a.m., former ambassador ♪ host: good morning. it is tuesday, march 1, 2016 -- super tuesday. 12 states are holding primaries or caucuses. the delegates needed for the gop nominations. for democrats, more than one third of the delegates needed or their nomination is up grabs. alabama, alaska, arkansas, colorado, georgia, massachusetts, minnesota, oklahoma, tennessee, texas, vermont, and virginia. we will be opening our phones to

voters in those states. who are you voting for and why on this super tuesday? if you're a democrat in one of the 12 states, the number is (202) 748-8000. if you are a republican, (202) 748-8001. if you are an independent, (202) 748-8002. you can also catch up with us on social media on twitter it is @cspanwj. on facebook, it is facebook.com/c-span. happy super tuesday to you. the biggest day on the primary calendar. after scores of rallies and speeches, $23 million in combined campaign spending in commercials and those 12 states. according to twitter, 21 million tweets mentioning the candidates in the last seven days. it is primary day. the front runners are poised to

do well if you read the headlines. on the wall street journal, the front-runners hold the edge in votes. on the republican side, derailing trump is the challenge. rubio and ted cruz scramble on the eve of the votes. day in aegins the superposition. those states that are holding primaries today include alabama, arkansas, georgia, massachusetts, oklahoma, tennessee, texas, vermont, and virginia. those holding caucuses include colorado, minnesota, and for republicans, alaska. american samoa is also holding their caucus for democrats. that is 20% of the pledged democrats that will be awarded. available republican delegates are up for grabs. the phone numbers, if you are a

democrat, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. .ndependents, (202) 748-8002 here is how the new york times breaks down the potential primary outcomes according to the different states. trump successnald with evangelicals will help him dominate at least a role six southern states. recent polls show ted cruz ahead of donald trump in texas, the biggest prize of primary day. minnesota appears to be marco rubio's best chance for a win, but also looking for others in massachusetts and vermont. hillary clinton is expected to win most of the southern states, including arkansas where she was the first lady. -winachusetts is a must

for bernie sanders according to the new york times. if you are a voter in one of those super tuesday states, we want to hear who you are supporting. robert from virginia beach, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i just got back from voting in virginia, supporting ben carson. it was a tough decision, i was undecided until this morning. stronglyat he aligns -- the best candidate for my evangelical values. i would have voted for huckabee or santorum if they were still in the race, but they dropped out early. i felt that person was the strongest candidate with the values that -- i figured trump and isil rubio on sunday and he had a well-rounded -- and i saw

review on sunday and yet a well-rounded message. in the end i went with ben because of his commitment to pro life, faith, and those evangelical christian values. host: i do think about the talent of the republican primary? the gop race goes into the gutter? caller: it is getting a little cartoony with trump, but he -- but if he is the nominee i will support trump over hillary clinton in november. host: let's go to our line from texas. hirley? caller: i will vote for bernie sanders. texas is gerrymandered. my vote counts for nothing. i am a democrat. thank you.

talk about bernie sanders. lower expectations for him. hillary clinton is expected to dominate what has been called scc primary in the southern states. where does bernie have to win? he has to win everything or he won't beat hillary. i will vote for him anyway. i love hillary, but i don't think hillary is as trustworthy as bernie sanders. i will look for bernie. my vote would not count for hillary, either. texas is gerrymandered. my vote doesn't count, but i will vote for bernie. you sayd "gerrymandered" what do you mean in a national election? the state is divided into districts, each chosen to have mostly republicans.

therefore, a democratic vote doesn't count for anything. host: you are talking congressional elections, what about for the national election for the president? caller: same thing. host: tennessee, republican, james. good morning. caller: i am a registered republican, but i stopped voting in 2000 and swore a written ever vote again. i cannot wait to vote for donald trump. he is a mover and shaker. after putting up with 2 terms of obama's incompetence, donald trump is a problem solver. he is hardwired for success. he has my success and i will never vote for a career politician ever again. host: here is donald trump making his own closing argument yesterday in georgia. [video clip] mr. trump: cnn just came out with a poll.

trump, 49%. little lightweight marco rubio, 16%. lying ted cruz, 15%. good guy ben carson, 10%. -- john kasich, 6%. we are at 49 percent, can you believe it? we got the endorsement from the governor yesterday. and we have sarah palin -- we have so many incredible people. .e have jerry falwell junior we are winning at every level with evangelicals. jerry falwell junior was unbelievable. maybe that is one of the reasons

we have had such help. the evangelicals, the tea party, old, young, highly educated -- cheering] we are winning with less than highly educated, which is ok. i love you. we are winning with the veterans, we are winning with the military. in other words, we are winning with everybody. 12 states are voting on the super tuesday here are the polling times in eastern time. alabama, georgia, vermont, virginia, seven :00 eastern. massachusetts, oklahoma, closing at 8:00. most in texas close at 8:00. arkansas polls close at 8:30 eastern. minnesota caucuses begin at 8:00. alaska closes around mid night eastern.

around look for results those times. coverage of the results will be happening on c-span tonight. you can start watching it 7:00 p.m. we will cover results, speeches, and we will have your reaction to hear the voices from those around the country on this primary super tuesday. taking calls from just the viewers in those primary states. good morning. caller: how are you? i am enrolled in massachusetts and will take the democratic ballot today to vote for bernie sanders. i really don't want to see hillary clinton become president. in the general election, i will vote for whoever the republican candidate is. as far as donald trump goes, people are upset, but the democrats and republicans have made a donald trump.

because of their inaction and the way they have handled things in government. the democrats and republicans have to take the blame for donald trump. host: in minnesota. celeste, good morning. you are on "washington journal." good morning. i will be voting for bernie sanders. host: why is that, ma'am? caller: i think that we need change. i think that we need change, especially with the economy. also, i am voting for bernie sanders and democrat because i don't want to see any of us lose any of our choices. i am pro-choice. i am pro-marriage for anybody who wants that that loves each other. i don't think we should have our choices taken away. i am democrat. abouti want to ask you

bernie sanders' campaign strategy after the last batch of hillary clinton's e-mails were released. 23 more of the e-mails on that server were deemed secret, 45 now contain the secret classification of having confidential information from times."hington they also had a story that some critics are saying bernie of not they the mistake going after hillary clinton's e-mail, calling it a lost opportunity to question her integrity. caller: i don't make much of it. i think this is all coming out at the time that we are voting. know, bernie sanders is not going after hillary -- good for him for not attacking her. host: do you think if he did it would make more people concerned about the trustworthy factor?

ofler: i don't really think the trustworthy factor with hillary. i would vote for hillary is bernie sanders was not making such a strong statement for changes in the economy. had that to texas on the line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. i was going back and forth between trump and cruz. inmp attacked president bush south carolina. i'm waiting for my polls that open at 7:00 and i will vote for cruz. host: how do you think ted cruz will do in his home state. it is the biggest prize of super tuesday. caller: i think he will do very well. why is that?

are you seeing it on tv? are you feeling it from chatting with hello republicans? fellow republicans. caller: my friends are all with cruz. donald trump with the things going on with the duke and the kkk, i can't see anyone voting for him after that. brenda and texas. yesterday, ted cruz brought up a trumpsue for donald calling for release of an audio for a sitdown with donald trump where he backed off of his hard-line immigration stances. [video clip] cruz: i call on donald, ask

the new york times to release the tape before the super primary. it is either false and donald did not say that to the new york times and deserves to have this cleared up. releasing the tape will clear that a here the alternative is that it is true. donald trump join the marco rubio amnesty effort and give money to the gang of but he is now telling the new york times editorial board, pay no attention to what i am saying on immigration because i don't intend to do anything. he is said he loves the poorly educated. i hope it is not the case that donald trump is telling the new board he isditorial deliberately misleading voters and has no intention of doing anything he is saying. the voters deserve to know. if you says something different

when he is talking to the new york times than when talking to the voters we deserve to know before super tuesday. host: the new york times with several stories about the trump campaign and some of the issues the trunk campaign has run into. trump gives conspiracy theories a conduit and two presidential politics is the story in the new york times. resonates with white supremacy groups. motivating a group that normally stays out of politics. in usa today, no, donald, we black folks don't love you. we know the difference between a reality show and a campaign. that is in usa today. we are taking college just from voters in the 12 super tuesday oftes, that are holding elections today on the most important day in the primary calendar. teresa, democrat, good morning. caller: i am actually republican

. i plan to vote for bernie sanders. host: why is that? caller: because i admire the man and respect him. i am for all the things four. he's the only one that is really talking about the changes we need. i believe in him. support would carry through to the general election if he is the democratic nominee? you would put him over republican candidates? caller: definitely. in texas, rene in san antonio for independents. go ahead. caller: i was first for carly fiorina, she had a good business sense and would be good for secretary of state. she did not make it.

then i whisper chris christie, and he did not make it. i like ben carson, he is an honest man, but i don't think oomph to makenough the nomination. i will vote for donald trump. host: what got you did donald trump? chris christie's surprise endorsement of donald trump? caller: not really. i have been listening to everybody's speeches and reading up about each as much as i can. , i think donald trump speaking for the white man who has been silent for so long. goofs, but at of least he is honest when he makes a goof. we need a change in our country

and be proud to be americans. first and last week are americans. i will vote for trump. host: when you say he is speaking for the white man, what do you mean? are you concerned about the racial undertones, the concerns of white supremacy supporting donald trump? caller: no. anyone with any sense would not put two cents into that. our country has gone so far to the left. for everyone, we need to speak for everyone, not just one group or two groups. everyone should be spoken to and .isten to -- listened to i don't think either party does it. it is hard to pick someone here it i did the best i can with what research i do.

host: yesterday, marco rubio hammer donald trump about his response to a question over the weekend about the support he has received from david duke and white supremacists in the kkk. here is a bit. [video clip] to turnio: he is asked over the current -- the conservative movement to david dooku is an about racist. he would not condemn him. you say david duke to me i say "racist" immediately. why wouldn't he condemn the ku klux klan? [applause] there is no room in the conservative movement and none in the republican party for members of the ku klux klan or racists like david duke. [applause]

host: that was marco rubio yesterday. primaries inlding alabama, arkansas, georgia, massachusetts, oklahoma, tennessee, texas, vermont, and virginia. there are carcasses in minnesota and colorado. republicans are holding their caucus in alaska. american samoa is holding democratic caucuses. we are talking to viewers in just those super tuesday states. we want to know who you are voting for and why. in abilene, texas, diane, a democrat. caller: good morning. my husband and i proudly voted for bernie sanders, early voted. we love his honesty and ideas.

