do extraordinary things. think think big of what this country can become. welcome to the political revolution. make sure you all vote tomorrow. thank you very much. [applause] [cheering] ♪

>> it's a video. sen. sanders: oh. [laughter]

>> i came all the way down here to see you. could i get a quick picture? >> i am from india. i have been following you all these years. >> thank so much. senator sanders. >> mr. sanders!

>> bernie, could you sign my poster?

sen. sanders: did you get it? >> thank you for all you do. >> you have inspired us. thank you. picture?get a sen. sanders: sure can.

>> thank you so much. sen. sanders: are you going out to vote tomorrow? >> oh yeah, voting for you. sen. sanders: thank you so much. >> i love you man. [laughter] sen. sanders: hey, how are you? thank you. sen. sanders: okay, one at a time. shake yourred to hand. thank you so much.

sen. sanders: what is your mother going to say?

>> thank you so much. really appreciate it.

>> thank you so much. sen. sanders: how are you? >> hi bernie. we came from boston for you. sen. sanders: oh, thank you so much.

sen. sanders: tomorrow is election day in south carolina. come on out everybody to vote.

>> thank you so much bernie. sen. sanders: i want to thank you all very much -- oh, you wan t one? y much.k you ver you're so nice.

at national journal.com, calling into the south carolina dimmick product primary cheat sheet. joining us on the phone in washington. thanks very much for being with us. we saw what happened last week amid south carolina republican primary. what can respect in terms of the democrats, in terms of turnout? adam: hillary clinton certainly enters saturday's democratic primary in south carolina as the overwhelming favorite. most polls have her up in the range of 30-40 points over bernie sanders. a lot of that is due to the african-american vote. 2008 exit polls showed that black voters made up half of the electorate. people in south carolina anticipate black voters make up half of the electorate again. she has a commanding lead, upwards of 50 points among black voters over bernie sanders.

south carolina should be a relatively easy win. bernie sanders is hoping to keep it as close as possible. maybe steal away a few delegates from her. >> we should point out the polls open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 7:00 eastern time. the result expected shortly after that. what about the delegates? how many are up for grabs for the democrats? adam: in south carolina, there is no party registration. it is an open primary. anybody can cast a ballot as long as they did not vote in last week's republican primary and have to bring a photo id. they have to register on january 27. in terms of delegates, a total of 53 pledged delegates up for grabs on the democratic side. sum will be allocated by the results after the statewide level, of those mighty congressional district. keep in mind, there is a threshold each candidate has to reach, including in the congressional districts. getting at least 15%. that cannot be a problem for sa

nders, considering the only 2 candidates left in the race. that is what bernie sanders is hoping to do and a lot of these states, bulletin scepter lannett and on -- both in south carolina and on super tuesday. he's hoping to keep it close enough to walk away with a few delegates to keep the race going well through march. host: in 2009 when senator barack obam8m, won convincingly in south carolina. that was a turning point in his bid against then-senator hillary clinton. where is the race moving beyond super tuesday, first with senator sanders? adam: both clinton and sanders will be looking at different targets in a dozen or so states. there about five states that the sender's campaign is -- the sanders campaign is winning. colorado, vermont, even oklahoma. mostly states that are not in the south, but in the midwest.

these are states where white folders -- white voters play a much larger role. hillary clinton will be focused a lot more on the southern dates -- georgia, texas, alabama, and virginia. these are all places you expect to do very well. to doces she expects very well. host: she is going to thread the needle on her delegate count after tuesday. adam: since it is a proportional allocation on the democratic side, chances are she won't put this contest away on march 1. although she's hoping to at least have a very large delegate count. think the clinton campaign would love to have this close to wrapped up by the middle of march. the sanders campaign hopes to purely delegates here and there. they are raising enough money to keep this going for a while yet. >> more details available online

at national journal.com. the perspective of adam wollner, . thank you for your time. >> the results of the south carolina democratic primary as soon as they are available. also hear from the candidates and get your reaction from a phone and social media. our live coverage begins at 7:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. the candidates have several ads running in south carolina ahead of the primary. he was look at what voters are seeing on tv. >> the son of a polish immigrant, who grew up in a brooklyn filament. he wants to public schools, and college, where the work of his life began fighting injustice and inequality. taking truth to power. he moved to vermont, won praise is one of the best mayors. in congress he stood up for working families, opposing the iraq war, supporting veterans. now he's taking on wall street and a corrupt political system. funded by millions of

contributions, tackling climate change to create clean energy jobs, funding for living wages, equal pay, and tuition free public colleges. sen. sanders: people are sick and tired of establishment politics and they want real change. [applause] >> bernie sanders. grandfather.er, and honest leader building a movement with you to give us the future to believe. think the one word to look at the qualifications of candidates, to reflect upon whether a country can be, and look who can best get us to that place. i think it is hands down hillary clinton. hillary is feeling candidate that i trust to fight to the injustice. and build on the progress, not right away.

my heart has always been with hillary clinton. mrs. clinton: i'm hillary clinton i approve this message. source.esh clean water the water is poison. >> we can't even the water. you can't cook with the water. >> there was a time when we were alone and nobody hurt our story. >> i am here because for nearly 2 years, flint's water was poisoned. >> hillary clinton came here and stood with us. >> she is the one that brought this to another level of attention. that's what we needed. mrs. clinton: what happened in flint, grosse pointe, i think we all know we would've had a check yesterday. [applause] >> hillary clinton really cares about people. >> when you have somebody like that fighting for you and supporting you, you can't ask for much more. and i will fight for you in flint no matter how long it takes. [applause]

mrs. clinton: i'm hillary clinton, and i approve this message. >> republican president candidate donald trump has a new endorsement heading into the next primary contest on tuesday. new jersey governor chris christie officially pledged his support for the businessman friday in a news conference in fort worth, texas saying mr. exactly whato needs to be done. to make america a leader around the world again" governor christie's endorsement comes a little more than 2 weeks after ending his own presidential bid. donald trump called him a friend and a spectacular governor, while accepting his endorsement. earlier this week, donald trump spoke about his campaign and the issues he's focused on at regent university of virginia. the event was part of a forum that included other candidates. this is 45 minutes. ladies and gentlemen, please

welcome mr. dollinger trump. trump. donald j. [applause] mr. trump: thank you everybody. thank you. thank you very much. [applause] so nice. thank you very much. please visit down. we had a very exciting evening last night. you know the work caucus, it's a little complicated. you don't know how it's going to work out. they say it's hard to poll. but we really one day last night. we ended up getting 46% of the vote. during the day, i saw all these people, they are all saying donald, we love you donald. will you don't know what's going to happen. and service we turned on the tv, it was obvious from the beginning.

we had an extraordinary night. one of the things that made me so happy is, as you saw, we totally won with evangelicals. we were big league with evangelicals. it was such a good thing. we worked very hard. i am presbyterian, protestant. i was going to talk to pat, to is a great gentlemen. i have watched him over the years. the job he has done is incredible. i have to tell you, it's an honor to be with pat. i look forward to having him really. he will probably be grilling me. -- having him grill me. last time i was with him was about 4 years ago, getting an award. that the boone pickens or four entrepreneurship. pickens award for entrepreneurship. the reason we are doing well in the polls, leading by a lot with almost everybody is that i talk

about what we have to do for our country. our country is in deep trouble. dollars. join most people don't even know what $1 trillion is. how many hundreds of millions is in one trillion. such a number. 10 years ago you never even heard the word trillion. but we have $19 trillion, a bad budget was passed about four weeks ago that will at least $2 trillion to it. we will be of essentially $1 trillion. at a certain point -- we will be trillion.ntially $21 you need someone that knows what they are doing. when it comes to business, i know what i'm doing. it has been amazing for me. my two sons our backstage. maybe i'm allowed to bring them up, because i'm very proud of them. maybe i will bring them on. [applause] [cheering]

mr. trump: good, that's beautiful. this is don and eric an they were with me for the last week. they gone around making speeches. they do a better job than me. i go into the room and watch television. [laughter] they say, the trumps are making a speech. say ehllo don. don: it's great to be here to be a proxy for him. we know what he feels about this country. we know the values years instilled in us going up, education, family, work ethic. all these things that are often lost on children of similar fortune. you don't read about many children that came from the kind of wealth that we were bottled with the way that you read about us. i want talk about myself that way, will talk about my brother and sister that way. those are all things that he does not get credit for. those of the things that you don't see when he is the father, when he's never grandfather to my 5 children. it's incredible. he talks about business, and

he's phenomenal at that. if you knew the real donald, you would see something special. he's an incredible guy. we are thinking he's doing this not only for ourselves and our children, but for everyone in this country. he will do a phenomenal job. [applause] >> to. -- to reiterate, he has been a our mentor. he has been the greatest. we worked across the table with him for 10 years, building hotels and golf courses all the weight over the world. everything he touches turns to gold. does the touch that this country needs. that will be no better commander-in-chief. i said it 3-4 months ago we were going to win this thing. i think we really are. he will be such a great president. we are proud of you pops. we love you to death. we will give it back to you. [applause] mr. trump: thank you.

