shame. the ripple affects of intolerance are catastrophic. i have hope that this will change. that the future brings true equality. 2015,has been proven in love wins. [cheering and applause] i feel honored to share the responsibility of being a visible person for the community. i have had many moments since coming up where young people have come up to me to share how moved they were by the speech i gave. how it gave them the courage to come out. needless to say these experiences are emotional and

, and i feel grateful to have an opportunity to help. when people come out of the closet, they are making a huge impact on creating a more accepting and compassionate world. the moment someone who does not fully understand our love or who we are realizes that their daughter or son is gay or a teacher they love is transgender or natalie they admire is bisexual -- or an athlete that they admire is bisexual, they will begin to understand that we are all the same. and all that we want is to love and be loved. [cheering and applause] honor.ou hrc for this thank you for working endlessly to create a future where lgbt people can live without

loneliness, shame or fear. standing onhat i am a lot of shoulders tonight. [cheering and applause] the view is great from where i stand. [cheering and applause] me seeou for helping over the obstacles in my path. making the journey easier for so many. we must all be proud of riding this wave of change. and challenging struggles, please remember the tide is turning. , a moreur reach peaceful and just horizon.

feeling, that overwhelmingly life-affirming feeling for each and every one of you. thank you. [cheering and applause] ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] starts,e supreme court c-span debuts its new series, landmark cases, historic supreme court decisions on the series premiere, we take a look at the real story behind the marbury versus madison case. delving into the battle between james atoms -- john adams,

thomas jefferson and john marshall. established the court as the interpreter of the constitution. his famous decision, he wrote marbury versus madison. ismarbury versus madison probably due most famous case this court ever decided. joining, when marquesas, -- landmarkses cases premieres tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span, c-span3 and c-span radio. for background on each case, order your copy of landmark cases companion book. it is available for a dollars $.95. $48.95. >> now a discussion on the

agenda, including house leadership elections and congressional spending deadlines. from washington journal, this is about 40 minutes. american history tv and booktv. gail russell chaddock of the christian science monitor. welcome back. guest: thank you, steve. host: we are focusing on the election for the speaker of the house. what led to john boehner's decision to step down? he was looking at the very real possibility of being ousted as speaker. there had been pending for some weeks a motion to vacate the from and mounting anger the conservative wing of his party. and also a very real possibility that the government would shut down if there weren't a change of leadership. and this gives him leverage to negotiate a budget deal. perhaps even an increase in the debt ceiling without shutting

down government. host: he also said he was going to step down at the end of this year regardless. guest: that's right. it, coming as of the surprise that it did right after the pope's visit, and emotional moment all around. the timing was interesting. i think there will be speculation for a long time about whether this was a gesture e against a wing of the party that has blocked him at every point in his speakership, or whether it was a heroic gesture to save the country from a government shutdown at a time when it was needed. host: let's turn to congressman kevin mccarthy. he is currently number two. he is being challenged by daniel .ebster and jason sha

former reagan speechwriter kevin mccarthy is well-liked in the house. a veteran said to be a natural lover of the nuts and bolts. ofwill be surprising if some his fellow republicans don't start asking. he's got the guts and the hunger, but does he have the brains? guest: i'm not sure brains is the term. the term i have heard most often is a kind of temperament and capacity to speak clearly. number one quality that the speaker has to be able to deal with the caucus and larger issues. but there certainly is a lot of concern about whether or not the front runner is the best choice. the usually happens is speaker or later has to quickly demonstrate a certain element of inevitability. and that is what has not

happened yet. -- he does not have the votes he would need in his own caucus to be nominated on a first ballot. that's a problem. jason chaffetz announced he was challenging kevin mccarthy. how big of a surprise was that? guest: huge. we thought the ducks were all lined up properly. there were all these phone calls. there's a lot of speculation as to who is lining up for what. because everything down the line changes with a change like this. whip.jority leader, the those on the shortlist for speaker quickly announced support for kevin mccarthy. so i think what really changed the thinking about that was an unfortunate comment he made in

