you can send us a tweet at @cs panwj. you can also post on our facebook or send us an e-mail. that announcement coming this afternoon in miami. it will be live on the c-span networks on c-span3 and also on c-span.org, c-span radio beginning at 3:00 p.m. eastern this afternoon. here's how it looks in the local miami paper. jeb's big day is the headline above the banner. he is set to make his run official. the tallahassee democrat to announce his candidacy. they write that his name is jeb. he is the former governor of

florida. he will more than likely want your vote. miami was the site where senator marco rubio announced his candidacy for president in april. how it is being reported this morning in usa today. the headline is jeb is ready to take the plunge. they write that more than a dozen years after his last political race, bush faces questions from conservatives about his commitment to their cause. the list of complaints includes his support for common core education standards and new immigration rules in a party that often nominates governors. bush will face many opponents who have been state executives themselves. my cuppa be, rick perry, george pataki are already running. -- mike huckabee, rick perry george pataki are already running.

john kasich is expected to announce soon. rand paul, ted cruz, and lindsey graham as well as rick santorum. we are joint on the line by shira center, political editor for the boston globe. shira center what will be here is some of the themes of the 2016 jeb bush campaign? steven komarow: well firstshira center: i think one of the first things we will hear is a knock on washington. he wants to separate himself from this really large and unpredictable field and there are several senators running people who worked for decades in washington, d.c.. the first things he is looking to strike is saying, we cannot fix washington with someone who comes from washington. that is intended to set him apart from washington which

voters are not pleased with right now according to many polls, but also from marco rubio, with whom he competes in florida. bill scanlan: he certainly will have a fund-raising advantage. what is the anticipated amount that the bush campaign will say is backing the candidate? shira center: there is a big number that has been floating around. everyone thought he would reach $100 million in fund-raising. that is a huge number. it is possible, but we have heard he will not make that. that is the latest out of that. which is disappointing, i think for the bush campaign, because they set expectations pretty high. $100 million would put them way ahead of the field. but in the new age of campaigns all you need is a super pac. this campaign may not have

raised $100 million, but the money will be there anyway. bill scanlan: ahead of the announcement in miami, the campaign released a youtube video that was shot with jeb bush and people in florida who have been affected by his policies there. they also released the local of the campaign which is just jeb with an!. what is the significance of that? shira center: it is an interesting logo. we immediately think of other candidates who have done similar logos, like lamar alexander. to this day, whenever had to write his name in a story, i wanted to put an excl amation point after lamarr. i think an important part of jeb's logo is that he doesn't say bush and it. it is just jeb! i doubt that is not on purpose.

he did not want to remind voters of his family legacy. he wants to seem like something new, fresh, and exciting. not like something from the past. bill scanlan: that campaign video that he released on youtube over the weekend, he is talking about people in florida that have been positively affected by his policies. he served as a two-term governor. it has been a long time since he has been on the campaign trail for himself. what does he have to do politically? what is the first order of business? shira center: i think like any candidate, his first mission is not to mess up. he had a solid trip to europe without any gaffes.

secondly, he does have to prove his viability and effectiveness in this campaign. everyone thought he would be the 800 pound gorilla in this primary, and it has not turned out that way. he has not stepped up every bit of republican oxygen in that field. i think there is an argument to be made for electability on the republican side. his conservative credentials to a degree. you'll probably hear him talk about his own effectiveness as governor. he will use that to stand out amongst this large crowd. that is what that video was getting out. bill scanlan: read more at boston globe.com. and you can follow shira center on twitter. thanks for the preview. shira center: thanks for having me. bill scanlan: we are asking your shots on the entry of jeb bush officially into the 2016 race.

(202) 737-0001 for democrats (202) 737-0002 for republicans (202) 628-0205 for independence. let's go to michael in riverside, california. independent line. caller: good morning. i would like to share with everybody out there that i truly am an independent, not somebody that says to myself to be one. i am african-american. that is first off. i want to strongly recommend that everybody vote for donald trump. why? first, he don't need your money. he is not trying to make a name for himself. third, hillary clinton is not going to let brown people forget that they denied her the presidency. i am telling you. if you think she is going to give you anything, you can totally forget it. bush is more of the same. donald trump is the only one who

speaks to the veterans, pride in america. the world is going to respect this nation and respect the people here if you vote for him. because he has nothing to gain. he is already a multibillionaire. he doesn't need you. barack obama just wanted to be the first negro. he don't care if he succeeds. that is exactly what they wanted and they really don't care about you. so i just wanted to give you some food for thought. don't put that beer can head jeb bush in their or hillary clinton. there's 312 million people in this nation. carson and so many others are fully qualified. bill scanlan: that caller mentioned donald trump. he will make an announcement tomorrow at 11:00.

look for coverage on the c-span networks. we are asking for your shots -- thoughts on jeb bush. let's hear from david in albuquerque. democrats line. go ahead. caller: i just wanted to say that if jeb bush wins the republican nomination, we must have the stupidest people in the world living in america. even his mother said that he shouldn't run. or something to that effect. jeb is -- even his mentality just doesn't come across as being somebody who would win the nomination. bill scanlan: who are you hoping we'll get the nomination on the democrat side, david? caller: i'm not really sure. i probably will lean towards hillary, but i am not -- you

know, i don't know. there are a few people who have a really good chance. i mean -- that i would vote for. take for instance, oh, my memory just went. i forget. the older guy that is in the democratic pool there. bill scanlan: bernie sanders? caller: bernie sanders. if he was younger, i would vote for him in a second. other than that, i just don't know. bill scanlan: all right, sheila is up in bakersfield california. caller: good morning. well, i guess we are going to be talking about who should run for president? is that what you guys are discussing? bill scanlan: we are talking specifically about jeb bush. but yes, more broadly the race in general for 2016 as hillary

announced over the weekend jeb today. caller: i just hope whoever it is fixes whatever's going on with social security that is keeping me from getting my social security benefits. bill scanlan: how long has that been, sheila? caller: i found out about the tumor that was in my stomach and i had radiation and chemo in the end of 2011. it was the first part of 2012. bill scanlan: i appreciate your call. we are focusing on presidential politics this morning. politico is writing that republicans are confident jeb can defeat the democratic front runner, but new hampshire is dicey for him, and iowa looks like a lost cause. she writes that despite a spell of rough headlines and a recent

campaign shakeup, 70% of early state republicans think that jeb bush could win -- i apologize about that. we will try to bring that back. let's go to birbeck, pennsylvania. on our republican line is john. caller: yes, good morning. i would like to make a few comments. first of all, concerning donald trump your i. anybody that would vote for donald trump would have to be an idiot. there is nobody that filed for bankruptcy more than donald trump. anybody that frequented his casinos in atlantic city would certainly not vote for him. as far as the bushes, i would certainly hope nobody would vote for a bush again. remember in 2001, we had the largest budget surplus ever in this country. we gave $5 trillion worth of tax

cuts at the same time, we went to war in afghanistan and iraq. it is now 25 years that we went to war in iraq under the senior bush. and iraq is a disaster. i think everybody will admit to it. most all of the experts today including bob gates, has said that probably the only solution in iraq is to divide it up like joe biden had once said into three parts. bill scanlan: so, john, do you think that the jeb bears that legacy? do think he cannot differentiate his foreign-policy intentions from his father and his brother caller: well he certainly didn't want to distance himself from

that when he was questioned on it. he did not want to distance himself from his brother and his father's policies. i think it is time we take a new direction. my vote will be for john kasich, if he decides to enter the race. because he was the one that went to war in iraq. bill scanlan: appreciate your call. back to the jeb logo. washington post writing that bush dusts off the old school logo, minus the surname, and that is the point. he writes that when jeb bush first ran for governor of florida, his father had recently been booted out of the white house and he wanted to be seen as his own man. so when it came time to design his bumper stickers, he went with a red background and jeb in chunky white letters. there was no mention of his famous surname or his party and the jolting! was the opposite of his family's

kennebunkport reserve. bush ended up losing that race but keeping the brand, reusing the logo in his 1998 political comeback ended his 2002 gubernatorial reelection campaign. now "jeb!" is back. the colors have been flipped. ruby characters over white underlined by 2016 in navy blue. longtime bush ally mike murphy, who has also worked with him since 1998 and is currently managing the super pac right to rise wrote sunday on twitter that dusting off the calling card provided bush with it an "a clean, easy to see from far away up the, and most of all consistent emblem." others described it as a nostalgic shibboleth. a number of republicans sensed an behind the jingle he jeb

weeks after bush stumbled repeatedly when asked about his position on the iraq invasion championed by his brother. we have another caller. go ahead. caller: my opinion on jeb bush so far is pretty positive on the republican side, because he has made less of an embarrassing news name of himself so far. so he is promising for a republican candidate. i have not decided if i'm going republican or democrat yet. there is an executive order made by barack obama about the torture and the cia has to go strictly off the army manual. that could be easily overturned by jeb bush. bill scanlan: of all the candidates you have seen, who do you like? caller: i would say right now

it is jeb bush. i really have not been paying too much attention to the democratic side. there is a lot of republican candidates to pick from. bill scanlan: let's hear from franklin, georgia. jeb is on the line. -- jim is on the line. caller: everybody keeps saying, why should jeb bush run, we don't want another bush in office. my question is why should another clinton being deserving to be in office when they are just as crooked as any road in the appalachian mountains? it amazes me. we can't have a bush, but we can have a clinton. if i had to back anybody right now, i love carly fiorina. she is very smart. but if bush is the nominee i will back him 100%. but why do we need another clinton?

thank you. bill scanlan: thank you. we cover the hillary clinton announcement over the weekend at roosevelt island in new york city. you can see that on our website. we are focusing on jeb bush's announcement today. we will have live coverage. we are getting your thoughts. (202) 737-0002 for republicans (202) 737-0001 for democrats. and for independents, (202) 628-0205. here is someone that says the bushes have damaged the u.s. almost beyond recognition, and now jeb wants to finish us off. this tweet salet's hear from steve in robert's bill, missouri. -- robertsville, missouri.

caller: i just want everyone to remind us that jeb bush wants us to work until we are 70 years old before we can have social security. due to the tax breaks for the millionaires and billionaires, that is the reason why they say social security is broke. my comment is i would like jeb bush to work a real job until he is 70 years old. thank you very much. bill scanlan: that color focused on taxes. here is a wall street journal piece over the weekend. the headline says bush criticized over tax incentives. tax incentives and financial awards to businesses are increasingly out of favor in a party that sees corporate subsidies and the export import bank as examples of "crony capitalism." the latest example of the rising opposition comes from the comfort growtlub for growth, a free-market

advocacy group which is criticizing jeb bush for overseeing state spending increases. the club's appraisal of bush's economic record says the effort to spur the biotech industry didn't generate as many jobs as promised. a report from the wall street journal over the weekend. back to calls. let's hear from charlie in palm city, florida. democrat line. caller: hello. just a short history lesson. prescott bush, the grandfather was indicted for war crimes for laundering -- loaning money to adolf hitler. the herb or brothers were also indicted, but they never went to jail. they managed a bank in holland because adolf hitler could not get money from great britain or france. bill scanlan: who indicted prescott bush? caller: the federal government

indicted prescott bush. if you google it, you will see the indictment page. this has all been covered up. there is an individual that wrote a book about this entire family who was put in prison not in missouri where he was indicted by george bush, but the trial was moved to a texas court. he was put in prison. he ran against bush 20 years ago. google prescott bush. you'll find all the information. the second issue is, ronald reagan came into office, raised my fica tax and then the savings and loan industry crash. all that money went into 401(k)s and walmart. all that money went into the wall street 4% money market account. that is why the savings and loan was -- that was neil bush. there is another history lesson.

