disappearance from a base in afghanistan. then the director of the death center talks about death penalty by state. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. host: in the race for the white house, lindsey graham and jep bush are holding town halls today. you can see those live on c-span, listen to them on c-span radio. the democratic national committee has reversed a decision that kept the bernie sanders campaign from getting access to campaign information, this after the sanders campaign admitted getting unauthorized access to clinton campaign information. and in its final news conference of the year, president obama not only highlighted his accomplishments this year, but also what he wants to accomplish during his last year in office. for our first 45 minutes, we want to hear from you,

specifically, how would you rate president obama's year this year? taking a look at things he's accomplished, things he has not accomplished, you can highlight either of those when you give us a call. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. as you call to tell us how president obama's year went and how you would rate that, you can also post on our social media channels. l, twitter, facebook, and you an also send us email. several stories stemming from the president's year-end speech before taking off to a visit in san bernardino before heading to hawaii for his family's vacation. in politico, the headline, obama spikes the football at his year-end news conference, the president declares victory, saying the president touted his administration's early actions to rescue the economy, on

healthcare, the president pointed to his steady implementation of the affordable care act as the key reason why the uninsured americans has fallen below 10%. he also pointed to three incredibly partisan and contested aspects of his policy, from the iranian nuclear deal, re-establishing diplomatic ties with cuba, to praising the transpacific partnership of the examples of the u.s. leading the way. again, taking that in mind, and we'll show you businesses of that press conference, which you saw before the start of this program today. we want to hear from you. president obama gave an assessment of his year. how would you rate his year? again, call us, republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. to start, we'll give you a little bit of the president's news conference from yesterday, specifically talking about those accomplishments, especially the recent passage of the $1.1 trillion budget. president obama: i got to sign

an education bill that is going to take some of the challenges that we had with no child left behind and promises to invest more in high-quality, early childhood education. we signed a transportation bill that, although not as robust as i think we need, still allows states and local governments to scomplan actually get moving to put people back to work republican building our roads and bridges. we got banks back to work supporting american exports. and today they passed a bipartisan budget deal. i'm not wild about everything in it. i'm sure that's true for everybody. ut it is a budget that, as i insisted, invests in our military and our middle class without ideological provisions that would have weakened wall street reform or rules on big polluters. host: again, for this first 45 minutes of ours, how would you rate president obama here?

202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. and 202-748-8002 for independents. if you want to post on our social media channels, you can do so. we will start off this morning with scott. good morning, go ahead. i'm sorry. we'll go to matt. matt is up first this morning. matt, good morning. go ahead. you're on. caller: good morning, pedro. yeah, i think president obama's done a great job overall. i think he's kept us out of, you know, syria and iraq. you know, assigning troops on the ground in large numbers, and i think he's done a great job on climate change one thing i want to say, you know, make it fast here is the way donald trump has formed this bromance with slad putin and the way he is bad mouthing president obama with vladimir putin, saying that one thing that putin and

trump agree on is they despise obama, and he's calling him obama, not the president. host: before we go too far down that road, what would you like see the president accomplish in his final year? caller: specifically, i'd like to do something with jobs. i mean, let's get back to basics. let's keep the economy humming. let's create more jobs out here. host: that's matt. we'll go next to ron. ron is in oregon, republican line. ron, go ahead, you're next. caller: as far as obama goes, i think he should just leave the white house. he has pretty much ruined us. i mean, he -- the middle east, his red wine, he pulled out of iraq, i meerning he's the isis problem, and he didn't want to do anything about it. as far as bergdahl goes, he needs to go to prison. host: so no accomplishments in

your mind as far as the president this year specifically? caller: not at all. he has no time to do anything. he's just going to leave whatever left over to the next presidency to take care of his problems that he left behind. obamacare gone to hell. i am on social security. i got no raise this year. i'm at the bottom of the totem pole. i have h.i.v. i'm dying, but i guess, you know, my grandchildren's children will have to live with his mess. host: that's ron in salem, oregon, mentioning obama's red line when it comes to syria policy. there was a -- there was a website which had an interview with president obama's former defense secretary, chuck hagel. the headline saying that ignoring the red line hurt the president's credibility worldwide. mr. hagel quoted as saying, for one thing, there were way too many meetings when it comes to syria policy, describing a process in which officials mulled issues about every getting to "where we need to be." he goes on to say, we kept deferring to tough decisions, and there were always too many

people in the room, he said. mr. obama's decision to ignore his own red line on syria has come under scrutiny in the last two years as the united states struggles with the strategy to usher out president assad and roll back the gains of the islamic state. mr. hagel also quoted as saying, "whether it was the right decision or not, history will determine that." there's no question in my mind it hurt the credibility of the president's word when this occurred. read that more in the "new york times." you can go to foreign policy, the website, for more of that interview. how would you rate president obama's year? that's what we're asking you. we'll hear next from charles in florida, democrats line. charles, good morning. caller: i think the president has accomplished several things under this serious controversy he's living under. but as far as this goes, i think he's done quite a bit. even what they call obamacarkse

affordable care, and i think that those who are ignoring it will find out they wished they would have had joined in later years. there are many other things. he's kept us out of conflicts and war and everything else. he's trying to talk to various countries without sending people to war. i'm a veteran myself, and i don't think war is the answer to anything. thank you. host: when it comes to the president's healthcare law, "the washington post" highlights a story talking about enrollment on healthcare.gov reaching the six million mark, saying the surge occurred even though the administration recently tamped down expectations. this fall, health and human services secretary burwell issued a forecast saying that 10 million people will be covered through the end of 2016, only slightly more than expected by the end of this month. daniel is up next, and he's in georgia, independent line,

asking people to rate president obama's year. daniel, how would you rate the year? caller: good morning, c-span. first off, i think it's a pretty good year for the president. in his press conference, when he mentioned acid rain, talk about when they started getting the mississippi, i'm one of the people who complained about that back in the 1980's with the first bush, and now people don't talk about acid rain no more. i guess they got to be a success, that program, back hen bush did that. i guess with the climate change, we might look back at this one day. what i cuba, understand, on the boats or whatever, and that's a good thing. nd the last thing, pedro, gas. i mean, it's under $2 down here

in the south in places. i mean, that's almost a slam dunk just on that. host: so off of twitter, this is edgar, saying that president obama's presidency is marked with good social policy, but shaky foreign policy. republican rhetoric has smeared his image. audrey on our democrats line is next. audrey, from macon, georgia, hi. caller: yes. how are you? i think president obama's record is an a plus. it would be much higher if the republicans would work with him instead of fighting against him . from day one, they have said they wanted him to fail, and then we have this thing come out called donald trump. he's talking about banning all muslims. if he gets by with that, he will be saying banned all blacks. i'm not an african-american. i'm a black woman, not from africa. i'm black. host: so, audrey, as far as

specifics, tell us what you think the president has accomplished, specifically one thing on top of your list. caller: healthcare. the gas prices. he has done a tremendous job with pretty much everything he set out to do as long as they orking with him. host: republican line, fort lauderdale, florida. go ahead, please. caller: hi. i would like to let you know that i know who the winner of the next presidential election is going to be. that will be the american people, because barack obama will be gone. he will go down as one of the most corrupt and ineffective presidents we have ever known. i don't even know where to begin with this man, but i think the biggest damage he's done is to american society. his lack of leadership on law enforcement, buying in to this philosophy of leave me alone, i ain't killed you yet, it's

really disgraceful. he's a liar. held by the democratic party with regard to the economy, he says that the economy is doing well. well, the people who actually run the economy, the fed, couldn't raise interest rates until recently because of the jobless rate. but the president, when he makes a speech, says that the jobless rate is so great, he can't believe it. these two things can't be true at the same time. we can't have a great jobless rate. and the third thing, we're really concerned about the jobless rate. i don't even know where to begin with it, but all i have to say is, i don't care who else is elected, america wins, thank you. host: one of the things that the president addressed yesterday was the fight against isis, specifically how lawmakers are monitoring social media as far as the review process for people who get waivers in to this country.

here's what the president had to say about that aspect at yesterday's news conference. president obama: our law enforcement and intelligence professionals are constantly monitoring public posts, and that is part of the review process that people are investigating what individuals have said publicly and questioned about any statements that they maybe made. but if you have a private communication between two individuals, that's harder to discern by definition. and one of the things we'll be doing isen gauging with the high-tech community to find out how we can, in an appropriate way, do a better job if we have lead to be able to track suspected terrorists.

we're going to have to recognize that no government is going to have the capacity to read every singe person's text or emails or social media. host: if toument see the full press conference, you can go to our website at.org.org, see all that, about an hour. he spoke with reporters yesterday before leaving for a stop in san bernardino to visit with families of the victims of the shootings, and then going on to his yearly vacation in hawaii. from "the washington post" this morning, out of iraq, the iraqi military saying that friendly fire heard during the fight gainst isis. the military said an air strike by u.s.-led coalition friday, the first time it is reported friendly fire since the american jets began bombing in the country last year. the strike took place as the iraqi army engaged close combat with militants in poor weather conditions south of fallujah,

about 40 miles west of baghdad, the iraqi defense ministry said in a statement. one soldier was killed and nine were injured. host: steve from baltimore, maryland, you are next, rating president obama's year. hello. caller: does anybody remember how john boehner and the rest of the republicans were crying that this economy was going to fall and they were done? as far as the middle east go, you know, since we got iraq, because the iraqis weren't there anymore. now, if we would have stayed, that would have been a takeover, a dictatorship. does anybody remember that?

thank you. host: joe is in sarasota, florida, republican line. joe, go ahead, you're next. caller: yes, pedro, i just want , he's you that obama wrong on typically he's wrong n the voter. that why the law need to be built, because reagan, he should have done that. and the bushes, they should deal the war, because that's the only way. we need to get advice from israel. that's how you stop hamas and terrorists like palestine. kids are teenagers killing israels with knives and women. host: with all that you listed, you still give him a b plus. why is that?

caller: i mean, i said b minus. host: why is that? save 15 ell, obamacare million americans, so that a lot of americans. save a lot of lives. with re, the republican the funny hair, what's his name? he said he's going to throw obamacare. that's wrong. he's right on the war, but he's rong on obamacare. roman care did good when he was the governor. what's his name with the funny hair? we know. host: you're referencing donald trump? caller: yes, donald trump. donald trump said it's going to destroy obamacare. obamacare say 16 to 17 million

americans. host: let's flare craig in hillsdale, new jersey, independent line. hi. caller: hi. how you doing? host: fine, thanks. go ahead. caller: when obama was $7 igning, he said that trillion in national debt on the record there was immoral and unpatriotic. well, when he's leaving, that's bush, he's leaving $20 trillion in national debt, and he was right the first time, even more right now. $20 trillion that we're going to pass on to our children is the most immoral, unpatriotic thing. host: you're referencing the spending bill that was passed yesterday in congress? are you there? caller: yes, i'm here. host: yeah, go ahead. caller: i'm talking about the

accumulated national debt under his presidency. host: oh, ok. caller: $19 trillion under bush, in his term, it was closer to about $7 trillion. and obama said that it was immoral and unpatriotic when bush did it. he was right then, and he's certainly right now that he was immoral and unpatriotic by putting on that kind of debt on to the backs of our children. one more thing. the iran deal, allowing iran to get a nuclear weapon, is also immoral and unpatriotic. he once said, and i saw him say that iran knows that we can take out those nuclear facilities if we wanted to. my question is, rather than giving $150 billion to iran, why don't we just take out the nuclear facilities? giving $150 billion to iran is immoral and unpatriotic, the

world's leading sponsor of terrorism. host: let's go to jim. jim is next, from south carolina, republican line. caller: hey, good morning. how are you? host: fine, thanks. caller: i just two quick things to say. the best thing about cable is they give you a remote with a mute button, and i've used it a lot over the past seven years. and about the democratic callers calling in about more gas prices and giving president obama the credit, if you remember, before he got elected, he fought for higher gas prices, saying he wanted a $4 per gallon price and that it would help fuel the economy. he has fought that tooth and nail. we got low prices because of franking, which he could not stop on the federal level. you democratic callers giving him credit is just another example of the whole unbelievable, low information voters nowadays. host: as far as the year the president has had, how would you rate it? caller: oh, it's terrible.

