to recognize that the battle against isis is not simply a battle to be fought on the ground against a military force. this is an ideology call battle. we need to understand the scale of the challenge we face. in the cold war, we understood that we had to utilize not just a military capability against the soft -- soviet union, but our model case for our own superiority. we were willing to use world better, democracy was better, but nowadays i happen to believe that religion tolerance is

better, treating women as equal citizens is better than treating them as second class. i believe that the values that we hold are better. when i made the argument the answer was this, i don't think today we can say better, just different. .. this will be an opportunity to propagate those values that have made us for what we are.

countries like united kingdom, the united states, australia, canada, we are not who we are by accident. we are who we are by design because of the decisions that we have taken, the decisions of our forbearers, and the consequences that those decisions had. it is time for us to get back into this decision and going into defeat isis or al-shabaab or what other kind of threat might be is the ultimate or easy military response. this is something that requires a fight by our society and not just others. >> the lady in the back, please? >> thank you very, very much for your excellent, excellent speech and bringing us up to date on what this really is. what this is to me is just a piece -- a peace at any price.

it seems to me that what we need is peace through strength. in 1979, the hostages were released when the political side was just going along and going along, and the iranians moved when i thought they got the best deal and they were sure, when did they let them go? right at the inaugural. they were sure as to what he would do and that is when we got peace through strength. and that is what we need today. we need peace through strength. in addition to that, i have another concern. people want to give them full diplomatic authority, regard to

have limitations? are we going to give them back their embassy here as well because -- here as well? because the embassy is a block down the street and that is a concern to me. it is also just across the bridge from a mosque and the italian embassy in other embassies and that would be a perfect center for a little mischief. so i don't know where anybody has any -- if anybody has ever brought that up, but that is a big concern for me. >> that in itself is not a bad thing, but it has to be earned, and my point is, to give all of these things at the beginning of the process before they have

been earned, before the have shown that they are willing to implement the agreement itself, seems just a touch naive. >> [indiscernible] sec. fox: the west, the west -- i'm describing the policy of donald trump's critical analysis, it is in spades with what we have done with russia. russia launched a cyber attack on estonia and we didn't do anything. they invaded nothing, they are e still there. and our response was minimal. the last time i was here in washington, one of the u.s. senators -- i won't name them, he said, i'm really concerned that putin is miss reeling --

misreading the symbols from the west. i said, you know what? he is perfectly reading them, he ask, we don't respond. he asked, we don't respond. what is so hard to read about that? >> hello, dana could purge -- dana from the heritage foundation. what is the step moving forward for those who don't believe that this deal is going to lead to the outcome of iran not having a nuclear weapon? thank you. sec. fox: it looks like the agreement will go ahead. and we will be stark, once it is accepted, we will be stuck with all of the risks that are

inherent in it. what i think we will have to do and the better we can do is to ensure that the rights of access by the iaea are fully upheld and that the sort of stalling techniques that have been described that we have seen in the past by iran are not allowed to buy them extra time. even the year's breakout is not accurate, i think it is much more like seven or eight months instead of a year's breakout. i genuinely find this hard to be optimistic about this. and i think we are sadly going to be limited into what we have to do if the anxieties grow in the years ahead. one of my -- when this was presented in the house of commons, a former secretary, my friend philip hammond said that this was a historic agreement

and he said, with all due respect, he said history will determine whether this was a historic agreement, and that was a jew derek -- juidical lesson for all politicians. yes? >> vast majority of individuals who are terrorists from syria -- the question is, [indiscernible] should be brought against isis and bashar assad with the united states a long time ago? ec. fox: well, i am not going into the complexities of iran except to say this, that has been the movement of isis.

that has caused in recent times this massive movement of refugees. you're quite right that the civil war in syria was already causing a great deal of instability, and it is not just the number of refugees coming to europe. i was recently in turkey. nobody seems to be mentioning that the turks are bringing in potentially 2 million people crossing their border, and again, we know what isis is capable of. we have seen their animal behavior towards their fellow human beings in the name of so-called religion. and at some point we have to raise our game. if you airstrikes on isis in iraq is not going to be enough, he does it is not giving the

civilian population the safety that they require. i go back to my earlier point. in the marshall islands, for example, and in iraq, we were able to achieve no-fly zones, we were able to achieve zones of safety, so the people could live without fear in their own country. we are going to have to go set -- have to do something similar again. i know many people may not be in favor of it, but if we only want to have the policies that are already accepted by the public, why do we just give up and let the pollsters run the country? politics is about leading and not as reflecting public opinion. >> i will take a last two questions, actually, from this gentleman and the gentleman over here. >> when you talk about this,

where can we go from here? what can we do about it? it would have to be approved by the u.s. senate. i heard that the 34th senator was a green -- that 34 senators were agreeing with the deal. i am not sure that there is not much that the senate can do about the step. sec. fox: i think the iranian deal is going through and that is it. it is going to happen. this deal is going to be a reality. and we are going to have to figure out exactly what kind of maneuverability that we have in terms of this agreement. we just have to really hope that people like me are wrong. and very wrong. because if we are right, if we are even half right, we do not have a lot of levers to pull should iran change its behavior. >> you had a final question?

>> thank you very much. going back after this question, my question is, the u.s. generally believes that [indiscernible] certainly there was a tremendous question -- tremendous pressure and financial burden, but if [indiscernible] was getting close to developing a nuclear device and to stop them, [indiscernible] so it is preferable to negotiate and start the process than to go [indiscernible] what is your take on this? sec. fox: i understand the desire to get an agreement, and as i said in the very beginning, any agreement the genuinely stopped iran from being able to get access to a nuclear weapon capability would have to be

welcomed, because it would reduce the threats to the region and beyond. it would reduce the threats to the region and beyond. my question is going back to an answer to your early question. who got most of what they wanted out of the agreement? is it closer to the iranians starting position in negotiat n negotiation? or our starting negotiations? i think the winner is clear. >> thank you for a terrific presentation today. and a very, very engaging q&a session here. i have a huge number of questions regarding the iran nuclear deal. this is a dangerous deal that will under cuff the security of the united states, great britain and america's allie sex --

allies. announcer: former republican presidential candidate and secretary of state: powell and congresswoman wasserman schultz, who is jewish, spoke on cnn's programming. here is a portion of their discussion. sec. powell: i think it is a very good deal. i have carefully looked at the

opposition to the deal, and my judgment after balancing those two sets of information is that it is a pretty good deal. now i know that there are objections to it, but here is why i think this is a good deal. one of the great concerns that the opposition has is that we are leaving open a lane for the iranians to go back to creates a nuclear weapon in 10 or 15 years, but we are forgetting the reality that they have been on a superhighway for the last 10 years to create a nuclear weapons program with no speed limit. rep. wasserman schulz: i have had a difficult time thinking about this process and my conclusion was that i ran achieving a nuclear weapon goal and everything that i've had in front of me, i concluded that the best thing to do is to vote

in support of the iran deal and to make sure that we can put iran years away from being able to be a threshold nuclear state and then we can make sure to more closely are -- more closely focus on their support of terrorist activity. so i will use my vote to support the deal and if necessary use it to sustain a president's veto. announcer: the senate plans to begin the debate on tuesday of a disapproval resolution on the iran deal. six senators have not mentioned whether they were so -- whether they will support the deal. five of them are democrats, and one is senator susan collins, a republican from maine. you can watch it live on c-span and also on c-span2. now the diplomatic efforts surrounding the iran nuclear agreement your it today's

