an officer from the wilson center will talk about the supposed hacking of dnc e-mails by brescia. -- by russia. host: it's 100 days till election day on this sunday, july 31, 2016. welcome to "washington journal." we'll start the program asking you about an area of policy where we've heard some specificity, definitely from the democrats and also from donald trump in a news conference this week, about the federal minimum wage. should it be raised? currently the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. asking you if it should be raised, and we're doing it this way, breaking apart our phone lines for minimum wage earners, 202-748-8000. business owners, 202-748-8001.

for all others, use 202-748-8002. u can send us a tweet, @is cspanwj. and we'll hear comments from donald trump in just a bit. we'll play those for you. we're showing enthuse morning, too, the reporting this week from the news conference in florida. this is melanie trotman of the "wall street journal," the headline, donald trump calls for a $10 hourly minimum wage, breaks from the g.o.p. position. she writes that republican presidential nominee donald trump called for a federal minimum wage of $10 an hour, departing from his past positions and his own party and moving more in line with democrats. i'd like to raise it to at least $10, mr. trump said during a press conference in doral, florida. it wasn't clear initially if he meant the federal minimum wage or the wage floors set by states. when asked to clarify, he said he was talking about the federal minimum wage. melanie trotman covers labor issues for the "wall street

journal," the writer of that piece, and joining us by phone this morning. good morning, melanie trottman. guest: hi, good morning. host: this is an area where we hadn't heard either from donald trump before in terms of the minimum wage. how much of a departure is it from where the g.o.p. has been before? guest: well, it's a big departure, because the g.o.p., you know, has generally been saying that they really prefer that states decide what their own minimum wages are. of course, states, you know, they have to pay at least as much as the federal minimum wage, but they can go higher if they want to. but more than that, the g.o.p. has really said that, you know, let the labor market decide what the minimum wage is, let businesses decide and various places across the country what they can afford, and, you know, what can get a worker to come and work for them, and that's really what should prevail in setting the minimum wage. host: showing our viewers a map of the minimum wage in some of

these key states. hillary clinton going through pennsylvania and ohio. pennsylvania, where the minimum wage is higher. ohio, where it's the federal minimum wage. lorida as igher in f ell. how much of an issue is the minimum wage issue in areas that have been impacted by factories, etc., leaving for other places or that work going away? how much of it is an issue? guest: right, well, i mean i think trade is a big issue in those places. and those workers and those jobs that left to go elsewhere overseas weren't getting the minimum wage. a lot of them were union jobs. so i don't think this is a big issue in regard to that. but it is an issue, really, across the nation, because low-wage workers, you know, there have been groups pushing, galvanizing, really, low-wage

workers to protest for a $15 minimum wage. that campaign has been going on for several years. it started in new york. it's moved throughout the south. it's moved across this country to the west. and they've gotten some results. they've certainly helped push the wage higher through local legislative battles. and states, you know, multiple states and localities. to $15. i mean, it's going to increase over time, but it's getting there. host: what about the democrats? how did they come to agreement in terms of this? because hillary clinton and bernie sanders were in different places on the minimum wage. guest: they were, and i mean, technically, they still are. you know, hillary clinton, she's basically said that she backs a national level of $12. but she'd support any place that could go above that to do so. and that's what she said. although, at the same time, she

says she backs the fight for $15 campaign, the one i just mentioned to you, that union groups are backing. so it appeared at one point that hillary clinton was backing the $15 minimum wage federally, but she's said that her democratic friends in the senate have said, look, $12 is what can get done, so she's backing them. now, bernie sanders has backed the $15 minimum wage. she's right in line with those union back groups and in fighting for $15 minimum. and he really has helped push the democratic party platform for 2016 to declare that they want a $15 federal minimum wage. so that's where the democrats are on this, and bernie sanders played a big role on that. and technically, he and hillary clinton are not on the same page with that $15, and hillary clinton hasn't even said she backs what the democratic party platform is on the minimum wage. host: covering labor issues, including the minimum wage, melanie trottman with the "wall street journal."

you can follow her on twitter @wsjmelanie. thanks for the update this morning. our question for you on this sunday morning is, should the federal minimum wage be raise? 202-748-8000 for minimum wage earners. if you're a business owner, 202-748-8001. and for all others, that's 202-748-8002. let's go to florida and steve on the line. thanks for waiting. go ahead. caller: yes, i have a comment about -- i know we talk about raising the minimum wage. and a lot of argument against that is that it's not a free market-based solution. however, i wanted to talk about how there's so many corporations on so many levels that do things to artificially lower wages. for instance, wage fixing practices.

if you are c.e.o. and i am a c.e.o. of different corporations in the same industry, if i came to you and said let's make an agreement not to pay any more than a certain amount for a certain position and have certain skills and experience, that's wage fixing. it's illegal. if i come to you and say i won't recruit any of your managers if you don't recruit any of my managers, that's -- it's trade, and it's illegal. and also, i think that, number one, if we are going to raise the minimum wage, it's not we to do any good unless corporation's tax loophole that enables them to generate tax-free profits over

tax-free revenue overseas. and we need to make moves, i guess. and i know it's probably not ssible to standardize wage and benefits and other places ever seas. because if we raise the minimum wage, corporations just move their companies overseas because they know that they can do it and not pay taxes. host: thanks, steve. labor department shows on their chart that florida is one of the states that has their minimum wage above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. here's dale city, california, and welcome. good morning. caller: hi, thanks for taking my call. i endorse donald trump's idea of a $10 minimum wage. it's pragmatic. that's what's missing in washington, pragmatism. he's splitting the difference. he's saying we do need to raise it. let's raise it to something that's doable. $10 is doable. of course, most people will

make more than that. but that's fine. and that's what i really like about trump, his pragmatism. thanks. host: donald trump made those comments this week at his nice conference mid week in doral, florida. here's what he said about the minimum wage. donald: the minimum wage has to go up. people are at least $10, but it has to go up. but i think that states -- federal -- i think that states should really call the shots, as an example. i live in new york. it's very expensive in new york. you can't buy a hotdog for the money you're talking about. you go to other states, and it's not expensive at all. now, what it does is puts new york at a disadvantage if the minimum wage, companies move out and things, you know, bad things happen. at the same time, people have to be taken care of. but what i'm really going to do on the minimum wage, but has to go up. now, bernie sanders lied. bernie sanders said in his speech the other day that donald trump wants the minimum wage to go below $7. i said where did he come up with that one? that one is just like joe biden lied today.

he said that donald trump wants to -- he was auto television -- he said donald trump wants to carpet bomb the enemy in the middle east. now, that was ted cruz that said that. that was not donald trump. i mean, he's not a very bright guy, but that was ted cruz that said it. he said it with such surity. donald trump wants to carpet bomb. i never said he wanted to carpet bomb. you remember ted cruz said that. you will confirm that, go ahead. i would like to trays to at least $10. what i'm going to do is bring jobs back to this country so that people can start working again, so that the $10 and the $15 and the numbers you're talk being about are going -- literally, they're going to be peanuts compared to what people can make in the country, because i'm going to bring jobs back from mexico, which is booming. host: donald trump from his news conference earlier this week on "washington journal" this morning, asking you, should the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour be raised? you can call us on the phones,

send us a tweet. this is a tweet from david, who says, yes, the minimum wage should be automatically raised .o keep pace with inflation we go next to milwaukee. excuse me, we go to new york and hear from michael. go ahead, michael. caller: yes, i'm going say something about mr. trump that he's not going to like. the $15 minimum wage we have here in new york is really not enough to live on, and new york is a big inlet to take on -- two children and running a household. ok, so i say to mr. trump, why don't these corporations, rather than paying a 15% income tax, pay higher income tax, which would offset the cost of raising the federal minimum wage? these corporations are dealt huge, huge profit. they "for the record" profits over time, and now it's time

for the corporations to pay their fair share. i think that's what the democrats should be going after. and then they can fix this wage problem and offset the inbalance we have between being poor and being very wealthy, like mr. trump. i'm sure he doesn't have a problem making $15 an hour, does he? host: michael, when did that minimum wage go to $15? caller: well, they raised it to -- you know, i think it's right around $9 or $10 right now, but it's projected to go to $15 by 2018. host: uh-huh. caller: and if it does that, it's going to cost businesses money. but you know what? corporations are paying 15% income tax, where everybody else is paying almost 40%. i mean, you see the inbalance there? there's an inbalance in what we pay in taxes. and that in itself is an

unfairness to wages. host: michael calling us from new york. to his point, this is from the department of labor, their current effective minimum wage $9, effective december 31 last year. again, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. vermont, tom is a business owner there. tom, what's the minimum wage? how does it impact your business? caller: well, the minimum wage is $7.25. but what we need to do is have a minimum education to achieve this minimum wage. i can go along with the $15 an hour minimum wage, but i need to minimally educated worker to be able to afford to pay him that wage, so i'm getting something for my money, so my customers are getting something for their money. host: what's missing? when you say a minimum education, with a new employee, what education do you think hat employee is missing?

caller: a minimum of a high school education. i tell you, you get people nowadays, it's more like baby-sitting than it is running a business. it's pretty pathetic, some of the people you have to choose from out there. people can't get to work on time. people can't dress themselves properly. it's -- it's troubling , the job market hat's out there. you know, the labor market that's out there. host: and do you hear the same sort of comments from fellow business owners in vermont? caller: definitely, definitely. everybody's pretty much on the same page. host: thanks for calling in. we go to louisville, kentucky, and bob on our others line. good morning, bob. caller: oh, good morning. what i was wanting to suggest, i think the $15 an hour would

be the best one, because the people that get the $15 will be ineligible for welfare. that way the government could save money and then people would be able to stand up on their own feet. and the amount of money that the government can say could ive a tax credit to the people that have to pay the $15 an hour. because for sure a company has to made a profit or they can't hire people. anyway, that's just my opinion. which i think it's a win-win situation. host: ok, bob, we talked with melanie trottman of the "wall street journal," and she kind of mentioned this in terms of coming together between hillary clinton's position, bernie sanders' position. here's a cnn report. sanders prevails on minimum wage. the trade battle was one major loss in a weekend in terms of the platform, in a weekend that included several victories for sanders. democrats amended their platform to call for a $15 an

hour federal minimum wage, a sanders priority from the outset of his 2016 campaign. but certainly the issue of the economy has been key and a central part of hillary clinton's early campaign. and it started on thursday night with her acceptance speech. here's part of that. hillary: let's begin with what we're going to do to help working people in our country get ahead and stay ahead. now, i don't think president obama and vice president biden get the credit they deserve for saving us from the worst economic crisis of our ifetime. our economy is so much stronger than when they took office, nearly 15 million new private sector jobs, 20 million more americans with health insurance, and an auto industry that just had its best year

ver. now, that's real progress, but none of us can be satisfied with the status quo. ot by a long shot. we're still facing deep-seated problems that developed long before the recession and stayed with us through the recovery. i go around the country talking to working families, and i've heard from many who feel like the economy sure isn't working for them. some of you are frustrated, even furious. and you know what? you're right. it's not yet working the way it should. americans are willing to work and work hard, but right now, an awful lot of people feel there is less and less respect for the work they do, and less respect for them, period. democrats, we are the party of

working people. [applause] but we haven't done a good enough job showing we get what you're going through, and we're going to do something to help. host: 100 days till election day. i'm asking about the minimum wage. should it be raised? it's currently $7.25 an hour. homas on twitter, american hero saying eliminating the minimum wage laws could stimulate a renaissance in american wealth and jobs. one says, we, the working people railroad company owed for 30 years of increased productivity for which we were never paid. and t.j., in many cases, a raise would take government services away from the person getting the raise, less purchasing power would go down. your thoughts welcome @cspanwj. and on the phone. the minimum wage in your state,

