the last 40 years, there have been more and more gun laws. there are six million reasons in europe that we should have gun laws. thank you. >> thank you, mr. cook. the next question will be for andy martin. >> mr. martin, following up on that, when we have a terrorist incident, mass shooting of any kind, from newtown to san bernardino, the debate turns at least from the white house to the second amendment. are there any restrictions that you find sensible that have been suggested by the president that should be imposed on gun ownership or available weapons and do you agree with the president's executive action to close so-called gun show loopholes? >> to answer the gun show answer first, no. actually, i agree with, of all people, bernie sanders. bernie sanders represents vermont and i'm actually doing a story about how hillary clinton shot herself in the foot by attacking him for gun control and bernie's argument on the

debate side. i do occasionally watch the democratic debates, has been we have to sit down and see if we can work out sinceable accommodations. the problem we have with president obama is it's impossible to know whatever makes sense and what doesn't because whatever he says polarizes the nation. in his own way, bernie sanders is making sense when he says, look, i live in vermont as a socialist. he doesn't support gun controls of a stribblingter nature. >> thank you, mr. martin. in 2013, the senate detected the proposal that would have expanded background check requirements to all gun purchases, including those at

gun shoals. senator shaheen of new hampshire supported that what would your vote have been? >> well, i don't think you need a machine gun to kill a rabbit but i do respect people's rights to have a gun. you know what's wrong right now with the terrorists going on? none of the press and none of the politicians are asking why so many people in other countries hate us. now, i was out to chattanooga when the marines were killed and i've had armed forces come to me and say we understand that you protect informants. we're going to give you some information that the american people should know about but you can't give up ouritis. i said of course not. if you let me, i will. if i give up your name, i'm out of business. they told me the obama administration and past administrations have helped promote people to sign up for isis.

i said why do you feel that way? all the bombs and chemical war far -- warfare that were given to the iraq president, saddam hussein -- >> tough. thank you for your answer. >> therm given to military companies. that's why a lot of other countries hate us. we have to find out why they hate us. until we do, we can't stop the terrorists, and they're going to come. >> that question will be for mr. -- >> you mentioned nanches's live free or die attitude. should the government be smaller hahn than it is today and if so, how would you balance that with the needs of everyday americans? >> government should be smaller. it should be smart. technology has to be used to make the people we protect more first quarter.

there has to be smart technology used to protect the people. i propose using smart repry to enhance the availability of weapons for legal ownership. the smart weapons will prevent people from accidentally shooting other people. there are other issues that you have to deal with. look at the amount of money and these constant terror threats are draining away our resources. we have to somehow remove this constant drain from us and we can't count on the police being there when something happens. i was attacked by seven men -- i didn't have a weapon. so these things have to be protected by the second amendment. >> thank you. john, the next question to mr.

robinson. >> i'm going to stay with that topic. as president, how would you propose protecting our schoolchildren and our college campuses in an effort to be sure there's no more sandy hooks or community college in oregon. some say there could be restrictions on gun ownership, others say there could be more guns. there should be armed officers, retired policemen in the schools. >> it would take much longer than 60 seconds to answer your questions request -- question. i've given it a lot of thought. believe it or not, one of my concepts would be to legalize tie -- pirate bay. what it allows people to do is to take down all types of computer programs and movies and videos and whatnot without

paying for it. now, if you think about it, what is a person using a gun responsible? the answer is you have two things. what's the concept to -- of an accessory to a crime. by legalizing priority bay, you take all these people in the video and movie business and computer programming business who like guns and you'll see it from a much different point of view. >> thank you. we're discussing the second amendment, a right that americans hold dear. the next president will likely have an appointment tot supreme court. why don't we go down the line and each of you name a supreme court justice that you consider

a model of the kind of justice you would like to appoint if you have the opportunity to do so. >> i'm sorry, i didn't hear that question. >> what would be a supreme court justice current or former that woulded, you would consider a model for the kind of justice you would appoint? >> i still don't catch it. i'm sorry. >> why don't we go this way. what qualifications in a supreme court nominee would you consider? >> well, i'll tell you, i took a major in accounting and business in college and i know how to add. one-and-one make two nor three, like congress thinks. there's so much on the backs of the working people -- i mean

every illegal alien that comes into this country and refugees, the working person has to pay for them and we have to eliminate these programs and the only reason why we have so many illegal aliens is because we don't enforce the law. if we'd enforce the law when the first one came in he wouldn't be here. we don't need to build a wall. we need to bring the soldiers back because we can't afford anymore to police all these countries. i feel for my grandchildren. are they going to be able to have a house? i'll tell you will right now, i'm the only candidate that has the qualifications to turn washington upside down and i can do it. >> thank you, mr. comley. mr. cook, the supreme court question. >> ideally i'd like to have someone that models thomas jefferson and for freedom. i think of chief justice roberts right now, someone along that caliber is who i would like to nominate to the supreme court. i think he would be a good -- someone similar. >> i think i want to focus on ethics in the judiciary.

i'm having a lot of problems with judges who are ignoring facts and making orders and judicial judgments based on bias. so i think that's a big issue. we have to tackle the bias in the courts and in the federal courts, there's really no remedy to remove a justice at this point so maybe some kind of legislation to enable that feature to eliminate a justice. >> thank you. mr. martin? >> president reagan appointed the first woman to the supreme court and i'm a little embarrassed to say i can't remember her name right now. sandra day o'connor, thank you. i thought she was a very effective justice because she came out of the political process. she's she'd been a state senator in arizona and she understood the complexes of the different branses. yes, she was a swing judge but she was very bans balanced. we need to work towards sloughs and nod -- not towards inflaming people. >> thank you, mr. martin, and mr. robinson?

>> the justice who i admired the most was the supreme court justice luis brandeis and to me the most famous statement he made was democracy can only exist when we have a majority of the middle class. which we no longer have because of our enormous problem of unemployment and underemployment. on the other hand if we look at justice robins, he made an enormous mistake. he took his job as an adjudicator and decided he was going to be a legislator. that is totally unacceptable and not even legal. we have to get people who understand the difference between the two. the e.p.a. so clearly delin yates that what've is delineation and adjudication and that's what we need. >> thank you. we'll begin our second round of questions.

>> over the last few months, foreign policy have become wasn't of the most important issues to the american voter. what would be your chief policies? >> i helped in the haitian earthquake situation. we provided as much assistance as we could. i tried to negotiate the reopening of three hospitals to handle the injured but politics being what they were i was told once they get here how do we get rid of them? my concern was their health and safety. the same issues are being replicated around the world. there's terrorism, people are being displaced. those are the issues we have to deal with. we have to somehow get a grasp

on these people who are being forced out of their homes and provide them with a way to stay there, to protect themselves and fight off these forces which are forcing them to move. i don't want to be in that situation so we need to work together to make the world a safer place. >> thank you, and the next qu to mr. martin from john. >> thank you. i'd like to get everyone's opinion on it. secretary of state john kerry says that "the world is safer today because of the iranian nuclear deal." and he said it accelerated the release of the five american prisoners who had been held in iran. do you agree or disagree with that statement and why? >> i disagree with it and actually, my experience is unique. i was in iran in 1979 after the

hostages were taken and i was back in iran alone in 1980 so i actually dealt with the iranians person to person alone in that country and i managed to get along with them. my problem with what secretary kerry did and what the president did is that i believed they were too anxious for a deal and as a result i think, frankly, that donald trump has the better of the argument when he says they negotiated a bad deal. they're not good negotiators. i think we could have done a better deal, i think we should have and i'm concerned that we may not be safer. today as i was woman coming over here to this meet -- -- coming over here to many competing, they took thousands of candidates off the ballot in iran. that's not a democracy. it's still a very dangerous and unsteebable theocracy and i'm not sure we can trust them. >> mr. robinson? >> first of all, we need a strong military because evil has no respect for weakness.

