the intellectual maturation of jefferson from his earliest influences to his political ideology. 9:00,day night at he discusses former a.i.g. revive the company after the 2008 financial crisis and helped the company to become profitable. >> he was the only person who thought this was possible essentially. the government didn't think this was going to happen. the company didn't think it was going to happen. and certainly the american people had no expectation this was going to happen. that idea that he was a little crazy. you had to be a little crazy to take this on and he was the right kind of crazy. > go to booktv dog for the

schedule. >> we are here to review the domestic intelligence and the program and other programs aimed at domestic targets. f.b.i. surveillance of law-abiding citizens and groups and several specific cases of unjustified intelligence operations. >> the 1975 church committee hearings conveeped to investigate the cray, f.b.i., i.r.s. and n.s.a. the commission questioned staff assistant to president nixon to collect information about anti-war and radical groups using burglary and opening of mail. >> and 1966, had been successful

and valuable particularly in matters involving pest pionage d the receive laugs near climate. >> and one person came and she were chosen she spoke. and what is happening. and said you will see that smoke . holocaust survivor recalls her experiences atal concentration camp in poland, this event was

part of the holocaust museum first person's series. >> broke into nearby pittsburgh and shot him twice and repeatedly stabbed him. he is one of the great failures in assassination history. not only did he fail to kill him, but he undermined the strikers with whom he was professing sympathy because public opinion saw this outburst as a discredit to the union movement. >> robert chiles. and then sunday mork at 10:00 on road to the white house, 1968 presidential campaign, george wall ace, for the weekend

schedule, go to c-span.org. the fer the labor department reports there were jobs added. president obama marked 74 straight months of job creation at the white house and called on congress to pass legislation. his is 25 minutes. president obama: good afternoon everybody.

several years ago in april of 2009, our economy lost 700,000 jobs and the unemployment rate hit 9%. seven years later in april of 2016, our economy added 160,000 new jobs. that makes april the 74th consecutive month of private sector job growth in america. over that record of job growth, our businesses have created 14.6 million jobs. wages have been risings at more than 3% this year. the unemployment rate has been growing. unemployment has been falling and wages have been rising. but, the global economy, as many people are aware is not growing as fast as it should be. we are still seeing lagging growth in europe, japan and now china. here in the united states, there

are folks who are out there hurting. and we have to do everything we can to strengthen the good trends and to guard against dangerous trends in the global economy. and if the republican congress joined us to take some steps that are pretty common sense, then we could put some additional wings at the backs of working americans. they should invest in our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our schools, our water mains. you joined me in flint. it was the kind of work that is out there to be done and we could be putting people all across this country back to work with huge multiplier effects across the economy if we started investing in the infrastructure that will make us more troudtive. to reward the hardest working people, congress should raise

the minimum wage. it would not only hope those individual that are getting a bigger paycheck and spending more. to level the playing field and crack down on foreign competition, they should pass smart new trade agreements. and congress should reform our tax code to promote growth and job creation which includes loopholes and simplifying the tax code. i have been talking about this for a while. only congress can close the loopholes that wealthy individuals and corporations take advantage. if they are getting out of their fair share of paying taxes, that means we have to shoulder that burden and i have put forward plans repeatedly to do exactly that, close loopholes and make sure everybody is paying their fair share and give people

greater confidence. it would make sure that families and small businesses who don't have fancy lawyers and accountants are being treated the same as big corporations who do. i think it's fair to say the congress will not act on a big tax reform plan that will shut down some of these loopholes, but what my administration has been doing is to look for steps that we can take on our own to make the tax system fair. in recent months, we have seen how big a problem, corruption and tax evasion have become around the globe. we saw happened with the release of the panama papers and the degree to which both legal practices of tax avoidance that are still unfair and bad for the economy as well as illegal practices that in some cases top ve activities continue

exist and to spread. so combatting this kind of tax evasion and strengthening the global financial system have been priorities of mine since i took office and part of our efforts to make sure the rules aren't rigid and the economy works for everybody. to give you an example, we made our tax code fair and asked the wealthiest americans to pay their fair share and prevent corporations from taking advantage of a tax loophole that shift abroad to avoid paying taxes. we have taken several steps to make sure that our tax laws are enforced, including efforts to crack down on offshore evasion and thousands of individuals have come forward to pay the taxes they owe along with taxes and penalties.

today we are building on those efforts and you have heard from treasury and i want to amplify what they have told you in detail. number one, we are requiring banks and financial institution to know, verify and report who the real people are mind shell corporations that set up accounts at those institutions. one of the main ways that companies avoid taxes or wealthy individuals avoid taxes is by setting up a bunch of shell corporations and making it harder to trace where money is flowing and where taxes are owed. we are saying, you have to step up and get that information. second, we are plugging a gap in our tax rules that foreigners can exploit their taxes. make sure that foreigners cannot hide behind shell companies formed inside the united states. these actions are going to make a difference. they will allow us to continue

to do a better job of tracking financial flows and making sure that people are paying the taxes that they owe rather than using shell corporations and offshore accounts to avoid doing the things that ordinary americans, hardworking americans are doing every day and making sure they are paying their fair share. having said that, we aren't going to be able to complete this job. so i'm calling on congress to pass legislation that requires all companies formed inside the united states to report information about their real owners to the treasury department's financial crimes enforcement network that is going to help prevent financial crimes and calling on congress to provide the justice department to investigate corruption and money launders and the senate, senator rand

paul who has been quirky to stop blocking tax treaties that have been pending for years and these treaties improve law enforcement's ability to investigate and crack down or tax evasion and that is not something he is in favor of. we need to cooperate internationally because tax evasion and tax avoidance, money laundering, these things are taking place in a global financial system and if we can't cooperate, it makes us harder for us to crack down. if we can combine the actions that we are taking touchdowntive with the new tools that i'm asking the treasury, these actions will prevent tax evasions and prevent terrorist financing and most importantly

uphold the fundamental principles in our economy. no matter how wealthy or powerful you should play by the same rules as everybody else. i'm going to take a few questions. since now you are the incoming president of the white house correspondents. >> what is your reaction that trump is the presumptive candidate? and do you think that bernie sanders should step down? president obama: with respect to the republican process and mr. trump, there's going to be plenty of time to talk about his positions on various issues. record that ng needs to be examined.

and i think it's important for us to take seriously the statements he has made in the past. but most importantly and i i speak to all of you in this room as reporters as well as the american republic, i just want to emphasize the degree that this is a serious job. this is not entertainment. this is not a reality show. this is ar contest for the presidency of the united states. and what that means is that every candidate, every nominee needs to be subject to exacting standards and genuine scrutiny. it means that you got to make sure that their budgets add up. it means that if they say they

got an answer to a problem, that it is actually plausible. and that they have details for how it would work. and if it's completely inplausible and would not work, that need to be reported on. the american people need to know that. they take the position on international issues that could threaten war. or has the potential of upending our critical relationships with other countries or would potentially break the financial system. that needs to be reported on. and you know, the one thing that i'm going to really be looking for over the next six months is that the american people are effectively informed about where candidates stand on the issues, what they believe, making sure that their numbers add up,

making sure their policies have een been vetted and that candidates are held to what they have said in the past. and if that happens, then i'm confident our democracy will work. and that's true whether we are talking about trump or ms. clinton or bernie sanders or anybody else. but what i'm concerned about is the degree to which reporting and information starts emphasizing the spectacle and the circus because that's not something we can afford. and the american people, they've got good judgment and good instincts as long as they got good information. reporter: i think --

president obama: on the democratic side, let the process play itself out. you mentioned the delegate map. i think everybody knows what that map is. i think senator sanders has done an extraordinary job raising a whole range of issues that are important to democratic voters as well as the american people generally and i know that at some point there is going to be a conversation between secretary clinton and bernie sanders about how we move towards the convention. the good news is that despite the fact that during the course of the primaries, everybody starts going to be chippy. i have been through this. sometimes even more with the staffs and the candidates. the good news is there is a pretty strong consensus on the

vast majority of issues. there is disagreement about tactics. there is disagreement about political strategy or policy nuance but they believe that every american should have health care. so do i. both candidates believe that we should be raising the minimum wage. both candidates believe we should invest in our infrastructure and put more people back to work. both candidates believe we should pass a comprehensive immigration reform policy that makes sure we are in forcing laws and improving our legal immigration system and make sure our borders are secure, but also hat we continue to enjoy the credible boost that you get from attracting talent from all over the world. both candidates agree we should be prudent in terms of how we use our military and we should care for our veterans when they come home.