202-748-8001 for business owners. and for all others, it's 202-748-800 . we go to our other lines now, and nat in baltimore. good morning. caller: good morning, and thanks for c-span. i have a slightly different twist on what the minimum wage is. i'm 89 years old, a veteran. when i started out at age 10 delivering butcher orders, i was making 10 cents an hour, and i shot up to 25 cents an hour because of productivity. but i never thought that the minimum wage had anything to do with what my income should be. and as a consequence, by effort, i moved very quickly out of the minimum wage range. by the time i was out of college, i was makinged 20,000 a year, which is nothing in and out, but that was 1955 --

excuse me, 1951. and little a social stick concept that it's not a minimum wage, but it's a standard wage. everybody to what they need, everybody to what they can do. it is absolutely destructive. it is now thought of as something for the person who was a regular wage earner, and that is ridiculous. and vilifying the corporations is equally ridiculous, because income through the corporations is taxed twice, once in the corporation, and once for the people who work for the corporation. host: all right, let's hear from a minimum wage earner next in florida. caller: thank you. the first thing i would like to say is during the republican primary, donald trump said

wages were too high. and you've got these people that own businesses, corporations complaining about $15 an hour when they paid their c.e.o.'s and all the people at the top of the corporation millions of dollars, stock options, bonuses, this is ridiculous. thank you. host: all right. illinois on our others line. good morning to bill in illinois. caller: yeah, good morning. i don't want anybody negotiating wages. i'm retired at this time, but all my working years, i worked for union and nonunion jobs. never did i consider minimum wage. if you can't negotiate your own wages and what you need to live on, then it might be time to rethink the schooling you've had, the schooling you should have gone to or paid attention to, or look for more schooling.

i mean, i think it's just absolutely ridiculous. you know, kids quit school in their junior year of high school and expect to go work for $15 an hour. tom from vermont, he was pretty much on the ball there. if you don't have an education to make more than minimum wage, you better rethink your situation. noip your case, you said you were -- host: in your case, you said you were a union member. so, on some level, you had somebody negotiating for you, correct? caller: no. went into a union shop as a mechanic. and i negotiated my own wage. i did not even pay -- the employers i went to work for, two of them, they paid my union dues, because i refused. the union did nothing for me. and that's just the way it was. if i couldn't go to work for that amount of money, keep looking for a job. that was all there was to it. host: and bill, are you still

working or retired? caller: no, i'm retired at this time. but during my working years, like i said, minimum wage was never a consideration. host: thanks for joining us. we hear from our business owners line next in connecticut. good morning. caller: good morning, and thank you, c-span. no, the minimum wage should not be raised. is an entry-level for someone getting their first job, especially in low-income areas. you get a kid in a minority area. it's a first step as the first rung on the ladder. and if you were to raise that for $10 or $15 an hour, the kid is not going to get a job, it's pure and simple. now, as a photographer, a totally different field.

i have to escape my assistant, 150 to 175 a day because they have skills. so entry-level, no, keep it where it is. thank you very much. host: thanks for your call. we've been showing the last couple of days, on friday, anyway, the kickoff of hillary clinton's three-day bus tour in pennsylvania and ohio. and a politico story here, after her appearances in pennsylvania yesterday, politico headline, trump:: clinton's pennsylvania stop is like a robber visiting their victim. they write that following a campaign stop by hillary clinton in john johnston, pennsylvania, lashed out on trade and jobs, likening her to a "robber visiting their victim." --

host: john is next up in louisville, kentucky, on our others line. welcome. caller: hello. how are you? tom: doing fine, thanks. caller: i was just curious, you know, like here in kentucky, right now you go to mcdonald's. you buy a burger. it's probably around $5, $6. with the minimum wage set the way it is now. so what's going to keep these restaurants and anything like

that, big corporations, if they raise the minimum wage to $15, what's going to keep them from raising that burger up to $10, $12? then you're in the same position you're in. host: thanks, don. don talks about the cost of a burger in kentucky. here's a tweet that says american hero says, what does a hotdog cost in new york? also tweet here from edwin who says the minimum wage should be raised, but i don't expect trump will follow through if he's elected. and one more here, too, this one says, when people are working $40e a week and find themselves in poverty, should it stay the same? indiana on our others line. it's randy. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to kind of repeat what the other guys said, in that employers are not going to take a hit. if they raise the minimum wage,

they're going to raise the prices. if the minimum wage goes up, then people won't be eligible for several welfare programs any longer, so they'll actually be making less money than they are now. and also, the people that are on fixed incomes, social security, will take such a hit that they won't be able to afford anything anymore. hey're barely making it now. host: next up, we hear from jim, who's a business owner. jim, should the minimum wage be raised? caller: no, if anything, the federal should be cut and let the states deal with it. host: and what's the state minimum wage in california? caller: right now it's at $8.50. host: ok. the r: and the problem is, minimum wage is for entry level

employees. and when they raise the wages that high, then you lose part of the workforce because you can't afford to hire the entry-level employees back. host: we had a call from a business owner in vermont who said one of his concerns about the minimum wage, he was more concerned with minimum education in terms of the skills and the workability of the employees he's hiring. do you find a similar situation in california? caller: oh, exactly. but if the minimum wage is low enough, you can bring those people in and train them. if they take the minimum wage to $15 an hour, these people don't have a job, period. nd i'm noticing is why is it that the government, like nancy pelosi, can hire people in as interns and not pay them anything to learn the job?

host: jim in california, business owner there. thanks for that. we had a caller a few minutes ago who said that donald trump has said during the primary campaign that wages were too high. a look here at the cleveland plain dealer, republican convention, of course, was in cleveland, and this is their fact checking. sherrod brown accurately quoted trump as saying wages are too high. a fact check, again, from the cleveland plain dealer. they write that senator brown quoted donald trump as saying wages are too high, when brown, a clevelander, addressed the democratic national convention thursday night in philadelphia. "donald trump believes wages are too high," those are his words, brown said too, high and he wants to be president? here's their fact check from the plain dealer. during a republican primary debate last november, neil cavuto of fox news asked trump if he was sympathetic to protesters who were calling for a $15 minimum wage. i can't be, neil, trump said,

and the reason i can't be is that we are a country that is being beaten down on every front economically, mill tailor. there is nothing that we do now to win. we don'twe don't win anymore, os are too high. i've come up with a tax plan many like very much. i think it will make our country and economy very dynamic. taxes are too high, wages are too high. we will not be able to compete against the world. we have to leave it the way it is. people have got to go out, they have to work really hard and have to get into that upper stratum." the fact checker of the cleveland plain -- minimum wage earner in elyria, ohio is carmen. good morning. caller: good morning. i am totally for the minimum wage hike.

ofes need to meet the cost the products and everything else. everything has gone up. groceries have gone up. you can't afford to buy clothing and food and stuff like that so to keep the economy moving people need to have money to spend for companies to make money. that's all i have to say. i don't understand the stop on the little guy. host: what is the minimum wage in ohio? caller: i believe it is a dollars $.10. i'm actually disabled and not working anymore. i was a school bus driver. i was in a union and we were always doing raises and stuff. i did not really have that problem. i just know from my daughter working through the years -- and

she is a college student and she works. when i go out to buy groceries and stuff i am appalled at the prices at the grocery store. gas prices have gone down but groceries still keep going up. host: let's hear from another minimum wage earner from bismarck, north dakota. sandra. caller: if people are really looking for work, where i live you can go to walmart and apply for a job starting at $15 an hour if you work the night shift it is a dollar more. i'm on disability. i make nine dollars 91 -- i make my hundred $91 a month and i barely cutting it. as any times as i've gone into the stores and there are people and you ask them where something is and they cannot tell you because they don't understand .hat you're saying

if you want a high school education -- they will hire you because they are desperate. you look at the application line and most all of them are not u.s. citizens. if you want a job you will find it. host: the minimum wage in north dakota is what? atler: i believe it is $7.85. host: you are saying a store like walmart you can go in there and automatically start off at a wage -- caller: $15 or more. target, your grocery stores come if you stock shows at night you get a dollar more for that shift . they are hiring people that are who are our country working. if you want a job you can get on. it. just how bad you want

host: are you saying most of the workers would be hispanic origin ? caller: i would say a third of them. thanks for your comments this morning. we go to ohio to david. good morning. should -- go ahead. caller: i was calling to make a quick comment. the comment i want to make, if you raise the minimum wage to i agree would be a good wage. the problem is everybody already making $15 an hour, are you going to raise those people because the new -- the purchasing power of the new 15 will not be nearly what it is now. in order to make it work, a lot more people making minimum wage

instead of what it should do. host: this is front page of the washington post this morning. a new controversy flares. trump criticizes parents of soldier. the reporting of the new york times also on this story. front page for the new york times, hire for trump as he derived muslim parents. donald trump belittle the parents of a slain who had strongly denounced mr. trump during the democratic national convention saying that the soldiers father delivered the entire speech because his mother was not allowed to speak. mr. trump's comments came in and with george stephanopoulos that will air on sunday on this week. here are the comments donald trump made. [video clip] >> very emotional and probably looked like a nice guy to me. his wife, if you look at his

wife, she was standing there with nothing to say. maybe she was not allowed to have anything to say, you tell me. plenty of people have written that. she was extremely quiet and looked like she had nothing to say. a lot of people have said that. personally i watched him. i wish him the best of luck. host: all of the sunday talk shows or reenter on c-span radio every sunday beginning at noon eastern at 90.1 in the nation's capital. across the country can download the c-span radio app and follow sunday morning shows that will air this morning on abc's good week -- this week. a couple more comments on raising the minimum wage. in johnstown, pennsylvania. caller: i'd like to remark about

the fact that i think two different things are being confused in this discussion. economic prosperity and economic security. a failure and a weakness in the system of capitalism that we have as a business owner i can be honest about that. aboutcentive system is prosperity. there is no ground or foundation to prevent people from having complete insecurity. there are two conflicting goals that need to be met. we are thinking only in terms of the dichotomy of capitalism, absolute capitalism or absolute socialism. point of fact, the real solution is in combining the best of both worlds into a different system which is more balanced so that

the public domain is responsible economic security whereas the private domain is responsible for economic prosperity. the two are combined together in a synthesis. up until now that has not yet happened. host: tell us the type of business you own and how long you have been added. caller: it is a consulting business. two years. host: do you employ others? caller: i'm self-employed. host: let's hear from ed on our others line. caller: good morning. awanted to ask o question of don from kentucky. the price of a hamburger went up anyway, even if the minimum wage was down. basic business, if you raise

prices there is something code competition. if you raise your prices people will not buy your products and you go out of business. the question is, why are the people from the south and the midwest so however this we stupid? i just don't get it. ,ost: on the issue of prices here is another one that says if you raise the wage to $15 an hour you will have to pay $40 at the theater for a small coke and a small popcorn. a guy who tax everyone, even gold star mothers. from donna who says sanders has been the only one with realistic wage goals. this is bill, business owner in norcross, georgia. caller: i have a couple of comments. i'm against raising the minimum wage. there has been no inflation

.asically why do we need to raise the men wage? a lot of people don't know this, for a lot of business owners that have contracts. the get a set amount so if you raise the men wage if the raise salaries accordingly but you are only getting a set amount for your services or for your products. therefore your profit margins squeeze and you go out of business. we have to compete against the rest of the world and if we raise minimum wage the rest of the world will be able to come in with these ridiculous trade treaties we have and swap us with cheaper products. host: what is your business in georgia? caller: i'm a physician. i have contracts with insurance companies. if i'm forced to raise my salaries for my employees -- i

do have employees. i am not unemployed like the consultant you had last time. my profit margin gets squeezed. i will be out of business and that is the reality. as for the price of a hot dog in new york, i know it is a lot more than here in georgia. every state is different. -- one size does not fit all. host: the issue of the minimum wage and trade in particular a big issue at the democratic convention. the transpacific partnership. peace and the washington post being thet trade not only issue were hillary clinton has rejected the liberal wing of her party. she did not endorse a $15 federal minimum wage. pollshough the policy

well. she backs a $12 per hour federal minimum and the ability for states to set higher ones if they choose. steve is a minimum wage earner. go ahead. caller: is that me? host: you are on. go ahead. compared to canadians, europe, germany, austria, switzerland, france, all of those people -- i think it is a much higher standard. the lower guy has nothing to say. $15. not going to chemical to 10, chemical next question -- can it

-- we have to talk about the top, the rich, the greedy all that stuff. all the loopholes have to come out and everything is going to level off. host: a story on the minimum wage from the christian science monitor about seattle's praising of the minimum wage. yet all's increased minimum wage has little effect. researchers say they raised the wage toward $15 per hour. it suggests the city has not seen a major business closures and job losses that opponents of the increase predicted nor have they seen significant improvement of the lives of workers that proponents envisioned. let's hear from asbury park, new jersey. diane. good morning. caller: i'm calling to say that i think we should have them in wage. the american worker does not go to work and work like they used to. they don't work hard.

as soon as the minimum wage goes up the prices are going to. bread for five dollars, the same loaf of bread that i bought years ago. it is ridiculous. they are greedy and mages hike up the prices soon as they see the gas prices going up and all of that kind of stuff. i don't think they should have a raise. host: our conversation will continue particularly on presidential politics here on washington journal. we will be joined by jim barnes, the senior writer with ballot petey a joining us to talk about where the party stands. following the supported -- the

suppose it hacking of dnc e-mails we are joined by matthew virgin rojansky. governor terry mcauliffe -- former governor mcauliffe of virginia was interviewed thursday by our newsmakers team at the democratic convention. here is what he said about the state in play right now for hillary clinton and donald trump. [video clip] >> we did have more states in play than we have seen long time. you should talk about arizona. you heard senator mccain say he is in a tough race he did not think he would originally have. the opportunities that exist for us in north carolina today, which has been more difficult recently. georgia presented as a huge opportunity. >> there may be more states in play this year but can the democrats win if they lose pennsylvania and ohio?