so a lot of times people asked me to speak about success, friends of mine. they won't even make the payments and we give it to charity. so often i will say, the really successful people are those not without the great wealth, but with great families. great kids and wife and husband. those of the people that are the happiest. i don't know if i'm speaking against myself here. the fact is, the most successful people in the world, idea with them all the time. i know them very well in many cases. these are not the happiest people, generally. a couple of them are happy, not to many. no matter how successful, they always want more more more. i guess i get guilty of that also. the happiest people i know are those with great families. about duringalk success seminars. a lot of times the people running for seminar don't want to hear that.

but i have to be truthful. i have 2 really great boys. i have five children altogether. they have been fantastic. you know ivanka, who's going to have a baby in about a week. we have been waiting. we thought iowa, we thought new hampshire. [applause] we thought south carolina. we thought vegas would be an interesting one. but she probably would like it during the next week or two. she will have a baby and she's been spectacular. i have tiffany and aaron. they are all very good kids. hopefully they will stay that way. i think the word is, not on what -- knock on wood? is anybody superstitious? oh, that's real wood too. that's the real deal. [laughter] the reason we are resonating his cousin we have to strengthen our trade deals, they are horrible.

with china we losing trade, $500 billion a year. what kind of deal is that? with japan we lose hundreds of billions of dollars. much smaller than china, but hundreds. we owed japan $1.6 trillion. we owe china 1.7 join dollars. an amazing thing, right? they take of money, and we owe them money. they take our factories, and you have no many have closed up. i have great relationships with china and japan. i have great relationships with mexico. but mexico is killing us at the border and in trade. you read the other day carriers were moving into mexico. i thought it was very sad. people.ease 1400 was standing up,

saying we're going to move. i said to myself, how does that help us? they are going to make air-conditioners, silva across the border. probably have illegals walk them in. nobody check stub -- nobody checks them. every illegal gets an air conditioner. ford does the same thing. ford's building a $2.5 billion dollars plan. they will have illegals drive cars across the border. [laughter] it's very sad. so bad that sometimes you have to laugh you can't believe it. ford is building a massive plan. the biscuit was moving from chicago into mexico. -- nabisco is moving from chicago into mexico. they were becoming the car capital of the world. a car was scheduled to be built in tennessee, and boom, they took it.last moment

they decided it was going to mexico. we have to do something. we have to have borders. if we don't have borders we don't have a country. people can come into our country, but they have to come in legally. we have 179,000 criminal immigrants. that means over -- think about. that's like filling of yankee stadium 4 times all of the country. these are criminals. this is not just -- tehese are people convicted of a crime. we are going to be strong on the borders, very strong with trade. we are going to be strong on protecting our second amendment. we are going to get rid of common core, basically education to washington, which is a disaster. we are going to get rid of obamacare. it turned out to be a total disaster. [applause] really hurting our country.

jobsave semi-part-time because people don't want to register under obamacare. everybody has part-time jobs. you look at these people that never had a part-time job in her life. simply companies -- suddenly coming to bring them-- into an unfair thing. plans, whether it is the health care savings. we have to get rid of the lines between the states. all of these politicians that i'm running against are taking care of by the insurance companies. they are taken care of by the oil and gas companies. i'm the only one that is not. i am self funding.i don't know if that is smart or not so smart. [applause] big contributor, i have been one over the years. i understand what it takes. we have a situation right now with drugs.

the u.s. is the largest drug buyer in the world, drugs to make you better, pharmaceuticals. a friend of mine that is a doctor came up to me and said, why don't we? once i found out what he was talking about, i knew exactly why. the pharmaceutical industry takes care of all the senators and congressmen, they have a strong lobby. we could save $300 billion. and we don't even do it. if i'm there, they will be safe, donald, you can do it. just me, they can't do it because they been given millions of dollars. i guess it's called legal corruption. you don't know how corrupted is. whether it's the timber industry, anything. i will do the right thing. i'm grateful to the timber industry, too. bigger than that is military. i mean for years we have seen the military -- they order a

plane that they don't want or missile they don't want because the company making a missile has more political influence. they are ordering too much equipment or the wrong equipment. those days are over. we are going to make our military figure, better, and stronger than ever before. the cheapest thing we can do, and nobody is going to mess with us. i don't want to use it. i didn't wanted go into iraq. that was one of the worst decisions ever made. we lost $2 trillion. thousands of lives. we have loaded warriors -- wounded warriors all of the place. iran is now taking over iraq. when you think of how iran is doing lately, we give them $150 billion and get nothing for it. we should've gotten a business backlog before we started negotiating. you say listen, your not negotiating until we get our prisoners back. they will say no, and then you leave the room.

they never, they just stood there. kerry, the worst negotiator i've ever seen.he never left the room . you just say, we need our business back. this was four years ago, they started the longest negotiation of ever seen. we have to have her business back. you,ortions, pat can tell the persians are great negotiators. it's tough. you don't want our prisoners, your people don't even know they are there, we need them. and will make a better deal because it's easier. they will say no, and we will leave the room. we'll say bye bye and double of the sanctions. within 24 hours they will call and say you get your prisoners back. you go in for seconds. you say, listen -- my father was a good negotiator. he thought i was too tough. he used to use the expression,

he'd say son, take the lumps out. if i didn't have my father i would have said this "we're not giving you the $150 billion." they would be angry, you probably never bring it back. "we're not giving it to you." i learned so much my father. so i take the lumps out. listen, we have a problem. i say, did our prisoners land yet? yes, they just landed on american soil. fellas, we have a big problem. we have a country not doing well. we owe $19 trillion, essentially we are bust. we have no money. we just had a budget approved for $21 trillion. we have no money. fellas, we can give you the $150,000 -- $130 million. they will think i'm crazy . one day. [applause]

i'm sorry, i want to give it to you so badly, you have no idea, i'm dying to give it to you, but we can't, we don't have any money. that's better than say "we're not giving it to you." accept this way they recover faster. i do the first one -- i know the second one works. no way i would have given them $150 million, in a million year s. and the money is gone. 2 days before the might left -- before the money left. deal?"ds "the art of the i always say the bible is much better, no contest. not even close. do we agree? deal" hasrt of the been a great book. obviously kerry did not read "the art of the deal."

probably did not read the bible either. [laughter] it's a sad thing, that whole episode with iran. 2 days before the money you sent, they capture 10 beautiful young sailors. they put guns to their heads, they rough them up at least mentally. they were devastated. they humiliated our country, humiliated the 10 people. 1 womena nd and 9 men. that is what we are dealing with. not going to happen anymore, folks. we're going to be the smart country instead of the dummies everybody laughs at. we are people that don't know what they are doing. traitor,we bergdahl, a they get five traders that the coveted for 9 years. those killers are back on the battlefield. but these are the ones they wanted, these 5. so we knew he was a traitor before we made the deal because we had a general in kernel

interviewed everyone who worked with in the military. six people died looking for him. 5 definitely, probably 6. they went out looking for him, trying to get him back. he left. that's the way we negotiate. they get bowe bergdahl, they get 5 great killers. for them, the people that they want. not going to happen anymore. until the stories and i meet with -- i tell these stories and i meet with crowds. far bigger than bernie. bernie looks like he's over. looks like hillary will be protected from the e-mail scandal by the democrats. can you believe it? still be people for doing much less than she did are in present. -- are in prison. and are devastated. think of it. for doing less than she did. and she looks like she's just going, boy did you ever see somebody so nice to the president? oh, the president is wonderful,

she says. he wants to do this -- you know why she's doing that? boy oh boy, she's become like a marshmallow. everything he does, a with wonderful, what the president wants to do. man, her life cannot be so easy. but what she has done is so wrong and so unfair. it looks like she will be the nominee. it will be something that will be discussed, i promised you. it will be discussed often often often. [applause] so with that, i think we are doing well. we have a great trend and have tremendous support. we have amazing people in this country. one of the most amazing people in the whole country is our great friend, pat. would you come out here pat?