ross perot was in cambodia to pick up pows. george bush was running the cia and called him on a satellite phone and warned him that he be didn't turn around he would shoot him down. bill scanlan: former governor jeb bush announcing his run for the presidency today at 3:00 in miami. he was interviewed on cnn's state of the union yesterday. he was asked why he thinks he is the candidate that should be selected by the republican party. here is his answer. >> well, i can make decisions. i have made tough decisions. i have a life decision -- that is full. it is something i think has been lacking in the presidency is someone who has been tempered by life. along the way, i will get to share that.

i have lived overseas, i have worked overseas. i have been in business. i have served as governor. i get back to my community. i have a great relationship with my wife and family. i will get to share all of that. it is something that took it getting used to personally to be able to show my heart, because i'm kind of introverted. bill scanlan: jeb bush announcing his run for the president today at 3:00 p.m. eastern. back to politico. here's the headline. jeb can beat hillary, but he might not make it past the primary. they write that despite a spell of rough headlines, 70% of early state republicans think jeb bush could win their state against hillary clinton.

they're not confident he will make it out of the primary. that is the assessment of this week's political caucus. on the eve of bush's expected presidential announcement monday only 32 percent of iowa republicans said he could win their if the caucuses were held today. his numbers were much stronger in new hampshire, 86 percent of both republicans and democrats said he would win the primaries but many caution that his front runner status there is precarious. next up, to our democrat line. good morning, philip. caller: good morning. my perspective on jeb bush is senior got us into war, jr. got us into war. jeb bush just seems like history repeating itself. i don't want to go back to war and i believe that we should all

have peaceful resolutions. we just got to have war. men have to die. the bushes do not seem to have any trouble with sending millions of americans out there to fight a thoughtless battle. we don't even know what the battle was four. r. so for the brave men out there i give them a lot of courage. i'm sorry for what the bushes made you do. if jeb bush is in there we are going to start another war and we will be in trouble. the clintons have too much money. they live a glamorous life. i'm pretty sure that they are going to be hard to be interacting with the common man. bill scanlan: thanks for the call. peg tweets, we need to know how his military intervention views

differ from his brothers. that will be credible -- critical of the next decade. you would think that in a country as large as ours you would get a better choice. more than bushes or clinton spirit is the media driving this? fernando is in fairfax, virginia on the independent line. welcome. caller: good morning. as the topic is mr. bush, he comes from money. he is part of the top 1/10 of 1%. he knows nothing of what working-class people go through and struggle. the american people are the least sophisticated politically in the industrial world. i don't think there's any question about that. we are easily manipulated and goaded into almost anything. all you have to do is spend money on tv ads and have c-span doing horse races instead of the issues. thank you very much. bill scanlan: ok. let's go to jim in melrose,

massachusetts. democrat line. caller: good morning. basically, i will stick to the subject for a little bit. but you have given some leeway on a broader choice of candidate. i have no objections to governor bush. he speaks spanish. that will help them in his native state. he would be ok. my own favorite would be bernie sanders, because i share many of his views. example, $15 minimum. free tuition to college, things like that. bill scanlan: appreciate your thoughts. facebook.com/cspan is how you can post your thoughts. read says, no more clinton no more bush. roberta says, really another bush. don't inc. so. stephen says bernie sanders for

the democratic nomination rand paul for the republican nomination. to texas, we go to john on the republican line. caller: i think it will be a disaster. neil bush ran our savings and the ground. during the savings and loan disaster, the $200 billion taxpayer bailout under the reagan and bush and ministration in the 1980's. neil bush ran silverado savings -- he should have been in jail but his dad got him off. jr. bush took a surplus as far as they could project and turned it into a $5 trillion tax cut disaster and an illegal war in iraq. i do not think we need any bush crime family members.

his brother has been convicted of war crimes. his entire ministration has been convicted of war crimes in malaysia. how can anybody vote for another bush? all the banks that went under under bush. he destroyed the financial system. all the foreclosures. my god. you would have to be nuts to vote for another bush. i don't understand how people in the media are not reminding everybody what happened under the bush administration. you should be talking about it every day. bill scanlan: we have 15 more minutes of your comments and calls on jeb bush running for president. the announcement is this afternoon at 3:00. this is the front page of the new york times. looking at the failed trade deal. obama fights to save his signature measure. also, american strike targets planner of algeria raid. they write that the u.s. carried

out an airstrike in libya early sunday against the mastermind of the 2013 terror seizure of an algeria and gas plant that left 38 foreign hostages dead. the libyan government issued a statement sunday night saying the airstrikes killed the terrorist leader and a number of libyan terrorists. american officials confirmed that mr. belmokhtar was the target of the strike. they expressed caution about his pay, saying forensic proof was needed to declare with certainty that he had been killed. given the likely extent of the damage, multiple bombs were dropped. that determination could take some time. let's hear from lisa on our democrat line. what do you think? caller: hello. my name is lisa.

i feel that bush from the very beginning in his public dealings relied heavily on his connections with the white house while his parent -- his father and brother were in there. his role as a business person has been sort of a broker of influence. although he tried to distance himself from his brother in foreign policy, he pulled and a lot of the same people to be his advisers. his most recent trip to poland, he went and talked with somebody -- a high official in poland who had just resigned because his extremely horrible anti-american comments came to light. and had resigned the day before bush got there.

and bush went and talked to him anyway it came out and said the guy was great american. i feel that he has not really set a very good role for himself as someone we want to have as president. on the democratic side, i like hillary. but i think she has a lot of problems with ethics and issues that really need to be addressed and unfortunately she has a long pattern of them. i live in maryland and martin o'malley was just a wonderful governor during very very tough times. he kept our educational system a light, brought a lot of fiscal prudence into governing, and yet has very progressive ideas. in my heart of hearts, i am just rooting for right now, i am so glad he is in the race, i hope

he can go somewhere with it, is bernie sanders. bernie sanders plays straight. he doesn't go for people's jugular. he does not talk about -- he wants to reform parts of our system that are not working well. even though he is a socialist democrat, i think he really understands the system we are in. he is very pro-business. he has done a wonderful job in burlington, which was a helpless little town until he put it on its feet. bill scanlan: that was lisa from silver spring, maryland. on the front page of the globe they're talking about martin o'malley penning his hope on the iowa caucuses, striving to build momentum. they write that the iowa way is the only way. his narrow path to the democratic nomination hinges on persuading people at this bar

and homes across the state to support him and caucuses seven months from now. longtime advisers and donors agree. a strong second or even an upset is possible here in a way that is not in the cards anywhere else. we getting a lot of response on twitter. this is from jim who tweets about the announcement today. he says it doesn't really matter who runs, just which party can make you hate the other bad enough to actually get you to vote. and from jaden who says bush's corporate centric approach to government amounts to a kind of beneficent laissez-faire neo-feudalism with an imperial bent. here is erica in virginia. caller: good morning. i want to comment on, i do not like jeb bush because the

background on his family and how they handled the country. i think that if the candidate is not talking on the campaign about raising the minimum wage they are not talking about making college education affordable for children, making housing of article -- affordable. if they are not talking about these basic issues, they are not for the american people. i am so fired up and going for bernie sanders. the media keeps ignoring him. but the people say, we hear you. we identify with your heart and your ideas. not for the millionaires but for the middle-class american people. bill scanlan: the washington post writes about some of the themes we may hear the announcement today in florida. bush's campaigns kickoff speech

will be hopeful, optimistic. they write that bush will launches bid on monday afternoon. at miami-dade college. it is expected to last about 15 minutes. it will touch on three general themes. he will embrace the atmospherics of the campus, part of a public university system with more than 10 locations across south florida and posting the nation's largest hispanic student body. bush has spoken at the college several times and his brother george w. bush delivered a commencement address there in 2007. bush continues it an ideal place to begin a campaign expected to make aggressive overtures to the country's expanding latino voting population. [no audio]

bill scanlan: good morning. caller: bush didn't do anything about the wages down here in florida. he started the stand your ground campaign down here. he is antiunion. i just couldn't see him and bernie or him and mr. grayson or him and mrs. warren having a debate. i just couldn't see it. i just am thinking could keep up with them intellectually. i think he is bought and paid for by the special interests down here in florida. that is all i have to say. bill scanlan: ok ray is in maryland. republican caller. caller: i want to see when he announces today on television that he is going to run for president, i want to see -- hello?

bill scanlan: you are on the air. go ahead. caller: when he announces today on television, i want him to answer the question, why did he and his wife pay the taxes on the gifts that he had gotten overseas? when he comes home, he refused to pay the taxes. bill scanlan: you mean the most recent trip? caller: no, it was 18 years ago. when he was in office. thank you. bill scanlan: appreciate your comments. the front page of usa today by jennifer jacobs who covers iowa politics and for more. she writes that hillary clinton did not win the democratic presidential nomination in 2008 but her campaign succeeded in ending any concerns about whether a woman could be commander in chief. part of what i tried to do in

that campaign was to begin to answer that question, she told the des moines register. now she feels like the question has been answered. in 2000 eight, clinton's campaign downplayed the fact that she would be the first woman in the white house. in 2016, she is making a major selling point. she is also getting support from bill clinton on stage on saturday during the kickoff event at roosevelt island. he also had an appearance yesterday. the state of the union interview . a question regarding the financing of the clinton foundation. here is what he had to say. >> the one thing where i think there is really nothing to it is the algeria giving half $1 million to the haiti earthquake. we put the united nation's core nader for haiti before the the earthquake. we put up the word that if people didn't know any thing about katie wanted to give money and no it would be well spent and want to put in some place

where 100% of the money would go to haiti and known would take a penny off the top for administrative costs, we could send it to us and we would move it. so that algerian money, we did not report that not because they were ashamed of it, because it came in two days after the earthquake and they were still reforming -- performing amputated surgery on the lawn outside the major hospital with a flashlight at night. and vodka for anesthesia and antiseptic. nobody thought about it. i know of no example but i never know what people's motives are. in this case i'm pretty sure everybody that gave to haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake some what they saw on television and was horrified and wanted to make a difference. i announced early on that we would never make any money out of that. even administrative overhead. we raise money and invested it. >> but just a put a button on

this, you are saying you don't know if anybody thought any favor, just that there was no -- >> know, and i don't think hillary would know, either. she was busy those years. i never saw her study a list of my contributors. and i had no idea who was doing business before the state department. bill scanlan: bill clinton on state of the union yesterday. a couple more of your calls and comments on jeb bush's announcement today. he is running for president on twitter. to is one from carol who tweets, how rich to criticize jeb, wed next to hillary he looks great. he looks far better than clinton. william says the bushes also gutted the epa, education and the social safety net. james saying the enthusiasm for hillary is over the top. bill is in pennsylvania. what do you think? caller: good morning. last week i was in new york and

i met a lot of people over there. i want to tell you something. i want to tell the american people, because i fight with politicians every day and i try to put some stuff in the 10% sales tax for employees. people are so stupid they don't want to vote. number one. number two i don't think we need bush or hillary clinton. we have so many young generations coming up. they have better ideas. i would say my part as a greek-american, i have been here 65 years and i love my country. but what happened to the country was born in, greece. it is down the drain. i would tell the american people , put somebody in there who doesn't need the money and is not a lawyer or politician. donald trump is the best man to put in. push for him and i guarantee you, he builds houses.

he creates jobs. that is the guy you want. you do want these parties coming in and telling you they're going to promise you this and that. bill scanlan: we will be hearing from donald trump tomorrow. he will make his intentions known tomorrow. some editorial comments here in the washington post. their editorial cartoon of jeb says i have imposed a campaign manager and i will build a modern, efficient organization. and on his jeb for president struck, it says "mission involving." -- mission involving. =evolving. a nod to "mission accomplished."