>> that makes the map more difficult and i think that is what the trump campaign is trying to figure out. if you look at our electoral college map, virginia, very solid right now. north carolina the numbers consistently been up for us in north carolina and florida. ohio and pennsylvania and you put those -- that is the only hope donald trump has. they're looking at those numbers trying to figure how they work those working-class white males .o bring them to their side i do believe pennsylvania, i just was with the governor pennsylvania yesterday and asked him the question. the only hope donald trump has is to take states away from us. we will work very hard in the states.

host: you can see the entire interview with governor terry mcauliffe right after washington .ournal, 10:00 eastern also hear it on c-span radio. newsmakers is available online. joining us is jim barnes, senior ballotpedia.alo 100 days until the general footion, give us a 30,000 view comparison between the republican convention and the democratic convention. guest: i think one of the more interesting aspects, in the city of brotherly love it really was one big embrace for the democrats. notwithstanding a little bit of the catharsis that the bernie said people were best the bernie sanders before going through initially.

almost to be expected. a little heartache on the part of some. gave a very full endorsement of hillary clinton and the clinton people were happy about that. he was the runner-up on the democratic side. on the republican side, ted cruz told his supporters to vote your conscience. he was almost jeered off the we did not see a real closeness from some republican officials. donald trump's name did not get the majorityot leader in the house. and there was a distancing.

trump distancing himself and there was no reference to the bushes. two living presidents. of course, the democrats fully embraced barack obama. to me that was one big difference. the party seemed more united from bernie delegates being upset verses in cleveland the republicans still seem to be trying to come together and republican elected officials are trying to figure out how we run with trump and what does this relationship really going to be like. host: 100 days until election day. we spent the first 45 minutes of program asking about the minimum wage. at the democratic convention trade was a huge issue with those no tpp signs. hillary clinton and 10 kane inrting off their campaign

ohio. on minimum wage saying in the next four weeks he's going to roll out policy stances on other issues. will the economy, trade and things like the minimum wage be center stage through the rest of the campaign? guest: that would be my excitation. normally the economy dominates that becomessues engaged in a presidential campaign. the media can focus on different issues at different times. certainly, donald trump has a capacity like no other presidential candidate we have seen disorder inject himself into the debate and drive the debate, drive the discussion between candidates. the economy ultimately will be front and center and the states you mentioned, ohio, pennsylvania, perhaps michigan,

wisconsin, i think a lot of us feel those are going to be battlegrounds in this election. host: jim barnes is senior ia.ter with ballotped you have covered every election since 1984. guest: this was my 17th and 18th national party convention. you've seen a lot. you tend to feel nothing can really surprise you but politics as a way of surprising us. i did not expect ted cruz to get jeered so much on wednesday night of their convention. host: what is your mission at ballotpedia? .uest: a nonprofit nonpartisan they view themselves as an encyclopedia of american politics. we got 240,000 euros it articles

on electionslly from the federal level down to the local level to school board. thousandt is the top school boards in the country in terms of their size. i think when you say mission the idea is we just sort of try to explain -- it is explanatory journalism in the sense. we try to layout issues for people to decide how they want to feel. we want to try to help decode american politics in a straightforward manner and people will make up their own minds. host: we welcome your phone calls for jim barnes. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. independence and all others. , how have therc

parties changed? guest: i think both parties are in flux. going back to 1992 with the election of bill clinton i think in 1984 the first presidential election i covered on the democratic side, walter mondale heir to new deal politics. that labor-based tradition inside the democratic party. to 1982 -- 1992, i think bill clinton moved the democratic party to the center, made it competitive and i think those by and large a consensus of the 2012. more business oriented centrist party that had been in the

1970's. i think this election marks a shift. most people feel bernie sanders ran a successful campaign for not winning but in terms of where he started in with the expectations were. he has pulled the democratic party to the left. host: that is a permanent shift? guest: we don't know. let's see how the election plays out. if it is hillary clinton, see how she governs. consensus in the democratic party around bill clinton's ideas and his approach that began in the 1990's i think is fracturing a bit on the democratic side. side, we havecan had in in surge -- an insurgent outsider, donald trump win the

republican election. .emarkable donald trump is a free trade candidate it appears to me. this is really not in the tradition of the republican party. not in the tradition of folks on capitol hill who have given a seeof folks -- let's -- host: in terms of a permanent mitt romney, mean george w bush and george h.w. bush not only did not attend but reject the 2016 nomination? guest: that would be a good indicator. the fact that the trump

nomination really was a strong rebuke to the republican .stablishment the republican donor class that funded residential elections. appear we saw house speaker paul ryan grappled with endorsing donald trump. a couple of weeks where he was trying to find his way to an endorsement. christie,agine chris scott walker, even a ted cruz or jeb bush, that kind of soul-searching that ryan did, that would not have taken place. he would have endorsed very quickly. host: we will go to baldwinsville, massachusetts. thanks for waiting. go ahead with your comment. caller: i have to add one more thing to what i was going to say

. donald trump is not against free trade, he is against us putting out $1 billion of goods and taking in one trillion dollars worth of goods. we can't overload our country with stuff from other people's countries and not be able to make anything and export anything. the other thing i want to say is do you think if donald trump wins that it would be possible for him to legally prosecute loretta lynch and mr. comey for not doing their jobs? mrs. clinton broke law big-time. i was asked military. i would be enjoyed forever for cheated. -- for what she did. guest: there is no doubt mrs. clinton's handling's of e-mails from the time that she was at the state department is very controversial. the subject of an investigation by fbi director comey and his investigators. .he received a rebuke from that -- did not exactly receive

there was not really a sanction for her the way there would have been if she had been a current employee. as to whether donald trump could prosecute loretta lynch and fbi director comey i do not know. i'm no legal expert are not sure . we would need some evidence that awarded their investigation. if trump was elected i don't think it would serve him well to forighting an old battle 2016. he would be the new president. his primary goal would be to try to unify the country. agenda.o pass his he's got an ambitious agenda on something click trade, immigration. he be better served by focusing

on the future rather than trying to fight known battle from 2016. host: guy is on our democrat line. caller: in reference to your almanac, i wonder if you go back far enough, since the republican party, the inception, the robber barons and the wealthy and powerful controlled the federal government. working conditions for the .orking man were abysmal from themiddle-class 1930's up to the 1970's. that was controlled by the republicans. the democrats had control of the government and that is when our wages went up, working conditions became better, the

working man had a little bit of dignity. now,980's up until congress has been taken over by reagan democrats and republicans have controlled the house for 19 of the last 21 years. the influence of ronald reagan still in the republican party in particular. guest: rudy giuliani sort of reference them and said i was part of the reagan administration. district attorney i believe for the southern district of new york. which was surprising. i don't think -- it is not clear to me. i think ronald reagan is a real republicans. of

i think with donald trump's rise of theith the tea party it's not clear to me and he is the guiding light the true inspiration for congressn members of and a lot of rank and file republicans these days. he is still revered but i'm not sure from a policy perspective or an approach to governing he is the inspiration. host: let me ask about an analysis piece in the washington post. clinton and trump are taking divergent paths talking about .heir strategy they write, the real question has trumped outreach to blue-collar workers, democrats

and the like giving us something we have not had before? cole said. the post rights michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin have bedeviled republicans for decades. predicted that the pattern will continue. for every blue-collar democrat we lose in western pennsylvania we will pick up two or three moderate republicans in the suburbs of philadelphia. the voters who are most out there figuring out what to do are not the blue-collar democrats. they are the college educated republicans or independents who leaned republican in the suburbs . a clinton adviser described pennsylvania as a reach for trump and called michigan and wisconsin high reaches for him. what do you think about charles schumer's analysis of who they are going after? guest: i think it is a pretty good analysis.

chuck schumer of new york is very astute and shrewd politician. you may recall he made some news a couple of years ago when he gave a speech at the press club saying we should not have pushed health-care reform right away. that this was a mistake, thatced a backlash produced the republican gains in 2010. schumer is a smart guy and i think that is the trade-off. white working-class voters i think are probably a little more in line with donald trump is the republican nominee. the argument democrats used to make -- they are not going to vote republican because republicans want to cut benefits. want to cut social benefits. some of trump makes clear he does not want to cut social

security. easier.little them.e that may appeal to on the other hand you have .ollege educated whites it remains to be seen if donald trump can hold that part of the republican coalition. host: doylestown, pennsylvania we hear from nathan who is a republican caller. ok?er: can you hear he it is funny how you talk about the college educated whites. suburbs asut to the you say. they do not embrace diversity except for when you are in a

choreographed big tent how they would direct the type of convention. ec blacks and whites holding hands and crying together but they all come appear to live and white flight is still an empirical fact. his credence to the old adage that modern-day liberal education gives white people the right attitude that minorities and the means to live as far away from them as possible. host: does that leave you as a donald trump supporter? only because i want him to secure the southern border and because i'm working guy, not angry. work with plenty of hispanics in my life. more about diversity than her he does. unitedy talks about how democrats were. the first thing that happened the first day was debbie wasserman schultz stepped down hackersace because some

found out hillary stole it from bernie. outside of the convention there are thousands of angry .rotesters burning flags all of that stuff was covered up and choreographed very well because it used to be 50 years ago liberals were rebels against the establishment. today they are the establishment. host: we have not addressed that. the first day of the convention had -- guest: it was remarkable. there was booing of the invocation because the person delivering it mention hillary clinton's name and a never seen an invocation boot at a convention. a lot ofo doubt senator sanders supporters were very passionate, worked hard for

his campaign. those delegates, those of the true believers. those are the ones that are working hard for the campaign and are most intensely actually going to be a bit heartbroken over it. throughout the convention you ,ad delegates holding up signs kind of the international no go tpp., no ttp -- i don't mean to suggest the democrats are completely united and it will be a big question .or mrs. clinton she will need the vast majority of them in order to win the election. my point was more at the elected official level you saw much more harmony in philadelphia than you did in cleveland.

host: jim barnes writes about that in his latest piece at org.otpedia. wererepublican senators just a wall from the gop confab in cleveland. here is anthony in edison, new jersey on our independent line. sorry about that. caller: i want to say it is about time that the republican party finally had the lying out in front of it. after all the destruction this hillary and obama administration has done we will need somebody -- he to bring a change before there is a glimpse of hope. this whole administration should be put in guantanamo bay. barack obama is the worst president after jimmy carter.

donald trump talks about make america great again he does not say that the people are great. he says the people are great but the leadership is not great enough to make the people empowered enough to be greater. the democrats are experts been masters. hillary is the worst candidate i've ever seen in my life. she has done nothing. she is lying -- she has lined her own pockets. to say that bill clinton will be the first gentleman -- the world they just horn dog. donald trump will make things great again. .e will set things right america can be an exceptional nation again. it's going to take a lot of work. democrats are grasping at so many straws to even march a muslim man whose son died in the military fighting honorably, donald trump is against jihadist radical muslims.

host: that is anthony in new jersey. guest: i think one of the points that underline anthony's argument is a good one. donald trump is a change agent in this election. he is different. he is an outsider. he is an insurgent. he can be the change candidate. may not be change everyone wants . hillary clinton is the establishment candidate. a status quo candidate because she is really running to have a third democratic term in the white house. she has been in national politics or the national eye since 1992. that dynamic is going to be an interesting one to see how that plays out in the election between trump.