[applause] one of the great people. >> yes sir. pat: it's good to have you here with us. you inspire us all. mr. trump: good morning to be here. no, we had a great evening. pat: you are working on a project in washington after the old post office building. everybody wanted this, but you got it. "the art of the deal" -- what did you do? it's an amazing building built in the 1980's. thick walls made of solid granite. today they use like plastic, right?

one of the most beautiful buildings in washington. for years it was a post office. if you can get a post office in the city, you always get the best location. this was the one for washington. they put it outot bid. it was one of the most hotly contested projects ever. they chose us. it's a great honor because we were chosen in the obama administration, which is sort of amazing. a lot of people did not think we were able to get it. we want to make sure it gets done. we have a great track record for this stuff. we're building a hotel, 300 rooms. i think it will be one of the great hotels of the world. we are a year and a half ahead of schedule, even more than that. it's a little unusual when you talk about government. but we are 1.5 years under budget, and it opened in september this year.

it was supposed to open up in september 2 years from now. we really have a great team. ivanka is in charge of that one. she has done an amazing job. i think it will be one of the great hotels of the world. you run the table. yout a year from now, and have your hand on the bible swearing your oath in front of the chief justice in front of the united states, and your president. at that point, you're in. [applause] office a little underneath the capital, and by the stroke of the pen, you can cancel a great many of the executive orders. you don't need congress. what would you do? mr. trump: we expect to cancel many of the executive orders of the past. obama has not been able to run

things the way you're supposed to run them. you are supposed to get the congressman in the senators in. they made deals during reagan, and they like each other. i have been involved in politics for a long time, all my life. i've gotten done tremendous zoning changes. i have done politics over the world. we have a lot of jobs going all the world. but i've never seen division like you have now. used to go to a restaurant in washington, you see republican having dinner with a democrat and they are best friends. you don't see that anymore. there is hatred. the country is so divided, whether it's african-american, white, congressman, democrat, republican -- i mean, it's like we have a whole divided country.i've never seen anything like it . i used to be part of it, democrats and republicans having dinner together with their families. it was a nice thing. pat: sure. mr. trump: there would be combat the next day, but they would get

along. so today we have a president that can't get anything done. he signs executive orders. one one of the first ones i would knock out is his executive order on the second amendment, where he is chipping away at it. that's so important. the other one is the one on the border, basically he wants people to pour into the country unchecked. the courts have been following that one. amazingly we have a couple of good decisions so far. it's still out there. the legal fees, i would knock it out very fast. i know you believe in this, we have to have strong borders. you saw the pope came out against me. he was very nice. the next day he issued a statement. pat: they have a pretty big wall rock the vatican -- wall around the vatican. [laughter] mr. trump: pretty big. he was told, oh you have this

man named trump that wants to build a wall. of course you have to build it. drugs are coming across the border, we don't even have a country. you don't have a border, you don't have a country. he was a little bit strong/ it's interesting because it was the day before the election. i said to myself, oh no. my people came to myself and said, mr. trump, the pope just made a statement about you. i said, good or bad? [laughter] we had the election the next morning. good or bad? they said, not good. i said oh, this is a disaster. and he talked about the border. he did mention the wall. but i have seen the vatican. the wall goes up to the ceiling, right? i think he took a little heat. he was actually very nice the next day. nobody explained to him about the crime or drugs pouring

in and the economy. you don't want to hear it the day before the election that the pope says something unkind about you. pet: we have a massive deficit. we are running a deficit every year. spending is out of control. there was a commission, senator simpson and air scandals got together and gave a very reason proposal. have you adopted anything like that? we have to have some way of coming the spending -- cutting the spending. mr. trump: i think i could add to it a lot, because we needed jobs back in the country.our country has been stripped . i like china, it's wonderful. i'm not angry at china, i'm angry at her representative doing such bad deals. not just obama, this is just now. obama has been horrible and others have been also. mother said with china.

-- i'm not upset with china. i have one of the biggest bankers as a tenant in manhattan. i sell millions of condominiums to the chinese. i can be angry. i have great relations with mexico. put in all cases, both count ries, every country is killing us. we have political hacks that are negotiating trade deals that know nothing about it. they have the smartest, servicepeople that they pick up when they are practically three years old. the goal is pyramid chain. it.people cannot deal with we have the greatest business people in the world and we do not use them. many business people endorse me, the great ones. we are going to use our greatest business people to negotiate trade deals. we have horrible deals with japan. passed,re was a law

sarbanes-oxley, and the number of ipos since then have been drastically curtailed. now we have corporate conversions, and people put their headquarters in another country. and yet our tax burden on corporations is the highest in the world. mr. trump: we have the highest taxes in the world in the united states. think of it, debits is like this and yet we have high taxes. on coming taxes -- i'm cutting taxes substantially. we are going to bring jobs back. china is one of the great currency manipulators in history, ever. there is nobody ever like them. japan is really good, but china is even better. they have done a number on us with manipulation. up, and our dollar goes everybody says, isn't that wonderful? but we can't sell a tractor. it's a bad situation going on.

they have no fear of us, no respect for us anymore. in the self signed it -- in the south china sea, bigger building is massive military complex. they are not supposed to be doing it. but they don't respect our president. he gives them state dinners when they come over. we have a lot of power over china, we just don't know. they are taking so much money out of our country. it's the greatest robbery in the history of the world. we have rebuilt china. they've taken so much money out of us. we have to stop it. we have to use our power, and we have to use it because of trade. we can get them to do things like the north-south korea problem. that is part of the world that you look at. you know they don't exist without china.

us, are just toying with they have total control. the other one that does is iran. when we meet our deal a month ago, why did not we insist they take care of this? going over with planes and dropping bombs. i have buildings in south korea. they make a fortune. by television set, tremendous amounts of -- i buy television sets, limits amounts of things. we don't make thiose things anymore. we aren't supposed to be talking about these brands, it shows as we aren't as young as we are supposed to be. [laughter] we have 28,000 soldiers between north and south korea. that is a dangerous job, by the way. 28,000 soldiers. we get paid peanuts. they make a lot of money.

they have to take care of us. we are not in the position to be the policeman of the world. we have to take care of us. there are a lot of things we can do. pat: how would you specifically go after the north? they claim they have a thermonuclear weapon. mr. trump: i would start with china. china has absolute power. the stuff comes through china. i would have done iran. but they are a hostile nation, i don't think you can get anywhere with them. they bought 118 airbus lines. the money goes to europe. they bought a lot of things in italy, all over europe. they bought missiles. which i do not know they had the right to buy. they bought missiles from russia. they gave us nothing. we gave them $150 billion. they spent a lot of it. nothing goes to the u.s. i would have been very strong in the negotiation. i would now be very strong with china. again, we have a lot of power

over china. china takes out so much money. i said before, $500 billion trade deficit with china. you can't do that. how long are you going to have a country when you do that? i hate to tell you, you need somebody like me. [laughter] [applause] the politicians don't even know what it means. they talk about free trade. eye and a free trade -- i am a free trader. like kerry, they are going to make air-conditioners, sold them for nothing. they are going to lose 1400 jobs. we employed mexican people, which is fine. they make air-conditioners and sold them. here's the story. this is the only thing you can do to stop it.

