geman talks about the plan.ents clean energy as always, we take your calls and you ♪ good morning. 2016., february 22, the presidential primary calendar gets busy starting this with republican caucus tomorrow in the data and the onth carolina primary saturday. as we look at the road ahead will focus on the democratic pass this morning on the washington journal and the minority voters that hillary clinton and bernie sanders are reaching out to and the messages they are taking to those communities. how do you think the campaigns are resonating in minority communities and which campaign do you think will be more

successful in attracting black, hispanic, and other groups in the primary battles ahead? special line for black voters, (202) 748-8000. hispanic voters, (202) 748-8001. all others, (202) 748-8002. you can also catch up with us on atial media on twitter c-span wj if you want to follow along. on facebook it is facebook.com/c-span. good monday morning to you. the washington post recently with a breakdown of the demographics of the democratic voters in the states coming up in the primaries ahead. here is what it had to say. black voters will take center stage in south carolina where history suggests they will make up a majority of the democrats voting on saturday. on march 1 on super tuesday, black voters are expected to be a majority in a georgia primaries and approaching a third of voters in virginia and tennessee. the washington post breakdown noting that hispanics are a

growing share of democratic voters in nevada. over 2008. a double-digit share of eligible voters in only 11 states according to a new pew research study. several of the states are large ones such as texas, california, florida, and new york where hispanic voters can swing lots of delegates. several stories about democrats reaching out to minority communities. here's one from the front page times."washington times," sanders struggles to get an amen. "usa today." clinton turns to south carolina black youth. the story noting hillary clinton has amassed a mother lode of key endorsements, most recently from south carolina congressman james

clyburn. the one thing that can reduce her margin of the -- her expected margin of victory on saturday is if younger minority voters flocked to sanders the -- the wayr right their white counterparts did in new hampshire. democratsans for the nominating battle in the future. some polls last year showed clinton with a double-digit lead in the silver state, sour -- sanders narrowed that and showed strength with latino voters. this morning, we are focusing on the role of minority voters in the democratic primary. phone lines for black voters, (202) 748-8000. hispanic voters, (202) 748-8001. .ll others, (202) 748-8002 you can start calling him now. we will be checking our facebook page, facebook.com/c-span. first calling on the line for black voters from san

antonio, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. that the black vote is going to be important in the election. i'm a bernie sanders supporter. andernie gets his word out blacks really listen to what he has to say i think he can gain support and overcome hillary. , one on our facebook page of the folks who wrote in was kevin johnson who said it is sad that most americans fail to realize that bernie is the only true friend of minority voters during the selection cycle. -- this election cycle. is that how you feel? caller: i do not think he is the only friend but i think bernie has a good message and the people really look at -- i am not against hillary but i think she is very much under the

influence of wall street and corporate america. host: do you think bernie sanders is getting that message out to minority voters? caller: i think so. the thing you notice, the more people here bernie sanders come of the more popular he gets and the more support he gets. of 2015ck in 2015, july there was an interview with nate cohen in the new york times. " bernie sanders in that interview saying, i am not well known in the african-american community despite my lifelong record. it is a real issue and i have to deal with it. that was back in the summer of last year. there are some of those that know bernie sanders were trying to get more information out about his background in the african-american community and with minority issues. here is a piece by harry joffe in the washington post from last week.

it starts by saying organizing a protest against police violence in the black community -- in the black community, a curlyhaired kid from brooklyn. "it is outside agitators like you who are screwing the city up," the cop told him. the young man was bernie sanders. in the following years sanders would lead sick ends against housing to skirmish in and get arrested while marching for equal education. now, as the campaign for president bears down on the fracture -- the fractious states beyond iowa and new england, needs to convince minority voters that black lives still matter as much as they did to him 50 years ago. harry jaffe wrote the book, why bernie sanders matters. spent a year researching sanders' life and that is the column that he wrote last week about this topic. we want to hear from viewers this morning as we focus on the

democratic primary. gary is up next on the line for all others from oregon. caller: good morning. i just want to touch a little bit on -- bernie sanders does touch the minorities heavily because of where he has been in his past history. you have to look at, is hillary clinton going to be affected by this e-mail scandal. i think bernie sanders is going to make a lot of headway wants this comes out. when you look at the two democrats, i think bernie sanders has more of a chemist -- has more of a charismatic personality. host: will is up next on our line for black voters from holland, oregon. go ahead. caller: holland, ohio. and the caller before you needs to spend a little time in the black community before he understands why we stand with

hillary. hillary has been with us a very long time. we appreciate which he has done. she has been in that fight. bernie has been in congress for a lot of years. i don't see where he has presented anything that has passed that could alter or improve our lives whatsoever. i just want to say, when it comes down to black lives matter , we have to take that into our youthion that cannot continue to obit -- continue to disobey police officers. you don't run out 30 inches away from him and hiding and expect him to be able to hold his fire not knowing who you are and what you did. we have been oppressed in this country, deeply oppressed host:.

can i go back to your comment from earlier? what are some examples of hillary clinton being in that fight that you are talking about? early 1990'sin the when she surfaced with bill, she was with us, she came into our community, she talked with us. when people like bradley were in trouble in new york city, different situations that cropped up, you would find hillary and bill in support. they did not do everything right. they are still white people bank that do not live in the black community. we do new they play important roles in standing up for our rights. there was a time we could not stand up for rights. when our people stood up we were lynched. host: as will in holland, ohio this morning on the topic of whether bernie sanders is known in black communities.

this is a quote from charlie wrangle.ie bernie is a nice guy from brooklyn who found his way to vermont, the house, and the senate but that has nothing to do with having established relationships with minority communities. and i like to emphasize, it is not his fault. a quote from new york congressman charlie wrangle. will is waiting on the line for hispanic voters. caller: good morning. i appreciate washington journal for these dialogues. it is wonderful as a democrat and a taxpayer. what i want to mention is that, both candidates have brought up the issues in this debate. they are failing to recognize how difficult it will be to legislate once they are elected. i think it is important when you're looking to secure the votes of young voters that you present a more pragmatic

approach to legislating. we all are realistic in knowing what type of key social issues will be achieved in congress. we saw the challenges president obama had. we anticipate there will be even more with the new democratic president, if a democrat is elected. if they want to secure my vote and my contemporaries votes, it is important that they talk about how they will realistically get these ideas done not just resentment of ideas. -- not just present the no ideas. host: do key issues involved -- caller: entitlement reform. that is a key issue. we are hearing social security is running out of money. putting and controls to reduce the cost with disability benefits. it is obvious that the social contract is being diluted. they need to recognize that and be realistic in their ideas on

how to tackle that. we both know we will not be able to and entitle reform, it is just in alleviating the burden on the backs of hard-working people in our communities. host: on that topic, we will be talking about the president's budget in our next statement. rover norquist of americans for tax reform will be with us. we will also revisit the president's it in our last segment of today's washington journal. we will be talking about the clean energy programs the president has proposed in his budget. we will go to damon on the line for black voters in fremont, california. caller: good morning. the reason why i am voting for sanders is because i remember when clinton was running for the second term, he went back to

-- asas so he could have lot of people keep trying to say the clintons are for black people. if you were really for black people you should be speaking out about the police unions trying to hide police officers' records. they have your public records if you did a crime they can pull up your crime anytime. when a police officer does a crime now, they hide the records. but they want to get promoted. how can you be a public servant person that works for us? we pay you. in do not pay us. how are you hiding your records from us? host: you are saying bernie sanders is the only one talking about this issue? caller: yes. if you listen to clinton -- i have been following this stuff.

my mother got mad at me because i did not vote the second time for clinton. i had to tell her the reason why . she still did not understand because i am saying, how can they be for us if they are throwing us in jail? 100 to one ratio when it came to powder cocaine and rock cocaine. rock is the baby of cocaine. host: mary ellen in new jersey on the line for all others. good morning. caller: good morning. i am a clinton supporter. i hear all of the calls. i was with the national organization years ago. bernie sanders reminds me of what we protested back then. activists, we will do this, we will run the -- no plans. i do not hear bernie sanders give one plan about anything he

will do. i heard him talk last night at the college. raising the minimum wage to $15. there is a bill on the floor for nine dollars. you have to go through that. you have to vote for that and then go to 15. hillary clinton, and i know the voter before, i have been following clinton for over 35 years. everyone has something and when they start digging into bernie sanders i'm sure he is not a clean white prints out there. she has given a plan for everything and she makes no promises. host: what is her plan specifically looking to help minority communities on this issue we are talking about this morning? caller: she has mentioned schools, minimum wage, she has mentioned police, she will deal with that. reforms in penitentiaries. the young black lives matter.

they are in jail and white kids aren't at the age of 15. i have given -- she has given more plans and bernie sanders. i don't understand -- and the young girls, i was young once. said, 30 years ago i was protesting. breaking the glass ceiling for women matters. they would not have the opportunities they have today had it not been for the women prior. it does matter. you just don't wake up one day and find yourself voting, find yourself in congress, find yourself on everything. she has talked about all of these issues. host: but go to gladys in chicago, illinois. line for black voters. caller: good morning. i am going to vote for hillary. host: why is that? caller: i'm familiar with

hillary. she has been around for a long time. i know hillary. what i don't know is about bernie sanders. i don't know him. i don't know if he's a democrat. i don't think he is a republican. i don't think he is an independent. not made it plain to me about what he is. some people say socialist. i don't know. host: you are from chicago. this is a piece in the "chicago tribune." let me read you a paragraph from this and see if this is how you feel. it says until now most african-americans, particularly the more loyal democrats have not paid much attention to the

elderly white-haired socialist. many african-americans in the south, though not necessarily all that excited about a hillary clinton presidency, have been willing to rekindle their love affair with her and bill for the good of the democratic party. is that how you feel? caller: i think so. him.t don't feel things.e do say good i don't know who he is. host: when you say you don't feel him, what do you mean? caller: i feel like he is another candidate running to be he is justecause running. -- he wants toke have the country. i just feel like that. host: robert is in battle creek

michigan. line for black voters. good morning. caller: good morning. i think we should not just sit back and automatically give our .otes to the clintons i remember back in the 1990's, bill clinton we voted for him nafta. he signed he had the three strikes you're out, he enforced that which did in turn have a lot of blacks and latinos locked up. we should not just sit up there as a coalition of people and automatically vote for a person. . am feeling the bern i'm 62 years of age. clinton and them they say something but behind closed doors -- host: gladys said she was not feeling bernie. you said you are feeling the ber

n. from the remember bern 1960's coming up. ones -- ane of the lot of corporations give money away to students that sit up and take pictures. i gave $10,000 for summary to go to college. bernie was there. while they are sitting up there trying to kick him down they need to read their history a lot more clear. host: what do you remember that bernie sanders' history. caller: i remember bernie sanders being from michigan i remember when he was up in chicago. when he got locked up. i'm number reading the papers. the battle creek inquirer news. i tried to be informed more so than other people. i guess that is why i don't fit in most socials. i was a nerd before i became a musician then.