an interview with sean hannity. some call it an unforced error. answerded like it was in he actually had prepared. he was being pressed hard on what the republicans had actually done for conservatives and he said, one thing we have done is set up a ungodly committee that has really -- a benghazi committee that has really undermined hillary clinton's poll numbers. it wasn't a question he was asked and fumbled four. it was a prepared answer. that concerned his colleagues because it gave a big talking point for democrats and the clinton campaign. we have told you all under the benghazi hearings were just a ploy to undermine senator clinton. and now it is proved. host: using the word on

untrustable, which i'm not sure is proper english. guest: i had to look up some words this week. i had to look up deconfliction and untrustable. mccarthy made his comments tuesday on the sean hannity show. on thursday he was on special report trying to clarify what he meant. here's a clip. >> this committee was set up for one sole purpose. to find the truth on behalf of the families for four dead americans. to imply in any way that that work is political. of course it is not. look at the way to have carried themselves out. >> that's not what you said. >> the point i was trying to make -- i wasn't saying the committee was political. that is solely to get the truth out. you found out about a server. purpose istee's sole to find the truth why four

americans were killed that night and that is the work they have done. they have been applauded by all sides of the aisle. it was never my intention to say that. host: that was kevin mccarthy last thursday. guest: the problem with his --wer is the question regardless of what you intended, here is what you said. and in politics what you say matters a whole lot. especially with the speaker, where you are speaking not just for your party for the whole house. you are defending the house against the senate this of the viz the president. and that clarification just intensified the problems people had. open.our phone lines are republicans.1 (202) 748-8000 democrats.

(202) 748-8002 independents. will the boat take place for when it is scheduled? guest: that's a good question. first the caucus meets. that is a secret meeting. it is not quite like the election of a pope but not far from it. you look to see if the smoke is coming out of the building and what people are saying about what's going on inside. they do report the final count of the vote within the caucus. the speaker is elected by the house. if the speaker is not elected on the first ballot, that is a problem. typically what happens is you go back to the drawing board. it actually is never supposed to happen. it is supposed to be wound up for that occurs. so what you are hearing right now is the freedom caucus. 40 members. oddly enough there is no official list of who is in that caucus. nut some of their spokesme

are saying we hold the leverage in our hands and if a speaker is to get our support there are some things we want. and that is a very interesting catch. because on thursday the republican party is not only making their choice of speaker, they are also going to discuss the rules. are you going to change for example the power of the rules committee? the rules committee of 435 members -- who keeps order? they are the ones who decide what amendments are relevant. part of the way john boehner has still with the swing of the party is to deny them votes on the floor. they want to make sure the next speaker won't do that. but the question the other members are asking is, if you get rid of the rules committee, do you in fact turn the house into a much more chaotic body than it is now? and could even function? host: is it a secret ballot? guest: yes it is.

but members come out of the meeting and journalists pounce on them immediately. you will see an informal count probably within 10 minutes of the secret ballot. host: george is joining us on the republican line. this is gail russell chaddock of the christian science monitor. good morning. caller: good morning. hannity theing to other night when that guy said that. isn't it illegal? shouldn't there be some kind of investigation into the guise of guys ofmittee -- the that committee? host: would you like to see is the next speaker as a republican? he hung up. guest: i'm not sure what he meant by a legal. i'm not sure there would be anything illegal in what kevin mccarthy said. but i think what concerned members is that it was an unforced error. it came at a time when the benghazi committee and the

appearance of hillary clinton later in october was going to be a very dramatic moment. because there actually are a lot of things that have come out of that committee that every day are producing news stories. for example we learned today from the new york times that the speculation -- the state department was not aware that she was conducting so much official business on a private server. that didn't come out until this committee pressed them for details. and they said, we don't have her e-mail records. where are they? and the times says that is what prompted the questions to her. her campaign is still suggesting that it was a much more general request. that the state department just wanted to clean up loose ends and had sent a request to all recent secretaries of state about how they handle e-mail.