-- in presidential election years turnout swells with immigrant voters, young voters, and other constituencies favoring democrats. bush is trying to sell the republican brand to these growing voting blocs. let's hear from air most a beach, california. this is mark on the independent line. caller: good morning. i just wanted to point something out that has been missed by the media. if jeb bush were to win, he would be the fourth member of this family to sit in the white house because franklin pierce is related to barbara bush and then you have the two bushes before him. and the thought of a bush clinton choice is so depressing. i can't think of anything more depressing. i had just one quick question. behind usc the capital, they

have been doing something to it for ages. do you have any idea what that is and what it will be finished? bill scanlan: yes, they have been working on the dome of the capital for quite some time. it is expected to be finished in time for the inauguration in 2017. the capitol dome needs extensive restoration. it is made mainly of iron and iron rust. that is what you have been seeing over the monster our camera on washington journal. we have covered a bunch of events with the architect of the capitol looking at that and the things they're doing up there. you will find that on our website at c-span.org. congress is back in session under that don't today and a busy week ahead. next up we will talk to steven komarow of rollcall. he is the vice president and news director. we will look to the week ahead in congress. later on, nathaniel popper

explains the evolution of a bitcoin, the digital currency. what is it all about and where is it headed? we will find out later on as washington journal continues here on c-span. ♪ >> like many of us, first families take vacation time. and like presidents and first ladies, a good read can be the perfect companion for your summer journeys. what better book than one that appears inside the personal life of every first lady in american history? first ladies, presidential historians on the lives of 45

iconic american women. inspiring stories of fascinating women who survived the scrutiny of the white house. a great summertime read. available from public affairs is a hardcover or an e-book. for your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. >> this summer, booktv will cover book festivals from around the country and top nonfiction authors and books. this weekend, watch for the annual roosevelt reading festival from the franklin d roosevelt presidential library. in the middle of july, we are live at the harlem book fair, the nation's flagship african-american literary event with author interviews and panel discussions. and at the beginning of september, we are live on the nation's capital for the national book festival, celebrating its 15th year. >> washington journal continues. bill scanlan: steven komarow is

vice president and news director at cq roll call. joining us this morning for the next 45 minutes to talk about the week ahead in congress. you can't talk about the week ahead without looking at the week behind. the headline over the weekend after that vote on friday on trade. house democrats spurn obama endangering a trade pact. a party in revolt is the sub headline. in a remarkable blow to the president, they have voted to end assistance to workers displaced by global trade. the program their party created and has supported for over four decades. it was not a small loss, it was a big feed for that measure. how did they move forward on this? steven komarow: that is the big question. the speaker left room for reconsideration of the vote or it that could happen tomorrow or tuesday. yesterday on television, paul ryan, who is the committee

chairman who led the bill on the floor, said it is really up to obama to twist arms. they have to flip scores of democrats. the democratic party voted overwhelmingly against this provision and how the president gets there i really don't know. people are really scratching their heads over this one. it would be a remarkable turnaround. bill scanlan: we saw that picture of the president walking with democratic leaders. what has been his record so far in terms of going up to capitol hill or having members come to the white house for that sort of lobbying and interaction? steven komarow: it is kind of mixed. he is not by nature a big schmoozer. we have not seen him doing that much of it. we talked about how eisenhower would take members to play golf. obama does not do a whole lot of that. the congressional picnic is this week at the white house. they're going to have some

staring down. bill scanlan: will that be before or after the boat? steven komarow: after the vote. that could be an awkward little time. on this one, he went -- roll call sponsors the congressional baseball game every year. obama went to the game and did some back patting and shaking hands. for the vote. it does not look like he changed a whole lot of mines. bill scanlan: the senators are trying to finish up their work on the defense authorization bill. how is that working in the senate? steven komarow: it has been slow with a lot of amendments. they have backed off some of the more controversial stuff. for example the authorization for military force against the islamic state in syria and iraq. that is on a separate track right now.

john mccain, who is the chairman of that committee, is really eager to get a bill done. it is the earliest the senate has taken that up in a long time. they are going to have a cloture vote this week to try to get that done. bill scanlan: the issue of that authorization of use of military force goes back to the presidential lobby. your reporting in this week's cwq weekly that itaumf is not dead yet. president obama has still of skin political capital to take up the bill. he is in no rush. he re: possesses the adequate authority to go after the militants under the 2001 au mf. house speaker john boehner has been hammering the president

accusing him of lacking any discernible strategy, all the while boehner has done little to move a contentious bill. in all likelihood, republicans are not going to help him on this. even though clearly some republican senators would like to have a specific aumf. steven komarow: that is right. senator kaine has negotiated his own alternative. what they're trying to do is cut it down the middle between what republicans want which is basically giving the president authority to have almost unlimited forces go in, and the democrats who want a very tightly written thing. they have negotiated an in between package. it isn't there yet. they both expressed optimism that over time, people will accept this. the legal authority the president is referring to in

what you just read, a lot of people think is kind of suspect. this was in the wake of september 11. it was not envisioning the kind of thing the u.s. is facing now in syria and iraq. bill scanlan: does the likely defeat on trade on this issue further hindu the president's ability to move that sort of thing forward? caller: it might. steven komarow: it might. the problem with the trade issues this is something the president's want. when you lose something like this, it is a very important pan asian trade pact. if he loses on that, the term lame duck will be in every single reference to barack obama for the next 18 months. bill scanlan: steven komarow is director and vice president at cq roll call. we are talking about the week ahead in congress. your thoughts and comments are welcome.

send us a tweet @cspanwj. you mentioned paul ryan and his comments on fox news sunday. i want to give our viewers a look at what he had to say in terms of the responsibility for moving the trade package forward. >> the president has a lot of work to do with his own party to turn this around to salvage this. i am optimistic. i think that this can be salvaged. i think people are going to realize just how big the consequences are for american leadership. for whether or not america is going to lead in the global economy, or we are just going to retreat? it is ironic. the democrats are the ones making him a very lame duck president. his own party. he has worked to do with his party. i hope you can get that worked

on it we can fix this. >> you talk about the stakes here. if the pacific trade deal goes down because he doesn't even get the fast track majority, how damaging to the country, to its economic interest, to his strategic interests and how do you answer the argument by some democrats and by big labor that these trade deals are good for big corporations but bad for american workers who either lose their jobs or see their salaries lowered? >> it is the opposite. big corporations can set up a factory in another country to make it there and sell it there. bike getting trade agreements you are removing that barrier so they can make things in america. trade creates more jobs. one in five jobs in america are tied to trade. they pay more. it means more jobs. bill scanlan: paul ryan yesterday on fox news. steven komarow: there is a lot of suspicion especially the tea

party wing of the republican does not like it. there is a populist issue tied to it. if you go across america, you can find empty factories still to this day that were shut down by imports from china and asia on textiles, furniture. it makes it a very touchy issue. on the democratic side it is the unions that are fighting the hardest against this. their membership was decimated in some areas. bill scanlan: i want to read from the washington times about the meeting that happened on friday with the president after the roll call baseball game. the washington times wrote that in that meeting with democrats president obama urged them to play it straight and pleaded for their support. but he also offended some democrats by think you had the nation's best interests at heart and suggesting that lawmakers who opposed the trade measure were motivated by political considerations.

many democrats view the trade measure as poisonous to their reelection chances next year because of constituents's concerns that u.s. jobs are being lost overseas. representative peter defazio said mr. obama tried to guilt people and impugn their integrity. " he has ignored and disrespected congress for years and then he shows up at the baseball game with homemade beer and than comes to the caucus and lectures us for 40 minutes about his values and whether or not we are being honest by using legislative tactics to try to stop something which we believe the horrible mistake for the united states of america." are you surprised to ceiling would like that from democrats? steven komarow: it's interesting. it's also interesting that paul ryan used the lame-duck phrase. i think democrats feel that obama is not a plus for them anymore. they are all running for reelection and he is not. they are cutting distance from him. we are going to see that for the

rest of the presidency. on this issue in particular, where they do have a strong constituency that is with them in the labor movement, it is exercising maximum clout for them. bill scanlan: let's go to crawford, georgia. jane is here on the republican line. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning. i just want to mention this. according to take morris on youtubdick morris, on youtube, this trade bill has more to do with immigration than it does trade. from what i understand, if it passes, or borders will be open to any of these countries and that includes their people coming over and taking more jobs. i just think they are doing a good thing if they vote this trade bill down. 7 bill scanlan:bill scanlan: what your thoughts? steven komarow: i don't think

there is a direct connection between the two things. the real issue on immigration that has to do with this -- if relations with these countries get over time, immigration would get easier. but there is no direct correction -- connection there. host: west virginia, democrats line. hi, george. caller: the great state of west virginia, democratic state. what i think about this is the democrats in washington, d.c. must be sleeping too long because they do not understand what this is all about. this is to give the president sovereignty to negotiate trade deals and everything with other countries to open up trade and everything. it is not a trade deal that is on the table right now. this is to give the president authority for trading and

everything. and if you cannot do that, you might as well just shut america down. you have got to have trade throughout the world. these democrats want to be all thrown out of washington and everybody replaced with some new blood because they do not seem to know what they are doing. mrs. pelosi is the leader. she should have been gone a long time ago. host: what is the relationship now between the president and nancy pelosi? guest: i think it was a lot warmer last friday. she went to the floor and rallied the democrats against the president's position. she wants this thing renegotiated, the legislation to work in some of the issues labor once and democrats

want. right now, those kinds of restrictions are not in there. host: your comments on the floor on friday, she also talked about the democratic priorities of the deadline, the highway trust fund and things like that, urging presidential action on things like that. how serious can the president get after this defeat on friday? how can he be effective in moving forward issues like that whether it is the highway trust fund or negotiating a spending deal with republicans? what does that look like in the months ahead? guest: on the highway trust fund in particular come the fight is not between democrats on the hill in the white house. it is a get -- about democrats and republicans on the hill. the argument is how you raise money for it. besides the it is just lane expiring and legislation is needed to keep it going, the

long-term business model for the trust fund probably is not sustainable because it is based on a per gallon tax and not only are cars getting more efficient do not even run on gasoline, or diesel fuel for that matter, the funding is going down. the price was frozen decades ago per gallon. the cost of building roads keeps going up, so until you could get republicans to sign onto revenue raising, you will not make a lot of progress on that bill. host: good morning to greg tennessee, republican line. caller: i find it truly amazing y'all can sit around and talk about this.