number two, in the year 2010, the european court of human rights, there was a question that took place in cyprus and the muslims are the people who proposed and the court agreed with them that in the case of the christian greeks who were forced out of their homes in the turkish section of cyprus was -- were not entitled to go back to their homes but they were entitled to compensation. i think all we have to do is take that human rights court decision and put it together and be very frank about solving the israeli-arab problem and you'll find a lot of peace in this world. the one thing that we accomplished with iran and we made much closer friends between

saudi arabia and zreal. >> same question? >> i'm not favorable of the deal. in fact, iran, the muslim government hates israel. the deal will help enable them to get nuclear weapons, but yet our own government wants to disarm the citizens. that simply doesn't make sense. iran is one of the largest state sponsors of terrorism. as a result of america with the deal that makes america the largest state sponsor of terrorism by funding iran. that's wrong. >> mr. comley on the iran deal? >> he knows my family. i don't agree with the deal because he was going the reverse direction in 1941, pearl harbor, we lost 200 soldiers. 9/11 we lost 3,000 people and i have information that was ginn to me by insiders inside the nuclear regulatory commission

and it threatens 300,000 citizens in massachusetts and beyond. i watched the pbs documentary the other night on bombs. do you know that we have 60,000 nuclear warheads and we tell iran they can't have one? do you think that's going to sell? that's not going to sell. we should take the leadership in disarming nuclear weapons. we should do it and if we don't, you're going to have -- keep giving the terrorists -- we have to take the lead in disarmament. if we don't we're going to have a nuclear disaster in this country a lot worse than furyk cheapa or -- i don't agree with kerry, no. he's going in the reverse

direction. >> answer on the iran deal? >> yes and no. yes, it's good to get americans released. no because it's dangerously close to paying for the hostages. those are my concerns. as a world trade center family member and a first responder, i'm also concerned about the judgments that were placed against iran. it's a very complicated issue. i don't have all the information. i would have to see if we're making real progress with bringing iran into the world community and from that i would have to make my decision. >> thank you.

>> staying on foreign policy, i'll pose this question to you, mr. robinson. president obama has said he will present to congress this year a plan to close the detention center at guantanamo bay. in congress doesn't act he's said he's considering using his executive order to do so what would you do with the center at guantanamo? >> we know that president obama has issued more executive orders than any president before him. that means he's a dictator -- dictator, not a president. he said he was going to close guantanamo bay and obviously he hasn't. i think that's a perfect li good example of somebody who's decided to be a dictator and not a president. >> how many of you would keep the detention center open? >> i would put hillary clinton will will. -- there. >> would you close it down?

>> we're going through a process where we're bringing cuba into the world community so i think i'd have to see what happens with that meshing of cuba with the rest of the --. >> mr. comley, mr. martin has brought up donald trump and donald trump seems to fundamentally change the nature of the republican rails. what's your take on mr. trump and the policies he's raised, particularly immigration if -- immigration? >> mr. donald trump, i think -- his poll numbers are up there because in america the people are very angry about what's going on in washington. immigration, you know -- if they're illegal and they have a record, we're going to send them back in a cab.

and every illegal alien that's in the country right now has got to be held accountable from the time they broke the law. either they have to pay a lot more taxes or they're going to keep coming here. you have to enforce the laws. and we aren't doing it. the bible says law is the law of heaven. we got chaos in this country. it's a mess. we have to fix it. we have to be involved. we just can't complain about it. the working person, i don't know how they're doing. and we have to rescue them. and i got informants coming to me on every issue. it's not just nuclear. i got medicaid fraud coming to me. obamacare is going to destroy the quality of care that hospitals and nursing homes are able to deliver because the refugees -- >> we're going to have to move

on. >> workers are going to pay for all that. >> mr. martin, why don't you go ahead. >> i've had a unique relationship with donald trump. shortly after he married his first wife, he wanted to move into my building and i was on the board of directors of the building where he wanted to move and normally i used to approve the contracts as i was in the building during the day so i like to tease and say i'm the only person that's ever said you're hired to donald trump because i approved his lease. also, i was an informal advisor on trump tower. on balance, i think his impact has been positive. he brings an incredible amount of energy. threatens the established order and all of those are good. we have an encrusted bureaucracy, political, republicans, democrats. both parties are corrupt. it's not just the democrats, it's not just the republicans. trump has pluses and minuses but on balance i think he's been a tremendously positive force in this election.

>> thank you. mr. robinson, some republicans say if donald trump was the nominee you -- they wouldn't support him. would you? >> i would like to know who the democrat is before i would answer that. i thought you were going to ask me about the situation on immigration in general and if i may respond to that as well. my father, sisters and brothers, my four grandparents were all immigrants. people are immigrants for two reasons. they're looking for work and looking to live in a democratic society. therefore, what we have to do is there is plenty of room for them in this country. we have to realize how do we employ them with decent major jobs and how do we give them the opportunity to be legal just like my father and grandparents did.

my father came from ireland so when i was born in boston, i was not only a citizen of the u.s. but a citizen of ireland as well. that's what i-want to do. i want to cut out all this unemployment we have in country, which is the real problem. convert to it sole and i have three other properties of employing people. i have to stop. >> the next question from john. >> i'm going to stay with that because mr. trump has been accused sometimes of going overboard. not only by democrats but by some in his own party, especially when he post office -- proposed a temporary ban of allowing people of muslim faith into the united states. do you feel that that's a legitimate response to some of the situation this is country has been faced with over the last couple of months? >> well, i think that isis does pose a real threat. also, i don't want to exclude anybody solely on their

religious beliefs but you have to wonder is islam really a religion or is it -- more of -- the nazis believed that not aim was also a religion. but from certain areas of the word i would restrict muslims from entering. i would not take the syrian refugee. if america wants to contribute, let them go somewhere else. why can't we send them to another country that's willing, but an outright ban -- no. >> the same question. >> i think that people want to move to safety. that they choose places to come based on their needs. there are lots of ways to immigrate to the united states. [indiscernible] in come together united states they're able to get visas to come here. there are lots of ways to bring

people here. there are lots of ways to protect ours from these radicals and that's what they are, a group of radicals which are offending everybody's standards of decency and they just can't be tolerated. we need to take a stand against these radicals, not against if entire population. i think we need to be charitable in our giving of [indiscernible] >> mr. martin, one of the things that donald trump has recently contributed to the dialogue is questioning whether senator ted cruz is counties constitutionally eligible to be president of the united states. what are your thoughts on that question? >> i have to keep an open mind because i'm having a forum next weekend and i've written to senator cruz and asked for documentation. you have to balance the intent

of the founding fathers with the power of the people in this room and in in this nation to interpret the constitution for our own needs and times. i'm clear that the founders intended for that natural born citizen clause to have a retraintive view but i'm also clear that society has basically loosened those requirements. i think it's a debatable question where mr. cruz falls. i was involved in the obama dispute and created it perhaps. obama had two of the three qualifications. he was born here and his mother was an american. he lacked one. cruz has only one of them, the mother. he was born in canada and his father was cuban so it's a tough question and that's why i'm sponsor sponsorsing a conference to get people a chance to talk. i have an open mind on it but i

think it's a legitimate question and i think whether you're a conservative or a liberal scholar, they agree it's a point of reasonable debate and discussion. >> a show of hands, who thinks that ted cruz is not constitutionally eligible to be president of the united states? just mr. robinson. mr. robinson, would you support a constitutional amendment to strike the natural born citizen clause? >> it is true that it is restrictive. we remember when mr. mccain was running for president. he was born in the panama canal zone because his father was in the military. obviously a person who is in the military, you cannot in any way restrict that person from running for president of the united states. if question is whether or not someone born in canada, as you say, born outside the united states where one parent was an american citizen, the person got american citizenship through his mother. so was he born an american citizen? yes, and what does the constitution have to say about

that >> next question for mr. k -- comley. >> massachusetts and new hampshire are going through drug epidemics. since two years ago drug deaths in new hampshire have doubled. what would you do as president to stem the tide? >> on drugs? >> yes. >> force a law. our kids have got a lot of temptations. we don't need families agreeing drugs in the back yard. we don't need it. we need to enforce the law and the price of freedom -- you know, the statue of liberty is out there. you can't discriminate from people coming in here but if you enforce the law -- the price of freedom, we have the k.k.k. still here and we got muslims coming in here. you enforce the law when you break it, that's what you do and we have to learn to live on this planet in a safe way. and you have to enforce the law in order for that to happen. we wouldn't have the 12 million illegal aliens if he had enforced the law in the

beginning. but we're not. what do we do with rapists? send them to prison for five years and we let them out for good behavior. that woman or man is going to live with that the rest of his life, or her life. we don't have enough prisons because we don't enforce the law. >> thank you. we should probably hear from all the candidates. let's go down the row. >> my view is this. as president, the united states constitution establishes powers for the federal government. what is not for the federal government falls back to the states. the federal government in think view is to protect the citizens of the united states from foreign powers spa as well as enemies foreign and domestic, which we do have enemies from within. i also think, as well as -- time is almost up but basically it's a states rights issue. to negotiate trade deals and

protect national interests. that is a state right and individual states should handle it. a states rights issue. to negotiate trade deals and protect national interests. that is a state right and individual states should handle it. >> what would you do is a president to help address the heroin epidemic? >> it's a medical issue. i'm a nurse. i was trained as a nurse practitioner. i would have to say it has to be a medical issue that is resolved with that issue. the second part of that is that illicit drugs generates illicit cash, which is used around the world for terrorism or for criminal activity. somehow we have to grasp this extra money being derived by criminals selling heroin ell illegally and maybe there's a

process we can do with treatment and getting some kind of limit -- of these products, like tobacco, like alcohol. they all have issues, medical issues and people should be treated to relieve these -- \[indiscernible] >> mr. martin, the same question to you? >> if i was the president, the first thing i would do is declare the war against drugs over. it's been a failure. that was one war we don't have to negotiate a peace treaty for. secondly, i would acknowledge that, at least in new hampshire, as i walk down highway three opposing a local transmission line, the northern pass, i saw hopelessly derelict homes. i saw people that were unemployed that are living on assistance. i saw factories across the connecticut river that had been closed and in vermont, they

exported the jobs and i believe that economic urgency and economic failure and economic precious creates the conditions where people will turn to drugs. so a strong academy would have a helpful bulwark. i don't want to call it a states right issue but i think a president can also use the bully pulpit to encourage the states to balance compassion with law enforcement. there has to be balance and that's what we lack today. >> and mr. robinson? >> we know that 40% of white males have a police record by age 23. a lot of this, of course, is drugs. why are they dealing in drugs? because they're unemployed. there is no decent middle class employment in country.

we have over 30% unemployed. we have another 30% that are underemployed and that's why people turn to drugs to make a living. because they want to eat, pay the rent and whatever their expenses are. we have to create honest employment with middle class wages and that's what i'm talking about from day one. that will solve motives your problems. >> thank you. john, you'll have -- ask the next question. mr. cook. >> switching gears, mr. cook, a little bit. throughout -- on new hampshire's airwaves are ads, ads, and more ads. not only from candidates and super pacs. of course a lot of that was spurred by the citizens united decision in 2010. do you believe in that ruling that pacs and superpacs have as much right as anyone to show their political preferences. or as some say this needs to be reined in and restricted?

>> i think there needs to be a lot done as far as the f.c.c. regulations to how campaigns are allowed to broadcast, especially some of free publicity that's allowed some candidates but not allowed to other candidates. as far as some of these superpacs. i recently got an email which i thought was carly for america and it ended up being not affiliated to a candidate. some of these are making people think they're donating to a particular candidate and that's wrong. they need to identify themselves but i think it's an individual's right that they can pay for anything they want, whether they're a group of individuals or a political candidate for an ad. >> mr. comley called for better politics in this country in his state of the union address.

what would you like to see done if you were president of the united states, to reform the political system in this country? >> the only way you're going to reform the political corruption in washington is for the people to get involved and rise up in a peaceful way. but they have to make their -- they have to get involved and they have to make their voice heard. as far as -- you know, both parties -- you know, they keep --

they're in charge and we let them in charge and we complained for years about. it's not going to change. together we can repair america. we really can but you have to get involved. you know, i don't have the money to finance the tv stations, that's for sure and my single mother never gave me a million dollars for a grub steak. but you know, i'm the only candidate running right now that has all the qualifications to turn washington upside down. and i'm going to do it. raleigh is the on the town in the united states that got 08% of the town on a petition to investigate the n.r.c. you know what mr. reagan did? he wouldn't see me. >> we're talking about the political process. how many of the members of this panel have run for office before in your life? how many have run for president of the united states before this year? ok. >> i'd just like to ask real quick since we're on this topic, does anyone support the concept of public financing, which may even the playing field. public financing. taxpayer funding of election, of

candidates? does anyone see that as a viable alternative? >> john, as a constitutional expert, i can tell you we are in a straitjacket because of the first amendment. states have a lot more freedom. there are states that engage in public financing because they're not bound by that first

amendment. i don't know the answer to your question and i don't know that a better system necessarily can be produced. the only thing that troubles me about the existing system -- and of course i watch your tv station every night. it's a necessity. and you look at these ads and it says vote for this guy. citizens for good works, you know, and the committee for babies and puppies and we think marco rubio is a bad guy. what the supreme court left open in citizens united was disclosure laws and full disclosure and i think that's where we have to start but we cannot make progress as long as we have chief executives who hate politics and hate people. that was obama's weakness. sorry to say it's also mrs. clinton's. i think trump could actually get people to talk. >> as far as the public financing, i do see public financing as a possible viable alternative. what i really see in a presidential election now when you have all the public

detectives. the candidates with all the money, yeah, they spend their money advertising and putting on tv ads. but people can see the news, they can watch the debates. you need to have a better road to have better access to the debates. we need to have a better way, like if the f.c.c. can have an individual poll to qualify you or the secretary of state have a poll where the voters can qualify and use that as well as the current apologies to see who qualifies for the detective, instead of the current cherry picking to see who's allowed to be on tv and if you're on tv you get more support and money. therefore, if you're not included in the polls nobody gets a chance to see you and that's not fair. i honestly think if i was on the polls, i. be in a debate. >> thank you very much. anyone else want to talk about public financing who hasn't? >> the government right now yost over $17 trillion. we're bankrupt. if we were to pay off the principal at $1 million -- day. it would take 50,000 years to pay that dealt. 50,000 years.

the debt is unbelievable. what we have to do is to start paying off that dealt so our grandchildren and great grandchildren don't pay it, number one, and number two so the foreigners -- because a lot of this money we owe to the japanese and saudis and chinese. they're going to foreclose on it. therefore, the only way to do it is to.com private enterprise employing lots of people, paying the middle class wages -- i'm sorry, through profit sharing and taipei the taxes. also, if you're a government employee and your tax is being withheld, there's no reason to file an income tax return. we can get rid of 50,000 on out of the 80,000 who work for the i.r.s. let's cut down on expenses and

find out how we're going to cut taxes. >> we should -- to help finance the deaf sympathy. >> we should put them to work and let their taxes pay off the debt. that's exactly what i'm saying. you're not going to throw them out of the country. >> in a recent debate ted cruz was discussing u.s. values and trump had an answer. what do you consider new york values? >> we're friendly. we'll show you a good time. that's what new york is about. actually, that's what the united states is all about. let's all invite people here as tourists and add to our economy. >> next question, mr. martin. >> mr. martin, we've been talking about the cost of

campaigning but i want to talk about the cost of college. there are several students here. what should be done to keep college tuition costs down? >> well, i know what can't be done and that's to accept simplistic solutions like the democrats are saying, the so-called mitt romney free stuff

approach. we have to work on cutting some of the overhead. when i went to school at the university of illinois, and i was a football player so we had more benefits. we ate pressed turkey and a slice of lettuce and that tomato looked like it had been sitting around in the refrigerator for a couple of days. we didn't have fancy dorms and all this today the college experience has become like luxury living. that's why it's so expensive. we have to figure out about whether we want to have people who have experience and get an education and don't want to be in a four-star hotel while we were there.

i survived nicely on pressed turkey and jell-o. as a matter of fact, i went home for home coming and these were barracks. today they're building high-rise luxury places for the students. of course that costs money. the experience has radically changed since i went to college. >> the cost of college has become such a major issue in this campaign. mr. comley, what would your first step be as president to address the colleges? >> when i went to college, i was working three days a week in a serial factory from 6:30 at night until 6:30 in the morning and then i'd go to class at 7:00. i think people shower should be

working because education is not free, just like health care. it's not free. i think that -- the gentleman just talked about the high-rises and whatnot. there's a way to cut costs in colleges. administrations and what north but you have to focus on it and the students should be working because that gives them experience in the working force and northeastern college does that. you can cut costs, for heaven's sakes. all you have to do, as an account ant, you can add and if you're getting abuse in it, you can find it if you want to look for it. college can be cheaper. it can, if you work on it and you focus on where you can cut costs. >> i'm actually a college student, by the way. i work in the company. for example, last year i essentially had three roles as a multinational company. i was lab manager, company

manager and acting plant manager >> for my children went to college it was $2500 for tuition. the big difference was all of a sudden all of the money was available and the college decided to take advantage of that fact. we know how many of these loans are not being repaid properly. we have to say to the colleges -- forget these high tuition we are not giving the loans anymore, you have to work for that work to pay for it and it will be the best experience of his lifetime. john, why not one more

question for the panel before closing statement? >> i think that everyone should probably weigh in on the federal deficit. i know that's a big question for a short time, but in a nutshell -- would you cut taxes, would you increase taxes? what are the main components of thisproposal to deal with federal deficit? which i believe now is in the neighborhood of $439 billion according to the recess of last month? , yourile you are at it party controls congress, how are they doing? >> let's start with you. what i cut taxes? you've got to cut taxes. and you've got to give businesses less taxes to. you've got to cut capital gains. they have got to reinvest in america and create jobs. obama, you know, he wants to

penalize someone who took the risk to create jobs and whatnot. it's incredible. he's a dictator. if you are going to add more jobs in that companies invest, then you've got to cut taxes. this is a capitalistic society. not socialism. penalize people for being successful, creating jobs, then they dictate to them. as far as taxes go? you know, we've got to cut taxes . but what we're doing now -- we've got to eliminate the deficit. if we don't eliminate the deficit first -- there are ways to do it. you have got to find the programs on the backs of the working person. they spend it. >> your plan?

>> we have the sonora's debt, the only way is by giving, creating the employment in the private sector and paying middle-class wages. meaning developing coal. it means the seven states that don't have enough water, using reverse us mosys, a way to convert ocean water drinking water for these states up and down the coast of california and texas. the pipeline to distribute this going to 750 states. number three, develop an that will not only give you a nice ride as a car but will give you at least 50 miles to the gallon and 60 miles per hour. that would be one of my areas of expertise as well. the fourth area is, of course -- i forgot the fourth area. [laughter] i'm sorry.

>> creating jobs that will then pay taxes and we don't need all these people with income tax because once you dig it up there is no reason to file an income tax return. people in the private sector, millions and millions. >> the deficit is about money. we have a whole new prospect of exploring space and using .ining, bringing in asteroids things that we need from space. the european space agency has proposed a colony on the moon to provide different avenues of manufacturing. that is what we are doing now.

as a world we should be exploiting the resources of other planets nearby and hopefully reduce deficits. >> eyes i was coming over here i checked the webpage for "the wall street journal" and for the first time since 2009 congress has voted to increase the deficit. i think that my republican friends were making good progress. they were making some genuine progress in trying to rein in the spending. but they slipped off the wagon, as it were. don't think the exhalation that mr. boehner was retiring so he put all of his stuff into the garage is good. the internal vigilance is the price -- the eternal vigilance is the price of democracy and looking to work within our means. it's something that the republican party is for in theory but doesn't always come

to in fact. i do not favor tax cuts. not believe the propaganda about so-called job creators and frankly i think we have a long way to go to make ourselves a more consumer friendly and working family-friendly party. i'm committed to that. >> first of all, the republican congress is not doing a good job . i think that the first thing that we need to do is secure the borders. the second thing would be to cut off aid to illegal aliens. third, we have a spending problem. we need to go through it, line by line, justifying every expense of our budget. reducing and eliminating unnecessary spending. can think that job creation be created, if someone wants to invest as an entrepreneur they should be able to have that as a deduction from their taxes.

>> we will now give each candidate a final closing argument. we will go in reverse alphabetical order this time. >> as i said earlier, the only of to solve our for problems unemployment, terrorism, immigration, and government that is to get people working. everybody working in the private sector through various means. whether it's opening up the coal making, building, or commercial --al with the word i want to use? flying supersonic aircraft from the east coast to europe and from the west coast to hawaii. no reason in this world for not building such aircraft in this country.

that's also another area where millions of people could be employed in the private sector, pay good taxes, that's the only way to our going to solve the problems of this country, to get people working in the private sector, put paying them on a profit-sharing basis so that they have middle-class wages to go back to what was said -- you want democracy? have majority middle-class. >> i hope that those who are watching on television will get some appreciation for why new hampshire is such a special place. we live democracy. we struggle. there's a good reason we are first in the nation. we owe a great debt to secretary of state will gardner over there. i sort of consider him the field marshal of the first in the nation primary. helpows that i'm there to in any way possible and unleash

whatever has to be unleashed, the fight to keep new hampshire first. i think that we are fair and impartial. the fact that we have a meeting that allows those who are lesser known to have a voice is so important in maintaining the openness of our state and society. and that's a good idea. and him have anything bad to say about new york, california, texas, but they are such huge places. the could not offer the public what we can offer them today. i am marching right behind bill gardner. let's not a second amendment issue. we are locked and loaded to be first in the nation. >> all three of you? people out there have to spend time to evaluate who they think the people are that they want to represent them. it's a very complicated field. lots of people.

30 to 60 people registered alone in new hampshire. the press does a fair job of providing information about some of the candidates. not all of them. there are ways of researching individual people to find out where they stand and whether you can trust them. trust them to back you and protect you. that's where new hampshire and iowa have been, deciding who the candidate is. with bigger voices, giving the smaller voices a chance. >> thank you. ,> thank you for having me here thank you to everyone coming out to listen. america is not a democracy, it's a republic. the founding fathers knew and spoke of what to have for dinner where as a republic is a machine. i would like to say that america

is a republic. and twitter.me tim cook 2016. we are pulling alongside everyone. i could beat hillary one-on-one. visit our website, i will fight for you and please support me. thank you. >> stephen connolly? >> i'm running for president of because noneates of the candidates with full numbers are telling you the truth and i'm telling you the truth about health care and isis. i found it out. military people telling me how they feel and it's not pretty. we don't need another politician or dynasty in the white house or the start of another dynasty. we need a business person i can add to. i've been a business person and a farmer since i was 13.

i can count. i've been an administrator for 50 years. but you've got to tell the truth to the american people. you've got to help the working people or he won't have those programs in washington. i will illuminate them, i promise you that. please, remember my website. there's more information coming out. the government is going to be after me again because i have admitted to the tape recordings that they say i have an were after for 30 years. the only person i'm going to give those recordings to his obama. i wrote to him. >> your time is up. i want to thank all of our lesser-known candidates for joining us tonight. we will take a 10 minute break. [applause] we will take a 10 minute break while we stay a peer for the larger field of democratic candidates. we will be back in 10 minutes. [captioning performed by the

national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] >> it's far more interesting to look at the republicans. that may have something to do with why there is more interest in these candidates and their books. >> tonight, nonfiction book critic for "the washington post" discusses books written by the 2016 presidential candidates. are soany of them single-minded in this pursuit of power and of ideology. particularly these interesting ones, but when they put out these memoirs they are just -- you know, they are sanitized. they are vetted, you know? they are therefore sort of minimum controversy. >> tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on democratic

presidential candidate and former maryland governor, martin o'malley, holds an event in indianola, iowa. our road to the white house coverage begins tomorrow on c-span. >> well, the countdown is on. as we approach the caucuses we whereally the only place you can watch these events unfold as they happen. whether it's a campaign rally, i house party, i town hall meeting or a policy speech, no one else will give you that unfiltered look at the candidates as they work the crowd, talk to voters and make their best sales pitch. we will be crisscrossing iowa for the next couple of days leading up to the caucuses, covering all the democratic and republican candidates. keep an eye on what happens on caucus night itself. we are the only network that will take you to the republican

and democratic caucus. if you have ever really wondered how it all happens, watch c-span. >> at that same form in manchester, new hampshire, 20 lesser-known candidates for the democratic presidential to questionsotted on foreign and domestic policy, as well as on of the party promised nomination. this is almost two hours. >> i think that we were just waiting on one morning tag for one of our candidates. but while we are waiting let's

introduce the next group of candidates. we have 20 democratic candidates. i will start by a request from the viewers, when you are answering, make sure you are speaking into a microphone so the viewers can hear answers. we are going from five candidates to 20 candidate, so we will do our best to keep rings as fair as we can and make sure that everybody has a chance to answer questions and we'll probably do more with show of

hands questions and move quickly through issues to make sure that everybody can make their voices known. with that, we begin with a two-minute opening statements. we will start with john adams of new york. >> i am relatively unknown. we did a poll that showed i was only at 1.5% name recognition. i am a former professor and former state attorney general and i am running for president because i believe in a better tomorrow and i believe we need to have other options. a little more about me, everything i have done has been behind the scenes. i have been quietly supporting democrats my entire life, leading from the shadows and requesting and asking for special forces to fight extremism in the middle east, ever since iran for congress and

president obama adopted that about one month ago, so i applaud that. bernie sanders recently adopted my position on isis in russia, that we need to work with russia to combat isis and we should make isis a priority. i also want to thank bernie for adopting my position on student loan interest rates, it was my position to cut those in half and move forward in a way that makes sense for everybody. i am looking for to meeting all of you and i thank you very much. i would also like to thank the president for introducing marriage equality. that was introduced in new hampshire in 2009 and would like to thank the state for being the first in the nation for being the guardians of the presidential election process.

how much time? thank you. you know, i am targeting new hampshire. i am not running in iowa. my name is jon adams, so i have a new england connection. if you look at what i have done my entire life, i am a lifelong democrat. i wanted to vote for jimmy carter when i was five years old. everything i have done for marriage equality in 2002 as an attorney general, all the way down to water rights. i look at this wonderful, clean water we have and i think that -- and i think about flint. take a look at what i have on my website. mike: we have rocky from california. rocky: i am rocky. i was born in san diego. through hard work and persistence i have acquired international knowledge and experience. i am very proud to be hispanic and proud of my heritage. i know what it is like to jump through hoops and prove yourself over it and over again. most of us have faced hurdles in

my daily life. i have always found a way to overcome them. like i did in massachusetts, north carolina and michigan. in case you do not know, i am over 30 ballots and 30 states. in addition, voters in ohio would have only three choices the democratic candidates, clinton, sanders and myself. o'malley did not qualify in ohio, so the race is decided, it will be between three different people and i expect to do a good showing in ohio and other states. i am tired of the republicans blaming the democrats and the democrats blaming republicans. our homeless and other issues are ignored as the white house does nothing. we are divided. and we are forced to listen to

the campaigns with speeches of ignorance and hate as opposed to wisdom and respect. i am pleased to be here tonight to honor the first amendment. lastly, i was featured in debates. i am here today because ronald reagan, martin luther king jr., and other leaders are not here. thank you very much. mike: next is eric. eric: on october 1 i return from several months of conducting focus groups in indonesia and i was troubled about what the groups showed about the future, so i decided to enter the first primary in the country to discuss those ideas and move things to an area of understanding. i will lead -- leave some of that to the questions. but i would like to talk about a solution i have seen and not heard in this campaign, that is

my right now the middle east is divided between sunni and shia fighting each other the way the protestants and catholics did for a long time. and the nationstates are drawn by old powers that were used to divide and conquer and playoff against each other. the shia continue to fight these wars that we are playing a role in. my physician is stash suggestion is that we we draw the map of the middle east and so that we can create different countries so that would allow democracy to take hold. the microstate -- democracy means advancing a way of life, instead of using powers to suppress their opponents. that is an idea i would like to inject into this campaign. i come from that by having directed a program at harvard, i was the director of the international think tank for president obama and i am currently of a strategy national security corporations in washington dc.

the last thing i want to raise, the other part of this campaign, -- the president we have with barack obama. he is the greatest president of our lifetime. thank you very much. mike: the next candidate is bill french for messages that. bill: i am a single dad. i have a stanford economics degree and i am successful businessman. the middle class in the u.s. is turning. he cannot support a family on seven dollars an hour. up a $15 minimum wage will hurt businesses and the economy. so what do we do?

for everybody earning less man $15 an hour, the government wants to make up half the difference between pay and $15 an hour. how do we finance this? we could finance it with a supplement, the 25% tax fund imports from china, free-trade is not working between the u.s. and china. we import $480 billion a year and we export $120 billion a year. in u.s. will receive about $75 billion a year in new revenues from the tax and about two million jobs will be created in the u.s., saving about $30 billion in welfare. we should add just -- i just the tax each year based on net import so that china does not have incentive to stop buying from the u.s. although this tax will result in a small increase in price of goods coming from china, i would

rather pay five dollars for an item that is made in the u.s., then pay four dollars for an item made by children in china. we should limit the price of prescription drugs in the u.s. to the lowest price it is sold anywhere else in the world. criminals should be in domestic courts, learning job skills rather than skills -- and skills that will keep them out of jail in the future. we should require any employed person to accept the job and benefits and we should increase the standard deduction and have testing services for testing for online courses. mike: thank you mr. first. bill: --

mike: our next candidate. mr. seward -- to her. >> i am a candidate trying to make the race to be a well-known -- case to be a well-known candidate. there is good reason for reporters to pay attention. i am a liberty minded democratic -- democrat. some people call it a conservative democrat. i am in the space that jfk was, but current leaders in my party have vacated. they do not get liberty. in their attempts to support groups, they hurt them. i make a message to everyone of those groups to think how liberty actually brings us together. didn't -- students, that is one group. it is ludicrous when you try to make something free when it

should have -- bernie and hillary planned or -- pander as if you are fit greater source -- fifth graders or worse. i think it is a pretty good message. i am like rand paul in that way and you will hear this all the way to california. this primary, i hope i will collect enough delegates for philadelphia to make a