can he claim the mantle of change independent mrs. clinton as status quo? host: you can send us a tweet at c-span wj. a trump supporter says i do not have to agree 100% with what trump says. the -- theit is alternative is the end of the usa. trump spoke about the get evens, putting against kasich, crews and rubio. thin-skinned. was there next location the donald trump with change his tactics or approach in the general election? guest: i think so. i'm not sure that it serves donald trump well to get in feuds with ted cruz. his goal is to unify his party. the kind of look back to the convention and say, i did not need his endorsement anyway. pac to runl form a

against him, does not serve him well. host governor gave a primetime stage, speech in primetime on thursday night addressing the convention. the home state governor of pennsylvania. john kasich did not get into the quicken loans arena for the republican convention. the host state's governor of ohio. kind of a tale of two conventions. host: we hear from susan who is a democratic caller. caller: i would like to explain that i am a person without a handicap. a woman at the age where don't blood coming from issuance of my body. i'm not a pocahontas.

i would like to tell you about citizens united. the supreme court you want to allowedthey have citizens united to open the floodgates so that people like the coat others -- the bradley center in the walkie. oligarchies that now own our government. a big convention that the koch brothers and the like take in and fund candidates to come in and they sit down and tell them you do this voting for us. you don't do that. to call metaphor, he works for public government in crimea

trying to push those people out. is taking itone off the platform we can give them any military aid. him trying to tell putin to hack into government e-mails is criminal and i think our new chant should be lock him up. host: we'll talk more about that topic in a later segment. on the koch brothers, charles koch in particular, the associated press writes about him sitting on the sidelines the presidential race thing charles the weekendst of retreat in colorado springs did not mention trump by name. as he warned political leaders are giving frightening answers to america's challenges one of -- chief lieutenant was would not use true and its -- senior vice

president of cook industries. he noted none of the candidates che in line with the ko network from a policy and police perspective. guest: donald trump does not have the whole republican establishment, the whole republican infrastructure united behind him. the democrats have been more explicit about saying we want to overturn citizens united. i believe secretary clinton has going to appoint justices who will overturn citizens united. secretarye irony is -- former secretary clinton has received a lot more money from corporate interests -- from the corporate community, hedge funds, wall street world and the various independent democratic groups the donald trump has it

is election. i know on ballotpedia we're almost certain we have a big takeout on citizens united. talking about that legal case. dominates the campaign-finance discussion. host: does donald trump need fundraising for the general campaign? money.you always need the more the better if you're running for president trying to fund the campaign. i think that the question with trump, is he going to be a self funder? he already has kicked in a good amount of money into this race. i figure at least $50 million. -- republicans are doing a better job raising money. they are picking up a bit but it will be interesting to see if donald trump opens his checkbook even wider in the fall campaign.

host: let's go back to calls in pennsylvania. this is ruth on our democrat line. for taking myyou call. i have been watching c-span for a long time and their associate -- there is so much we don't know what is going on behind closed doors. we pick and choose what is important. the environment has always been important to me. without it we are done for. i need to be able to drink my water. -- the first information on trump, the u.k. was having a vote in parliament on banning trump from the country. i thought, that is pretty scary. one of our allies is taking a vote. they are afraid do vote him out and casey made it as president. why would we even consider a man that can't come together with allies at time like now in our country?

guest: i think donald trump himself has raised questions about how well -- and my going to defend all of the nato countries or see with their theributions are before united states honors that security arrangement. host: she talked about the british vote last year. trump -- banning donald trump. we will hear next from simon who is in united kingdom. listening to us on the bbc parliament channel. either? -- are you there? them.k we may have lost cornelia and to

cottonwood, idaho. on our republican line. caller: good morning. there is so much i could say. i'm amazed at the misinformation the democrats are putting out about donald trump. i do not agree 100% either with donald trump. to put a woman in the white house that has accepted millions and millions of dollars from overseas governments that are .nethical the trump, any kind of corporate investment, people that may give to donald trump and that has been proven that hillary clinton is actually the one getting the big money. i would encourage everybody to watch, use good judgment, the open-minded and pray. it is very important.

ist: how serious of an issue the clinton foundation in terms of what hillary clinton -- the relationship with other donors?s, potential guest: it is a point republicans and conservatives press. the clinton foundation has received an awful lot of money from an awful lot of sources. may the bigger problem for mrs. clinton would be some of the .peeches that she's received a lot of the wall street firms that the bernie sanders people -- at one point there was

some question of wood you released transcripts of some of the speeches she gives. a question of whether donald trump will release his tax returns. host: what is the latest on that? thet: i think the latest is standard answer which is i am under an audit when i'm not under an audit i can release them. i don't think that gives us any guaranty. i think one thing the caller , we will have presidential debates. i don't believe there is anyway those will not come off. we will have presidential debates and the american public face-to-face. i think will give the public some insights into not only candidates themselves, their personalities but also there will be able to explain their positions directly to the

country and i think there will be a tremendous benefit. host: as of now there are three presidential debates and the vice presidential debate scheduled. the story this morning about how this ties into the nfl. the nfl reporting denying it sent trump a letter over the debate schedule. the story is that donald trump, who started to voice complaints about the presidential debate schedule said the national ball league sent out a letter protesting the dates that overlap with games but the nfl saturday said that is not true. "while we obviously wish the debate commission would find another night, we did not send a letter to mr. trump." i think we have our british viewer from bristol. thanks for calling back. caller: thank you for having me.

basically about democrats and republicans, neither of them abouto know much america's international obligations. -- the number one force in nato. for the moment, the number one military globally. economically, one of the weakest members of nato. for quite some time you have this increasing national debt. you have -- interest payments national partners remains low. or republicanst

seem to want to talk about these issues. instead they seem to be focused america suchssues a big power in the world it does make me question what is going on in the world especially when of eastern friends europe would despise russia. -- to protect against threats globally. states is so about what is going on within its own borders you have forgotten being number one in the world means you have to look at the world as the rightd elect

people to deal with not just what is happening in the 50 states but the 216 countries of the world. one view from overseas -- host: take you for your call. one view from overseas. guest: elections traditionally focus on domestic issues. the number one is usually the economy. i would say in this election there is an awful lot of talk about isis and how we deal with global terrorism. either of the candidates aren't mooring that aspect of it. thursday night, the democrats rolled out general alan to talk about hillary clinton in her credentials. i think the relationship the united states has with nato will continue to be an evolving one.

-- there areessful questions about how integrated europe is going to be and we solved the brexit vote that britain is now pulling out of the european union. i think how that whole relationship internationally settles counterbalancing putin is going to be a complex one but it will be interesting to see how both of those candidates, how trump and mrs. clinton handle that issue. ost: jim barnes is with ballotpedia.org. the weekly what's on tap this week. going looking at state politics, local politics you even mention local school board. how do you keep track?

guest: a very dedicated staff of about 70 people who worked very hard. onis kind of keeping a focus what you can do and what you can do well. really focusing on the day-to-day news, what's in the headlines today. we focused on some of the things and tried to bring some intelligence and some enlightenment, discernment to these issues. ultimately, to paul neel has a great line all politics is local. there are people who will be interested in the school board election. host: if you had to thing of one race that is the most interesting across the country -- there are a lot of them from the school board to the senate what is the most interesting or quirky race you can think of?

guest: it is always the presidential race. i think you're asking me to step beyond the story in the headlines. i think we will have a tremendously interesting senate race in new hampshire. two women. maggie hassan running for senate. -- attractive in competence. capable politicians who happen to be women. how that race plays out will be fascinating. host: we go to wellsboro, pennsylvania. hall is on the republican line. paul, go ahead. .aller: a couple of comments

a woman a minute ago said trump wanted the russians to hack into our systems. the democrats never pay attention to what anybody says. he says if they had e-mails we would like to have them back. if we can work with the russians there is not a problem with that . the democrats never listen to what people are saying. they make it up as they go along. hillary is the worst out of the bunch. what has she really ton for the country? host: we hear from bob in auburn, maine. good morning. caller: good morning i'm sorry we lost people killed in benghazi, but we're overlooking another huge, huge issue here. i believe we have to concentrate on indicting all of

the republicans in the senate in the murders of hundreds of americans every month. people using weapons of war that should have been banned years ago. and the republicans just refuse to allow the country to take control of that issue. host: all right. jim barnes, go ahead. guest: i think it will be interesting to see to what extent gun control -- we've had some terrible shootings, certainly two terrible police shootings. we've got some, you know, we've got real violence in this untry, where civilians are killed. it'lling interesting to see where gun control s. certainly at the democratic convention, u saw a lot of emphasis on this issue n. past, the democrats haven't been able to make this a winning issue for

them. let's see how this election plays out. they're certainly trying to push sort of what they would say is a sensible gun control policy. host: this was the take in the "new york times," the morning after hillary clinton's acceptance speech, and their headline was, "clinton warns of a moment of reckoning, accepts historic nomination, promising to repair bonds of trust." democrats line is next. we square from jeffrey in indiana. go ahead. caller: good morning. where i come from, you tell the tree by its fruit. donald trump's fruit are lies, deception, and bankruptcy. what is it going to lead you to? he hasn't done anything -- he has a casino here t. didn't do anything about the city. and he lied about things he was going to do, and he did not. i'm pretty sure he profitted pretty well. host: do you think donald trump's record, track record as a businessman is having much

traction with potential supporters, or is he turning people away from voting for him? guest: that's a good question. i'm not sure. certainly democrats are trying to press this argument. there's been a lot of coverage of mr. trump's business practices. he's certainly had bankruptcies. he's certainly been criticized. i'm not sure, to be honest with you. i think i suspect that it could affect some swing voters. it's fair, just as hillary clinton's record as secretary of state, as senator from new york, is fair. really, donald trump's never held elected office, right? he's never cast ballots up there on capitol hill. he's never run a state. so how do we judge donald trump? he doesn't have kind of a public policy record. it's only natural that people

want to focus on his business career. host: let's hear from california, wanda on our democrats line. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i am calling hopefully we can have peace in america. i know when you say peace, but however, i was a bernie supporter. i supported for bernie here in california. and i am now a full-fledged hillary supporter. hillary is the only candidate qualified at this time. we always bring up benghazi, as if, you know, i heard one woman say that democrats were uninformed and miseducated. i mean, that's a joke, considering donald trump. but before benghazi, george w.

bush had 13 attacks on embassies and 60 deaths from those embassies, but people never bring up any of that. emails, you go back and you think about colin powell, and i hope during this election colin powell and condoleezza rice comes out and discusses those emails. they always have these smoking guns. they always have these things that they brought up against hillary. that's so disingenuous. host: jim barnes, any thoughts? guest: well, it will be interesting to see how the email saga plays out. not k that it's probably going to be the front and center issue. but i think people have legitimate kind of concerns about why did mrs. clinton feel the need to have a private server? why didn't she turn all of her mails over right away?

you know, not long after the fact. with the possible russian hacking of the democratic national can he computers, you know, there's kind of this question of, well, you know, did she really take all the security precautions and was she a little bit maybe careless, ledge? actually, i think the f.b.i. director said, based on language, extremely careless or negligent. host: were you surprised by the chants of "lock her up" at the convention? guest: well, i remember 2008, and we had "drill, baby, drill," which was the chant among republican delegates with sarah pal in, the governor of alaska, who was a proponent of oil resources in her state. i wasn't really -- i wasn't surprised by that. you see that at a republican convention. you know, people are spirited.

i do think, though, one thing that's interesting, we've heard on the program this morning, we've heard one caller say that, well, gee, can donald trump prosecute loretta lynch and jim thome? we heard another democratic caller say, well, i think that all of those people up on capitol hill should be prosecuted because, you know, they're party to homicides because they don't sport strong gun control, i think that -- i hope that we can kind of step back from, gee, everybody should be indicted and prosecuted, and like i said, let's watch those debates. i think they're going to be fascinating. host: one more call. willis, texas, good morning to rob on the independent line. caller: hi. hello. trump needs -- ok, background,

computer science, like lots of programming, all that. but the big point, people miss trump's sarcasm. hillary's server, her people damaged it. it's in the middle of an f.b.i. forensics lab, and it's even hard for them to get anything off of it. it would have been say, like, if a couple of decades ago, trump had said, hey, mr. khrushchev, ted kennedy as got a really cheap car you can have for a dollar just if you get it out of the 20 feet of water before the police do or something. i mean, the same cannot be accessed. it was really ridiculous, everybody saying he's talking about treason or something, and hillary's people had damaged it. they destroyed federal data on it. he should point out that 30,000 emails, that's 98% of hers were about her and only two about the taxpayers, 400 emails on

taxpayer time. host: all right, rob, the comment of sarcasm he made to fox news, it was just a car sass particular comment. guest: yeah, i think one of the things is donald trump is a very unconventional presidential candidate. and he has a speaking style that is not the most precise all the time, and he's very fond of sort of throwing in one liners and jabs. that's part of his appeal to some voters. and i think sometimes it's a a le hard for voters, it's little hard for reporters to really be able to tell, well, when is he really serious here? you know, how is he trying to make this point with maybe humor and exaggeration? this is what you get when you have an unconventional candidate like trump. host: jim barnes with the

ballotpedia.org, and you can follow their reporting, too, their twitter comments. jim, thanks for being with us this morning. guest: good to be with you. host: "washington journal" continues. that last caller actually launches us into our next segment. we talked to, following the supposed hacking of d.n.c. emails by russia, we're going to talk to matthew rojansky with the wilson center's institute. later on, we'll get your thoughts on the impact of the political conventions on your vote in 2016.