i've been through many transformations in life. but then, i am not a person just because you say you are going to do something and then when you get in office you sign something like nafta, which helped send a lot of jobs on out of here and then you help enforce the three strikes you're out rule like bill clinton did to keep -- in order to make agreement with them he sold a lot of people out i feel. host: how do you think the candidates have responded to this crisis in flint, michigan? the minority community that has been impacted. caller: it seems to me they are just giving -- to me a lot of the black leaders just automatically signed a deal with the devil. we're going to go for hillary. . like to listen

just like in court, you listen to both sides before you make up your mind. bernie, i feel, has the right format. bernie is not -- does not have the super pac. he is not in bed with the devil. host: that is rubblehost robertn battle creek michigan. hillary clinton in an interview with bet talked about her response. [video clip] >> we need formulas that do provide the kind of investments, the kind of direct help that fixes infrastructure, public schools, that makes sure there is health care available. there is so much neglect. that is why i went to flint. that would not have happened in a rich, white community. it is a city of 100,000 that is predominantly african-american and predominately poor. they were not just treated with indifference but actual neglect

by the state government. now they need money to fix their water system. that is a perfect example of the kind of changes that we have to prioritize and i'm going to do that. i'm going to make it clear that as far as i'm concerned, my highest priority is to help lift up people who is been left behind and left out. i'm particularly concerned about kids but kids are parts of families and neighborhoods in communities. this we are spending morning post first 40 five minutes talking about the democratic primary in the role of minority voters. we will put the lines on the screen for you. some numbers on the breakdown among democrats for support for clinton and sanders according to the latest nbc news/wall street journal poll. clinton leads sanders among minorities 52% to 30%. 39%.ads among women 58% to

as well as self identified democrats 58% to 37%. here is where bernie sanders men,, among white independence, and primary voters under the age of 50. focusing on the all-important south carolina primary which is happening for democrats on saturday come here is how the numbers breakdown. mrs. clinton leads 68% to 21% among black voters there who make up more than 50% of the turnout in south carolina but to 35%d shrink to 52% among black voters who are under the age of 45. many young black voters say they support sanders. if you want to read more on that , that is in "the wall street journal." john is on the line for black voters from palm beach, florida. caller: i am an african

american. i want to say, if bernie sanders campaign is listening, he needs to go to the radio shows instead of al sharpton and all of that stuff. he needs to go to michael baisden, steve harvey, tom joyner. i guarantee you when they hear him, clinton's support will drop. i don't know who his campaign manager is that they are not aware of that. what you get black voters, particularly the ones that will vote is to go to those radio shows. those voters will run away from clinton. black folks are voting for hillary clinton because of name recognition. they are not really looking at the issues. that's why you hear a lot like lattice. i do -- a lot like gladys. i don't know bernie. he needs to get his name out to those people. host: when he goes on though shows, what does he need to say? caller: just what he is saying. that's it.

host: which is what? what do you think is is most appealing message? caller: his most appealing message is that the system is rigged against the working class. that wall street has all of these politicians bought out including hillary clinton and that the game is rigged. hillary clinton is a democrat but she is just like -- she is a politician. the corporate interests have been paid out. that is how they play the game. it does not matter. bernie sanders, by exposing her connections to wall street, she cannot take that. she is so weak on that and that's why she's trying to deflect. --ck people just have not they have not learned who bernie sanders is and they can't dig up anything.

it would have already been out. , the samen consistent person year after year for the last 35 years. black peopleter, are not flocking to bernie sanders because of his record and it is because his campaign is sowing seeds of mistrust. his campaign of innuendo is sowing seeds of mistrust. minorities can have a profound impact and effect of the outcomes but they have to participate at the ballot box first. you can follow along with conversation on twitter. or you can call in. kevin is on the line for black voters. good morning. caller: i think hillary, the clinton family and all of that are implying that black folks over them a favor. all they have done was put a lot of black folks, young people in jail. the truth of the matter is she cannot be trusted.

i have so many friends who worked for the federal say, hadt and they they tried to do what she did, they would be in jail, fired immediately. here she is walking around running for president. she cannot be trusted. people forget she is a warmonger. sent so many young americans -- regime change. that is all she talks about. thatpeople forgotten underhanded leadership at the state department that the u.s. ambassadors were killed in libya? this is so irresponsible when she knew everything that was going to happen out at the embassies there. host: are you a bernie sander supporter? caller: 100%. people need to learn their record is not the same. hillary's campaign cannot be

trusted. african-americans need to wake up. white folks need to wake up. she cannot be trusted. she is absolutely driven by wall street with all of that big pac money and she needs to get out of the way. host: we are talking -- we were talking about flint, michigan a few minutes ago. david is calling in from flint. good morning. hillarywe appreciate coming to house of prayer baptist church a couple of weeks ago. i would also like to say we in flint, michigan appreciate the whole united states. people from every state have helped us and i just wanted to say thank you for all of the help we have received in flint. andhole entire feeling family supports hillary.

my god sons, i will talk to them. we will support her. she came here. she is the only candidate, republican am a democrat, democrat who ever. who showed us love. we appreciate the clintons. she is not mr. clinton, she is hillary clinton. host: the caller before you said that the clintons think that african-americans go them something. that was him talking about flint. hillary clinton going out looking for votes. what is your take on that? caller: that is his opinion. he is supporting donald trump probably. host: he was actually supporting bernie sanders. anythingow

about bernie sanders. all the promises he is making -- i don't believe in a lot of big houses. this is real life. i think hillary clinton is our best choice. if we get a republican in there, let me tell you something. we are in trouble because they are not going to do nothing but kill our youth and do whatever they want. it will be a mess. host: let's go to james in south carolina on the line for lack voters. good morning. caller: first-time caller. i love bernie sanders. off on so sanders is many things that i don't think bernie sanders is going to be able to deliver. cannot getent obama congress to budge. i am for hillary clinton. it is not because i owed hillary -- hillary clinton -- because all the politicians think you go

them. man.a 64-year-old i have been here a long time. i hear so many things in politics. but hillary clinton is speaking the things that she has been talking about for ever since i can remember. another thing, i am definitely for changing the criminal justice system. go, tell us you what you are seeing in lakeview, south carolina. have you seen any of the candidates? caller: no. none of the candidates came to lakeview, south carolina. i am 35 miles north. int: have any ads struck you south carolina? no.er: i have just been following hillary clinton and bernie sanders. i love bernie. he is talking what the people want to hear but i don't think the congress -- everything he

wants, free this or free that -- it has to go through congress. and if congress does not accept it, he cannot deliver. i think hillary clinton is best for this country. people will hold hillary clinton responsible for the benghazi situation, responsible for her husband situation. that hillary clinton is her own person and she should have the opportunity to exercise and show us that hillary clinton is for us, for all of people. the president should be for all the people, not just some of the people. host: that is james in south carolina ahead of saturday's democratic primary, coming off republican primary in south carolina this past weekend. in washington journal, let's go let's go to chelsea,

massachusetts. good morning. go ahead. -- ir: i think it is time am all for the political revolution. i am a young latina women. he message of hillary clinton does not resonate with me. i feel like it is the same old, same old. he see what is happening with the middle class gap. the rich are getting richer. it is time that we get out and vote and put somebody in there. a lot of people say his making a lot of promises but he has a plan to back that up. let's get the money from the rich, tax them and try to help out. yet, it is distributed be wealth but you know what? you have to do what you have to do to sustain the economy. we need a political revolution. ist: one of the criticism that he is not going to be able to get any of these plans

through congress. what is your response to that? caller: my response would be that he would have a better chance than hillary clinton. he is in the middle of the aisle. he has historically been able to work with both sides to get things done. i think it is worth a chance. what do we have to lose? as opposed to putting someone who has been there before -- the same old people running this country and nobody really reflecting the needs or urgency refocusingneed to focusing on, especially the economy. hispanic voters line is (202) 748-8001. clinton and sanders continued to continue to claim the hispanic vote coming off the nevada caucuses. explaining what the disagreement is over this, the hispanic vote out there.

the bernie sanders campaign said it was hardened -- it was heartened. but what we learned today is that hillary clinton's firewall with latino voters is a mess. the clinton campaign questioned the numbers, say at one point she had won 60% of the delegates in 22 lucido -- 22 latino majority precincts. charles wrote in the new york times looks at the shares of hispanic voters in states, coming up with primaries. here are the states and their percentages of eligible hispanic voters. new mexico, 40%, texas at 28%. arizona, 22%. lord, 18%. nevada, 17%. down the line, the share of theible voters, that is

further column to the right in that chart if you want to read that column. it is in today's new york times. the headline is -- bernie sanders hits a roadblock. let's go to mark. good morning. caller: good morning. i am 60 years old. i have studied this since -- in 1975, when the elections commission was formed to stop corruption, but instead it legalized bribery. if you look, wages haven't gone up since 1975. dollars,age was two worth $40.61 in 2015 wages. whenerything was frozen the fcc was formed. something that people will find

incredible is when bill clinton in the 1990's was saying everyone deserves a home, that was a setup. the community reinvestment act, the -- to ensure loans and that was the beginning of the setup for everyone buying a home, subprime, everyone gets a loan. so they could make the derivatives back. it collapsed the economy in 2007. host: mark from north carolina. behind me on capitol hill today, returning butot the senate returns from the presidents' day holiday today. chris coons will be recognized to deliver washington's farewell annual --d the

between parties, you can go to the senate archives if you want to see who has read the washington farewell address. the new york times today on the debate over the supreme court that will be happening today when the senators return. the headline -- senators returning to square off head to square off head-to-head over replacing scalia. they will be meeting for the first time since the death of antonin scalia a, and what is expected to be a retracted fight nominee over president obama's replacement. harry reid will take the floor on monday afternoon where he is expected to chastise republicans were using the battle over the nomination to detailed -- two delegitimize president obama and undermine the government's basic nominee over president system. republicans will be more cautious in their approach. , theor mitch mcconnell

majority leader, said mr. obama should not bring a replacement nominee to capitol hill. it on monday, he is expected to contain his remarks to the subject of tributes. the senate will convene at 3:00 p.m. back to the phones. edward is waiting on the line for black voters in california. good morning. caller: give me a second, i am a new caller. the guy who just called from said not onea, he good thing about hillary clinton. the first thing she did was that you couldn't save your house in bankruptcy. hillary clinton also was fired and unethical behavior during the watergate.

her and her husband have done more damage, even citizens united. it is behind hillary clinton. refused to take down the confederate flag in arkansas. the only reason why she was in flint was because it was political. she needed the exposure. that is why nobody else did week as they thought it was patronizing. that was edward in los angeles. jim on twitter says, as a black voter, i am sad that we are willing to take the crumbs that hillary clinton is offering us while bernie sanders offers loaves for all. then -- the energy blacks latinos put into sanders and clinton is wasted. is not lack versus

brown or white or yellow. not workedanders has with minorities. dividing on this issue is a waste of energy. if you want to tweet us, follow along. gilbert is in oklahoma. good morning. caller: let me say something first. the thingness that's in south carolina got rid of the bush dynasty. importantly, with the clintons, they have a -- to be able to easily walk into a black church, a black community and they have worked on that and they know it. it is orchestrated so well until we forget why they are there. we assume they are for us.