the times fact checker concluded by saying the committee's answer was incomplete. i think the committee might have stronger words for it. that is the real damage from what he said. at a moment when the committee felt that they could really score some important points on what actually went on and why, their own presumptive leader was undermining in a way that even nancy pelosi, the democratic leader, had not managed to do, the legitimacy of their work. host: there is a story in the new york post. people advising hillary clinton to lawyer up, that she could face a long legal battle ahead. how likely is that? think of annot person in public life that has spent more time lawyer up. ed up. i think there are lots of lawyers already on this case.

once you get into a legal battle it is very difficult to predict where it will go. i would be surprised if she hadn't already had discussions on it. host: let's go to scott in san antonio. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to ask you a question. look atsee how you can these people every day with a straight face the way that they all just tell a lie and theyround and pretend like meant something absolutely totally to the opposite of that. another thing i wanted to point out was the fact that -- i can't understand why these people can't see through this congress that we have led by the republicans. the only thing that these people have been doing since barack obama has been in office sides trying to block everything that he's done is that they have just onn totally trying to focus

makeup, first of all, scandal after scandal. that's all that they've really been spending taxpayer dollars on. they haven't passed any legislation in years that amounts to anything except when they are forced to do so on a budget bill or something of that sort. i just don't understand it. the rating of this congress is down to single digits and people are still voting for them. the only thing that they do is obamack and blame barack for the lack of growth of the economy or what have you. this all falls on the republican party so it doesn't surprise me to see them bickering and everything. and that donald trump is where he is in the polling right now. thank you for your time. host: thank you, scott. guest: that's a very interesting question.

i think the first thing to say about it is your question reflects a mood of the country that is very strong right now. the conventional wisdom usually in the campaign is, let's look at the endorsements. let's look at how many senators are behind a senator's campaign. those questions are irrelevant. virtually now. because the anger in the public over what has happened to the economy, to their job prospects, their conviction that the country is on the wrong track is very strong. therefore the establishment or the endorsement of the establishment is nothing that's positive or desired. tellinghe people not the truth, one of the things -- i covered congress since 2001. and when i came in, i shared your view. i read a lot about members of congress. if you just go by what you read it is not a pretty picture.

but you really are struck by how --y people -- 535 of them came with public reasons. there were things they wanted to get done in public life. difficult to see things blocked and undermined. what you say in public is what you think you need to say to move things along. what's interesting about the climate we are in right now, all of the anger, the support for someone like donald trump. is that maybe the mood is shifting. maybe politicians have to speak to the public in quite a different way than they have before. not necessarily insulting people , but just being much more direct. explaining what they're up against and what they want to do -- and most importantly, how they intend to do it. host: you mentioned to saying things in public. one of the stories this past week with regard to kevin

mccarthy was written in the washington post by dana milbank. the likely new house speaker -- words still fail him. beenmilbank says, i have tracking the california republicans valiant but often unsuccessful struggles with the english language for some time now. and i was alarmed to watch him lose another round on monday during a foreign-policy speech at the john hoeven initiative. rachel maddow -- this is a speech we covered. his remarks are on our website. on wednesday there was this from msnbc. >> this safe so would create a stem of flow of refugees. unlike during the surge in iraq when petraeus and crocker had an effective politically strategy to match the military strategy. we have isolated israel while bolding laces like a ram.

