans 6-8 years from now? host: next caller is for michigan. caller: hello? host: good morning to you. caller: good morning to you. i'm responding to the woman who said she was talking about the -- the seatbelts. my father and three other men were at the tech center in

warren michigan and they were the ones who did the first seatbelts. the first seatbelts that general motors produced were put in these cars. he worked his way up to an executive. he worked on the airbags. he worked in the harness and the child safety seat. you are talking to this man's daughter. he became a quality control engineer. there were only 50 of them in the world. he would go to the vendors. he would take the airbag and he would put it in a car and he would run into a wall. if it did not perform, they would not use it. i want to know why aren't people like general motors when they had the best engineers in the world and people are still looking for my father because his name is out there.

why is this going on? i am very upset as he devoted his whole life to saving people's lives in car accidents. this woman who was in this horrible car accident who can barely walk asked if she should drive the car. absolute not to she is not in a position to drive the car. guest: first of all, your father sounds like the perfect example why the auto industry has done so much to improve safety. because of the goal to reduce crashes and fatalities, the industry has pioneered huge numbers of advances from airbags to seatbelts to advanced stability control to keep us from rolling off the road. the newest field of inventions are active safety devices that will prevent us from running into a car in front of us by

automatically stopping the car lane departure warnings -- if auto companies are trying to prevent us -- as a society, we are terrible drivers. 94% of traffic crashes are the result of human error unfortunately. you cannot underestimate the significance of the problem. 32,000 people per year killed in crashes, 2 million people are injured, almost 6 million crashes reported to police and a net societal economic cost of over $800 billion. traffic crashes are a huge issue with congestion, wasted gasoline as a society, we have a big stake in seeing crashes reduced and potentially eliminated. host: the new car technology can potentially save us from ourselves. what is the state of the driverless cars? [video clip] there is a ton of -- guest:

there is a ton of interest in there looking at more devices with computers to take over initially but we will still drive but to prevent -- to try to intervene in unsafe circumstances. there are twoot tracks for driverless cars but eventually our cars will talk to one another and talk to street signs and talk to bridges and tell us if there is ice ahead. by the cars talking to one another, it will help us avoid intersection crashes. secondly is the fully autonomous car which is probably further away. google this summer will test a fleet of about two dozen autonomous cars. unlike the earlier test vehicles, these will not have steering wheels. they are former futuristic will only be of the go at low speeds in california.

long-term, there is so much excitement about autonomous cars and that they could reduce the vast majority of crashes and could allow personal mobility for people who are too old or sight impaired. as a society, do we want to accept the huge cost of traffic crashes in exchange for personal mobility? host: does it seem like this technology will work? guest: it has shown it can work but there are variables. it's also not foolproof. will americans accept autonomous vehicles with a failure rate that is far less than human drivers but not foolproof? if a small child runs out and there is a car coming the other way, the autonomous car has to make a moral decision. is the first priority to protect the child or not hit the car on the left or to protect the

driver? we will give the computer programmers a huge amount of responsibility in determining what the moral choices the cars make. then you have the issue of liability concerns. think about your phone and computer. there can be a glitch in electronic device of the cars will not be foolproof but they will certainly be better than humans. will people accept crashes happening from a computer's failure? host: the next caller is from salem, oregon, you're on the air. it is early in the morning for you caller:. caller:good morning. i was watching her show and i had a question. five years ago, i bought a kia spectra. yesterday, i called them up because i noticed my tail lights were out on the back. they told me that they don't have anything to replace it with.