so, if you look at 95% of the issues, there is strong agreement there. you don't see the same kinds of divisions between the two democratic candidate to remain that you have been seeing in some of the republican debates. yeah? >> mr. president, what the speaker ryan's comments say about the state of the epublican party? how would you advise your fellow democrats who have to run against donald trump and win? november? president obama: well, i think you have to ask speaker ryan what the implications of his comments are. there is no doubt that there is a debate taking place inside the republican party about who they are and what they represent. their standardbearer at the moment is donald trump.

nd i think -- not just republican officials, but more importantly republican voters are going to have to make a decision whether this is the guy who speaks for them and represents their values. republican women voters are going to have to decide, is that the guy i feel comfortable with representing me and what i care about? i think folks who historically have been concerned about making sure that budgets add up and that we are responsible stewards of government finance have to ask if mr. trump's budgets work? those will be questions

republican voters, more than republican officials, have to answer. as part of the democrats, i think we have run on what we are for, not just on what we are against. for the last seven and a half years, we have been pretty clear about what we believe will help working families who are struggling out there. and although it has been difficult to get through republican congresses to get hose things done, the truth is that they continue to be prescriptions that would really help people. you know? making sure that families get paid sick leave and family leave and early childhood education. that would help families. raising the minimum wage would

help a lot of people. rebuilding infrastructure would put that to work a whole bunch of guys in hardhats and gals in ardhats that need to work. ow is the time to do it. so, i want democrats to feel confident about the policy prescriptions we are putting forward and the contrast, i think, will be pretty clear. i will leave it up to the republicans to figure out how they square their circle. all right, i'm going to take two more questions. >> mr. president, what is your message to democratic voters who may be hesitant to vote for the democratic front runner because of the ongoing e-mail scandal, and did you see on the trump's taco bowl tweet and what is your

thought? president obama: i have no thoughts on mr. trump's tweets. as a general rule, i have no thoughts about mr. trump's tweets. i think that will be true for the next six months. so you can file that one. [laughter] in terms of the democratic votes coming up, i'm going to let the oters cast their ballots and not try to meddle in the few primaries that remain. we will know. it will not be too much longer. >> not long before your nuclear world summit when you had world eaders here,

i'm wondering what that says about the nation's capitol, having the transit system closed for 24 hours and having a number of safety related problems. and what can your ministries and what can your administration do if republicans are standing in the way of a bill -- what can your administration do if republicans are standing in the way of a bill? president obama: this is a somewhat self-interested question, i assume, because a bunch of folks here take the metro. but it's just one more example of the underinvestments that have been made. look, the d.c. metro historically has been a great strength of this region. but over time, we under invested in maintenance and repair, and the steps to being taken now -- i will refer to the department of transportation, but i can say obviously safety comes first,

and we want to make sure safety concerns are addressed. the broader issue is we have bridges. we have roads. we have ports. we have airports. we have water mains and pipes, as we saw in flint, that suffer rom neglect. and in many parts of the country, we still rely on systems that were built 30, 50, in some cases 100 years ago. and the reason we have been neglecting them is not we do not know how to fix them. it is not because people have not been aware of the need. we have known for years now that we are a trillion or $2 trillion short in necessary infrastructure repair. i talked about this when i came into office.

and sought to do more in terms of our nation's infrastructure. we still have to do more in terms of investing in our nation's infrastructure. the problem we have is the republican congress has been resistant to really taking on this problem in a serious way, and the reason is because of an ideology that says government spending is necessarily bad. and i addressed this when i was in flint. that mindset, that ideology, has led to us not investing in those things we have to do ogether. you know? as you point out, this metropolitan area in the nation's capitol is actually doing really well. it does not matter how big your paycheck is. you have been taking the metro and it is suddenly shut down for a month, and now you are stuck in traffic, trying to drive to work instead.

you can't build your own metro system. you can't build your own highway. you can't build your own airport. nd so we have a specific problem with under investing in infrastructure. now is the time, by the way for us to do so. interest rates are so low and there are so many construction orkers and contractors underemployed at the moment that you can get jobs done on time, on schedule. it would give a boost into our overall economy because we know hen we spend the dollar on infrastructure, we actually get a bigger bang for the buck. suppliers, food trucks,

everybody is doing better. it gives a huge boost to the economy. it lasts for a long time. think about investments we made in things like the hoover dam and golden gate bridge or metro. it is a good thing to do and historically, it was not and should not be partisan. but if we have a mindset that says whatever government is doing must be bad, then these are going to be the results and is going to continue to get worse. it is already tough in poorer communities like flint. but, you know, we are seeing these kinds of infrastructure problems spring up in communities all across the country, and it does not distinguish by race or by region. everybody needs roads.

everybody needs airports. hopefully, this will prompt a conversation. the last thing i am going to say about this. this is a good example of making sure the candidates are speaking to this issue. as you go into the presidential election. i put forward specific proposals for how i would pay for additional infrastructure investment. the numbers add up. and so, the question is -- how do the remaining candidates for the presidency intend to tackle this? how do members of congress intend to tackle this question mark what is the republican agenda for infrastructure? do they have one? how do they pay for it? do they pay for it by cutting medicare or medicaid? if they do, that needs to be fleshed out and the consequences for working families needs to be explained. all right? thank you, everybody. >> national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> tomorrow president obama and

will be talking to the graduating class at howard university in washington, d.c.. we will have that live at 10:45 a.m. eastern on c-span. tonight, an interview with republican national committee chair rights previous. washingtons the u.s. economy. today, rights previous talked about the 2016 election season and presidential candidate donald trump. he was interviewed by mike allen.

this is under an hour. i would like to think bank of america for continuing to support these great conversations. we appreciate our partnership with bank of america that is -- has taken us all over to talk about the most important issues. thanks to the bank of america for being a great partner for me years. we appreciate your support. we willall of you and be taking your questions. he has the twitter -- we have

the twitter machine appear so just #your questions and they will pop up for me. without further a do, chairman prebus.s -- rights let's start with a gift to the guests which we have never done before. was doneile which before tuesday the asked you how you are feeling about how the primaries were going and you pouringm not exactly bailey's in my cereal.