however, i like what bernie sanders is saying but i don't see how he can get it accomplished. look at what they did to president obama. they stopped him on everything. the fact that he got something accomplished is astounding. i think of what president clinton did with three strikes and you are out. look at that. the black community in baltimore, maryland. i used to work in washington, d.c. -- it is terrible. is, i will probably vote for hillary clinton because i think with the emphasis the hind him, however, the frightening thing is that we will no longer be needed after there willon occurs be no more behind him. host: let's go to vicki in houston, texas. caller: yes, i am a black voter. i am voting for bernie sanders and the reason why is because i

believe in change. a black woman or black individual is somebody who can come up with ideas. i just believe it is time for us to wake up. you don't oh anybody anything. you may not know bernie sanders, you do not know clinton. sanders never changes. he is on point. he wants to help. what is a socialist? what i believe is that we are a country that can give health insurance to individuals. we get money taken out of our checks on a regular basis. this country is rigged. and i don't believe i've owned my vote to a woman just because she is a woman. if hillary clinton is the best thing since sliced bread, that is what everyone seems to believe. but here is what i believe.

president barack obama eight years ago, it was a setup. they put her as secretary of state so she could run. they didn't give martin o'malley a chance. i am for bernie sanders. host: our last caller in this segment. a programming note for campaign 2016 coverage today on c-span -- ted cruz is having a rally in las vegas. the republican caucus is happening tomorrow. the rally is happening at 3:00 p.m. today. his ownrump is having campaign rally in las vegas, that will be shown on c-span at 10:00 p.m. coming up next, we will be joined by grover norquist. we would talk about the proposed budget and the tax plan being put forward. later, we have karine

jean-pierre joining us to talk about the work that democrats are doing in the field to turn up reporters ahead of the primary on saturday and super tuesday on march 1. that is coming up in just a minute on the washington journal. ♪ >> tonight on the communicators, gordon smith, president and ceo of the national association of broadcasters discusses his concerns with wheelers proposals for opening the set-top box

market. monte tail. by >> i respect the fact that the chairman is looking at something. he fosters competition. and he is looking at one of the centers in the television industry. i understand why he is doing that. i suppose that, as a consumer myself, i am saying, who is the amazon, here #is it google? questions i have now is that we have negotiations with direct tv and satellite and cable, with comcast and time warner -- you name it. retransmissions negotiations are happening all the time. withoutcent of them and

difficulty at all but they are paying for the content. so if he goes to a new set-top gatekeeper,ifferent my question is, how about my copyrighted the cheerio? are they going to sell ads on that? do they have no responsibility for what they then will take from broadcasters? communicators tonight. on c-span two. >> washington journal continues. norquist is a familiar face. -- americans for tax reform he joins us to discuss the budget and we will also be talking about the tax plans that the candidates are talking about on the campaign trail. trillionint -- a $4.4 budget. up 3.4this brings taxes

trillion dollars over the next decade and it increases spending over projections 2.5 trillion dollars over the next decade. that is a bernie sanders wish list of more money for the government and more spending for the government. what's interesting is -- none of this is going to happen. the budget has gone to the hill and collectively there are two votes from the republicans and democrats. the republicans ask the democrats if they want to vote for it and traditionally, they don't. they have traditionally been two guys who have voted for an obama budget. it is an exercise in something. or to to make a point make friends happy. we saw $.25 on one gallon of gas . that would be doubling the

federal gas tax. all of that money goes to not roads. so if you want a sense of where obama thinks the democratic party is, it is not roads, more high-speed trains. it is a very interesting thing to take the thing that people do say they want from the government, roads that work, rose that are wide enough to get the traffic through and take the gas tax money away from roads and put it into something else. budget, the president says it appears to last year's bipartisan budget agreement. i want you to help work that through. it also drives down the deficit and includes smart savings from health care and immigration and includes tax reform. tax reform is something you have been advocating for. guest: yes, his definition of tax reform is to give the irs money.

since -- oversaw the failure to discipline people for going after people for political reasons. based on political purposes. i served on the committee to restructure the irs during the clinton years. and i asked the commissioner and head of the irs then, i said, none of my groups are being audited. and i was wondering if you could explain to us how you decide who to audit? oh, we have a scientific, nonpolitical way of doing it. it is a secret, you have to trust us. theust has been broken by clinton administration and by the obama administration. we shouldn't be giving more money to the irs to reward the people who are supposed to be checking. they have been targeting people politically.

host: is there a tax reform plan that is being talked about on the campaign trail that you have endorsed or you could get behind? guest: each of the republican candidates -- what's interesting is that while the democrats -- hillary clinton is being marched hard left with obama at one elbow and the vermont senator at the other elbow. and obama's governance over the last eight years, and the new tax budget drive her to the left because she can't turn to him and say, hey, this is crazy. i don't want to go where you want to go. and bernie sanders has moved her to the left. she did not want to run very left, she wanted to run the way her husband did. as a moderate. but she is so far off the moderate pass -- these two men carried her off. it is not necessarily a

political decision. side, -- sheican has agreed to the tax increases. on the republican side, what is interesting is that they yell at each other and they call each other names and low energy and this and that. taxes, i share with all the taxpayer protection pledge and we asked them to make a commitment, in writing, i won't raise taxes. we have a strong support in the house and senate that can and will stop tax increase, even the democrats. which is why obama's tax increases are dead on arrival. it on the republican side, they all dramatically reduce rates. we have an international -- international competitiveness problem. the french and chinese are at at 25%.

half of europe is below 25%. we are at 35% and we wonder why our companies can't compete? an american company that is international is worth more because belgian tax policy is less than american tax policy. they will continue as long as of rate is at 35% instead 25% or 15%. get into thato but i also want to bring in the callers. if you want to talk to grover norquist, republicans, (202) 748-8001, democrats, (202) .48-8000 we start on the line for democrats. from ohio, james you are on. james, go ahead. caller: first of all, you talk

about the tax problems with companies. one problem we have in the we pay too much money for health care. outside of the united states, these companies are not paying for health care. if our companies were not paying for health care, the ground would be level. and the other thing that happens to us in this country is that our minimum wage and their minimum wage -- our people suffer. black-white thing, it is a poor people thing. if you look at who is getting food stamps and who is getting

all of the things that you need , lookvive in this country at the red states. all, that they are more of the giveaways then in the blue states. host: grover norquist? guest: you have made several important points. health care is too expensive in the united states. as we know, obamacare promised it would reduce the cost of health care but obamacare has had a series of tax increases on health care. middley hitting the income american. something the promised -- heething he promised wouldn't do. the president of the united states promised repeatedly that no one in the united states to make less than $250,000 a year would ever pay a penny of higher tax on sales taxes, he went through the list.

it was his most repeated commitment to the american people. that is why we recommend that frome demand it in writing the politicians. president promised he wouldn't, it took him two weeks before he raised taxes on cigarettes muggers. the average income, $40,000 a year. he has gone on to put a new tax increase on gasoline, $.25 a gallon -- that hits all americans and is particularly damaging to lower income americans who spend more money and their income on gasoline. you mention the pain that people are in. have we grown? as we did policies under the reagan administration and grown as we did during the reagan administration, there would be 13 million more people

with jobs in the united states. i don't know if you can show this chart, but this chart compares what actually happened, to 21 million americans working today. had we grown at the rate that we did since the bottom of the recession, measuring apples and apples and oranges and oranges, the bottom is the obama recession. the growth that followed, 13 million more people got jobs. imagine how much more helpful it would be? there are 30 million people with zero income who would have one if we had progrowth policies with lower taxes and less regulation and less government. 13 million families. host: where is this chart from? guest: from the congressional budget office numbers. let us go to gary in sterling, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning, earlier on you were talking about

infrastructure and i have said before that we need to use satellite computer technology to design our infrastructure. ,he last time i talked to you grover norquist, you said the problem with infrastructure is unions, specifically, the davis-bacon act. let me finish. of the 100 public input sessions i have been to, i have never seen any union representation there. i have seen corporations and politicians. we are suffering around here because there is a refusal i the far right to use common sense and logic. to analyze, prioritize and subsidize and design our infrastructure. by not using satellite computer technology. satellite sure using

computer technology would be a great idea. if ask and many people ask, the government is spending all of this money at the state and local level and at the national level, why are the roads not wide enough? why do we have traffic jams? why do we have potholes in the cities? there are a couple of reasons. one of them is the davis-bacon act, a law packed in the early 1930's designed to keep african-americans out of impeding the unionized white labor at the time. they are clear about that on the floor of the house and the senate. it is not a happy chapter in american history but the law is still there. it raises the cost of building -- the federal government spends a penny on a road or a building, the whole project falls under thesenate. davis-bacon law. south africa has a similar law. for the same reason. that raises the cost of

everything that the federal soernment touches, roads and on, but maybe 30%. many states passed many davis-bacon laws under the pressure of organized labor. the good news is that west virginia has repealed their prevailing wage law. wisconsin just dramatically reduced their state davis-bacon law. they are not waiting for washington. we are focused today on who is going to be the next president last eight years, there have been a lot of changes at the state level to real progress in some states. we see states going in the wrong direction but many states are doing real reforms, if ackley would washington has not been able to do because the president vetoed the republican reforms. it on infrastructure, politicians know that people will vote for an improved gasoline tax.

they put the roads last. the governor in california didn't even include roads in his last budget. host: so you agree that there needs to be improved infrastructure spending? guest: you should take away all of the special interest requirements like davis-bacon and mineral wage so that we are not spending more than we need to to build roads. if you want to expand a road you have to look and see if it is irritate -- if there is already a road there. so a lot of those restrictions and regulations, which make it -- why should you wait years to have an epa study to have an additional lane? running a road 3/4 that never had a road before and you might want to take a look at that. so you're saying less red

tape but not more spending? guest: you shouldn't consider the dollars spent until you have spent the dollars. one of the things in wisconsin was a constitutional amendment. the democrats took a billion dollars in 10 years out of roads and spent it on other stuff. politicians have been looting the money that is supposed to go to roads and infrastructure and spending it on other stuff and then they have to raise taxes. so step 1 -- there was an effort in maryland to stop polluting the money for roads. if you promise people you will spend the gas tax on roads, don't steal it. don't spend it. are here with grover norquist for another half hour. timothy is waiting in north carolina on the line for independents. caller: good morning. i am glad i got in this morning.

like for you to let me, if you can, respond because this man has a way of steering the comments in his favor. you continue to have him on. was on one time. but grover norquist is on all the time. host: go ahead with your question. caller: i want to explain something to him. the american market is the biggest market. 25% of the world wealth and only 4% of the population. this is a very big market. if you go to new york on 34th street and you pay rent their, you are going to pay very high for that store. why? because you are in a big market. what we are doing here in clinton --der bill like the other guy said, because of the monica lewinsky thing,

when to what -- went with the free trade to make a global market. andre taking our big market competing with the small markets. america is a really big market. we have a lot of money here. and people should pay to come here to do business. people get filthy rich off the american people. they should pay for that. they shouldn't be able to keep all of that money. bush gotr bush, when in, he made it worse. he gave companies tax benefits to take the company overseas. george bush's and father, when they ran for president, he told us everything that would happen with this free trade and all of this stuff. host: you are covering a lot of ground there. a couple of things.