aren't they supposed to carry that for a certain amount of time? guest: if it's only a few years old, the company is legally required to carry replacement parts for at least 10 years. i would call your dealer. it sounds like you might be confusion. you should reach out to your dealer and the auto company again. host: hollywood florida, you're on the air. caller: good morning, do you know if non-deployment is a factor with the ammonium nitrate takata airbags? do the takata sydor airbags like the bags and older bmws contain ammonium nitrate and are they being tested? guest: the recall. -- bmw is part of the recall. they say ammonium nitrate is a contributor factor but they some form

of engineers say this chemical is too susceptible to high humidity problems and the vast majority of other airbag manufactures do not use it. takata has set its phasing it out and in the replacement airbags, it adds a desiccant which is a substance to prevent the airbags from becoming unstable over a long time in high humidity. host: can you explain to us what ammonium nitrate is used for in creating these airbags? guest: that is the primary chemical in the propellant. think of it like a mini jet engine. because this tag has to deploy so fast, it's the chemical used to create a mini explosion in your airbag to get the pillow into your face to prevent you from hitting the steering will or something else. there are a variety of chemical pellets that have been used. 10 auto companies are currently

in a consortium to try to figure out if that chemical the primary culprit for these explosions. host: next up is helen from richmond, texas, go ahead. caller: hello. good morning. i have a honda crv '05 and i have the airbags replaced in november but i understand the airbags are faulty and and they need to be replaced again. is that true? guest: i don't know about your particular vehicle. you need to reach out to the dealer or two honda. about 10% or 400,000 of the formally and bags will have to be replaced again. i'm not clear whether your specific bag is one of those. host: this comment from twitter -- guest: that's a good question. there have been many lawsuits filed already. takata which is using

replacement insulators from its competitors will be up to one million replacement insulator kits per month by september. they replaced 700,000 in may. that is the big question. what is the congressional public reaction going to be if you see another flurry of accidents especially people who are waiting for replacement parts and cannot get them. host: the next caller is from newark, new jersey, you're on the air. are you there? caller: yes, good morning. thank you for your program. i have a 2013 -- a 2014 town & country by chrysler. it's a shame that the companies are so eager to make money before -- host: turn down your tv.

caller: i would like to find out if these airbags by takata needs to be replaced. guest: i did not catch her whole question but i'm fairly certain the newer vehicle is not part of the recall. i would check your vin number at safercar.gov. there is no evidence this was a profit minded scheme because these bags were cheaper. the company has generally had a good reputation for airbags up until this recent series of problems. host: let's talk about the tpa trade bill that has been under consideration by congress. you wrote a story that says detroit fears the asian trade package. guest: there are two main tariffs on cars, a 25% tariff on

light trucks coming into the u.s. which stems from a dispute the u.s. had with west germany over frozen chickens in the 1960's. as a result, the u.s. auto companies have had a significant amount of protection for light trucks. that is forced foreign auto companies to build truck and suv plants in the united states. the fear from the u.s. companies is that if the transpacific partnership goes through, the japanese central bank would be able to depress the value of the yen which would give japanese companies the ability to undercut u.s. companies by exporting vehicles from japan to the united states. the secondary fear is that china could also one day join the tpp. the president has said they are making noises about joining. they would be allowed been to use currency as an unfair trade barrier to undercutting the u.s.

between the european trade deal under negotiation called ttip and tpp, this could be the most significant economic impact in terms of global automotive production. a lot of the built-in advantages to u.s. production would not necessarily be there without these tariffs. it would give auto companies all over the world -- should they move production to lower wage countries? we have seen new auto plants open in mexico. i think it's a big concern for the automobile industry and the administration has shown no interest in addressing currency. they say is better done through international forms like the wto. host: the next caller is from alabama, you're on the air. are you there? caller: yes, i'm here. host: what is your question or comment this morning? caller: i have a 2006 4f-150 pickup truck and a 2014 ford taurus.

i need to know if this airbag is applicable to these vehicles. guest: again, i'm fairly certain it's not applicable to the taurus, the newer vehicle. s the best thing to do to be certain is go toafercar.gov and type in your vin #'s. ford says all of their vehicles are there. you can find out and about 30 seconds. host: the next caller is from st. paul, minnesota, go ahead. caller: hi, thanks for taking my call. mr. shepperton, my call concerns the recall in general. i have it 2004 nissan. this car is practically unsafe at any level. the transmission is the worst transmission i have ever seen built in a car. i think whoever is in control of