there are two glasses. one person who has a harder job than you? reince: maybe my chief of staff. >> your job is to elect donald trump president of the united states. that makes you feel how? reince: we have said all along that whoever the nominee is we are here to support the nominee. prepared as weas have been. today four years ago mitt romney would be president. data, field staff, we have gone from a committee that was in disarray to a committee that has

raised over 75 million more dollars just the cycle. hundreds of thousands of people out in the field. 5000 people going through six a $100f training and million makeover. we are prepared to keep the senate, keep the house and when the white house. i would rather take a few elbows being thrown then the director of the fbi interviewing your top aides and potentially the democrat nominee. in milwaukee. tell us what happened when you tweeted that donald trump was the presumptive nominee. and kasichwould be was still in the race. you still need to be at 1237 to be the presumptive nominee. no one else is running. i think it is safe to say that

at some point he is going to be the presumptive nominee. let me tell you where we were. we had planned a fundraiser in milwaukee and those are family members to me who have been helping me ever since i have in chairman of the wisconsin party. we had gone into 5th street. i thought i had heard some rumors about the potential of ted cruz dropping out in the afternoon. i did not go out of my way to confirm any of it or make any phone calls. times you do not want to be in the information loop on things like that because once you are in the loop if something leaks you are one of the people in the loop. did call chitty -- katie walsh and said what about if ted cruz drops out, what do you think of that and we talked, i do not

ticket is going to happen. we went to the fundraiser and sure enough, the cell phone starts using, a few buzzes is one thing that when you get 15 in a row and you do not want to look down at your phone but you -- i would realize back to the house in kenosha which i had not been to in a long time. that was it. i made some phone calls and talk to donald trump a couple of times. i think he did a nice job and very gracious in his speech. we need obviously more of that. i think he did a nice job and was very gracious in his speech that night. i think we need more of that. being presidential, 30,000 feet, gracious.

i'm hoping we will see more of that. mr. allen: does crooked hillary count as presidential? mr. priebus: i think he has done an effective job of labeling. i think she does have a history of being crooked. she has a lot to answer for. she has families of dead heroes in benghazi to answer for. she has a tenure as secretary of state to answer for. i think she has a lot of material for us to cling on to and use. mr. allen: what is he like behind the scenes? mr. priebus: far more gracious and personable than i think you see at rallies. i have never had a problem behind the scenes. i have never had a situation where something was said by him that was not followed through. all of my interaction has been extremely positive, which made the system rigged stuff so out of place for me compared to what was being said personally behind the scenes. mr. allen: does that bother you

that there is one donald trump behind the scenes and one different on camera? mr. priebus: i think he said it himself. there is going to be a time to shift to general election mode. i think that is the way he sees it. i think that is the way he feels about it. now the general election is starting. and what you saw on tuesday night i think is going to be more of what you see in the future. and really, the person you saw on tuesday night was the person i got used to dealing with on the telephone and in-person. so that general election approach is the type of approach i had been dealing with for six years. mr. allen: the recidivism issue, the next morning he is on

television -- mr. priebus: i'm sure it is going to take some time to get into general election mode and out of primary mode. mr. allen: is there anyway in cleveland, the rules could be used to nominate someone other than donald trump? mr. priebus: i see we have some rules experts in the crowd. my personal view is it is highly, highly doubtful. as i said before, the rules committee of 2016 writes the rules for the convention. i don't write the rules.

the r.n.c.'s role at the convention is fairly limited. the r.n.c. is basically a caretaker, an administrator of the convention. mr. allen: you are saying is unlikely but not impossible? mr. priebus: nothing is impossible. like i said, i have said this many times. highly -- and i will add another one -- highly unlikely. mr. allen: ben sasse had a facebook post a few nights ago calling for a draft of an adult conservative challenger to trump. he predated it with hashtags "we can do better" and "give us more choices." mr. priebus: i think the amount of time, energy, money, and also it is a guarantee to elect hillary clinton. i think when people start to take a breath and let some of this stuff calm down people will understand the supreme court is too important to let differences of opinions and choices in the primary get in the way. mr. allen: republicans say there is no way to guarantee donald trump will nominate conservatives to the court.

mr. priebus: i think the smart thing for donald trump to do would be to release five to 10 names of people he would say here are 10 folks i think would make great supreme court justices and work with people to come up with that list. i think things like that would be helpful in kind of recalibrating some people's minds as far as, what is this about, why do we need to support the republican nominee? i think we are going to get there. i don't think -- maybe some of you did. but i don't think too many people thought that tuesday and wednesday would be the end of ted cruz and john kasich. and so, for some people, and i would say in paul ryan's case, he thought he had 30 more days.

there was this meeting planned next week, by the way, something the media is not really talking about. there was a plan to start having meetings on capitol hill. paul ryan and leadership were planning that meeting with donald trump. in their minds, they are thinking we have another month to talk about this, to get comfortable. and all of a sudden, you have cameras in your face saying, "what do you think?" i think paul is just being honest with how he feels. i think he's going to get there. he wants to get there. he just wants some time to go through it. mr. allen: politico is reporting this morning the meeting on capitol hill next week is expected to go ahead. do you expect speaker ryan to be there? mr. priebus: i do. i talked to him multiple times yesterday. he wants it to go forward. he was being honest. he says he is not there yet, but he wants to get there. so yes, he will meet. mr. allen: after speaker ryan made his comments he was not ready to jake tapper, how quickly did donald trump call

you? mr. priebus: well, i had talked to him already once that day. but i talked to donald trump and paul ryan multiple times yesterday afternoon. mr. allen: donald trump called you within minutes. mr. priebus: uh -- [laughter] mr. priebus: you are pretty good. [laughter] mr. priebus: i can't lie. i would not lie anyway. he was not furious or anything. he was just like, what do i need to do? and so, i said listen. my view is just relax and be gracious. i will talk to paul, and we will try to work on this. i kind of like don't get overly hot either quickly. i know paul really well. i know he's being honest. i know how he feels.

i am comfortable with the idea it is going to take some time in some cases for people to work through differences. and so, we talked about it. we talked about it multiple times. they are very comfortable with sitting down with donald trump. it may be at my office. it may be somewhere else, but we are going to have that meeting and start the process of unifying. mr. allen: jake scarborough said yesterday for him to vote for donald trump, trump would have to change some of his positions or emphasis including the idea of restricting the entry of muslims or forced deportation. do you sense with speaker ryan that it also will take some change in position? mr. priebus: first of all, i am in agreement on the ban coming in.

i put a statement out on that already. it is not something i believe in or our party believes in. i believe our party is the open door. our party is the party of freedom and equality and will remain such. mr. allen: are you going to be able to convince donald trump? mr. priebus: it has been like three days, so not quite there yet. when we get the speaker on board, we both get into some of those details later. mr. allen: do you hope to persuade donald trump that the republican party should be the party of the open door? mr. priebus: yeah, and i think he believes that. i'm going to work very hard on making sure some of these issues are discussed and talked about and understood. and i am confident given my experience so far with him, that he is going to have an open mind to some of these issues.

mr. allen: mitt romney said last night when he announced he would not suort donald trump, he said i see way too much demagoguery and populism on both sides of the aisle. do you agree? mr. priebus: well, i guess everyone has their opinion. one thing i have learned quickly, every person -- mr. allen: do you think there is too much demagoguery? mr. priebus: there is plenty of it. i certainly believe -- listen. i think there is plenty of it. whether there is too much of it is a result of what people have been served up in this country. people feel cheated. they feel like they are not bringing enough money home. they feel government has not been doing its job or has been too big in many cases. you sometimes get the result you build. that is sort of what has

happened across the country. mr. allen: in the primaries, what is the biggest thing learned about republican-base primary voters? mr. priebus: something people don't report on a lot, which is their incredible enthusiasm in the party. we have record turnouts, 70% higher among republicans, 30% lower among democrats. we have an advantage over voter registration in battleground states we have not seen in 25 years. in the first quarter of this year at the r.n.c., we raised more money than in any first quarter in the history of the r.n.c. we were raising more money in the first quarter than we raised in 2012. it is ok. you do what you have to do. it is only to focus on the drama, which i get because people are interested in the drama. they are not interested in the mechanics. but mechanically and because of the enthusiasm in our party and 17 serious candidates, you have a result that i think has built

us into a machine that is going to be able to compete very well in november. mr. allen: what is the biggest thing you learned about the press during the primaries? mr. priebus: i think there is so much of it and there are so many people, a lot of talented people, online, traditional, that almost nothing breaks through. if you have a really good story that you are really proud of and think you have done a great job, very difficult to break through because there is so much. i also believe in too many cases, it is all about click bait. it is all about the headline. in many cases, i'm not worried about the copy. i am worried about the headline because the headline does not match the reality. you take the group of articles about the r.n.c. meeting in

\april. all of you that wrote articles about how there is going to be a rules fight that erupts, not you all, but the people watching this, i think you owe everyone an apology because it is ridiculous. there is no rules fight. it is 54-2. it is that kind of stuff where you bog down organizations with click bait and give an answer for things that are inaccurate. it was inaccurate. there was no rules fight. it was smooth sailing. mr. allen: some of the stories said you were prepared for a rules fight. we want to welcome our c-span viewers and thank c-span for

carrying this life. please shoot us your questions. do you agree with donald trump that beating hillary would be easy? mr. priebus: i don't know he said that. [laughter] mr. allen: he said in indiana 48 hours ago i have not even started yet. now i will start focusing on hillary, and it is going to be so easy, so great. [laughter] mr. priebus: you know, look, i don't think anyone would have predicted trump in this fashion would have taken out 16 other candidates. he has certainly defied the odds. and i would say -- i personally don't think it will be easy because i think raising the money, building the ground game, having the data, targeting voters. the truth is our party is a great midterm party, but we have a hard time winning presidential elections. it is nothing new. it is not like this just happened. in 2004, it was 1:30 in the morning and our still fairly popular president had a tough

time putting away a horrible candidate as far as salability in john kerry. we know what happened in 2000. 1996 was not good. 1992, clinton lost six primaries initially or something like that. obviously, there was ross perot. bush 41 was a very popular president. last time, we won with relative ease was 1988. i think it is a difficult task but we are up to it. we have a big upside. i know there are perils, but i also know there is an upside. mr. allen: how does having a soon-to-be presumptive nominee effect the formal r.n.c.? mr. priebus: i think clarity has been helpful. there is no one else running, so therefore there is not this daily unknown which i think has been helpful.

i think it has been helpful on the money side, too. mr. allen: will trump bring some of his own people into the r.n.c.? mr. priebus: there is no mechanism for it other than me agreeing to it. that is the only mechanism for such a thing. i don't know what the myth is about. someone has to issue a key card. someone has to get out the keys. mr. allen: would you do that? mr. priebus: sure, but there is not going to be any layering that would be different from what happened when i was chairman under the mitt romney nomination timeframe. in the case of mitt romney, brian jones was in our building and ward baker were in the building. but they were not saying what to do or not to do or sitting in on our meetings. there was a lot of trust that we knew what we were doing. i would say so far, we see that same approach with some of the folks on the trump campaign.

they have no intention of taking over anything. mr. allen: you will remain in charge? mr. priebus: 100%. there was never any doubt. mr. allen: the night of the indiana primary, he posted a headline that said, "donald trump completes the takeover of the republican party." party ofemains the freedom and equality and our platform will remain much the same as it is right now and so we will remain continuously. i do not buy into that. >> here is the chief strategist tweeting that this was 100% not

true. some staff members were told that if they were unable to get behind the nominee they should leave by the end of the week. what have you told your staff? >> nothing. i talked -- i have been gone and i talked to katie and this is what i know. says every other year are enteringis we the general election phase. weekends are workdays. if you have any family vacations , if you have something coming up that you will tell us about, now is the time to do it. that is 100 percent false as far totelling people they need leave if they are not 100% on board. the test is are you doing a good job and are you great at what you are doing and if you are there is a problem.

>> is there anyone who has left it as they cannot -- >> not that i know of. expect anyoneyou to? >> i do not. it has been 48 hours. mr. adams? did their need to be change? >> maybe it does. >> do their need to be changes to the gop nominating process? there are some things that can be looked at but it is not that easy. we tend to respect states and their rights to conduct a distribution and delegate

process as they wish. i have my preferences but it does not matter. what matters is the states themselves adopt their own delegate rules. the rules committee at the convention will look at all of this and make recommendations as to how to be better. you always want to be better and the changes we made to the rules over the two years were at the they were historic changes. the idea of making states that have caucuses or beauty contests tither allocation to those s.ntests, those are big change candidates were getting nothing out of it. if you are going to do the things you had better tied delegates to it. everyone has a lot of suggestions.

i agree. there are things we need to do to improve the debate passes but people also thought we were insane when we said we would not have 23 debates. 12 createg -- we had we're not going to have a calendar that no one can count on. where one week goes by and you and we -- and abc debate are going to have some say on who the moderators are. will not have chris matthews conducting the republican party debate. i even eyes are never going to get this done. he is good at his job. david plus tweeted that he was folly and a joke. all this and we became in charge of the process. now what will happen is four and eight years from now we are have -- the party will more control. i would like to see one day of it is possible -- if it is

possible for the party to own the rights of the nomination process. one day that is going to happen. both parties are going to own justights and they will -- like the nfl does. i just think we're going to get to a point where we are going to move even into a place that it would be more control over the process. for access. charge >> a think that is in the debates. should media outlets eating -- tens of millions of dollars on the product that the party should own, that is the question. i think both parties should get together and figure out what the answer to that question is.

>> to charge for debates? >> you are saying that. we are the beginning of a long process that having the party should explore and i use the nfl as an example because the nomination process i think she -- should go to the benefit of both parties, not the benefit of the media. >> what about charging for rights to the convention? >> we kind of do that now. when media outlets have to build out a box obviously there is a fee that has to be paid. we can't bear the cost of the actual structures. i think there are certain things obviously that might be hands-off. all i am saying is i believe that this is the beginning of a process of exploration. that both parties should do

>> my colleague e-mails me. only registered republicans can vote. would you encourage convention delegates to have a rule change requiring closed primaries in 2020? >> i believe -- let the delegates to with a want to do. i believe that only republicans should vote and republican primaries and contests. >> you would -- >> i believe in closed primaries and contests is the answer. i favor whatever needs to be done to make better reality. >> in december 2012 decommissioned the growth and opportunity project, which is been called an honest review of the 2012 election cycle. what is the biggest -- >> i call to the growth and opportunity report. [laughter] >> i might slip up once in a while. >> what is the biggest recommendation of that report? that has been achieved?

data piece and the targeting piece. it's hard to see because it is in the weeds, but getting data, buying consumer data, consensus data, and then putting it in an application that easy for a field staff to use, central location has been the biggest change at the rnc. when you put almost $100 million without the white house, net cash, over four years into the system, it's a really hard thing to do. we have been doing it. we have been out raising the dnc and outworking the dnc for four years straight. it's undeniable. i don't think anyone write stories that thinks the dnc is doing better. that has been the biggest -- the other big change is and it sounds very basic but it is actually important is that we are the year-round party now. we used to be a party that would accumulate cash in a bucket.

you would have $50 million cash on hand and in the nominee would walk in in may or june say let's go spend it all. one some people write articles -- one of your guys did that the other day. the problem is instead of having one full-time employee in ohio now, we have 29 or active 48. we are trying to get up to a hundred. we have the republican leadership initiative with thousands of people involved. engagement and black and hispanic communities. we are spending a ton of money too. deciding we are not going to be a party that shows up three months before november. it's a tough business model

because you are going to keep raising revenues in the keep going up and up and it does not matter if the environment around you gets people concerned. you have to keep doing it. >> the republican leaders of all sorts getting credit for bringing the party back with your relentless fundraising. but still it would be nowhere near a match for the infrastructure of the clintons and the obamas. >> so far that is not been the case. we about raised the democrats every year for the last four years. i think even the last six years. we are ahead right now. the rnc, we build our infrastructure around the rnc. targeted congressional senate, candidates tap into that operation. what the democrats do is they build around the nominee, the candidate. it was barack obama the building $100 million data system in

chicago. what hillary clinton has now done is something you never expected. she did not want to spend billions of dollars in new york or indiana and now millions of dollars in california. they are worrying about how are they did with this thing away. >> thank you c-span for carrying us live. the growth and opportunity project. many minorities wrongly think the republicans do not like them or want them in the country. what now? >> that is a part of being in the community. i think people can write all the books in the world they want about how the -- how to communicate, but if you're not

in the community -- how do you square that with the perception of what donald trump has been saying? >> there are two parts of this. there is the mechanics. if you not mechanically in the community with people trying to talk about our party and school choice and sba loans for business owners, is somewhat is not there, nothing is going to change. you also need to have the tone at the top be the tone of people believe -- obviously you like them. if you don't like them, they're not going to vote for you. i think there is work to do. i think there was work on tone to. -- to do. this is not like breaking news. i said this recently. i have. and he understands it. that is what i'm saying. is not like him telling you one thing. and could this be

possible, it is very possible because i think he gets it. i think you will see it and you will see the change in town. -- tone. you add into that the fact that we are in the hispanic and black communities every day. you saw the numbers in 2014. that is a midterm by cory gardner got 46% of the hispanic vote in colorado. we spent $7 million or $8 million in colorado. romney would of just gotten 10% -- john kasich at 20% of the black vote. aboutwe're talking long-term commitment to hispanic, black communities, asian communities, every community in between. the full-time year-round party that understands that it's important for us to do that work. >> you saw yesterday the donald trump tweeted a picture of himself eating from a tortilla bowl with a big dollop of sour

cream in it. >> i heard about it. you can imagine i had other things to deal with yesterday afternoon. >> between says "happy #cincodemayo. i love hispanics." >> he is trying. [laughte he is trying. and i will tell you what. i honestly think he understands that the building and unifying and growing the party is the only way we're going to win. i think he gets that. >> would you think when they -- what did you think when they told you about the tweet? >> honestly i had other pressing matters that i was dealing with that were far more important than that tweet. >> what are your plans for the convention? >> we don't have to worry about three separate headquarters, hotels, programming is something

we are working through. a lot of things are already done. the stage is done. there are things that just have to happen. we moved it up seven weeks of july. while we were talking about an open convention it seemed like i was a genius for doing that. now we just have to get cruising and get going. >> do you feel like a genius? >> no. [laughter] no, i don't. i think we have done a great job at the rnc. when it comes to a confident national party i don't think anyone in this room can say this national committee is not the best mechanically rounded confident committee we never -- we ever had. >> what you like about cleveland the city? i am from wisconsin.

milwaukee is like the big metropolis. i like the lake. i think having our convention in cleveland will pay out big dividends for winning ohio. i think people, even if they are independent and democrats, i think the understandable we have done for the city of cleveland by going to cleveland and putting them in the spotlight. i think it will pay off than we are excited about it. -- and we excited about it. >> who controls the public line up in cleveland, you or donald trump? >> a little of both. it's the republican party's convention. you work together in order to put a program together that we think is going to be effective. >> you interviewed last month and said donald trump it's important to put some sure things into the convention or people are going to fall asleep. do you agree that convention should have more of a showbiz feel? >> it like the idea of having

convention with showbiz, if it is entertainment, whatever the is maybe. with every suggestion comes millions of dollars in money so the suggestions are great but there has to be a pretty big influx of cash to do something like that. tampaald trump said the convention was the single most boring convention i have ever seen. [laughter] >> i do not agree with that. we will have to talk about that issue yet. >> he says we don't of the -- have the people who know how to put showbiz into the convention. what sort of people you reaching out to to program the convention? >> i have not really gone there yet. it's only been a few days. i had dinner with our ceo of the

convention last night. they are doing a great job. they've got good people in charge. >> how worried are you about money for the convention. >> we are good on the money. it is the dnc that has problems. there is a portion of the funding that the rnc kicks in anywhere from $14 million to $17 million and i think we are about 80% raised. the dnc is maybe 10% raised. mr. allen: went to the people have in common? they all say they are not coming to the convention. there is a tough race in new hampshire and. do you worry about 70 key leaders sitting it out? -- so many key leaders sitting out? mr. priebus: if they are in cycle, most of the time you're not coming to the convention. you have to look at people in cycle.

if they are in cycle most of the time they are not coming. you asking that i do not think claire mccaskill went four years ago. did she? it happens. people make their own choices. mr. allen: some officials in the highest rung of republican leadership are advising the rank-and-file members to stay away from cleveland. a gop leader took cnn privately he advises collects old camping rallies and town halls during the time of the july convention. a senior senate gop leader echoed that sentiment. are you worried there is a fear among your leaders that cleveland is going to be perhaps toxic? mr. priebus: not really.

kind of the are all are clamoring for hotels and suites. i know what they are asking for. i know if we only had another 1000 rooms for a lot of the different groups that are representing elected officials, we would be in good shape. mr. allen: cnn reports bob dole is coming. mr. priebus: great. [laughter] mr. allen: democrats are licking their chops about the possibility of the blowout. donald trump will either win 48 states or lose 44 states. do you sometimes feel that way? mr priebus: i don't. i think this will be a close election. i think people are divided. we have seen the last couple of elections that of the electoral college looks different. i think it will be tight. we will do a weekend and ensure we win. mr. allen: what is the

percentage chance that donald trump will be hillary clinton. mr. priebus: i don't know. i think he will win and you have got to look at hillary clinton. she has got a letter to answer for -- a lot to answer for. if there is one person in a set -- who knows how to bring all of that out in a way that people can understand it, it's donald trump. he's going to do it too. he is going to bring it all out. unfortunately for hillary clinton, it is not going to be very comfortable. she has a lot to answer for. mr. allen: if current polling holds -- the new york times upshot -- mr. priebus: sometimes in the party begin criticized. we don't hit hard enough. we did not talk about some of the things that have happened in barack obama's life during 2008. i don't think donald trump will have a hard time bringing out some of the things that are going to be not good for hillary clinton.

mr. allen: what is your specific scenario where donald trump winter home state of wisconsin? mr. priebus: wisconsin can be a populist place. you look up in sean duffy's district in the seventh up north and may be in the sixth along the congressional district, i think donald trump does pretty well. i think hillary clinton is someone that people in wisconsin just don't buy. bill clinton was different. in wisconsin. he has got a little bit more of the i would like to have a beer this guy kind of feel. that is not hillary clinton. that's a scenario that i think people are not giving enough credit to. mr. priebus: donald trump does not drink.

do you predict donald trump will win this constant -- wisconsin? mr. priebus: i think he will but you have to look at a garlic ron johnson. i think he's in very fortunate to draw. like hillary clinton, they are in the same mold. retreads, people that are always coming around and bringing the same message. people rejected russ feingold. i think ron johnson is a part of this that people are not talking about either. mr. allen: a question than a quick rapid round. what other states decide -- besides wisconsin do you predict that donald trump may win or could win that romney did not? mr. priebus: i think he could win ohio, florida, pennsylvania, iowa. i think he could put michigan and minnesota in play. minnesota is a state that is hard to predict sometimes. i know obviously they went for walter mondale, in 1984 he is

from there, people like jesse ventura. governor tim plenty. every once in a while minnesota flips. i think donald trump. could play in states like that. mr. allen: you are elected chair in 2011. you are reelected in 2015. are you going for a four-peat. mr. priebus: i will figure that out after november. i will figure it out after november. mr. allen: kyl says are you absolutely certain you will seek another term as chairman? i have them -- have not heard them rule out a fourth term. probably not but i have not decided. we will keep it there. mr. allen: speaker right has ryan has talked about this.

what is a future of your physical office? mr. priebus: my aquarium. i have a 29 gallon aquarium. it looks like little nemo in there. it's a peaceful view during the day. mr. allen: why is that there? mr. priebus: listen, i love saltwater tanks and the challenge of them. if anyone out there is a saltwater tank person, you know it is to be an addictive habit. is an expensive hobby but i really enjoy it. it is a lot of fun. mr. allen: that's a surprising mr. priebus: i don't know if it's surprising that the tank stuff is a hobby. the piano is a hobby that is good for relaxing. i've been getting better because i have in -- have been practicing a lot more lately. mr. allen: what do you enjoy playing? mr. priebus: i like giving

around. i like playing anything. classical, jazz, blues, anything. sheet music. mr. allen: will we see you playing in cleveland? mr. priebus: doubtful of possible. mr. allen: what job if you have if you were not rnc chairman? mr. priebus: i was a lawyer for 14 years in milwaukee. i always wanted to be a pilot. mr. allen: what? [laughter] mr. priebus: my debt is a pilot and he built an airplane in the garage. it lives or have the year in texas with a have a hangar in a grass runway with other folks that do the same thing on the lake. there was a little bit of a latent passion for being a pilot. if all else fails, i would like to be a catcher in the milwaukee brewers bullpen. not a real catcher, just catching balls in the bullpen. that would be a great job. just sitting there catching balls. mr. allen: they are 11-17 to they could use you.

the president said that gop chairman is here, glad to see you feel you earned a night off. congratulations. [laughter] mr. priebus: i would've never thought being from kenosha, wisconsin that when it president would actually not just say my name but know how to pronounce it. i got off easy. i was thinking. ok, here we go this is going to get bad. and but it didn't. i came out pretty good. mr. allen: what is your favorite restaurant in d.c.? mr. priebus: i love going to cobbs on 8th street with sally and the kids. i love the greek food. in kenosha, wisconsin it is villa de carlo, best pizza in america. i cannot help but go there every time i am home. mr. allen: when you are done with this job do you stay or go

home? mr. priebus: my ideal scenario would be to go home and make sure the kids have a normal life. mr. allen: what is your favorite vacation destination? you cannot say cleveland. [laughter] mr. priebus: i would say there is a resort in jamaica that i liked called goldeneye. it's cool. mr. allen: with your prediction -- what is your prediction for the world champion green bay packers? mr. priebus: i predict this is their year. i like their draft. obviously there is no one better than aaron rodgers. if we can just get the defense straight. they did pretty well in the last couple of games. i'm feeling good. for us, it's not good enough to be good. you have to win the super bowl. mr. allen: thank all of you out in livestream land.

tonks to c-span and thanks bank of america for making these conversations possible. we appreciate our longtime partnership with you. i thought the chairman's staff who made this appearance possible. thanks to all my hard-working colleagues who bounced back after last weekend's as big as -- to make this possible. thank you for coming out on a early morning. thank you for a great conversation. see you in cleveland and enjoy the bailey's. mr. priebus: thank you everybody. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> turning its attention to the

general election, the clinton campaign has produced their first ad attacking donald trump. here is that ad and a political ad responding to it from a pro-trump political action committee. >> i am a unifier. we will be a unified party. >> he is a con artist. >> a phony. >> he is the not -- no nothing candidate. >> donald is a bully. >> this is an individual who mocked the disabled reporter. >> i do not remember. blood coming out of her wherever. >> the verse -- most vulgar person ever to aspire to the presidency. >> do not worry about it. >> the man is utterly amoral. >> a sign of deep insecurity and weakness. the showinging, that off. >> the absurd third-grade theatrics. >> he is a race baiting, xena

phobic, religious big it. bigot.igious mak >> his domestic policies would lead to recession. his foreign-policy would make america and the world less safe. >> i bring people together. everybody loves me. >> he needs therapy. ♪ >> this is a movement. this is something like i have never seen. we have expanded the republican party. they came from the democratic party and they were independents and they all switched. i am a unifier. i am going to go after one person that is hillary clinton. we are going to be more inclusive, we are going to be more unified and we will be a much bigger party and i think we are going to win in november. >> madam secretary.

we probably give 72 of our delegates votes to the next president of the united states -- >> ♪ >> i helped both countries with their constitutions being a facilitator of an agreement on key issues among the iraqis are afghans.

governmentf state or are very anxious to meet with you when you ask about a meeting. >> former u.s. ambassador to afghanistan, iraq, and the u.n. discusses his memoir "the env oy." >> we saw the extremists such as it that weloit corrected it toward the end of the period i was there, by the surgeon i building up iraqi forces, by establishing a unity government, killing suckow we -- zarqawi. violence was way down but unfortunately when we left and the vacuum was filled by a rival regional power pulling iraq apart, violence is slated and we have isis no. &a."unday night on "q

conversation on america's middle class continues. ant to introduce you to jim tankersley with the "the washington post." with pew currier charitable trusts, the director of financial security and mobility. we have been using the pew poll to define the middle class. how do you define it? guest: there is not a universally accepted definition of the middle class. with our research, we tend to look at the whole income distribution and take the middle income section, potentially the 40th percentile, the 60th percentile, just that middle chunk. research defines and on how people self defined. most americans believe they are middle-class. host: do you consider yourself to be middle class?

guest: i do. what is the range we are talking about? $50,000.st north of lasts been the same the couple of years, though i expect based on some nongovernment statistics that we have seen that it is going to go up. in the last are we looked at, not by a time, that we are starting to see it go up. the band we're talking about is estimating. the band around the median income includes a smaller amount of income than most politicians talk about for the middle class. president about obama, keeping the bush tax cuts for the middle class, that was up to $250,000 a year by obama's own definition. it ended up more than $400,000. that is upper 20%, upper 10%.

when we define these income bands, we are looking at a much smaller group of americans then the politicians are thinking of. pew research center -- ahundred and 44,000 $144,000 band. in washington dc, would you consider $50,000 in a family of four middle income? guest: no. host: what about in alabama? guest: yeah. that is the difference. the median income in alabama is lower than the middle income in the united states. cost of living is a big part of what we think of as middle class. come andn and counties around washington dc are some of the highest in the

country. income in several counties in alabama is to be so that it's mitigated cost of where you live. other parts of it are not. that is where we start to see some of, i think, the disparities better been borne out in this collection about the way to feel middle-class around the country perceive the economy working for them. host: what are some of the issues that middle classes face. storm it is a perfect when you think about family financial security. we have been talking about income and income is the definition of the middle. in reality, if you think about a family's balance sheet more holistically, what we would like to think about is that there is income to cover their

expenses, what is their debt, do they help wealth? wealth? you see that a lot of families are walking a financial tightrope. they have not's. significant earning gains. expenditures have continued to increase, especially for core needs like housing and transportation. families do not have personal savings and they have little wealth. what our research is showing is that that dynamic stretches of the income distribution pretty high. this idea of financial precariousness is not limited to people in the bottom of the income distribution, it is much more universal. this is much more of a kitchen table issue. host: how big is the middle class? how many millions? the population of the united states is 320 million, this middle band, middle income class, any guesstimates? guest: almost impossible to say.