the absence of leadership over the past six years has had horrific consequences all across the globe. in the past few years alone, i a,ve visited poland, hungarri estonia, russia, and georgia. host: that's from rachel maddow. can he recover from this? tried to diagram his sentences, you would have trouble. and in that sense, dana milbank is right. you don'ts anyone want to scrutinize how you talk or work, it is dana milbank. he is a very keen observer. but speaking isn't the only quality of a speaker oddly enough. it's maybe not even the most important quality. you have to be able to work with people. as the crisis the republican party has right now is, like any large majority, when the democrats had huge majority, he

had parts of their caucus that couldn't talk to other parts. there was real acrimony there and tremendous differences. you need a leader who can reach all sides and talk to them. and when you have one of those doesn't appear to think much about the consequences of what it does on the institution -- many of its voters think, the government shuts down, that is a good thing. the houses broken apart and the traditions change, that is a good ring, too. because that is the establishment and they haven't done anything good for us lately. quality that the members are also looking for in a leader but they can't deal with the unforced errors. host: gail russell chaddock is a graduate of wellesley college and a veteran reporter of the christian science monitor. now serving as the washington politics editor and deputy washington bureau chief.

joining us from virginia. good morning. caller: i'm calling about jason chaffetz's unsuitability to be speaker of the house. this year, chairing the oversight committee, he heard testimony from the inspector general for epa. this was the third or fourth time that epa let his committee know that employees were being threatened by homeland security. please read the testimony from february 3. he is saying that epa cites are not being thoroughly investigated and reviewed because the department of defense is blocking that activity. and that means that there is unsafe situations are presenting threats to human health and environmental safety at places like the radford army ammunition plant, where epa would like to do some enforcement, but the army and a private contractor

are running the plant for a huge profit and preventing epa from doing their job. to doon chaffetz needs his job oversight and investigate what he was told. host: thank you for the call. he is on a very challenging and interesting committee. the capacity to investigate when government is gridlocked and you can't legislate anything becomes very important. so i think the question you raised -- i am not as familiar as you are with the specifics of it. but the battle with the epa has been a long-standing one and there is a whole other dimension to it. republicans don't like the fact that the epa has done so many things without congressional approval. they feel especially in what it has done toward climate change toward carbon emissions, that should be cleared with congress. they should be much more directed by congress.

and it's these larger battles with the obama white house on issues of executive power that have colored a lot of what is going on with investigation. host: our next caller is from maine. caller: good morning. i would like to make a thing about benghazi. years,t 50 or 60 consulates and embassies around the world also doubled as safehouses for spy agencies. and for that same period in members of the state department also doubled as spies. so my question is, who is really responsible for that thing that night in benghazi? the state department or one of

our spy agencies? specifically the cia? host: thank you. guest: that is exactly what the committee is supposed to be getting at. this committee has now been in existence longer than the watergate committee. and it has been diverted in the conclusions of its work more toward this issue of what specifically hillary clinton new and when she knew it. i think the larger question you raise, who in the end is responsible -- the cia or the state department -- is supposed to be the conclusion of the committee. there are strong arguments on both sides. host: charlie is next in florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i was just looking at the topic. it seems like we might as well just let mccarthy be the speaker of the house or they might as well just elect him speaker because they don't have anybody else that would be any different from him.

they're all just in there. they all have the same ideology. all they have to say is they are going to lower taxes, increase the military, balance the budget. even though you can't do all that at once. everybody says yeah, let's vote for that guy. when that be great? let's make a circular square. how creative. so he might as well be. anyone they put in there is going to be just like him. except maybe with him in there, we will have to change the name from speaker of the house to the gibberisher of the house. bolding iran,one we can start italicizing syria. guest: there's a lot of difference within the republican caucus and within republican leadership as well on questions like -- there are conservative cutbacks feel that the

in defense have been extremely damaging. -- for budget negations negotiations going forward, we have to break the sequester. to imposean agreement balance between defense and domestic spending. fighting them within the same caucus are those that say, no, the important thing is to cut funding the government to reduce the size of government whatever way you can do it. any arrow pointing down is all good. in another political system, those two groups could be an entirely separate parties and look very different everybody. but they're in the same party. and a leader has to do with both of them. jane from illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. i actually have two questions. how can we make sure that we elect a president who is intelligent enough -- the president -- to be president?