these recalls on these automobiles is doing a terrible job. there are so many unsafe vehicles on the road that are risking lives. i don't know what it takes for a recall but whatever it takes, we are not doing a good job as for his recalling these automobiles, these unsafe and dangerous automobiles that are killing people. guest: if you do have concerns about your vehicle, you can go to safercar.gov and file a complaint. one of the main ways the federal auto safety agency determines what vehicles to investigate are through consumer complaints. be as precise as you can about the safety issue and the date and time of an incident and if enough people are like you, the government looks for trends. if they get 80,000 complaints he year -- file a complaint, call your dealer and hopefully someone will look at it. host: here's a question from twitter --

guest: that is a concern but so far, their major customers have not moved significant business away from them. long-term, it could be an issue. there is legislation pending that would make it harder for a bankrupt auto company to be able to get rid of its liabilities it's warranty liability in bankruptcy. caller: host: host: you mentioned takata is the largest but are their competitors? guest: there are 3 or4 competitors. likes of my parts of the auto industry, there was a rough decade and the supplier industry shrunk by tens of thousands of companies. the remaining players have got much bigger. therefore, if there is a

problematic part, some of the recalls are much bigger because these suppliers are now servicing so many auto companies. in the old days, you have many more suppliers supplying individual companies. it is a big concern if these suppliers will be too big to fail. host: next up is from tennessee go ahead. caller: yes, this is leonard. i'm calling frombolivar tennessee. i have a chrysler town and country than. your caller a while ago asked about a 2013. mine is a 1997 chrysler town and country than - van and my airbags exploded and went through the dashboard and by the glove box and the power steering wheel where the horn is in my driveway. i had not even started it yet i

just stuck the key in the ignition and switched it on. the -- lights came on and it was like kaboom. it summit like a bomb exploded. it hurt my wrist and then the car filled up with what smelled like gunpowder. i opened up the door and jumped out last because i did not know of someone set off a bomb in my car. i come to find out that my airbags exploded. thank god i was not going down the road at 55 miles per hour. i could've killed myself and others to. all i was doing was cracking my car to get my wife's car a boost i never got the car cracked. it exploded so there was talk already about airbags when this happened. i contacted the chrysler dealership. they have a website you can go to to put your vin number in and look for the specific problem.

i did see that that type of vehicle had airbag issues. i contacted the dealership and their excuse was that you got over 70,000 miles on it. you're not qualified for the airbag recall -- repair. i don't see why that would come into play if the airbag is going to discharge. whether it's got 50,000 miles or 200,000 miles -- guest: it sounds like the issue is an electrical glitch and the government has investigate a problems were at bags -- were airbags deployed because of an electrical problem but it's worth filing a complaint with safercar.gov. there have been other recalls in the industry for airbags deploying while people were sitting in their cars.

it is rare but it does happen. thank goodness you are not hurt. host: the next caller is from massachusetts, what is your comment or question? caller: when was the first car that had an airbag in it? i have a 1999 volvo and a 1994 volvo. i'm wondering if they are that old, with the airbag still work? is it still good? guest: that's a good question. we don't have expiration dates on airbags. that is a big issue with takata. when these airbags are sitting here year after year and exposed to high humidity, are they going to work? the first air bags came out in the early 1970's. they were not accepted by the marketplace. it was not until the 1980's that airbags really began to get mass

except in so the government then made the mandatory in the 1990's for the driver side. it was the early 2000s that the side airbags were made mandatory. many cars have eight or 10 airbags to protect your knees or back or side or rooftop. there has been testing about pedestrian safety airbags that if you were to hit someone there were be an airbag in the front of your car to deployed to protect the pedestrian. these are extremely beneficial safety devices. there is a concern that because of all the attention takata has gotten that you should be fearful of your airbags. by any fair calculation, airbags are a vastly safe device. host: david shepperton, washington bureau chief for "the detroit news," thank you for being here. join us tomorrow when "washington journal" will continue. we will speak with tomas lopez

and dr. dorcheau from the national and speak about the presidential debate be returning on monday morning for more "washington journal." thanks so much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> coming up this morning on c-span two soldiers posthumously awarded the medal of honor. then at 10:30, live coverage of the funeral for b