i mean, first did he the red line thing in syria, i think it was this year. he left iraq and allowed isis to grow, who he said was a j.v. kind of group. and then he's refusing to fund obamacare through the cadillac tax. how do you fund it? you're just going to run the deficit up. but in so many levels, and then he told robbie that he was wrong that russia was a has-been and that they were a has-been, and three years later, we're finding out that clinton is a real threat. but then they take down -- they castigate bush for taking down saddam and how bad that was, but he wants to take down assad, and they took down the libya, gaddafi, and there's havoc and bedlam there. so he's doing the same things that bush did and leadership changes without any voter say-so. at least bush went to the congress, and then he went to the u.n. host: ok, ok.

that's jim in south carolina. again, if you're just joining us, the president gave his year-end press conference in which he touted his achievements. we're asking to you give us your assessment of president obama's year. how would you trait? 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-800 for independents. you can post on twitter, in order to rate his year, you must rate congress also. congress did nothing to help the president or the country, so both failed. and then carol saying obama's year was a disaster, and polls reflect it. he lives in a parallel universe. he is full of himself and empty words. david from flint, michigan, is next, democrats line. you're on. go ahead. caller: good morning, c-span. i rate him an a minus, only because i didn't like him talking for the trade deal. i didn't like that.

but i just -- i kind of thank god for obama, because my god son is alive today because he was able to get healthcare. without him, he probably would have died of diabetes. i think he's done an excellent job on keeping the country safe. i think the jobs are not better than they were when the republicans were running it. and i think he's done a great job as far as foreign relations with the united states with the rest of the world. they respect us now, not as being invaders and killers, but as a decent country. i just love the jobs. i think he's the best president -- i told my friends, i think he's better than all the other presidents we've had before put together. host: one of the things coming out of the press conference yesterday was the topic of guantanamo bay. "newsweek" writing about it, sthage the president vowed thursday to press ahead with the release of his plan on how

he wants to close the military prison, but said last week's paris attacks would furthered resistance. there was a bid by the republicans to block the inflow of syrian refugees to the united states, based on concerns they could ignite paris-style violence in american cities and their obsession to the closing of guantanamo bay in cuba. here is a little bit of the president talking about guantanamo bay. president obama: i'm presenting a plan to congress about how we can close guantanamo. i'm not going to automatically assume that congress says no. i'm not being coy. i think it's fair to say that there's going to be resistance from some quarters to that, but i think we can make a very strong argument that it doesn't make sense for us to be spending an extra 100, 200, 300, 500 million dollars, a a ion dollars, to have

secure setting for 50, 60, 70 people. and we will wait until congress has definitively said no to a well thought out plan with numbers attached to it before we say anything definitive about my executive authority here. host: the larger issues of foreign policy are in a poll, taking a look at the president's handling of these types of situations. overall, his job approval rating by the poll is at 43%. when it comes to specifically handling foreign policy, that's 37%. when it comes to the handling of isis, that rating is at 32%. you can rate the president's year. we're asking people to call in and do so on the lines this morning. their slee in hot springs, arkansas. she's on our republican line. she is next on rating the

president's year. shirley, go ahead. caller: good morning. i watch c-span every morning, and i always want to call in, but i can't ever get through. i feel sorry for all of those people that's coming in, and i'm a lute sandran a christian, and -- i'm a lutheran and a christian, and i'd like to help them, but i don't understand how they can bring that many people over and here provide them with houses and income, food. you know, they have to have that. you can't turn loose and let them run. they don't explain anything else. they just say coming over here. host: go ahead. caller: the politicians, i -- hed them, and they are always get up and fight the baby boomers, and i'm one of those, and my husband and my

father-in-law, my entire family have paid taxes all these years, and all these other people are using the tax money, but they blame the baby boomers, and it's kind of -- i think that's going a little far, and that's one thing that's different from the older politicians. host: gotcha. let's hear from brad, democrats line. how would you rate the president's year? caller: i would give the president about a b plus. host: why is that? caller: well, i think he's done good. i mean, with what he's had to work with the last seven years. i mean, he's gotten a lot accomplished. you can't listen to fox news or the republican candidates to base it on, because they criticize him constantly. it's that old rule, if you keep saying something enough, people will start believing it. host: what would you list as his accomplishments this year specifically? caller: well, i think, you know, the relations with cuba

is increasing, so i think that's a positive. that's something that no president as even dealt with for 50 years. it got passed yesterday, that's going to be positive. host: you're talking about the budget that was passed yesterday? caller: yeah, that was -- i was shocked that the fact that it passed. host: why so? caller: well, it seems like the republicans finally gave in a little bit and compromise seems like it favors his plans more than it does, you know, the republicans' plans. host: that's brad talking about the president's accomplishments. by the way, the budget that was passed yesterday was done early friday morning in the house, passing a $1.1 trillion spending bill on a 316-113 vote with 150 republicans and 166 democrats thwarting the measure after passing a measure on

thursday on a 318-109 volt. both pieces of legislation resulted from bipartisan year-end negotiations. both parts of the agreement were passed on a 65-3 vote. president obama signed the bill into law friday afternoon. by the way, signing that bill, as far as supporting the senate side, from the support, from left hand see graham, voting no, ted cruz, rand paul, and bernie sanders. not voting, marco rubio. martha from connecticut, independent line. hello there. good morning. how would you rate the president's year? caller: good morning. would have to rate it an a. that's only because none of us are perfect, even the president, but i think he has done an incredible job. he's working very, very hard. i'm not going to go into specifics on all of the accomplishments, because i think many of the callers already have this morning. host: what would be on the top

of your list then? caller: what's that? host: what would be on the top of your list of specific accomplish ams since you're rating the president? caller: oh, gosh, so many things. as was just mentioned, the i am disabled, permanently disabled. i'm 61. i'm also a baby boomer. death.ared to i'm living in poverty for the first time in my life. for housingng lists the i cannot get into. the president can only accomplish so much in the time he has their. what i am scared to death of is the percentage of republicans who call in and have nothing to say but bad things about the leader of our country, which i do not understand that. you can see he--

has aged, he has worked so hard, and he works against -- he does not have support from much of the congress. many of the republicans, they blame not only baby boomers but older people, anybody they can think of to blame in addition to our current president. .ost: i got you thank you. "the washington post" highlights and looks at what is in store for the present for the year ahead, saying it is the final year in office that promises to be challenging, the biggest battles of 2015 work diplomaticselected -- iran and cuba, an international agreement on climate change and executive actions on immigration and paid sick leave. in 2016, he will have to at home andblems

abroad. david from virginia, could one. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you so much for taking my call. i think so highly of sees. -- c-span. you are simply great. presidento rank obama's last year in office, i would have to give him a d. the previous caller said that congress blames the baby boomers for this and that. i don't know where that came from. i don't know -- it came from somewhere, i don't know. tilt andtely, i see a always have -- a socialist type tilt in the way the president

approaches many things, redistribution of wealth, the affordable care act, which is has extremely damaged me. my insurance has gone up 400% since that was initiated. anyway, i feel a great lack of true leadership. pipeline. i heard nancy pelosi on the radio yesterday saying that the refinery workers are out of work and the state department did two studies on the pipeline, and said it was ok. originally, the president said that is what he was waiting for, but he still be doing it -- vetoed it.

i believe he is doing what he believes is right, but this is set in his moral fiber. by that, he has to act. thecontinuous attacks on second amendment and the few other executive orders that have been signed in the middle of the me cause.y give if people would study history, going back into the late 1930's and early 1940's, they would see some parallel movements by the current administration. host: got you. let's move on to cassandra. caller: yes. i have a statement to make. and his 30%ld trump need to leave this country. before you know it, it is going to be a race more in this war in thisace

country. host: before you go down that road, rate the president. let's go to dora in florida, republican line. caller: thank you for accepting my call. host: you are on. go ahead. caller: can you hear me? host: i can. caller: thank you for accepting my call. presidency host: host: go ahead. caller: i rate the presidency as a c. congress as well. it seems like they are doing really towards american people, but their own interests. we, as the american people, need to be involved more in what is

going on in the presidency. host: that is door in florida. the president, during his press conference yesterday talked little bit about the relationship between congress, specifically his relationship with the new house speaker, here is a little bit of that. [video clip] >> he has been professional, he to tell me what he can do and what he cannot do. i think it is a good working relationship. we recognize we disagree on a whole bunch of other stuff and have fundamentally different visions of where we want to move the country, but perhaps even before he was elected, he worked on capitol hill, i think he is respectful of the process and how legislation works. host: when it comes to issues concerning syria, the united nations passed a resolution

syria.ng a roadmap in oft unresolved, the visions world powers on key issues of the conflict, but expectations were tempered by the lack of agreement on the two biggest obstacles -- the fate of syrian president bashar al-assad and the classification of armed groups as terrorists. the hours long meeting of foreign ministers in york on friday failed to reach a compromise and at one point confers on collapse. bennie from michigan on the independent line. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. i would like to say that i rate minusesident as a

for this year. minus for this year? caller: i think he has had a problem getting along with the republicans. even though the republicans, in my opinion, have committed treason against the american people because they are immediately saying they would not help the president no matter what he did when he was first elected. i think you should have gotten along a little better with them. host: philip from maine, your next. when it comes to obama and his last seven years in office -- back in grammar school, i had a nun and she gave me a zero on a paper.

i said to her, i don't think i deserve a zero. she said, i know, but there is no numeric below that in the english language. that is what i rate obama. the man is a certified divider. he does not what this country to come together. he has been preaching to black folks all kinds of in name, stupid things that now we have every time a cop turns around, he will either go to jail, he is , or like theyef did in missouri with that cost that he wasocent the bad guy. obama went to syria with the red line. you remember the syrian redline? he did not do anything. putin in. i hear people calling and rating

him very high, but they are rating him for what he gives away for free. i'm one of the guys that for 55 years has paid for all the free stuff from the government. free is not free. it comes from taxpayers who pay the taxes to the people who suck off the people who pay the taxes. right now, this country is starting to wake up. d can go stick it. people like trump, carson, and cruz are starting to prove that no one likes what is going on. merry christmas, happy new year. it is not politically correct, neither am i. host: we will hear from more calls in a bit, but one of the things coming out of the press conference yesterday was be announcement from the president that he commuted sentences of 95 offenders in an effort to rethink the criminal justice

system for drug offenders. the commutation mostly affect , somelent drug offenders of whom have artie spent more than two decades behind bars. the white house also pardoned an ohio man and a virginia woman. connie from texas, you are on the air, democrats line. go ahead. caller: i rate president obama an a plus for this year. i give him an a plus because he has accomplished a lot of goals, even though he has had nothing but constant rhetoric. host: specifically this year, would you think he has accomplished? budget number one, the yesterday that was passed. i think the climate control fact

with the other countries. those are two big things on my list. another thing would be cuba relations which has been a longtime coming. he got that accomplished. the economy is doing well. it is not as good as it should be, but in compared to when he came in. the jobs are better. they are not as good as they could be, but a lot better than it was. unemployment has improved. the war on terrorism is good. we have not had any mass killing flight 9/11. he has the other saudi arabian countries going together to fight terrorism on their shores. i think it is nothing but an a plus. he had people from day one saying he would fail, and he

proved them wrong. history will show that, regardless of all the negative publicity being said about him, history will show the facts. host: that is connie. news, democratic candidates meet in new hampshire to debate. the presidential campaign of suitie sanders filed a law against the democratic national committee on friday, arguing that the party had unfairly suspended the campaign's access to key folder information. the suit came shortly after campaign manager jeff weaver acknowledged at a washington

news conference that sanders staffers had improperly reviewed information gathered by rival hillary clinton. again, the debate takes place tonight. both jeb bush and lindsey graham also. the debate will be aired tomorrow at 4:00, courtesy of abc news. you can see that tomorrow at 4:00 if you miss it tonight. alsoey graham and jeb bush in new hampshire today. you can see that live and also listen to it on c-span radio. you can listen to it on c-span radio and watch on c-span. let's go to lewis, brooklyn, new york. morning, how are you? host: well, thank you. caller: i am a republican, and i give the president an a plus. all the wrong reasons, as far as

i am concerned. as far as when he ran for office, he said he would fundamentally change this country, and i believe he has basically done that. he has fundamentally changed this country. you just look around -- race .elations are worse than ever our friends don't trust us. drawing redlines. we are talking about illegal immigration. i don't even mean the southern border. i think 60% of people that come isas overstay. i believe they should be a lot easier to track down.