and wouldn't public financing of campaigns salt so much of our problems -- solve so much of our problems? host: answer your first question. caller: the new media should be fed in these people that are running for elections. we should find out how educated they are. the fact that we might put somebody as speaker of the house who can't communicate is scary. host: we will get a response. the presidential campaign has been a surprise for a lot of journalists to cover because we never expected that the antiestablishment candidates would be as strong and enduring as they have been. and back on the coverage about every third week, every second week, there is new speculation that donald trump has reached the peak of support and therefore he must begin to decline. he can't go any higher.

his resilience in the polls has been surprising. today there is more speculation but at last, he will be set aside and the establishment candidates will be able to fight it out on exactly the grounds you describe. but right now the campaign has been so captured by colorful remarks that it doesn't really let you get down to the other issues you are talking about. how would you make the united states great again? how would you fix all the problems you claim to be able to fix? the second part of the question, public financing is extremely interesting. it's something that congress has wrestled with for a long time. and somehow everything that appears to solve the problem winds up making it worse. this week for example, in one of the interesting developments, has been the assault on planned parenthood.

and you will see more of that as republicans revisit the question of how to fund government for the next fiscal year. and one of the reports this week from one of the watchdog groups that looks the campaign cruz,ing was that senator who has been the driver behind defunding planned parenthood, just got $15 million from two donors in texas. interest inreat what's happening with planned parenthood. prompting the question, why is this the issue that could produce another shutdown? what has congress spent so much time on this issue? is it because there is inherently a problem, or is it a candidate who is being so supportive by the personal interests of two people that it is affecting what he is doing and how congress response?

i've never seen a question like that post in the campaign cycle. werecampaign cycle, there very significant contributions andnewt gingrich from 1% there was a lot of speculation about what impact that had. directly to the agenda on capitol hill. and i think this as congress goes over what happened on this issue, i think there will be a lot of interest in revisiting some of these. is big money just to influential in the system and has a distorted the competition in the presidential race? host: comment from a caller, the viewer was right. public financing of political campaigns would solve the root problem. it might solve that root problem. it's also, as you look at what is supposed to happen in a

dueidential primary, that to competition, people drop out as they see they don't have the poll ratings. that didn't happen early on with newt gingrich because he had such a steady source of private support. through a super pac that could fund ads that actually turned out to be devastating to mitt romney and the rest of the campaign. new poll from nbc coming out today shows that donald trump is ahead five points in new hampshire. also maintaining his lead in iowa. ellen in texas. you are on the democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. this is my question. i hear a lot about republicans saying that they discovered hillary clinton's e-mails. i think this was discovered by a

reporter with the new york times or new york post. but yet mccarthy was on the television the other day and said during the hearings, they discovered hillary's e-mails. guest: that's right. both of your comments are right. nobody knew going into the benghazi hearings that the big story that came out of it had to do with handling of e-mails. hasi think the reason that been so devastating is it feeds into a perception of secrecy. not playing by the rules. and especially in how you handle the issue, not coming out and telling the absolute truth about it immediately. it is that perception that has been so damaging. i don't know that trustableness is the right word for it. but certainly the drop in polls for clinton has been related to that issue as it became more apparent in the hearings and in

daily press coverage. the worst thing for a candidate under siege is a story that has new elements every day. if it was just a discussion of an e-mail server, it would be dead by now. but the e-mails are dripping out piece by piece. and gives much more ability to maintain the story and keep it going. host: hillary clinton appeared last night on snl. part of a campaign effort for her to be "more spontaneous." guest: is there anything worse than letting it be known that you are trying to be more spontaneous? he's operating in eight when 47 new cycle -- she's operating in a 24/7 new cycle or there is a lot of talk about strategy. thele hear a lot more about strategy of a campaign then that the policy issues and how the candidate would actually

function. what would they do to implement what they claim they want to do? it looks like it's going to be an internal story for her. reporting this morning on vice president joe biden. nearing aresident is decision on whether to run for president and it could come as early as the next seven to 10 days. according to three people familiar with his deliberation. guest: that's a big story. there has been a lot of speculation about that as well. i think that one of the things that gives a real opening is what happened this week at the united nations with russia. we're talking now for the first ii. since world war there are russian warplanes that are flying outside of contiguous areas to the soviet union.