put anime you air-conditioner into this country, you have a 35% tax. they are not going to move. [applause] are people that will say, oh, you're not a conservative. i'm the most conservative guy in many ways. you have to be smart. if everybody moves, we won't have everybody left. you can have thousands of factories that close in our countries. pat talked about corporate inversion. they are moving companies, not only because taxes are too high, but out of the u.s., like pfizer. they are a great company. they are moving to get money. there is $2.5 trillion outside of the u.s. and yet the democrats and republicans agreed to bring it uin. if you are obama, within 10

minutes you can make a deal. this is the case where everybody agrees. pat: why hasn't he done it? mr. trump: i could not tell you the story. [laughter] i like that example. $2.5 trillion. i think it could be $5 trillion. the government has no idea. million, it's.5 probably much more. series were democrats and republicans are in total agreement. they disagree on all these other things. here's something they all agreed on. we want the money back in our country, what no to agree on? it should be 10 minutes to solve that problem. they agree here, agree here. no deal. they have agreed now for 3 years. that his leadership. if i was president, i would get them on the office and says,

fellas -- folks, because we have a lot of women, and that is good, -- folks, we have to make this deal. i would have it on and a half hour. unique leadership. -- you need leadership. you can be playing golf on a boeing 747. he talks about the carbon footprint and then gets in a 747 to play golf. he comes back a long time later. it was not like you came back the next day. he played a lot of golf. you have to get people into an office and make deal. pat: one last question. scalia just died. he was a dear friend here at regent in the great justice. the court was in a conservative mode, 5-4. next president, there

may be 3 judges. what criteria would you use? mr. trump: we have george a -- we have george a ---- we have judge alito, who is terrific. we have judge thomas, who is a great guy. we have some who do not work out as well. if you look at justice roberts, he could have killed obamacare twice. whatever he does, he was appointed by bush. senator cruz is the one that most wanted him. he wrote editorials, saying that you have to have roberts. justice roberts was a terrible justice. he improved obamacare when everybody was against it. he had a second time at it, and he passed it then too. some of the other judges on the conservative side. rumors are that someone not even speak to him.

what he did was terrible. he was a bush appointee. the one that pushed him harder than anybody was senator cruz. senator cruz gave us obamacare in a sense. [boo] mr. trump: they have editorials where he wrote papers on why he should be the one chosen signed by ted cruz. no matter what he does, he's been a disaster because obamacare is killing everybody. it's killing everybody. pat: one more question. in your selection as president, to criteria would you use pick? mr. trump: pro-life. [applause] very conservative. very, very smart. i mean, like judge scalia would be a perfect. i mean, he was like a perfect -- he was a perfect representative.

i've always said that justice thomas doesn't get enough credit. pat: he's a wonderful man. mr. trump: he is. he's a wonderful man. he's a wonderful guy. [applause] and as i said, judge alito is a terrific guy. so in that realm is what we're talking about for me. pat: well, we've got some questions. all right. they've come in from all around. let's turn this over to our friend david. mr. trump: thank you, david. david: here's a question from the si mull cast because this event is huge. we've got an overflow room. mr. trump: i see a lot of people upstairs. beautiful. david: they're ever where. here's the question. it's about israel. it's from terry. support of vale is central for stability in the middle east and for maintaining a firm stance against terrorism. will you emphatically stand with

israel? mr. trump: yes. very simple answer, yes. [cheers and applause] they've been our most reliable ally especially in the middle east. you look at, you know, what's happened with israel. they were so against this horrible iran deal. they were so against it. and i'll tell you what, obama was the worst thing that's ever happened to israel. you can look at it that he's not a good president and he's not doing a good job. you look at netanyahu and you look at what he's gone through. you could just see the level of exasperation on that man's face. the most basic things -- they weren't winning anything. why did we make a deal like this with these people? with no look at us respect. i don't get it. i don't get it. there's a lot of theories. i don't get it. this will be studied and studied

for a long time. this will lead to nuclear proliferation, 100%. all the money that we gave and even the keeping of the hostages and they released the hostages for $150 billion so it looks like ran some. the other way it wouldn't be ran some. no, i'm with israel, 100%? david: next question. jane wants to know about the constitution. as president, what will you do to restore adherence to the constitution by all levels of government? mr. trump: i'm a very strong constitutionalist. i feel very strong about it. frankly, you could say it, not giving it a lot of thought but all of these executive orders, that's not a constitutional thing. nobody ever -- [applause] i mean, we have a president who just goes and does, you know, he'll spend three minutes talking somebody into it. he's got a little burden and he

goes and signs an executive order and says five years later the courts will decide. the good thing about the executive order is the new president can immediately void them. that's the one good thing. [applause] david: this is an interesting one. right from here in the studio audience. from bernard. during this campaign there have been a great deal -- a lot of tough language among the candidates. can you forgive and for get to put it aside to join together and also pick a v.p. choice made from one of these folks that might have been saying a few things? mr. trump: i can forgive. i mean, i'm pretty good at that. i do have -- every once in a while there would be somebody who goes too far. you've been hearing what i said over the last few weeks. things were said that were lies. i won't mention it because i can't mention -- i've got to be a good person today. at least for the next hour, i'm sorry. but there have been many

untruths told. you know -- knowing, knowing. i think what happened to ben carson was terrible when they said he left the race. here come on over, vote for me. i think i would have won iowa. that affected me. we've got a second and three firsts. so i'm not complaining. [applause] but you know what happened to ben carson, what happened there was horrible. the notice -- voter violation. that's like a fraudulent document that was sent. there have been bad things happening out there. real estate is tough. these politicians are not such good people. david: lexy from the audience. there are some who say you have supported democrats and liberal views. how can voters be sure that you will truly hold and would actually continue to uphold republican ideas and values?

mr. trump: well, you know, it's interesting, one magazine said donald trump is a world class businessman. i'm all over the world. and i deal with all politicians. honestly, i never thought i would have done this. i was exasperated. i had a lot of jobs going. my children are younger and they can do great jobs. excellent executives. this is not something i was going to do or really wanted to do. i loved what i was doing. the fact is that as a businessman you get along with all politicians or you have a problem. so i get along with democrats. i get along with liberals and conservatives. i get along with everybody because that was my thing. i get along with bob -- where's bob in the audience? where is he? [applause] a fantastic person, ok? you know that. stand up. [applause]

he's a fantastic person. but i get along with everybody. i get along with everybody. and that was important. and i tell people and people would forgive for that. you want to get along with democrats, republicans. for the most part that's been used on me. once i explain it, most people understand. david: all right. ken from right here in the audience wants to know assuming you will be the nominee of the party, what are the most important qualities you are going to look for in a vice presidential candidate? and feel free to name some names. that was my part. that was my part. mr. trump: actually there are some names that i've gotten to respect. we started with 17. we're now down to five. some of the people that i've dealt with, i have a lot of respect for. the main quality is somebody that can be a great president if

something happens to you. don't you think that's got to be number one? and then i want somebody that could help me with government. so most likely that would be a political person because you know, i'm business and i'm very good at what i do and all of that. and i'm also very, very political. you've seen me -- when you can get zoning on the west side of manhattan to build almost 6,000 units of housing and you have to go through new york city politics, believe me, that's as tough. i don't see israel-palestine but it's about as tough a deal -- i view that as the single toughest deal. anybody can make a deal and we're going to give it a shot. but a lot of good people have gone down trying to give that a shot. the most important thing is you have to have somebody that can be a great president. but after that, you want somebody that can help you with legislation getting it through, etc., etc. i would say -- and it's too early. i'm not thinking about it a lot. i'm thinking about getting the ball over the line and get this

thing done. and it's a very interesting thing because some people know how to do that, some people don't. i do want somebody that's political because i want to get lots of great legislation that we all want -- pat: he's had a busy day and you win nevada and come to virginia. i mean, it's a big deal. hillary, if you were president would you instruct the attorney general to indict her for what she's done in relation to the e-mails? mr. trump: well, it's an amazing question because you know there's a six-year statute of limitations, might be five, but i think it's six. the answer is i would instruct them to take a look at it because it's not really our call to say indict. pat: yeah. mr. trump: but certainly you would have to take a look at it because you look at general petraeus. they gave him two years suspended. they wanted to take his rank away from him. i fought this very hard.