y'all know what happened with nasa. everybody knows it was not good. i have never met an american that would even consider what y'all -- it is really a treaty to go into all types of things like 2000 words or something. this is one of those things they got the big month cento and all of that, and the world leaders and people that don't count, will guess what? i think the americans need to wake up. y'all realize in america this eight nothing about us getting anything good. it is about getting the border's wider and connecting canada america, and mexico. we got internet too y'all. host: trade being a political

issue, certainly members facing election. guest: absolutely. none of this would probably take effect before the next election but it is certainly a point that could be used in commercials and social media and everything else . it is a tricky issue because it is not as simple as all of that. long-term implications are if the u.s. does not sign on to this trade -- we're talking about transpacific partnership right now the countries in the pacific will make their own pact between each other. the business argument is that the u.s. will be on the sidelines while the rest of the world is doing better economically. host: back to the other business on capitol hill, stemming pills, the houses is about halfway through their work of annual spending bills. the president has threatened a

veto on a number of those measures as they make their way through the house. looking forward to the house completing their work in the senate, what has to happen to get an annual spending package done? guest: there will have to be a deal. individual packages are coming out of the house. on the domestic side, sequestration levels. on defense, there is a huge loophole for the overseas operations. if you are a democrat, your argument is it should be across the board. that is the way the sequestration law is set up. host: that goes back to the budget control act, 2011. guest: democrats up to and including obama, are against these bills cutting domestic

programs while spending more on defense. from where i sit, it looks like we're heading into another september 30 showdown on whatever those have not been passed by then, and it will have to be a big package, and we will raise the specter of government shutdown again. that is what it looks like right now. host: the issues and heading congress, we are talking to steve komarow, the vice president and his director of cq roll call. we are talking to james, good morning. you're on the air, go ahead. one more time. caller: hello? all right here yes. -- all right. host: pete in illinois republican line. caller: yes. how are you doing this morning? i am concerned -- i am against

it, first of all. it is too secret. things should be more open if we will have anything this egg. second of all, there is not enough tough language on manipulation that all of these countries will be allowed to do. third of all, the sovereignty of our laws of the united states, just look at the country of origin the just got overturn. this is the beginning of what will happen. host: the very last thing he said about the country of origin, the law that passed in the house last week, labeling of meat pork, and chicken, it passed in the house that seemed to get a number of republicans against the measure as well. we heard the bill talked about in the trade debate. guest: this is definitely one of the issues in the trade debate,

sectors of the economy that obviously benefit from it. it is u.s. companies whether they label it or not. they are fighting against this. it is one of many issues. it also has to do with environmental regulations in many different countries, which democrats are concerned about. it is one of many competition issues. the viewer also mentioned currency manipulation issue. the biggest concern there is china, but china is not part of this pact. that issue will remain regardless of how congress votes on it. host: the house passed that piece of currency manipulation. we heard members talking about having to read this trade deal

in a secret and secure room. why is that? guest: it is one of the big criticisms. the trade negotiations are done in secret. it is a complicated chess game. some pieces of it almost never get daylight on them. it is a system anybody could take shots at, but negotiators say it is a -- the only way to get a deal done and they compare it to the way legislation gets done sometimes on capitol hill. a little bit of close room action we do not understand. keep in mind the current vote is not on the deal itself. these things are not the same as a treaty. this is actually the key part of the congressional input right now. that is why it is so hard-fought. host: as the treaty comes down,

the proposal is the president would presented to congress, they would get to debate it, it is just a -- an up or down vote or no additional input. steve komarow is our guest, news director with cq roll call and vice president for cq roll call. your comments, here is 1 -- one -- mark. caller: your guests just cleared up one question i had. what i read over the weekend on twitter, and it might have been from roll call and some others i guess it is from others, the thing that concerns me is that, with the pacific trade, there are provisions in there were the uss to give up its sovereignty

that what happens is when there are differences that happened to be between corporations and countries, countries can be sued by corporations, and it just seems like there is an erosion of u.s. sovereignty, so rather than exporting u.s. capitalistic practices, it seems like what it is doing is eroding a belief to u.s. sovereignty with regard to protecting its standards in the world. the other thing real quick if i may, the whole idea behind this trade package, you know, the united states is not where it was 100 years ago. we have a large population. i am not sure we need to expand these trade tax in order to have economies of efficiency. the u.s. is a large enough economy on its own for that. a lot of people in the middle us lose jobs and cannot go out to get these high-tech jobs that bill clinton talked about when

he originally did nasa. -- nasta. not everybody will be a stem star and what do you do with people like that in the united states? guest: he hit on many of the core arguments here. if the issues cheap labor overseas, that hurts the kind of workers he is talking about. it has become a little bit less than that because of the high-tech nature of a lot of the imports, but there is no question the u.s. has its standards and other countries mostly more regulated than the u.s., have theirs, and they are trying to cut there is that going between. and the u.s. does have to sign on to an international pack that does not always follow formal practices here. host: that caller mentioned

seeing some of the news on the weekend. how much has twitter changed what you do at cq roll call? guest: it is interesting. we tweet and everybody does these days. it is a fast way of getting out information. u.s. c-span monitor all the tweets from the c-span office, from mitch mcconnell's office. it is a lively debate going on at twitter all the time. host: you as an editor, is there a process where you can say we need to pull back that tweet and look at this because you do not obviously gets a look over every tweet all of your reporters are getting out, but you lose editorial control, don't you? guest: a little bit. we have high standards for these sorts of things.

people know the personal tweets are different than company tweets. if you look at our cq tweets, people will tag that having to do with legislation and policy on capitol hill. i think there is a good recognition. we do have a central desk that handles a lot of our tweeting telling folks out there what is going on. people are not always able to sit down and collect news the way it was traditionally done here at are tipping people off this story came out, you ought to look at it on your mobile and on your screen as soon as you get a chance and get caught up. host: let's hear from michael in north carolina, democrats line. caller: trade agreements i

would like to make a point that what is my finding is that this is a large consolidation of power from europe, canada, north america -- north america, and the east working together to do regulate themselves. masses pieces of deregulation that allow companies to offshore jobs, to trade patent and patent rights and everything else. i found it has hurt a lot of countries, and it is all about exploiting minimal labor getting around environmental controls and the end result is low quality. if you look at the quality of the goods, it is terrible and no are near as good as it was in the 1960's or the 1970's, and as

a result, we do not even have a manufacturing base in this country that is large enough big enough to protect this if we had another scenario like world war ii. it is a lose lose for the american middle-class and the lower working-class. the only one to gain ivies trade agreements are the top corporate people and the elites who have the money and own the large amounts of stocks for these organizations that are seeking these agreements. host: thank you. we talked a little bit about the president's trip to capitol hill. had the influence of labor been waning a bit on capitol hill? how much was it a part of the calculation friday? guest: i think this is a rare instance where labor has had an impact lately. influence has been waning over the years and a lot of that is tied to elections, where you have not seen a big swing of votes through the labor

concerns. this was an opportunity for labor to try to reassert itself. host: the president's's labor secretary was asked on a program whether the administration had a plan b if the package does not passed this week. here's what he said. >> i do not think we need a path . there are so many different pathways. i am confident we will move forward in this. the reason is this is something that is very important. america needs to set the rules in the global economy and that is why the president has been fighting for this. every day he wakes up and his northstar is look i do to help the american worker and the american family. that is what he has been doing since the day he got in office, whether it was the recovery act, the affordable care act, the bailout, and this is no different. we need to write the rules of

the global economy. the world is watching us right now. the president strongly believes and i agree, this is the most progressive trade promotion authority we have ever given. host: the secretary was talking about the possible plan b for trade. what about for the health care plan? the supreme court will have a decision on a subsidies and the republicans have been asked a number of times about potential plan b or accepts in case the court rules against the administration. are there any legislative scenarios possible should that happen? guest: we would like to know what they are. people talk about, there really is not a "republican" answer. most want to take away the subsidies. in the short term, there would be huge pressure to do something

because you have got 34 states that will lose the ability to do subsidies, and that means people's health care bills, the subsidize will go up and double and triple in a lot of cases. the question is how do you save the parts of the aca that people like, things like, keep your kid on your insurance until he is 26, having no pre-existing condition kick out for your policies and that sort of thing. all of those things cost money and if you cannot have this subsidy in getting young people into the system, it will be a tough thing to do. host: a couple of comments on twitter. this is maria, we will know more about where our dog treats come throughout -- come from then meats, chicken, and pork.

on trade, the question is -- do you have an answer for the cyber security? host: i don't have an answer on that one. i just do not remember why they attached it. host: let's hear from florida. valerie is on our democrats line. hi, valerie. go ahead. caller: i watched the vote on friday, and my observation was more republicans voted against the first part of this trade bill than democrats. why are they said -- why is paul ryan saying that president obama has to get his act together and draw more democrats? for me, it seems like poor ryan has a lot of work to do. i would also like to know if there were any who voted on his

first part of the bill? is there a way to find out which republicans in which democrats voted for and against it? host: that information is available online. you can go to congressional record and find that online. steve is doing our job here for us and bringing us this piece. she asked about where the votes were on the trade assistance. let's take a look. republicans voting no were 158. keep in mind they have a majority in the house spirit 158 did vote against that it 144 democrats voted against it and 86 republicans in favor. 40 democrats in favor. it would need to be a big turnaround. guest: huge. the bill was divided into sections. all of them have to be approved

by the house in order for the package to be deemed approved. the senate is already done here. the democrats voted 144 to 40 against the bill and this section of the bill, the trade adjustment assistance, federal money, help people who were impacted by the trade. and the fact that this trade pact will hurt some industries for example. this is a traditionally democratic program. a lot of democrats on the hill would say the assistance package is inadequate. but to vote en masse against it is not a way forward for the democrats on this because republicans are never going to vote for this. they are against this kind of assistance. so obama really has to get the democrats's long around on this if he is going to make it. host: in "the wall street

journal." they write that he still expected congress to find a way to pass legislation extending mr. obama's trade and negotiating powers as the u.s. tries to wrap up a sweeping deal with other countries around the pacific. other leaders said the burden would rest, the president to shore up support for his agenda after democrats defected last week despite a burst of late minute lobbying by mr. obama p are the democrats are skeptical of how the specific trade deals be negotiated as well as potential repercussions for u.s. workers next sunday. they saw little reason to move their opposition through a package of trade measures at the house. procedurally since the speaker called for the revote, that has to happen by sometime tuesday, i guess. guest: there is always another rule where you can fight things a little bit, but that is the expectation.