they came in through v sisas. you know what, they are coming up here for a better life, trying to get a better job. in a lot of cases, yes, they get onto the welfare system, but they are not trying to cut off our heads. they don't want to kill us. host: ok. "the financial times" interviewed several people who study the federal reserve, specifically after its announcement that it will raise , and asking these folks about the next raise, when it might happen. according to "the financial top economists expect another 25 days point increase in the central banks and mark rate in three months and future increases will be .ore gradual

traders and investors not expect the federal funds rate to remain below 1% into 2017, implying a far shallower pace of increase in the median. economists aligned more closely with the fed, with slightly more than half of them expecting the central bank to follow with its third rise by june. we go to karen in oklahoma. how would you rate the president's your? -- year? caller: i will give him an f. the people who call in that love him, it is probably like the guy who said before, they get the free stuff. people take our money from us. the lady said all the trump supporters should leave the

country. then, who will pay for her family's welfare? these are working people. when we get a republican president in their -- you like executive order so much, don't be mad when we get a few. some of the things he has done is like sending 800 illegal immigrants to a base in texas. by texas? they said, no, we don't want anybody. let's send them to new york, up in hillary's backyard. he may not be a muslim, what he keeps saying, but he' certainly is a muslim sympathizer. he needs to be sympathizing on our side, and make us stronger. sayle will call in and republicans don't like people, but we love people and love our country. that is why we are trying to fight for it. host: let's hear from kenny, new

york city, independent line. caller: good morning. that last caller -- this is what is wrong with this country. you have so many people that are racist in this country that they don't even recognize this man has done a really good job as president of the united states. he got so many things done. people are so hateful, they have hateful thoughts. this is the problem with this country. we don't recognize that when ameone is doing good -- he is black man and the president of the united states. the bottom line is he is doing good thing for everybody in this country. host: specifically, how would you rate the year? becausei give him a b he has done so much good for this country. you know, we have so much race

ism in this country. we see all over this nation. when we speak out and express our views, people say black people are racist too. no. we want justice and peace and for people to be for everybody. host: we will take one more call. that is connie in new jersey, democrats line. caller: good morning. host: morning. heard alll i have morning -- are you hearing me? host: yes. how would you rate the president 's year? caller: a plus. plus for hisk, and stand in the white house. after hearing all these names

called to a president, who we are supposed to respect so the rest of the world will i am from the- northwest of spain. i was raised under fascist theytorships, and the way call the president -- the fascist people is a branch of ,he right who, in this country is the republican party. host: we will have to leave it there. we would change topics to talk about bowe bergdahl. now, he faces a court-martial with a possible life sentence attached to that. next, michelle mccluer will explain what he faces.

a discussion on the death penalty. robert dunham will join us. all of that as "washington journal" continues. ♪ onnext week's authors week "the washington journal come go with the future nonfiction author monday through friday in our conversation with you. starting monday, former missouri senator jeff smith on "mr. smith goes to prison." atsday, the symmetry second, 8:30, constitutional attorney john whitehead on his book, "battlefield america: the war on the american people." professor -- aaw georgetown law professor is our

guest with her book, "how the other half banks." on thursday, december to fourth, political scholar matthew gr een joins us to talk about the minority party in the u.s. house of representatives. friday, december 25, also at a: discusses hisley book, "last act." be sure to watch c-span's "'s authors journal week. has 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend on c-span two. here are some programs to watch for this weekend. 7:30, winston groom discusses his latest book, "the

generals." ords" michael marmot on "the health gap." governor wilder discusses his ."ok, "son of virginia he was elected as the first african-american governor. toi had the opportunity learn what was going on. that started me. i had a good law practice. as a matter of fact, i had a great law practice. politics was the last thing i wanted to get involved with. , all weekend,v every weekend on c-span two. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now is michelle

former general of the u.s. air force, here to talk about the case of bowe bergdahl. good morning. before we go far into it, talk about your role as a judge advocate general, especially with a court-martial. guest: everybody who is court-martialed in the united states military has opportunity nothave, free of charge -- just based on your salary or your means, but everyone has an assigned defense counsel, free of charge. the jags, as we call them, are the one to provide that counsel. host: when a court-martial takes place, is it might what we see in a civilian court. are there parallels? what are the differences, if there are? guest: there are parallels. we do have a military judge, like in the civilian world, they

have set terms. these judges are kind of rotating. they are assigned for maybe a short period of time, but there is a panel, much like you would .ee a jury it does not have to have 12 people on it. it can have as few as three or five. there is a prosecutor who is an attorney. there is a defense counsel. spectators are able to see the public parts, which most court marshals are public. a lot of parallels, yes. host: do people representing the people have to be military lawyers are can they be private lawyers? free: you are given a military attorney, but are always free to hire, on your own time, a civilian as well. us to the casegs

of bowe bergdahl. can you set up a little bit of what rings him to the point where he is being court-martialed, including what he did to get him there? guest: sure. bowe bergdahl, the evidence has shown so far that he walked away from his base in a deployed location, a remote location in afghanistan in the spring of 2009. , fairly shortly after that, picked up by the taliban and held for almost five years, released in a prisoner exchange last year, about 1.5 years ago after he left his base, i'm sure there was an investigation done at that time into how did he get off the base. was it by his own hand or somebody else's?

there was another investigation done after he returned the united states, and from that weretigation, charges deferred to see if the case should go forward to the court-martial. the commanding general decides to follow the advice or not, in this case, he did not follow the advice of the investigating officer. host: guest: did that surprise you? guest:guest: not exactly. officer hearding testimony to see that these charges did happen, the crimes were committed, and were committed by this individual. authoritynvening gets to make their own decision, they don't have to follow the

recommendations. but it cases they do, have seen cases where the recommendation and action are different. host: if you have questions about this case, you can call it and let us know and give us your thoughts on it. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 745-8002. afghan veterans, (202) 748-8003 if you want to give your call and make your thoughts known. you have given us the facts of the case, but is there any e explanation as to why? guest: they say he was trying to make it 20 miles away to another post to report some lack of leadership and some other grave concerns of his, i believe is what he said. host: and the only way he could

do it is 20 miles away? that brings up a problem because there are a number of ways you can report things. and sheen of euro command that you are right thing, you can always make a complaint to the inspector general. they are always able to make a complaint under article 138 of the unit of code of military justice. obviously, you can, in the case of your immediate commander for your immediate supervisor, if they are the problem, you can jump the chain. that kind of falls flat. that leaves a little bit to be caseion host: with the

that's been developed and make marshall, is at the same as a civilian court where they test mental capabilities? that there: it can are concerns about the individual's mental stability. particularly as that might affect their ability to have formed the intent that are needed to commit the crime. also, the ability to aid in their own defense in presenting their defense and coming up with the defense. i'm not sure that that has been done in this case but there have been allegations certainly that he was suffering from some serious mental disease. it is a judgeuer: advocate. the numbers are on your screen can

. let's hear from tommy is in massachusetts, independent line, go ahead. you, i would just like to know -- i think i read that bowe bergdahl's current marshall was recommended for no joke -- marshall was recommended for no jail time and president obama broke the law by not informing congress about the five al qaeda prisoners. can you talk about that? ms. mccluer: to answer your first question, the investigating officer at the luminary hearing in this case recommended that this go to a special court-martial and that the punishment, if he's convicted of any crime, be no additional jail time. in this case, the convening authority who was the one who gets to decide ultimately whether there is a court-martial

and what kind of court-martial, disregarded or chose not to take that advice and has sent this case forward to a general court-martial with light imprisonment. host: before we go further, talk about the representation of sergeant bergdahl it ms. mccluer: i have not seen anything about his military representation of his civilian representation is eugene feidell who has decades of experience in doing military justice cases. host: he used to be your boss? ms. mccluer: he was a number of years ago. host: is that private or in the military? ms. mccluer: it was outside the military. host: the next call is from west virginia, democrats line, good morning to caller: good morning, i wanted to speak with ms. mccluer.

i had heard that sergeant bergdahl was going to pretty much get off from all this stuff. i think he should be held to standards as other deserters would be. about could talk a little how he would essentially just get away with it. in this case, he is not getting away with it if there is enough information out there and enough evidence to prove he deserted. there is also a charge of misbehavior before the enemy that would also have to be proven. with this gotten away without any sort of consequences. he is headed to a general court-martial with life imprisonment as a maximum punishment. host: what is the likelihood

that life in prison could be handed down? ms. mccluer: it's going to depend. courts, youso many can never predict what i will do. he also has the option of having just the judge alone decide his case both the findings portion as well as the sentence. i think probably it's fairly unlikely. you don't often see the maximum punishment handed down in any sort of military case. to never can tell you host: give you insight for the folks at home, he recently spoke on the podcast on npr and talked about his actions. here is some of that interview. >> what i was seeing for my first unit although i up into afghanistan, all i was seeing

was basically leadership failure to the point that the lives of the guys standing next to me, from what i could see, in danger of something seriously going wrong and somebody being killed him. himself took it upon do something about which led to where he is today can ms. mccluer: right. host: let's go to mechanicsburg, sylvania. go ahead. first, please rotate the independent line to the top more than 1/3 of your callers self identify as independent. i wonder if they really are good they do self identify. i do have a question. i am a lawyer and was in

vietnam. i have a question -- must he be convicted unanimously by the panel? can you explain that? do they have to be enlisted? are they officers? authority canng disregard the preliminary dearing -- in most law practice in the states, that binds the subsequent convening authority. could the convening authority desertion andte the potential death penalty? ms. mccluer: those are great questions. to take them one at a time, first of all, the panel does not have to be unanimous. 2/3anel just needs to get

of the panel to agree to invent -- to convict. there is only one vote so there is never a hung jury. they are going to be initially all officers that are selected on the panel but at a certain point, mr. bergdahl can request that enlisted members be added to the panel. they will all have a rank above him and they could be his rank but have a date of rank before his. or above. that's his option or he can go judge alone. he can have a judge decide everything. as far as following the preliminary hearing officer, the preliminary hearing officer just makes recommendations. it's very much like corporate counsel may do in the civilian world. it's ultimately the commander. the military is a commander driven military justice system.