you talk about trade. part of that is a question about whether america is the richest country in the world but whether it is the most productive. the answer is, we largely are and we can do even better. our government handicaps .merican jobs obama has allowed no reform to be passed. at the state level, a lot of passing reform. you see doctors moved to texas because the laws are not as stupid as they are in other states. manufacturing is leaving those states. they make it easy to sue people for no reason. court reform is very important. most countries don't have court reform, it is instructive. usually when we talk about the united states and comparing it to other countries, we do things right and they do things wrong. but court law is not something we do right. our business taxes are higher than the rest of the world.

we should make them competitive. we do need to be more competitive and politicians are talking about that. but you have it backwards on bill clinton and free trade. bill clinton was supportive of free trade but when he got in trouble because of his personal lewinsky,with monica the labor unions came in and said, we will protect you but -- and that is when he flipped on issues and he was under the control of organized labor. he did come out against free trade and some of the progress that might have been made. that was political pressure. host: we have talked about the taxpayer protection pledge which candidates and elected officials promise not to raise taxes. you are certainly in favor of cutting taxes. tax cuts only help the wealthy, every time the working people get one, the wealthy raise the cost of living. guest: one of the things that

our friends on the left like to argue is that tax money is free. every tax increase is a pay cut to the american people. when the politicians raise taxes pay cut on, it is a you. when they raise taxes on your bill, whenr phone you look at the taxes on if you rent a car, travel and your car gets broken and you need to rent a car, take a look. only a fraction of that money goes to the rental car company. a lot of it goes to taxes. those taxes are destructive destructive -- taxes are destructive. every tax hike is a pay cut to the american people. down ando keep taxes create more jobs and opportunities. again, i showed the chart. if we had grown during the obama

years as well as we had grown during the reagan years, there would be 13 million americans with jobs. who don't have them today. in a country of 330 million people, that is 13 million families to our damaged because of bad economic policy. knox tax cuts. -- not tax cuts. gary in georgia is up next. i am one for doing away with the outsourcing of jobs to china and other countries. i want to see the jobs come back here but we have to give tax corporations these to come back. i want to see a flat tax, more income for people in this country. so that more people want to graduate from high school and college and they will have jobs waiting for them in america. i want to see our military be stronger to prevent the things that are happening in sanctuary

cities. there shouldn't be a thing as a century city. guest: a good set of points. we can become more competitive if we stop government from damaging existing businesses. as important, if our government and this is true if all government -- and this is true with all governments -- i am not picking on the american government, we are less destructive with liberty and job creation and opportunity but in the 50 states, you can see some governments do much better and others not as well. there is an interesting chart here which gives you some sense of the direction of the country at the state level. at the federal level, nothing is moving in a tears. level, you seee that 23 states have republican governors, house and senate. .he red states

eight yellow states have both republican house and senate but a democratic governor. seven states are completely democrat. california and six others. and then there are a number of states, four states in green because illinois, maryland, massachusetts -- they all have democratic legislation is but a republican governor. so at the state level, people are voting for elected officials taxese going to lower with less spending. in tennessee they are about to vote on making that state income tax-free. it is mostly income tax-free. they will vote in tennessee to become a no income tax state at the state level. that will make nine states without any income tax at all. and that is very helpful to growth. florida has been growing very strongly.

california has been losing people. americans leaving california to move to other state. new yorkers leaving new york. illinois people moving out of illinois. moving out of big spending states to low tax states. you see people voting with the seat. do people want more taxes or less government and be left alone? people are moving from the states with the big government approach and moving towards those states that take less of your money and push you around less when it makes decisions. uber. forward -- it has created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the united states and millions of customers are happy. had to go around organized labor and the government taxing commissions. another clinton has announced that she has an approach that the labor unions want to ban independent contractors. uber would be against the law if hillary clinton was able to impose her vision. she has declared war on the or on the newy

high-tech economy where you have airbnb. all the politicians want to do is figure out how to tax them in set of realizing it makes everybody with a house somebody who could rent part of their house to somebody for a day or a week or longer. opportunities for people to do better and when government gets in the way, we need to not let labor union rules, government laws and politicians kill uber. they want to tax internet sales across state lines. the republicans all oppose that. it would damage everybody who trades on ebay. everybody who buys or sells on craigslist. these guys are at war with internet businesses and at war with new businesses starting. and i think they really threaten what is most important. our dynamism and our

entrepreneurship. our young people want to get in the workforce but don't want to drive to work every day, a lot of work can be done with more flexibility. host: lots of calls. leonard in asian, ohio. good morning. grover norquist, i have been listening to you for several years. my first question is, without taxes, who pays the president and the elected officials? my second question is, after the civil war, resident lincoln it all of these states welfare states. you know who the states are and all the slave states. with the welfare states, tell the people how much money do the welfare states sent to washington, d.c. and what do they get back? guest: two questions. how do we pay be politicians?

i'm not arguing for no taxes. doctors aren't against cells. they are against cells that replicate quickly that threaten to kill you. i am against a government that when it gets so large, it becomes destructive of liberty. to limit the government as the constitution is designed, it makes people freer. it allows people to interact freely and to protect people from criminals. you have the army to keep the canadians on their side of the border. we need a strong national defense. we need prisons for bad guys who we want to be protected from but you don't want the government to go into things that the government ought not to be doing. governments, local governments and the federal governments do is taking money and giving money to their friends. it is instructive of the human liberty.

is instructive of the human liberty. is destructive of the human liberty. host: george is next. -- michael is next. weler: my opinion about why have the largest taxes in the world is because two of the three largest expenditures. health care and the military. there is so much in those two industries. lower taxes on the top in a globalized economy, they can invest in emerging markets. there is no capitalism and no patriotism. so how you expect them to pay for the infrastructure if you give lower taxes?

the goal is not just to lower taxes. the purpose of the taxpayer protection pledge is that unless you take tax increases off the table as all of the republicans running for president have and 95% of the republicans in the senate have made that commitment, then and only then do you have a conversation about reforming government. if taxes are an option, you never reform government. what is the new idea? raise taxes to pay for the new idea. barnicle after barnicle and all that is, it may have made cents 100 years ago or 50 years ago or 10 years ago, we keep paying for it whether it doesn't make any sense or whether it becomes destructive rather than productive. don't raise taxes. and then you can have reform in government. one thataxes is step

step two is to perform government so that it costs less and it is less intrusive in people's lives and it gives people more opportunities. it provides the things the government should do competently. tax plans of the republican candidates, your thoughts on what donald trump has talked about on the campaign trail? now as the frontrunner? guest: he came out with a 15% business tax instead of 35%. that would make the united states one of the most competitive nations in the world in terms of international competition. 4.8% state corporate tax, so is, in manyax states, 20% and then you have to compete with the rest of the world. all the republicans have gone to full expensing for business investments. some of your earlier callers who

were democrats, it is a tax that democrats who are willing to support. of the things that obama did was a small expensing for some businesses. we should have expensing for all businesses. new piece ofa equipment, you don't pay taxes on that. we want to make our workers the most productive in the world. i want us to be an emerging market. we should be the fastest-growing and not just the richest because we used to be the fastest. we want to get back to being the fastest-growing. it is not too late. obama has new piece of equipment, you don't pay taxes on that. 2%. france is at 2%, that is not where we want to be. we want to be at 4%. all the republicans go to expensing and a territorial tax system. they are all good. news is that there is a

consensus within republicans about where to go on tax reform. on the line for republicans, brick is waiting. rick is waiting. caller: we had a tax increase that sanders and clinton are still saying is unfair. overall, federal taxation is effectively progressive. withnyone can google that cpl distribution of taxes. secondly, grover, would you consider hosting a forum where unaffiliated researchers can present information directly to the public? it is hard for an individual to get that kind of thing off the ground. guest: i would be very interested in highlighting serious independent research. you are cried right. we -- you are quite right.

we do have a progressive tax. i'm a resident of massachusetts, and they have flat tax as does illinois and other states that have no income tax. host:we do have a progressive t. can you define that? guest: a flat tax is where everybody pays 2% or 4%. you think that massachusetts would have a higher state tax like maryland or d.c. or new york. in because the politicians massachusetts have to look everybody in the eye when they ant to raise taxes, i have idea and you are all paying for it, they can't divide people into different groups. number one thing this does is to divide people into different groups and then the politicians smoke them at one of politicians smoke them one

at a time. i think they should have to face us all at the same time. katie is up on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: i have a question. spoken about how u.s. corporations pay more than in other countries. corporate tax is between 35%-30 9%, but according to the government accountability office, corporations pay less than half of that rate with an 12.6%. effective of so wouldn't it save everyone they do find the tax code and make sure people are paying what is on the books, legally? guest: there are parts of the tax code that were put in, and we should eliminate those seductions.

secondly, when a company or an individual makes the decisions you can drowne, in a river with an average one foot. people tend to focus on marginal tax increase. host: bob is up next on the line independents. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have this around in my head, it is about the minimum wage. why don't they make minimum wage offan hour to give people welfare. you could make him stand on their feet and then the amount of money that the government could save on the welfare, they would give a tax break to the man who has to pay the $15 an hour? that is a win-win, both ways.

i was like to know what he thinks about it. guest: one of the challenges is that a lot of our politicians are very old. not only in the years they have been alive but in their thinking. the minimum wage is an idea that when you look at it, in the 1930's, there was significant unemployment with african-american -- there was significant unemployment, specifically with african-americans. people don't have skills the first time they show up to work. you get them through working. hillary look at clinton's entire campaign, she is running into problems with the vermont senator, partially because her approach -- she came out for a 25% tax on guns in 1993 and she still supports that. when she wasat

getting her ideas, when you attack gun owners, you are attacking guys who hunt in wyoming. we now have 13 million americans with concealed carry permits. we are looking at a situation where underneath the still waters, the country has been changing. it is different than when she started running. there are 2 million americans who are homeschooled. and hillary clinton promised teachers unions to make that more difficult. there are 3 million who are in charge or schools. -- in charter schools. when you go after gun owners, it is now 13 million people with concealed carry permits, 1.5 million joined last year and half of those were women. a third of the people with concealed carry permits are women.

hillary clinton is attacking gun without realizing that the economy has changed. going after uber, there are .housands of drivers people make a living on ebay. all of these issues have changed over time. and bringing up the minimum wage, an idea from 1930's and hillary clinton's idea of the electorate is old. these are freedom issues. they run up against old laws that don't make sense anymore. and each of these expanding freedoms has changed the nature of the electorate. -- 10 yearsto that ago when hillary clinton was a senator, there was no vape t ing.