the debate changes slightly in the sense that everything else is done except trade adjustment assistance p or i'm sure an committing used for democrats will be, the only thing your voting on today is whether or not to give people, especially workers, the assistance they need because of the impact of the upcoming trade deal. if you isolate the argument that way, it might make sense for some democrats, but they are keenly aware that the way the rules work, they kill the whole deal -- the whole bill if they do not vote for this. you still vote no. guest:-- host: shelby, indiana. caller: you hit on mike question, what my concern was, the trade adjustment. why do they need the assistance? why are they losing their jobs? eventually, the benefits will run out, just like we have had in the past, where people have

to go on welfare and food stamps. i am really glad to see the democrats and some of the republicans voted it down, that they are thinking of the american people and our economy. thank you. host: thank you. here is robert in california, on our republican line. independent line, i am sorry robert. caller: thanks. earlier, a caller expressed a concern over currency minute galatian. you also neglected to mention japan. on the other end when it comes to how we vote on these bills and in what order, i am curious why we are on trade promotion authority before we even know what the trade bill is that we will be voting on, or if they

will even allow that to be known. if it is going to be done in secret, you will have all this animosity and apprehension from the general public, at least. how are we supposed to call our representatives and let them know how we would like them to vote? that would be my question. guest: i think the viewer hits on a point that makes it difficult for many members of congress, the fact is they're voting on something that gives the president authority, but they do not see the final package at that time, and it could come back and hurt them. i think on nafta, i wonder if some of the people who worked in the favor of it are now being hurt by the repercussions of it? host: we talked about domestic considerations, but in a number of articles, in the faith --

face of a rising china, and the south pacific in general in that region that this measure, the transpacific partnership is seen as an essential piece of president obama's foreign policy. guest: i think his policy has been to rally other countries near china to be a counterweight to china's growing strength. this has been to get them more economically integrated. host: we go to can in knoxville, tennessee, good morning. caller: i have a couple questions or have you read the treaty? guest: we cannot. host: it is fairly secret location. caller: how are you answering these questions correctly if you have never read it?

and does this allow companies to import their labor forces into the united states? guest: this does not get rid of immigration laws, if that is what you mean. there is certainly a lively debate on immigration also going on on capitol hill. we have not seen that turned to legislation lately, but the companies are pressing very hard for an expansion of the program, especially for high-tech workers. you have people from overseas who will come in and train at u.s. universities, u.s. companies, and leave the company and take your skills away. that is the argument for having more visas for folks like that. certainly, the debate you're having these tedious things conflated -- these two things conflated. it is hard to separate out from other international relations issues. host: looking at the changes in

leadership committee, on the changing committee leadership and also the majority leaderthe new leadership in the house, how are things going? how is the house being managed? guest: we certainly had issues even this one with the leadership who they were embarrassed along with a president who bring up a bill and have it fail. we have an aggressive new committee chairman trying to push bills forward. on the house schedule this week, the epa budget well, up. it is the first time and i think, six years, that it is actually a separate bill moving ahead as rapidly as it does. these things tend to get wrapped into those crs or from the bus -- cromnibus.

host: is is another thing the white house will oppose for domestic funding being lower than they want? guest: yesterday is almost all the domestic bills are getting veto threats or statements of oppositions. host: juanita is in cincinnati, democrat line. caller: good morning to you and your guest. i was -- i am retired and i think all the people covering this needs a history lesson. we have been through this life -- we have been through this twice in the 1970's, when americans lost jobs. we went through eight trucking craze. the railroads were decimated. my father was decimated when be railroads were being destroyed. now we have a second phase with nafta.

i think a lot of journalists are missing the problem -- i have not abandoned president obama and have no intention to, but how can you grant authority to something that you do not know what it is he is giving authority to? as a democrat and american, i do not trust wedges -- what is coming out of congress now. i am my family have had to live through it twice. the third time will be the charm. congress is going to have to do a better job of convincing us why we need to take this bill on. host: your comments also reflected in this tweet, no one has explained to me how this trait deal will create met in jobs when non-have done so in the past. and another common says excellent point. on the other side, we are a

large enough economy to have competition within as well as efficiency. rigid from lake placid, florida independent line. caller: good morning. it would be crazy to pass the trade bill. we have 93 million workers out of a population of 320 million looking for jobs. we know that after hurricane sandy, 80% of the repair work and the new work was done by illegal workers. this is not going to help put americans to work. the middle-class dropped over the last six years under the obama administration from $44,000, i believe it was -- in two different articles -- dr. $42,000 -- host: we will let you have the

last word on that. steven komarow talking about trade in congress. what is the second-biggest story cq roll call will follow? guest: we are preparing for the big court decision. the defense bill coming up on the hill. we are also watching the export-import bank which has echoes of this debate on the trade bill. that authority expires at the end of the month, i believe. that is one that shows the fissures in the republican party. you have great suspicion among the rand paul wing of the party to what has been a traditionally republican-supported program. it is the argument that in the international arena, you cannot be naive. there are more countries that have special financing, which this bank provides, and other things to help you compete. host: steven komarow the news

director and vice president at cq roll call. more ahead. we talk with nathaniel popper, who is a "new york times" reporter with a brand-new book extending bitcoin there -- the digital currency in the wake of the financial trends in -- in the wake of the financial crisis as a means to conduct transactions without a third party. ♪ >> the new congressional directory is a handy guide to the 114th congress, with color photos of every house and senate member, contact information, and twitter handles.

also district maps, a full out map of capitol hill, and it looked at congressional committees, the president's, and federal agencies. order your copy today through the c-span online store at c-span.org. this summer, but tv will cover book festivals from around the country and top nonfiction authors and books. watch for the annual resort reading festival from the franklin d roosevelt presidential library. in july, we are live at the harlem fair, the flagship african-american literary events in the nation. we are alive from the nations capital for the national book festival, celebrating its 15th year in september. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us from new york city is nathaniel popper,

reporter for the "new york times," out with his first book called "digital gold: bitcoin and the inside stories of the misfits and millionaires trying to reinvent money." thank you for joining us. you write for the "new york times," and cover business issues. what made you want to write about bitcoin? guest: frankly, i resisted it for a a while. it seemed like some sort of pet rock type of thing that i could ignore. i was covering finance at the time when i began writing about this. my first story and 2013 was about the winklevoss twins, famous from the facebook story. at this point, really nobody with a name or reputation had attached themselves to bitcoin. they came forward and -- i wrote

a story about their massive holdings of bitcoin at that point. it was something like $10 million. the response to the story was so incredible that it kind of made me sit up and think about what this cap into. this idea of new money tapped i nto. this was what got me thinking about it. it was another year before i was ready to write a book about it. host: lead us through it. the subtitle is that the inside story of the misfits and millionaires trying to reinvent money. how does bitcoin work and how does it reinvent our current currency? guest: i think the basics of bitcoin still eludes a lot of people including people in technology and finance.

that is in part because bitcoin is a lot of different things. it is software that makes different things possible. because it is a lot of different things, it is sometimes hard to understand -- you hear all these different things about it. in a two sublist terms, this came out of a movement of people essentially trying to event digital cash. with cash, you can transact directly with someone. you hand over cash in the old-fashioned world and you do not need anyone else there to do the transaction. and no one even needs to know other than that to know other than the two of you that the transaction happened. when money moved into the digital world, you essentially always needed some third-party there to move the money, update everyone's records on both sides. there was a group of

technologists who saw this. most were privacy activists. they realized that there wasn't this loss of privacy when money moved into the digital realm. they began working to try to create something that was like cash but for the digital realm. that was the simplest idea that inspired this. what makes that possible with the coin -- with bitcoin is new software and networks that allows money to be moved around, much like e-mail allows messages to be moved around. if you have someone's bitcoin address, you can send them money anywhere in the world and it does not have to go through a third person. that is the simplest way to imagine it. there are a lot of layers beneath that. that notion of digital cash and e-mail for money is the way i

like to start. host: this was a currency, ideas started in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. in your book, your -- you write that the result of this complicated process was something deceptively simple but not possible before. financial notes that treat and move money without a central authority. no bank, credit cards, regulators. now we are in 2015, a number of years since the creation of the bitcoin movement. federal regulators taken an interest? guest: they have. it took a few years for the software to really get going. isaiah got going, it was not living up to its grandest ambitions. that passage incited -- you

cited, it did not provide an alternative to central banks there was surviving. it was becoming clear sooner regulators, central bankers, prosecutors, that this was something new. it was a way to move things around without oversight from any central party. whenever you have something moving around without oversight, regulators get worried. in the financial system, banks are the front line in law enforcement, because they can overseeing the movement of money. regulators began looking at this hard in 2013. there were two senate hearings in one week, if i am not mistaken, one right after the other, in which people from the di and good service and doj all got -- from the fbi, secret

service, and doj all got up to talk about it. most of the law enforcement folks at the hearing essentially said there are dangerous with the new technology is interesting and it can be used for more than just lawbreaking. so let's watch this, and we are watching it carefully. that one even probably gave as much of a boost to bitcoin as any sort of event during its lifetime. since then, you have people from a whole bunch of different regulatory agencies trying to figure out how to deal with it and also trying to dig your out what is it. should we treat it like stocks, treat it like a currency, a commodity? should we treat it like a financial institution? i think a lot of that is still going on.

one of the things that points to is that this is something new. it does not a into the old categories we have for the financial realm. host: nathaniel popper is our guest, author of the book "digital gold." we invite you to the conversation. (202) 748-8000 four eastern and central time zone's. (202) 748-8001 for the mountain and pacific time zones. if you are a user of bitcoin and have used in the past, call (202) 748-8002. a story in the new york times about one of the campaigns using bitcoin. this was a couple weeks ago. in accepting bitcoin, rand paul raises money and questions. they write, presidential fundraising, never known for its transparency, may have come more secretive. in announcing his candidacy for

president, rand paul waited into new waters where he said he would accept campaign contributions in bitcoin a largely untraceable virtual currency, in amounts up to $100. interested donors were given three options for making a contribution: a credit card, paypal, or bitcoins. while some state and federal candidates and california, colorado, and elsewhere, rand paul is the first presidential candidate to do so. in the age of wanting transparency and presidential elections, is it a good thing the paul campaign is allowing bitcoin contributions? guest: i do not know if i'm qualified whether to say that is a good rain. the way it is doing done in election politics now, it is limited to relatively small sums. in that sense it is like

someone giving a $20 bill or a $50 bill to a candidate. it is not like someone giving $10,000 of unmarked bills to a candidate. the most notable element of that story is that rand paul decided to do that on day one of his candidacy. it shows the degree to which the bitcoin technology and this movement that grew up around bitcoin has been driven by a law of this sort of libertarian sentiment that is also driving rand paul's candidacy. it drives home just how much bitcoin was a result of the anxiety and unhappiness that came out of the financial crisis that has also given rise to the popularity of libertarian candidates. this suspicion of central authorities.

that is so deeply embedded in bitcoin. the suspicion of the federal reserve and central banks and also of big wall street banks that are -- were blamed for the financial crisis. bitcoin was viewed as a system that would allow us to circumvent that and have a financial that existed without those central authorities that was raised and run by the people used it. when rand paul made that announcement on the day his candidacy was announced, it was a sign of how intertwined bitcoin had become with the rise of libertarianism, tea party all of this stuff after the financial crisis. host: we have calls for nathaniel popper on digital currency. columbia maryland, jim. caller: thank you.

god bless c-span. you have been talking in general terms with government. bringing it to an individual level, as an entrepreneur i went through the loan process and banking and it was a mess and a bureaucratic nightmare. why is it that we, as people and a society, feel this need to regulate bitcoin just because we have always regulated these things? why can we not just move on and look at different ways of doing it? this is a new form of currency why are we so determined to regulate it like it needs to be controlled? it does not make sense to me. the process we have now is so convoluted and makes no sense. this seems like a much easier different way of doing things. is there a reason it cannot be done like that? guest: i think there are

regulators who are trying to take a new approach with bitcoin. over the last year, the effort to regulate bitcoin has been led by the top financial regulator in new york. he came up with something called the bitlicense, which was his effort to create a new regime for this technology. to the question of does this thing needs to be regulated, one of the elements that comes through so strongly in the story of bitcoin and is such a theme in my book is that this new technology that allowed money to move around drove home how much, once money comes involved, people's worst instincts are drawn forth. bitcoins history has been marked

by enormous instances of hacking and theft and fraud. and often served as a reminder of why regulations, into existence in the first place. you have this universe where people control their own money but often times, those people are less sophisticated. bitcoin makes it possible for you to control your own money with what is known as a private key, a password. if a hacker gains control of your computer and get that private key, the essentially have your money. that has happened many times. probably more people have lost money using bitcoin then made money using bitcoin. a lot of money has been made, but a lot of people have lost money. you have understood -- unsophisticated people holding their own money.

or when people stop trusting themselves, they have given their bitcoins to what our essentially bitcoin banks to hold their money for them. not too surprisingly those acorn banks, the biggest of which known as mount gawk, have often proven to be not up to the task of protecting that. this has brought forth arguments of if you have something like this mount gawk, a company in tokyo that held half $1 billion of people's bitcoin money, you need someone looking at it to make sure it has reasonable security, make sure it is not a way station for hamas or hezbollah to move their money rum toured in wars area to the united states or vice versa. there is a reason you want someone watching the financial institutions.

that can go too far in the other direction and you get this convoluted process we have now that you talked about. payments are another indication of that. it can take three days to make a simple money transfer to a friend. there are certainly middle grounds, but the story of thefts and wrongdoing and fraud through the bitcoin story have in a reminder of why regulations about. host: oregon, neema is on the line. caller: i am hearing how volatile it is. it looks like it was going off a hundred ohm, which scares me more than anything. what about a country, disliking us so bad, that they would hang on to a line of bitcoin and then flood the market. let's say you have $1000 in the

bank. if a nation that hates us does that, we could end up with only five dollars and that it. my concern is china's coming out with their own money. and our friends, germany france, south korea, thailand, they are joining in with the china banks. can you explain something about that as well? guest: i think you are talking about, essentially, these currency wars that, particularly china's effort to supplant the dollar as the reserve currency -- i think what bitcoin is now is a long way from being able to provide an alternative in that sense. when you look today one of the coin when it was launched, the

initial description in 2008 when it was released, people talked about the fact that this could one day be a sort of new global reserve currency. that has come up through acorn story. at this point, all the bitcoins in existence are worth something like $2 billion or $3 billion. that is less than the stock of urban outfitters. host: what is an individual bitcoin worth today? guest: something like $235. there is something like 14 million of them in the world. that gives you the total value of the bitcoins. when you have seen in one of the stories i tell in my book is the story of argentina, where bitcoin has caught on, in part because of the problems with their own currency.

they had numerous instances of hyperinflation, and they had a deeply troubled financial system. people there have used the coin as an alternative to their financial system. it is not half the country but it is ordinary people realizing that this new technology may provide an alternative. for now, to the degree that bitcoin is used in that way, it is more likely to happen in smaller places like argentina. places with troubled financial systems. the u.s., for all its problems, has a credit card and ranking system that works pretty well for most people on a day-to-day basis. you hear a lot of people in this movement talking about bitcoin saying that -- the u.s. is not the first place that needs this technology. it is needed in places where people do not have it bank

account or have a credit card. host: you talked about argentina, ecuador is the money initiative outlaws bitcoins and makes it mandatory for banks to follow that dictate. a couple tweets, the reason there has been speculation is because the dollar has been debate. also, if cash is only legal tender, how can it coin be legal , is the core not another pyramid scheme? that reflects the title of the peace that meant o'brien in the washington post a week ago or so. part of what he said in his comments on wondering what bitcoin is, he says it is not clear what bitcoin is or what it will be, but it is clear it is not a currency. people do not set prices in bitcoin and do not buy things with it either. that is the only function of

money, he writes. it comes close to performing as a store of value, but it does not even do that well. a lot on that play. -- plate. guest: that gets right and a lot of deep questions that have swirled around bitcoin. b problems bitcoin have encountered have been just as interesting as the success it has had. the problems it has, including the front we were talking about earlier, serves as a reminder of why the financial looks like it does today and serves as a reminder of what money is. what are the qualities of a good money? matt o'brien, i think he is right. bitcoin is frequently referred to as a virtual currency or digital money. right now, it could be that one day. it is true that you can exchange

bitcoin for other things. you can buy things online or bitcoin. it does meet some of the characteristics of a currency. but its volatile price has meant few people have been willing to do that. i do not think currency or money is the best way to describe it now. what it does do now is serve as this new network for moving money around. you may not want to keep your money in bitcoin, but when you want to make a transaction for the four minutes you are actually making the transaction you may want to have bitcoin for that long to use the network to send money. that network is what a lot of of people have focused on recently. wall street banks got into this. goldman sachs making its investment.

nasdaq, new york stock exchange, getting involved. what they are looking at is not the currency but the financial network. this goes to how many things bitcoin is. one of the reasons it has ended up confusing is it is not just one thing. that is one of the reasons it is confusing and that is also why it is asked of in, to me. it gets you thinking of the layers of how money works and what money is successful. host: miami beach, larry. you are on the air. caller: i have two questions. do you believe the coin is a good bet against the dollar or even wall street? what are your thoughts on gemini.com. guest: this question is bitcoin a good investment, all i can say

is it is entirely speculative at this point. bitcoin is not something right now. to the degree that people are betting on the price of bitcoin they are betting on what it will be in the future. that is still undecided. wall street firms are getting involved but their project their experiments, are not complete. they will not know if or how they will use it. it is still an experiment for them. the price of bitcoin, if we can get into more of the price is set, it is an open market. people offered to buy it and sell it for something. the willingness of people to buy it is a function of their you of how useful this may be. people want to own it because they think someone else will want to own it in the future.

do not know yet why people wanting in the future. we have guesses and we have people who are willing to put their money on one use or another, or it is still speculative. against the dollar, this will be a wild ride for a while. on the winklevoss twins they were two of the first names people with reputations, to attach themselves to bitcoin to say we own large quantities of bitcoin. they began by buying it up, made an investment in a startup called the instant that ended up going under. but they winklevosses have dedicated themselves to it completely. i did an event with them last night that said -- where they

said this has become the entire life at this point. they have to dig projects. one is an exchange traded fund. they plan on having it trade on the nasdaq and will move with the price of bitcoin. the other is an exchange where you can buy and sell bitcoin raised in new york and regulated. the winklevi, as i call them, have thrown their lot in with the idea that bitcoin needs be regulated. that is their view. they are trying to build these etf exchanges that will play well with regulators and try to gain confidence in that way. both their projects have been a long time in development and are not yet out there. the exchange called gemini, the etf, will run under the ticker symbol coin. it they seem very dedicated to this. i think there is the possibility

that their projects, they have every intention to bring that out there. at this point, they have a lot of competition. that is the toughest and for them. host: from new york city, our guest is nathaniel popper of the new york times. his first book, "digital gold," is out. we hear from jim in illinois. good morning. caller: i have a couple questions. i am curious as to how the supply of bitcoin is managed in terms of the volume of bitcoins that are in existence. i was going to ask about how currency exchange rates are set for bitcoin. but from your previous answer about the buying and selling on the open market, it sounds like the value may be set on sort of the way a stock price is set.

can you elaborate on how a bitcoin is valued? guest: our site with the first question asked to how many bitcoins exist and how is that limited, regulated. the bitcoin software, released in early 2009, it is run by all the people who join into it. everyone who joined in downloads the software, which includes a set of rules, which is how bitcoin works. some are very complicated and technical. one of the central roles to the bitcoin system is how they will be generated and how many will be generated. the limits set from day one was that 21 million bitcoins will eventually be released to the people who use the system it was

prescribed how they would be released. about every 10 minutes, a new lock a big one would be released to someone using the network. it is essentially a lottery. from day one, there were zero bitcoins. 10 minutes in, the first block was released and someone got that. that has been going on since then. it jobs in half, the number release, every four years. now, every 10 minutes 20 five bitcoins are released to someone on the network. we are about halfway through the process of all the bitcoins being created. it is anticipated we will hit the 21 million number in 2040. that scarcity, that system are releasing bitcoins, was designed to create this sense of scarcity, sort of like gold.

the idea there will only be a limited quantity, and you can always tell if the apart from anything else, just like you can tell gold apart from any other metal. that was part of the design of the system. giving them away was designed to get people to join in. that incentive is viewed as one of the brilliant elements of it. we are moving towards that 21 million and we are about halfway through. once people get the bitcoins, they join the network, you can do whatever you want with them. you can hold onto them, send them to other people. you can send them to people for nothing or you could request a price. that is generally how it works now. people go to exchanges and they say i have 10 bitcoins, i am

willing to sell them for $250. someone comes along and says i have 10 bitcoins, i am willing to pay $230. they strike a deal. but it is like the way stocks are priced and the way the dollar is priced. the price of the dollar against the euro and the yen is set on the open market. bitcoin prices are set in much the same way but they move around a lot more. host: we're from alice in colorado. go ahead. caller: i am getting to learn more about the coin from this program. since we have legalized marijuana, and our transactions are done in cash and we cannot use ranks, because it is against federal law, i wondered if they could do something through the bitcoin industry.

i know you say it is not really secure at this point, that there could be a lot of corruption but to me they pay people in cash, everything is secured in cash. that is scary to me. to have that in my neighborhood. guest: that is a great question. the question you have is at the front edge of the coin -- of bitcoin. i am not an expert on this. i know stuff is going on and people are going -- playing with his intersection between legalized marijuana and bitcoin. people are saying this is enough of a controversial industry on its own, we do not eat to get involved with another controversial industry. but people have been making moves. you are right to notice there is an opportunity there.