and it's a new world. i think you will be seeing a lot of speculation in congress when they come back and certainly among commentators as to what has changed here. has u.s. policy changed in the middle east? have we abandoned 40 years of policy in that region? are we a superpower power to be reckoned with? what does it mean when a russian general says we are bombing in an hour, get out? you have no role here anymore? and that is an issue that joe biden was long experienced on the foreign affairs committee and in foreign relations. it gives him an opening that he didn't have before. viewer with regard to the race for speaker saying, we want the speaker of the house who is not a weepy pushover who caves instead of opposing the minority liberal agenda. let's go to joan in fort lauderdale.

you're on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. whyuld like to know, gail, if you are so worried about trump being investigated and interrogated, why it wasn't done when obama ran and nobody asked him a question, and we all talked about water coming up and rising and good and plenty coming to us? he became the king of america. know, looking back, there was such exuberance in that campaign. new people that were involved. young people. a surge in voter participation. the slogan hope and change. atn journalists look back

how they covered that race, that is the question they are asking. why didn't we press harder on what actually would be done? how do you judge whether it politician has the capacity to work with other people, which is a requirement of the presidency as well? we'll talk about the bully pulpit and the president can do a lot. we have hardly had a president as eloquent as president obama. i think the speech he gave at the united nations was a perfect example of that. it's just a brilliant statement of principles. what do you say to the soviet union? that is a different question. how do you respond concretely to the soviet union? when the president spoke this week about the shooting, yet another mass shooting, he spoke with great exasperation about the many times he had asked for gun control and why it hadn't happened.

prompting the question, is it enough to just ask? what does a president have to do concretely to get something through congress? and to build support for it outside the body as well? it is not just giving and eloquent speech. and that goes back to your original question. what are the questions we should be asking now of the presidential candidates so we can get a clear answer to what's fair? host: robert from atlanta. independent line. caller: good morning. i was going to call in on something else. but a response to the last comment. i think what we really need is someone who is bright and smart. there is no way we can dealipate, understand, and with all of these various issues. when i was going to say generally was this. i think the republicans in particular for the last six years have created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

they have suggested repeatedly that government doesn't work, that government is full of crooks, that everything is horrible and miserable. and it is no wonder we now have folks like donald trump and others who come in and attempt to deal with that demagoguery. and i think it's quite unfortunate. because as the reporter indicated a while ago, despite the fact that we may disagree the vasty on policy, majority of people i think in politics are trying to accomplish a particular purpose. just like in any other large group, you will have people who evenisreputable or maybe criminal in some respects. generic bashing of everybody who is in

government, of every politician, has done a grave disservice to this country and i'm a little concerned about where we are going from here. host: thank you for the call. --st: it's very easy to bash and i would wrap into that, the influence of the kind of cynical late-night television treatment of politics in general. politicians and particular. -- in particular. you can pick a moment in somebody's life and magnify it and they look like an idiot. i can happen to anyone. it's very easy to do. it's a lot harder to give a sense of what they are facing. going back to an earlier tweet, we don't need a weepy speaker who caves all the time. caving all the time his understanding math.

cat what it takes to get something through the senate these days. and if the majority doesn't have that, in effect, nothing is going anywhere. just what does it take for a president to sustain a veto? count that and you know how difficult it is to overturn a presidential veto. so i think better education on all levels as the caller says is important. but it's much harder to build something up than it is to tear it down. you can tear something down in a word. but to explain to someone what the work is that goes on in that building, the constraints they are up against, takes longer. it takes listening to c-span. so we're glad you did. host: let's conclude where we began. discussing the vote scheduled for this thursday. we want to emphasize it could change. this t