the commander gets to make the ultimate decision. host: a viewer asked on to her on --and viewer asked ms. mccluer: i have heard conflicting reports about that. i believe general dahl who conducted the 15-6 investigation decided that people had not been killed as a result but when of the charges does incorporate that he did put his post at risk and part of that was causing folks to go out and search for him. host: from florida, good morning, go ahead. caller: good morning and thanks for taking my call. i know the military courts are excellent. i'm sure this is difficult

because it's been highly publicized in the whole war -- and the whole world is watching so good luck. drugged him they when he is in prison? he sure acts bizarre from a civilian interview. the man really seems odd like he is in a different place. do you think they drug to the man over there? did they test him for that? ms. mccluer: whether he was given drugs, that's anybody's guess. i'm sure he had a full military workup when he was repatriated to the united states. i believe he went to an army hospital down in san antonio when he first came back. he probably made a stop in germany along the way which is the usual course.

i'm sure if there was any indication of that, it would still be viable and stay in your system. he would have been tested. host: keizer, oregon, republican line. caller: hello, how are you doing? that bowe bergdahl should not get life but i believe he needs prison time. he screwed up big time. obama screwed up the time trading the terrorists. that was illegal, wasn't it? we don't do that in america, do we? ms. mccluer: there was a recent signing, i believe it was gao, that there was a law broken and that trade. it remains to be seen what, if anything happens, as a result of that. is the sentencing that he receives based on the code of justice?

what might you expect to see during the trial? ms. mccluer: the uniform code of military justice is what governs military courts. call a unitarye sentence of the maximum punishment for the type of desertion he is charged with which is unusual, it's not what you usually see, the maximum punishment is five years in confinement, a dishonorable discharge which is the worst kind of discharge, reduction to enlisted rankt and forfeiture of pay. that's not the maximum punishment in this case because the misbehavior before the enemy charge carries with it the maximum punishment of life in prison. what the prosecution asks for in this case, i'm not sure. i would think that certainly the on hision is pretty big

part with the five years with the taliban. i'm sure there will be plenty of aggravation the prosecution will put in as well it all of that would come in only if there is a conviction. we don't get the sentencing unless we have a conviction . host: is there any argument that he suffered enough? ms. mccluer: absolutely, that was part of the point in the article 32 investigation it that will be huge. host: from illinois, independent line,. caller: good morning, c-span. i am a decorated, disabled vietnam veteran. -- one of myrus sniper squad members went home for seven days and did not return. in jailiven five years

and given a dishonorable discharge. anything less than that, to me, would be an insult to the iraqi veterans. the other thing of would like to mention is when the president guest at thets white house knowing he was a deserter, that was another insult to all veterans. to me, this administration will do everything it can to make sure that low caps off with a slap on the wrist. that's my comment. ms. mccluer: the interesting the military is setup up that we do have civilian control of the military. civiliany we have a secretary of defense and the commander-in-chief's civilian but we also have a very ingrained policy and standard of not having unlawful command influence and on lawful command influence would be somebody above the convening authority in the case basically telling

convening authority or telling anyone involved in the case whether it's the judge or prosecutor or defense attorney or panel members are potential anybody above in that chain are not allowed to interfere. obviously, this is a closely watched case so everyone will be on guard for that. the president was talking about commuting sentences for drug-related cases. can he step in and commute the sentence? ms. mccluer: absolutely, there's always the authority for a presidential pardon even in military cases. there's also what we call clemency that could happen before that. if there is a conviction in a sentence in this case, the convening authority, the one who s the case with a general court-martial could lessen the charges. they cannot increase them and the same thing with the sentence. he could even throw out the

entire conviction and that's something that is being changed but, because the timing of this offense, the convening authority has that authority host: someone is on twitter talking about sergeant bergdahl speaking publicly about it court-martial. ms. mccluer: that's something that i tell my clients in every case not to do. privilege thatia you can keep it out of the court-martial but clearly his attorney must've thought it would help him host: bridgewater, new jersey, republican line. with 10 years in out of vietnam, i have to say that in contrast to other wars where the and everything

is pretty well identified, the situation in the middle east and afghanistan is worse than vietnam. is it taken into consideration that the kind of stress these soldiers are put under where the combat role and the intervention in the civilian setting and fighting what is essentially noncombatants because they don't identify the realm until they sure that you, is that given consideration? some of the officers who pass judgment on him are people with no combat experience especially in the kind of war he was fighting in. i just wonder if -- i know this whoot fair to the soldiers did well in combat.

if there is not a rush to put these people into the field and you decide by which ones you can count on and psychologically stand this confusion and stressed -- host: thank you, caller. certainly, even to get into the military, you have to have some sort of fortitude and be able to withstand stress. we discharged folks on a fairly routine basis for psychological issues where they could not deal with the stress for one reason or another. themselveshe charges and getting a conviction, the nature of the combat environment is probably not taken into account and is not one of the factors. in sentencing -- i would say i don't know anybody

in the army who has been in the army more than about five minutes in the past 14 years who does not have combat experience. i think you are fairly likely to have folks who have been in iraq and probably afghanistan. times"the new york reported that he failed at coast guard training. is that part of this case? probably not in the findings portion because it's not relevant. the fact is he ultimately got a waiver to be in the army. sentencing, it could properly be used as a mitigating factor that he had a fragile psyche, perhaps. from california, democrats line, you are on the caller: i served 20 years in the united

states marine corps and i still have more respect for bowe bergdahl the donald trump. donald trump is a draft dodger. we let 9/11 happen. i hope you know that and we got proof over there. we built the biggest airport in the world about iraq. host: anything specific about the case? caller: no. texas.et's go to plano, caller: i have a comment and question. this has become somewhat of a politicized case. is it true that he left his weapon behind? i have seen his fellow squad mates who were enlisted men. totally condemning his motive. i have not seen enough of their views. we seem to get the rose garden thing from the president and people who were not there.

why are we not hearing more from the actual people that were there in his squad? ony are pretty unanimous their condemnation of bowe bergdahl and his motive. from the evidence i have seen, he did leave his weapon. he shipped some of his personal items like his computer back home before he left the base. fromr as the other folks his unit, i have seen plenty of them. it depends which news outlet or what day it is but it's out there. host: are there limitations on the defenses he might present that are more stringent than those of civilian criminal trials? ms. mccluer: for the most part, the defense is even wider open. i'm not sure this would apply in this case.

dissent even a complete to charges of you can put on the good soldier defense witches this individual is such a stellar military person that they could not possibly have had the intent and could not have possibly committed these charges. broad discovery and what the defense is given access to. host: we heard that sergeant deathwatch while waiting for this trial? ms. mccluer: it is typical that you are not going to be -- if you had a job where you are carrying ammunition or something, it's typical you would get a desk job. you might work for the chaplain's office. typical is is not

usually, if you have a desertion case, it's a good argument that there should be put trial confinement in the case. -- trial confinement in the case. every case i ever tried or defended, they were put to the trial confinement which is not easy to do it is not a standard thing. live by himself and is sectioned off from other people? ms. mccluer: he's basically in jail awaiting trial. in this case, he has not been in pre trial confinement. host: this is maryland, independent line, good morning. caller: good morning, and happy holidays. stronglyase, eileen toward a cripple. i lean strongly to a cripple and i think he suffered a lot. i'm not sure of the legal issues involved but this is my gut feeling in this case. ms. mccluer: we will see what

happens. does public open in factor in as far as how decisions are made? ms. mccluer: it should not factor in. panel, our version of a jury in this case, there will be extensive questioning of each individual who is a potential to say what it is you have heard about this case and have you made up your mind? can you keep an open mind in hearing this case? that will be interesting to see co. host: will this have media coverage? ms. mccluer: absolutely. host: michigan, democrats line, hi. according toieve, the unit code of military justice, that to convict for desertion, you have to prove that the guy never intended to return.

where hes they knew he on the morning report, would be transferred from awol to prisoner war and you cannot be charged with desertion until you have been awol for 30 days or more. i'm a korean war veteran. we had problems like this during the korean war you probably remember turncoat seven. they come in with the military code of conduct on how to conduct yourself while a prisoner of war. i think most of this is just political. i don't see how they can convict becauseeing a deserter they have to prove he never intended to return to the service. he was promoted while he was a

prisoner of war there. somes got to come into sort of consideration. ms. mccluer: that's interesting. in most cases, you are right, to surgeon -- desertion usually means you have to prove the intent to remain away permanently. in this case, the weights charged-- the way it is , the charge here is with the intent to shirk important service and avoid hazardous duty. they don't have to prove in this case that he did intend to remain away permanently. private firstis a class but ended up being a sergeant. how does that happen? it's kind of talking out of both sides of our mouth. individual who is absent and finds himself subsequently

but they return basically are not able to return because of their own misconduct -- you might go awol and intend to come back to your base but in the meantime, you have a dui or you shoplift and are in civilian jail. you say wait a minute, my awol is this date. case, the argument is that this entire time he was going was due to his own misconduct. conviction, you basically take him as a prisoner of war once you know where he is.

you do have the promotions and stuff like that that happen in absentia until you know better. john int's hear from greenwood, indiana, democrats line. caller: i would like for you guys to talk about his torture when he was captured. as i understand it, he was in a cage for over one year. o'reilly wantbill him convicted, he couldn't spend a week in a situation like that. i would like for the lady to tell us what she knows about his , what they did to him area ms. mccluer: i don't know anymore than what we have seen in the news reports. i think everybody would agree that there were horrendous conditions.

that will factor into sentencing if there is a conviction. host: this is robert from fort lauderdale, florida. caller: i think sergeant bergdahl was guilty of treason. he crossed the lines during times of war. he got six of his fellow soldiers killed looking for him and he gave comfort to the enemy appearing just like a woman in videos. when they turned him back the military, it looked like the taliban was saying goodbye to their girlfriend. case, allr: in this of the options that the uniformed code of military justice offers were on the table. the convening authority are rather the individual who preferred the charges did not see treason as a realistic option. vivianet's hear it from in temper, florida.

there have been other boys that have been captured. why was it that we negotiated so hard for this young man westmark have we negotiated this hard for others that have not been returned? happy holidays. ms. mccluer: as far as i know, i believe he was the only one for years who was captured. this is a unique case. host: what is the length of time of a court-martial? ms. mccluer: it can be anywhere from a few hours to a number of weeks. in this case, i would guess it's more along the lines of a number of weeks. host: as far as the people defending, what are their legal teams consisting of? ms. mccluer: it depends on the case. you might have as few as one attorney on each side of the case or you could have three on

each side. it's very rare you have that many on each side. it depends on the manpower ifilable and the need host: sergeant bergdahl receives a life sentence and it's carried out, where does he serve? if mccluer: it's a visit -- it's a life sentence, most likely leavenworth but their agreements with the military and civilian penitentiary system. he could be transferred from leavenworth to any of the federal penitentiary areas. last call, democrats line. caller: how are you doing? ms. mccluer: great, how are you. caller: i'm good. i don't know the history. soldiers that and went into iraq and afghanistan, the military force to them to

keep going back because they did not have enough people. how will that factor into what happens to him? force so this guy has probably seen people's heads get blown off. there was probably a whole lot of trauma but you being air force, you drop a bomb and you don't see the pure hell that that hand to hand combat unleashes. how will that be taken into consideration? i have to defend the air force brethren. the pilots dropped bombs and are far off in many cases. we have thousands of air force individuals who are called in

lieu of and are basically filling army slots where we just don't have the army personnel. they are seeing those horrible things as well. will factors of war into sentencing is for his mitigation if we get there. host: when does the trial begin? ms. mccluer: my understanding is the arraignment is set for this coming week. the arraignment can be a simple as the judge saying how do you plead. mr. bergdahl does not have to respond. that's also where you saw pretrial motions brought up. for ashat do you watch this goes forth? what should the viewers watch for as far has this might shake out? ms. mccluer: motions to me are some of the most interesting things. motions can be things like making sure that certain evidence gets before the panel and makes sure certain evidence stays out.