bitcoin, the way he has been able to take off so far, is in places where the existing financial setup is not working. i mentioned argentina as one of the first cases where ordinary people began using bitcoin. bitcoin is still hard to use. you have to have a good reason to want to use it if you're going to use it. that all cash economy that has surrounded legalized marijuana is one opportunity for that. the original usage of bitcoin perhaps what made it most famous, was an online drug market called the silk road, where marijuana and a lot of harder drugs were available for coin -- bitcoin. that was a case in which the need for it, the alternative was so bad, that people were willing

to play with the experimental element of bitcoin and take that risk. the alternative buying jugs on some street corner, was worse. host: some twitter comments. @cspanwj is our twitter handle. jan said that people would just get greedy with bitcoin. another one says bitcoin may become viable in emerges in -- in emerging markets and rural areas without a financial banking structure was cell phones. also a question on what is the official obama administration policy on bitcoin? guest: the obama administration, i do not think of the white house it self has said much about bitcoin. the treasury department, which is part of the administration, has been looking at this. they have been slow to act, but to the degree they have said anything, they said this is an interesting technology and we

are looking at it and we the existing rules are enough for now, but they have let it develop slowly. an interesting note is the administration did recently take on as one of its tech guru advisors, a princeton professor named ed felten who has been invited -- excited and involved with bitcoin. he has been a math and computer guy fascinated by the new things bitcoin makes possible. this is not a guy saying everyone should go out and buy bitcoin, but it is interesting they brought on someone who is in this movement and is excited about bitcoin. host: we hear from dan in wisconsin. good morning. caller: people have to realize that, i believe bitcoin was

introduced by the u.s. government as a one world currency. people have no clue where bitcoin came from. there is no one listed as the official person who invented bitcoin. they can take your money anytime they want. the u.s. government can take your money or a can be hacked. host: we hear from nathaniel popper on the founding of bitcoin. guest: it is possible, but i would say that it is very unlikely. there is no sign the u.s. government has any control over this. in fact, the opposite. the u.s. government has tried to gain control at various points and has tried to get more inside access to the system. that possibility is out there. there is someone listed on the internet as the inventor of bitcoin.

that name is satoshi nakamoto. that is a name on top of the original paper that describes bitcoin, attached to the software that brought the bitcoin system into existence. it became clear that satoshi nakamoto was just e-mailing with people. he would never call people, chat with people. it became clear this was probably a pseudonym for someone. after two years of communicating with some of the other users just as bitcoin was getting going, he disappeared. host: you mean he disappeared from online? guest: exactly. that is the only existence had online, e-mailing with people. it is one of the fascinating elements of the bitcoin story. you have this anonymous creator. there have been many efforts to tie satoshi to people in the

real world to essentially find the wizard behind the curtain of bitcoin. most have failed. in the course of my writing, i encounter the guy who a lot of people talk about as the most likely candidate to be satoshi nakamoto. this is a guy who had been working on similar projects for decades before this had -- released similar software that did not quite work. a computer programmer in california, grew up in washington state. but it is still a mystery and one of the many fascinating elements of bitcoin, that we do not fully know who created this. but we know the name satoshi nakamoto. host: san antonio -- i am sorry that is not san antonio. good morning paul. caller: inc. you for having me.

-- thank you for having me. happy birthday to the army. the armed services birthday. my dad and my best friend and my new wife were army. that said, the differences between that and gold and similar compromises with identity theft and how they are looking into that situation to make sure that it is not compromised and so forth and the other thing i had to do a report on high school in nixon. great reporter. inc. you for your time. host: -- guest: the difference with gold -- my title indicates "digital gold." this was envisioned as somewhat of a digital equivalent to gold.

we are getting again at the layers of bitcoin. scarcity is the thing that makes it like gold. the other thing that makes it like gold is the fact that -- every bitcoin is: to another bitcoin like every ounce of gold is equivalent to another ounce of gold. that is one of the reasons people have viewed it as his way and placed store money. the advantage over gold is that you can move it around the world instantly. with gold, when the french national bank wanted to get their gold back, they had to essentially get a specially equipped ship to move it across the ocean. moving gold is not easy. it is not as easy to break it down into its constituent bits,

whereas bitcoin can be divided into eight decimal points with the click of a cursor. it is like an easier to use gold for the digital era without the same as a call backing and the sense that you can hold in your hands or to make jewelry out of it if everything else failed. host: in your book, some of the curtains or in -- some of the concern of early supporters, you write that the problem to libertarians was there ingrained belief that money has to be backed by something with physical value like gold. one of the patron saints of old books, carl manga, argued that all successful money arose from commodities. how did they overcome that? guest: there are different

theories about what successful money needs to have. this gets to the heart of it. one argument about successful money says as i wrote, has to, from some commodity that had value before. that is why cigarettes are viewed as having taken off money. if all else fails, you still have the cigarettes. if all else fails with gold, you can still make jewelry with it. a much more popular hypothesis about what makes successful money these days is that money is a centrally a ledger, a way to keep track of who has what and who owes what to someone else. the theory goes that gold took off because it was essentially a ledger.

you knew it was one piece of the ledger of all the outstanding gold. and by wearing it around your neck, you were wearing your piece of the ledger. if someone else had a piece of the ledger, you could tell they owned that. banking systems since then have been based on ledger. our money today, most has no physical form. it is just entries in a ledger. bitcoin to the idea of a ledger. some who support bitcoin say it is more perfect than the current banking system, then gold. according to this theory, money does not have to, from any commodity. it is not have to, from anything with intrinsic value. the fact that it is a ledger, that is the value. i think that is the way libertarians who have gone behind bitcoin have argued that

this is going to work, that this will be as successful as gold. host: michael in dallas, texas. good morning. caller: i am sorry if you answer this question already but is the u.s. government or other governments considering developing their own digital currency is -- currencies. guest: ecuador has gone the farthest in saying they want to move their national currency on to the bitcoin technology. they wanted to be separate from bitcoin. that is the furthest you have heard any government going. the winklevoss twins, when i talked to them last, expressed their believe the dollar would eventually end up on the bitcoin ledger. in the case of bitcoin, the ledger is known as the block chain, a record of all the bitcoin transactions that have

happened. by looking at the bitcoin block chain, you can see every bitcoin ever created, you can see when money was transferred, and you can add up however many bitcoins a particular address had. the idea was you could basically attach things to a piece of bitcoin. you could attach ownership of a particular stock to a bitcoin so that when you traded the bitcoin, you are also trading the stock. you can even break it down so that one millionth of a bitcoin is essentially a contract that says i own this stock or that i own this dollar or this $100. this is how some people imagined national currencies could move to a block chain. the value, the believe that

should happen, is driven by the math and cryptography that underlines the bitcoin system and that some people think is more secure and stable than the existing financial arrangement. so far, it has not proven to be so, but i think there is some hope that the math and cryptography that makes bitcoin work could be more secure than the systems we have, where j.p. morgan or credit suisse or bank of america is in charge of the ledger and you have to trust bank of america to handle that properly. banks themselves have been vulnerable to hacking attacks. they generally have not lost money, but that sort of thing is this conversation going, over whether it would be better to have a cryptographic solution like bitcoin. host: washington, d.c., 14 -- jo

aquin. caller: i was hoping you could elaborate more on security. bitcoin is built essentially a startup. all of these companies have gone down due to cyber attacks and lost a lot of money for themselves and for people starting to use bitcoin. they may not feel it is more of a risk area can you talk more about that threat landscape and some challenges they have to overcome? maybe what the winklevoss twins are doing to make that it'll currency more secure. guest: the strength and weakness of bitcoin comes down to the fact that the ownership of your bitcoin and your bitcoin address is tied up in this private key

which is essentially a string of 64 letters and numbers. it is unique to you and your bitcoin address. if you control that, you can unlock your bitcoin addressed without a third party and spend your bitcoins. if you keep those 64 digit secure, your money is secure. no one can hack in to your address. but if you have those 64 digits written down and leave in a cafe and someone gets a hold of it they have your bitcoins and have access to your bitcoin address. if you live it on your desktop and someone asked computer, they can similarly get access to your bitcoins and transfer them. a lot of what is happening around bitcoins security is about securing that address. increasingly, people are moving to what are known as multi-signature laws, or you

need to ban secret keys. you have one and maybe a company a bitcoin bank for a security company keeps the other one and make sure that if you sign with your address, it is really you signing with it. it is getting these increasingly sophisticated security regimes people are coming up with. then you move back towards the old system where you have that third-party have to rely on. winklevoss twins are trying to come up with their exchange and security is a big part of what they are working on. that is part of the reason they want regulation. they want regulators to say you guys are doing this right, you'll have good security, your securing clients properly. by that comes with the regulations that we started this whole thing talking about. it is a difficult moment that bitcoin is at.

it has this sort of super security that if you do not have that 64 digit password, you cannot get the bitcoins. but once you have it, you have total access. it is something everyone in the bitcoin community is working on. the danger and promise of bitcoin. host: do you your cell phone bitcoins? guest: at the time, we made the decision this is like covering a company and owning stock in the company. you did not want personally investment. if you're covering apple, you do not want to own apple stock and worry about your stocks can go up and down. i own enough that i can play with it and understand the components of the system, but not enough where i have financial interest. host: injured in san antonio hello. caller: hello.

i want to thank you. i am calling from a hospital bed and san antonio. i heard about bitcoin mining. and you elaborate on that and let us know what that entails. guest: bitcoin mining is the way people refer to the process of creating new bitcoins. a reference to gold-mining. you do work to dig up old, today up new bitcoins. the way the system works is new bitcoins are released every 10 minutes or so to people using the system. essentially, what i mentioned earlier, it is like a lottery. people using the system enter in a sort of lottery to win bitcoin s. the way the lottery works is you need very fast computers to

essentially make a lot of lottery gases -- guesses. the more you make, the more you can win. you could do that with a laptop or early on, but now there are so many people computing -- competing, you now need specialized hardware made exclusively for bitcoin mining. it is expensive and it has become dominated a few companies that have gotten good at manufacturing these special chips and getting cheap electricity. a lot of the bitcoin mining is happening in china, where there is cheap hardware, and also cheap electricity if you have a connection at a local coal energy factory, you can just throw your lines into the cold factory and you have free energy coming into your bitcoin mining

machine. it is no longer something people can do easily from home. this sounds a little far-fetched and absurd -- why are people buying expensive hardware just to take part in a lottery. the twist on the lottery is that in the course of doing the lottery, these computers are essentially doing the bookkeeping for the network. they are registering new transactions as they come in determining people have the amount of money they need to do the transactions. essentially, this system is doing the accounting for the system. the more people involved, the stronger and more impervious the system is to hackers and outsiders trying to gain access to the system. there is a method to the madness. host: in the book "digital gold: bitcoin and the inside

story of the misfits and milling is trying to create a host: we will open up the phone lines. in dependence and all others cannot call in a. open phones our next. -- are next. >> tonight on "the communicators," hank johnson. it they talk about patent legislation before congress.