the best countries in the world are the ones with democratic-socialist policies. hasas been told that she told numerous times how he plans to fund these things. he is not giving away a lot of things to everyone. it is making a better quality of life for everybody. democrats, please get out and vote today. i'm sick and tired of hearing pundits and journalists saying democrats only vote in presidential elections, not the midterms and primaries. that is how we lose the congress, the state congresses, thegovernorships, look at governors's running states. they're running them into the ground. please, democrats, no matter what you are doing find a few minutes to vote. interrupting bernie

sanders? you say unless he is being interrupted he is able to talk about issues that are catching on. where are the interruptions coming from? caller: i love chris matthews, but even the other day he would ask him a question and interrupt. you cannot get the answer. it is like they ask him a question, but they do not want him to get his answer out. the person asking the question, even from msnbc, the interrupt him and do not let him explain. a lot of the times he gets interrupted. when he is making a speech in front of a crowd he does, but when he is talking to a journalist he is interrupted many times. host: i do think these people are jumping in? caller: i don't know. it is strange. it is like they asked the question but don't want to hear the answer or something. matthews just wants to

give his own opinion. i don't know, i guess they think there is no way -- they say there is no way that he can .mplement what he advocates for when he tries to explain, there are so convinced that he can't they don't want to listen. we love bernie sanders. we are so glad. we may not vote for him in the presidential election, so we proudly voted for him last week. from abilene, texas. as we watch the super tuesday with the rays were the white cnn. 2016 -- this is from a critical meeting on tuesday, president obama will meet with senate majority leader mitch mcconnell and chairman chuck

the influential republicans who announce they confirmationdule hearings are welcome a nominee into the office for courtesy call, talking about the vacancy on the supreme court. that issue will be discussed at the white house. also attending will be harry reid and the top democrat on the judiciary committee, senator patrick leahy, who are leading an intense public relations battle against the republicans to force them to change their mind and act on the president's nominee when the president makes the nominee known. we will keep an eye on that and let you know what comes from that meeting. we are talking with the viewers in only the super tuesday states about who you are voting for for the next president. all is in alaska on the line for republicans. paul, who are you voting for? caller: cruz.

host: why is that? consistent,cruz is honest, he understands foreign and domestic policy very well. he sticks to the constitution of the united states. supremegued that the the pledgelevant to of allegiance. he has one second amendment cases. he is brilliant. i agree with him that we have to get back to running this country and a constitutional manner and not flying all over the place and a sighting, i will do this today if it is constitutional or not, like we for the past eight years. host: why do think of sarah palin endorsing donald trump? will that have a big impact in alaska?

caller: sarah palin could not win. she is very unpopular in alaska. she could not win anything here, which is why she doesn't try to run. -- the other not thing i would say that i wanted to mention, it is not about the guy i'm voting for, but the folks that are voting on the ,ther side for bernie sanders you know you should learn what a socialist is and why european countries are moving away some socialism. not moving towards it, but moving away. it doesn't work, and never has. alaska, 28 delegates are up for grabs. alaska is on the smaller side of states holding caucuses or primaries. the big prize is texas with 155 delegates up for grabs.

the 12 see the map of states holding caucuses or primaries. chris, virginia, independent. good morning. caller: i reluctantly left the polls voting for rubio. caller, last scandinavian countries have the highest human development index is in the world. i'm not sure what he is talking about. i reluctantly voted for rubio. host: why reluctantly? caller: i like that he talks about the deficit. i think we are distracted about how we got into that situation. i think he is weak in foreign policy, and i really wanted to vote for john kasich. i know there is no real shot there anymore. surel be honest, i'm not -- if it is a trunk/clinton election, i am not sure who to vote for.

conservatives are the minority americans are moderate center voters. we have not had a candidate in the years who can pull the country together and get smart d.blic policy passe i would love to see a bloomberg run in the general election. host: more republicans yesterday coming out saying -- announcing that they may not support trump if he is the republican nominee. some well-known republicans include the senator from nebraska. he said he would never back to new york billionaire and with look for a third-party candidate if faced with a choice between trump/clinton. saying trump's statements ranging from praising vladimir putin and opening liable laws to downournalists tearing america instead of building up this glorious nation. for super tuesday

begins at 7:00 tonight, we encourage you to tune back and then to see the results and the speeches and of course, we want to hear your reaction, but we are talking about the next hour or so, on the washington journal, the next 15 minutes, hearing from voters in those super tuesday states. bill in georgia, democrats. caller: good morning. i will be voting for bernie sanders. the reason is, he is a truthful man and i heard that he might be picking elizabeth warren as his vice president. the day he resigns, -- the day he becomes president, he could resign and we will have our first woman president. host: where did you hear that? caller: the internet, and that is all i have to say. host: next we go to massachusetts, independent line. caller: i will be voting for

bernie sanders for multiple reasons. host: let's go through them. caller: i'm voting for him because he is not bought and paid for. to encouraging my senator adopt his funding model and would hope that most politicians would adopt that funding model. wrong about all of this money in politics and where it is coming from in my opinion. massachusetts, the electorate voted to have clean elections representatives threw it away, and i think that is disgraceful. host: looks go to susan in hampton, virginia, republican. caller: good morning. first, i wanted walker, who left, then i wanted fiorina,

then i wanted carson, so now i guess i will go with trump. it came out yesterday that david duke never endorsed trump, so i think all of that is gop elite and the news media trying to bring down trump. david duke came out and said he never endorsed trump. i'm going for hand and anyone who votes for hillary is crazy. host: we will keep taking your calls on the race for the next head of the executive branch, but more news from the judicial branch as well this morning. a couple of stories to make you aware of. the u.s. justice department cannot force apple to provide the fbi with access to a lot iphone in a routine drug case. that decision by a magistrate judge, yesterday. decision gives

support to the company's position in its fight against a california judge order, that it create specialized software to help the fbi hack into the phone linked to the san bernardino terrorism investigation. apple is filing to oppose that order and is due by friday of this week. is house judiciary committee holding a hearing on apple iphone encryption, that happening at 1:00 and you can see that on c-span3. one other story coming out of the supreme court, something a bit unusual in one of the arguments. justice clarence thomas broke his 10 year streak of not asking questions during oral arguments. his extensive questioning of a government lawyer in a relatively low-profile case stunned the courtroom. indicateson to speak that thomas might be stepping up

to replace the prominent voice of scalia, an aggressive questioner and dominant presence. pretty much everybody who covers the supreme court was talking about that, yesterday. 10 minutes left to get your calls from super tuesday voters. angela in alabama, democrats. caller: hello. i have a lot of things i want to say. the race is that vote for trump don't get it, this is not about skin color, this is about the color green. second of all, donald trump brings in immigrants and higher illegals but this is what you complain about. bernie ising is, trying to tell us that taking money like hillary is doing, nothing is going to change and people still vote for her. bernie sanders and the lady from

texas said the states are being run into the ground. in thecans when they get office, they take your money, they take all of it and they given it -- they give it to rich people and tax cuts, then they cut social programs and you have not learned your lesson, yet. i don't vote for liars or cheaters or thieves. -- i think that they should do a 1% tax on everybody for the health care that bernie sanders wants to do and the college. talking about rich people kids getting into college for free. i don't want to hear that anymore. they need to raise social security by $1000 a month. one more thing. the gop did not vote wants to help any of you and you still vote for them. you evidently don't learn your lesson. they did not help you at all

after they caused the crash. something wrong with these people. host: that is angela in alabama. we showed you some of the closing arguments in some of the speeches by republican candidates. here is hillary in northern virginia making her closing argument before voters head to the polls. >> republicans want to sell the same snake oil. they want to go back to trickle down economics. and has not worked, it cannot work, it won't work. here is how we know. we want from the 1990's with all those jobs and rising income to a new republican president, who came in and went back to trickle-down economics, slashing reg -- getting regulators to turn away from regulating wall street. no longer keeping an eye on the mortgage market and you know what happened. we had another new, young dynamic democratic president come in and was handed the worst

financial crisis since the great depression. after that 08 election, president obama called me to come see him in chicago. turns out he wanted me to be secretary of state but before that, he looked at me and said it is much worse than they told us, and it was. we were losing -- losing 800,000 jobs a month. 9 million americans lost their jobs. 5 million homes were lost and $13 trillion in family wealth was wiped out. i don't think president obama gets the credit he deserves for taking us out of the debt that the publicans want us -- put us into. host: it is super tuesday in the united states. 12 states all holding caucuses or primaries, today.

those results start coming in around 7:00 tonight and we will have coverage on c-span starting at 7:00, live coverage including phone calls and speeches from the candidates. we are talking about it for the next hour or so on the washington journal. brenda in virginia, one for independent, good morning. caller: thank you for my call. i'm voting for bernie sanders. he is seeing the larger picture. he is a global thinker who stands for all people and is the most honest candidate. someoyed listening to other's comments and i thought it was interesting that people were wavering all over the republican candidate choices. i've always been a supporter and i have never wavered. my vote is based in bias by love. i know that sounds strange, but what i see on the other side is more of the hatred that is coming through. i think bernie sanders is the

best one to bring us together. he has brought energy and ideas to the forefront and a very healthy dialogue versus what i see, which is unethical treatment of protesters, exercising their first amendment. i am pro-choice and i believe inequality, economic equality, climate change, fair pay and family leave. there is one person that is hitting all of those goals and that is bernie sanders. i'm voting for love and that is where i am coming from. there is a good quote that i read, bitter words indicate a cause and -- weak that is how i feel about the republican candidates. host: another bernie sanders supporter is john in north carolina on twitter, bernie's message of robbing your neighbor -- 90 bernie sanders supporter

-- not a bernie sanders supporter. got to wonder, could bernie get 75% of democratic support and still lose to hillary? wants to give asked colors, do they fear the loss of free speech if trump does something to tighten up libel laws which is something he says he would like to do. susan is up next in virginia, republicans. caller: i would like to suggest that some people think about kasich in their primaries, especially republican voters. the reason is that with all due respect to president obama who i never supported, not in the earth or second election, the reason being that we need somebody who can bring people together, all sides, someone who has experience, executive experience, life experience,

international experience and the problem with that of the candidates is that they just have not had that real experience. that would include president obama when he came into office. i'm not sure why the american people are always being duped by the media. orht now the polls say this that and cnn came out and said that bernie and hillary would beat donald trump. people have to stop listening to what the media is feeding us, because half of it is always wrong and i know that for a fact. suggest people think about why they are voting for the candidate they are voting for and really analyze their experience before they decide. what happens to kasich if he does not win a single state, today? does it matter that he stays in the primary until ohio? caller: i certainly hope he does and that he can do something like that.