"washington journal -- nuclear agreement. from today's "washington journal," this is about 40 minutes. host: we are going to be taking your calls and first we are joined by thomas heard brink -- thomas erdbrink, the tehran bureau chief of "the new york times." good afternoon. guest: good afternoon. host: as maneuvering for congressional support and opposition plays out in the u.s., what is happening in iran? is there a parliamentary approval process that this is going through in that country? guest: for the past month, president rouhani and negotiators have been wrangling over who needs to do the review of this nuclear agreement. and only this week, in the final days, the supreme leader

the ayatollah actually stated that, in his opinion, which is law in iran, the parliament should review the nuclear deal. how they will review this -- in an internal commission or vote -- is not clear. i'm pretty sure they will wait for the u.s. to come out with a clear stance, and then follow suit. that means that if congress approves the deal, the iranians will probably do the same. host: is there any chance that the iranian parliament can make changes? is there anything that can still be up for negotiation with this deal? guest: i'm sure some of the parliamentarians would very much like that. either the whole deal is excepted, or no deal. despite the fact that several hard-line parliamentarians have said that it what parts of the deal to be changed more in iran's favor, ultimately this cannot happen.

we cannot forget the iran is not a country like the u.s., obviously. that means that other powers and parliament actually -- in parliament actually get to decide on this deal. in this case, it is the supreme leader ayatollah, the architect of the negotiations with the united states. he has supported the nuclear deal until now, and even though to the outside world, he will keep up anti-american stances, i do not think he will turn down this deal in the final stages using the parliament as instrument. host: that was my question. guest: i don't think that the ayatollah will turned on this deal. host: is there any daylight between president rouhani and the supreme leader when it comes

to this deal? guest: it is hard to judge. you get into the realm of criminology, as we would call it in the cold war. i do not know what is going on in the backdoor meetings between the president and the supreme leader. there is nothing in iranian media indicating that they do not see i die on this. -- don't really see eye to eye on this. i think what they really differ on is something that might be a consequence out of this deal. president rouhani has won an election on a platform of promising better relations with the great satan, as the united states is still called here, and the supreme leader, in several speeches, has made clear that for him, the nuclear deal is a one-off, and should not lead to any form of relations with the united states. he wants everything to remain as it is. i think the tension between the two will be the subject of the coming years. host: before we let you go, how much of iranians been following the back-and-forth of efforts on

capitol hill? and also the efforts by republicans to try to squash this deal? guest: i think a lot of iranians have believed in something they call a zionist lobby. there are people outside of the united states -- the zionist are -- that's believe that the zionist -- that believe that the zionist lobby, as they call it, are very influential in the united states. i think he was surprised that this deal is going through. in their world, which is dominated by conspiracy theories and expectations that everything is pretty decided, a lot of people may be overestimating the power of the republican party and the affiliated lobbying

groups because they thought they would be able to stop this, and this is not happen. ordinary people are pleasantly surprised, and have adjusted their worldviews. host: we are taking your calls, line for democrats, republicans, and independence. as you are starting to dial in, we will turn to arshad mohammed , who is our policy correspondent from "reuters" and our guest for about the next 40 minutes or so here at "washington journal." guest: when congress left town, it was not clear whether

president obama would be able to override the veto. so it was not known so it was not known if the vote would be able to get through. so this week, on wednesday, barbara mikulski of maryland announced that she would support the deal. and there is about 34 senators, the vast majority of who are democrats favor the deal. that the means is no way now for congress to stop the deal from going through. as of friday, the support for the deal got up to 38 votes in the senate. so president obama and the white house are comfortably ahead of where they need to be to make sure that they get this deal done. that said, if they don't get above 41, it is possible that the deal will get vetoed, excuse me, that congress would not

approve the deal, that the president would veto that, and that he would survive the overrun folk, so the deal is going to happen. host: is it possible that they will get a one and that filibuster number? guest: it is possible but it is unlikely what are reporting suggests. there are five democrats who have not announced where they are. one of those democrats, senator did joe manchin -- senator joe manchin's office said this week that he did not know whether he would support the deal or not, but he would not vote to filibuster the deal, so that means that that is one vote that would not there -- not be there to get to 41. so it seems like 41 is unlikely. host: the senator from maryland announcing in a vote of the deal

, would it mean more if he came out as a ranking member and came out on tuesday or monday and just said that he would not be supporting this deal? guest: you know, it might have, but this is essentially because of the difficulties that -- with secretary kerry and were reporting on the negotiations. does the state department feel of the hardest part on this deal has now passed? guest: i think the administration as a whole, in some ways, we feel that the hardest part has passed, at

least in terms of the diplomacy and the domestic politics. really meansrubber the road on the deal in terms of whether the iranian will hear to its provisions. so in a certain sense you could argue that the hardest part is really ahead of them, because if the iranians cheat on the deal then you are in a whole other ball game. the hardest part in some ways is still ahead. is ourrshad mohammed guest for about the next 40 minutes or so here at "washington journal". we are taking your calls, line for democrats, republicans, and independence. here is ill coming from preston, -- bill calling from preston, connecticut, independents. caller: i would like to make a comment that i would like to see the pope make a speech in favor of the deal. i want to know what would happen

then. host: has the pope said anything about this? guest: the pope has not said anything about this that i recall, although i don't watch everything that he says. i think it is probably unlikely that he would comment, but i suppose it is conceivable that he might. pro-peace, as are it were, so is he thought the deal was more likely to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and therefore more likely to preserve peace or prevent an american or an israeli strike against iran, he might favorite. but i genuinely don't know what is his position on the deal. and we want to talk about some of the other allies who supported the deal. why did the united kingdom signed a deal? is it true that the u.s. course of the u.k. into signing? either side deals that were not disclosed? i am not aware of any

coercion. the deal was essentially negotiated -- although the primary negotiators were united states and iran, the deal was really negotiated by the group called the p5+1. that is the united kingdom, france, germany, china, russia, and the united states. i'm not aware of any side deals between the united states and any of its p5+1 partners. from my talking to diplomats from many of this country, i think they signed the deal because they think it is a good deal, not because they felt that it is better than the alternative, not because they felt that they are being strong-armed or pushed into it by washington. host: are any of the allies facing anywhere near the legislative disagreements in other countries that president obama is sinking here on capitol hill? guest: definitely not.

this is a deal that had a lot more support a broad, at least in those other five countries, then in the united states. so no, there are not the same kind of legislative issues in any of the other countries. host: and from bear creek, alabama, line for republicans. caller: yes. that nobody can trust it. why are these people making the deal? is ridiculous. host: this issue of trust. can we trust iran. how has the obama administration and secretary kerry adjustment? guest: their basic argument is kind of a version of the ronald -- of ronald reagan's favorite -- famous line about the soviet union, trust but verify. they say look, we are not trusting. we have all these provisions designed to allow us to verify,

to monitor. all that monitoring is done by the united nations nuclear watchdog, the international atomic energy agency. their point is that it is not really about trust. it is not monitoring and tracking whether iran keeps its word or not. fundamentally -- secretary kerry this week gave a speech in philadelphia on wednesday, and that was one of the crux of his arguments. it is not about trust, it is about making sure that we have the ability -- or that the united states government has the ability -- to see what the iranians are doing. his argument is that there is a much greater ability to see what they are doing with this deal than without it. john glenn and illinois -- in illinois is next, lie for democrats. good morning. i have a question about potential nuclear.