difference. with some reporters here, it might work. didn't get hurt by government. women have not been advantaged despite a lot of leaders in the party saying, i am all for women. disabled people, we cannot forget them. but the government cannot care

for them as well as individuals can. i try to make that message throughout the primaries, you can go to liberty.com. there is more content there and hillary and bernie combined. mike: our next candidate from new york. henry: my name is henry hughes. the democratic party has traditionally fought are those without voices and power. i am troubled by illegal immigrants in the country to drive down the wages for working americans. i am troubled by students who are burdened by huge debt. i am troubled by 3000 driven attack in foreign countries. i am troubled by social security and medicare verging on bankruptcy. i am troubled by food dance -- stamps which have created an epidemic of diabetes. i am troubled by an income path -- tax system which penalizes labor. most important, i am running to try to make a point, i stand with lyndon johnson, bobby kennedy, martin luther king, and jimmy carter, and being pro-life. hillary clinton and bernie sanders are pro-abortion radicals. they support abortions in the late-term and they support partial-birth abortions, abortions for population control and they support it for sex selection. we have to understand that 3500 babies died today, 25,000 babies will die this week. 100,000 babies will die this month and over one million will die this year. hillary clinton is not concerned, bernie sanders is not concerned, i am concerned and the great majority of democrats are concerned. the democratic party is not populated by pro-abortion

radicals, it is good people who want to support the right to life of every citizen of the united states. mike: thank you. we will go to our second level. >> good evening. i am running for president because we are jeopardizing our children's futures. currently, we have a national debt that is approaching $19 trillion and we are poised to add $500 billion to that figure in 2016. imagine if you will, you go to the store and divide -- buy stuff and you put it on your credit card and when you get home you hand those bills to the kids and you say, you can pay these off. you and i would not do that and the federal government needs to stop doing that too. i have a plan. excluding social security and medicare, i would not cut them, but i would cut all other spending by 10%, that would reduce the deficit by $250 billion. at this point i propose making a medicare tax, not a social

security tax. i propose raising the medicare tax raising it to 2.5%. you are talking 1% tax increase, yet it would raise $80 billion in additional revenue. additionally, i propose a national entertainment tax on movies and concerts of 5-10%, because if you can afford entertainment you can afford more tax. and finally, i believe we have to pass a constitutional amendment to enact term limits for members of congress, they get in and stay there forever

and do their own bidding rather than working for you and me. democracy can only flourish when everyone can participate. thank you. mike: thank you. next is lloyd kelso. lloyd: good evening, i am a trial lawyer from north carolina. i do a lot of family law and personal injury law. i also have a wife, deborah. and i have five children altogether, counting the children -- step children. and we have 12 grandchildren. we have a nice life in north carolina and i could be out

sitting by my summing goal -- swimming pool, but the better alternative is to get involved in politics and see what we can do about the problems we have. this election is about a lot of things. the next president will decide if we will be at work or at peace. -- war or at peace. they will decide if the middle class will keep going down or go up. the next president will decide whether the four -- poor will be able to rise up. i have a plan to deal with these things. i will not tax people who make less land $36,000 a year -- than $36,000 a year. i will change social security and reduce the amount of tax and i would get rid of the -- social security altogether. making these changes we can make a huge difference in america. i would also like to change the way that we handle veterans health care.

i would have a better care card for all veterans. have started to believe that the system of government is broken and not likely to be fixed in our lifetime. so many of us want to do something that has nothing to do with where to start. countrycross the tonight to portray -- proclaim as wildly as i can that there is something they can do -- we can do. come here tonight to introduce as many people as i can to the fix-it america constitutional

amendment. before you completely tune out understandstening, that the people that profit from a broken system want you to think it's impossible to amend the constitution, but it's anything but impossible. all you need our votes. you and i vote for an intellect the people cast those votes. the fix-it america constitutional amendment is to critical, simple, but important things. number one, it stops selling elections to the highest that are. number two, it stops the process of gerrymandering so that we draw lines that benefit from -- particular political parties. number one, stop selling our elections. number two, stop eating when you draw the line. you can go to your legislators thoseand you can get people to sign up to be a part

of the solution. if not, you can go on the road like i'm doing right now so that they will. think about it, do they really think that those people went into public service believing that what they would do is find the total gridlock, get nothing done, and be rewarded by spending 40% of their time raising money? i really don't think so. it every election cycle. whenever they say that washington is broken and it needs to ask. our next candidate's robert leavitt, a fort knox, kentucky. >> i would like to thank the college for the event. and i would like to thank new hampshire for allowing a non-politician like myself to put his hat in the ring for president. my field is in technology, computers, and security.

know -- at to let you little bit of personal family history. there is this book that we have on my mother's side of the family about family history. it talks about this one family member who converted to republicanism. a thought struck me. when i registered to be a democrat at 18, you could not the sampleicans on ballot other than presidents, senators, and congressman. you could not run as a are acher if you republican. but now in kentucky both of our senators a republican. our governors are republican. we have one democratic representative. what has happened? even my mother has converted.

so, anyway. it's good to hear that their other democrats here who are are moderate.who i consider myself a moderate. we need to adhere to the constitution, balance the budget , secure our borders. but in all of that we need to also make sure that those who can't take care of themselves are taken care of. >> thanks. next, william junior. >> i'm from minneapolis. i'm the only candidate running

midwestident from the including a wide area. i'm doing so because i want to raise particular issues that i think are outside the political mainstream. it's very contentious, but our politics have largely been polarized by gender and race. ofyou look at the election 2012, obama got 92%, i think, of the black vote. gay,hing like 88% of the lesbian, and transgender vote. somewhat less of the immigrant vote.

generally got a majority of the female vote. mitt romney had think actually got 59% of the white vote. something very strange is happening. i decided to run as a democrat, partly on the issue of dignity for white people. discussed in abe different way. i'm married to an african-american woman. this racial division without being discussed is not going to help this country at all. i think at least i want to run so that we can openly say -- ok, .'m also for shorter work weeks

>> we will keep things moving here. new york? >> thank you. my name is raymond michael malone. i'm a proud union member from the state of new york. my nephew came in from san diego. he said -- uncle ray, why are you running for president? i said -- o'brien, who is irish mexican ukrainian -- a set of the shouldn't be a wall. that there is no need for that. he asked me to list some of the things for him, so i will tell them to you. probably by next week my union, the supreme court will decide

the course of public unions. the reasons i came here. i think there's a crisis in the middle class. unions are being destroyed by corporations. new hampshire had a proud union history. i think that should be reversed. i would also like to try to get a living wage of $20 adjusted to inflation. free college for all. a 10% reallocation of the military budget for intelligence against isis and such. for gun control is think you should create a federal bureau of gun statistics based on the congressional budget office. where you can get impartial statistics gathered in this country.

no 50 caliber guns in people's backyards. i don't thinkns, any of them should wait one minute. if there is a medical facility available anywhere in the country, instead of going to the v.a. only they can go to any hospital. >> thank you. mr. o'donnell? >> look at a small child on christmas morning. all the people who have ever lived want to things. happiness and healing. step to that is for all of us to treat everyone with love, forgiveness, mercy, tolerance, kindness, respect, dignity, friendliness, chivalry, courtesy, and old-fashioned manners. the great colegate football coach

he did that to thousands of other people. that is our job -- to turn lives around. my oldest niece has weakness and kindness -- she is a nurse. my middle nurse has been gifted healing, you feel better with her. my youngest niece is good at visiting the sick. look up across -- this is a guy who never had one moment of happiness, but in the last second he saw the goodness and he said, i am sorry for what i did -- i will of others, i want to make a difference in this world. he will be remembered down through the ages. our job is to help people,, to love people to encourage people. to bring the message of

christmas -- the keep it going -- to his many people as possible. >> thank you. our next candidate is graham schwartz. >> hello. my name is graham schwartz, down in meramec valley, one-mile from here. i want to thank new hampshire for ballot access and i want to thank saint anselm for this format. i have been a progressive democrat for 30 years. i am running to promote the most important issue of our time, saving the natural world, stopping the vast extinction of species and habitat. i am doing this now because we are out of time. we are destroying god's green and blue earth. what i see is -- if you do not love the earth and all living things, we love nothing, neither

god nor man or a special your own children. i must demand this issue be dealt with by everybody, in particular by the democratic party. i have to say if the support is not forthcoming from the democratic party, i will have no choice but to go to the republicans. let me say a few things on social justice. i also would like to see a shorter work week. i think we all would. 35 hour week, flextime, enough vacation sharing. if we create the wealth, we should share it. i support black lives matter, and i feel that it is vital that we reformed the prison system, reduce prison population by at least half, and mandatory and

excessive sentencing. i will finish by saying that on the syrian refugees, i don't know what -- are we cowards now? are we afraid to help a few women and children that need our help? i want to finish by saying that i think we need to get the republicans out of congress as soon as possible. thank you. >> thank you. sam sloan. >> i was born in america, my parents are born in america, my grandparents were all born in america, and although it to my great grandparents were born in america. they came over from america and sweden in the middle 1800s. two of my ancestors fought in the american revolutionary war. five of my uncles fought in world war ii. three of my children -- i have eight children and five grandchildren.

three of my children are in the u.s. military know. i have one daughter who served four years and iraq, and a third in the army just got back. my son is getting ready to go to iraq now, but if i am elected he will not go to iraq because we will. bring them all back we will stop dropping bombs on iraq. we drop all our forces all over the world and we will not pay any other countries to fight wars, either. they have to defend themselves with our own money and we will not be involved with all these wars all around the world. republicans want to drug bombs on iran, iraq, syria and afghanistan. a republican, that it wants to start a war with russia. 6 million americans have been adopted.

i am an expert on finding the birth parents have been adopted. every day i find more parents of children who have been given away ford option. -- given away for adoption. there should be a law that anybody over the age of 21 should have a right to their own birth certificate, if they have been adopted. anyone who can drive a car legally -- i am out of time. >> thank you. another new yorker. >> hello. i'm an economics forecaster and portfolio manager who lives in new york. we need presidents with specific details, clearly workable solutions, not vague platforms and empty promises, which has generally been the case. that is why we never solve our problems. you can say that the

solutions i have proposed on my website -- my main economic policy reform is revolutionary. it will make qa finance the standard tool for economic finance, allowing us to prevent recessions and high unemployment in the future while maximizing economic growth. this is how it works. whenever the real unemployment rate, which includes discouraged workers and part-time workers seeking full-time jobs, rises above 4%, the president and the federal reserve would determine how big a tax rebate would be required to quickly get the economy growing in the real unemployment rate back down to 4%, which is more or less full employment. today, with the real unemployment rate around 7%, we need a tax rebate of about $2000 for each and every taxpayer. qe, by the way, leaves the tax

rebate is financed by the federal reserve, not by government debt. for perspective, the 2009, $800 billion obama stimulus program was the equivalent of a $5,000 tax rebate for each and every taxpayer, or $10,000 for a family of two taxpayers. over the past few years, we have had $3 trillion of qe, but it was not the right type of qe, since it was mainly used to benefit the banks. what was needed instead back in 2009 was a $5,000 to refinance tax rebate for each and every american. thank you. >> thank you. our next candidate is michael steinberg. >> thank you. i'm 56-year-old and the owner of a medium-sized social security and veterans disability law firm in tampa. the national organization of veterans advocates, democratic

executive committee, and i'm currently a member of the hillsboro county health care advisory board. i have been practicing law for 33 years. i have given lectures at veterans law conferences throughout the country. over 50% of our budget involves payments for social security, ssi, medicaid, medicare, and veterans benefits. we need someone who has expertise in these areas, and i don't mean someone who sits on a veterans committee and hears from bureaucrats, bragging about how well their agency is doing. the social security trust fund -- you kids here, in 20 years, the social security administration will not be able to pay the benefits they promised you. you will get $.70 on the dollar on most changes are made. disability trust fund would have

been bankrupt this year except for a stock measure passed earlier, in 2015, extending the solvency for a few more years. people who are applying for social security disability benefits are waiting years to get their hearings. veterans are in worse shape, and we still have millions of people who do not have health care. i have been handling thousands of social security and veterans disability cases over the past 33 years. the job of the president is to make sure that the government agencies do their job, and i will make sure that the government agencies serve the people in a fair, prompt, and courteous manner, efficiently and on budget. thank you. >> thank you. our last candidate is richard lyons wall. >> good evening. washington, d.c. is completely frozen and nothing can be accomplished.

if this was your computer you would reboot. i propose we reboot america. in 1980, when ronald reagan began the massive tax cuts for the wealthy, tax rates were cut from 70% to approximately 30%. this started the country on a course where income inequality became a major problem. for a taxpayer making $10 million per year, this meant his income one from $3 million to $7 million. the $4 million came directly out of the u.s. treasury, which then took money away or goods and services that we need for the people of our country. this is the cause for our deficit. i propose that we raise the tax rates, the top tax rates, 70% on incomes above $3 million. these funds could then be used to fund the education for our

citizens, to help fund the health care for our citizens. we then need to raise the minimum wage to $22 per hour, and index it to inflation. this brings it down back to 1960's levels, where people could live at the subsistence level, which is the least amount of money necessary to survive. i also propose that we take the income ceilings of the social security tax. presently, most americans who make under $118,000 per year pay social security on 100% of their income. let's take the caps off and allow the millionaires in the billionaires, who basically pay 0% of their income to social security, to pay the same amount of social security tax as all other americans. this will allow social security to be solvent in 75 years. >> thank you.

that does it for our opening statements. now we will open it up to some questions. mentioned before, we have a much bigger field of candidates here on the democratic side and the republican side, so we are going to do our best to keep it fair and give all of you a chance to answer questions. i will ask some of you individual questions and some for the group. let's open up with john -- you had a question. >> one thing -- and i will direct this just randomly -- was the first job of president is to be commander in chief, and there wasn't a whole lot of talk about national security. i know you praise president obama. are there any areas where you -- at what point would you commit american troops to the middle east? what has to happen for you to do that? and then perhaps we can get some other views. >> very good question.

basically, we have been bombing islamic countries for 15 years now, and the islamic world is starting to identify. there is a 9/11 every week happening somewhere in the islamic world. our bombs are very effective, and have destroyed cities that have been around for a thousand years. we don't need to be in the middle east. president bush brought this country down to its knees, economically and militarily, with wars that we did not need. he has -- i have a long-term vision from extracting us, and right now we need the republicans bearish for war with -- for war with iran. i have played the simulation games 12 times and it doesn't turn out very well. we need to be thankful for president obama for what he has

done, avoiding another war with iran. i think that is important, that we get out of the middle east, that we can prevail by retrying these nationstates that don't require us to get involved. >> thank you. mr. o'donnell. >> yes. what i propose is a new foreign policy. gandhi said the goal was to wipe every tear from every eye, and i propose a foreign policy by which we focus almost 100% of our efforts on feeding, clothing, housing, employing the third world poor. no wars, no spying on people, and having our embassies help the poorest of the poor rather than focusing on helping with the corporations and wealthy tourists. a new foreign policy to help