>> today at 10:30 a.m. eastern, many of the featured and most talked about speeches from last week's republican national convention in cleveland. you'll see speeches by rudy giuliani, melanit trump, tiffany trump, donald trump jr., governor chris christie, senator ted cruz, eric trump, vice-presidential nominee mike pence, ivanka trump introducing her father, and the acceptance speech by donald trump. that's today at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span, the c-span radio app, and c-span.org. tonight, journalist and author joshua kindle discusses his book, "first dads:: parenting and politics" from george washington to barack obama. >> looking at fathering is trying to capture the

complexity of human beings, and fathering is kind of a weigh-in to character. we tend to think that this is a bad guy or this is a good guy. but to see that a lot of these men, who had been presidents, had different parts, they were compartmentalized, and some of them could be very laudable and do amazing things, and some could be really disappointing and horrify us. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a." "washington journal" continues. host: with us is matthew rojansky, who is the director of the ken the institute at the wilson center, here to talk with us about the reported hacking of d.n.c. emails by russia and other emails as well that was reported over the last couple of days of other servers. let's talk about the d.n.c. hacking that led into the democratic convention. how do we know it was russia? guest: well, we can't be 100% certain, first of all, that it was russia.

the evidence that we have so far points strongly in that direction. the u.s. government, certainly the administration has been careful because they don't want to politicize the domestic side of this to the extent they have avoid it, but hints have been dropped pretty strong that will the evidence persuasive that the hackers who did this, they may have been private actors, but that they were acting at the direction of the russian state. that kind of plugs into a history that we know about of hacking by the russian state, where a lot of the cyberattacks we see against high-profile, political other targets, sometimes what seems to be hackivism, but may have an ulterior motive as well, is also state-linked. it's very commonly coming from russian territory, if you can trace the servers back and sometimes chain sandeeze other ajor state actors. host: what does russia have to gain? guest: the mode of question is

very, very complicated. i think what's been frustrating to me and perhaps other russian experts, we've watched this conversation. it seems like as soon as people became relatively certain it was link to the russian government, then they knew why the russians were doing it. that part is much more complicated. there were at least three things going o. the first is the russians have these operations long term, right? so they're constantly mounting attacks of various kinds against targets, sort of probing, seeing our vulnerabilities. this is part of a long-running spy game basically between russia and the united states. we've seen cyberversus spy, people getting beat up. we've seen a lot of that in the last few weeks, and that's part of the overall conflict in the relationship. so this is -- the timing of this is what makes it suspect. that brings tout second problem, why intervene in an american election? this, too, is consistent with what the russians have been doing. if you look at european elections and european politics over the last five, 10 years, they have been channeling money, often to fringe far right and far left candidates,

not necessarily people they think are going to get elected. the challenge here is they like to stir the pot. they like create day no, sir western democracies in order to send the message that, hey, your system is not perfect, right? you go lecturing us about democracy, but, you know, your system is not that great either. they love the panama papers leak, because it showed that we're constantly accusing them of corruption, you know, all of their top officials have all this dirty money. well, guess what. so does everyone in the west. so something like this, going into the d.n.c. and revealing that there's all this dirty dealing going on behind the scenes, democracy doesn't look the way it's supposed to look, the shoe is on the other foot now, look how dirty your politics are. that doesn't take touts third step, and this is what we've seen, about donald trump. there's been this automatic conclusion that trump is some kind of manchurian candidate. there's like a trump-putin bromance and he's trying to get trump elected. that's why i'm skeptical. host: you mentioned russia's involvement in european elections in the form of money.

have we seen -- have we seen evidence of russian involvement in terms of hacking of any type or outright or covert support of candidates in other european -- in european elections? guest: yes, absolutely. we have definitely seen what appears to be credible evidence that the russians, through front companies, have channeled money to individual politicians and to political parties. they have also created what appear to be credible media outlets, so someone comes to you with a microphone and says they're from such and such news service, but an actual fact, that news service exists solely for the purpose of an operation to get someone to say something or to provoke something, or even for a kind of sting, an entrapment operation against a mainstream politician. , all which of may or may not be designed to get individuals elected in european politics, but there's no question that the russian goal is to promote the far right and the far left in europe. by the way, we've seen huge benefits from that, right? brexit, definitely benefits russia's indication that the european union is kind of a sham, that it's defunct,

doesn't have a future. and then the dutch referendum several months ago, in which the dutch people voted against offering ukraine deep and comprehensive free trade with europe. host: matthew rojansky is from the wilson center. tell us what your mission is, and tell us specifically about your interest in russia and russian politics, russian government. guest: it was founded by george kennan, the u.s. diplomat. he was ambassador to stalin's soviet union, was actually thrown out by stalin. the kennan institute was created by him and several other distinguished leaders foreign four decades ago with the goal that americans should understand not just the soviet union as a geopolitical challenge, but russia, and that's really the challenge today, to sustain an american awareness and understanding of russia and what's going on. that's what frustrates me about the current debate, is that, oh, yeah, we recognize russia is a problem. we have a big problem with russia. but we've got to understand a whole lot more about where they're coming from and how they've seen the last 10 or 20

years in order to understand why they're doing what they're doing right now. it's not at all surprising. if you've been watching russia and paying attention to their narrative, which is that americans intervene in their politics, americans try to pick winners and losers in the post-soviet space, which is their neighborhood, color revolutions, regime change. remember their complaints about libya and syria and so forth, it's not that surprising that they're trying to meddle in american politics. host: "the washington post" on friday had a piece on the roots of a beef between putin and clinton, a couple of them here. they talk about december 2011, unexpectedly protest broke out in moscow following the parliamentary election there is that featured secretary of state called the election neither free nor fair, and putin jumped on that attack, on that as an attack on russia and, by extension, on him. what are some of the other things that have sort of been percolating in this relationship or breakup of this relationship between putin and clinton and other u.s.

officials? guest: well, that is a very big -- in terms of proximate cause causes for putin to have a real gripe with hillary clinton, he identified her, rightly or wrongly -- i mean, she was the mouthpiece of the administration on foreign policy. i think the administration as a whole was, broadly speaking, in favor of the public protest in 2011 and 2012. the goal of which was more or less to bring down the putin system. and so, you know, if you're vladimir putin, you're effectively russia's new czar. it's an absolute system. it's an authoritarian system. that means that any threat to the stability of that system is a threat to you personally. so this very much becomes a mano a mano thing between putin and clinton, but i should note, anti-peat between kind of the hard-core conservatives in russia and the clinton camp goes back to the 1990's. because remember, bill clinton's administration, in which hillary clinton was an active part, and certainly many of the people who are around hill sandri who would come in

with hillary was in favor of nato enlargement, which it actually teed up, and then that happened, which russia was very much against, and also remember, clinton officials, as well as other leading americans, went into russia, literally did deals with russian oligarches, helped to privatize the russian economy, which something most russian citizens were not thrilled about, creating this semicriminal state. and then putin, of course, comes in and essentially, you know, sweeps out the whole crowd that worked with the clinton folks. there's no love lost between these two camps. host: what happened to the reset button? guest: it got pressed, and that was kind of it. the truth of the matter is, from 2009, from the official announcement of the let set and this awkward moment, we actually got a fair amount of stuff done with the russians, but that was because. cycle that had come before that. remember, the georgia war in 2008. host: right. guest: after that, basically the bush administration and putin administration didn't talk to each other. host: does secretary kerry have a better relationship with the russians than former secretary

clinton did? guest: i think that would be fair to say, yes. i think john kerr and i sergei labrov have a functional relationship. that doesn't mean they can get anything done, because their bosses don't necessarily want them to. host: our guest is matthew rojansky, they're take calls and comments about the reported involvement of russians involved in the hacking of d.n.c. emails, and we'll read other stories related 2067892-748-8000 is the number to call for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. all others, 202-748-8002. or send us a tweet @cspanwj. let's hear from louisiana. james, good morning, on our republican line. caller: good morning, bill, mr. rojansky. july 5, director comey came out and told all of america that the russians generally don't leave any fingerprints when they do hacking. now all the sudden they're leaving letters behind, using the same malware for multiple hacks t. doesn't seem like it can be tied to an entity that

doesn't leave fingerprints. and finally, if putin wanted hillary to lose, why on earth would he do something to get rid of bumbling debbie wasserman schultz? thanks. host: bill on the fingerprints issue. guest: yeah, so james, this is an interesting question, because i've wondered myself why it is that this hack has been so easy to pick apart and to prove reasonably, clearly, and i wondered the same thing around the olympic scandal. why is it that all this evidence is coming out? broadly speaking, when you have an intelligence operation, it's intended to be clan did he say teen and you have multiple layers of concealment. that doesn't seem to have worked here. but i don't necessarily buy conspiracy theories about russians wanting as a false flag for americans or the wider world to think this was someone else's operations. i think things just go wrong sometimes. in terms of the question of, you know, trying to get trump elected or trying to defeat hillary, i guess what perplexes

me most is if you think vladimir putin is trying to get trump elected, you have to be pretty short sighted not to realize that branding one of the two american presidential candidates, no matter what you think about the person, no matter what the person's position is, as the choice of vladimir putin, that's not much of an endorsement for the american people. and i would think that that would probably hurt that person more than it would help. obviously the polls are going to show us, but putin is no fool, and certainly the folks who analyze american politics in moscow, they're no fools either. you think they would advice that. host: melvin, next up from florida, democrats line. caller: good morning. let me just say one thing. i've been a c-span daily watcher or listener since 1980 when you first came on tv. one thing i want to say, give me a couple of seconds. first, people keep indicating that hillary clinton's servers was unsecure. that is false, and you can look it up and see that it was

secure. just the f.b.i. couldn't tell you who. then with respect to donald trump's statement about he told putin to try to come back 30,000 emails, you had one gentleman just indicate that the server was destroyed before that by the f.b.i. the actual problem is he's hoping that the emails were gotten before that and no one has to disclose the fact that her computer has been hacked. and even if it wasn't russia, even if someone would send them in, trump would come back to say, see, i'm getting along with if you tin, because he's actually sending the emails i requested. it showed they're getting along together. lastly, no one ever indicates, just like the last gentleman, someone mentioned the question about colin powell with the emails, he never sent -- he never sent any emails. so just to clarify some of these issues, a lot of people just talk about things that they never actually talked

factual, saying when it comes down to. host: all right, melvin, we'll hear from matthew rojansky. caller: i think that this point about trump calling for the russians to, you know, locate, uncover the 30,000 emails that hillary allegedly deleted, what's interesting to me about this point is that it's so illustrative of campaign rhetoric versus governing. i have no doubt, whatever anyone may think of donald trump, i have no doubt that a sitting american president is not going to be calling for any kind of foreign intervention in confidential american government communications. fine those communications belong to someone that he or she doesn't very much like, like, for example, opponents in the congress or something like that. and this is key to understand, because i think this is why putin is intervening now during the election, in the way that he's intervening, because causing chaos in the election is something that actually has

ripple effects. it's something that the other candidates -- the candidates themselves are actually going to echo and increase his effectiveness, versus if he attacks after the election when everyone has been forced to come together and say, well, you won and we're behind you now. then attacking america is just going to cause us to circle the wagons and his attack is less effective. attacking now when we're divided is very effective. host: a question for you on twitter about hillary clinton's server. is there any truth to the rumor that hillary clinton used a private contractor linked to russia that set up her personal email server? guest: you know, i don't see conclusive evidence one way or another about any direct links, but i can tell you is, in this day and age, the amount of financial links, technical links, cyberlinks and so forth that connect to moscow in some way, or to russian money -- this argument has been made about the trump option, that they have investors coming from russian money -- you really can