i have not been paying attention to the amount of money he has or does not have. i certainly hope he does because i think he really could be a candidate that could bring this together and people are so fussy in america. -- i'm ae that we first-generation american who was brought up in a very difficult household. i went to college and paid for it myself and worked on the side and work in high school and now live what you would call it middle-class american dream and it's not always perfect and it's not always wonderful, but i will tell you going up in europe that they are correct about socialism, it is wonderful on paper and the northern countries have -- seem to be able to do it but europe is under extreme stress because of its socialist policies, not that they are not wonderful and it does not sound perfect on paper, but i had chill you there is stretch -- stress after 50 years in a socialist system. we seem to be the most endemic

country when it comes -- most dynamic country when it comes to creation of jobs, even though it's not wonderful and perfect for everybody. message, positive somebody who can bring all americans together because we all are americans in the end. looking ahead on the primary calendar, coming up on saturday, there is the kansas caucus happening, republicans have the kentucky caucus and the primary in louisiana. its republican caucus, nebraska has a democratic caucus and then we get into next week's primary that include michigan, mississippi, idaho, and a few others. the 15th, another big day on the primary calendar but today, the biggest day, super tuesday. 12 states holding primaries or caucuses. david is in texas, the biggest prize on the map, david is a

democrat. caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: today i will be voting for bernie sanders. that one lady who mentioned that a lot of people can't complain because you voted for the wrong people, i agree with that and she should be president. hillary, she has not answered one question in any debate. she sidesteps all kinds of bombs. if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck, so with benghazi, the fact that she won't answer questions, i don't trust her. i would not vote for trump, but i won't vote for hillary. the concern that sanders made a mistake by not going after hillary clinton's e-mails more than it was a lost opportunity to question her

integrity, do you think he should have gone after it? caller: i don't and i think that bernie sanders sticks to his guns. he can't be bought and he is the man that he is. i don't agree with everything he says, but he cannot be bought. he did not take money from super pac's. to any othered candidate, but i sent him $100. i think that the man is honest and he stands for something. he is the man that will bring america together, i believe he is for everyone. host: let's try to get in christie from alabama, independent. caller: good morning. i was calling in. i wanted to vote for bernie sanders, but i don't see where he stands a chance right now. kasich, kasich is that

really set a chance, but a hit -- hope he stays in there until the end because i think kasich can pull through. ted cruz is out, rubio will be out, so i think kasich could be the only man standing and he can -- beatry clinton hillary clinton because the way trump is going, we are not racist in the united states anymore, it is not black and white, it is rich and poor. until we solve the economy, and kasich has balanced the budget before, he has done it in ohio, and we need to have him back in office. when he to put god back in the schools. if we can put on our money and spend it, it needs to be back in our schools. i'm tired of seeing kids being suspended from football teams and everything else for praising god. that is all i have to say. host: christie is our last caller, but we will be talking

about super tuesday for the next 45 minutes and we are joined right washing your examiner senior correspondent -- washington examiner senior correspondent david drucker. our phones will be open to viewers across the country during that segment and later, irs national taxpayer advocate nielsen will be here taking a look at how the irs -- neil olson will be here taking a look at how the irs will handle tax filing, this season. front page of usa today showing the medal of honor ceremony that lays at the white house yesterday where senior chief special warfare operator edward byers was awarded the medal of honor. he received that honor for his actions while serving as part of a team that rescued in america -- an american civilian being held hostage in afghanistan in december of 2012. there is a bit from the ceremony. >> president of the united states and the name of the congress takes pleasure in

presenting the medal of chief special worker operator edward fors, united states navy gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a hostage rescue force team member in afghanistan support of operation enduring rita in december 2012 -- enduring freedom in december 2012. enemy century detected them and darted inside. the sentry quickly reemerged and the lead -- the us ulcers tried to neutralize him. chief buyers -- as the primary preacher, he stood in the doorway fully exposed to any fire while ripping down its layers of heavy blanket back of the inside ceiling and walls to clear a path for the rescue force. the first assaulter pushed his way through the blankets and was mortally wounded by enemy small arms fire from within.

a completely aware of the enemy threat, for this they rushed into the room and engaged enemy guards amy in ak-47 at him. he then tackle another adult male who had darted toward the corner of the room. during the ensuing hand-to-hand struggle, he confirmed the man was not the hostage and engaged in. as the other rescue team members called out to the hostage, he heard a voice, responded in english and raced to word it. he jumped atop the american hostage and shielded him from the high volume of fire within the small room. while covering the hostage with his body, he immobilized another guard with his bare hands and restrained the gardens of a teammate could eliminate him. his bold and decisive action saved the lives -- lives of both the hostage and several of his teammates. courage andis unwavering devotion to duty in the face of near certain death, he reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest

traditions of the united states militaries -- naval service. host: if you want to watch the entire event, you can check it out at c-span.org. now we are joined by david drucker of the washington examiner, he is a senior correspondent. to talk about super tuesday, the biggest day on primary calendars. any republicans named donald trump, is it more about that less about winning and more about surviving? guest: pretty much.

it is about amassing delegates and surviving the psychology of losing. what happens in these provincial races -- in these presidential races, and we have not seen one like this in a while, is you can have money behind you and supporters that stick with you, but the more somebody wins, the more voters start to look at the winner as somebody that they will support, that they can havet and the numbers shown with donald trump, that ,he more he has won presumptions about what his ceiling is in terms of public and support, i do believe there is still a ceiling there, but you see the numbers start to change and rank-and-file voters look at a race were somebody is winning and think of themselves this person must be acceptable and there is nothing wrong with this person and they are winning, and they want to be with the winner. ted cruz and marco rubio -- ted cruz needs to win texas, even

though he was still amassed 20 delegates and will be in the game, psychologically, he needs to win texas and i think you should win texas, that is what i'm expecting, but it is not a given. marco rubio's problem is he will not win any state today, he has to come in second place in a lot of places ahead of crews to show that -- ahead of ted cruz to show that he has the fight. that he can still try to set himself up from 1 -- momentum in florida for march 15, that is where he has to either win or go home. because the is such an unusual front runner, one of the things that gives candidates to drop out of the race for the time we get to march is the money dries up. , and then the supporters right unusual, forump is both ted cruz and rubio, the money is not drying up and the

supporters are not drying up but at some point, you have to win and a massenet delegates to push this thing to a contested convention. host: david drucker with us for the next 45 minutes. if you want to call in, our phones are open across the country. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. what does bernie sanders have to do after two straight losses in nevada and outer lineup to get back into this race -- in nevada and south carolina to get back into this race? guest: bernie sanders is not as strong of a challenger as he might be after new hampshire. the way iowa ended, he practically could've been a jump ball and clinton got the victory, but who knows? that he completely beat her in new hampshire and the pressure was on clinton in nevada.

she won by about six points. south carolina, she crushed him. now we get into super tuesday states where she should be a lot stronger. we have seen her vivid to some general election messaging. sanders, yournie want to block that and pull out a surprise victory or hold her really close. when you look at the electoral map and this is what democrats have been telling me a well back before the voting started, she was going to have trouble in iowa and new hampshire, but the expected her to recover once the rate -- once the race moved to the south and if she does not recover by then, there would be a panic, but she has recovered. you win, you look strong, and despite the scandals over her head, she looks really good and the more she wins, the more democrats who may not necessarily have been thrilled about her candidacy start to look at her and say, not my first choice for which i would've had more choices, maybe

thinking of bernie sanders, but she is not doing too bad. i will stick with her and i think that is what we will see coming out of super tuesday is in terms of voting, she is in a much better position than we thought just a few weeks ago. host: you mentioned the electoral map, take us through the map that is being tightly to the campaigns. that these are winner take all states today, but some of these have a certain threshold that candidates have to reach in order to achieve delegates. guest: i don't have it all in the back of my brain, but remember, when he states matters because of the psychology of winning and people start to ask you if you can't win a state, why are you still in the primary? but the way the primary calendar is set up in particular, all of the winners today are not going to win every delegate from each state, which means they will win proportionally. winning second or third still wins delegates which means you

come out of super tuesday where the front runner, although far ahead of everybody is not in a position yet to wrap this thing up. it is not a defect of victory. -- not a de facto victory. in both the first-place finisher and second-place finisher in texas, which are likely to be trump and crews or crews and trump, andd cruz and rubio, who will finish in third would also have to finish above .0% to get a share of delegates the -- donald trump got the -- i believe there is a 20% vote threshold. host: these are the calculations

taking place in campaigns, even if you come in second, you have to come in a strong second to be on the board. guest: look at where they have been over the past couple of days, where they travel to. host: linda is up first, california, democrats. caller: good morning. i was thinking about this election, and i kind of remember when i was in college, that i had to write a turn paper regarding morals versus morale and when you look to the -- listen to the republicans and loan from, i question, is the country now running on morality versus morals? that cannot be any idea of morals when you think of the three wives and we have to remember, he had his children by not one woman and when you denigrate and talk about races

of people, this is now getting down to what i'm saying, are we morally american country or are we running on the hatred of the morale of -- the people are facing now. versus hillary, i grant she is not the cleanest, but she did not divorce her husband and this is the one thing that sheblicans keep running, did not divorce her husband after all that she went through assistantly, when her , aberdeen, went through her promise -- problems with her husband, she encouraged that young lady not to divorce her husband. i go back to morales versus morals. host: morals and trustworthiness, how it is factoring into voters. guest: a lot of assumptions about how these primaries are going to play out have been turned on their head, not all of them but a lot of them.