i said why don't you focus on beating isis and leave general petraeus alone? leave him alone. [applause] i think it helped him. but they wanted to cut his rank way down. he suffered greatly over this. and what he did is nothing compared to what she did. so i would instruct my attorney general please look at it. and if there's something there -- there seems be a lot there because we read about people that are experts in the field. how often did you hear somebody say she did nothing wrong? but they're protecting her because she's the number one runner. she's saying how wonderful obama is. did you see anything like it? every single thing he wants to d she's saying great. she's doing it for that reason. believe me folks. well, donald, i want to thank you. i think the audience appreciates you and loves you. [applause]

r. trump: thank you. pat: i would ask you, after the election would you please come back as president trump and give a presidential message here at regent? mr. trump: we'll do it again. great job, you've done. great job. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] >> there have been questions raised upon the campaign trail about donald trump's tax return. on "newsmakers" this weekend our koskinen. sh >> we can't talk about individual cases but it would be rare for noin be audited every year. usually when there's an audit

and it's cleared up, it's a number of years, two or three at least before you hear from us again unless something in your next return pops up. but as a matter of just formal auditing it would be rare. >> he also says that he's not going to release his tax returns while he's been audited. is there something from the i.r.s. that forbids him from releasing his tax return? >> well, again with my caveat that i can't talk about individual cases, the taxpayer controls is returns -- there's nothing in i.r.s. awe dit processes that would keep you from sharing that information any way you wanted to. >> what do you make of his claims that he needs the audit to be cleared up? >> we stress that we're on tax administration. so we have no stake in any of the primaries going on and whatever the comments are being made are being made by candidates as i say from our standpoint, if you're being audited and you want to do

something else, share that information with your returns, you can do that. >> one of the other things he said is that he's been audited because he's a strong christian. is that a reason why the i.r.s. would audit someone? is that a reason that would trigger an audit? >> that is something that would not cause you to be audited. we don't care who you are, what party you belong to, whether you go to church or don't go to church. if you hear from us in response to an inquiry it is about something in your tax return. and if somebody else had that same issue in that return, they'd hear from us as well. we go to our limbed resources, of course. but it would never be the case that you would be audited because of any religious persuasion you might have to have. >> you can watch the rest of that interview with i.r.s. interview josh koskinen sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on on c-span.

>> our goal is to get -- what e candidates are standing on social security and how they're planning on saving it? and if they are, how do they plan on saving it? >> it's really important to get out and vote because it's the only way besides local elections hat we can voice our opinions. >> there's more road of the the white house coverage this weekend with ohio governor and republican presidential candidate john kasich. he'll be taking questions from voters in nashville, tennesseeful we'll have that live at noon eastern. house majority whip steve scalise will support whoever becoming the general nominee in the general election. he made the comment while speaking with bloomberg news.

the two talked about the presidential race and the house legislative agenda. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> good morning. sorry to interrupt the discussion. it's my pleasure to welcome you today to today's inside event with whip steve scalise.

i would like to send a special thank you for whip scalise for taking the time out of his schedule to join us. we started this series about a year ago with the goal of bringing together policymakers for an open dialogue and the big issues of the day. and certainly as a member of the leadership, whip scalise is involved in just about everything in all of those issues that come across the house floor. as this party's chief vote counter, he's got what i would argue as one of the tougher jobs in washington today. listening and taking into account the views of all of his conference and getting them to follow him. on personal level he's very focused on energy and national security issues. a couple of weeks ago he gave a radio address speaking about the industry. i spent my whole life in the tech industry and working with programmers, he's a computer scientist and systems engineer. before i hand over to billy

house, bloomberg's news moderator, just a couple of housekeeping items. first, we'll have some time for q&a at the end. so do be thinking about your questions and there will be my ones -- mike crow -- microphones. hashtag go to our it's on our panel over there. if you're not a bloomberg government customer and you're interested in joining us in the future, i encourage you to follow up afterwards. thanks for joining us. i hope you enjoy the event. i hope to talk to a number of you after the event. illy, all yours. >> morning, everybody.

>> morning. >> got a lot covered today. but let's start off with a couple of softballs. so we don't pull a hammy. technically you're the number three ranked republican in what is the largest majority in the ouse since 1928. not too personal here. what does a whip do specifically? >> well, before i got elected whip, i never seen "house of cards." it seems that half of my constituents did and they said is that what you do? it's not how it works. it's to have the pulse of the membership. i'm talking to my colleagues every day as we're trying to move our agenda forward, what are the things that our members want to see in the policy especially to get them to support the legislation and get it across the finish line. so those conversations get detailed into policy.

a lot of it gets into some of the things they're trying to accomplish back home whether it's other bills that they're trying to get through committees. so you find out what the members want -- >> so you know what they will do and won't do and how far they'll bend on certain things. >> you get an idea where members want to go and what they -- what they want to see to get them through the long run. >> you announced you wanted to run for number two, majority leader last year. but the position didn't open up. any thoughts of going for it this fall? >> no. when speaker boehner left. tim mccarthy was running for that. i was running for the majority leader spot. we had built a really strong team. and obviously that didn't open up. so i enjoyed doing the job of whip. really glad that paul ryan stepped up to be speaker. and he's really enjoying the job which he didn't expect he would do. but he's doing a really good job at -- at helping guide us and probably one of the best ideas

guys in terms of conservative policy in the country, not just in the house, but in the country. >> you haven't endorsed in the presidential race? >> nox i have not made an endorsement. >> do you plan on doing so? >> march 5th, i do not plan on endorsing prior to that. i want the most conservative person who can win. i'm someone who admired ronald reagan. i came up in school when ronald reagan was president. people didn't consider themselves conservative but he plains why that conservative policy was good for them. i want to see somebody rise to that level. >> so you'd be ok with a donald trump? >> i would be ok with anybody who was on the stage last night. if you look at our field it's not completely settled. obviously, the elections tuesday night could have a lot of say in whether or not this is going to be competitive or be over. but regardless, whoever on that

stage is our nominee, i can support and would do an incredibly better job than hillary clinton or bernie sanders. they're arguing who's more to the left a socialist or somebody who won't even denounce socialism as bad policy for this country and a bad direction. >> ok. let's go get the nuts and bolts here. >> softballs -- i mean -- [laughter] >> what is going on, again with the largest republican majority since in the house since 1928? what is going on with the budget? and what is going on with the appropriations bills? thought the words "continuing resolution" was thrown out the door but back in the lexicon. >> we're in the middle of the process of meeting with members committee chairmen rank in file members on where to go forward with our budgets. the budget is also a complicated

document to put together. last year we had a lot of complicated issues to work through. the big issues were, you know, it started off the difference between our fiscal hawks and our defense hawks and to me i'm in both camps. a lot of our members felt they were in both camps but there were some real issuesed that that -- had to get resolved. and there were weeks before we came to an agreement. the budget is a document because we lay out the vision for how to get the budget back to balance, how to get the economy back on track, we repeal obamacare, we do a lot of policy and how do you say medicare from bankruptcy. you don't get any democrat support buzz of that. it's got to be something that attracts the vast majority of our republican conference and, look, we have people whether you know it or not people that have differences of opinion within the republican conference. that's what makes us strong and

healthy as a strong majority. but it means we have to work hard to come to a true consensus where you can get more than 218 people to vote for that bill. >> the flip side to that is you have so many members, why wouldn't it be simpler to pass a budget? >> if only it would be simple to vote on the most complex things. you look at the conversations within our complex, there are a lot of conversations of how we actually get the economy moving again. and those are all things that ultimately we're going to resolve and we've resolved those in the past. but, you know, it means that you've got to work together with everybody to come together and lay out policy. this isn't just platitudes, we're writing legislation, a true path to get the economy moving again. this is something clearly this president doesn't believe in that approach. i mean, he's never brought forward a budget that gets

balanced. he raises taxes in his. we don't raise taxes. inhave a very big difference ideology. hopefully who ever becomes president, what's their approach to getting the economy mufinge. at least we lay one out. >> is there a chance though that the house won't do a budget? >> there's always a chance the house won't do a budget but if you look at the budgets that we've presented over the years since we've been in the majority, every one of them gets balanced in the 10-year window. that has been a big driving priority of ours. but the most important discussions we have in the agreements we have to come to is what are the underlying policy that gets you there. and those are the things that we actually -- it's not like we disagree upon them but everybody's got a different idea on how to do them. you can't have five different approaches.