on the left one of the most frequent arguments against justifying why nuclear weapons hashat they say is, israel nuclear weapons. everyone knows that, so why is it fair for other people not to have them? isquestion is, since i ran getting closer and closer to the ball, this is the first time we have heard of most of the other sunni arab nations say if they get one, we are going to get a bomb. people have known israel has had a bomb --t has been assumed -- since the 70's and early 80's. i have looked through newspaper accounts. in theas been no outrage sense of we have to have one because israel has one. my question is -- my question is not, why are they so afraid of iran. my question is about what is different in a situation between iran that the level of urgency

-- the level of fear and trepidation over iran getting a bomb -- is so different? they have never been raising this issue well we have to have one, egypt, saudi arabia, kuwait , we have to have one if iran has led. they have not raised that issue with israel. clearly there is a big different. what is a? guest: that is a great question. thing that iain might point to hear is that -- ist -- might point to here that the iranians are believed by the gulf countries to be undertaking what they see as destabilizing activities all across the middle east, that certainly includes syria, where they support the regime of the sought.nt assad.- of a sod --

that is the case in yemen. it has certainly been the case in lebanon with their support for hezbollah. and so the arab nations see a very proximate, direct threat from iran's current activities in a way that they don't quite see with israel. the other thing would be -- the presumption that israel has a nuclear arsenal has been there , and in a long time certain sense perhaps they have learned to live with that. i think the concern with the case of iran is that nuclear -- a nuclear iran might feel much free to try to project its power throughout the arab world.

the arabs -- the gulf arabs -- are particularly afraid that iran would be even more disruptive. great question. host: and that color was talking about proliferation throughout the region. it would be the next closest? guest: i don't know the specific answer to that, but if you look at countries that have expressed ,ven unofficially some interest you have to imagine that saudi arabia, this country that has the resources to pursue this kind of technology if they wish to. egypt has far fewer resources, but does have -- has expressed an interest in a nuclear program. i guess those would be kind of toward the top of the list, but u.s. know what detail intel or other communities cap about who might because this. plainfield, new york is

is waiting on our line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to know if mr. mohammed is aware of the side deals that were made between the u.n. and iran, and he could elaborate on what they are? it is my understanding that one of the side deals, iran can do their own and soil samples. i am wondering if the other side deals -- i don't know how many there are -- would also contain information that would certainly be negative in terms of approving the steel. deal.roving this i don't know how congress can vote for a deal when they don't know the content of all the other deal. i would like you to elaborate. thank you. guest: thinking for the question. this refers to the mechanism by which the deal is going to be

monitored. that mechanism, as i said before, is through the international atomic energy agency, the united nations nuclear watchdog that is based in vienna. iaeagreements that the makes with individual countries on verifying their nuclear programs are all secret. here is of the matter that the iaea says they can't make all the details public because, just like they have an agreement with the united states or germany or any other country, like iran, they have to keep those secrets. i have not seen those protocols, or those agreements. publiclyhat has been released was released i the associated press. and as the caller said, that is

exactly the question of a site where the u.s. intelligence committee believes that iran had pursued research into weaponization, how you would actually take physical material and make it into a bomb. iran wouldd say that theake soil samples under -- i don't remember the exact iaea.-- under the that has picked up a huge number of questions about how appropriate it is for a country that is supposed to be monitored to be taking their own samples. howout knowing precisely that process is going to run -- in other words, is an going to be taken by an iranian nuclear an iaeat with

inspectors any right next to him? that is one thing. is it going to be done with real-time, 20 47 cameras 24/7ing it being done -- cameras watching? i personally don't know the details of those protocols. the: four opponents of deal, do you think that was one of the most potent arguments they made over the course of the setting -- some are lobbying efforts? you are asking us to vote on a deal that we don't know all the elements of. guest: well, two things. i think most of the members had already made up their minds when it came to that. secondly, the administration has repeatedly argued that they, the top members of the administration, has been briefed have been briefed on o,,t and that a motto --aman

the chief inspector of the iaea, has come to congress and talked about it. it is not as though it is totally secret. yes, it is classified and all this was done in classified sessions, but the administration has argued it is not like this is totally secret. we understand the key provisions. the brief congress in a classified setting. this is not and should not be a surprise. host: do you think the fact that congress is a way for the august recess helped or hurt those who are trying to oppose the deal? guest: i suspect it probably helps them. more time you have to try to kill something, the better. youthe amount of time -- may recall that the so-called rker bill,l --co laying out how the agreement would make its way through congress, said that there would be a 30 day review. if it was done during the recess, it would be a 60 day review date so that the

opponents of the deal -- or both sides -- would have more time to do it. i think it clearly benefits opponents because they can make their case. as everybody who is watching the show notes, it is a lot easier to kill something in washington than it is to give birth to something. noted, the white house achieving that all important 34 bookmark and the senate that would allow -- 34 thatmark in the senate would allow it to be sustained in the senate. we are taking your calls and questions for about the next 20 minutes here. providence, rhode island, life for independents. len, good morning. areyou with the stucco -- you with us? caller: can you hear me? host: yes. caller: i have a question and a comment. my question is, iran already went to russia to make a deal that violates this agreement. why is congress not taking that

into account and mixing -- nixing this entire sanction of thing? willingongress is so not to read obamacare and now they are not willing to read all the agreements, and that includes the u.n. agreements that were made on the side before this passage, what makes them think that iran isn't going to start a war with us and that they say this agreement is going to stop? we know better. we have dealt with these people for 40 years. understand how any senator in their right mind can pass this. it all goes my mind. have a good day. thank you. ?ost: arshad mohammed

guest: thanks for your question. i don't know what deal you are referring to the you say iran has struck with russia that already violates the deal. so i can't really comment on that. on the other question, which is to say the agreements between the iaea and iran, particularly about potential past military dimensions, the administration pause fundamental -- the administration path -- final arguments is that we have explained it and talked about in classified sessions, they should understand it. the fundamental argument that the administration makes is, ask yourself if you think that the united states is going to be more secure with greater transparency and monitoring

mechanisms that we have with this deal then it is going to be without it? so i guess that is the crux of their argument. we talked a little bit already about how this deal is being received in the country's 5+1.he p richard is calling in from plymouth, england. good morning. your thoughts and questions? caller: good morning. i hope you are well. host: we appreciate the call. go ahead. caller: i just wanted to provide a european perspective. -- we have -- we look at the situation with iran very differently. a lot of my family are jewish, and arguing this situation with iran with a bit of skepticism but also a bit of hope. comes through the

media from your side of the atlantic, and also obviously with israel, is orthodox ideology. the orthodox ideology is just as bad as any christian extremist ideology or islamic extremist ideology. firstly, do you think it might be time to kind of get the american people fully educated? and also, militarily speaking the -- militarily speaking, do you think it might be a good idea for iran to be invited to some coalition to formally help fight isis? because of isis gets any foothold more than they have got in the middle east, even though israel has a very strong gets the if isis ground that they are continuously getting, israel is going to be facing one hell of a fight. and you actually have to include

europe. we are going to end up having a massive regional war, it might even push us into a sort of more global conflict. i think that we have got to take this time to be sensible, tell the truth, tell the newspapers, tell the media stop selling opinion and actually tell the facts. caller justprevious came across as somebody who did not truly understand the facts. richard, where do you go to hear the facts and not just the opinions? what are your news sources? i don't justly, trust my own countries media. i will look at the bbc, igs, cnn. abc. russia today. al jazeera. i will go to numerous newspapers. i will use a translation service to actually translate what they