certainly a lot of political analysts would have thought going into the presidential race that any republican candidate with a personal background of the business with background, would not necessarily have been a selling point with evangelical voters and voters who consider themselves very conservative, but he sold very well with them and i think that one of the things that is happening on the republican side is this desire for strong leadership and worrying about the details, later and i think one of the reasons donald trump has been successful in the primary so far is because you have seen on the right side of the voting letter, a -- you've also seen this on the left with a strong bernie sanders -- how strong bernie sanders has been and how much money he has raised, a real loss

of trust in government and institution. when people argue that this one is not really a democrat in this one is not really a republican -- maybe all of the ways in which i just candidates before aren't -- haven't been so helpful and i should try something different and for some people, it is that sort of speculation and for some people, they are worried on the direction of the country that is kind of what i call throwing a political hail mary. what have i got to lose because the smart people messed it all up so why are you telling me to vote for the guy -- maybe he has let's go to just waiting in pennsylvania. jeff, good morning. caller: i have been a trump

supporter since day one. i think bernie and hillary are socialists. usa today or something, someone wrote that blacks do not love donald trump. i think that is inherently racist. isn't something like that inherently racist to say blacks -- all blacks think the same? to me, that is racist. this is nothing against black people or any type of people, but why can't wait people have pride in who they are also? it is just saying you are proud of who you are as well. guest: this is going to be a challenge for trump and maybe it won't the. if you look at the uproar in the past couple of days, one day, he duke, the foreign

leader of the ku klux klan, and then he says he had never heard of them. what you had were republicans and conservatives freaking out of this, and running around scared to death that somehow the guy who will represent their point of view in the political arena can just say, of course i disavow the kkk, that is the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard, why would you bother asking me that. a lot of conservatives do not want to be associated with donald trump in dealing with these sorts of questions. it may benefit him politically, but it is different and it is something democrats will try to use against him. the article, david's column in the usa today, no, donald, we black folks don't love you. we know the difference between a

reality show and a campaign. it follows along with what you were talking about with that interview on cnn. questions about david duke and the kkk. your story from the examiner something that has only grown since you wrote the story on the 25th in the past couple of days. establishment figures to even say to vote for him even if he was the nominee. something people need to understand, what i have found in a year of reporting, the donald trump phenomenon, it is not simply a case of the republican establishment, the leaders in washington and lobbyist, and everything else, reporters and journalists, everyone lumped into the establishment, i understand there is outright disgust and anger. we deserve a lot of what we get,

the opposition to donald trump is not just coming from them. it is coming from ideological and philosophical conservatives on the front line of john boehner and mitch mcconnell, if you look at who is saying he will never vote for trump, whether or not it means a it isent hillary clinton, those people. for the political right, it is not just establishment is conservatives who toil on behalf of smaller governments and the enterprise and all the things that animate ideological philosophe inservatives, saying that their view, donald trump is for bigger government, they do not trust donald trump on any of the toues that is important them, the kind politician they do not want to be associated

with it is not just the establishment. it is them as well and that is the interesting about the , that is growing and popping up in opposition to his candidacy. would point trump to the latest cnn poll that says 49% of republicans support him. people are that group of that you're talking about? we do not know how big. it is not just the leadership. it is a lot of conservatives fighting against. andand i reported this out we have seen different conservative groups complain that republicans on capitol hill were not wish and we conservative. there is the club for growth or heritage action for america. these are washington-based groups and our establishment in their own way. they are not party establishment. they are conservative establishment. they thought john mccain was not conservative enough. they had an unhappy will in a

lot of the ways republicans nominate a senate candidate. they are opposed to the rnc. they are having problems with trump. the only point i like to make is it is broader than just the party worried about trump. it is conservatives who have also been aligned often against the party, people that were pushing for john boehner, speaker of the house. then you look at the voters. what we have seen in pulling and isthe votes, donald trump getting the support of conservatives and evangelicals and all the people we thought held never go for him, but is also getting support from people on the republican side of the thing of themselves as moderates and liberals, and that is one of the reasons he has done so well. there are people who are not him political for look at as a practical businessman and

do not expect to be all that conservative or ideological, they expect to cut deals with democrats or anybody else and they are happy with that and that is what they want, or at least they whine outsider who is not a part of what you and i are part of. nearly half of all the people in the 12 super tuesday leaning toward republican and report 7% are evangelicals protestant churches , they make up a huge share of republicans and most of those states including majorities in tennessee, alabama, arkansas. 56 percent of republicans in oklahoma and newly half of those in texas. a lot of members being compiled by the pew research center in the 12 states. primaries and caucuses happening across the country. texas,r democrats in

good morning. caller: i just don't know who. and i been blah blah blah am sick and tired that we are paying a salary to running dime with somebody else's money to spend, and they want to leave the country? it is like a sickening, both sides, there is no place to settle down. i feel i have to go to the polls and flip a coin. what i will go. i have been voting since i was 21. when i was 21, that was the first time you could vote. reallyer 80, but i am tired of this mess. it is just unbelievable. i am ashamed of us in the u.s.

host: thanks for the call. david drucker on the undecideds know -- that is so important today? guest: 40% of people could change their mind. donald trump supporters could change their mind the least of anybody care one thing he has had is that once he locks in a voter, they tend to stick tougher than any other candidate. we know marco rubio has done a the job of winning latebreaking, undecided voters. we know ted cruz has had a good eighth of support. dynamic ofs has the the race really changed over the past four or five days as rubio and crews and a lot of other republicans -- and ted cruz and

a lot of other republicans, started to shine a light on the kinds of things in his past that might get voters to reconsider why they like him. it may be too little, too late. i think we will see the campaign continue in the middle of florida, in the middle of march, through the florida primary. we will see if any of it works. -- don't trump on policy, but nobody really went after him as not eating the champion of the little guy the way he portrays pair we will see if the latebreaking money and attention we see shining on his business career changes going forward. on twitter, i think we will see a big change in the cycle. congressional primaries happening in three states,

arkansas, alabama, and texas. what are the stories you are watching? senator richard shelby in alabama, who my sources in alabama tell me should win the anger inven washington and the love for outsiders, trump will win , shelby has had one of the biggest in washington. everybody in town here jokes it is the library fund, something around $20 million and he is finally had to spend some of it. renominated for another six years in alabama. the other race we are watching is in texas, in a real dogfight to win renomination. if you don't win 50% of the vote , you go to a runoff with the top two. even if radio wins three or four

he is other opponents, heading for a runoff and that could be real dicey for him. ted cruz got to the senate because he was able to hold the front runner in 2012 to under 50%. a runoff one-on-one and ted cruz beat him. kevin brady took over as ways and means chairman, one of the assignments in washington and paul ryan was elevated to speakership, and he has had to spend around 11 -- around a million dollars of his own money , trying to hold onto his seat. it would be made point forth according to the calendar. all of this being covered on examiner.com. is a washington examiner senior correspondent who has been covering the issues for well over a decade here in washington.

leon has to waiting to talk to you from brunswick, georgia, line for republicans. go ahead. caller: i have a statement and a question. i used to be a democrat for 65 years. today, my mind has changed to donald trump. i can see how hillary is rubbing elbows with black americans and lying to them like obama has done. bernie, he has a great plan that does not have the black votes to back him. rubio, he doesot not have enough experience and is a lobbyist control person, and ted cruz is, too. ted cruz can run for president, when he was born in canada? guest: this is where donald trump has been a master of using

the media to push a storyline that normally would get no airtime. most constitutional scholars agree and there has been no question about this at all, so it's almost funny to talk about it, but these are the questions the voters have. ted cruz pass his mother is a natural born citizen, born in delaware in the united states. she traveled abroad, was working in canada. ted cruz was born. that makes him a natural born citizen. there has been some consenting up -- dissenting opinion but really nothing there. donald trump raises the issue and all of a sudden, it is like a legitimate issue that no one would pay attention to it were not donald trump. we all would have last -- left it off and thought the candidate was kooky. what the color shows is how people look at trump. andhave a lifelong democrat they look at trump as somebody

not controlled by washington, and they like the idea that he is self funding the campaign even though he has except about seven dollars in donations and only loaned his campaign money. he could pay it back so it is not a donation your it if he wins the nomination, he will need donations to fund it because he will have roughly 500 million. the donations will come in. looking for seed money for that campaign. a reason he appeals to a lot of he is notocrats is about necessarily limited government and free trade and the kinds of things that have defined the republican party. maybe at their peril. he is not for entitlement reform for changing social security and medicare. he is very much appealing to democrats who did not have a the democrat

domestic agenda of a culturally no longer felt at home or -- and felt ignored. trump deuce conspiracy theories a conduit -- an article. he uses his interests in his own back in 2011. guest: you have got to give him credit for this. we would have given him no airtime and laughed it off. instead, what we in the tv have done, we have gone to ted cruz and said, are you held all? are you a natural born citizen? trump makes this a mainstream issue. he a lot of credit for using an pushing media strategy the campaign forward in a way

that allows him to use his celebrity to spend little money and use the freer and media available to him. i have had reaction to voters who have said to me, i do not know if donald trump is the best candidate that at least he is offering solutions. marco rubio, and even if you think they are unqualified, they often have policy proposals of what they would do as president. voters do not think they have because trump has monopolized the free media and it is something he deserves a lot of credit for from the perspective of political strategy. host: new mexico, democrats. caller: i follow david drucker and i respect him as a tellalist because i cannot if he is a republican or a democrat. that is encouraging. too many times, we are putting these labels.

you can understand how compare bernie sanders and donald trump and put them in the same lane. bernie sanders has been saying the same thing for so many years. a demagogue. it is so obvious. i sometimes think the media plays into it. he plays the media so well. candidateer seen any in my life play the media as well as he does. they do not push back. it is like they are afraid of him. i just wish he were called out more. is totally opposite from bernie sanders. bernie sanders has been this way for so long. he is genuine and true. he is not a demagogue at all. i do not necessarily disagree with anything the caller said. bernie sanders has held the same ideology and has been consistent his entire political reader.

donald trump was a liberal democrat until rather recently, and has had a change of heart. if it was not convenient for his presidential ambitions. he has a different style and it comes to reaching out to voters than does bernie sanders. they they are the same is both are attracting a disaffected voter who feels like no one has listened to them. when it comes to issues of trade and entitlements, social security and medicaid and medicare, they are really not all that different in terms of biggery would approach issues. in matters of foreign policy, they are on all that different -- not all that different. all that wedded to the idea of the united states as the guarantor of global security, as we have seen post-world war ii. host: an interesting question

today the day after a photojournalist was slammed to the ground at a donald trump event, something that made weights on social media. i do not know if our colleagues are afraid of donald trump at we have let him get away with simply would not have let anyone else get away with. think ted cruz and marco rubio have made a valid point in their complaints about trump. they are self-interested and they are trying to beat him. as wed to understand this highlight some of their complaints. one of their complaints is valid and we looked into the background of rubio and cruise -- and ted cruz and we know he has traffic tickets and he drank beer in a park when he was 18. it was only in the past few days as both of am heightened their attacks on trump's business background that i saw's really asking about trump university

and what kind of workers he hires to work at his club in florida and all of that. they have a point we have not done the kind of vetting we would normally do. gave a kidt romney allege he when he was 15. not a nice thing to do, but i do not know what relevance it had to a man's presidential race. he basically lived a reasonably moral life. all those things to it with trump, we just have not paid attention to it whether it is the entertainment value for the fact he has put so many of his candidates on the defensive, that we're asking, donald trump -- just said -- i am not sure where the blame lies, but there is truth to the idea we have not done, at least to him, what we have done two other candidates.

host: brian is on our line for republicans. i am voting for donald trump it i went to school and got a good job to provide for my family p or my wife went through law school. we could afford anything, and wen she got through that and started to make a good income and started providing for our family. the value of providing for your family and what you want in life is gone. bernie sanders wants to take from the rich and give to the poor and hand over the rest of america and make it fair. what is fair about people to provideir butt for their families? why donald trump instead of other republican candidates?