we have to agree upon one. >> cutting it last year, almost a nonstarter for the senate . and speaker ryan said it would hurt the appropriations process. do you think there will be 12 appropriations bill passed this year? >> i would like to see 12 appropriationings bills padsed. i -- passed. part of the budget agreement that came out at the end of last year was that there was an agreement by harry reid that they would start moving bills. unfortunately, the senate has this 60-vote requirement. at a minimum they ought to review the 60-vote requirement in appropriations bills. it's a constitutional responsibility to have 51 to move an appropriations bill to the president and back to the house. it's something they should go and revisit in the meantime it takes 60 if you look at a onciliation which is

biproduct which is something we did -- last year was the first time since 2002 that the house and the senate agreed on a budget that gets the balance. it shouldn't take that long where they agree on a budget that have balances and it allowed us to put a bill that defends obamacare and to do that with 51 votes in the senate. on the 12 appropriations bills they should revisit having the 51-vote requirement for those bills. but it still takes 60. and the agreement from last year was that they would not block moving those bills forward anymore. the democrats wouldn't. >> if you had to guess, if you were a betting man, you don't really believe you were going to do -- the house was going to do 12 appropriations bills, do you? >> it's unlikely you would get all 12 bills signs into law. it's very unlikely. but it would be likely if we got a budget and the agreement was

still in place and the democrats and the senate held to their word that you would be able to get a few of those bills not just the senate and the house but actually to the president's desk. maybe the d.o.d. bills or the appropriations bills where you're no longer looking at over a trillion dollars that you come up on september 30th unresolved. it's a much smaller number. which means you have some policy writers signed into law. the biggest damage this administration is doing is through the regulatory side. we're fighting the president on a lot of regulations. we've beaten the president on regulations. but there are many others like the e.p.a. and so many other federal agencys that are destroying jobs in this country and we want to be able to push back on that and the best way to do that is by attaching limitations in the president's executive power to get those appropriation bills to his desk.

>> back to the appropriations bills -- what would you say to the cospiratorial-minded people that they're dragging their feet without having to cast a vote? >> we're at the earliest time in decades that we're starting the budget process. typically it moves around mid april. that's when most budgets have come out of the house. we're looking at something in march which would be a month earlier than normal. we've ramped up the process of getting the budget discussions going and getting the committee to do their work. so we're way ahead of the average schedule of the budget. >> and when would you say panic time should set in that there wouldn't be a budget? when would the alarms sound? >> we're in the middle of the discussion with our members. so we're nowhere near where

things would break down. we're still having a lot of discussions. they're passionate discussions because you're literally talking about how you get the country turned around, both getting the balance, getting the economy moving, dealing with the unsolve unsolvecy of medicare. i don't see those discussions happening on the democratic side. it's a conversation that's good for us to have with the country. because people across the country want us to solve these big problems. and the fact that we're willing to write them down on paper, put them in a legislative document and debate this for the american people, they're hungry for those ideas and the fact that they refuse to talk about how they're going to fix these problems is going to hurt them on the presidential election. >> on the other side it's helped you pass some appropriations omnibus last year's

bills -- is it likely that you will sign something this year? >> it will be up to our members. c.r.,on't want to avoid a this is the best way to do it is to start with the budget process that really opens the acr this year, this is the best way to do it. start the process that allows your appropriations bills to move and let it go to the house and the senate and the president's desk. then you do not have this deadline at the end of the year that results in an omnibus or acr, which is far less than you want as an a deal -- as an ideal. a cr does not have the provisions -- it sounds -- they: it sounds like pessimism over the budget appropriations process is too

early? mr. scalise: too early. these are the conversations we ought to be having. the policy matters with respect to the direction of the country. is what we came here to do. we came here to go fight for our ideals in the best way to get the country moving again. in a majority, you've got to come together to get an agreement with at least 218 members. mr. scalise: -- on ryan time yet? you spent the first four months saying that he inherited a mess and basically nothing was his fault. is this ryan time yet? hasscalise: look, paul made clear the direction he

wants the country to go. having a functioning legislative process. that means we are going to meet as members and the members will big decisions.se paul ryan -- if you are waiting around for paul to say this is where everybody is going to go whether you like it or not, that is not why he ran as speaker. we are having meetings on all of the different policy areas. members -- all of the different policy areas. members are coming to these meetings. i was there yesterday. members have really good ideas about how to restore the balance of power in washington so the government works for the people, which it does not right now. paul has laid out a vision. this is not top-down were a few people in membership are making decisions. the members are empowered. which means that the members up

to make decisions. i always use the jack camp example. if you go back to 1980, ronald reagan ran on tax reform. but it was not his idea. when he was fighting through the loweries, he wanted to tax rates. together a plan to lower tax rates. he came up with the plan that lowered rates from 70 down to 50 and when ronald reagan got the nomination in 1980, he said, i want lower rates, and i like that plan by that guy jack kemp. literally a year later that got signed into law. ryan inspires members, look, if way to getidea, a the country moving again, start building the coalition now. our nominees are not talking about a lot of detailed policy ideas. if you watched the debate last

night, they're talking about who built the trump tower or who was lying. it's not a detailed policy discussion. we need detailed policy discussions to get the country moving again. that is really where speaker ryan has made his objective, so they can look at a lot of these ideas, and they can say that is the way i want to save medicare, that is how i want to get the budget balanced, that is how i want to get the country moving again. the way congress talks about task forces within congress when there is a committee system, you really wonder if there is too much going on there that does not need to be done. why the committees? why handle these things through the committee process? mr. scalise: that is why when he

leadership, i think you can go back and see where taskforces were set up to go around the committee chairman. that is the worst way to do it. your road the trust and inermine the expertise congress. having the expectation -- if you do not look at the task force set up to find a replacement for -- for obamacare. i think everybody knows that we are for repealing obama care. but it's important to show what a replacement would look like to lower costs and put patients back in charge of their health care. kevin brady, ways and means, john kline, the education workforce, those chairmen are heading up the task force because their committees will do the work to produce the bills that come together. so, that is what he has done. he has gotten lead chairman to lead those efforts. and members who are not on the

committees, if you have a great idea for tax reform -- whether it is a fair tax, flat tax, lower rates overall, which we want -- you can go to the committee and you can bring your ideas and ultimately that will result in better legislation for us. -- i was ate way the same place as you last night, talking to a congressman, moderate, personal conservative, and he said i do not understand this. why don't we just pass these bills we need to pass? who cares if the senate does not take them up? ?ho cares if obama vetoes them let's let our agenda be the bills we pass and run on those. pass asn't the house replacement bill? why does of the house passed a poverty bill? ay does of the house pass welfare reform bill?

"bold agenda bills?to" -- why not do that is what he was asking. mr. scalise: you will see us bring a lot of this bill to the floor. billy: this year? mr. scalise: this year. that is what our members are deciding. our members represent 750,000 average.ch on but at the inn of the day policy matters. bill on therow some floor and say let's put some allet points in the form of bill and lay it out there. you need to work through the details of the policy to make sure we get it right. at the end of the day i want these bills to be bills that get signed into law. if barack obama will not sign our welfare reform in our tax reform bill, let's put together that the next president

can sign into law, so the presidential candidates can debate that bill and it is strong enough and put together ona way where it can stand its own merits and let's have both sides debate this issue. let the country engage in this. we are in the second year of a republican-controlled congress. why hasn't that groundwork been done already? was it the previous speaker and his handling of matters that slowed things down? is this the year that everything is going to be punted to 2017 because details have not been ironed out in those bills? how come none of this stuff has actually been -- taken flight yet? mr. scalise: we brought some of these ideas to the floor already last year. a you look at 20's -- 2015, national security, a number of

pieces of legislation to deal with specific problems. the visa waiver program, the problems with the visa waiver program. we have people in, let's say france, traveling to syria, training with isis. they literally, without even a visa, could come into the united states. we changed that. most people recognize that there were major flaws with that program, but you can't say, ok, let's fix it. you have to fix it the right way. we put a task force together led by the chairman of jurisdiction and came up with a bill by candice miller and that was signed into law. the visa waiver program has been addressed and we did that last year. we brought other bills to the floor to handle these problems. obviously in the budget, we laid out the plan to save medicare from bankruptcy. the left like to criticize us for it, because they do not have a plan at all. there are a lot of problems are country is facing. that again, details really do

matter. we are working through the details and we have an interest in each of those issues. billy: what if the product to come up with do not mesh with your party's presidential nominee's ideas on the issue? mr. scalise: i think you will see these before we go to cleveland, to bring in our nominee is the official republican candidate for president -- it's a good opportunity for us to lay out the good ideas when you're not hearing a lot of those details coming out of the presidential election, there will be solutions to problems our country is facing we will have put on the table in the house so ,ur nominees can embrace them take pieces of those, and may be run on those bold ideas in the general election in november. billy: with many general appropriations ills ring past, -- bills being passed, do you think that undercuts the speaker

bringing together a agenda? mr. trump, if he is the nominee, he has differences with the speaker and house conservatives. what happens if there are two different directions being put out there? mr. scalise: if you look historically, the nominee ultimately is going to be the person who shapes the agenda for november. that's always the case. support i had unanimous that at the end of the day is what the process is going through right now. , at least, have an obligation to lay out our vision and you're seeing that play out and i think it is a healthy conversation. i think including members from every committee -- not just the members of the committee of jurisdiction -- clearly they

have the most expertise, but we have members and privacy policy being debated across the country. that's happening right now. be gloomy, but what happens if somehow a republican is not elected president? after the passing of justice scalia, one of the great conservative thought leaders in the history of the court -- what willcifically, house republicans do if they fund themselves having to work with another democratic president? mr. scalise: we've got to lay out the case for just what is at stake in this election. i think it has become more clear what is at stake. if you want a balanced federal budget, electing a republican president is the only way to do it, because on the democrat side, bernie sanders is talking about everything being free for everybody. that was obamacare. out that well.rk

hillary clinton is agreeing with that. that's not going to work out well. if you want to save medicare from bankruptcy, we have a plan for that. it. do not have a plan for if you want to know the direction of the supreme court, just go no further than the people running for president to see what that direction would be. the country is going to decide this. the people of america are going to decide this, but we are going to continue to show just what is at stake and there is everything on the line, from the direction of the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch. could lose- and you the senate, too, by the way. mr. scalise: right. the legislative branch. billy: why is congress taking so long to address what puerto rico urgent need to address their situation, their fiscal calamity? mr. scalise: well, the first

thing is there are things going to see if there is an involvement, a role for congress to play. it has to come up with puerto rico coming up with solutions to their problems. they are not alone. as a territory they have ofblems, but there are a lot states that have similar problems. we do not want to set a precedent where others come behind and say, hey, we want that, too. it has to be well thought through. right now there is not a unified answer to addressing this question at the federal level. they still ultimately are going to have to solve their problems and come up with the best ways to get their finances in order. again, a lot of states have similar problems. and those states are working through those problems. we don't want washington to be the place where people come for a bailout. this is not -- you know, we're not going to give somebody bailout. we have our own problems we have to address. so states and territories have

to address their problems and if they want to put better solutions on the table, this is the time to do it. billy: financial control board or some sort of oversight board, that would -- why would that be taking so long to approve? mr. scalise: again, the committees of jurisdiction are working on this right now. they're having hearings. they're meeting right now. not only with the members but with people from puerto rico, with people from other places that have similar interests. -- similar interests that puerto rico has. let's figure out if there's a way we can do something that we can get agreement on that solves the problem. right now we don't have a final solution. billy: another topic. has leadership pulled the plug on a long-term f.a.a. bill? mr. scalise: no, the bill just came out of committee. obviously there were a lot of disagreements within committee that chairman schuster worked through. it's a complicated bill. it's a bill that ultimately, when they passed it, there were

a lot of amendments even on the last day. and i think chairman shuster continues to have conversations with people that really do understand that the f.a.a. needs reforms, the f.a.a. does have its authorization expiring, so there's a timeline. and he's working through all of those different -- billy: so no decision -- no definite decision has been made? mr. scalise: no. there's still, again, chairman shuster's still meeting with a lot of people to work through all of the different issues that are involved. and there are many. billy we're going to open it up : for questions in a few minutes. really more general, you've been the number three man for mr. boehner and now you're the number three man for mr. ryan. which is the better boss? [laughter] mr. scalise: that's not a -- billy: i think you probably lean one way. because the current king is the king, right? mr. scalise: look, just to put

it into perspective four years , ago i wanted paul ryan to run for speaker. i've been a huge fan of paul ryan since i came to congress. i joined the republican study committee right when i came in after a special election and paul was putting together the path to prosperity. and i was really excited that there was a member that was laying those bold ideas out on the table and that became the foundation that resulted in the house budget that we passed when we got the majority. so not only do i think he's our best ideas guy, but i also think he's the closest person i've seen to ronald reagan to articulate a conservative vision to people who don't typically vote republican. because we haven't done a good job of laying out our case about why conservative policy is better to build the middle class that's eroding, why it's better to get people out of poverty. our ideas are proven, we just don't do a good enough job of explaining them and paul is the best at it. i'd put him at the top of the field today. if he were running for president. he's not, so i've been a big fan of his. four years ago i asked him if he'd run for president.

he didn't want to. he ultimately became our vice presidential nominee. and i think added a lot to the ticket. but i do think he's in a special category. somebody who's got that reagan-esque and kemp-esque quality. he worked for jack kemp, to really inspire people who don't necessarily consider themselves republican to actually see why conservative policy is the best answer to the problems our country's facing. billy: so you would like to see a brokered convention? mr. scalise: no. i just think he's really one of the best conservative minds in the country. billy: have you talked to mr. boehner since he's left office? mr. scalise: i've seen him a couple of times up in washington. and he seems to be very happy. the speaker's a tough job. you can say the whip's job is a tough job. i think it's a great job. because you keep the pulse of the membership, you really know what's happening in the house. but the speaker's job is probably the toughest job, especially when you consider that barack

obama's president and he might go down as one of the most divisive presidents in our country's history. he's not worked hard to bring congress together, to solve problems. it's created a very divisive atmosphere in the country and being speaker during that time is not easy at all. billy: ok. let's do some questions. we have somebody with the -- oh, beautiful. questioner: hello. hindu americanhe foundation. several conservatives who are strong on foreign policy, chairman corker, rand paul, ed royce, ted poe, john mccain, have really disapproved of the president's notification to sell eight f-16's along with other equipment to pakistan with a subsidized sale. is this something you can rally conservatives and reach across the aisle to halt in order to save american taxpayers over $800 million? mr. scalise: the armed services committee deals with these

issues. i haven't seen them come out with the best approach. i don't want the full house to be trying to make the decisions that generals and the people, the experts in the field, ought to be making. but that's why you have a housed armed services committee -- a house armed services committee that has members with the best expertise on the direction of defense. my main concern is we have a strong national defense which has been depleted over the last several years and it's got to be strengthened. our military readiness has been degraded. we've got to strengthen that. we've got major threats around the world and i want the best minds in our military to be determining what that best approach is to keep america safe. and so the house armed services committee is working through that right now. i'll be looking forward to seeing their plan that they come out of committee with. questioner: thank you.