, or a hebrew version, a translation service. google, yahoo!, msn, they all do it. that is just to get the facts. if you are just reading something from the same newspapers -- in the u.k. we have a newspaper called "the daily mail here cap it is a conservative newspaper and it has been accused of basically being this sound piece for anti-european union sentiment many times. a lot of people read it like it is a bible. you have the same in america with certain outlets and certain television -- stations. it is all about fact and gaining knowledge. the only thing that iran did wrong -- it did not like israel and it went against the popular ideology. those are the only two things

that really did wrong. and the orthodox jewish community in america is a massive power base. host: we are going to let arshad mohammed jump in. guest: thanks for the question. a couple things. i worked for reuters. we see ourselves as being part of the media -- a quarter of the media space that focuses on fact. our slogan is accuracy comes first. as in ourselves very much the corner of trying to provide unbiased coverage of whatever issues there may be. so on that, we are all for facts. the second thing i would say is, one of the things about this particular deal is that all 159 pages of it are available and online. anybody who wants to read it can

easily find it online and read it. the third thing is, their article series of fairly independent think tanks that have also done their analyses of the deal, so you can look at say, brookings -- the brookings institution website and get a sense of what the deal is. like what you said about looking at a wide range of media, i think that is a great thing. rely noteople need to just on what source but on multiple sources, and not just the media at the underlying documents or transcripts. because that is another way in which you can get a grasp of what is really going on. in this sense the internet has made a huge difference, it is volumes offf -- huge documents are available for everyone to look at and form their own judgments. host: you can also follow the reporters themselves on twitter

as they cover these stories in real time. reporters put information out there. rshadreuters is people want to , thew arshad mohammed international correspondent for reuters. one of our viewers wants to know what will happen on january 20, 2017. obama's iran deal is not a law and will never be a law. it is just a piece of paper that will be torn up. guest: a couple of things. you are absolutely right, it is not a law and it is not a treaty. technically it is not a legally binding agreement. you will notice that the deal is always referred to as a comprehensive plan of action, but it is not actually an agreement or a legally binding agreement. that said, what happens in

washington is always a function of politics, and if there were to be a republican president who in 2017, that president would have to ask themselves whether they thought the country was better off with the deal or without the deal. you can make your own judgment about that, but tearing up the couldent at that point lead to a number of conferences. one, all the transparency mechanisms would presumably be gone. in other words, if the united states or any other party for of the deal, the iranians are hardly going to welcome inspectors. second, all the stuff that the iranians are supposed to do in terms of curbing their nuclear program in exchange for 1anctions relief that the p5+

countries are offering, for the movie it would stop doing it. so the extent to which iran is required to produce and stockpiled of enriched uranium, to the extent to which it is supposed to stop running centrifuges, it is quite conceivable that it would start .oing all those things again the conventional wisdom in the analytical community about this is that any successful successor -- successor president is unlikely to tear up the deal if they believe that iran is adhering to it. it is betters that to have the limitations on the iranian clear program than to tear it up. but all of this assumes that the iranians are adhering to the terms of the deal. host: people say that a republican president -- host: time for a few more calls. maryland -- marilyn has been

waiting on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to find out why news media like reuters would not make sure that they report that $150 billion that iran will get -- it is their money. it is there frozen assets. but all you hear about is oh, they are going to get this amount of money and sponsor more terrorism. it is their money. why doesn't the media point that out? my second point is, i know they are saying we can't trust iran, but we can just israel. last time they had inspections of their nuclear facilities? those are my two concerns. , do youshad mohammed want to start with the money? have you been covering where this money would be coming from? guest: the caller is absolutely right. the money is the iranians money. the administration argues that

$150 billion figure is kind of an urban legend. that in fact the real figure is much lower, like $56 billion. still, that is a lot of money, but the caller is right. this is a lot of money. this is essentially money that iran has earned by selling its oil. that money has gone into account that are essentially frozen. the big purchases -- purchasers of iranian oil, like china and india, when they have paid iranians for that oil it goes into an account in india, in china. that account is unfrozen and iranians are only able to use it for very specific purposes, like humanitarian goods. host: frozen by the individual countries where the accounts are? guest: correct. they are frozen essentially at the behest of the united states which is able to get other yountries -- and particularl other countries banks -- to do what it wants with the threat of

cutting off those countries from the u.s. banking system. if you want to do business with citibank then you have to do what the u.s. treasury says you should do. you are right. that is a fact that people should understand. people should also understand what the amount is. and yes, it is the iranians money. that somee concern people have about this deal and about the iranians getting access to that money is, what will they do with that money? will they use it to try to prop assad?lid -- will they use it to funnel money to hezbollah, or will they use it to meet the needs of their own people? that is how i would look that question. me, but i have blanks on the second question. host: she wanted inspections in israel. guest: yes. rely israel's inspections

on a country having signed the nonproliferation -- nuclear nonproliferation treaty. if you are a signatory to that treaty, the central bargain of civilng is you can pursue nuclear power and civil nuclear uses of nuclear power. however, an exchange, you have to commit not to seek nuclear weapons and you have to commit to allow inspection. israel is not a signatory, so the legal basis for going in and doing inspections simply is not there. host: kathleen is up next in south holland, illinois. line for democrats. good morning. caller: hi. how are you doing. neede ask you something, i to get these points out. the only reason why this deal is so bad in this country is

because president obama is signing onto it. if any other present -- president signed onto this it would not be a bad deal. we keep talking about israel as our strongest ally. what has israel done to help the united states? are they helping us with isis? what has israel done? when have they ever stood with us? and with iran -- please let me finish this. when those other countries came to the bargaining table today say, if you want us to strip naked and give up all those nuclear weapons, you also. since you can't trust us what makes you think we can trust you? the united states has done some stuff. stoodhen the republicans in the chamber and is respected the president, sent a letter over there and said don't trust president obama. how can you trust people?

the them -- the united states is not trustworthy. host: a couple questions there. well, israel is a long-standing ally of the united states. successive u.s. government steel that there is a genuine affinity between the united states and israel in terms of democratic principles and values. that i guess partly addresses the first part of the question. host: the trust issue seems to come up again. guest: sure. one of the things that has the iraniane u.s. relationship for well over half a century is that there really is not a lot of trust. one fact that often does not get mentioned in contemporary media reporting is that in 1953 the

u.s. cia sponsored a coup in iran that toppled mohammed most that toppled their elected prime minister. that got the shot -- shah of iran back to power. partly as a result of that historical fact -- and there is doubt about this. hascia has this closed -- disclosed and made public a lot of their documents, as has the u.s. state department. the iranians don't trust the united states much at all. another factor that the hostage crisis in iran after the islamic revolution, where american citizens were held, ultimately, for 444 days before they were released just after ronald reagan came -- took office. supplyt is not in high

on anybody's side here. essentially what administrations are trying to do -- one thing that is useful is to try to look at this in terms of probabilities. if you don't trust the person sitting across the table from you, whether they are a soviet negotiator or an iranian, or anybody else, how do you increase the probability that you get an outcome that you can live with? that the question is, how do you devise an agreement like iran nuclear deal, or any other one, that gives you a slightly higher probability that your interests are protected? i tend not to look at this in terms of absolutes. or notrust the so-and-so trust them. i think the administration tends to look at it as what can we do to improve our odds in any given circumstance. you are never really going to get to 100% certainty or absolute trust except with your

oldest and closest allies, and even they disagree with you sometimes. host: arshad mohammed has been covering these issues for writers as the u.s. foreign-policy correspondent there. you can fo minority communities. you can always join the conversation on race book and twitter.