what was the appeal? caller: you have to give some and make it pretty for big businesses to come back here. you cannot force them to stay. make it look good for them to want to come back. and have factories here and create jobs here. other people are like taxes, he will raise taxes. you cannot lower taxes on the rich. there are a lot of people who do not feel they are getting enough for what they are working. there is a big overhang for the great recession. they do not feel the administration has done enough for that congress has done enough to make their lives better. people either do not have the jobs they want or they are not of theirough for all hard work. it is frustrating and they feel no one is listening. it is hard to listen to

republicans or democrats in .ommerce -- congress it is hard for the governors who are running. you are the people in government and you're supposed to listen to us and make your lives better. you are ignoring us. here is a guy saying he will fix things. here is the foot side and here's what is interesting. that is why i understand why the caller and others are some orting trump. we just heard how he interprets trump. it is true that trump has a rather conservative tax cut and that would lower a lot of taxes, when donald trump talks about how he will bring jobs act into the country, he does not actually say mostly with the caller just said. he says i will threaten a trade war and i will threaten tariffs ifig huge they do not play by the rules

that i want them to. he also says someone making a lot of money will pay more in taxes. people like a candidate, and people are unhappy with the they hear what the candidate is saying in a year with a want to hear. donald trump spent a lot of time anding about tariffs threatening actions on trade, then he does in terms of just lowering taxes and convincing people to come back in. at the same time, he got tax reform that would lower a lot of taxes by raising taxes. host: the primaries take place on the eighth. don is waiting in michigan. caller: how can hillary clinton there is a criminal

investigation against her? i cannot understand that. if you could please answer my question. there is no longer running for president if there is a criminal investigation into anything you have done. the big question for hillary clinton as she starts to mockup delegates and win states here, really looking like the democratic nominee, how big of a deal is it that the e-mail scandal and the investigation into the use of the prior server , whether she handle -- handed over private information, what is the justice department going to do and when will they finish the investigation, will the ortice department indict her will the fbi determined they will not refer her for indictment. there are so many questions. all the e-mails have now

been released, we have seen the news stories in the paper about that. guest: this is a big problem for can put ituntil she to rest. even if she gets the indictment issue off the table and let's say for the state -- for the sake of argument, the fbi says she did nothing wrong and there is nothing more to see and she clean, she will have to explain why she chose to use a personal e-mail server that put sensitive information of foreign at risk government hacking into it and getting a hold of it when she was such a sensitive, major position of the government. host: do you think bernie sanders made a mistake by not hammering that point more on the e-mail? guest: yes. i have talked to a lot on the trail and while most of them

thought this was a big republican plot, a lot of voters just did not want to vote for hillary and he needed a reason. i talk to voters young and old who would bring up the e-mail scandal to me unprompted. these were democratic voters some at rallies. when you're running on primaries, you have to attack your opponent where they are vulnerable. the whole thing surrounding the benghazi terrorist attack, viewed as a republican plot, they are after obama and just after hillary. but it was a weak point for her and they should have used it. they are using that as a reason to vote for hillary. it helped them use the other her -- they do not like it shows you are not really serious if you are not attacking at their weakest. host: one of the 12 states

voting today, three caucuses going on. jacob is waiting in tennessee. a couple of minutes left. i have a question about -- with republicans and if that could happen. guest: i never thought it could but it turns out i was wrong. it is possible. how of it is determined by they do today in relation to donald trump and how many and some ofn win these candidates, whether rubio in florida or john kasich, the ohio governor later this month, and they win these winner take all states and the donald trump and keep from getting from 1237 delegates. he gets that and it is over. they can get through the primary season and he is short, then it gets to a situation where it is possible we have a tested

convention. the not know if broker is right word or contested is the right word, but they go in there is the rules work, everybody wedded to the outcome of the timelines on a first ballot. part of it will depend on what the tally is. if you roll into a convention, and all he needs is 37 and you have got ted cruz, rubio, and case equates are down -- and john kasich wave down -- way down, even if he is ahead, it is more muddled. at 800 and somebody at 600, or 500. muddled, not close enough, then you have a situation particularly because he is an unusual front runner, it could be an interesting convention. we still do not know, in florida and ohio, if he starts winning

the winner take all states, he is going to wrap things up. host: some of those winner take all states started to hit. caller from jacksonville, florida. go ahead. i am confused this morning and i was listening when he brought up ted cruz eligibility because he was not born in the united dates. he really dismissed that like it is common knowledge that his mother was born in the united know, where was he when barack obama was running president? did he have to prove he was born in the united states? they knew where his mother was and where she was born. guest: maybe it is somewhere on my twitter timeline. i always thought that was a bad argument. barack obama is a citizen of the united is eligible to run for

president. i always thought it was a specious argument, a useless argument, and i thought they were better off attacking him on policy and his leadership over the first four years. i never thought it was helpful to the party in their efforts to defeat him in 2012 and i never thought the argument was valid. .ost: david drucker follow him on twitter and washington in -- washingtonexaminer.com. be here nina olson will to take your tax questions and look at how the irs is working during this filing season and later, the former u.s. under the bush administration and obama administration will discuss the outcome of last friday's elections and how it could impact relations with iran. up on thel coming

washington journal. ♪ >> so many of my former books horizontal studies. the ends of the earth, covering a minimum of six countries. look at one country in depth and i use it to explore great themes, i think great themes. the holocaust, the cold war, the challenge of vladimir putin. romanian speaking moldova have a longer report with ukraine that

even poland has. to study romania is to study the legacy of empire. q&a, two coldt on war's and a 30 year journey through romania and beyond. the struggle to gain democracy. it was extremely corrupt because .t had weak institutions everything was based on bride and doubled the ailing shows this was nothing new. what is happening is the romanian population has grown up and become far more's educated. it is demanding clean government. it is the number one demand. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. ♪

>> washington journal continues. month andttle over a a half until tax day. , and joined by nina olson for those who are unfamiliar with your job and your role, what is the national taxpayer advocate? guest: appointed to view the voice of taxpayers inside the irs. my job is to advocate for and inrs pacific cases systemic cases where groups of taxpayers are being harmed by actions or inaction to the irs. about 1900 employees around the united states who hoped we do that job. we invited viewers to call

in with your experiences in andenting -- contacting working with taxes per we want to hear your stories. -- host: one issue you have talked a lot about lately is customer service with the irs. how would you grade the irs lastmer service? guest: year, it was a d minus. -- d-. d in anyhat is a grading scale p or we are now up on a filing season. gave the irs more money dedicated totally to test services this year. to about 67% on the phone.

that would drop significantly after the filing season. is doing better. maybe a solid c. explain that budget and what has happened over the past five or six years. guest: the budget has been cut each year and it is really down about 19% with inflation. has less resources, it has been given more responsibility like the affordable care act, the premium tax credit, and a very significant ill looking at offshore tax compliance, a huge left and a number of taxpayers keep growing and then you have identity theft. >> what does the budget equate

to in terms of people power? depending on who you talk to, it is down to 85,000 penny on how you count full-time equivalents in things like that. that is a significant drop. particularly for the phones until you with taxpayer correspondents, a function of people, he cannot work smarter. you have to answer your phone and have enough people to answer over 100 million calls the iris gets every year. it is a huge number of phone the irs got a bump in that budget. improved service at the irs. to get your reaction. increase we have

had in six years, it was significant moving forward. 290 million is identified for taxpayer service, which our three priorities for us and congress. taxpayers service has already gone up about 178 million. we can see it has already gone up significantly to where it was last year. responseillion was in to request for 700 million in funding for those areas alone. we're making good progress thanks to additional funding, but the budget has additional requests in it. taxpayersike to get service back to where it was in mid-2000 where 80% of calls go initially and nobody has to wait more than five minutes. are you as optimistic?

guest: the irs has to restore congress's trust and it and this was the first ever to do that. areongress sees how the irs buying the funds, buying them know, appropriately, you it is entirely possible congress would give the irs more money. i do not think anyone would give -- about paying taxpayers service. incremental growth. i spent a lot of time to make this point to members of congress and i do not get any disagreement on that. we need greater and better taxpayer service. next 50th us for the minutes or so, your reaction to on your behalf, and also reports to members of the agency,rks at we taking your calls and questions. --

host: do you actually work at the agency? about 250o it i have people there in the headquarters building. most of my employees are's bread -- are spread throughout. my job is to find an internal that, by law, i have to have one office at each state. offices throughout the united states. it is important to me it is a function in the irs that understands what the taxpayers in the economic -- in the community. economic conditions, the weather conditions that might affect people's ability to comply with the tax law. there on the ground with

the community and that is usually important. host: we will start in new hampshire. four independents. let me ask you a question. i have been under the irs's thumb for a while. 2003 and 2000 or taxes, i called in and was told the number was wrong. could not get in touch with the employer. he doubled the amount. the first lady i called, the give me a- would not name and number. this is to go on for a long time. this is what they told me. i am still under the thumb for most taxes. they filed for me in 2008. is what they told me. the irs does not check anything.

have a nice day. the i rest to be abolished. we will let you follow up. guest: several things in your isue, and the first thing you absolutely qualify. you find the direct phone number .o the office since i am your boss, there you go. let me talk you through what happened in your case. we see instances where reporters , somebody actually doing it deliberately, there is a whole bunch of stuff out there. the irs there's the burden of proof. if you are just saying to somebody you own more taxes because an employer or contractor has issued a form

1099 or a w-2, the irs has the burden of proof. then you have to go to court to get that to apply. you need to look at the taxpayer advocate service to try to show what you actually made. we will sit with you until the end and we will send that .vidence over , they get all the 1099s and w-2s. he looked at a certain amount of information, we will send you a letter and tell you to file. it is wrong and we need to get it all straightened out. done is taken all of the 1099s and prepared the return for you. the worst possible return. they will treat you as single. children but they'll not treat that because

they do not know if your children. they need to get the taxpayer advocate service and get started and we will help you get it straightened out. that is what happened. said another prison they had been under the thumb of the irs is donald trump. he says he gets audited every year. not want to release his tax returns yet because he is going through an audit there and what it ice do you give to donald trump if he calls a national taxpayer advocate for help? we have taxpayers who are low income and high income. we have been called by country who have problems with the irs. we are the equal opportunity advocates. i just given the same advice i would anybody. we will look at how the irs is treating them, are they following the rules and looking at the evidence they are provided. if he says he has been audited

12 years, i have no knowledge of his case, but i would be looking at, why would anybody be audited that many years in a row. thatess has passed law says the -- they cannot audit someone and cannot do multiple audits in one year. you have multiple audits over multiple years and you have to look to see why that is happening. that would be what we do. why would this be selected for audit. , linelet's go to david for republicans, good morning. caller: the 2008 credit was $2500. the 2009, they revamped it for at 8000, and you do not have to pay it back.