>> 97% of the people sued have to settle. they don't have $3 million to defend themselves. they pay an average of $300,000 settlement. they are locked up under a non-disclosure agreement or in the contract says they are never allowed to tell anybody what happened to them. >> i am excited about the legislation on the topic. we are going to discuss the issues and see what is the best way to help entrepreneurs defend their products and run their businesses where any of these demand letters that exist could put somebody out of business. >> we are concerned with closing the door to those who create and make life difficult and use the

courts to encroach their property rights. these are some of the hurdles that we will have to over,. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we will talk about any of the topics we have already discussed. you can shoot us a tweet. we will get your calls momentarily. a full-page look at "usa today" on the back of the front section. eight cases that could reshape a nation. the supreme court term is winding down. it may rewrite the section of

same-sex marriage and president obama's health care law. their term is drawing rapidly to a close. those about the only big issues on the justices'plate. the usa today has a look at a bunch of them. in a decision likely to come up on the last day the court will decide whether gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry or whether state bans against same-sex marriage can remain in place. a look at what is ahead with the supreme court. we look for your calls are in james is in georgia on open phones. he is on the republican lineup. caller: i called this morning because i am concerned about the

country of origin labeling. i disagree with our congressmen not given us the opportunity to find out where our meet, poultry , and fish is coming from. where it's grown and where it's coming from and where it's manufactured. their argument is there is no discrimination and it has nothing to do with any kind of disease or health concern, as a consumer, i just want to know and they did is wrong when they did that. there are some poultry plants in georgia. it's my understanding that some of the chickens leave georgia and go overseas to be dressed to come back to be sold to the consumer. if i just think that's wrong.

i think it's wrong for our congressmen to take that labeling off so that we will not know where that food is being born raised, and manufactured. host: that bill passed the house last week. bill is in new hampshire. are you there? all right we will let you go. i look for your calls as well. russia exploits loopholes in sanctions. businesses almost as usual with western companies. when executives from companies came together in saint petersburg a year ago, most were in a state of shock. the u.s. and europe had slapped freezes on a number of companies. they threatened much broader

sanctions. how bad are things going to get? this week as the russian doll post reconvenes -- davos reconvenes, many are in a better position to answer this question. russia has lived through almost a full year of broad sanctions imposed last july. they bar many of its companies from raising capital in the west. life under the new normal has turned out better than expected. while bankers from eu countries and the u.s. say business has in good morning. --here. good morning. caller: why is nobody talking about the burdens the affordable care act has placed on

physicians. they have to hire more office workers. there is a two-page printout that they already told the patient. doctors have to spend extra time online chat in answering questions from patients. my sister is a urologist in indiana. she was spending 70 hours a week working for less and less money every year. now she's up to about 80 hours a week and she just lost an entire nine-day vacation last year. she lost it to paperwork relating to her urology practice. she has been in practice now for 12 years. she started out in her second

year, she hit her highest income level. since then, her pay has on down. let me see. it went from 200,002 $80,000. -- $20,000 to -- $200,000 to $80,000. host: the future of health care is on the line for the second time in three years. it is anyone's guess how the court will rule. the law has extended health insurance to 12 million americans. for words in its -- four words in its text are in question.

the justices must decide if this prohibits financial aid. michael is in texas. welcome on the democrats line. caller: listen, i am a black man. i still fail to see the progress that the far right says we have made in the area of race. we haven't african-american/caucasian as president. i still struggle with someone like ben carson who is a smart man, there is no way that the far right would vote for him even though he is more qualified

. we are talking about a brain surgeon and scott walker knows how to play the game. ben carson is a sincere man. there is no way that the far right will go for him. they will vote for someone who looks like most of them on average. have a good day. host: we covered the opening of the then carson campaign. -- ben carson campaign. we want to remind you that jeb bush is announcing. that is coming up this afternoon at 3:00 eastern on c-span3. he is the former florida governor. he was asked overseas during his trip why he should be selected

as the republican standardbearer . this is what he had to say. >> i have made tough decisions and i have a life experience that is full of successes. it's something that has been lacking in the presidency, someone who has been tempered by life. i have lived overseas. i have worked overseas. i've served as governor. i give back to my community. i have a great relationship with my wife and family and i get to share part of that. it took getting used to. i am an introverted person. host: our coverage begins at 3:00 eastern. his announcement will also -- we will also cover donald trump.

we have open phones. let's hear from virginia. good morning. caller: i am calling because i hope that the supreme court rules in favor of gays and lesbians and trans-genders. i believe they should be covered under civil rights just like black americans. i am appalled when black people say that gays and lesbians should not be protected because it's different. the discrimination against them is different against -- that against us. it's the same. we were being discriminated against the cousin we were different. i had no choice in being black. gay people did not make this up. that is the way they were born.

they should not be discriminated against. they had nothing to do with that. when people say, when black people say it's not the same as discriminated against black people, they are just thinking about the sex part. that's not what being day is about. it's about being a human being and wanting to love another human being. host: we appreciate your input. this is tonya on the independent line up. caller: thank you very much for your service at c-span. i just wanted to comment on the labeling of the meat. i have a host of other diseases. if i don't know the origin, i can get extremely sick.

recently i got extremely ill and went to the hospital because i got some meat that was bad. i did not even know the country of origin. i think to not be able to do that is added and unhealthy. the standards of how they raise their meat or fish is much different than ours. host: what will you do if this bill becomes law? caller: i won't eat it. i just can't. it could little early -- literally kill me. it's very dangerous. i will have no choice. even with my vegetables, i have to really watch. even the ones from mexico are not organic.

i will still get reactions. i just get to the point where i stay away from meat. every once in a while i will eat fish. i have to make sure that is from alaska or someplace local. it's kind of sad that we have to bow down to what these other countries are saying because they are getting their panties in an uproar. they are not going to trust these other countries. host: we've got about 15 more minutes in open phones. wally is on the republican line. hello? make sure you turn down your television or radio. caller: i am -- host: i am going to put you on hold. the sure to mute your television. brian is in michigan --

wisconsin rather. caller: i just wanted to comment on the supreme court cases that are going on. i wanted to give you my perspective. it's mostly about the republicans and how they are stopping the american people from having power over them in so many different ways. they are trying to stop. it comes from old european control from the kings and queens and dukes and girls and old europe before america was even discovered and how they treated the peasants and lower-class people. they have power and control over their countries and their people. instead of fighting for democracy and the freedoms of

americans they are trying to keep everything tied down and controlled from the old world and the old laws to this day. i wish they would just stop it. it's insanity to think they can stop progress so they can stay in power and control. host: a couple of comments from collars on the country of origin -- callers on the country of origin. gene from ohio says you can bring in meat from many countries, mix it together and re-package it. donna says stop eating anything not labeled. in southeast agent, they spray a chemical on exported shrimp. caller: i have no say -- faith

in the supreme court at this point. they are allowing laws to be passed that are not constitutional. we could start with the patriot act. people are saying it's a flawed document. that is a lunch of bloating. people -- baloney. people are trying to circumvent it. host: montgomery, alabama. caller: i don't like the way this country is being run. this country is headed for destruction because certain people in the government do not care about the people. they care about the money and we need to get money out of politics and we need to focus more on the people. they need to stop the parties

that are in charge from excluding voters and a woman's right to choose. that should be left up to the individual. as far as the republican party trying to make government small -- host: thank you for your call. the house will be coming in today for legislative work. the senate is back on defense authorization. one hearing is on the federal diary. the oversight committee has called to opm officials to answer those questions about the breach of federal government information. the chairman has demured.

i am prepared to issue a subpoena if need be. they're going to come explain this to the public. no more hiding behind a press release. they've been cooperative with the committee and plans to participate in the hearing on the breach of federal employee data in recent days. judy is in a virginia. welcome. caller: and morning and thank you for taking my call. i was rather irked. it's all tied in with the fact that our citizens are no longer prepared for any type of nuclear encounter. i think this terrorism increases every day. we gave people security and knowledge.

the anti-nuclear movement was so great. they've determined to brainwash us that we would not survive or if we did we would not want to. that was the only solution to nukes. there was a program prepared by citizens. the children who would be affected are poor urban children who would not know when the flash hits to hit the deck and get behind furniture if you are in the house. most of the deaths would be from flying glass. cover the backs of their next. -- next -- necks. i believe that khrushchev has no french fries left in his happy meal.

if people want real civil defense films, go to youtube. go out and buy -- host: it sounds like you may have gone through some of those drills yourself. caller: i did. i was born in 1950. we were drilled regularly in catholic school. the reaction most people have when they saw the flash was to run to the window and go blind if they look at the fireball. host: thank you for sharing your experience. valerie is on our republican line. that's valerie. caller: i'm here. can you hear me? everybody from the president the congress, anybody in

position in our government makes a sworn statement to uphold the constitution. that's part of that pledge that they raise their hand and they swear to uphold the cut duchenne and defendant against -- the constitution. they need to uphold that sworn statement. they will defend the constitution. host: let's look at some world news. this is the world news section of "the wall street journal." zoo animals escape in georgia. this happened over the weekend. they also look at the comet probe. a probe landed on a comet in november. it is sending signals back to earth. this is more than six month after shutting down. the signals from the lander were

received saturday. they last heard from the probe in november. we have a few more minutes of your calls. bill is in new hampshire. he is on the independent line. caller: i was just wondering has anybody come up with a good reason why the country of origin labeling retraction came up before the trade legislation? this is what is wrong with trade. why did they put that before they did the trade? something is going on to make this thing fail. it's turning people against trade legislation. host: i don't know about the timing of that. it was passed a few days before.

next up is york, pennsylvania. caller: i have two questions. the first question is how come you show so much democrats and you did not cover the republicans the same way? i thought bernie sanders was an independent. how can he be a democrat? host: as far as we know he is registered as an independent and running as a democrat. we try to cover as much as we can of the presidential announcements. west virginia, charles is on the democrat line. caller: i'm trying to figure out why we don't have a mandatory vote. everybody has to vote.

australia has it. people complain about everything. if it's mandatory that they vote , they've got nothing to complain about. the insurance is mandatory. car insurance is mandatory. everything is mandatory. health insurance is mandatory. let's make voting mandatory. then people will complain so much. host: would you vote if it was mandatory? would you like the idea that you have to go out and vote? caller: you bet i would. host: how would you enforce that? what kind of penalty if you didn't vote? caller: i don't know. how do they enforce that you have to have health care? host: here on open phones, any

topic. today is the anniversary of the magna carta. it is still posing a challenge at 800. it's not very elegantly written. it is crammed illegibly onto a single page of parchment. it has endured ever since as perhaps the world's first and best declaration of the rule of law. people demanded rights for themselves. magna carter is treated with a reverence bordering on worship by many legislatuors. it is a measure of how exciting

an old piece of paper can be. david m rubenstein paid $21 million to buy a version of it and put it on a permanent loan to the national archives, where anyone can see it on display. let's hear from louisiana. good morning to you. host: i would like for c-span to do something for me. maybe you can put the american flag up behind the commentator. you could put the constitution on the other side. when we look at c-span, we'd know what you are recognized for. host: thanks for your comment. this is the front page of the guardian newspaper.

they are being challenged that russia and china have broken into the edward snowden files and british agents have had to be withdrawn from live operations as a consequence. the reports quoted anonymous seniors at the home office and security services. the bbc also quoted an anonymous senior government source. it reveals how they operate. one more call from oklahoma. jim, good morning. you get the last word this morning. caller: i was just curious about what you just pulled up. was that the comment that was -- comet that was 2.5 miles wide western mark -- question mark --? host: they finally made contact

again with the european space station. it did land on a comet. that's right. caller: thank you. host: thanks for all your calls this morning. we will be back tomorrow. have a great day. [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] >> here is a look at what is ahead this week in congress. the house is back