i'm talking about behavior and questioning of liberty. .0 million people vape they quit tobacco. has less than 99% of the problems than tobacco. people feel good about it but the liberal friends want to tax it. they want to have a prohibition on it. the fda is moving towards that. so as we go forward, there are people -- a woman with a concealed carry permit who carries a gun in her purse to be a differentt is human being than somebody who never had that right. are you still a member of the nra board? guest: yes. you get elected to the nra and then you run for office. i have been elected six times to

the nra board. the interesting issue is that there are 5 million members of the nra. 12 million more people who have a gun are hunters. so the people who care about the second amendment is higher than the people in washington recognize. how big is the board? guest: 76, a small legislature. collectionteresting of people from all 50 states. and of course, there are people who are black and who hunt and to have concealed carry. it is a diverse population. host: how often do you meet? guest: three times a year, twice in washington, d.c. and once at the national convention. we meet in september and january each year. erwin has been waiting in florida on the line for democrats. caller: can you hear me? guest: i can hear you.

caller: he mentioned in the beginning that conservative been targeted by the irs but they have not been targeted. i will tell you when there was real targeting of people. in the late 1940's and 1950's, people were communists and socialists, they wanted to make america a socialist country, the would go in front of activities committee. they lost jobs and families and they were kicked out of here. they were threatened to be exposed as communists when they were socialists. use toe words that they control the republican party. one of those is grover norquist. don't think anybody

should be discriminated against by the irs for political purposes. i don't know why anyone would want to be a stalinist or a socialist or a communist. i think that is not the way to one of the great things that has happened in the last 20 or 30 years, a number of people used to live under socialist dictatorships. millions and millions of people underurdered, now not socialist dictatorships. i think that is great progress. people with funny ideas defined by the government, a lot of people think different religions have funny ideas or politics have funny ideas. the government should never discriminate against people based on their faith, their ideas. that is what the united states is all about, freedom. , you goave a good idea out and sell it in win in the free market of ideas where the sell socks or salvation or your political ideas.

we should all be able to compete on a free and open basis and say i have a great idea. people could look at it and go that is not a good idea. nobody has to buy your idea or join a religion or sign up for your political movement. but the conversation, the first amendment is big on this. you should be able to talk freely and make it clear whether it is about your faith, ideas, literature, whatever it is you want to talk about. the point of the government is .o protect a free society when government steps out of that and goes after people's second amendment rights, goes after freedom of religion, or the ability to have a job. in the 1950's only 5% of americans needed a license from the government to have a job. today it is 30%. people should not have to have licenses to become hair braid or's or beauticians or whatever. we need the government to back off and let us have more liberty, take less of our money,

run less of our lives and do the things it is supposed to do like fill the potholes confidently -- competently. host: grover norquist. we will see you again on the washington journal down the line. guest: high tax hillary.com is the list of hillary's tax increases that i should've mentioned earlier. up next on the washington journal we will be .oined by karine jean pierre we will talk about the party 16 primaries and the work both campaigns are doing in the field to turn out supporters ahead of the south carolina primary. , we will come back to the president's fiscal 2017 budget and focus on the money president obama wants to see devoted to research and development of clean energy programs and technology coming up later on "the washington

journal." ♪ >> every election cycle we are reminded how important it is for citizens to be informed. >> c-span is a home for political junkies and a way to track the government as it happens. >> a great way for us to stay informed. >> a lot of c-span fans on the hill. my colleagues will say, i saw you on c-span >>. so much more c-span does to make

sure people know what is going on inside the beltway. host: since the start of this campaign only one network has taken you on the road to the white house. from the early announcements and policy speeches to the candidates visiting diners in iowa and new hampshire and of course the campaign rallies. after the results this weekend in nevada and south carolina, the republican race has narrowed . the democratic race has sharpened. we will stay in south carolina with the big democratic primary this saturday. and then we move on to the multistate primaries and caucuses in early and mid march. this race is just getting underway. you can follow all of it on the c-span networks, online at c-span.org and on c-span radio. >> "washington journal" continues. host: karine jean pierre joins

us with five days to go until saturday's south carolina primary. strategist who has worked on three democratic presidential campaigns in three different cycles. what are the conversations that are taking place in the hillary clinton and bernie sanders camps this morning? guest: first of all, this has been a crazy unpredictable cycle on both sides of the aisle. this saturday, what happened in nevada was a huge important win for the hillary clinton campaign. they had a great ground game. nevada is the first racially diverse state of the four contests. it was 40% latino but there is a 9.1% african-american voters there. she was able to get over 70% of the african-american voters to come out and vote for her which i think is very important as we head into south carolina.

is a getight now it out the vote, really focus on what is going on in super tuesday states. what is coming up in south carolina. it was a great win for hillary .linton slowing down momentum for bernie sanders unfortunately for him. he did well with latinos. he did better than she did with latinos. he just did not get the turnout he needed. he needs a big turnout in order to do well against her. host: that is something we want to talk about. first time guest on the washington journal. karine jean pierre served as martin o'malley's political enfield director this cycle. in 2012, served as a battleground state director for president obama -- deputy battleground state director for president obama. game,ou say ground

hillary clinton did a great job with turnout, what is ground game? guest: your team that you have on the ground who is working with volunteers, really pushing people to get to the polls. it is a simple as that. core ofe a really great field operatives out there. it is like, who do you have on the ground, who is your demographic? who are the democrats were the likely voters that will go out and vote? also getting a sense of swing voters. the swing voters who will vote for you, undecided, and working that first. you have to do persuadable messaging. you have to convince folks. this is why i am running. and then you get to the get out the vote operations areas host: what is the effective way of doing that? they hear the phone calls, the knocks on the door. of those, what is the most effective? guest: i don't think one is more effective than the other.

you need to have a full field operation. i think the most important thing , you need to understand the demographic of the state. south carolina, it is -- the majority of the electorate is african-american. in the democratic primary. the clinton campaign and sanders campaign have to figure out how to we get out that core group of people of the electorate to come out and vote. what are the interesting programs you can put in? what can you do to engage folks? one of the things barack obama 2008, in south carolina they had the barbershop and beauty salon program. you went out into the barbershops and beauty salons and got to talk to the people in the african-american community which is a big deal. you have to be creative in figure out how do you really touch that base. your really building

ground game in the sense of finding out what who are the -- finding out who are the likely voters, who do you need to persuade. host: we talked about the role of minority voters in our first segment today. one caller said bernie sanders needs to get on black radio in south carolina. he is not doing a good enough job. why is that such an important him to occupy? how would you assess his campaign in that state? guest: they have spent more money in south carolina. they had been on the air, had more ads than hillary clinton. on the air a lot more than she has and has a big ground operation. african-american radio is really important in the effort in american community. one source that we get our information. i have no idea if he is doing african american radio or not but that is an important tool if you are trying to commute with working day people who are most likely going to vote.

host: we are talking with political strategist karine jean pierre. with us for about the next 40 minutes or so. we are looking ahead to the south carolina primary and looking back to nevada and the lessons from nevada for the campaigns. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. middleton is calling in. good morning. caller: good morning. i have been a democrat for 55 years. when starting out neutral we started this campaign for who is going to run for president. , notore hillary talks really coming out and telling the truth about her money she is getting from everybody, she is turning me off. i am really discouraged in the whole party.

.ven my state senators and all i don't like them anymore. they are not for me. she is not for me. you can tell she is for the big business through it all these people get up in -- you put them online and stuff. they brag about these people. i spent 55 years a democrat. host: who was the last candidate that was for you? now.r: nobody host: who in the past has been for you? /who is some of you that you trusted? rahal wrote me a personal letter. host: former congressman from west virginia. caller: now he is gone because we have republicans in their. host: karine jean pierre, the caller was talking about the lack of trust especially with

hillary clinton and her funding sources is where his concern was. how big of an issue is it for her heading into these major primaries coming up? guest: it is an issue. she needs to deal with it. especially going into the general election if she gets the nomination which i think she will especially with the delicate process as it's got -- the delicate process as a going to be. she has a really smart team around her and they are going to work through that. andave seen in polling time again she loses out to bernie sanders all the time when it comes to trust. it is an important issue. host: you have seen the field strategies from your perspective list. do bernie sanders and hillary clinton represent two different strategies of running a field operation or are they doing the same things? how many phone calls, how me offices. guest: in any field operation it is phone calls, doors knocked and being creative.

figuring out how you connect with voters. this year, technology is playing a big role. 2016, the apps have been in voter id and giving them a sense where they need to caucus and primary. just connecting with them and collecting information. technology has been an important tool. it continues to be so. 2008, obama took that data tracking and social media and revolutionized that and it has continued since then. 2016 has been technology-based as well. host: let's go to james in fort worth, texas. line for republicans. good morning. caller: i would like to ask the lady you have on the program today, what is hillary go to do for the black voters that obama has not done? apparently obama has not done much.

i think hillary is very trusted amongst the african-american community. they know her. she has 25 years of being out there. the first lady of arkansas, also she has a long- track record that i think -- the-americans president has done a lot for the african-american community and will continue to do so as he finishes up the last seven or eight months. i disagree with that point. i think there is a relationship there, and understanding, a reputation that she has with the community that people respect. she is going to have to work for it, most definitely. host: what is that built on? what are the examples she points to on the campaign trail and says this is where this relationship came from? guest: i think it is basically

senator inrk as u.s. really focusing on what she did for the community in new york when it came to african-americans. her support behind bill clinton when he was president. you have seen her go out getting unfortunatelyrom the young people who were killed in illinois and also in florida. clearly she is resonating with folks. they see her as someone who can help fix the criminal justice system and move that forward. host: so the headlines from some of the newspapers in south carolina ahead and saturday possible try merry -- saturday possible primary. sanders holds a rally in

greenville ahead of saturday's primary as clinton campaign host events in north charleston. we are talking about the democratic primary coming up. taking questions and comments with democratic strategist karine jean pierre. kathleen is in california. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. martin luther king talked about two america's, black america and white america. we are still two america's. the question is -- lack of americans have been voting democrat consistently for 60 years. what do we have to show for it? we all must than one half of 1% ,f the wealth in the country which is what we owned 150 years ago. democrats want to make 12 million illegals legal. that adversely impacts economically black america. why would it be to black

america's interest to have 12 million illegals legal? , you say obama has done something for black america. i don't see it. i know gays got gay marriage. act andgot the dreamers driver's licenses. toma made an executive order give 5 million illegals legal status. jewish americans get israeli protection. tell me exactly what do black americans get? t. host: before you jump in, more on your background. served as the regional political director for the white house office of political affairs. served in the obama administration, not just on those campaigns. guest: on the question of the 11 million new americans that are

here, i think it is important to bring them into the fold. it is important to bring them out of the shadows. it does help the economy as a whole. it helps everyone. i think it is really important. this is why this election is tremendously important when you have someone on the republican side who is talking about building a wall, getting rid of all the 11 million people who other --and saying making other vile comments. you.'t convince it sounds like you have pretty much made up your decision on what has happened in the last eight years and where we are. clearly the history of african-american voters in the united states. it is important to go out and vote. at the end of the day it is important to exercise our right to vote. we have two candidates in the race. it is not just senator clinton -- secretary clinton. we have senator sanders.

if you are on the other side you have an option as well. it is important to get out there. host: what does the obama administration think its legacy is going to be specifically with the black community 20 years from now? guest: i think that the president and the administration has tried very hard to really bring back the black community in different ways whether it is helping small businesses, getting them on their feet and making sure there is representational that level. also bringing and services that help the community that is in need. host: from the washington post, looking at demographics ahead of the primaries that are coming up, black voters will take center stage in south carolina were history suggests they will make up a majority of democrats voting on saturday. for super tuesday, black voters are excited to be a majority in

the georgia primary and approaching a third of voters in virginia and tennessee. tennessee. line for republicans. philip, good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i know there are millions and millions of people on government assistance in our country. the you think that these people that are on any type of government assistance should get a drugs screen every month if they are getting government assistance? i believe if we did do this a lot of people would not get government assistance anymore because a lot of them are on drugs and that we get our country out of deficit i believe and keep a lot of the money that should be given back to our country. what do you think? host: as you are answering, talk about how this issue is playing in the democratic primaries as something the candidates are talking to. guest: they are talking about

criminal justice reform which is really important in the community of african-americans as we go into south carolina. people are talking about the economy and worried about jobs and taking care of their families for sure. that has been addressed by both candidates. inequality has been a major talking point for both sides, both candidates. that has been something that is really important and talk about. robert, line for democrats. good morning. karine.good morning, guest: good morning. caller: i would like to ask a question. if bernie sanders does not win and hillary clinton wins the nomination, doesn't that mean wall street wins again? guest: i don't believe that is

true, robert. i don't think so. host: is that the image hillary clinton as the fight? guest: it is the image she has to fight. when she first started out, her messaging was different in the sense that it was much more moderate, more general election speak and bernie sanders, one of the things that he did, he talked to the base, the liberal progressive base. he also had 30 years of experience of being that independent speaking against the establishment. what ended up happening is, by him really being on message for the last couple of months and sticking through it, you saw him rise and you saw what happened in iowa and new hampshire. leftas been forced to her and has been talking much more about the issues that the base , otherbout, big banks

progressive liberal issues that are out there. it is something she needs to deal with anything she has. her messaging has been great especially after the very last debate where she hit sanders hard for being -- calling him a single issue candidate. i think she is getting there. i think she has a message that is starting to coalesce and i think it is going to resonate as she moves forward. i believe she is going to win south carolina and super tuesday states. a couple of southern states that i think she will do well. host: what is the must win for bernie sanders looking at the calendar? iest: i think south carolina think she is going to win but i think will be interesting for him will be to see how close he gets to her. there is something there to look at the numbers. that will be interesting to see. you have oklahoma. that was a state hillary won

last time. vermont, massachusetts our states that he is doing well in. there are states out there that he will probably do well in. i do not know if it is enough. he would have to do so well because it is going to be about the delegates. democrats have to get 2383 delegates. hillary has about 500 to. bernie has about 70. at this point it is going to be about the delegate game and he would have to blow it out of the water in states in order to catch up to her. -- to me, thato is what is to watch. --t: the 502 number includes exley what a superdelegate is an respond to boring file clerk on twitter.

isn't the primary essentially rigged? guest: the superdelegates are small percentage of the overall delegate number. a little over super -- a little over 700 superdelegates. they are unpledged delegates because the delegates they are getting in the states are pledged. these are unpledged delegates and they can decide if they want to stay with one person or move over in 2008. hillary clinton won the popular vote. over one million people came out to vote for her in the primary. was008, obama, his team very smart and they knew about the delegates and they played that game very well. it was phenomenal to watch. superdelegates, also pledged party leaders and elected officials. he is going to have to do well in these primaries.

it is a small percentage of the overall. up on59 delegates saturday at the south carolina primary. and then we get into super tuesday were georgia, massachusetts, minnesota, vermont, virginia, and wyoming all vote. four days later on saturday, it goes to kentucky, kansas, brassica louisiana for the democrats. maine is having its republican primary as well. the calendar getting very busy in the road ahead. we are looking down the road on the democratic path in this segment with karine jean pierre, a democratic strategist. greg is in arizona, line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. all i want to say is, the reallycans seem to be dealing with illegal immigrants and the problems of that. the democrats are not really

addressing that. i just want to say, i have "illegalth several immigrants." good people, hard workers. that is all i want to say. just really good people. that is my overall experience. host: do you know who you are going to be voting for any election? caller: i'm still deciding. libertarian but right now i am thinking about sanders. i am an immigrant. my parents came from haiti. we came over about 30 or so years ago. so that resonates with me, new americans. both clinton and sanders has been really pushed to talk

about new americans, the 11 million we keep talking about. they have to because just like we just talked about in nevada, 40% of that population were latino hispanics. we are about to go into texas and other states across the border in the primary. you have to talk about that issue. , -- youalk immigration have to talk about immigration and i think they both have. it is an important issue in the democratic party. it should be and it is going to be in the forefront. host: where are the lines that separate sanders and clinton on that issue? guest: they go back and forth on it. one person did not vote for a bill in 2007. i actually don't know the specifics and details of that but i know they tend to go back-and-forth on that issue. i wanted to say in march we will

and 56% of those delegates will be out there. 56%6% of the delegates -- of the delegates in march alone. host: by march toward a second -- by march 22, 56%. guest: this is why everyone keeps talking about super tuesday in march. the delegate race, the 56% that you have. host: let's go to linda. stanley, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. who areaised children finally in their 40's are moving up into the middle class. now you have sanders that wants to take what they have worked for and spread it out around the country. this is a guy who has leeched off of taxpayers for 40 years. now he wants to take from my

kids who have worked hard and just give it to everybody else. the worst thing that's going to happen is if one of those democrats gets into office. thank you. host: if you were advising the sanders campaign, what is the response? guest: that is the critique they have gotten. a lot of their issues are impossible. impossible to do -- if he does become president, both chambers are republican as we know. it would be really impossible to get done. i think if i were them i would work on, what would it cost to do these different things that he wants to do. how much would it cost the american people to subside the angst around what you are proposing is impossible? really lay out how do you perceive to get this done. he has been on message and it has been great.

it has resonated with progressives, independents. there is going to be the question of, he looks to betinue, he has to really able to talk through that as well. host: we said you work for the o'malley campaign. understood in getting back out in the campaign trail? \ guest: not at all. in the general election i will be a good democrat and help out whoever is the nominee. host: what are you doing now? guest: right now i have a 20 month old that i was away from for about nine months. i teach at columbia university, campaign management so i am continuing to do that. so just take it easy, enjoy my life. it is pretty difficult to teach campaign management because in order to get the experience i say to my students all of time, you have to do it. in turn, do whatever you need to

and work on a campaign and get the basics. in my class it is basically talking about messaging and polling. kind of the fundamental components of the campaign and what you need in raising money. it is very much the basics. host: can one get a bachelors and campaign management these days? guest: you may be able to get some sort of masters. i think after 2008 there has been an influx of folks having interest in campaign management. american politics as a whole. host: karine jean pierre. paul has been waiting from international falls, minnesota. line for democrats good morning. inler: paul bennett international falls. i want to say one thing. i am proud that you are working for the democratic party and i will vote democrat, which everyone gets it.

the officials that give all the we shouldillary -- see who wins the popular vote. the: are you talking about superdelegates who should not advertise who they are supporting? caller: they should not advertise until the people vote and they can support whichever one they want. the thing of it is, i pray to to -- they say they want take our country back. this president has done a wonderful job. i am so proud of him. i hope we get another democrat to carry on what he has done. i think bernie sanders, if you really listen to him, you will find out he says if he cannot take a revolution with him he cannot do what he wants. i really love this party and i thank you for your time. host: does that superdelegates system need to be revamped after

all the criticism it received? especially after bernie sander'' big win in new hampshire. guest: that is a really good question. you can argue both sides and say, it is time that we revisit. but it is time we revisit a lot of things in american politics. maybe it is time to revisit the superdelegate program. you can argue both. i'm curious to see how it all turns out. sanders has an uphill climb. pennsylvaniaurg, is up next on the line for republicans. alicia, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question that has been bugging me for a year. evening and i did not want to go to bed. was flicking the tv and i came

across the history channel or discovery channel. it was a documentary about bill clinton. horrifiedusted and when i heard what they said about him contacting the drug cartel in south america to bring them up to keep control of the black people. you, as a black woman and a black person, how can you tell me you can vote for somebody that is related to that person that was in the white house with that person? how can you vote for that person? host: do you want to jump in here with the history she's talking about? guest: that is unclear to me. i'm not sure what she was talking about. i have not said who i am voting for. a goodi would be

democrat and help in the general election. i go back to say, this is the opportunity to pick your candidate and make sure they get a win. i cannot speak to what the caller was talking about. host: headlines looking ahead to south carolina. here is one from "usa today." clinton turns the south carolina black youth. let's go down to south carolina. billy is waiting, line for independents. caller: i would like to know something. --hillary has the american the african-americans who understand her and if black lies matter how can she support -- black lives matter, how can she --port land parenthood support planned parenthood? guest: i do not know if that is

true. i do not think that is true. i think the hillary clinton campaign is doing what they need to do. i think supporting planned parenthood does not affect her .ote with african-americans if anything planned parenthood has done a great job in helping -- women thats are in need across the board. i do not agree with that statement at all. i think she is doing what she needs to do. you read the article that has her focusing on the black youth. that will be important. that is a tough core of people to get involved. youth in general. we know she will have the 50 and older crowd in the african-american community because they have a history with her. they know the clintons. they know her. that is going to be a slamdunk for her i think. the black youth will be a challenge. host: you mentioned technology

being a key part of the process of putting together a good ground game three at politico had a story about bernie sanders, army of coders. inside the do-it-yourself volunteer tech movement helping to drive the insurgent campaign. the story notes that 2016 could go down as the year of the app and no one has been able bigger beneficiary than sanders. legions of code savvy unpaid helpers. assess that aspect of the sanders campaign. guest: you very much see that. in that same article they talk about bernie sanders.org that has 2 million unique viewers. that is amazing. probably over -- in that story he has over 1000 techies who are giving up time for free. average?t is an

guest: certainly not 2 million. i'm trying to think what would be the average. i don't know what the average would be but 2 million is a high number. that is an impressive number. on the donor side he actually has 2 million grassroots donors as well. he only accepts no more than $1000 and he has this amazing base of grassroots money coming in. the tech world has been tremendously great for him. ec it in his campaign. in these different apps that have come out in support of sanders. it remains to be seen if that helps them or will hurt him. they are all doing it independently of each other. there is a lot of interesting, tech savvy folks out there who are putting together some great apps on behalf of bernie sanders on their own dime. host: in terms of return on investment, how much should the campaigns be moving their budgets toward these apps that

out?oming are these really driving up the numbers or is it the old-school knock on a door and have a conversation? guest: it is great way to help capture everything and move things faster. we are just talking about the technology like data-driven components. there is a social media component as well. in 2008, twitter had just started and no one was really using that. now it has exploded. the social media facebook. .napchat all of these interesting social media components that go into the data-driven piece as well. when it comes to technology, silicon valley and having access to that, money is power so you need to have the money in order to get the technology. looking at 2008 and what obama 2012, if youdid in you would want to

put money towards that because it has been successful. host: let's go out to california . line for democrats. mary lou is waiting. caller: good morning. country.t a socialist republicans want sanders to win because they can beat him. he is not a democrat. as far as the immigrants hired by corporation companies. hard work and the backbreaking work is not done by americans. they don't want to do backbreaking work. they came with visas and a lot of them from around the world are here with visas and the largest population is not latinos, it is asians that are here. people do not know all of this information and they blame everything on the poor latinos that work so hard.