it comes back to say who you define as middle class. if you look at the polling, it is probably more than 100 million americans who think they are middle-class. if you look at the people -- when he asked people in middle-class income is, then you're looking at a lot more. within ther hand, percentiles, one quintile of households. closer to 60 million. host: the squeeze on the middle class, has it changed or gotten worse or better? guest: we were particularly interested in whether the recession was a turning point and in an analysis that we had done, it looks like it really wasn't. not to say that the recession was not hugely impactful for a lot of people, for those who

became unemployed or experienced foreclosure or lost significant amounts of money in the stock market, obviously the recession was a huge bump in the road. when you look longitudinally, if you take 20 years of data, income trends and expenditures trends, the recession shown a spotlight on financial carrier's nest, but it. it was had been struggling for a long time. guest: this is one of the charts from the pew research center. 61% of american household were in the middle class. that is down to 50% today. is inyou see the growth the highest incomes. it has gone up from 4% to 9%. the numbers have stayed steady. is no question that we have seen a winding out of the income distribution overtime and the winding out of wealth distribution. similar research that we have

conducted that looks at economic mobility, try to think about how people change their position on the income distribution over generations, also shows that those who are raised in that middle quintile, they are equally rightly -- likely to rise up, fall down, or stay in the middle. to go back to the question of the recession, it is important to think about the story that the middle class has gone through over the last 15 years. from the end of the bubble, the stock bubble in the late 1990's, the last sustain growth of inting income we saw america for quite some time, from the end of that, what you had was income is not writing for most of america as they had experienced. they borrowed more money to keep up their consumption patterns. they were helped by a housing first, then that

recession was the stopping of the music. they cannot borrow as much. their incomes started going down and stagnating. we emerged from the recession within middle-class that was laid bare as having been in this more precarious position that we realize in the early 2000. there had not been great job creation or wealth creation, so much of it was on paper housing. people lost a lot of what they had. middle-class stock ownership was down, bill class -- middle-class business ownership was gone -- down. the only stabilizer of the last couple of years since then, they may be starting to go up again. that is a sustained and difficult. period for working americans. when we think about the frustration fairfield, it is not just that the recovery has been

bad or the recession was bad, things were pretty bad before that. the 2000s were a terrible economic decade for most americans and we did not realize that as much because they were spending money a did not have. now they have to pay it back. we are seeing the situation with her frustrations are boiling over. host: let's take some calls and hear from the viewers. we're talking about america's middle class. what your life is like a middle-class, how you define. numbers are on the ottoman the screen. you can participate on -- on the bottom of the screen. you can participate on our social media. mike is in chicago. caller: good morning and thank you for having me. i appreciate what washington journal just for the country. i'm sure watching it every day. thank you for the guests.

i want to say, regarding your beingt about the class part of social identity, yes it is. what is middle-class? i used to define myself as no class. my folks were point in 1942, i now i much 1982, poorer than they are you know i still, some of class. there is some sort of lost class subconsciousness. we think of financial security on the long-term and short-term, the increase of a senator's. the recession, whether you want , i believe that 40 off since wee started this new century. host: what work did your parents do and what work do you do? caller: my parents were in the

military before they went to wall street. but wife is a veterinarian and i'm a consultant. we are worried about the long-term job market. it is changing more to contract work and wages are not going to get higher. i have lived all over the country. i'm in chicago now. i grew up in new york. i was all over i saw what the recession did. i know how employees reacted. i saw the relationship between labor and capital change. i'm worried. , i probablyyself the poorest middle-class person out there. host: if you could give us an idea of the income that you enjoyed generate. just over sixen figures, but we are holding off on having kids. we are worried about the long-term. we thought chicago would be

better, but what they're try to do with manufacturing is good, but is not doing anything for wages. it is not doing anything to help us individuals get the help we need. i know a lot of friends who have had to lead our neighborhood to move to northern indiana because they can no longer afford to be in this area which is a middle class area. they make a poor area. poorer area. i hope exchange. host: thank you. guest: i think what he is getting at is more than just our definition of the middle class. you are conceptualization of the american dream. we had done some public opinion polling on whether that is a term that resonates with americans or they feel like they can still achieve the american tune what we have heard is that what americans defined as the american dream if their children

being better off than them and being able to just have personal agency and to sleep well at night. to be able to pay all of your bills with the income you have coming in and set a little aside for savings. americans don't believe the market to miss about being rich, they do not believe it is about being the class, but this idea of financial security. of being able to be in control of your own destiny is a big part of what americans believe and how the country should be structured. the more that that dealing integrates, the difficulty of getting ahead where is that people's ability to think about the american dream as being achievable. guest: i think, i agree with what aaron said. what mike brought up about the contract work is important. it is that feeling that goes beyond income.

is the feeling of stability. the money i'm bringing in today will be there tomorrow. that is something that i hear a lot when i'm talking to folks about the economy. it is not just that i'm making the money i want, it i'm worried about my job be there tomorrow and not being outsourced or contracted out. say, theot of people median income in america has risen dramatically since the 1970's-80's. the stock market has nearly quadrupled. things are good. guest: the meeting income is about the same -- medium income is about the same -- median income is about the same if you just for inflation. there are few people out there who claim that we should use different inflation and waiters, that we should be thinking about that-- inflation inflators

we should think about this to fairly. time, as you point out, the stock market has gone up a lot. the economy has grown a lot. since 1989, wers have seen almost a doubling of the size of the economy. it is not like there is money to had, we are just not seeing the spoils flow to the typical american worker. host: next call for our guest. you have to turn down the volume on your tv. otherwise we get the feedback. linou get there on the e, turned on the volume of your tv. john is in fairfax, virginia. good morning tea. -- to you. caller: i'm retired. year withut $60,000 a

my white small social security added an update several thousand and tax and i would be willing to pay a little bit more taxes. everyone want something don't want to pay for. what i like to say is, the baltimore newspaperman, he nailed it when he said nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the american people. andhat regard, between 6:30 trumphis one, you all ran tilling the west virginia folks that haven't had a raise in your living on the same level as 18 years ago. this is the same guy that went on record saying that when he was asked when blank, would you raise the 7:50 million among wage, -- minimum wage, he said no.

the american people are suckers. if they vote him in, i will laugh my butt off. column who used and forfor tom delay bob michael. he is a republican. he writes that come about donald trump, he has a clear message on the economy that resonates. the middle class is getting screwed because the political class is looking out for their interests rather than for the broader interests of the american people. from being open to increasing taxes on the very wealthy, to expressing concerns about trade deals, too promising to protect social security, donald trump is dating clearly that he will change the direction of the american economy. we did not invite you out here to talk about politics, john obviously brought up his view.