it ensures the whole process is being run the way it should so that if there is a conviction, the record will be easier to [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] host: thank you for your time this morning. ms. mccluer: thank you. use of theg up, the death penalty used in sick states this year and a number of executions overall was greatly reduced. robert done was up next of the death penalty information center. ♪ ♪ tvst: >> american history every weekend on c-span three. tonight at 8:00 eastern on lectures in history, louisiana state university history professor andrew burstein on the

unlike madeira in the united states, a time prior to the american revolution. scientifics with reasoning and ideas that shaped politics and morals of that generation. >> he starts out in 1727 by unto, theing ther j young men's improvement club. it was about improving their community, individual morals, they would be brooks and share ideas. these were young men like himself who were not born to wealth but who believed it was possible to rely on yourself to study and get ahead in society. >> sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. on road to the white house rewind, we look back at the 2000 campaign of george w. bush, his announcement to run while in new hampshire and his visit to the small businesses and it can festival. he went on to win the general election defeating al gore.

later at 4:00 p.m. on real america, the 1958 army film to" on the reason it was formed in the efforts by general dwight eisenhower to convince 12 other nations to support it. >> in december, night and 50, the north atlantic gave a single authority to equip and train an integrated nato force for the defense of europe. the task before him was unprecedented. though each of the nato countries would see to the supply and support of its own national forces, the supreme commander would be responsible for the coordination into a single international force. the changingm., historical narrative of mary todd lincoln, the possibility of how she would have been remembered if she had died instead of her husband and why some of her critics have labeled her is crazy. for our complete schedule, go to www.c-span.org.

"washington journal" continues. host: joining us from philadelphia is robert dun ham of the death penalty information center and will talk about the death penalty and the use of it the loweste being since 1998, good morning. mr. dunham: good morning. ast: guest why are we seeing reduction in the use of the death penalty? mr. dunham: we are seeing the continue of a long-term trend. in the late 1980's and early 1990's, there was high public support for the death penalty. it was about 80% and that has gone through a steady decline. we are looking at support for the death penalty in the abstract that is fallen to near 40 year lows. the pew research poll and cbs poll support at 56%. decline is a product of

both problems in the way in which people are selected to be sentenced to death and the they are which carrying out executions. on the front and, there are ongoing problems with issues of innocence. people in america don't want to be sentencing innocent people to death. they don't want to take the risk of executing innocent people. in the last year, six more innocent people were exonerated from death row giving the exoneration totals and's 1973 up to 156. people don't want innocent people sentenced to death. on top of the problems with innocents, we have persistent problems with racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty. there are ongoing problems that the public sees with forensic evidence. we have seen the dna revolution and what the evidence shows was not only that people who are innocent had been sentenced to

death of that the evidence used to convict them was also wrong. meant there were problems with fabricated confessions. there were problems with bad eyewitness identification. there were problems with junk science. all of those things have let people to be less certain about the quality of the evidence in cases. when the evidence is not as reliable, they are less willing to impose death sentences. that goes to the question of the unreliability of the convictions and queasiness among the american public about whether the death penalty is targeted at the right people. on the other side, people are losing confidence in the state's ability or willingness to carry in a fairsentences and evenhanded manner. problems very serious with the way executions have been carried out. very14, we saw three deadly botched executions including the execution of joseph would wear it took nearly

two hours before he died. he was observed gasping more than 600 times. have an having difficulty and confidently administering lethal injection in part because his unethical for medical personnel to participate. the people who carry it out are not adequately trained. states are also having difficulty obtaining execution drugs. the american pharmaceutical comedies have decided they don't want to be associated with executions. their drugs or medicines and they want them to be associated with saving lives, not taking lives. the states had to look elsewhere for the drugs they looked to europe but europe regards the death penalty to be a human rights violation. as a result, they prohibit the export of the drug to the united states. by eithere responded engaging in questionable practices in trying to obtain drugs. we have had instances of several

states like nebraska, texas, arizona attempting to illegally -- to illegally bring drugs into the country and they have been seized by the fda in airports in phoenix and houston. that is undermine public confidence and the willingness in administrating the death penalty because this is a legal proceeding. this is supposed to be an enterprise in which states are carrying out the law. engaging in ates variety of lawless practice and attempting to carry out the law seems contradictory. folks are saying that's not right. finally, one of the major things we see with conservatives as they say this is a policy we cannot trust the government to get right. year, they this executed charles warner illegally using a substance not allowed under is used -- under its laws and did not notice it and very nearly executed richard

lawson with a drug that they were not allowed to use. that kind of incompetence of they knew about it or utter disregard for the law continues to undermine public faith and the ability of states to carry out the death penalty. host: the use of the death penalty in the states and reduction and information from the death penalty information center, if you want to ask questions -- a little bit about the death penalty information center? mr. dunham: the death penalty information center was founded in 1990 to provide information and analysis about the way in which the death penalty is in a -- is administered. we don't take a position for or against the critical of the manner in which it is administered. our goal is to obtain information and disseminate information about the way the death penalty is administered in the united states pris.

host: in 2014, texas saw 10 executions. in georgia, there were two executions in 2014 and five in georgia in 2015. why those standouts? mr. dunham: it's interesting, states like georgia and texas have been executing people were sentenced to death in the 1980's and 1990's. those defendants had their appeals go through the system. for executionfe this year. what we saw in texas and georgia bucks the national trend. in 2015, there were only 28 executions, the first time since 1991 that there were fewer than 30. it's the lowest number of executions more than a quarter of a century and only six states participated this year which is

the lowest since 1988. what we are seeing is that fewer states are executing people. did, it'stes who narrowly concentrated so three texas,which were georgia, and missouri accounted for 86% of all executions this year. if you have florida, that was 93% and those four states accounted for 89% of all executions in the last two years. statesu look at it, 4 execute nine times as many people as the rest of the country combined. nationally, the numbers are dropping to start levels. we see that executions are concentrated in a few number of states and i was also the case with new death sentences being imposed. host: if the death sentence is not carried out, his lifetime imprisonment typically taking its place? mr. dunham: yes, when you take a

at the new developments in states like georgia or texas and virginia come all of whom executed people this year, what you see is very few new death sentences. it's because of three major reforms. executed nowing and were sentenced to death during the 1980's and 1990's and there was poor representation. both texas, georgia, and arginia all have implemented system of institutional capital defenders. since the institutional defenders have become involved in the cases, the number of death sentences has been reduced dramatically. at the same time that has happened, the three states now tell juries that life about possibility of parole is an option and that was not always available in georgia and texas. in virginia, they did not tell the jury's that. the year after the virginia lifes were first told,

just hit the roof that year. the number of death sentences in virginia dropped by 3/4 in one year. when you look at the executions this year as compared to the new death sentences, texas executed 13 people but the entire state of texas, there were only two new death sentences that were imposed. houston did not send anyone new to death row and neither did alice or ft. worth. when those three major cities don't send anybody to death in the course of one year, you know there has been a sea change in attitudes about the death penalty in texas. known was sentenced to death in virginia or georgia or missouri. yet those were the key execution states this year to host: if you want to learn more about how the states are dealing with the death penalty,

our guest is robert dunham of the death penalty information center. you are up first on our support line, go ahead. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. that if thebelief christ teachings were followed that death sentences would not be there. there should not be a death penalty. there should only be life without the possibility of parole. i think the thing that i would go with -- unless it was some kind of heinous, beyond the pale , then i would think the death penalty would be possible.

callerham: i think the is saying what many americans are saying. things,eligious side of there are interesting developments in the last year. the most prominent of those was pope francis speaking to congress. during his speech to congress, he gave a passionate explanation of why he is opposed to the death penalty. what he said to congress is inething we hear reflected the growing conservative opposition to the death penalty in the united states. we have heard over the years about the conservatives talking about the value of life as a conservative value. this dovetails into the question of innocence. we hear more and more of the

conservative politicians saying the death penalty is offensive to their religious notions and that the government of limited powers should not be taking other human life. we have also heard the conservatives talking about the value of innocent lives. situation like we have in the united states now or there is one exoneration for every nine executions, they say there is an on acceptable risk of taking innocent human life. is something we see more and more of the conservative politicians talking about. but caller was showing some reluctance about the death penalty. he thinks there are some individual instances where it may be justified. when you take a look at the public opinion polls, you can see a difference there as well. a shrinking majority of

americans say they support the death penalty in the abstract. when they consider it as a policy whether we consistently apply it to that narrow class of individuals whom they think might deserve it, we see more resistance by the american public. americans majority of in the american values survey now say that because of difficulties in assuring them that the death penalty will be carried out in an evenhanded and fair manner, the majority of americans say they now prefer light without possibility of host: parole. host:maryland, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. alternatives to the death penalty? you have touched on a couple like life without parole. are there others? some countries still have old-fashioned ideas like flogging and things like that.

we consider that to be cruel and unusual. would it be considered cruel and unusual to put someone away for the rest of their life to rot in prison? do we not have anything other than that? if i did something and was put away for 21 or more years, [inaudible] host: you are breaking up a little bit. on the question of physical punishment, i think it's pretty clear that the u.s. constitution prohibits physical basement. flogging would not be considered permissible. other things that are physically torturous would not be permissible under the eighth amendment. parole, of life without is that something that is cruel and unusual?

the u.s. supreme court is not considered to be cruel and unusual and there have not been any court challenges to that. the court challenges would most likely fail because there is the you falling standards of decency that looks at what the practices are by the states. since every state that has the death penalty offers life without as a lesser alternative, it seems difficult at this stage to conceive of life without approval is being considered cruel and unusual. as far as alternative punishments that may be available for murder, states are the ones that set the options. they do it in a variety of manners. they first do it by deciding what could and could not be a capital crime. they can set lesser degrees of murder but are pleasurable by terms of years. murder,comes to capital first agreement and most states, they can have a variety of sentencing options.

a choicees have between life without possibility of parole or death. others have choices between a life sentence in which there is parole after some extensive time and a middle sentence of life without possibility of parole and the death penalty. host: from illinois, this is bill, good morning. caller: good morning and thanks for taking my question. thatrgument is given because drugs of various kinds used in execution have been mishandled that that is the reason to oppose the death penalty. basically, a gunshot to the brainstem or the guillotine are very instantaneous and swift. why are those inappropriate for carrying out the sentences?

mr. dunham: the supreme court has not yet ruled on whether they are constitutionally inappropriate. the reason you don't see very many states doing that very few states moving to those as options is because they are unpalatable to the public. there was a survey done by nbc last year that took a look at what the american public thought they should do if lethal injection drugs were no longer available. the reality thought that the death penalty should be abolished. it was not a practice they would support without those drugs. punishmentsother like hangings are firing squad or bring back the electric chair, that was substantially lower. asked the year interesting question which was, do you think the following

punishments constitute cruel and unusual punishment? when they said lethal injection, of americans did not think that was cruel and unusual setting aside whether the havetions were botched but a thought everyone was debate the beheading was cruel and unusual. thought the firing squad was when unusual the while those two ways of killing people are considered by a number of experts to be very swift, they are overtly brutal and the american public thinks they are cruel and unusual punishment. host: in your report, you list those who were on death by state as of july of this year. california has 746 followed by florida and texas. practices inthat three states account for more

than half of new death sentences in the country. can you expand on that? yes, this year, we saw death sentences at historic lows. in the 1990's, we had a number of years in which more than 300 people were being sentenced to death each year. last year, we had a 40 year low when 73 people were sentenced to death. this year, death sentences plummeted to 49, the first time in the modern history of the death penalty that fewer than 50 were imposed. at the same time nationally death sentences were on the decline, we saw arises in the death penalty in a few areas. outlierhat we called practices, death sentences imposed as a result of practices that most of the rest of the country has rejected. the most prominent of these is the question of sentencing people to death without a unanimous jury agreeing to that. country, you have to

have a unanimous jury voting for imposed.ore it can be there are three states that permit judges to impose tough sentences after a jury is not unanimous. those are delaware and florida and alabama. this year, florida and alabama imposed 15 death sentences. 13 of those were cases in which jury did not reach unanimity. that's 27% of all the death sentences imposed in the united states. if those two states follow the same practices as virtually every other state, those would not have been death sentences. there would only have been 36 death sentences proposed in the entire united states this year. we have been tracking were death sentences have been imposed in the united states over number of years. we did a study in 2013 that showed that a majority of the nation's death row came from fewer than 2% of the counties in the united states. that is geographically concentrated in a small group of

counties and that produced an even larger portion of the death sentences this year, 63%. of that, one county in california, riverside, was responsible for sifting percent of all the death sentences in the united states -- 16% of all the death sentences in the united states. that grossly distorted the number of death sentences imposed across the country. riverside, itat has a higher homicide rate on average than other counties but not so high that it would justify accounting for 16% of all the death sentences in the country. when you take a look at what's going on in the outlier practices and outlier counties, you tend to see a number of criminal justice practices are questionable. you tend to see higher incidences of them prosecutor miss conduct and tolerating

levels of misconduct or not tolerable in other jurisdictions. you tend to see higher incidence of police violence and you tend to see racial disproportion's in the manner in which criminal justice sentences are imposed. what we saw in riverside is the jurisdiction in which there are very serious questions about ongoing prosecutorial misconduct. the federal court of appeals for the ninth circuit talked about an epidemic of prosecutors real misconduct in california and one of the cases it to to was the case in which riverside prosecutors had directly lied to the court about some practices involving prison informants. there are ongoing allegations in riverside county about questionable practices for wiretapping. indication that from the top, there had been undue tolerance of questionable practices.

riverside has changed its prosecutors this year. it remains to be seen what happens. but changing the chief prosecutor is one of the things that is most likely to change riverside, we have also seen an inordinate number of police killing civilians. riverside ranks ninth in the country in police doing civilians. -- killing civilians. in terms of race distortion outcome of the eight people sentenced to death, only one was white. five were latino, one was african-american, one was listed as other and had a surname that suggested middle eastern dissent current -- decent. symptoms has all the of a justice system with systemic problems. >> our guest from the death penalty information center, dave come up next, willington, delaware. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call.

this is a good subject. a couple of comments. first of all, one comment is i don't know how anyone can not that the delivery of the death penalty is not based on vengeance. either for what somebody feels is best for society or they feel what is best for the victims loved ones. the question i had is hopefully the debate on deterrence has been put to bed. my second comment, it goes back to the riverside example. they wouldould think be better efficiencies in the court system if prosecutors were left to place death penalty's in the front of jurors and put something that they can easily get a majority vote on and get the trial over with.

host: thank you, caller. guest: i think that raises two important issues. he first is deterrence and the second is the question of cost and cost-effectiveness. deterrence,ion of there is continuing evidence that the death penalty is not a deterrent. to the extent that there is any deterrent value at all, it is no greater a deterrent than the alternate sentence of life without possibility of parole. one of the interesting things we , another study this year that was released by the brennan center on justice at nyu , they took a look at a wide variety of factors that contribute to crime. one of them that was hypothesized as contributing to crime was reducing crime levels. one of the things they took a look at was the death penalty. they found there was no evidence at all that the presence or

absence of the death penalty affected murder rates. that is also something we have seen in most of the reputable current studies. the deterrent studies that suggest otherwise have been roundly criticized because of problems in the studies themselves. there is no evidence that is credible that there is any deterrent at all. in addition, when you take a look at the murder rates in death penalty states and non-death penalty states, we have seen consistently over the course of the last 20 years is that the patterns of murder rates going up and patterns going down are about the same in states with the death penalty and without. by whethert affected the death penalty is being used or not being used. what we see is that the overall murder rates in states that have the death penalty are higher twos -- historically and have remained higher than the murder

rates in states that don't have the death penalty. the question of cost, there is no question that the death penalty costs substantially more than life without parole. it costs more in trial, in incarceration afterward because everyone, in most states who is sentenced to death, is kept in solitary confinement, single celled, at a cost that is substantially more expensive than someone who is not sentenced to death. when you look at the overall cost of the death penalty, it is not just the cost of appeals although those costs are substantial. in cases in which the death penalty is imposed, it is the extra cost of capital prosecutions in cases in which the death penalty is not imposed. if you have 20 cases in which prosecutors know the death penalty is a possible punishment and it turns out it is imposed

in only two or three of those cases, the overall cost of the death penalty includes a 17 cases in which the death penalty does not get imposed. in all studies that have been , the costn all states for the death penalty is substantially higher. the final thing that the caller mentioned it is the question of the impact on the victim's families. one of the things that is interesting his a study that was done and published in a law journal compares the psychological, physical, and emotional health of family members of murder victims in texas weather is the death penalty and minnesota where there is not. they looked at the health of the family members of the victims from pretrial all the way through the final execution of sentence. what they found was at all levels of the proceedings, even among victims family members who believe in the death penalty and said they wanted the death penalty to be carried out, the

homicide victim's family members in minnesota were healthier at all stages then the family members in texas. that suggests the death penalty is not good for family members of homicide victims, whether they say they support it or not. host: this is david from kentucky. you are on with our guest. go ahead. caller: i am generally opposed to the death penalty. maybe in premeditated cases or mass shootings or killing a child. we have a local case here were a man killed a little girl and abused her. anyway, since dna came out several years ago, i wonder about how many innocent people have been killed. if there are any figures -- i know it is probably hard to know? and how many rich people have been killed?

you are talking about race -- aren't most of the people killed black? latino, whatever? thank you. there,the three issues innocence, wealth, and race. each of those raises substantial questions about the way in which the death penalty is administered. dna evidence is not available in most cases. difficult in more a number of cases to prove innocence. what we have learned from the dna cases -- there have been 20 people exonerated from death row as a result of dna. hundreds across the country in noncapital cases. what we have learned from the dna cases is not just that the dna evidence shows that an individual did not commit a particular murder, it also shows that the other evidence presented in the case was wrong. that has undermined confidence in a lot of the other evidence.

shownit has also us is patterns of misconduct and error that occur in cases. in the innocent cases this year, the six innocence cases, most of them did not involve dna. the 14 innocence cases over the last three years, the 14 exonerations, most of them did not involve dna. what they involved was patterns of prosecutorial misconduct. in fall of the 14 cases, there was serious evidence of misconduct. sometimes, there were prosecutors saying they could at the defendant who happen to be black that he was evil. acesw a lot of evidence -- were there were junk slides, bad forensic evidence. hair comparison, ballistics evidence where they try to , a defendantooter as being the shooter by saying they took a look at the bullet marks and were able to mark --

match those bullet marks to the shooter's gun. the fbi has backed off of a lot of that evidence. in some of the cases, we have state forensic experts who are giving false testimony during the question of innocence is persistent. we know there have been innocent people executed here cameron todd willingham in texas, he was executed on the basis of junk science testimony about arson. every arson expert now would say that the evidence they used to convict mr. willingham was completely unscientific and incorrect. several other cases where there is overwhelming evidence that the defendant who was executed and not commit the killing such as carlos where police and prosecutors actually knew a different suspect whose name also was carlos had committed other murders in the same manner. there are serious questions about the execution of the innocent. yearhen executed this

although six witnesses came forward to say he was not involved in the case. brian terrel was executed in georgia this year while evidence shows the footprints at the scene were too small to be his and none of the figure prints matched his. there are ongoing serious questions about whether the united states is actually executing innocent people. on the question of the rich -- there is a truism that is often spoken about capital punishment. that is, almost jokingly, if you happy capital, you don't get the punishment. that is almost always the case. there are very few people who are not poor who end up being sentenced to death. all of the studies show that the amount of resources that are available to the defense greatly influences the outcome. it is often the quality of counsel -- usually the quality determinescil that

what the outcome of a case is. if you have a bad lawyer or a lawyer without resources, you are most likely to get the death penalty. host: i have a question. if you don't mind, if i can squeeze in another call and you could give your thoughts from the last call to this next one. donald, st. louis, missouri. suck dick?you host: brian innis got a, michigan. we love that last one. he waited on the line to do that. what an idiot. , i am in myounger later 50's now, you think about harshness, death penalties. asyou get older, you realize human beings, we have all the potential in the world but we make a lot of mistakes. a ton of them. we want to put the burden on

ourselves as a society when someone does something so nasty that some people think -- let's kill them. you find out later that we have been wrong a lot. we have an absolutely wrong. lawssts far more with our upexecute someone, lock them so they never do anything to anyone else. have made a mistake, we can somehow try to make it right. host: go ahead. guest: that is one of the things we are hearing a lot about. if you make an mistake and execute somebody, that is your reversible. if you sentenced him to life without parole, and it is later thereered you are wrong, are remedies available. agoice scalia a few years

points to the case and north carolina and said this is a terrible murder, a rate murder murder, and this is a crime for which the death penalty should be imposed. there was a problem. while justice scalia was convinced that he should be executed, it turns out that henry:'s -- henry's -- the evidence of the trial indicated he did it, but there was evidence that was not presented any evidence that came in during the trial was incorrect. reflecters comments some of the problems that we see in the criminal justice system. -- halfuestion of race of all of the murder victims in the united states are african-american. three quarters of all of the people who were executed or executed for murdering victims who are white. that is a persistent problem. you see racist victim effects throughout the united states.

in states like missouri and st. louis county, there is ongoing that it is being pursued in a racially discriminatory manner. racial thisexhibit portion audi in the use of the death penalty have had a practice of excluding african-americans from jurors. we like to century, think of ourselves as a post-racial society. the poet -- the fact of the matter is we are not. there are ongoing practices in a number of states by a number of prosecutors that essentially represent racial discrimination in jury selection and racial discrimination in the manner in which the death penalty is imposed. at this stage in our development in this country, that should not be tolerable. host: bob, oregon, your next up for our guest. caller: i am a retired driver.

you talk about the money -- ted bundy executed because he was guilty. then o.j. simpson, because he had the money, he got acquitted. i feel if he kills somebody -- if you kill somebody, you should be executed. it is called a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye. i am an italian and a firm believer that if you hurt somebody you should be hurt. if you kill somebody, life in prison or executed. if you have the money, like oj, you get off. if you are ted bundy, you get electrocuted. i don't know, it is a screwy system. if you hurt somebody, you should be heard, if you kill somebody, you should be killed. that doesn't make it right because it is the government or the state. if you hurt somebody, you should get hurt. i don't know. host: if i can add a thought from twitter, this is jen saying

that one good thing the governor of illinois did was stopping the death penalty. how are governors responding to this question on a state-by-state level? --st: what we are seeing is there are a number of states moving away from the death penalty. some of them are doing legislatively, repealing the death penalty this year. governor tom wolfe in pennsylvania issuing a moratorium on executions. pennsylvania became the fourth state to have a governor imposed moratorium on the death penalty joining colorado and oregon and washington. katie brown, the new governor in saidn, early in her tenure she would continue the moratorium that her predecessor had imposed. in nebraska, governor ricketts supports the death -- death penalty. he veto the legislative override

-- i'm sorry, he veto the legislative repeal of the death penalty, but the legislature then repealed -- overrode the governor's veto. after that, the governor and other death penalty proponents drive to a petition try to put on the ballot questions of whether nebraska should have the death penalty or not. they succeeded in obtaining a sufficient number of signatures to place that on the ballot. before the voters in nebraska in 2060. supports in some states the death penalty, others, they oppose it. in delaware, the governor has said he will sign a repeal bill if it passes the house of representatives and the senate. additional seeing is movement toward abolition in the states in general.

a split among the governors in which way they are coming out on this. small numbers of states, but growing numbers of states are imposing moratoriums. a growing number of states repealing the death penalty. we are now at seven legislative origin -- or judicial appeals in the last decade with a number of other states close to repeal. movement in a variety of states introducing bills to repealed their death penalties. host: sarasota, florida, you are the last call this morning. go ahead. is the costuestion for impact victims. what is being done socially, physically, and emotionally for the victims of people that are put on death row and life in prison? the 35-year-old man killed my 11 month old grandbaby.

all he gets is 15 years in prison while we are out here suffering emotionally, physically, and financially. what is being done to rehabilitate people like that who are life in prison who only get 15 years and come out to do it again? what is being done about those situations? for me and my family to get past the death of an 11 month old baby being killed by a 35-year-old man? all, let me of express my condolences for your loss. it is terrible and nobody should have to go through that. thatnfortunate answer is not enough is being done. directorshe board of of a victim services program for 10 years before i went into

death penalty work. what we saw in the criminal justice system was that there is done intle is being terms of psychological services for the family members of victims of crime. i think that is another serious fault in the american criminal justice system. the criminal justice system should keep in mind that there are numerous victims in capital punishment cases. the family members go through unspeakable loss. we need to be providing meaningful compensation -- money does not do it. money may be necessary in some cases there is a movement to require restitution. in fact, oklahoma voters said in a poll by sooner.com, that they

would favor abolition of the death penalty if it was replaced by life without parole plus the people who were sentenced for the murders working in prison and contributing to a restitution fund. restitution is an important aspect of criminal justice reform. i think we ought to be paying more attention to that. it is unquestionable that psychological services are necessary. more of them should be offered. host: robert done with the death penalty information center. out ont that is put death penalties in the states -- mr. dunham, thank you for your time. for the remainder of our program, open phones, 202-748-8001 for republicans, 202-748-8000 for democrats, 202-748-8002 for independence.

we will do open phones until 10:00. we want to tell you about our newsmakers program which takes to -- takes place tomorrow at 10:00 through six ago. thetor lamar alexander, chair of the health, education, labor and pensions committee talking about a variety of issues including why he things a new education law is needed. >> it began with no child left behind in 2001. federal requirements for tests, reporting the tests, a few other things. when president obama came in, that accelerated with what they call race to the top. congress, and we get ourselves the blame, we felt since 2007 to reauthorize no child left behind, suddenly, government -- governors had to come to washington pleading mother may i saying may we evaluate our teachers this way? maybe set of standards this way? maybe fix performance goals this way?

washingtonou had running 80,000 schools in 42 states. we got rid of all of that. we kept the tests. we will know how people are doing. those are state designs tests. what to do about the tests now moves to the governors of chief state school officers, classroom teachers. that is why it had such support. everyone was fed up with washington telling 100,000 public schools so much about what to do. onwas creating a backlash efforts to set higher standards, namely, common core, and teacher evaluation. >> i know you are careful and crafting those prohibitions. the department can still enforce this law. some school district advocates i have spoken to are worried about this department trying to continue to wield a big federal hammer to the extent that it can. >> they shouldn't do that. they need to read the law carefully. we expect them to do it and follow the law. there are specific prohibitions, as you said. we have an oversight response

of. senator murray and i talked. we will have at least three major hearings and our education committee in the senate to oversee the imitation of the law during 2016. -- the implementation of the law. we will have the chief state school officers, the teachers, the school board members. we will say, what is going on? what is the department doing? how are you taking on response ability? i believe when we take the handcuffs off, we will lift -- release a flood of innovation and ingenuity classroom by classroom, state-by-state, that will benefit children. >> washington journal continues. host: open phones for the remainder of our time today. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. independentsfor

. we will do that until 10:00. a story looks at the marco rubio campaign. a recent statement made about immigration in the new york times saying that the anger towards mr. rubio on the right has only grown in recent days as he has taken an -- to aggressively question senator ted cruz is question on immigration here is a bit of that ad from the ted cruz campaign. ted cruz: securing our borders and stopping illegal immigration is a matter of national security. that is why i fought so hard to defeat president obama and the

republican establishment gang of eight plan. it would have given and the authority to admit syrian refugees, including isis terrorists. that is just wrong. radical islamic terrorism, we need to rediscover ronald reagan's strategy. we win, they lose. i am ted cruz, and i approve this message. phone,gain, on this open first up, if you want to call us, 202-748-8001 for republicans, 202-748-8000 for democrats. independents.or the lead story of the new york times of that the $1.1 trillion budget deal that was passed by congress yesterday, first in the house, then in the senate. highlights the fact that the agreement also a fracturedsily legislature can seem functional again where there is agreement to spend money.

poor republican leaders in congress, there is motivation to show they were capable of governing trade as soon as the senate adopted the measure, mitch mcconnell declared by any objective standard that the senate can work. gregory, pennsylvania, republican line, good morning. caller: good morning, sir. my comment is in a general nature. it has to do with the judiciary. peoplenction of trying and determining their guilt and innocence. also, the sentencing phase. i think, perhaps, the sentencing pooledhould be cooled -- nationally so we have more uniformity in sentencing for various crimes. , in determining

guilt or innocence, that is shouldheir functions cease. there is too much disparity between the states with regard to penalties for similar crimes. i don't know what your feelings are on a more whether or not the constitution addresses that, but it seems to me like there is too much in a single courtroom having to do with determining guilt and/or innocence and also sentencing. host: is there a specific reason that brought you to that conclusion or things you have seen over the years in terms of how things happen in a courtroom? caller: yes. court in any local jurisdiction throughout the country and they are innocent or guilty. if they are guilty, they suffer ostracism that lasts until age 70. they don't even know that. their life is made difficult,

and they are told, as a result, a low class environment where they can hardly thrive because of that fact. that should be addressed independent of the judiciary's. in other words, a sentencing phase that is independent of the judgment face. host: that is gregory in pennsylvania talking about how trials are. 202-748-8001 for republicans, 202-748-8000 for democrats, and .ndependents, 202-748-8002 we are hearing from michael in st. petersburg, florida. hello. caller: hi. i am life. i was wondering if we signed an agreement in paris for the rejection of carbon and then president obama flies around in a 747.

i wonder how much carbon he is ?ontributing maybe that is part of the agreement and maybe it is not an i'm just an independent wondering what is happening in this world. host: what did you think about the agreement overall? caller: it is a necessary thing. it has a lot of problems with regard to africa. africa is in the stone age. we are going to have to contribute there. we can certainly do it over here with solar. it is a huge problem. i don't really know if it is actually just the evolution going towards, and i kind of think it is. we certainly are intruding to it by not -- contributing to it by not in limiting the latest technology. host: when it comes to her know what technology, do you think

solar is the answer and works outside of states where you live? caller: i think it could. as you can see, right now, everyone is being taxed for having solar. have you noticed that? host: what do you mean by taxed? caller: in other words, because you are getting off the grid, you will have to pay a penalty. that will preclude any rapid development. you are seeing case in point with electric cars. that is why oil is down to where it is. piccadilly inh, the more wealthy -- particularly with the wealthy people in trying to clean up the act. old man but we have come a lot about way with automobiles and we can go more. host: homer in tree port, indiana, democrats line. how are you doing?

was just thinking about obama's approval rating. if you look back now, i have been watching c-span. my daughter was in iraq in 2002-2006. if you look at the republican party and the way they are lack -- acting, donald trump, rush limbaugh, everything else, for a black individual living in , theca my greatest fear derogatory language being expressed. lgbt, this muslims, is a disgrace that we allow .eople like donald trump mitt romney, dick cheney, rush man -- wethe black

have to look at this. they called in here, a lot of the white americans. republicans, 75%, they look at of an ethnicon group. we had to stop the discrimination, man. muslims need to condemn -- what they need to do comedy white american christian -- condemn what the white republican is trying to put these countries and two. host: homer in louisiana. one of the stories that broke yesterday afternoon concerning the bernie sanders campaign was about the use of data that was available at the dnc and how the sanders campaign got access to the data. that forced a lawsuit from the sanders campaign. here to talk about it on the phone to see how that got result , politico, you have been following this.

thank you for joining us. for those who haven't followed this, set up what happened for the threat of a lawsuit and where we are now? thank you for having me. it is a very collocated story. to make a long story short, on wednesday, there was a glitch in the technology that allows the democratic candidates access to the voter files. people associated with the sanders campaign, people working on the sanders campaign, apparently took advantage of the glitch and went in and took data that belongs to the clinton campaign. once the dnc found out about this, the sanders campaign was alerted, the sanders campaign fired its data director. the dnc suspended the sanders campaign access to this file itsh effectively shuts down organizing operation. this file is extremely fundamental to running a campaign in this day and age. the sanders campaign is quite

upset, they filed suit against the dnc and has turned this into a war. around midnight last night, the sanders campaign agree to an independent audit. at the end of the day, it looks like they have access to the voter file. obviously, tensor -- tensions are running high. host: as far as the war you referenced, is this about this incident and specific or are their larger issues between the sanders campaign and the dnc and others that would cause a war, so to speak? guest: certainly the latter. this is what set it off at the end. the whole premise of the center's campaign is a fight against the political establishment which, to sanders supporters and to people who work with sanders is a paralyzed by the dnc -- you can demised -- epitmoized by the dnc and

hillary clinton. a believe she has on her ties to the dnc and the dnc has tried through its debate schedule and fundraising mechanisms to set the race up so that clinton is given an unfair advantage. this is how it burst out into the open. we have been hearing these lesles for months -- grumb for months, if not years. this is the latest articulation of it and the recent action we have seen. host: here we are in debate night, democrat are expected to become part of the conversation? guest: i would be shocked if it is not drive a conversation. and they willy want to have a policy discussion. i have been told, reliably, the sanders campaign views this as a fantastic opportunity. they truly believe this is their chance to rile up their voters, to bring in some liberals who are fed up with the political system.