they love this country and help this country and the economy a lot and people need to get educated and no the facts -- and know the facts. we are not a socialist country. that is what i wanted to say. is the socialist label going to play if bernie sanders does become the presidential nominee for democrats in the general election? ,uest: interestingly for him being a socialist has helped him because he is getting a core group of people who are independents who don't normally vote or are not as engaged. notoup of people who are engaged normally who are now looking at bernie sanders and are very excited. that has been tremendous for him. if he makes it to the general elections, will that hurt him, most definitely.

host: howard, line for republicans. good morning. caller: i cannot see how anybody could vote for hillary clinton. if you look into her past, first of all, about the five black that supposedly killed a snitch. they boiled his hands. he would not admit he was a snitch and they shot him in the head. and only one of them got six months in jail and she was on the defense. about the rape case with the 12-year-old girl and about her daughter and her husband being on the big hedge funds. she is so corrupt it is

pathetic. host: karine jean pierre come are you familiar with those cases? guest: i'm not unfortunately. morning.da, good caller: good morning. i want to post something i have not heard anyone call in and say. i'm trying to figure out, why would lack people be interested in hillary or brace -- why would black people be interested in hillary or bernie sanders? you have two old people. if the democratic party cannot throw somebody out there that is young, vibrant, possibly a black female -- look at what you are presented with. i am so disappointed in the young people. my hope is they would come up with -- we want someone to come hillary and bernie

and half the republicans have garbage on their backs and they play us like a fiddle. guys -- i doow you not know what is wrong with everybody. guest: linda makes a really good point. i think the democratic party needs to have -- needs to build a base that is diverse and we do not have that. when you have republicans who have a more diverse cycle of candidates i think that resonates. therek there is something . we need to do a better job as a invest money in young people and make sure they get out there and become -- and want to represent their community and elevate them. she mexico point. host: karine jean pierre -- she makes a good point. host: karine jean pierre.

appreciate your time. guest: thank you for having me. host: up next we will be joined .y ben gain in -- ben gehman that is coming up next in just a minute on the washington journal. ♪ >> tonight on the communicators, gordon smith, president and ceo of the national association of broadcasters discusses his concerns with ftc chair tom wheeler's proposals.

he is joined by communications daily associate editor monty taylor. >> i respect the fact that the chairman is looking at something. chairman wheeler, to his great credit, he is fostering competition. he is looking at one of the real cost centers in the pay television industry so i understand why he is doing that. myself,e as a consumer taking off my broadcaster had, i am saying, who is the new gatekeeper. google? the question i have is, right now we have tough negotiations with direct tv and satellite or dish or with comcast and cable. you name it. retransmission consent negotiations are happening all the time. 9.9% of them and with no difficulty at all but they are

paying for the content so if it goes to a new set-top rocks with a different gatekeeper my question, putting my broadcast hat back on, how about my copyrighted material? they can sell ads on that. do they have no responsibility for what they will take from broadcasters for nothing? >> watch the communicators tonight at eight eastern on c-span2. >> washington journal continues. host: each week we take a look at how your money is at work in a different government program. this week we are looking at the nearly $8 billion that president put in his fiscal 2017 budget for clean energy efforts. to do that we are joined by ben geman of the national journal. before we get into dollar amounts, what is the administration classified under that term clean energy program?

what is clean energy versus dirty energy? that --orms of energy right now the most salient feature is the either reduce the amount of carbon dioxide or remove them entirely. things like wind energy, solar energy, fossil energy in a much cleaner way. somehow capturing the carbon dioxide that comes out. there is a lot of optimism but still a ways to go on energy storage. there is research into the way, because ther -- wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine there is a way to capture that energy but to do it in a large-scale way there is a --

host: how does the president perceive making those breakthroughs? billion if it.8 5 would go to the department of energy. from there it spreads across several departments. a big chunk of it would be for the office of science, the office that funds basic r&d. other offices within the energy department do things that are closer to deployment in the real world side. energy efficiency and renewable energy would get a chunk of that money. an office that does r&d, maybe with more of a focus on the development side so they work specifically with private sector partners on issues like solar power and clean manufacturing. whole range of things. it would go to the office of fossil energy, the office that does a whole bunch of things including looking at ways to try and use coal and oil and fossil

fuels in a way that does not release so much carbon dioxide into the area. host: is it a big jump compared to previous budgets? guest: the stimulus gave a lot of money to the energy department. if you look at the graph of energy department spending on r&d and clean energy you will see a spike up around the time the stimulus passed and it came back down. this would be a jump up for the energy department for sure. specifically for these offices we are talking about. host: from that stimulus spending, some criticism at that time. so in was the program that became the poster child for the concern about how the department of energy was using that stimulus money. how does this -- how likely is this big jump to get through congress? the solar company in california that wanted to manufacture -- it was

manufacturing these sophisticated solar panels so that was a country that was trying to be a real player into that market. the loan guarantee program which started under the bush administration but not -- but did not really get rolling until the obama administration, that funds projects that you would consider to be the deployment side. it has funded a lot of projects like wind energy farms that are producing electricity or solar power plants that are producing electricity. that is different than the r&d focus in this budget we have been talking about. host: is there some of it because of that that there were lessons learned that the energy department is starting further back in the process on the research side? guest: they have always had a strong research role. looking at this administration trying to bump it up but you have always had these things going on. you can think of the lifecycle of technology. the pure research side, and then you have this effort once you

have a promising technology, getting it out there into real-world deployment. the area between what you have something proven at the lab scale, how does it get all the way that big jump into stuff people actually are using. the energy department has been doing both. the loan guarantee program is more on the deployment side. i think a lot of the genesis for the effort to increase clean energy on the research and develop inside in this budget, a lot of it comes from the president's climate change agenda. this is under the heading of mission innovation. it will not all go to the energy department but a big chunk of it would. request i billion think almost 6 billion would go to the energy department. the stems from an agreement administration made with a series of international partners in the context of the paris climate change agreements. they want to collectively double the amount of clean energy research and development within five years worldwide.

the reason for that is interesting. on the one hand there are a lot of existing technologies that can lower the carbon footprint of energy use. think of the distinction from coal-fired power, renewables gets you much lower still. at the same time there is a view that to really get the steep dramatic reductions in carbon dioxide that would be necessary to stave off dangerous effects of climate change, while the world is getting tour that path and a lot more can be done, some big breakthroughs are going to still be needed in areas such as energy storage. one thing that was interesting coming at a paris was the public-private symbiosis. you had a lot of superrich people, bill gates, george soros, richard branson, jeff bezos. they announced something at the exact same time called the breakthrough energy coalition.

they are saying the government will do much more of the r&d side but we want -- what we want to do with all of our wealth, we want to health -- to help companies bridge that gap. you have the government scaling up their research and develop it and you have private sector investors trying to bring it across integrator commercialization. host: ben geman covers all of these issues for the national journal and has been doing it for well over a decade covering energy issues in washington. if you have comments or questions come in now is the time to call in. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. .ndependents, (202) 748-8002 we will start with john in west chester, pennsylvania. line for independents. caller: good morning. the calling relative to money available for different

programs. it started with bush the younger when he started the war in iraq. in 2006, stopped collecting the 34% corporate tax that was needed to pay for the war. $13e acts have added about trillion to our debt. i don't hear any of the candidates talking about reinstating the 34% corporate tax. do you know why they don't understand that is the biggest part of our problem? host: corporate tax may be another topic for a whole other show. in terms of how the president pays for these $8 billion in new money, 6 million for the energy -- 6 billion for the energy department, where does this budget say the money is going to come from?

guest: one thing in the budget that would allow funding for clean energy to be expanded even more than that 7.7 billion request for mission innovation, the white house has proposed levying a roughly $10 per barrel tax on oil production. i think it is 10 and a quarter. the goal of that spending is to do something that is related to mission innovation but a little different. what that would do is try and address transportation. thet of the are anti-at energy department is focused on that but with the president is -- as to do is devote memory serves it was over $30 billion in year from this taxi is proposing to work increased transit options for consumers, increased light rail, high-speed rail. also more electric vehicle charging stations. helping state and local theirments do transportation planning. that is recognition of a difficult problem within the sphere of climate change which is, we have a lot of good

substitute for coal. question is, how quickly can they be deployed and can they be deployed in a way that will not be too much of a lurch in transition for consumers. these are all very difficult questions. at a foundational level we know how to turn the lights on without using coal. the question is -- we cannot do it overnight but how quickly connect trajectory move? ringing oil out of the transportation system is proving much trickier. often times has its own environmental problems with the existing generation of it and some of these nextwave more ,limate friendly biofuels overall those have been developed at a pace that is way slower than anybody had hoped a decade or five or six years ago. what the president is trying to do is tackle this question of how can we move the

transportation system toward using less oil. he has ramped up fuel efficiency standards. said, a lot of challenges remain. electric vehicles remain a tiny portion of new vehicle sales. , this tax onnow oil production is immediately going nowhere on capitol hill. it was soundly rejected. it was more interesting for what it says about the tougher problem -- how tough a problem giving oil out of the system is. as far as a general pump up in spending for clean energy research i believe there is perhaps more bipartisan cooperation than people think. think about the spectrum of energy technology from the research side to the real world scale. if you look at where the most controversy is it is over programs that use the power of the federal government via tax policy or other things to

directly shove the market in a direction or intervene in the market. host: picking winners and losers. guest: should there be a these kinds of direct loans going to these companies? there is more agreement on basic r&d in general it's a good thing. the color alluded to controversy about what should be increased in federal spending at all. people will be talking about the need to rein in spending. as far as the threshold at the conceptual level, there is a concept rule believe that r&d is good. it tends to break down a little bit. can your guest explain what a renewable energy credit is and how they work?

guest: that gets to tax policy. if you're developing wind or solar projects, there is a perk to what our tax credit you can get. they played around with the structure recently. the government recognizes that it's useful to have the stick allergies more pleura paraded into the market. technologieshese has been plummeting in recent years. there is some question on how long these credits should remain. a huge energy bill got passed at the 11th hour and it wasn't designed as an energy bill. there was something really substantial. on theved the television export of crude oil and that was a big priority for republicans.