build some pretty elaborated conspiracy theories out of this space. but this is the age of globalization. there's russian money all over the place. host: there's a "washington post" piece on saturday that says a russian hacker threat grows, u.s. businesses are booming in response, talking about the organization called crowd strike. if you, matthew rojansky, were hired to consult in the campaign for the democratic or republican national can he to say what do we have to do to prevent russia from hacking us, from getting data, what would be the first step? guest: don't put anything really confidential on your servers. yeah, i don't think there's any way to prevent the kind of hacking we're going to see. look, it's one thing to prevent identity theft that's worth a couple hundred bucks, a few thousand dollars, maybe even tens of thousands of dollars. that can be done, you know, credit card companies and others can reimburse, the damage can be covered. the kind of damage from the leak of classified information, i mean, that's damage that can't be quantity feud. for that reason, the investment

of foreign governments, which have vast resources, are willing to make, breaking into those secrets, is basically limitless. and that means we're going to have an endless arms race in the cyberspace, and i think we're already there. guest: c-span is also seen on sundays on the british parliament channel. we hear from manchester next up, and this is simon in the u.k. good morning. caller: good afternoon. just a couple of points i just wanted to make. can you hear me? host: yes, i can. go ahead, simon. caller: a couple of points i wanted to make. firstly, brexit will actually hold the e.u. to form from becoming an unelected bureaucracy, which if you listen to the people, doesn't take issues with migration. to actually becoming an elected democracy, because it isn't a democracy at the moment. the second point i wanted to make was that we talk about russia's influence on brexit, but you've also got to consider russia's influence on the

scottish national party, which are borderline marx i think so, the labour party, who's led by c.n.d., a campaigner who's also a marxist. we've got some serious extremists in the u.k., and it isn't the brexit people. it's the other side. and i think what you guys might watch too much of the mainstream media, which focuses on that, and what brexit proved was that mainstream media isn't always right and people don't necessarily listen to it. and that's what brexit was a vote for. it was against the mainstream, against the government, against obama, and it wasn't just a protest vote. it was a vote for the truth, in my opinion. host: simon, thanks for joining us. guest: thanks, simon. as to brexit potentially in the long term helping the e.u. reform, maw may well be right. i hope that you are right. but i think given the choice of the u.k. remains in the european union, sort of all of the things being equal, maybe the e.u. is not as popular or effective as it should be, but it kind of stumbles forward, and the e.u.'s policies in the

east towards the former soviet countries, ukraine, georgia and so forth, those also continue, versus there is a disruptive change. the u.k. leads the european union, a message is sent to brussels, to the world that europe is wrong about a lot of things, it's doing things wrong, and it needs to be changed. there's no question that is the message that the kremlin has preferred. and for that reason, there was a sort of sly smile that crossed putin's face when he was responding to questions about, you know, oh, well, no, i would never have any intervention in u.k. domestic politics. but the other point you make, that there is likely to be some sort of russian interest or russian connection on both sides of that issue and of other issues in u.k. politics and in european politics, agree with you completely. i've made this point as well, that the more moscow can help to stir the pot, and this goes with money, it goes with broadcasting, so russia today and other kinds of propaganda, news services, and it also goes with things that are said directly from the kremlin, so challenges that are launched at

american or british or european politicians and how they respond, the goal is to create chaos, to seed uncertainty in the western democratic electorate, so that they look at the institutions we've built, whether it's the european union or the institutions of government in the united states, or others, and they say, hey, these guys are not trustworthy. this system is broken. and that helps that system is broken. get out of our politics, don't judge our democracy. don't judge our record on human rights. a headlight -- there was a post,ne in the washington an opinion piece, this is clinton has now made the democrats the anti-russia party kind of -- anti-russia party, kind of a change. guest: putin was secretary of nationith the democratic

added a reset. russia has not historically been a partisan issue. even during the cold war, there was kind of historic consensus about waging the cold war and confronting the soviet union. senator henry jackson was a democrat. that part does not surprise me. what surprises me is the assumption that the campaign rhetoric, where both sides are looking for issues that can divide them and that can distinguish them, traditionally russia is not one of them, but suddenly russia has become one. it is convenient and russia is putting itself out there. the assumption that that would continue after election day -- i think the moment after election day, whoever wins will get that intelligence briefing and will go, oh, ok, here is what we're going to do about russia. bar that said, why can't we must -- cooperate

with moscow? they said, let's cooperate, and within a couple years, we get into problems, usually over some kind of issue in russia's domestic politics, how they treat their own people, or the former soviet countries and how russia tries to manipulate outcomes or accuses the u.s. of doing that. host: how might this incident combo kit our foreign relations with russia in terms of areas of cooperation, syria, for example, and a headlight in the wall china journal says that and russia pledged to drill in the south china sea. as far as china and russia are concerned, there is no doubt that the alienation of russia from western institutions, so russia has been kicked out of the g8, now the g7. russians and americans, russians and europeans, do not have the kind of regular summit meetings are used to have. the nato-russia council has not been functioning. not surprisingly, the russians

are looking for other partners, and the chinese naturally present themselves. not an easy partner, to imagine a russian-chinese alliance is a bridge too far still. in terms of bilateral cooperation on one-off issues, like syria, for example. can we just do a deal to defeat isis and move on? the answer is our financial difference and worldviews tends to get in the way. the russians would did syria and say you americans are crazy. you think there is some kind of democratic, moderate future possible in that country. it is either assad or isis. american's object to that view. so if we do not agree on the outcome, how are we supposed to get to a deal? host: a look at a headline. gary, valencia, california, independent line. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i think mr. rojansky is nothing but the tail wagging the dog.

this is misdirection. i have not seen proof that russia did this. and fact, the issue is that what bernie and donald trump are saying, that both major parties are rigged, and they keep people out from coming in and trying to oust the elite. debbie wasserman schultz got caught, and the dnc got caught, and he is not focusing on that. he wants to misdirect people so you do not focus on how corrupt both major parties are. now they then fired debbie wasserman schultz, and then hillary's campaign hires her right after that to show you that they do not care about the people. they do not care at all about the people. he is doing a tremendous disservice misdirecting the people from the focus it should be, that the dnc is corrupt, that hillary clinton is corrupt. guest: well, thanks, gary.

first of all, i do not think i have ever been accused of spin, so that is a first to get on the air. second, i am a russia analyst, so my job is to look at the russia angle of this. look, whether what you say about the american elite, the establishment, is true or not, and i think plenty of people are persuaded of that, i read an interview just yesterday in the financial times with the editor-in-chief of rt, used to be russia today, the little green box, the russian global news network. what was interesting to me is she made the exact argument that you just made, which he does not mean it is wrong. it just means that the russians are very excited, and they are very excited to spend billions of dollars of their money to point out the ways in which they believe the western institutions of government, of politics are corrupt and are not serving the people. i think what the conversation

has been about is, why is it subtly that russians are rushing and to do this in american politics, and should that make us uncomfortable, and what does it mean about where this is going and what we will do about it, not so much about the problems we have in american politics, which many of us know about and are frustrated about. from thethew rojansky cannon institute at the wilson center. here are the numbers -- int: roger is up next alabama. good morning. caller: yes, the last caller completely took the wind out of my sails. i think the contact and the e-mails is more important, and wouldn't it be against the law, i mean, there is an investigation on clinton's e-mail server, and she deleted,

what, 33,000 e-mails and scrubbed the machine, wouldn't that be against the law for her to do that? guest: we know the fbi investigated hillary clinton's server. where are they investigating this alleged tact of the dnc, allegedly by the russians? guest: they're being relatively tightlipped so far. it is pretty clear the administration wants to substantiate in some way that there was russian involvement here, but no one has been prepared to, but the document, a federal government investigation that leads it right to put in's doorstep. it may happen though. host: you kind of opened the door on this talking about the european elections and russia's involvement there.

there was analysis in new york times yesterday, hacking of democrats e-mails raises worries some questions about what is next. they write if russia was behind the stolen data from the democratic national committee, you may see one of those tools of its to mystic politics employed as a hostile weapon and for policy. i hope i get the word right, there is a russian word for this practice -- compromat. compromising and materials, referring to the time worn -- guest: it is a fantastic point. would russian interest has been an coming into the u.s. election in this way, again, may not be so much about the outcome of the election, which i think they really would be delusional if they think they can predict that

or shape it in a reliable way that would be good for russia. because i think the net negative is already so high at this point for the russian intervention that it almost seems pointless. i think the real purpose is to create a russian feeling, the sense of everything is dirty. what a couple of our callers of just illustrated, and fact, the sense that everyone, all of these powerful people, they are all crooks, right? romat is the right word. everyone has a folder full of bad evidence about them that someone can use against them. that saps confidence in the institutions of american governance and the whole western order, which is what russia cares about her they do not care about american domestic politics. they care about the role of america plays in europe. if we are weaker at home, we are weaker abroad. some storiesere

that the democratic committee was hacked? guest: the kind of operation we're seeing little bits and pieces of know, and i cannot say if it is intentional that it is being revealed now or it is coincidental, that these are ongoing operations. you do not set out to do this, and 24 hours later you have a massive public leak. the russians and other government-backed hackers are constantly assaulting major political, corporate, organizational, and other targets in the united states, and we have to be aware of them. host: wikileaks denied a connection to the russian hack in the leak of that material. guest: i would be surprised if wikileaks did not have some connections to at least the individual hackers doing the work. it does not mean those folks get a russian government paycheck. it does not mean they are cozy in bed together. i would be surprised if there was not a relationship. host: bob in pennsylvania. good morning. familiar withi am

russia. i study it. and i see a lot of things are sold to russia from united states. one of the name brands is caterpillar. they're sold throughout the whole entire country. i mean, you have got to be blind not to see a cat in russia. it is in the whole countryside. open your eyes up, america. russia is the heartbeat of america. if hillary clinton is getting wiretapped or e-mails, it is either north korea or china using russian software. and when you send someone to or talko have a meeting with russia, have the respect and the dignity to speak in russian and understand russian, and god bless you if you can

read russian. but have the respect and dignity and not speak in english. a speak and russian. and when you also go to russia, if you see a man changing a truck tire along the highway, it is going to say kelly springfield, akron, ohio. host: ok, bob. caller: if you go to a coal mine, you are going to see mining inclement made in pennsylvania. wake up, america. you are being lied to. host: i am trying to find out, he says he has studied russia. i wanted to find out if he has been there. guest: i cannot agree more with the idea that you should speak russian. one of the challenges i think we have in the united states is after the end of the cold war, we basically abandoned our investment in russian expertise. we said, well, this conflict is over, so now we need to learn about the arab world or east asia or so forth. it troubles me how often i am

interacting with folks at senior levels of the u.s. government who have response ability to that part of the world who have either of you that has almost been frozen in carbonite for 25 years, and all of a sudden, ok, we have to do the cold war again, or they just have never been there i do not know anything about the place. host: what about the pipeline of people coming through paul -- college programs? guest: the wonderful thing about this country is we always have another generation coming, and it is always making us stronger, but there is a long tail on that. suddenly, we are aware that we have a real crisis with the u.s. relationship with russia. the russian-speaking world is one-third of a billion people. coming up. are i was told by a very senior u.s. intelligence official when i said, why is it i ask for a show of hands in a room full of analysts, and a quarter of them have ever been to the country or speak the language, and he said, you know, it is a 10-your

problem. , it will be different. host: how many times have you been there? guest: russia, dozens. i have lived there. i have been there many times. host: making anything anti-russia, that sets us back, and we wake up in a new cold war thanks to trump. that the fbi did nothing to protect the e-mails. and this observation, let's not forget that we are probably hacking everyone else. is one ofh, that those observations that i think it out help but have an effect. the russians have always wanted to remind americans of this sort of tit for tat, the shoe is on the other foot. the reality is, i cannot speak to any of the details, but i would imagine that most of the things that the russians are doing to target americans, americans, in some way or other, have been doing similar things to russia.