why is there a discrepancy between those two and is that fixable? guest: this is the wisdom of congress where the irs is caught between a rock and a hard place. congress passed the homebuyer credit the first time and it was a certain amount of money and you have to pay it back over five years. of theanged the rules game. anybody who is claiming it from now on, it is a lump sum and there is no obligation to pay. it, they time they did needed to haven't paid back in order to do revenue estimates and make it work inside. creating laws so they do not cost on the books a certain amount of money. is nothing the irs can change. they cannot change the law.

the path is to go to congress. i use two reports to congress each year directly to congress. it is something i raised over and over again to members of congress saying there is an equity here on how you are treating people. not the irs's issue. they have to administer the laws a are given. congress did a flip-flop. generate six, the annual will goo congress, we to alexandria, virginia, line for democrats, good morning here it caller: -- good morning. caller: newsmakers, i am not sure which program. host: newsmakers, go ahead. this a session by ted cruz and marco rubio, that the public is saying they would

abolish the irs? do they just want to win elections? medoes not make any sense to . i need you to educate me and maybe the public. the irs is no longer there. to get ae will be able return or things like that. guest: this is my personal opinion and it does not reflect the secretary treasury or anyone else. i hear a lot, people talking about, we will go and abolish , and it does seem to be a misunderstanding there would have to be someone processing for the statesd who have sales tax, they have

toartments of revenue collect the sales tax and go out and deal with the businesses that do not pay over the sales tax. the tax code,ging you would miraculously abolish the i rest, that is not accurate. you cannot do that. irs, that is not accurate. you cannot do that. host: jim on our line for , with nina olson. caller: if we eliminated the had aal income tax, and small transaction tax instead, maybe 1% or less, every single transaction, even on wall street , stocks, bonds, the rich will naturally pay more because their transactions are bigger and more of them.

with this computer technology now, the tax can be applied and taken immediately on every transaction. individuals will have more and all this filing and everything else. information is out there. what is wrong with a small transaction tax on everything? ideas like that are very interesting and if congress and the administration ever get around to looking at cumberland's of tax reform, i think all ideas should be on the table. there are people who talk about transaction tax who have a and a salesalue tax tax. what rate with that have to be? you look at other countries and some of the models i have seen, i do not do the work itself. i do tax administration and try

to make sure taxpayers are treated fairly and decently under the law. but we have written a lot about what the loss today due to taxpayers and how it is so difficult for them to apply with the laws because of the sheer .omplexity my personal opinion is the united states is so large and the amount of revenue the federal government collects, even if you get a smaller federal government, it is still $3.2 trillion that are coming in that the irs collects. it is hard to get from a 1% transaction tax or from an 11% national sales tax. you may have to go a lot higher. in my personal opinion, it might

be a mix of a whole bunch of things. the goal should be to get things a lot less complicated. one thing about complexity. and theincome tax transaction tax because some people would say, do not tax every transaction. -- tax this transaction. i'm going to my doctor. start carving out things until you get complexity and that is just what happens over time to any system. people who think there would be a perfect system starts to ignore the fact of human existence. we are human beings with complicated lives and we want be reflectedcts to in the code. host: everyone is concerned about their personal data. can you talk about breaches? guest: there is a lot of

attention on this and what started it was an awareness of the transcript where some folks -- people already had taxpayer data. identity theft is a large for taxpayers and people all over the place. they were able to get into the transcript and people criticized the transcript to get information from cows electronically instead of calling and waiting for them to mail it to you. fors have criticized it having a low bar for the kinds of questions they asked. when you get a transcript, you have information about the staff of yourpendents, all

w-2's, they were able to file income tax returns, turning legitimate owners into identity theft victims a second time around. they took down the system when i discovered it and pulled in all fbi, theexperts, inspector general. able to identify basic the million accounts, that were impacted. there were about 370,000 that they are in the process of identifying right now or communicating with right now. some of those people have not had returns filed but we know there were information's access. others who have had a income tax return filed for them, we are giving them a year of

andction under aqua fax also, they will get an ip pin, which they could apply for an ip pin, another number they could use. i had some concerns about the ip pins. they need to ramp up the way people validate on the ip pin process as well. that has been a recommendation of the inspector general. anyway to know how many have been stolen through that process? guest: for the original one, i think they are saying, i cannot want to say the number, the last batch is up 220,000, that were new, since last august. it all goes back to between january 2000 13 and may 2000 if team. becausenew happening the whole system is taken off-line. waiting in franklin, north

carolina on the line for republicans. caller: i would like to share my experience with customer service. much ofe gave me too other people's money to pay for my health premium. it was 22 dollars of underpayment. the irs issued a code 2015-9 that said we were exempt from that. i respond eache, time telling them i am not responsible for that. somebody put down. this went on from june until january and i kept getting sendingetters and kept response letters and nothing happened. i was mailing my comments to the adjustment a my bill. you complain about the letters you are getting.

i decided to call customer service and was on hold or 30 minutes and typed in my social security number before i could ever get anywhere. answer four or five little questions, why are you calling and what do you want to know. me his name on an 18 digit employee id number, i explained to him that i was fighting over a $20 penalty and was writing letters and getting no risk bonds and i wanted to know what address i should send it to. said, ok, what is your social security number. what is the name on the return and i told him and said it is probably -- i said probably, and i said, may have used my middle initial or my middle name. i gave him the address and he said, i need for you to be on hold for about three minutes while i researched this here at five minutes later he came back and he gave me an address, which was in fact exactly the same

different it was a post office box number, something is set of 002, it went to 0022. or something like that. he said come are you intending to pay this? i said of course not, i am disputing the. he said, i need to advise you, let me tell you what i must say. i'm coming to the end of this. was it worth it for $20 for you? same $20 they were bugging me about her and yes, it was worth it because i had nothing better to do than watch c-span and write letters to the irs for fun. i enjoy it. you made me drop my train of thought. host: i want to let nina olson jump in. guest: is it resolved? host: i think we lost a gym. guest: i am with you about the

people should not have to pay more than they are entitled or required to pay. notou believe that you do have to pay the $22 than the irs should listen to you and make the adjustment or explain to you why the notice does apply to you. and it is whatsy the tax administration of the country owes the tax underscore funding the tax operation of this country. i with you. a lot of people don't have the time to fight five dollars or $22 or $2000. to 2000 dollars, you may have to hire somebody. that.ever get paid for there are a lot of exemptions under the affordable care act for whether you have paid too much or you have not paid enough of the subsidy or whatever for

purchasing health care. if they gave you too much of an advanced subsidy. your points are legitimate. what is disturbing to me, and we mapped this out. you have toth that go through to get to a live human being. last year, in particular, if you had half an hour, you you were lucky. on .5 hourses were on the phone lines. if you got through, you were lucky. was that iffinding you move that from the phones to the correspondence and you don't answer the phones, if you move them from correspondents than people don't open the mail. so your letters are probably going up against a wall and being shelved somewhere for someone to look at at some point but nobody gets around to looking at that until it is way late.

and this is the most disgusting thing. the person was focusing path, will you pay this? to emphasize to my employees that you need to listen to the taxpayer and find out what they are saying. take your cues from that in terms of a solution. unfortunately, a lot of the directions to the irs staff is to say, if there is a balance due, can you pay this in full or six months -- it is a bill collection thing versus a tax agency. let's go to brian in mclean, virginia. hello? host: go ahead. thank you for coming on. it has been great to listen to you.

am a -- [indiscernible] i also collect a lot of win-lost letters from the casinos that i go to. when i do my tax return every year, i do it with my regular wages and my withholdings and i'm getting a refund. but as soon as i put in my gambling winnings and i subtract my losses, which are equal, i end up losing my entire refund and own money. i find it interesting that just because my gambling money increased my earnings, i still then go more money to the irs even though i did not make any money. yeah, or you drink your income tax return yourself? caller: yes.

guest: it might be worthwhile taking it to a cpa or an enrolled agent and have them look at how it is actually working and how the laws are applying to you. gambling income and losses are treated differently under the internal revenue code. the other thing i would say is that sometimes, if you are are usingx -- if you tax software, sometimes the way it is entered into the system may get you a different result. i would suggest going to someone just for one year to see, am i doing this right? that is what i would suggest. caller: i will do that this year. thank you. host: let's go to marry, she has been waiting. caller: good morning. i have been listening to you on the tv.

good morning. turned on your tv, we are listening. turn down the volume on your tv. caller: ok. and i amial security not able to work anymore. , the statey taxes taxes, every year we get $85 for that and i called the irs the first time they started sending the amount that we were getting for the food to see if i could file that. said, $485, that is ridiculous. is that right? guest: if you are itemizing deductions in the prior year any tax refund from the state is taxable income but it sounds like you haven't been

needing to file a federal income tax return because you are only on that. if you are getting things like food stamps or other kinds of benefit assistance is not taxable under the internal revenue code. so even if you had to file, it might not be taxable. host: let's go to harold in pennsylvania, you are on the washington journal. caller: every year, when i send or estimated tax they insist i, put my social security number on a check. is that really necessary?

guest: that is a good point. i think the irs is moving towards the last four digits of ,he social security number certainly on their own documents that they are mailing out. they may get to the point where they can track you down and make sure the payments are applied correctly. i personally have been thinking, the irs has been working for vick terms of identity theft to , ae sure they get the pin separate number from your social security number. , certainly on their own documents that they are mailing out. you would only use that for tax purposes. own mind, i've been thinking that with the identity theft, this is where we need to go. i do know that the irs is let people can we send in notification by just the

past four digits. host: what will they be looking for and what should taxpayers forms 1095 a, b, c? guest: this is the first year insurancehealth marketplace, known as the exchanges, they are required to file with the irs and tell them whether a person has been covered by insurance, what months a person was covered, whether there were other family although -- all that information allows you to return to say yes, i was covered fully so i am not subject to the individual shared penalty.

if you havees you not been covered by insurance for nine months out of the year. the other thing is, for those people who have gotten the advanced premium tax credit, to help pay for the insurance subsidy, they will use the information from those forms to fill out another form to reconcile that they have gotten and they have gotten the appropriate amount of premium tax credits. some people will get a refund and some people will have to pay more, because they got too much premium in advance. let's head out to south dakota where tom is waiting. good morning. caller: good morning. am 90 yearsyou i old and a world war ii veteran. i am very upset about the irs because they are so badly run and they treat people badly.