adam with the american library association. you mentioned the p word, mr. scalise. privacy. 194 republicans, almost 80% of the caucus, 115 democrats, are the 310 co-sponsors of the most co-sponsored bill in congress, h.r. 699, the email privacy act. it shocked me, and i had to check it three times, to learn that a warrant is not needed after six months to get the actual content of people's emails, all of your drop box files, basically everything in the cloud. no speeches. when this bill comes out of committee, as happily it finally is poised to do in judiciaryary, what is the best path to the floor as the clock ticks down on this particular congress? mr. scalise: i'd like to see us take it up. i'm a strong supporter of privacy. i'm a strong supporter of a free and open internet. i do have concerns where you see the f.c.c. trying to get more involved in writing technology policy.

that should be the role of congress. i do think when you look at this debate that's going on nationally on privacy, it's an important one that congress is being drug into and i think in some ways we've got to address some of the problems where you have threats to privacy. and then the balance is always, how do you make sure to protect national security and privacy at the same time? that's probably the biggest debate we have in congress. and i do think there are always ways to strike that fair balance. there are cases that pop up from time to time like we see right now, with apple, that challenge that and force everybody to really revisit our laws -- are laws adequate and what is the proper role of government think? sure don't want the federal government being able to tell a company how to write an operating system or how to develop hardware. so you've got to balance privacy with national security and find the proper balance. questioner: to be clear, this debate is -- [inaudible] mr. scalise: this is a much broader debate, this ladies and

gentlemenslation you're talking about. really deals -- this legislation you're talking about. really deals with the privacy of individuals' email. i've raised these concerns to some of the companies who allow emails to be viewed in a broad sense, where maybe the people writing those emails don't realize that they're being viewed. i have some real problems with that. questioner: good morning. you talked about the task forces already a little bit. can you elaborate on the logistics of, you know, will the recommendations or will there be a publication of recommendations, will take -- will stakeholders at all be able to post ideas or is this a round table talking? mr. scalise: the task forces are very real detailed policy

conversations amongst members of congress to figure out which bills we want to bring to the floor, if we want to have a better tax plan, which we all agree we need to have, our country is not competitive right now. you see major companies leaving the united states of america to invert and go to other countries. it's not because they want to. they don't want to leave. the tax code is forcing them to leave. because we are not competitive as a nation. how do we best do it? the details really do matter. we have members right now meeting to work through and see if we can come to an agreement on legislation. ideally i'd like to see be able to bring actual bills to committee. we don't have a predisposed outcome and leadership. we made it very clear. we didn't start this to say we want this bill and that bill and that bill to be on the house floor. we want the committees to then go to work on these ideas. and they're really good ideas that are being discussed in

these task forces. like i said yesterday i sat in on the task force on restoring our article one powers, to re-establish the balance of power. there are people across the country that think we have zero-based budgeting where if you had a government shutdown, everything literally shuts down. that's not the way the law works. you go back to the budget act, which literally congress decades ago gave most of that power of the purse to the president. it's bad policy. i want us to change that policy. our members are now meeting to come up with the best way to re-establish that balance of power. and if that's going to result in specific bills, might be one bill, might be four bills, but ultimately those conversations are going on right now amongst our members, that's going to go to the committees and then the committees hopefully produce final pieces of legislation that we can vote on on the house floor. billy: kind of to that point though -- can you tell us the agenda that's being crafted for -- put together in sort of a contract with america booklet form, how will it be dispensed to the public? i mean, how will joe voter know what exactly the conservative

agenda that you guys have? mr. scalise: there's no misconceptions that the house is going to drive the agenda for the presidential election. i do think the house can actually help lay out some of these issues so our presidential candidates can comment on them and they should be asked to comment. if we come up with an alternative to obamacare in the form of an actual piece of legislation. look, when i was rnc chairman, i led a task force to write an alternative. we came up with a bill called the american health care reform act. less than 200 pages. actual legislative text. and half of our conference signed on as co-sponsors to that bill. you can look at a piece of legislation and if you like it, endorse it. if you have maybe a change this part, i'd change tax deductions to tax credits. let's have our candidates for president be commenting on and taking positions on those pieces of legislation. so that in an off year, congress

can have a contract with america type document where we lay out the vision, but let's make no mistake. our presidential nominee is going to be laying out that vision. that's going to be the job of our presidential nominee. we just want to put a lot of those good ideas on the table now so they're not fighting amongst themselves over who may be the better person or who has the worst idea on this or that, let's lay out good ideas that we can coalesce around and hopefully our nominee will be able to turn and say, ok, i want toa really good idea about how to get the economy back on track and how to stop all these radical federal agencies from being able to write rules and in essence laws without any public input. we're going to have really good ideas that we've already brought to the house floor, to address those real problems and hopefully our presidential nominee then says, i'm going to embrace that idea or tweak it a little bit and this is what i will do as president of the united states. and then let hillary clinton have her own approach. at least we can have a debate about good ideas between our presidential nominee and theirs over how to get the country moving again.

questioner: long time civil servant with both legislative and executive branch. today i'm jane voter in terms of this question. it seems that since 1977, congress has only passed appropriations four times. without continuing resolutions. so the situation seems neither new nor unexpected, just sort of increasingly more worse, increasingly more severe. i wonder, in terms of if really there's an interest in saving money or sort of how government functions, has there been any thinking or studies on the impact of what running on continual continuing resolutions, omnibuses, no budgets, threat of shutdown does? i'm thinking planning, wasting. if you tried to tell a company that they were not guaranteed with their budget, that they had no idea how much money they were going to get and you a all of a sudden they had to spend it, not to mention all the time that's wasted in government and employee time, you'd probably come up with some pretty significant figures. so it seems that it can't be laid at this president or this party. i think since 1990 there's been really no party that's put

forward a budget that's balanced. so a lot of that -- mr. scalise: the republicans have. the last time a republican house has balanced a federal budget was in 2002. the last time a democrat house passed a balanced budget was in 1969. when man walked on the moon. so -- but to get to your question. it really is an important point. because these showdowns and these crises, it hurts our country. it hurts our economy. it's not just making washington look dysfunctional. and actual -- it actually hurts the ability for the federal government to be more effective and efficient with tax dollars. look at the department of defense. if you have a continuing resolution instead of an actual d.o.d. appropriations bill signed into law, then they can actually do planning. you know, companies plan years in advance. a government agency should actually be laying out plans as well about how to best use taxpayer dollars. but if they don't know what

their budget's going to look like until literally the day before it's about to take affect, it's -- take it back, -- take affect effect, it's real hard for them to do planning and a lot of times what they do is suspend contracts and then they have to start that contract back up again, even though they know that ultimately something's going to get worked out. they can't do long-term planning. and it costs even more money. to do the same thing, so it does lead to a less efficient government, to not have a functioning appropriations process. it's why we want passionately for this to move forward. again, i'd like to see the president leading this charge. he should be the one leading this charge to say, let's come together and move appropriations bills. last year when we were passing bills out of the house, to do this, months in advance of the deadline, the president was sitting on the sideline. he never once said, harry reid, who was his senate leader, on the democratic side when harry's blocking every bill, he never once said, harry reid, take the bill up and y'all debate your differences. that's what congress is supposed to do. he sat on the sidelines and almost encouraged it. so you had this dysfunction get even worse. so i agree. it hasn't happened in a long time. it should happen every year. when we passed a balanced budget last year that we got an