"washington journal," live on c-span at 7 a.m. >> monday, this year c-span to stopped by several technology --es and spoke to research researchers on the future of consumer technology. >> this is a found data dashboard. for the important data in the united states. this is for a disparate world. this will make it easy, for anyone from the interested all of the way towards engineers and professional andlopers to access data

use it in ways that is powerful for them. maybe in future they will be intelligent enough to receive the data that we send them. can soothe me with heat, vibrations. other things i want to do. i'm going to turn it on. each one of these is a module. >> what are we looking at here? >> these are little microprocessors that tell these actuators to vibrate. >> we have a model from suppliers here to give them a taste of who we are and what we do. one of our suppliers here is called eyepatch. a person out of new york, a to create had an idea his product.

platform, byto our and manufacture, get your idea gated and eventually become a supplier on the platform. >> i agree that there is a long way to go. robotsr debates about taking over the world, replacing humans and so on. perspective,istic i wish we had robots that smart. but we are making headway. in the recent years there has been a con of technology allowing us to have robots smarter, far away from the smart of human beings. >> watch "the communicators," monday night on c-span2. >> harvard law professor lawrence lessig said that his presidential exploratory committee has reached the benchmark that would make him a candidate for president.

he announced in an interview on "this week." he said he is running to address campaign finance reform, voting rights issues, and political gerrymandering. earlier this year he discussed his book, "the public lost." he address that at the jewish community center in san francisco. this is about one hour and 25 minutes. [applause] >> hello, everybody and welcome to the jccsf. i'm delighted to host all of you for a terrific evening with lawrence lessig. [applause]

a special thanks to tonight's partners, uc hastings college of law, usf school of law, mac light creative commons and counter pac. [applause] our guest this evening is harvard law professor, lawrence less --lawrence lessig. he is known as the elvis of cyber law. one of the country's most influential theorist on the intersection of law, clerk for task culture and the internet, he's shifted focus to the corrosive power of money on politics. he walked 200 miles for the new hampshire rebellion to encourage citizens to and the system of corruption in our nations capital. the next walk starts this sunday and it's not too late to book a plane ticket and join him. we have flyers in the lobby. they look like this. they can tell you how to participate. lawrence lessig is here tonight to talk about made aipac, the crowd funded super pac to end all super pac's and what is in store for 2015. ladies and gentlemen, please

join me and josh -- join me in welcoming him to the jccsf. [applause] >> so my computer shutdown and now i have to try to make small talk. what shall we talk about as it comes back to life? the weather. it's going to be incredibly cold and new hampshire. the high right this and it is six degrees in the place we are starting our walk. i apologize. it's wonderful to be here, back, in san francisco.

talking about something i began here in san francisco because i was forced to begin talking and thinking about this. my dear friends from san francisco, aaron swartz who, the second anniversary of his death is this sunday. and whose memory is vibrant in this community and around the world. but what he was focused on, he often described to me as simple justice.

as he talked to people about the simple injustice of the world we find ourselves in, there was a growing frustration. one way to understand this frustration is to recognize the way in which we refuse to acknowledge the real nature of the problem we are talking about. america has been focused for the last year on a range of problems related to race in america -- michael brown, eric gardner, the

injustice of the systems that we feel as a system of inequality that gets described as a system of racism, and there is evidence to support the racism. this recent study of the racial distribution of death of 218 deaths involving police tries to map the predicted incidents according to race and you see the predicted incidents for whites are fewer than the actual incidence. you take this and brought this out to what the actual differences are and as the statistician summarizes, the answer to the question what is the probability we would see a distribution at or more extreme than this one, assuming race plays no factor in police related that's is on order of 10 to the -82. if you are not a mathematician, you might wonder what that is like. you can compare it to this number -- 10 to the -79, which is the probability of being hit by lightning, 13 times in one year. [laughter]

which means the probability of 10 to the -82 is a really, really, really small probability, which is to suggest there is a high confidence in the judgment that the race of the victim is related to the violence. there are lots of quibbles one could have with this study, that what comes through in our culture is the view that this manifests a certain kind of racism. that gets framed as if it is the racism of bull connor or the racism of the 1960's. and the 50's, and the 40's and

all the way back. there is no doubt in my mind there are jim close -- there are jim crow racists out there but there is no doubt a pattern like this is not reduced by that sort of racism. it is a different racism, maybe a more fundamental racism, a more fundamental inequality. if we were to talk about how to solve that, we would look beyond the simple image of a hateful person we would look for structure of poverty or the stupid war on drugs. structural problems that require we think of a more difficult task, a task that solving this inequality without focused, picking out the evil of individuals, picking out the evil or outrage, but we don't do that. we can't do that. not because it's hard for people to understand these issues as contributing to these kinds of racism, but the focus on simple injustice, the focus on the

outrage, the focus on the difference between the good and the evil in this story pays structures of media that talk to us about this. it pays the activists organizations that want to rally us about this.

keeping it simple keeps the fury going. so while we get nothing done, we remain angry and focused on the simple injustice we see. here's another example tied directly to what i want to talk about today. the simple injustice around the institution that is congress will stop -- that is congress. we all know the perception of their confidence in this institution has collapsed. 7% have confidence in the institution of congress. the crown jewel of our democracy according to our framers, article one, congress, 7% of us trust. more than 50% call the institution corrupt. when we talk about it being corrupt, we focus on people like jack abram off -- jack a runoff or william jefferson, people we think of as criminals. there is a quote corruption inside this is the tuition, no doubt. but there is also no doubt that

the failure of this institution is not produced by that form of corruption. it is a different kind of corruption, a more fundamental kind of corruption. it is not bad souls engaging in criminal acts, it is good souls engaged in a system that drives to this corruption. if we wanted to solve that corruption, we would have to look elsewhere. look elsewhere from beyond the risen walls, but we don't do that. we can't do that, not because it's hard. our focus is on the simple injustice, the outrage of thinking of this institution in these good versus evil terms because it makes it easier to organize. it makes it easier to vilify the results you don't like, using it simple keeps the fury going while we get nothing done in fixing the problem it represents. the simple injustice. -- the simple injustice hides the real injustice.

the real work it's going to take to fix it. if we wanted to think beyond the simple, to understand something beyond the simple injustice, what would it be at least as it relates to the institution i know something about, congress? what are the real problems here? at the end of august, hong kong discovered something which triggered an incredible revolution in the streets, first by young people and then joined by people from across the city. what they discovered was the method hong kong would be forced to adopt for electing the governor. china had promised in 2007 that the chief executive by 2017 would be popularly elected, but the china's people congress laid out the procedure and as the

procedure described, the ultimate aim is the selection of the chief executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly represented nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures. a nominating committee. a committee composed of 1200 citizens, which means about .0 24% of hong kong. what the chinese were describing was this two-stage process -- there is an election where all the citizens and on -- in hong kong would have the right to vote, but there's a nomination process where the select 1200 would have to vote. and you have to do well in the nomination process to be able to run in the election.

a two-stage process with a filter in the middle between the two stages and that is what triggered the strike in hong kong because the view was the filter was biased. as protesters describe the 1200 being dominated by pro-beijing business and political elite. as the chairman of the hong kong credit party put it, we want genuine universal suffrage in hong kong, not democracy with chinese characteristics. but is this particular feature chinese? the answer is it's not unless boss tweed was an ancient chinese profit. [laughter] because as tweed put it, i don't care who does the electing, as long as i get to do the nominating. we should describe the system tweed was constructing.