i would like to get your comment on the tenor of the campaign and some of the issues that are being discussed. guest: i'm happy to talk about politics. if you're writing about the middle class now in newspapers, you're writing about politics. i like him and he is a smart guy picking up something about bottle message. what is interesting is that if this was a relaxing -- this was an election where for public is do they needed to reach out to working voters. they had all these ideas of how they would do it. have an extra child tax care credit. the escalator of opportunity does not work for everybody. and yet, donald trump comes along and nails the message to them the class. does not one -- he said trade deals have gotten the best. republicans have been very historically a free trade, free market party. he says that immigrants have

been hurting you, at the same time, republicans have been trying to reach out to more hispanic voters and are having an intraparty fight. he talks about we just not going to. maybe taxing the wealthy. his tax plan includes an enormous tax cut for the wealthy. taxes for thee top income bracket greater than any other person. dump truck has no the message to the middle-class. the question is, whether republicans can stomach the message in accordance with their party principles. that is some of the big fight we see right now within the party between speaker ryan and donald trump. stles a real russell -- wre over what public and stand for. -- republicans stand for. who feels left out by this is

the business community. they are the ones who want trade deals and immigration reform and entitlement reform, they feel like they are being left on the sidelines of an election where it is populist anger and middle-class focus that has dominated. host: let's go to harry in pennsylvania. good morning. you consider yourself to be middle-class? caller: middle-class all my life except for when i was young. i'm 80 years old. i have seen a lot of changes for my lifetime. , douestion for the panel is they see a correlation between the rise of the middle class world in the rest of the and at the same time a decline in hours and is a have anything to do with free trade?

i've been around the world a bit and i have seen some very poor countries after the second world .ar but they are no longer poor is that a good question? host: let's see what aaron wants to say. guest: we have done quite a bit of research looking at whether there is a difference between economic mobility between the united states and other countries and on the whole, what research shows is that there is. that, in fact, when you think about the chances of someone in the united states being born on the bottom of income this region and rising, it is less likely for that to occur here in the nine states that it is in canada and in many western european countries. that has to do with a lot of different factors. has to do with our social safety net, our education system, only background -- family background. the other piece is that the income distribution is so much

wider than some of these other countries that it takes a significantly larger increase in absolute dollar gains for people to move among the different rungs of the income ladder. a lot of researchers joke that if you want the american dream, you need to move to denmark. host: is the middle class, the percentage of the canadian public and the middle-class lector? -- larger? guest: i don't know the answer. one thing we think, maybe canadians define so-called canadian dream differently. they do they believe that the government has a different obligation to its population than we do in the united states. that public polling did not reveal that difference. canadians to find the canadian dream very similarly to the way that americans do. there was no discernible difference in their attitude

towards government responsibly to support opportunity. americans very much believe there is a role for government to play in helping everyone of the economic ladder, especially people who are working hard and play by the rules and doing all the right things. host: western europe use the term middle-class. guest: i do not know if it is as critical of a part of their political discussion. i would like to take something, the wonderful question by the color. -- caller. it is true that the stagnation, or decline of the middle-class over the last quarter century a massiveded with rise in poverty for millions of people around the world. the opening of global markets and advancement of technology have absolutely helped the liberalization of economies in places like china. we have far fewer poor people today and we did a quarter century ago.

that is amazing and i think something everyone should celebrate. that there is a necessary trade-off. there is no reason to look at the distribution of global income and say that money has to american middle class, or west and broadly to go to those people. if america had taken some of that money away from the very rich and giving it to the global poor that that would have been just as efficient of a transfer. there's lots of economic research on that -- this. free trade has a huge role to play. the roles of free trade, the way free trade has been conducted, i think it has contributed to where the money has come from and where the money has gone. we should not be confused by saying, just because the middle-class has stagnated, that

is the only way people to get out of poverty globally. study that you did recently, the state of american family finances, many families are unprepared to deal with an angel emergencies. over the course of beer, families experience financial shocks, expenses or lost income they do not anticipate. car or house repairs, pay cuts or injuries. unfortunately, these events are often costly. the typical household spent 2000, or about half a month income, as most spent the financial shock. when such a shock occurs in income does not suffice, the least effective solution is for families to turn to their the good savings, funds that can be accessed quickly, so= but many households have very littl

savings. the typical household cannot replace their one month of income. storm this is the perfect we were talking about earlier. we want to think beyond just income. income is an important metric. is not sufficient to really understand whether they are financially secure. our research has been looking at lots of different metrics. incidence of financial shock. spent anericans unexpected financial shock in the previous 12 months. shock cost $2000. most families do not have that kind of liquid savings on hand. when they are experiencing a financial shock in addition to fluctuations in their incomes and expenses, it really leaves

them in a precarious place. they don't have the savings are the wealth. then it becomes a cycle of not having enough and being constantly stressed and behind. host: the april job figures are out. unemployment rate, 5%. 160,000.d give us a quick assessment. guest: quick reaction, lower than some economists expected. still a decent number. still a good number. the sustainedn rate you would have wanted to see continued wage pressure. the other planet raping at 5% is a good thing. it probably has polar to fall -- father to fall to bring people back into the labor force. the tighter the labor market, the faster wages will go up for

everybody. we want as much job creation as possible. growth has been low. we can expect to be adding 200,000 jobs a month in perpetuity with growth less than 1% a quarter. that's the long way saying, this a not a surprise, but it is small alarm. it the economy needing more just to get back to the place where we can have that comfortable wage growth were starting to see. host: robert, maryland. thank you for holding. we're talking about the state of the middle class. caller: good morning. the one thing, i'm a pipefitter. an average guy. i'm watching the construction field be decimated by the amount of cheap labor. he can even get on a jobsite now if you can't speak spanish.

you can look at the classifieds and see that all of the place. the politicians increasing the h-1b sees are bringing in cheap labor. they are doing everything they class hurt the middle with those two items alone. the politicians forcing the companies to the these things. here in the state of maryland, they are taxing me a flush tax. i am paying for the rain. they're pushing the companies out. there are some a different tentacles to this thing. you're pushing the companies out of the country. politicians with all the regulations are what killing us. you look at paul ryan, this guy saspushing these pieces -- vi to bring more cheap labor. a loaf of bread is two dollars.

that is ridiculous for a loaf of bread. host: do you consider yourself middle-class? caller: this are, i'm in under $30,000. there were better times. i'm a pipefitter. we build gas stations and put takes in the ground. -- pegs the ground. the laborat they push down bringing illegals into the country, we ran in $19 now or job down to $15. it has gotten so bad. this has got to stop. host: robert in maryland. general, the complaints about immigration resonate may be most in the construction industry. we have seen an absolute job iss in construction and that

good. we have seen, this is because of immigration, and absolute job americansativeborn with the construction. there are fewer nativeborn americans working construction now than there were before. other hand, when i talked to people who run jobsites and run contracting firms, they often say, we would love to hire english-speaking nativeborn americans do the work, but we can't. it will not work for the wages that we are offering. caller is right. wages in construction are seeing a large out of competition will fall. numberople for a fewer of jobs. research on whether immigrants hurt actual median wages for

typical americans tends to find a small effect of localized -- to people without high school degrees. even that is controversial. the frustrations that robert is expressing our executive frustrations you care going around the country and i think absolutely correlated with the rise of donald trump. ,orking-class americans working-class reckon men who feel frustrated about which is going down. government regulation in treatment on their ability to make a living. that is the sweet spot, home run fastball for donald trump. robert has articulated it very well. host: inglewood, california. ray, tell us about yourself. caller: good morning. i'm 57-year-old. african-american male. born and raised in california.

i thought my childhood dream. i got into the aerospace business. designer and worked in the industry until it pre-much died -- pretty much died because of regulations and what have you. to my point, i said, what could i do say to my fellow americans to describe the situation i think we are in? you have to go back to when i was working in aerospace. i would go on job assignments and i ended up in cumberland, maryland. there was a position across the border in west virginia. i can't tell you what i did. i had a security guard that i became acquainted with who would walk us to our car at night. we got into a conversation about america and where it was going. she said set