what democrats got out of the deal was a longer extension of these green energy tax credits. they were extended for five years. that is going to be a big driver of continuing this push of technology into the marketplace. in 2015, if you look at new electricity generating capacity, the majority of it came from renewables. it's on the upswing. otis is in houston, texas. to the good morning question i have is considering of this president record on winners and losers, good morning. host: what's the question?

you've got to listen to your phone. give us a call back. good morning. caller: hello. it good morning. on wars without fossil fuel? can we carry on wars with clean energy? comment that fossil fuel will always be part of the system? caller: if you keep on it carrying on wars. they don't attempt to conserve fuel. they are vehicles that go less than three miles an hour on purpose. all kinds of things. the military justifies their huge expense. would disagreei with the color a little bit. if you look at agencies that are involved in clean energy efforts, the energy department

we are talkingt about. that is the biggest focus, but the military recognizes and this goes back to the bush administration it, energy thirst of the military in the theater of war and also domestically is gigantic. there have been a lot of efforts to use cleaner fuels. in the u.s. have tried to move toward more renewables. the collar hits on something important. how do we power planes and tanks? in the theater of war remains a big challenge. are some doing more on

this than others? force and navy have a green fleet initiative. on the domestic side with the bases, they are trying to use greener types of fuels. it gets to the fact that you've got a lot of controversy about whether there should be picking winners and losers, whether private companies should get direct money from the government to do their thing in the commercial marketplace. toprr alexander is the appropriator in the energy committee. he have a lot of problems with wind power. i don't think he would disagree that research is important. host: buffalo, new york is up next. wondering, you

said it's hard to come up with cleaner fuels and whatnot. we already have people who do it themselves. a man in ohio made a car that ran on water. that's one example of a clean fuel that nobody wants to use. wondering i you make it sound like it's a difficult thing. the color makes a great point. i'm not saying there are not ways to you -- use less fuel in the transportation system. there is a lot of effort in the energy department to develop various alternative fuels. contrast with the the most carbon heavy fuel in , weelectric power sector have substitutes for colder being deployed at a greater scale.

the biggest example now is natural gas. now i think it's 35 or 37%. you see a rise in natural gas. differentpeople with alternative fuels for vehicles. penetration market of true substitutes for using oil in our transportation system is lagging behind that of coal in electricity. host: are you with us? we will go to kingston, new york. it good morning. caller: thank you for c-span. it's great to be on the air and thank you for this topic. i want to discuss a few things.

economic development has created job growth in america more than any industry. we are reducing carbon. i am all in favor of the tax credits to produce more fuels that will benefit our society and our communities. for many years, republicans have blocked the energy bills. changet that and help our society. it is creating more jobs. it's very helpful. the republicans are out there to protect the oil interest. see americaant to transform to energy independence. guest: there are real partisan

differences on energy. it does break on partisan line. you have real regional differences as well. in states where there is a lot of wind power, republicans are quite supportive. andk grassley is from iowa he is the father of the wind energy tax credit and a longtime supporter of it. that said, republicans and democrats differ on what the role the federal government should be in changing the energy arc it. -- market. where that is most announced is not necessarily in the energy department. you look at how energy policy works, it can be confusing. the energy department is one piece of policy. arguably, it's not the most important.

if you look at what the interior department does, they decide where oil companies canon cannot drill and what the regulations look like. that brings me to the environmental protection agency. through their regulations on anything from emissions from oil they have climate change regulations and others on traditional pollutants such as the smog forming compounds. the epa under obama has been much more aggressive. those regulations are one of the things that have been driving this transformation in our electric power system. around,bring it back you've got the biggest partisan disputes over the environmental protection agency regulations. almost all republicans say the

epa should not impose carbon dioxide regulations and almost every democrat says they should be. we have the supreme court weighing in as well. guest: should be higher or lower? it's a more fundamental question of should the regulations exist at all. it's been a heck of a couple of weeks. policy are climate these epa regulations that require the electric power sector, it's been happening already. this keeps pushing it. there is a 32% cut. it's enough to keep those in missions going down and getting them to fall further than they already would have. filed lawsuits

against it as did a number of private industries. the supreme court just days before skill leah did something extraordinary. even before the case was heard at the appellate court level, the supreme court voted 5-4 along the lebron conservative line to freeze those regulations. they put a hold on them. they said this is going to end up before us anyway. they are probably going to take this up and this means that the fate of these regulations will be in limbo well past the end of the obama administration and that means you've got every presidential candidate. the stakes ofised this upcoming election even

higher. host: and now there's an opening on supreme court as well. we've got about 15 minutes left with ben gemen. caller: i'm glad you touched on -- research the defense sector is going on. i know there is investment in solar and hydrogen power. think storage does not get out as often. it's more of the general american public you about that that there might be more support for that and more bipartisan support for that. i think all of the defense branches have research arms. they are all in vesting. they could send

forces into different areas. they can operate deeper in the field. i'm glad you mentioned that. it's not all the energy department. the caller talked about some of the risks in the field. i am not an expert in battlefields. i know that fuel convoys are big, slow moving things out in the theater of war. thatnk it gets to the fact on some level, research can be seen as subtraction. they have made their presence known in the real world deployment. one example would be different kinds of efficiency in lighting and the energy department for years researched better batteries.

volt can be traced back to that. -- not all the cleanest energies. celebration of the domestic energy boom increased by hydraulic fracturing. low discussion about what we have been able to get from this big increase in natural gas production. some of the research was contributed by the energy department. getting back to the point, r&d does have real world affects in the way people use and consume energy. host: for these down the line projects and the game changing projects, is there a lab at the department of energy where this is taking place? it is spread around.

it was authorized during the bush administration. for long time, there was the defense research agency. it got funded for the first time during the obama administration. you had the chance to mirror that. moon.e shooting for the it's high risk, high reward. it's the advantage research project for energy. that is one of the areas that has gotten a lot of attention. here.ased i'm not 100% sure. but it's doing is it's not a lab. it is funding research all over the place. universities and private labs and so forth. the idea is the same. it would research breakthrough

or high risk, high reward technology. to improve these next generation biofuels and storage technologies. that's where you see the most ambitious research. host: it has a $500 million budget. see, you cann part of it as an ambitious of the department. order to not make it so subject to the vagaries of appropriations, they want to introduce a mandatory funding stream for it. i think what they are trying to

do to the budget is have some oil and gas production revenue steered into that agency going forward. require year-to-year appropriations. we've been talking about the 2017 budget. we've got about 10 minutes left. we are on the line for republicans. are you there? caller: i'm here. my question is not really regarding -- i am in favor of clean energy. my question is the $10 on a gallon of -- barrel of oil tax. , why do we not cut out the subsidies? we all know how wealthy the oil companies are.

they all get subsidies that we pay for. we are being double taxed. that's going to come through the pump to me. i don't get that. i am all for clean energy research. wequestion to you is why are going for attacks on that? guest: that is a debate that continues to happen. this oil taxes not going anywhere. it was more of a political statement. right now, the question of subsidies is an interesting one. it's a word that used a lot in a political warfare. -- --mpanies do like the

there been long-standing efforts by this white house to remove some of these tax credits. high, theseare types of technologies are inappropriate. has type of tax treatment see largely helping them to this domestic production increase we have seen over the last five or six years. that is influenced our security posture and a lot of ways. imports have come down greatly. it's a tricky question. our consumers getting a terrible deal?

adon't want to weigh in with value judgment. it's not a simple question. host: good morning. caller: how are you? , research and development is paid by the taxpayers. we pay up front. then these companies come in and they take the product to market. us very high prices. we are partners in the process -- production. that is unfair. on top of that, they take the product globally. biggest market for these companies. they'll no longer just american

companies, they are global companies. this is where the price gouging it comes in. we are willing to pay for our medication and clean energy and all of that. they should not out price the average citizen. we should get a break. we shouldn't be paying the highest price for these products. it they take them globally anyway and they make billions of dollars. guest: i take the point that that is a sticky point around any federal money injected into r&d or tax credits. on some level, you've got the question.

the benefits are going to private companies. with energy technology and some of the clean energy technology, you see some benefit for the consumer. there are more efficient building materials. there are more efficient window materials and things of that nature. those technologies benefit not only our planet from lowering emissions. it will help the consumer. it's this question that can be difficult. should there be efforts to help consumers with this cost? creditses there are tax

for energy efficient homes and buildings and renewable energy projects. a lot of states are trying to use their tax codes to help homeowners improve the efficiency of their buildings. it's a great point. ultimately, these are companies using these technologies to help them survive and thrive in the marketplace. there is a social good in so far as the government saying we have private industry. we have a public health goal. we have a planetary goal of lowering our carbon dioxide emissions. if helping the greater use and deployment of greener technology that benefits consumers.

that depends on the specific technology we are talking about. host: good morning. good morning. i have been listening to this comment all morning. when the socialists started this 1970's, aleze in the gore came along. this never did happen. they found out they could not get us on a nuclear freeze or on global warming. they came up with climate change. the climate changes four times a year and always has. i just don't understand. the american people don't leave it to begin with and the polls show.

3% of the people worry about climate change. epa,u do away with the that would be good in my opinion. the only thing we need to regulate is particular matter in the atmosphere. most people don't understand where oxygen comes from. it comes from the life. i want you to jump in on the science. thet: the scientific -- vast overwhelming majority of scientists believe that the earth is warming and that climate change is happening and since the mid-20th century human activity has driven it. a big political debate about that.

said, in 2015, it was by far the hottest year on record. most of the hottest years on record have come to century. the warming trend is clear. i think the colors point on concerns, pulling on this is fascinating and there's a big split. if you ask the public what their priorities are, they sort of rank priorities for the coming year for congress and the white house. the things at the top of the list are the things you would imagine it. security.y, national local warming shows up far down the list. take the point that it's not a top public concern. polling shows something that is

in conflict with that. when you do pull the public on supporting cutting carbon emissions, there is generally support for that. there is a duality there. that, welso mention on look at what's happening in the electricity sector and say it's all because of regulation. there are a lot of reasons why we are seeing this transformation. of natural gas. we can get more of it out of the ground relatively cheaply than anybody ever thought. epave also have a lot of regulations that don't have that much to do with climate change directly, but are pushing power companies to using less coal. it's not just the climate change rules.

is an interesting paper that i read. what they said is these regulations, they are the backstop. reason theever trends were to reverse themselves, this would keep things on that trajectory. he is a great person to follow on twitter or in -- twitter. we appreciate you coming i the show. that is our show for today. he will see you back here tomorrow morning at 7:00. have a great monday.

>> more of road to the white house coverage ahead of the nevada caucus. ted cruz holds a rally in las vegas at 3:00. we will take your calls and comments. donald trump who won the south carolina primary saturday is leading in nevada and he will hold a rally also in las vegas. that will be tonight at 10:00 eastern. marco rubio has depth and endorsement from a senate colleague. said marco came from humble beginnings and worked hard to get where he is today. he will ensure that each and everyone of us can do the same thing. hepo