let's call it tweedism. it has this form -- there's two steps, the nominating process with the tweed's vote and the citizens vote, and a filter in between. that is what boss tweed wanted. in the history of democracy in america, there is a long history of tweedism, most dramatically in the old south stop it's embarrassing to recognize 1870, america passed an amendment to the constitution that guaranteed to african-american males the right to vote. the perception at the time that was passed was this would be the future of democracy in america, and in fact the future looks more like this.

for 100 years -- that's exaggerating a bit. for 95 years, it was the concerted effort to exclude african-americans on the ability to vote to stop no place more ambitiously than the state of texas, which enacted by law and all white primer. there's a general election where all americans got to vote. african-americans, if they got to register. there's a white primary and you had to do well in the primary to run in the general direction -- in the general election. a two-stage process that excluded in the critical first step african-americans from the system, but the consequence that they had a democracy that was

responsive to whites only. that is a profound and indira singh stage of tweedism in america. but let's think about tweedism in the new america. we take it for granted campaigns will be privately funded. funding of campaigns is a -- is an essential step to getting elected to any major office. we have a two-stage nominating process. to get the funders vote, he has to campaign for a, which means you have to raise money for it. candidates spend for congress, anywhere between 30% and 70% of their time raising money to run the campaigns to get them elected. they do it in things like this where they have parties, where they say for $500, you can come to a reception and 420 $400, a photo up, meet and greet and reception. this is a game that gets played, but they spend an extraordinarily -- an extraordinary time dialing for

dollars -- between two and four hours of a calling people they never met, developing a sensitivity and awareness about how what they do will affect their ility to raise money. bh skinner gave us the image of the skinner box were any stupid animal could learn what buttons it needed to push to get the sustenance it needed. this is a picture of the modern american congressperson. [laughter] as the modern american congress for some learns which buttons need to get pushed to get to the the votes they need. we develop a sixth sense. what is needed to satisfy the obligation? they become shape shifters as they constantly adjust their views in light of what they do what they need to raise money. one person describes always lead to the green. he was not an environmentalist. this is a two-stage process with a filter in the middle, begging the question is the filter biased? that depends. that depends on who the funders are. we -- here is what we know about who the funders are.

about 5.4 million people contributed at least one dollar to any congressional campaign, which means about 1.75% of america contributed to campaigns. but if you take that 1.75 of america, the top 100 gave as much as the bottom 4.70 5 million contributors. the top 100 gives as much as the bottom 4.75, but it's only less than 2% of america we are talking about. $2600 at least, that is about point -- that is about .044

percent, a little less than the amount of people named lester in the united states. that's why i called america lester land. you look at $10,000 or more, that is .008 of -- .008 percent of america. if you think about the effect of the supreme court decision for the decision that created the super pac. in 2012, 132 americans gave 60% of the super pac money spent in that election cycle. whether it is lester land or sheldon city, the point is we have a system where the tiniest, tiniest fraction of the 1% dominates this first stage in

our election process, a two-stage election, a general election where we are all invited to participate and something if you have an id, and not a white primary, but a green primary in america and it you must do well in the green primary to run in the general election. there are people like jerry brown, but you believe and your campaign manager believes you must do well in the green primary and so you live your life as if you live the priority. the vast majority of americans are excluded from this article first that with the consequence that we are a democracy responsive to the funders and maybe only -- it's a little controversial -- i'm not allowed to show the princeton study. this incredible study was published last year trying to

measure the effect of the economic elite on political decisions. they gathered the largest empirical study of actual policy decisions in the history of medical science and tried to relate the actual decisions of our government to the views of the economic elites and organized interest and then the average voter. they found a graph that is intuitive if you think about what this says -- those favoring a policy change those from zero to 100, the probability goes up. that's the way you would expect

it to be -- the more it is supported, the more likely it is to be adopted. something similar with interest groups. the more who supported, the higher the probability it goes up.

this is a responsive system for economic elites or organized interest groups. here is the graph for the average citizen will stop -- the average citizen. that is a flat line. regardless of the percentage of average citizens who support something, it has no effect on its probability of being adopted. as i described in england -- when the preferences of the economic elite and the stands of organized groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average american appear to have only a miniscule, and near zero,

statistically nonexistent impact on public policy. this is a democracy where the average voters views don't matter to the probability of a policy being adopted. here is one context in which that consequences quite dramatic. this graph was put together to describe the change in the distribution of average income growth over different periods across our history coming out of recessions. here's the first one we are talking about. the bluegrass represents the percentage going to the bottom 90% and the red are is showing the percentage going to the top 10%. this is showing the top 10% getting 20% in the bottom 90% of getting 80%. you might have trouble with that or not, but the autumn 90% is

getting a's -- eating significantly more than the top 10. here is how that carries out across the next period. the 12 -- the 2009 -- 2010 recovery, the autumn 90% actually lose income relative to the top 10% who gain more. this change, according to hacker and pierson, is tied directly to changes in government policy and changes in government policy are .tied directly to the influence of the tweeds in our democracy. this is tweedism. it's not dominated by a beijing political elite, the green primary dominated by a business and economic elite. it is just as extreme as the story in hong kong. remember, i told you .024 percent is the percentage of hong kong that is to be in the nominating committee. if you ask what percentage of voters maxed out to just one candidate, they gave $5,200, that number and percentage of voters is .024 percent. many would say $5,200 doesn't achieve real influence, so it's worse than.024 percent of the average of percentage of voters, but it is as tiny, it is as distorting, and it is just as wrong. what does it do? what is its effect? a recent book describes america not as a democracy, not as an aristocracy, plutocracy or clip talker see, america has become a vetocracy. that means it's a system where it is easy now for economically powerful groups to block a change. it is tied ihis view to our systems of checks and balances and our polarized political culture, but in addition to those, it's tied to the number

of funders who fund campaigns. in a system with a tiny, tiny number, that means a tiny, tiny fraction has the power to block reform because their disagreement with reform is enough to stop the policymakers from adopting it. this is not just reform on the left, this is any change if it is against organized money, whether from the left or the right fails. anyone coming into a room like this has an issue you care about all stop it could be climate change, health care, tax policy, i don't care what the issue is. at the federal level, you all have an issue you think is important. you spend your free time, if there is such a thing a thing anymore, supporting causes that would be about this issue. even if your issue is the most important issue, change on that you won't happen until we change this corruption first. this corrupting influence is the first issue because it locks the ability of our democracy to control, to steer the direction of our democracy and it stops us from having that control. we are like the bus driver who discover his steering wheel is

no longer connected to the axle. so what is the solution here? the truth is, the the solution is not hard to describe. if this is the picture and the problem is the bias filter at this center, the solution is to find a way to either eliminate the filter or to eliminate the bias. the number of republicans in the spirit of tate roosevelt has become to push -- has come to push ideas like vouchers as a way to fund this problem. every voter gets a voucher, think of it like a starbucks card -- a store value card that allows them to allocate a certain amount of money to candidates running for office and candidates can take those vouchers if they agree to limit the contributions they take to vouchers -- let's say contributions are $100. $50 a voter would be about $7 billion. the total amount spent way candidates was $1.5 billion, which means this israel money, but the point is the voucher system would mean money coming

from many, many people, not just the .04 percent or the .024 percent. it's not everybody is going to participate but it's not biased in the way the current system is biased by allocating the funding our to the tiny fraction of the 1% stop democrats have been pushing this idea of matching funds -- john sarbanes's -- the government by the people act take small contributions and multiplies them to make them much more valuable. $100 becomes $1000 because of a 921 match, encouraging candidates to get lots of small contributions, not contributions coming from the .04%. sil -- still a filter, but not biased in the way the current system is biased. the thing that matters more than the current system is, god for bid, votes. voters will stop that is what is mattering to the democracy. equal votes from equal citizens. to describe the solution to this problem is not hard. why don't we have the solution? why do we have lyrical movement to push for this solution? political experts tell us is most people don't care about it. most people look at the corruption and they are ok with it or they are ok with it relative to other issues they want to fight about. i don't think that's actually true and evidence comes from a series of studies. the most recently did was in december of 2013. we asked the public how important is it to you we reduce the influence of money in politics. the answer was 96% of americans

said it's important to stop the very next question we asked was how likely do you think it is we will reduce the out of money and politics. 91% said it's not likely. still a filter, but not biased in the way the current system is biased. the thing that matters more than the current system is, god for bid, votes. voters will stop that is what is mattering to the democracy. equal votes from equal citizens. to describe the solution to this problem is not hard. why don't we have the solution? why do we have lyrical movement

to push for this solution? political experts tell us is most people don't care about it. most people look at the corruption and they are ok with it or they are ok with it relative to other issues they want to fight about. i don't think that's actually true and evidence comes from a series of studies. the most recently did was in december of 2013. we asked the public how important is it to you we reduce the influence of money in politics. the answer was 96% of americans

said it's important to stop the very next question we asked was how likely do you think it is we will reduce the out of money and politics. 91% said it's not likely. just like most of us wish we could fly like superman, but because 91% of us are convinced we can't, we don't throw ourselves off of tall buildings regularly. we are designed to our human mortal status and live life the way one would assuming you can't fly from the ground or tall buildings. we don't organize to do anything about it because we don't believe anything can be done. we've added to been franklin's slogan that if there is nothing sure but death and taxes by adding federal government. that means the question here is how do we resist this

resignation? what is the strategy for fighting resignation? the problem is convincing people there is a solution that could actually be adopted. what is it we could do for that? as many of you know because i'm sure many of you were supporters, the beginning of the year in march announced we were going to watch something called the mayday project -- mayday as in these -- as in the distress signal, saying it's a mayday for this democracy. the objective is to be a super pac to end all super pac's. what would it take to run a

series of campaigns that would win a congress committed to campaign reform and we would fund that by kickstarting it -- you can't kickstart a political campaign but to fund this amount to run this experiment. six are certain amount from the bottom up and get as much of it matched the top down as we could. committed to fundamental reform -- the plan we laid out is to run a pilot in 2014 and then based on the fact, when in 2016 and push legislation in 2017 and in 2019, prepared to protect it by passing whatever constitutional reforms would be needed to defend against the supreme court will stop in the first stage, we were able to raise $11 billion from more than 57,000 contributors around the country. [applause]

with the objective to elect a candidate committed to this fundamental reform. the truth is with that as the objective, the project was a bust. because out of the eight candidates we supported, only one of those races was really competitive. people look at this and say this demonstrates the public doesn't care. it's not as bad as that looks. if you look at the report of the data we were able to pull from surveys before and after, it shows a significant number of voters are deeply committed and care about this issue, just in the synonymy of the election in 2014, that was enough to -- the tsunami of the election in 2014 was enough to overcome. we lost the bet because we did not prove to the skeptics a system that could scale, so there were no clear path to

2016, which was our objective. to get us to a place were we could elect a congress emitted to fundamental reform. when we lost in this dramatic way, one part of me was relieved at the defeat because the truth about politics as its run today is that it's deeply dissatisfying and disgusting and most of how it works. the constraints of politics today is almost impossible to imagine using it to educate people in a constructive way about this issue. i've likened it to trying to teach and algebra course by screaming out the various lessons and students are walking through because most people

don't want to hear the message while they are trying to watch a patriots game. most people want to ignore it. the method for communicating to them must communicate in a way that is almost impossible to move people. but the other part that echoes a kind of guilt in how it felt an authentic to the ultimate objective of this movement because it game was an insider's game. you are electing regular candidates to fix the problem with other insiders will stop the problem with that is that we don't believe insiders when they tell us they are going to fix the problem. 80% of americans believe the reforms that have been passed have been designed to help current members of congress to get reelected than to improve

the system. we are cynical about the reformers as much as we are cynical about everything else. we have to find a way to stand outside the system that the challenge here is to be authentically outsider in the effort to force change on the inside. that sounds like a harder problem and in some ways, it is. there was something so appealing about the idea of demonstrating that throwing up a message demonstrating congress should be enough to rally voters and raising hundreds of millions of dollars to win a congress, there was something simple about it even if there was something somewhat corrupt about it. so this forces us to think what's the way to go forward that could force a change on the

outside, from the outside, a choice of change. i'm going to describe three elements of that strategy. one element is to make the change plausible. one element is to make congress panic. one element is to make the is it -- make the issue presidential. first is the plausible. mayday had the idea of electing a congress. the bet was we could demonstrate the power of the message to elect candidates. this was a bad year to make that bet, so now we have two pivot to figure out what the work is that can contribute to the project. what are we doing now? the objective is to figure out a way to turn the army around and

to focus it on a much more manageable project of recruiting the incumbents to admit to reform. if there's a majority in congress and those committed to reform, the project is to shrink gap to make it seem plausible that we could actually get fundamental reform. not necessarily a majority committed to the vouchers but committed to some reform. how will we deploy this? a top secret project that gets announced at sxsw, there's a strategy for a platform to enable the tools of this infrastructure we call the internet, and incredibly powerful ability to recruit targeted actions in districts that convince voters in districts to get their members

to commit to reform and we believe it is feasible to get within striking distance by the end of 2015. in march, this structure is announced and we launch a project to bring about a commitment. republicans and democrats both, to this system of fundamental reform to make it seem plausible, but that's not going to be enough. much more interesting is creating panic. these guys -- this guy, george mason, one of the framers of the constitution, two days before the constitution was published in philadelphia, he noticed a problem. the only way to amend the constitution at that time was a provision that gave congress the power to propose amendments. george mason stood up and said on the floor of the

constitutional convention, what if congress is the problem, a system where only congress can amend is not much of a system of congress is the problem. it's the first known instance of "the simpsons" duh. they created a second way to amend the constitution. article five gives the states the power to demand congress call a convention, not a constitutional convention, but a convention for a very limited purpose to oppose amendments. what is clear is the idea of a convention terrifies washington. it terrifies the seed to imagine this entity that can propose

amendments, even though it requires 38 states to have a power called into being by this process terrifies them. the closer we get to the magic number the constitution specifies, 34 states calling for a convention, the more the panic grows. what is not recognizes that right now, there are between 24 and 28 dates who have passed resolutions calling on congress to call an article five convention. vermont, california and illinois have, last year, past proposals to call for a specifically related to the corrupting influence of money in politics. as more of these organizations push for more states to join, we will in the next two years get incredibly close to the magic number. i think we will probably get

over the magic. as that happens, congress will respond because historically it has always responded to cut off the convention movement and giving people who are pushing for a convention that they want. we may, through this process, get what we want from them even before there is a convention. best example is the amendment gave us an elected to stop originally there was a senate picked by state legislatures. people didn't like that. they got the senate would be filled with rich people who were corruptly elected. [laughter] they said we should change that to have a directly elected senate. the senate is not going to have anything to do that will stop there is a process for calling for an article five convention and when they got within one state of enough states to call for an article five convention,