i will give you a couple of examples. the first one happened in aberdeen, south dakota, when i was living there and had a company there. i got a call from a woman at the irs and she was rather nasty. and i told her so and she said, you will be sorry. and what do you know, i was audited for two years. i had never been audited before. they did find that i had lost a receipt from a motel that i had stayed at when i was traveling on business so i did have to pay a little bit of money for that. but they didn't find anything else wrong with that. that showed bad employee behavior. and also, bad management.

they don't train their employees properly. i will give you another example a few years later. it showed bad employee training. in and got aurn check. -- i wasn'tany cash due any refund. auditor whocated an said, send the check into me and i will take care of it. the way they took care of it was by sending me a notice that i owed that amount and i had to pay it back. i didn't said quietly. the branch of the irs that handles cases.

goti made a complaint and into the court. and i won. is where the real fun comes in. so the irs judge called out the people who made this mistake, because i simply sent back a check i wasn't owed. and then they came back and try to collect money from the because of that. so this judge called them out and they started sending me the same check. host: thank you for sending -- thank you for sharing your story. sost: we see in my office many cases of this kind of back and forth. i want to say a few things about customer service. i try to talk to my employees

this way. the irs is the most powerful creditor in the united states, if not the world. they can really harm people's lives. you have toower have great courtesy and care about how you use it. you have to use the taxpayers of the united states, the feeling that the irs is not going to come down like a sledgehammer on you if you came -- if you made a mistake like losing a receipt. that an auditfelt isn't about getting a refund, it the taxpayerating or system. the taxpayer learn what they did wrong. the way you approach taxpayers is to give them the benefit of the doubt.

they are funding the federal government. the rs is a big organization and things get lost. there are sois, many different functions that are separated from one another that the people who talk to you on the phone have nothing to do with the people who are selecting returns for audits. interactiona bad with someone, unless you are talking to an auditor on the tone -- if you're talking someone on the regular line and it is a bad interaction and then you get selected, you can trust it is not because of that interaction. selectionuse of the system on the audit side. on the other hand, it is vitally important. not beenel you have treated well, you should speak

to the manager. don't get that opportunity a lot but you should get the batch number and their name. if you feel that in audit or a collection that you are being mistreated by one of the irs employees, you have two options. you can go to the advocacy service, because we were created people, we can find out what really are the issues. the other thing is that you can report to the treasury inspector general for tax ministration. the inspector general is required to investigate harassment of taxpayers. you have options there. you shouldn't be taking poor treatment silently. that is how the irs will change. host: we have 15 minutes left .ith nina olson she works at the national , she is takingte

your questions and your concerns. rivera has been waiting in flushing, new york. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have two or three questions. i will be quick. knowou please tell me, i you don't deal with policy, you only deal with the ministration, but why not make the tax filing less complicated? what is with all of the schedules? can you explain, why so many schedules? what are they for. have -- file and you modified you look your loan or because your house was under water and you didn't have money, that is why you modified your loan and the irs comes around and treats that as income, why? i will take the last

question first and then i will talk about the complexities of the code. the internal revenue code says that if you were given loan proceeds when you took out your and received something for that, but because you have an obligation to pay it back, it comes out as a net zero. if somebody forgives you the payment back then the law defines that as income. it is called cancellation of debt income. there are some exceptions. the general rule is that it is forgiven. that is what congress wrote, not the irs. they did create some exceptions. if you are in bankruptcy, it is not forgivable. there is something for personal -- your debt was forgiven and

then there is a rule about it. but a certain amount would not be taxable. we need to look at that look atn and go back to what happened. one of the exemptions may apply to you. but what i described is an example of why the law is so complex and why there are so many schedules. because you have a general rule, the cancellation of debt income being taxable, and people say itt a minute, what about if is farm indebtedness or if it is personal residence or if i/o more debt than i have accessed overall? congress, each time somebody raises one of those things, they do carve out legislation that exempts it. you're required to tell the irs

about your specific circumstances. we apply that law correctly. that is how you get the internal revenue code and the tax forms today. host: sandra is waiting, good morning. caller: good morning, nina olson. am i on the air? oh, ok. my question is important. i just voted because i am in california. -- captain john and i got married. do i do my taxes separately or together? question.e college but went to i only took a class because i

wanted to understand and read and write spanish. but that i class didn't know if i could audit a class. paper a sudden, i got a and they only $19. that's weird, why? so now i have $19 and what do i do with it? do i keep it? how do i get them back? i will let you jump in. guest: ok, marital status. muchu that marriage -- i'm or if you got married at the end or if you got married at 2016, but if you got married at the , you have two choices. either filing married and

jointly or separately. this could also apply if you got married in 2016. you have two choices. the difference between the two filed married and jointly, you report your income and your spouse's income and their deductions. that also means that if either one of you makes a mistake, you are jointly and severally liable for the adjustments the irs might make to your return. as an you can qualify innocent spouse, that has separate pools. so you really have to think about whether you know everything about your spouse's income and do you want to sign on to that joint liability? the vast majority say yes. it works better, you get better tax rates and breaks if he filed married and jointly. but for those people who don't

know all the stories about their spouse or if they're in the process of separating or something like that, you really whether youk about file married or file separately. the education thing, i couldn't understand what you were saying. the institutions are required to tell you how much in tuition that you paid, because there are tax credits that you can get on your income tax return for continuing education. you have to go and look at the instructions on the form. there are volunteer income tax preparation sites around the united states. a lot of them in california. it might be worthwhile going to one of those. irs orld look up on the

look in your newspaper, because sometimes they will promote where these sites are and you can get an appointment and a volunteer can look at that documentation and tell you whether you need to file. host: 5-10 minutes left. lots of callers. larry in alabama, go ahead. caller: how are you guys doing this morning? yes, sir. i have quick questions. fouruch can a person earn and earned income credit? or $3000 orild $1000? , hasecond question congress renewed the earned income credit for 2017? and on the third question on the a person how much is

making if they are making over $9,000 a year on the flat tax? i agree with you. you must go to your supervisor if you are having problems with the irs. but it is congress to pass these laws. it isn't the irs. it is congress. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. ok, earned income tax credit. it is not child. it looks at the amount of earned income that you have and as we start from zero earned income, from work course of employment, it goes up. threshold.ember the the amount you get increases. there is a difference between if you have one child or tilt -- or to children or three children --

i think it is $12,000 or maybe -- i don't know the cap but i think it is $30,000 which is the maximum. then, it starts to climbing as your income gets greater. around $40,000 depending on how many kids you have where it tapers out. the idea is to encourage people to work. and then there is a plateau area. as you make more money, you don't want to keep giving the same amount of money to people. the earned income credit is part of the code and what congress enacted is that they have temporarily passed some extra money for a third child. they did make that that this year. -- they did make that permanent this year. tax -- there are so many different plans about flat tax.

i think what is interesting -- we have a site on our website that asks people to make recommendations for tax reform. a lot of people write in and say, we need a flat tax. pay nothingle to and then from $25,000 to $50,000, we should do 10% and above that, 15%. that is not a flat tax, that is a progressive income tax. a flat tax rate would be if from zero to infinity, you would be taxed at the same rate. what people think is a flat tax is not a flat tax. in -- to's go to bob robin in louisville, kentucky. -- i reported what i

and was subjected to aggressive and harmful retaliation. my question is, why is there no protection for whistleblowers and for collaboration with those who report to the iris and federal agencies to ensure that there is prosecution of the cheaters. don't agencies answer to the irs? so that there is a real my question is, why is there no accountability in areas where there is nepotism? they could help people who are abused. a quick note, i am from kentucky on property taxes

still exists. and in areas where racial live, the properties are sometimes taxed multiple times their value. you are raising issues of state law and under our constitution, federal and date taxation is separate. the irs doesn't have any authority over the state. the way they decide to set up and run their tax system -- i on tell you, for individuals the federal level, there are whistleblower protections for people reporting fraudulent tax activity to the irs, and there are also whistleblower awards that can be given. i have criticized the administration of the award and i mades year some legislative recommendations to congress.

one of those is that there isn't an & retaliation protection as there is in the laws for whistleblowers to the federal government and in other areas. i have recommended that they extend that protection. to gou really have state-by-state and see what the state laws are. whether it is about what you are the waybout nepotism or the laws are administered. states.patchwork of 50 some states are very strong on that and others are not. host: for more information on all these issues, go to the website. always appreciate it when you stop by. come back again. is up next. he worked under the bush and obama administrations.

we will talk about the iranian elections and how it could impact u.s. relations with iran. we will be our back. ♪ >> every election cycle, we are reminded by how important it is. >> c-span is a home for political junkies. >> it is a great way to stay informed. >> there are a lot of c-span fans on the hill. thatere is so much more

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turn to foreign policy and the iranian elections. adam ereli is our guest. the former state department spokesperson. give us an overview of the governing in iran and how their government is set up? is the ultimate system of checks and balances. it doesn't bear much resemblance to the democracy that we know. iran is ruled by the supreme leader, who is a cleric. he is the absolute ruler of iran , and he rules as a religious ideologue. that is the basis of the revolution that overthrew the shah. -- is the second supreme leader of iran. mechanisms and

institutions that theoretically reflect the popular will and act as alternate sources of power. they are the assembly of experts, the guardian council and the national parliament. each of those have a separate mandate or field of authority. in the news recently, the most important of those institutions is called the assembly of experts. they are the group of clerics that will elect the new supreme leader. leader is in his mid-late 70's, not in the best health. he has said himself that he expects the experts to choose his successor. so when we read about the election results in the

newspapers, i think what is as important or maybe more important in the elections is the result of the assembly of experts. host: the assembly of experts were up for reelection this past week? guest: yes. it is a bit of a misnomer, it is kind of a stacked deck. people are given a preapproved slate of candidates to choose from. by that preapproval is made the assembly of experts and the guardian council. another check on the system. and they obviously are not going to allow people opposed to the critical of the system to run. so the choice of candidates is limited. 600 or more candidates who presented themselves for election in the parliament but only 130 were

approved. that gives you the sense of what the room for maneuver is. host: explain why some of these folks are considered moderates and reformists? guest: it is a relative term. moderate compared to what? if you have a totally radical , and somebody is a little less radical and a little less hardline, that makes him a moderate. but the fallacy here is that we applied our own points of reference to those terms. that has no correspondence to the reality in iran. i will give you an example. is lock one. people sympathetic to him run.

the president is the supreme leader. they say he is less traditional and less conservatives than --, and that may be, but we are talking about fine degrees. these are not qualitative differences. rouhani's block of two formerncludes ministers of the interior who are responsible for the execution of thousands of dissidents. revolutionary court prosecutors who are responsible for the highest rate of the death penalty of any country in the world. we have people elected who continue to call jewish people animals. moderatesse are not by our definition of the words, they are moderate relative to the really hardliners in iran.