that is the argument. the best example i think goes to elections in the post-soviet state. americans think about training political parties, which is something we have done for a long time. we say, hey, look at this great system we have, and we will show you how to campaign effectively. but we tend not to offer that supports every political party appeared for example, if there is a far right political party, anti-american political party, understandably, we are not inviting them to come to our trainings, and we are not giving them support. the russians view that as, you know, intervention to change the outcomes and him is to politics. again, it is a clash of worldviews spirit we think we're supporting an outcome towards freedom and democracy that is good for us, get for them, and russians say this is just tit-for-tat, we're doing the same thing you have been doing. host: wichita falls, republican line. caller: good morning. i guess my comment is more of a political observation. i think what is lost on a lot of people here is there is

precedence for this happening before. in 2008, sarah palin's e-mail records were hacked, and they were all put out there. i do not recall the amount of fuss and mainstream media and dnc hysteria about the fall of western civilization because her e-mails are ely differences, there was really nothing of bears on there. i think the average person looks at this and says it is bad that russians did this, but they had think records, retail records they get hacked. they had a hollywood producer that had his e-mails hags. the embarrassing stuff about angelina jolie. join the club, dnc, this kind of thing happens. host: you touched on this earlier. guest: yeah, i don't recall that with palin, but if that was the case, it is entirely possible that there was a russian connection or some other foreign government connection. what would have been the

motivation at that time, we can only speculate. i think your point is well-taken, which is that this is a bigger problem than one particular moment in one campaign with one candidate and one foreign adversary. this is just going to be a reality of american politics going forward. we live in the globalized world and in the information world. that means the ability of four players that seek to in some way affect our politics, intervene, to damage, whatever it is, their ability to inject information, whether it is a wiki leaks flood or one little league bit of information or a report, it will be there. bethe same token, we need to careful about saying, the information, we do not care where it came from. and the law, they call it the fruit of the poisonous tree. if the information is required to really illegal means, espionage, they need to be careful about rewarding that by saying, ok, that is a perfectly legitimate point out in our politics, and that should be the

deciding factor and we should ignore the fact that it was stolen. host: north carolina, good morning to robert on the independent line. caller: yes, good morning. to the gentleman before me, do you have any thoughts on, how is it so many seemingly intelligent people can be so stupid about e-mails? they do not understand all e-mails can be hacked. when i had my first company e-mail account, from day one, my principal was never put anything printedmail they got out and made public that i was not ready to back up and say, yes, i did that, and i meant every word, too. how can so many people keep putting incriminating pigs and embarrassing things in e-mails? i do not understand that. -- incriminating things and embarrassing things in e-mails? i do not understand that. wire: on the tv show "the

come go to lesson was if you are engaged in any type of illicit activity, you better not use any other communications other than face to face. but people are doing those things, and they will probably be cut one way or another. that why people put the kinds of embarrassing comments, the kinds of just generally, you know, and appropriate things that you would not want seeing the light of day, why they will type them and send them off into cyberspace -- i mean, that actually is perplexing to me. i think the rules of got to be that cyberspace is not perfectly secure, and that goes for financial transactions. anybody who thinks banking in cyberspace is somehow safer than a small retail bank branch of they can get robs, i think they are deluding themselves. the one thing i have come up with that i think many of us see in our daily lives is just pressure. it is the time pressure, the pressure to always be on and be responding. that is going to get worse, not better. it is about making a

psychological adjustment to the reality that there is constant hacking and constant pressure to be online. host: why russia is rejoicing dropping the language he is. how much longer will vladimir putin continue to serve? all, it ist of anybody's guests. he is 25 years and to the next time he is constitutionally mandated to run for reelection. since he stepped back several years ago and served as prime minister, he is constitutionally allowed not to have two terms in a row. he could theoretically serve until 2024 without changing the constitution again. made, when he was announced he was returning to the presidency after serving as prime minister, a lot of these protesters i was talking about earlier, the so-called white movement, they also had sort of photoshop images of footwear pigeon looking like an alien,

sort of a blast from the soviet past, soviet citizens, russian citizens feeling like we have seen this movie before. we do not want this in our country appeared we want to feel like it is a dynamic place. that.has answered he is been a pretty dynamic leader. you can strongly disagree with the nature of where he is going with domestic and foreign policy, but the economy is beginning to recover. it has been shrinking last couple of years, beginning to recover. russia is on global headlines every single day. for russians to feel like we have a dynamic leader is actually not that big a stretch. host: matthew rojansky is director of the canon institute at the wilson center, russian expert at you can follow his comments on twitter. more at thewilsoncenter.org. thanks for being with us. more ahead on washington journal or the conventions are done now. donald, we would like to ask you

where your vote is headed, what you learn from the convention, and we will open up phone lines for your calls and comments in just a moment as washington journal continues. at 10:30 a.m. eastern, many of the featured and most talked about speeches from last week's the republican national convention in cleveland. speeches by rudy giuliani, melania trump, tiffany trop, donald trump, jr., governor chris christie, senator ted cruz, eric trump, vice presidential nominee might pence, peter teel, yvonne cattrall introducing her father, and the acceptance speech by donald trump. that is today at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span, the c-span radio app, and c-span.org.

>> tonight on q&a, journalist and author joshua kendall discusses his book, "first dads. " >> looking at fathering is trying to capture the complexity of human beings, and fathering is kind of a way into character. we tend to think that this is a bad guy or this is a good guy, but to see that a lot of these men that had been president had different parts, they were a bit comp are metallized, and some could be very laudable and do amazing things and some could be very disappointing. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern and pacific on q&a. " washington journal" continues. host: we open up our phone lines to hear from you. now that the conventions are over, we wanted to hear your thoughts on the impact of the conventions on you,

particularly undecided and independent votes. here is how we have broken up the phone lines -- host: of course, you can post your comments on facebook, and we welcome your tweets, @cspanwj . we are 100 days from the presidential election on november 8. here is the headline in the hill at thehill.com. volatileto go in a race third 100 days from now, either hillary clinton or donald trump will be elected president to the outcome is anyone's guess. clinton and trump up are hampered by the worst favorability ratings for nominees in modern times. both have committed fervent supporters. the shifting the graphics of the united states appeared to favor

clinton, particularly because trump up is struggling mightily to attract support from minority voters. but the want of change could go to trump, the consummate outsider. 71% of adults are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the nation. when head to head polls include nominees from other parties, libertarian gary johnson, the green party jill stein, it usually improves slightly to clinton. that dynamic can make all the difference, especially if anyone other than clinton interim it's off the debate stage this fall. that is from the hill this morning. also, we look to bring you today coverage from the road. hillary clinton and tim kaine have been campaigning in pennsylvania and in ohio today. we will be covering hillary clinton's columbus rally this eastern, life:45 here on c-span and on c-span radio. coming up this morning at 10:30, we will give you some of the

highlights of the republican convention in cleveland. we showed you some of the highlights of the democratic convention last night here on c-span. the effect of the convention, particularly for independents and undecideds -- have they moved you at all? if the cut, new york, scott on our undecided line -- ithaca, new york. caller: i think there were some great speeches, especially at the democratic convention. line, let most of the american public and non-pendants think as we have two flood candidates. in regards to russian hacks, what is really striking is they immediately accuse the russian government of hacking when it could be some lone wolf cut of hacking group or whatever that may have done that, and they are immediately linking the russian government, the candidates, and all these other things that i think are preposterous. where our system failed, i

think, and most of those that are like-minded like myself would agree, is that because we do not have open primaries, bernie sanders, like him or not like him, probably would have been our candidate had we had open primaries. we would have had independent voters voting for him, even some republicans, and it would have been a much different election picture that we have right now. host: what is it like there in york -- are you seeing presidential signs on lawns? caller: we see very little presidential signs on lawns. but here, especially during primary season, the predominant bumper sticker was bernie bumper stickers. blue moon, an a hillary sticker, but i think she is so contentious, just like trump, that most people shied away from publicly displaying most hillary stickers.

you were as like bernie supported. if bernie showed up at a rally there for hillary, would that sway your vote? caller: it would not, because this thing, like some people said, there was a viral video of this older lady saying this is beyond bernie sanders or do you know, one of us will probably write him in or somebody else, like terry johnson or jill stein .r whatever the problem with our system is so deep that it goes beyond him, so he can say what he wants about endorsing her. we can tell he was doing that with extreme reluctance. i do not think he was overjoyed to do that. most of his supporters, like myself, we're not like this or any brother kind of thing, just bernie on the brain, but we're millionthe $48 supposedly from hedge funds that went to hillary. that is just insane. host: headline in the johnstown

tribune democrat. hillary clinton and tim kaine stopping there yesterday. way too many dreams die in the parking lots of banks these days. quote from hillary clinton. we are interested to hear from undecideds and independents. , independentouri line. go ahead. caller: hi, c-span. yes, we are pro-donald trump, and this election is about capitalism versus socialism, and people should pay attention. one other thing, and not necessarily today, but usually during the week, i think you liars,call-in line for daily callers, and 30-day rule violators.

host: thank you. we do try to keep our eye on that and appreciate you for playing by the rules. next, undecided line, trinity, north carolina. caller: yes, i am undecided because there are flaws in both candidates. but i noticed the person before you, i am concerned about the the $20 trillion debt that we have, and nobody wants to address this. out, there is a movie do not's america, and i know what that is about. i do not go to the movies, but that might mean i would be voting for hillary. do you have a comment on this hillary's america? have you seen this? host: i have not heard of it, actually here it is it in movie

theaters or available online? caller: well, there is a book, and then there is a movie out. like i said, i do not go to the movies. i watch c-span. i am still undecided after the republican convention and the democratic convention. i am still undecided because of our debt. somebody has to tell me more about our debt. in connecticut, undecided line. caller: good morning, c-span. love your show. ims still undecided because both parties are bad people. they have both done some really terrible things. hillary with the nonsense going on in haiti and donald with his nonsense going on everywhere else. it makes me not want to choose either one, because they have both got some really terrible things going on. but if i had to, i would write if i in in an instant

could. i would just write his name in and pray everyone else thinks the same way and just do it again, even though i know we're not supposed to. because both parties seem to be unrealistic, both seem to be lying a lot. i am not one for constant lying all the time. i need some truths. and obama was the only one who really did what he said. i can appreciate that. law, you mightte be able to write his name in, but the problem is he would not be able to serve. caller: i know. that is with the problem lies. if everybody wrote him and, he still would not be able to get back that seat. if i had to, if bill could get a second chance, everybody knew the good things he did when he was in office, i would write even him in. because hillary or donald, i am just not really enthused with either one, because they have both got some really troubling things going on that i just don't like. hillary with the collapse in

haiti, taking the money from these people and other people got rich off of it. these people are still stuffer in, still going through that bad disaster, and nobody has even mentioned that. -- these people are still suffering. thoughts ong your the impact of the conventions, particularly for undecided voters. 100 days to the election. another story, the olympics -- began inzil brazil later on this week. a front-page headline in the washington post this morning -- movement, a river of cash run through it. as rio games began to open, organizers pocket millions from a system that leaves many athletes a living off charity of public assistance. they write that, when hundreds of millions of people gather around televisions to watch the opening ceremony of the summer games in rio de janeiro, they will be part of the economic engine that powers the olympic movement.

billions delivered to the ioc and affiliates every year. by the time that reaches the f leads, barely a trickle remains, often a few thousand dollars at most. for team usa, many leave meagerly off the largess of friends and family, charity of public assistance. the biggest tangible reward they will receive for making it to rio will be two suitcases full of free nike and ralph lauren closing that they are required to wear at all team in events. back to politics in the presidential race. we will hear from donald in south bend, indiana. good morning. good morning. look, at first, i was for bernie. but then as time went on, i realized it was not going to happen. thereegged the people out fans, ibernie

understand, but sometimes you just have to swallow, you just thatto take the choices are presented to you. vote for hillary, because we cannot let donald trump get into office. that is all i have to say. host: next is fort collins, colorado, charles, an independent. caller: hello. before i talk about the elections, i would like to talk about what you mentioned about the olympics and the athletes. my son is training for the olympics, and it is appalling hese organizations -- i mean, i am spending over $30,000 a year for my son to train to represent our country in the olympics. there is pretty much zero support from any committees or anything for the athletes. host: what sport is he in?

caller: i really don't want to tell you, because there are repercussions to mentioning things like that. and athletes, it is political, and if you say names -- no, i want to do that, but he has trained all his life. it is just kind of, yeah, he looked at other countries, and he is like, well, dad, i could go up and they will pay me $60,000 a year to train. pay, and it is kind of sad in a way, that our country -- host: to be clear, you said you paid $130,000 a year to support your son? $30,000 when it comes to his training and all the events and housing and everything. host: thanks for commenting. go ahead if you want to talk about politics.