congress sent out the 17 the moment created the elected senate. so, that panic produced reform and that reform was central to bringing about what was perceived to be a solution to the problem and that's the same dynamic we should expect here. the closer we get to forcing a constitutional movement, the closer we get to achieving something of what congress might do. maybe most important immediately is presidential. in the modern american political system, reform only happens if it comes with the president pushing it, not just the president pushing it, some people might remember, there's this dive barack obama who talked about this problem precisely and once he walked

into 1500 pennsylvania avenue and looked around, he realized there was no chance congress would ever address this problem, so he dropped the issue completely. we need to get a congress close to being able to pass it and a president who wants to pick it up and make it presidential. it is not their natural wish to talk about this issue. if you look at the polls related to corruption in government, and 2000, it was not even an issue on the top 10 list. 2004, not an issue. in 2008, it was number four on issues american stop president address. in 2012, it was number two, second only to jobs. corruption in the way our government functions. and while everyone was thinking about rob lowboy of a check that time -- rob glaser, and while everyone is singing at the coke brothers -- the koch brothers. if you look at the websites of romney and obama, nowhere in the discussion of issues did they even mention the problem.

i had a researcher look at it and is the first time in as far as we can see, when an issue in the top 10 of gallup's list was not mentioned by either candidate in the address of policy issues a promise to take up. they don't want to talk about this issue. it's too embarrassing to talk about this issue. it's hypocritical, so they will avoided as much as they can. the challenge in 2016 is how to get them to talk about this issue as they go around and engage in the rain dance to convince people to support them about what ever issue they want people to support them for. the challenge is how do we get to turn the table and force them to consider what they'd rather not consider? how do we get them to address a topic they would rather not have to address?

that's the objective of the new hampshire rebellion. not rebelling against the government, but rebelling against this agenda the politicians will bring in the presidential candidates will bring. forcing them to say how are you going to end this system of corruption in the -- by getting people to ask this question again and again and new hampshire. new hampshire is a prime target for this. it is a critical primary election and its a state with an important precedent related to this issue. in june of 1999, john mccain went to new hampshire and made

the system of corruption the focus of his campaign and the focus led to him winning the primary in new hampshire. but just before he had done that, new hampshire had a tie to this issue that was much more powerful than the people who continue to talk about it. the tie was this woman -- a woman named doris haddock who on january 1, nine to 99, started a walk in los angeles to cross the country to washington dc, 3200 miles. she began at the age of 88. she arrived at the age of 90, walking into washington, there were hundreds of people following her, including a lot of congressmen who drove out to the last mile, celebrating the incredible importance she had focused on addressing what was then for her the fundamental issue, the corruption of the system of campaign finance reform. the new hampshire a million seeks to revive this by remixing the granny d walk. we did the first instance of this walk across new hampshire in january. she walked longer, we walked colder, a total of 190 miles -- did i mention in january? a walk that totaled 210 people across the course of the walk,

featuring tens of thousands of new recruits in new hampshire who signed up to force candidates to talk about this issue in the primary and reaching a million people in the state and around the state of new hampshire, talking about and focused on this issue. this january 11, the anniversary of her death, the second of these walks happen. this time, not just one, there will be four rounds converging in concord on the 21st, which is the fifth anniversary ofhe supreme court's contribution to this mess, the case of citizens united stop the objective is to recruit 50,000 voters to ask this one question -- how are you going to and this system of corruption in washington? the theory is if enough ask that question and if the race is sufficiently competitive, it creates an opportunity on the republican side certainly and maybe on the democratic side for a candidate to pick this issue up and if they pick it up and make it an issue, there is a chance that it becomes an issue

in the presidential election. when that be enough? in my book, "republic lost" i was skeptical it would be enough. i also describe what you could income as the regent data. the idea of this was if it's impossible for people to believe ordinary politicians will really take this issue up, what we need is not an immigration politician. imagine somebody like david souter or christine whitman or -- just imagine the voice. a non-politician who committed to run for president with one promise -- that when elected they would do one thing to pass whatever the reform is that person thought was essential and then promise to resign. that's it. do one thing, a regent -- the regent is there while the children grow up. so we are going to force you to grow up by taking away this corrupting influence and the ordinary politician, the vice president becomes the president. the critical thing about this idea is there's no ambiguity if

that person was elected why that person was elected. barack obama says i was elected for 44,000 of her reasons, but this is one person elected for one reason and there's no reason for congress pushing back against it because it's clear with the american people said and i was the plenty of dissension to give that person with that person wants because it's the easy way to get rid of that person. once you give them the bill, they've got to go home and you can get back to ordinary politics as usual. this regent president system, if we could find such a leader to step up and take this challenge, i think would do it and would actually bring about the kind of reform we need. maybe it's possible to do it without but the key is to recognize we need the president in this mix. we need to move the congress, we need to scare the congress, we need the president to lead. three parts to make possible this change. because this change is possible. it takes one statute. i think we need 15 senators to switch place. it's possible if people like you stand up and focus not just on the simple injustice, the

injustice of the corrupt criminal, but the real justice that we've got to bring back to the system, to the equality of citizens which this system has lost. it is my view, it is my life that this boy started me on that we can get back. it is possible. but the key here is an old harvey milk strategy -- it's possible if we give people hope that there is something that can be done. not hope in the sense our friend obama has abused the term, but hope in the sense of what vaclav havel described. here's what he said about hope. hope is a state of mind, not of the world. it is a dimension of the soul, is not prognostication, it's an orientation of the spirit and an orientation of the heart. hope is not the same thing as joy that things are going well or a willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success but an ability to work for something because it is good. hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism, it is not the convention that something -- the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense. if something does make sense here, it is my view this republic makes sense that the ideal but 225 years of struggling have evolved makes sense here. there is something to hope for and there is something even to be optimistic about, that if we organize in the way we now have the capacity to organize, there is the chance, not the certain the, the chance that we can restore this inequality of citizenship again, for once, maybe it has never been here, then for once, but for all of us, that is our obligation -- the moral obligation, and obligation it can inspire all if it is understood to be something that speaks to the best of our

tradition, which is including and expanding and building a democracy. that expands the capacity that we have. thank you very much. \[applause] xxx xxx >> thank you, i'm happy to take to the equality of citizens. ife, ity view, it is my is that passion that you started me on that we can get that back. that it is possible. the key here is an old strategy.

it is possible if we give people hope that there is something that can be done. that is hope in the sense that our friend obama has abused the term but hope in the sense o what vaclav havel described. here's what he said about hope. hope ia state of mind, not of the world. it is a dimension of the soul, is not prognostication, it's an orientation of the spirit and an orientation of the heart. hope is not the same thing as joy that things are going well or a willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success but an ability to work for something because it is good. hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism, it is not the convention that something -- the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense. if something does make sense

here, it is my view this republic makes sense that the ideal but 225 years of struggling have evolved makes sense here. there is something to hope for and there is something even to be optimistic about, that if we organize in the way we now have the capacity to organize, there is the chance, not the certain the, the chance that we can restore this inequality of citizenship again, for once, maybe it has never been here, then for once, but for all of us, that is our obligation -- the moral obligation, and obligation it can inspire all if it is understood to be something

that speaks to the best of our tradition, which is including and expanding and building a democracy. that expands the capacity that we have. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, i'm happy to take questions, eager to take questions which i understand there are mics at both sides.