people all over the world. >> mr. hughes. >> if president obama has done such a great job, why do we still have soldiers in afghanistan? why are the bombs still falling on several countries -- somalia, yemen? this is not success. this is not commitment to extracting us from hopeless, senseless, winless war, which is what we have experienced not only for eight years under george bush that for a long years -- but for eight long years under president barack obama. we are still sending drones to assassinate people in their houses, and it is unbelievable to me that when barack obama ran, this was the legacy that he would leave. we need to repudiate that, and we need to make a decision that we are not going to assassinate people abroad, that we are not

going to bomb their cities, that no crusader army is ever going to solve the problem in the middle east. >> stewart. >> i want to echo both henry and eric. we don't understand the middle east, so let's not even attempt to try and fix it, especially when lives are on the line. we don't understand people who will -- that is not an american thing. we are not going to be able to understand and nation build. the people in the middle east, many of them have been fighting sunni versus shia for something that started 1400 years ago because one sect thinks that mohammed -- the one relative, and i think there is one other different, that they will self-flagellation. we can't understand why they would be fighting life and death for this -- don't try to get

into a war that we can't fix, even if we win. >> i think we first have to realize who we are fighting here, and that is that we are fighting islamic extremists who want to kill all of us. they want to kill everyone who is opposed to their viewpoint about allah being their god, and that the end of the world will come through their jihadist movement. if you are sitting here tonight and not in fear of isis, then you need to be rethinking it. these folks want to kill everyone in the middle east. they want to kill everyone in this room. we're going to have to do something about going to the middle east. i'm not going to tell you exactly what i'm going to do like of the ball coach. i may run, i may pass. but i'm going to go there and knock them out.

isis will not be a problem in the second, third year of my term, i promise you. >> you sound like donald trump. >> thank you. >> all the nations which are starting wars or are violence ridden our countries which do not respect human rights. i think -- we have to remember that every member nation of the united nations has the universal declaration of human rights, and somehow we don't have the united nations enforce that universal declaration. if they put the emphasis on nations respecting human rights and enforcing them, and if they don't, they have to be kicked out of the united nations, or we have to create a new united nations only as nations which

respect and enforce human rights. it is very cynical to have the united nations and hollow member nations under sign the declaration of human rights, and the great majority of them do not. to get down to the bottom of all this violence in the world, we need to enforce human rights. >> continue on this strip e. you mentioned you would want to work with russia to defeat the islamic state. as you know, we are currently at odds in russia as to what to do with bashar al-assad. how would you resolve that issue in terms of the syrian civil war, and should assad step down? >> thank you. he should, but my problem with current foreign-policy is that we are prioritizing the citizens of syria, or libya, over american interests. our number one priority, and bernie sanders just came around to this two nights ago, has to be destroying isis.

russia is not the soviet union. they are not communist. they are not trying to spread communism. they are democratic oligarchy. they are not a threat like they were in the 1970's. i think it is misguided to try and focus foreign policy on deposing another dictator because you don't know what he is doing. we have to prioritize our safety, our security. we have to get rid of isis. and on the other question, i would be very sparing in using ground forces. i went completely rule it out because sometimes you have to go to war. >> let's get a show of hands -- is there anybody on the stage who would send american troops into the middle east to help defeat the islamic state. would.

>> i wouldn't rule it out. >> excuse me, was your time frame? -- what's your time frame? i would not send in ground troops right now. in the end, the islamic state, they have to address these issues themselves. you have got a civil war going on among these people that we have been dragged into over the years. right now i wouldn't do it, but i would never as president take any option off the table. your question -- i wanted to clarify. >> shelley move into more topics? -- shall we move into more topics? >> we need to take a defensive posture against isis. in the united states, that means watching mosques, watching the internet and facebook, seeing what is going on, where people are radicalized.

we need to watch it not by having humans looking at conversations, but by having computers monitoring wide variety of conversations looking for words to do with attack and jihad and that nature. >> we do want to try to get everyone having an opportunity -- next question. thank you. several opinions already about the middle east -- i even heard the name trump. should the u.s. be accepting refugees from syria, from other conflicts? >> well, under some circumstances i think yes. but that should be very much the second choice. i think the key to it is that we supported dissidents, insurgents against the government in syria because we had a romantic notion

of the arab spring, and they were going to bring democracy. that hasn't worked out at all. i think we have to kind of get together with some of the radicals that have been fighting, but we do have to defeat isis. i think that is a new threat that needs to be addressed. only after this moderate solution in syria in an attempt to bring the russians and some others into syria -- that is what i think. >> by globalizing the war on terror and further globalizing it with this war on isis, the results will be one, that muslim people radicalized through the internet and all over the world, and muslims everywhere are going

to start taking on their personal lives, and it will have the result of americans on the streets of the cities of the world -- very quickly, that will end american preeminence in the world. two, it will put in danger the whole concept of globalization. three, it may even put in danger the whole concept of modernity. it will foster fundamentalism. we're thinking these immediate results -- like we will carpet bomb. what we have to do this project out 15 years. we don't want the islamic law to consume the 21st century the way nazi of the men communism consumed the 20th. we are driving that. the military-industrial complex

is growing. >> do you want to weigh in? >> the first and foremost -- you have to know if you're playing your a game, into the opponent is. you cannot telegraph your moves. you cannot tell a chess player what you're going to move. as commander in chief, you control the army, the navy, and the munitions. the question is can you telegraph your move? no, you have to keep a close to your vast. you have to know basically -- they can't be able to predict you. thank you. >> john, the next question. >> you have covered a lot of ground in your opening statement.

i'd like to know -- let's hone in on the so-called major candidates. they win, what is the biggest priority out of all the priorities you have named that they need to be addressing? >> the highest priority is security. as i mentioned in my opening statement, my field deals a lot with security. that is not to diminish all the other problems that we face, like drug addiction and unemployment and underemployment. the first day, i'll get a thorough briefing of what the situation is in the world and the details on security. any specifics? >> we brought you here to talk about them.

>> you don't want to say too much about what you are going to do to your adversary, because they can work against that. i've always since i was a young child not strategically. -- thought strategically. >> thank you. same question -- first day. >> first day in office, i would implement plans to try and raise the minimum wage to subsistence level. the most important thing we can do is end poverty in this

country. i would put forces together to try and put together a program like the works in progress administration to increase our infrastructure standing on education. if we can raise the wage to a level as well as create much more demand for workers, those two things will automatically raise all wages and america. that would be the first thing i would do. the second thing i would try is use diplomacy to solve problems in the middle east. throughout history, wars have all been ended through a negotiated process. in this age of development in the civilized world, to fight wars anymore should be ended. >> a $22 suggested minimum wage -- is there anyone else who would support the minimum wage at that level? >> i would like to answer if i could. >> i would also like an index to inflation. if it is not, americans lose

wages. >> why do you think we should have a minimum wage of $22 per hour? >> the first thing i would do -- $800 billion in the bank accounts of our nation. millionaires and billionaires, and if you want to save america, you have schoolkids who send in their pennies, you take most of that money, higher every unemployed person, every prisoner, former prisoner, disabled, escort -- guaranteed job. they have no customers and no money for advertising. they create so many jobs for the unemployed. the free market will not higher these massive numbers of unemployed, in the unemployment rate is three time with the government wants. >> i believe that the minimum wage should be a minimum of $14, but more importantly, why did i raise my hand for $22? because i believe it should be

more than minimum wage. it is not the same for the bottom of the social structure. what about the mechanic? the airport mechanic? i think we need to have four different types of minimum wage, depending on skill level. we do not need to reinvent the rules. look at what happens at other countries. the answer is we should tell labor, the unions, the people what to expect within my first four years of government. >> the next question -- >> mr. steinberg, does this country have a problem with police brutality, and if so, what would you do about it? >> there are good cops and there are bad cops. there are good attorneys and there are bad attorneys. i think overall, most police officers are good police