one thing that we have all been from 2016 is that there is a lot of populist anger that a lot of people are fed up with politics, as usual. that is sanders's message. will clinton left get away with it? we will see. her campaign manager was angry because it appeared that the sanders campaign was fundraising off of this which makes it look like a political ploy. there is no doubt that this will be front and center. to the extent that it becomes the driving conversation remains to be seen. host: have we heard a formal response from the clinton campaign about the information aspect of the story? guest: yes. they held a conference call with reporters last night and put out a few statements. they say the information that was taken by the sanders campaign is extremely valuable. the key to the groundwork of the entire campaign. they are really shaken by this in brooklyn in the early stage. a lot of this campaign had been based around the idea of

organizing. there believe is at the sanders campaign had unfair access to the central document or information that is driving the clinton campaign's strategy. that is why they are so up set. host: following the story not only about the specific information technology aspect, but the larger political issue. he has a piece and politico you can read today. thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: again, that debate between the three democratic presidential candidates will be at 8:00 tonight on abc. you can see that tomorrow on c-span courtesy of abc news. we will re-air that tomorrow at 4:00. next up on her open phones, will , texarkana, arkansas, republican line -- bill. caller: good morning. i am a registered republican, but what the republican party is doing is totally alienating me

and a lot of people who think like me. this last budget they passed is the most harmful thing i have ever seen. we even had senator schumer him on and say that he never believed he would get what was in this budget. it is even more than what president obama had wanted. these are the people we thought were going to help rein in spending, stop some of these executive orders that the president has issued. stop what is going on in this country, rain in the spending. it is not happening. i can't believe that the republicans who told us one thing and get to washington, d.c. and do completely another -- it is making me sick to my stomach. if there is any alternative, i'm going to be looking at it. host: nashville, tennessee, democrat line, hello.

say i: i just wanted to have never been so involved in politics since this year. it is scary across the board. you look at donald trump with his outlandish statements, saying things such as let's continue to block the borders. everybody is jumping on that bandwagon, but they are only talking about the borders. -- about the borders in mexico where there are people of color. what about the borders in canada? around the hall united states? it is just a focus on mexico. i am originally from california. when you go to california, there are streets like -- los angeles, itself. it was mexico's first. now, we want to kick them out. this is a country that is supposed to be about open arms. --ng it safely and eat legally, yes, but the focus to me goes right back on racism.

when you guys speak on the court system -- it bothers me that all that we see is people of color in jail. there is a big push about black lives matter and the donald trump something. he is with the guy physically abusing somebody, a protester. this is who we want for leadership? even on the democrat side, hillary clinton with the fraud we have going on -- it is scary for myself and my children. a lot of my friends are talking about if certain people get elected, we are out of here. it is outlandish, scary. it is really scary on where this country is heading. to get back on the jail thing, it is bothersome because i, personally, a lot of friends -- i grew up in the inner-city city. there are a lot of people on trial for things that they did not do and some who are on trial

-- but it goes back to the economic state that they are in and that they have no help. the system is set up so they fell. host: thank you. nashville, tennessee. she spoke -- there a story in the washington post this morning that says clinton currently receives 59% of the support among democrat leading voters while 28% back bernie sanders. it has changed little from what he received a month ago while the vermont senators dip from a high of 31st that 34% in november. martin o'malley stanza 5% compared to 2% in october. that is washington post following up on the sanders campaign. this is the wall street journal's take on it talking about how he could possibly win a a nomination without manager. apart from vermont, nowhere on the map is promising for the newaign compared to hampshire. the state is overwhelmingly

white and has a large chunk of liberals. it has younger voters in the weeks after the new hampshire primary, a series of southern primaries with a heavy african american population who is loyal to mrs. clinton and her husband, former president will clinton. texas, republican line. caller: i am very upset with the leadership of the republican party. i think mitch mcconnell, our , ther senator in texas people that i talked to hear are going to vote him out of office. we are all behind senator cruz. i am upset with paul ryan because they made a mistake. every time he turns around, they

vote with the democrats. i used to be a democrat and gave it up the last election. i thought the republicans stood up for the american people. we have these syrian people coming into the country. the about taking care of asians, mexicans, the homeless? we need to take care of our people who are already here on the streets. i am from baltimore originally. i go up there to visit and i see people on the streets. we need to take care of our before we let these illegal immigrants and our country. host: dave from texas. our local content vehicle that travels the united states and visiting cities to not only explore their historical content but also their literary ones for

our american history tv and booktv, they travel the country and you see them every weekend. in massachusetts, the focus of our weekend and amongst the things he will see on c-span2 and c-span3 is an interview author james dembski. he writes about the torture life -- poet, arta publisher, collector. he was born in 1889 into an extremely wealthy family in worchester, massachusetts. i found him fascinating for a lot of reasons. first of all, his achievements in publishing the magazine which attracted a lot of the great writers of the period. both the younger writers who we tend to call the modernist and

some writers from the older generation. the list is endless. if you look at the contents page, it reads like a who's who of all of the great writers of the period. also, the great artists of the period. arch was included in every issue -- art was included. through the magazine, they are introduced to america many of the great modernists of the time and many picasso others. this you can hear more weekend on booktv and american history tv as we travel to worchester, massachusetts and to watch video of all of the cities we have visited, go to our c-span city store website, www.c-span.org/citiestour.

democrat line, hello. caller: hello. thank you so much for taking my call. i wanted to touch on one last subject and then i will move on to my second point if you will please not cut me off. segment, ihe last noticed that most people seem to be against the death penalty. i wonder how many of those people would be for the death penalty when it came to dylann roof or the cop that shot down the teen in chicago? my next point of view would be, if you will please not cut me off, most of the people seem to be on the bandwagon of donald trump.

thatupsets me so much is donald trump seems to be creating a dialogue. the dialogue is -- has to do with the border. everybodythinks -- has been offended. everybody has been offended. the thing about it is is unless you lived in the south or in certain areas and when you see your area or you see your .ommunity totally dissipated one of the areas would be african-americans and white communities. what has happened to these communities? they are gone. to thes happened construction communities? the roofing communities? manufacturing communities? host: fred from hansel, alabama,

independent line. hello. caller: good morning, c-span, washington journal. i will talk fast. i hope you can keep up. planetreature on this has a natural instinct of self-preservation. individual and collective. we, in america, have lost our sense of self -- self-preservation kitchen and homeless shelter for the rest of the world homeless shelter for the rest of the world. these people in washington expect us to trust them to refugees0 plus from a war-torn country where the perpetrators have filed to kill and attack america when they couldn't keep up with 19 middle eastern men roaming around this country on five visas who blew up the world trade center. the tsarnaev brothers, we nationalize them and made them citizens because nowadays, we would make a ham and cheese sandwich a national citizen. we are handing out visas by

calling candy. we don't know who is here who is not, this country will not last another 150 years because we have lost our sense of self-preservation. thank you, pedro, have a nice day. host: georgia, mike, hello. it is the same rhetoric you hear from people back when other immigrants to the united states -- every group that has come here, the irish face the same type of vitriol. america is changing because of some immigrant group. it is the same kind of frederick -- rhetoric that donald trump is capitalizing on. hatred and fear. that is what the country has come to. the humanitarian aspect of the united states -- it has only been a country with a big heart.

understand this is mostly liberals giving america that image. the country has always been a ravaged whereple they have been. your ancestors and most people listening, your ancestors were once in that situation where they had no refuge but for this country. every time there is a group that is under strain and they tried to find some type of refuge, there has always been this issue of self-preservation and so forth and so on. america will no longer be america because of some other group coming in. host: michelle, wisconsin, hello. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a couple of quick comments. my first comment is on the budget where i have heard people

on the republican line calling saying democrats have a bunch of money for spending. people need to realize that in that budget, our nations that has to be paid. if we don't pay our bills in this station, your trillion dollars turns into billions of dollars because of interest rates. people need to be aware of that. a lot of that is that's that need to be paid. number two, i am also calling on commenting on how gun control has gotten out of control because where i live, i had to go through a guardianship for my son who is severely autistic. he can't talk, read, print, color, right, anything. out of the three pages of rights that were revoked which i totally understand because of his being severe autistic, the one right they kept intact was his gun right. how can anyone who is listening

to this right now think that that is a good idea? that somebody who suffers with a mental illness as bad as my son should be able to have a gun? that is wrong. our gun control has gotten out of control. thank you for taking my call. i commented on what i needed to say. host: roger, michigan, independent line, hello. i was talking to the the blackle ago, organizations, the white organizations, muslims, all of these religious people and all of the people black, right -- white, green, yellow. nobody ever mentions the american indians that the blacks help slaughter, the whites slaughtered. worse than anything else in american history.

nobody says a word about that. in michigan. roger by the way, every monday on our network we have been airing a special called landmark cases which looks at cases decided by the supreme court that still have influence and our modern day and age. this past monday's program features jeff rosen from the national constitution center as he talks to a caller who asked about not being read his miranda rights. the breathalyzer, ipass that. he wanted to take me into the police station for a blood test. once there, i have my glasses taken away from me. i wasn't allowed to read the paper in front of me. to make a long story short, he marks this thing saying i refused it. i was detained, he kept asking me questions. i wasn't read my miranda rights until three hours later. at what point is he supposed to read the miranda rights? thate interesting thing is

you don't have to be read your miranda rights to have a blood test because the court upheld that blood is not testimonial. it is merely physical evidence. agomay remember from long during the clinton impeachment investigation, we saw the president of the united states in the white house having his blood taken. he had no fifth amendment right to refuse that because of the court's holding that that is not testimonial. in fact, the thing i ever most definitely for my criminal procedure class in law school was my teacher jumping up and down saying blood, blood, blood! there is nothing else you remember from this program than those words. although it seems her genetic that the police -- it seems dramatic that the police can extract blood from you without your consent, you are not actually incriminating yourself with your own words according to the supreme court. you don't have a miranda right. that was the case, miranda versus arizona which dealt with the miranda rights issue.

you heard a bit about that. you can see that whole program on our landmark case website if you want to view the program. , youcoming monday at 9:00 can see a case looking at roe versus wade, our monday night broadcast of landmark cases. monday, 9:00, roe versus wade. i should mention that if you are interested in watching that miranda rights case that we are tonight at 7:00 if you want to watch it on c-span. let's go to thomas in fresno, california. thank you for waiting. idea about thean death penalty deal. guy outo do with this here in cincinnati or wherever he was and is other couple of girls. we cut this guy red-handed. what i would have done if i was the police commissioner -- i would have put into a trial,

then i would have put him in the back of a patrol wagon, taken him into the near it, and said ok, here you go, he is your problem. in other words, those people in the neighborhood, they don't want him either their, right? instead of putting them in jail for letting him kill himself, i think it would be nice if the neighborhood would clean up the nests -- mass. that would be a strong message across america. i appreciate you doing this kind of stuff. you can expect the same kind of justice. drop you off in a neighborhood, and we will come back in a week and think this guy up later. host: james, alabama, democrats line. punishment -- i believe that capital punishment fits the crime if you go in a , walkchoice to take a gun into a store, and shoot someone.

you have taken away these a last phonets -- call, a last meal, any justice whatsoever. ,ou have a smoking gun person they made that choice. they knew that the law is on the books that if they were going to give up their rights just as quick. you take them, you have someone that you can take in and even use their parts as a donor. you can take them out and it doesn't cost us a lot of money to enforce the laws on the books. hang on to the fact that now we have to keep the additional system tied up for years. thank you. host: one more call, ronald, thought, pennsylvania. go ahead. caller: in the first place, since everyone is so in love -- in love with the death penalty, have a televised girl let people see what really happens. we lost contact with

ronald. that will be the last call we will take. for tomorrow's program we will continue on our conversation about the 2016 campaign, especially in light of tonight's debate of the democratic presidential candidates. and kelly mkin conway will join us for the conversation at 8:00 tomorrow. the former investor to morocco and committee advisor mark ginsberg joins us. the topic is combating isis. , look at your phone calls washington journal comes your way at 7:00 tomorrow. see you then. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> coming up today on c-span, a conversation with general mark milley. and then we take you live to new hampshire with an event with senator lindsey graham. and later, a senate hearing on u.s. strategy in afghanistan. army chief of staff general mark milley talks about military readiness and the role of reservists at a recent event in washington, d.c. hosted by a center for a new american security and defense one. this is 35 minutes.