caller: it is fascinating to me that everybody is so caught up in who is the biggest liar, who is the biggest this, when we're looking at people like donald trump, who has no policies. most of the best economists in the nation have said his economic plan will drive us into a recession. this is a guy who says he wants to look at nato and the baltic states and poland, who are in nato, to see if they are paying their fair share or we might not come to their aid. i mean, that was all created to keep russia from expanding. i just think this man is reckless, and even though you want to call hillary a liar and all this, when the rubber hits the road after the election, where are we going to be of

donald trump is in office? he says he wants to fight isis. he is just going to stomp them out. uae and all these other countries hate this man. how is he going to form a coalition? even britain, i was watching the britain parliament, and the argument was they would let donald trump into our country so they can rip him apart politically or do we just ban him altogether? he says all these things, but there's nothing behind it. i really look forward to the i find iting up, and uncanny that donald trump says it is unfair because the nfl is on. thank you. host: thank you. edward in new jersey, good morning. caller: yes, thank you. as americans, we have a choice, and the choices to abstain and strike this nonsense out of existence. if these people want to sell a sham democracy, the american people should take to the

streets and shut this whole thing down. republicans or democrats, you know, you are supporting a sham democracy. the support comes from us, so if we choose not to support either, abstain. thank you. , the getting your reaction impact of the tip up political conventions. forphiladelphia inquirer this sunday morning, contrast and compare desktop up is criticized, referring to the speech at the democratic election, clinton, bust tour crosses pennsylvania into ohio to a reminder, we will cover the in columbus, rally ohio, this afternoon at 2:45 eastern here on c-span and also on c-span radio. let's hear from helen in lake charles, louisiana. caller: good morning. i really am not ecstatically excited about either candidate, but i am going to vote for trump

because he is the new kid on the block. i trust that he is going to have the very best people to work for him in his cabinet and whatever. hishat will get over remarks, hopefully. and then, i cannot for for hillary, because i am a working class person, and that is just in aristocracy we are building. i worry about how she uses her secretary of state office to get money from foreign governments. i do not think they help me as a working class person one bit. so trump is the new kid on the block, and i am going to try and see what he does. also, we losing law and order in this country. whereis a you tube video a man is endorsing trump as a muslim, because he, too, also fears for us letting people come in here without vetting them, without knowing anything about

them, and he fears that they are going -- law and order is going to actually get off the face of the united states of america. so thank you for listening. host: you bet. waco, texas, good morning, undecided line. go ahead. caller: good morning. i just wanted to try to talk is not -- about as much as i can there there are so many reasons why wish and not vote for trump. i am voting for hillary, because she has so much -- so many things she has done for children, and i can go on and on about that. let's just say, she has a giving heart. she has contributed so many years to serving and trying to help people, such as 9/11, such as pre-k for children, and all the things she has developed for handicapped people.

we could go on and on and on. anyway, trump has no plans to contribute anything but to hit if it himself and all that he can get his hands on, such as social security. he will spend more money doing stupid things. probably bad investments that he is done in his past, such as trump university. i cannot stand the fact that he is still able to be in office, not in office, but trying to run as a candidate. he has a disgraceful mouth. he has no constructive to even get the opportunity to serve for us. for him to be so disgraceful on national news and front of children and everything, it is disgusting. i cannot even believe they allow him to say the words he says on tv. host: looking at the front page of the observer in north

carolina. it is clearly competitive, battle in full swing. democrat hillary clinton and republican donald trouble duke it out for north carolina, one of the country's most competitive states. front page, and now we go to brownsville, texas, undecided line. caller: i am calling in to voice my opinion. i think both candidates are unfit to be president of the united states. in regards to bernie sanders, i think he sold out. i was not for ted cruz, but ted did not least he' endorse donald trump. i would think paul ryan would have made a good president for the united states. in regards to hillary clinton and donald trump, i think i can deal with four years of hillary, but i do not think this country can survive four years of donald trump. host: who will you vote for? think i amht now, i

going to have to go with hillary. i do not think i could support donald trump. i do not think we could survive it. i do not think he has the experience. he is just a radical. host: warrensburg, missouri, diane, undecided line. caller: good morning. a shout out to darryl. we're not a bunch of hillbillies toting guns. my husband has a small business. he left me with $4000 a month. i was just wondering, if trump becomes president, can we impeach him on the carry thing? i heard they no longer teach civics, which is really sad. host: you are asking -- caller: if he became president, can we impeach him on the tyranny thing? host: if he became a federally

elected official, i guess, of course, he could be impeached. maryland, john, others line. , i saw at least two communist flags flying at the dnc in the audience, and i thought that was highly disrespectful, along with the black lives matter chanting during moment of silence. my question is, how does a careerent work a politician, like hillary and bill clinton, ms $300 million? do you think people do that cut of money for free? do you think they donate that money and expect nothing in return? this is the reason why our country is big rubbed and immoral -- why our country is bankrupt and immoral. host: welcoming your comments on twitter at @cspanwj. this says, conventions convince me to vote third party again.

harbingers of a sea change. trump gets russian money. who cares about russian aggression against crimea? does noterican public know why trump is the apparent admiration for pidgin is dangerous, look up litman and go -- litvinenko. illinois, independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. i wanted to comment on the olympics. i always thought the olympics was supposed to be an amateur event. corporate, and i think everybody is suffering for it. as far as the election goes from a i just want people to realize that everybody focuses on the president, and yes, it is an important office, but this is representative government. the most important thing is that

we all know who we are sending to washington to represent us in the first place. that is the important vote. it is not really matter who is at the top as long as we have good representation. that is a big problem we have. i am from southside chicago, and barack obama was a committee organizer, lawyer for people's ghoulish and -- for the people's coalition. i admired him when he first came on the political scene. him and jeri ryan. politics is just a terrible thing. we had a chance for a good election, and it just got eaten up by personal views about how the family dealt in their private lives, and barack obama was basically unchallenged. he was a state senator, junior senator, and he did not do too much. we elected him for office for

hope and change. i really dig that. he is well spoken. i left listening to him talk. but i do not agree with his politics. i do not agree with trump, and i certainly do not agree with hillary. she had left bill, she would be president right now. but it is lies piled on top of lies. we need to focus on what is really true to us, and that is the person we sent to washington. have 100 days to election day. if you had to vote today, what would you do? caller: well, i am leaning towards trump for the simple fact that he is not a career politician to he is doing what we are all supposed to do, supposed to be civic minded. he has been a private citizen, and he is walking away from his private citizen freedom. he is going to go out and do his civic duty, and hopefully he privateurn back to his

citizenship, and we will all be better off for it. we could be worse off, but that is how it is supposed to work. we are all supposed to be to be more, you know, at the local level and what affects us at home. i am just leaning towards trump right now. host: appreciate your input. the belt ground project at politico -- the battleground project at politico, how ohio will be won. he has a good chance of capturing ohio's 18 electoral votes. donald trump is adware with the state party, started organizing late, and his support in traditional republican enclaves here is shaky, but the gop nominee still has a good shot at winning ohio, where five of the last eight public polls show him in a dead heat with hillary clinton. operatives political

on both sides and knowledge, is that his message is resonating in some traditionally democratic strongholds. hillary clinton will be wrapping up her three-day bus tour in ohio today in columbus. we will have live coverage of that evened this afternoon at 2:45 eastern here on c-span and on c-span radio. let's hear from richmond, virginia, undecided line. caller: yes, good morning. how are you today? host: fine, thanks. go ahead. caller: you know, i am a democrat. i listened to so much of donald trump that i think i am just about not really knowing what i am going to do and voting time, but people keep saying, you know andama had not done this obama had not done that, but i guess people forget that obama

took office eight years ago and it was republicans that dumped lions,o the den of because they left such a big mess for him to clean up. they expected it to happen overnight. trumpen people say donald brought jobs into the country. jobs sure, he brought here, but he brought jobs here for people that work for him, and then when his projects were over, those people were unemployed. the don't know what republicans think. first of all, they dump all their crap on the democrats to clean up, and in donald trump, saying he has done this and done that, but what he has done, he has done for himself and not us. host: thanks for your call. a lot of front-page looks at the presidential race with 100 days to go to election day. the charlotte observer in north carolina -- which america will we choose, clinton or trump?

and so it begins, a fierce general election campaign for with hillaryse clinton and donald trump into north carolina and other battleground states in pursuit of the necessary 270 electoral votes. following on that, a comet on twitter about north carolina -- just hope there are enough thinking liberals in the tar heel state, now run by a filthy gop governor. carol is next in newport, tennessee. caller: good morning. i just wanted to respond to the question, the statement the man made before, if anybody has christian views and feels like they want to be forgiven, it should be between a husband and a wife. so hillary should not have left bill. schieffer gave him, and they

have moved on. -- she for gave him, and they have moved on. see where they are now. speak to the elections. one of the things we tend to forget when we have these elections is that there are down ballot folks we need to consider. really and truly, we should be considering cleaning house, period. 88% of the person selected for congress and the legislature, 88% of those folks are up for reelection this year. we have had a do-nothing congress for so long. doing nothing is the same was not going to work, and they have not been going to work. but they are still getting paid. so i think we should be focusing on the down ballot folks, in addition to the presidency, the person running for president. host: in the case of the down

ballot races in newport, tennessee, and earlier caller mentioned the new kid on the block, talking about trump, but , vote thevote for incumbent out of office in the case of your congressional representative or a state representative? caller: i have already voted in some cases, and i am voting in the way that folks will go home. , the torch, as many people say, and we're moving toward the olympics, we need to pass the torch on for other folks to stand tall for the citizens of the united states. host: let's hear from jackie and manassas, virginia, independent caller. two-fold. comment is i was at the democratic national convention, an independent. what sways me towards hillary clinton is the behavior of bernie sanders' supporters. i witnessed several incidents of

threatening and intimidating and vile behavior. i was in an elevator at the berniend had two supporters with some little old lady, a hillary supporter, back into a corner, yelling and screaming at her. i was just appalled at the level of divisiveness that was created and not onlyters that, of the green party. stein rally, as well, and it was the same thing. these folks, to me, look like outliers that would not democraty vote in a anyway or republican. my second comment is about security clearances. as a federal government employee, the lowest level of security clearance that an employee has to pass is a public creditnvestigation, your

being investigated, whether or not you have had a criminal action against you, those kinds of things he would if you do not pay your student loan, you will not get a federal job, for instance. donald trump could not pass a public trust investigation or security clearance, let alone a top-secret clearance, because he has had close and continuing relationships with foreign nationals that he owes money to. thewes millions to russians. he was bailed out by the saudi's. there is a reason for that. he cannot pass the lowest level, yet, we want to hand the keys to the kingdom to this man? to me, this is a security issue. even given all the economic stuff and everything else, i think that people have to look at that issue. because if this man cannot pass the lowest level of security that a janitor

contractor has to pass to get a federal government job, he has no business in that white house. host: we will be talking a little bit tomorrow morning at about that issue of the security briefings that both donald trump and hillary clinton will be getting, reportedly, some time next week. a couple of tweets before we wrap up. this one says, can one democrat explain how the clintons went to had broke? no private sector accomplishment. this one says the caller that said trump is doing his civic duty by running is an example of why this country is failing. trump is for himself. brad is next in international falls, minnesota, independent line. caller: good morning. i always enjoy listening in to your talks here in the mornings. i just think that the democrats that call in have to be some of

the most nations people i have ever heard. in the second point i make is this russian influence, is that russian influence anything different than sitting paul begala to israel to oust that in yahoo!? the dnc has to be the most crookedest group that this country has ever had. .illary is done good luck, good riddance to this dnc. embrace it, ok. we are one, and we're going to overcome it all, and so will you. as much as the demagoguery goes laugh thatn, i just you people consistently keep it going. so enjoy your day, my friend. host: you enjoy your day, brad,

and all of you enjoy the rest of the we get. washington journal's back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. ,e start off talking about ohio from the university center for politics to talk about why ohio is a key state for the election. more about the legend russian hack of the dnc server with patrick hooker of defense one. we will hear about the transition to the next president, whoever that may be. there is an office of presidential transition that gets underway the gets to work this coming week. all of that and your calls and comments tomorrow morning on washington journal here on c-span and c-span radio. have a great weekend. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> next newsmakers with virginia governor terry mcauliffe on the presidential campaign. then we will show you some of the speeches from the republican national convention including texas senator ted cruz, indiana governor mike pence, and presidential candidate donald trump. virginia governor terry mcauliffe is our guest this week on newsmakers, a longtime confidant of the clintons and former rnc chairman. he is also now chairman of the national governors association. gabe of politico and anne of the washingt