host: if you have questions about the iranian election or about the u.s. and iranian relations. now is the time to call in. adam ereli is our guest. .emocrats, (202) 748-8000 republicans, (202) 748-8001. , (202) 748-8002. this mean for u.s. relationships with iran? those in the administration will tell you that these election results are an indication of their policy of engagement with iran and bringing iran in from the cold from the nuclear deal. others would tell you that iran case.opeless bylong as it is ruled

revolutionary ideologues, they are supporting their revolution and they will be -- to us. the more side with negative view of iran. expecting, as i said before, looking at iran through the lens of american politics and american ideas of democracy and american politics is wrong. that leads you to make that policy decisions. why? for the reasons i said before. not arate iran is moderate united states. post -- the huffington the stunning setback of the hardliner in the elections is why they have told the iran nuclear deal. would benefit it elect whirly for the significant achievement of resolving the nuclear issue and reducing tensions with united dates.

these benefits would not be limited to the parliamentary election but would establish a new balance of power. it seems like he is going a lot further than you are. guest: i strongly disagree with him. for two reasons. i would agree that the election thelts are a setback for conservative group in the leadership of iran. why? because a day before the elections, they said, vote for my guy. the people didn't really vote for them. so that is a projection which is interesting and i think is more a sign of the lack of confidence and support of the rulers of the country that it is an endorsement of the moderates. where i fundamentally disagree going tohe election is

represent a change in direction and policy and change of strategic intent. remember, their whole legitimacy is to expand the revolution. what is the revolution? supremacy over the states of the region. over any internal dissent. so, this is frankly where, in that position, the revolutionary ideology, it is fundamentally at odds with the u.s. interest in the region, the interest of our allies, and us. let's get to the calls. we are talking with adam ereli. he worked at the state department under the george w. bush administration.

dmitry is up next, calling from california. good morning. caller: good morning. ambassador -- the host: go ahead with your question. what wasy question is, the name of the territory which is now called iran today. what is the name before it became iran? guest: persia. caller: ok, thank you. host: mark is up next in virginia. go ahead. is, it seemsestion like iran is the most stable it isin the region and also a democratic public. so why are we not more friendly with them? guest: that is a short question with a really long answer. i don't think it is that stable.

it is certainly not that democratic. frankly, the reason we are is friendly with them because their leaders and people -- hundreds of americans on their hands. that is one thing that people tend to forget. ands funny to me that libya gaddafi was enemy number one for so long. but if you think about it, the leadership and leaders and rulers of iran are responsible for the deaths of multiple times more americans. they are responsible for the hobart bombings, that kills hundreds of americans in saudi arabia. there are responsible for the bombings of the u.s. embassy and

marine barracks in a root, the in american of life history since world war ii. ,ouhani, the president of iran this reformer and moderate, he was responsible for and directly tied to the community center in argentina. so let's be clear. this is a regime steeped in blood. the blood of americans. he blood of innocent civilians who they use as ponds in their game of international politics. isfar as stability concerned, i would have real questions about that. because most of the people in iran, 50% are under the age of 30. they have no commitment, belief who arert for a regime guided by religious devotion to

the koran. they watched jobs and connections with the world and they want freedom and by the way, freedom in iran -- are you crazy? you can't speak your mind. you can't write what you want. you can't express yourself. you will find yourself in jail. you can't criticize the regime or you are dead. so there is a large and growing opposition in many ways, silent, but in many ways not. this is all because of the clerical rule in iran. that is what you saw in the to voten in the call for the conservative late. but it doesn't mean that voting reformhani is a vote for or change. it is just a projection. look, rouhani will come to power. the expectations will be high.

people will say ok, you are hominy, prove it. and he will not be able to do it. not economically or socially or politically and he will not be able to do it in terms of their relationship to the rest of the world and then you will see real instability. host: terry is calling from washington, d.c.. go ahead. caller: thank you for this discussion. what i like to ask is -- it is multifaceted. i'm trying to understand exactly what it is that you want. this is a very old kingdom. the united states, if you look at the other hand, 1776 -- 240 years. are a 1000 euros kingdom and they have a right to their way of life. the people went to the polls, so i asking what you want these people to do?

they have their way of life. they have their language and their culture and some of them in joy it like that. in the same way that some of the people in america enjoy being democrats. others enjoy being republicans. there is some people there who enjoy that and you cannot dictate to them that they have .o change to this guest: well, i do agree with you. i don't want to dictate to the iranian government. nobody should dictate to the iranian people how they should live and the government that they should choose and what their future should look like. i completely agree with you on that. but i guess the point where we that, is, i think most of if you took a poll of the iranian people, a real poll, you would find that their voice is not heard.

they are not given an opportunity to participate in political choices. and they're not free to express their opinion and belief. is the issue that i have. spiritng the intentional of the iranian people, which, as you point out, is an ancient and rich cultural tradition. look, in the third millennium of empirespersians and the were the greatest in the world. ourtheir production of poetry and architecture and two orure for the last 3000 years has been among the world's greatest. itthe question that i think is, the 30 years of clerical started in 1979 and

continuing today is sort of like a blip of history. in the way that communism was in russia. russia is a great civilization. but you wouldn't say the russian people deserve or benefited from communism. in the same way that you would say to the people of iran that the clerical rule is out of step with the history and desire at the people of iran. ideology, this is maintained by an authoritative state and people don't have a choice in the matter. and the idea that this is a democratic election is a joke. host: we have 10 minutes left with adam ereli before the house is scheduled to come in.

if you other programming notes -- memorial service is being at 1:15,justice scalia you can watch that live on c-span two. and the super tuesday coverage this evening begins at 7:00 p.m.. we will have results, speeches and your reaction. we will try to get to as many calls as we can. jim in new jersey, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. good morning. i want to bring up, i'm not sure if people need to be more educated but the united states overthrew --, they the put in the shop and people of iran had the right to

that. our whole presence there was predicated on oil interests. and it is still is today. why don't we just leave those people alone? guest: it is interesting. thepreciate you bringing up most effective incident. it is relevant and important. that, it remains in iran and for iranians, it is a sticking point in relations with the united states. it reminds us of the dangers of getting directly involved in other people's politics. so i think it is a cautionary tale. to the idea about whether we leave iran alone, that it be a

-- they have the blood of hundreds of americans on their hands. -- the american public is not going to stand by and let a foreign government deliberately kill americans. and i should remind you, for those of us who served in iraq, iraq not i rock -- not accounted for the killing of more americans than anybody else. make no mistake about that. it would be great to leave iran alone. if he wasn't such a destabilizing influence around the world. but in that part of the world, that looks to american leadership than any other, the

-- kuwait, oman and andr -- and iraq and syria yemen. -- iran is actively speaking to undermine regimes there to promote radical terrorist groups to run those countries. all of which is diametrically opposed to the united states interests and the interests of our allies. it has nothing to do with oil. host: let's head to maryland where stephen is waiting period go ahead. caller: a quick question, i know has itsrnment in iran political hierarchy. i know you have the president and i wanted to know if you had -- if the ayatollah, when the decisions are made by the

country, if it is the president to have the final say so? or does it reach a more religious figurehead? saycond question is, let's hello to clinton were to win the presidential nomination, how welcome is it going to be to have a women represent united states when our relationship not asan is already fruitful as we would hope it would be? guest: good questions. hard to answer. in terms of iranian decision-making, the supreme leader has the final decision on anything. there would not have been a nuclear deal if he had not signed off on it. but it is not just him, it is a broader circle of religious -- he is the first

among equals in that group. so there are real constraints on the power as president. are aose constraints religious establishment that is at the top of other institutions of the state. that doesn't mean that rouhani doesn't have power himself but ands a multilayered mutually competing set of influences in the decision-making process. which is why it is very hard for us outside of the system to understand how it works. why, don't judge iranian intentions by what they say. findse you will always somebody who says one thing or another thing. judge them by what they do. their actions speak louder than

words. as for having a woman u.s. president, look. , i am not part of them, but i think it would be great to have a female president dealing with a country who denies women their rights. and for whom women are second-class citizens and who say they care about equal opportunities for all that again, whose actions completely belie that. melvin ins go to florida on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: thank you for letting me talk. i find it amazing that talking about the art -- about the innocent blood that they have on their hands where we went to the iraq war when we went in and killed hundreds and thousands of innocent people for no reason. let's worry about the other issue.

how the iran looks at the u.s. a newly elected president to went in and held up a deal until he was sworn in and illegal and into a unlawful arms deal afterwards. why would they respect that? why would they respect us after what has happened with reagan and when you talk about all the innocent people killed in iraq, it makes no sense. it shows how ignorant people are. host: we only have a couple of minutes left. in your answer, can you talk about what your role was in the u.s. response to iraq? 9/11, i was the deputy chief of qatar and i accepted the condolences of the ruler of qatar on behalf of the people of qatar for that horrible incident.

was a deputy spokesperson when we invaded iraq. and in 2006, i was in iraq and in 2000 nine and 2010 i was in iraq. i would take issue with the last caller. that drawingnk equivalencies between the united states and around -- and iran is factually incorrect. yes, there were civilian casualties in iraq but we did not target civilians. tocan go in there wanting say, we are going to influence the political decision-making by deliberate killing innocent civilians. second of all, look. the united states, for all of its fall's, and a lot of people around the world misunderstand us because we do a bad job of explaining this, but the united acts with a sincere

desire to help spread its system ,f government and its values and the fact that more people, and anybody in the world wants to go somewhere, they want to come to the united states. they don't want to travel to iran if they are an immigrant, do they? they want to go to i rock? no. they want to get to the united states. not because we killed it is civilians. or because we did an arms deal with iran. they believe this is a country where they can be free and they can make a better life for their children. --t: a question from twitter how do we find out what is happening on the ground in iran? what are the sources you go to? guest: a great question. it is one of the reasons why we are making so many weird decisions in our policy. is the blogs.

i read about people who are in touch with people in iran and frankly, it isn't necessarily what they say, but what they do. remember, when you are analyzing policy or event, it is very important to keep in mind the lessons. everybody is looking at iran in these elections as a snapshot. know, it is like watching one frame of a movie. there is no action or emotion. iran is a movie. the world is a movie. it is moving all the time and in 1050, youook at frame have to know what happened in frame one. that is why i like the question about the history of iran. what is the history of iran? not just iran but the region? and the history and the values

and what the revolution is. you get a much broader sense of where iran is going. host: we have to end it there but we appreciate your time on the washington journal. we will take you live to coverage of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. e clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., march 1, 2016. i hereby appoint the honorable daniel m. donovan jr. to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, paul d. ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 5, 2016, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate .