later, steven brill of "the atlantic" asks if we are safer since 9/11. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. ♪ >> it was a night of victories in arizona and florida or the incumbents. john mccain will go on to the federal election in arizona. in florida, senator marco rubio and democrat debbie wasserman schultz were both victorious. it is the "washington journal." ofthe last days of august 3016. both the donald trump campaign and a hillary clinton campaigns have traded comments over releasing personal health records.

there are calls about donald trump's tax records being released. how much personal information shut a candidate release, and should go beyond health and financial information? if you want to give us your thoughts on the type of information and records candidates should release, (202) 748-8001 four republicans. (202) 748-8000 four democrats. for independence. you can post on her facebook page. that aearlier in august polling company asked people about personal records of presidential candidates and how much should be released. it said that 67% of likely u.s. folders -- voters thought candidate should release their tax records to the public. 59% of voters now believe that

all major presidential candidates should release at least there must recent medical inords, that is up from 38% about14 when questions hillary clinton's health were first being raised. 11% are undecided. when it comes to the topic of medical records and personal records and financial records, how much should be released by presidential candidates, and should it go beyond just medical and health? that is what we want to ask you to share off on this morning. for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8002 independents. the editors of usa today making these thoughts, saying anyone near 70 years old may look at

the campaign schedules and envy their energy level. looks can be deceiving. voters should not have to decipher a doctor's letter, rely on internet rumors, or guess. outdidates ought to hand credible records for voters. the candidates making this an issue themselves. donald trump back on august 15 talking about hillary clinton's readiness to take the presidency in asking her about her health. [video clip] >> incident after incident proves that hillary clinton lacks the judgment, stability, and temperament, and moral character to lead our nation.

[cheers and applause] importantly, she also lacks the mental and is a cult cannot -- and physical stamina to take on isis, and not only in terrorism, but in trade and every other challenge we must confront to turn our great country around. that was donald trump from earlier. should candidates release personal records, and how much do you want to hear from candidates? the numbers will be on the screen. we will respond. eugene from arizona. democrat line. you're up first. go ahead. caller: how are you? host: fine. thank you.

what do you think? absolutely. tax and everything. you are leading the greatest country in the world. what do you think those records will tell? what does that provide potential voters? know, i know they are both up there in age, so they should show something. trump, he is coming to the most racist state in america today. host: donald trump expected to make an immigration speech today in arizona. caller: let me say this. i am a 77-year-old disabled veteran, born and raised in arizona.

in the early 1940's, and into the 1950's, segregation was worse than it was in the south. of arizona.s eugene maked trump is expected to a speech tonight at 9:00 on immigration policy. you can see that live on c-span and online at c-span.org. several stories highlighting the fact of his visit to mexico to meet with the mexican president there before that speech takes place. jack in providence, rhode island, republican line. caller: good morning. all, i am not a donald trump supporter, i supported ted cruz. yet all the records should be released. the most recent medical records, as i told your screener.

understand, i think this is a matter of public record now, mrs. clinton is on -- that is a blood clot that are. -- thinner. my sister is on this drug, she had blood clots in her leg. mrs. clinton, to be candid, is not a healthy woman. you see the way she walks. it is very slow. her gait is not good. to eightmpare her years ago, she gained a lot of weight. in the primary against president obama versus today, that woman has gained a lot of weight. she is not healthy. i don't know about donald trump. i don't know. he is 70 years old. one thing you have to say, he has a lot of energy. i don't know where he gets it from. host: is it just the health

records, the financial records, or other records? caller: the financial records are important too. i believe mr. trump is not as wealthy as he claims. koch.no charles charles koch does not say he is rich, but he is really rich. both of them are very flawed. i will be voting for mr. trump, but that is more against mrs. clinton. host: that was jack in rhode island. a health care statement for hillary clinton, making this point about her current medication, saying they include andamines, item in b12, that drug that was pointed out. oft was released july 28 2015. let's hear from republican line in arizona. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm calling.

my daughter does taxes. she was looking at the clinton taxes. issue is that they made a -- it showstion that they made a sizable donation to charity. if you dig deeper, it shows which charity she gave to was the clinton foundation. i found that really stunning. clinton-esque.o host: what kind of records do you want to see released? caller: i have mixed emotions. we probably need to see the seomel and financial to degree. host: why do you say you have mixed -- caller: i don't think, unless it totally needs they are not fit to run, then it would really

have no sway as far as i am concerned. you expect them to be moderately healthy at the age these two are. host: you said you had mixed emotions. what are those? caller: it is mixed because it would not sway my vote. i would not be voting based on what the tax return says. host: ok. anthony in arkansas. independent line. hi there. caller: how are you doing? host: go ahead. caller: i wanted to comment. i think it is really important that we don't stress the medical records so much because as we look at it, whether or not someone is on a drunk or not does not really matter, it is not really change their judgment or behavior. i kind of know how these things work. that generally does not affect

anyone's judgment. donald trump's record in regards to his medical letter has nothing to do -- or did not point out any of his actual medical record, so it is one that was basically falsified by his prescriber. when it comes to the issue of taxes, well, donald trump has not released any taxes, hillary clinton has released for the last 40 years. whether it is good or not, it will show the patterns one has. when we look at donald trump, he has not shown that obviously. if we look at it, it will definitely show that he more than likely would have some practices that we would not appreciate. i don't feel -- i would release my taxes, i don't have anything to hide. i follow the law and do not engage in the polls.

host: if you go to the website taxes. istory.org, there is links to tax records for the candidates. it goes to the 2016 presidential candidates except for donald trump. there,want to learn more former secretary of state clinton responding to donald trump's questions about her health and a rally at reno, nevada, last thursday. [video clip] -- his latest paranoid fever dream is about my health. [laughter] on.i can say is, dream applause]d

but, my friends, -- "hillary"] is what happens when you treat the "national enquirer" like gospel. they said i would be dead in six months. host: what kind of personal records should candidates release? (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8002 for independents. hi, this is bobby from jacksonville. i believe the records should be made. especially the income tax returns. as one person says, it shows loopholes, sheltering taxes debts to foreign

governments that could affect the united states. i am interested in the medical records because one of the criteria is not only their health, but if they are susceptible to dementia. that wraps up everything i want to say. host: in previous presidential elections, have you gone as far as looking for yourself at their medical and health records? caller: i have not. the only thing that got me interested was i thought about ronald reagan. in his last term, was unknown to me was that he was suffering from alzheimer's during harris turn -- his term. thankfully, he had nancy reagan to keep him on point. host: william from los angeles, california, democrat line. caller: good morning. i just want to say that this will candidacy is just one big joke to me.

i feel as though anyone who is undecided on voting and might be persuaded to vote either way based off of medical records or tax records probably should not be voting. for me, even to vote for it, i'm a democrat, even to consider donald trump, the guy either has to have a low iq or be a big ot. i don't see how this could be getting so much entertainment. why is the american public entertaining medical records and tax records? i don't understand. host: why do you think those records are not important? caller: because -- if you are a democrat, you will probably vote for hillary clinton. if you are a republican, you are probably going to vote for donald trump. that is the way it has always been. if you are undecided, you

probably do not follow too much politics. the parties are usually decided way before the election. people will decide which ever side they will vote for. host: you are saying goes records will not sway people anyway. caller: not in the slightest bit. host: lori is on our republican on. how are you? caller: good. how are you? host: i'm fine. go ahead. caller: i don't believe in the parties anymore. i am voting for donald trump. -- she is going us.istress -- destroy as part of her health, i think it is an issue. helped her being upstairs. she is always coughing and

choking. of course, you want your president to be healthy enough to represent you. enough to make the decisions. host: when you hear from donald trump's doctor in the letter that he said, and he makes the statement that he can state unequivocally that he would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. do you take that as true? are you there? caller: yes. host: do you take that as true? caller: that he is the healthiest? no. is he healthy as far as doing his job, yes. i don't think anybody -- you cannot say somebody is the healthiest. you just can't do that. them,k out of the two of

he is healthier. he is stronger, yes. host: that is lori from connecticut. that was released by jacob borenstein. the doctor who wrote the letter was asked to respond to that letter. here's that response. [video clip] >> no history of ever using alcohol or tobacco products. if elected, i can say he will unequivocally be the healthiest individuals ever elected to the presidency. >> phrases like astonishingly excellent seem over-the-top to some people. what do you think about that? is that the way you write most of your medical letters? >> no. for mr. trump, i wrote that letter. >> did he ask you to describe it that way or to pick up his kind

of language? >> that is what i did, i picked up his kind of language and interpreted it to my own. host: we are asking you to comment on medical records for the next 25 minutes or so. brian, independent. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to say that the medical records for hillary clinton are important. i also feel like donald trump's tax records are important. i think donald trump should not hide what he is saying. if he pays 10%, people want to know the truth. it is when you hide it that people hold it against you. records important would really like to see released, honestly, aside from taxes and health records, i want to hear what donald trump said to the new york times about that wall and what hillary clinton said to wall street to the

investment companies. those are the records i want released. host: why do you think those are important to know? caller: if he said he is not building the wall and he is playing people or suckers, that would remove him from the game. if hillary clinton said she is backing wall street, that would remove her from the game. the most important things that could derail their tendencies are the ones that are -- candidacies are the ones that are locked up the most. host: hillary clinton speaking at noon today. you can see that on c-span. go to the website for more information. all the other information and candidates we will feature and speeches, all available at c-span.org. let's go to joshua in amsterdam, ohio, republican line. how are you? caller: i'm doing good.

let's get back to topic. the records. if you are a professional politician, your taxes should be released so we know where your money has been coming from. if you're making $175,000 a year, and now you are a millionaire, we need to know why. if you are in the private sector and decide to run, it does not matter. you have been in the private sector. if you did something illegal, you would be in jail already. the public sector doesn't go to jail. we know that from hillary clinton. professional politicians should have to release their taxes. host: that is joshua in ohio. if you are calling about presidential candidates and releasing the records, keep calling. we want to take a little bit too talk about the speech expected trumpin arizona by donald

on immigration policy. day one i said i will build a great while on the southern border and stop illegal immigration. watch on wednesday. joining us today is liza collins. >> good morning. thank you for having me. host: what do we know exactly the positions this speech will take? guest: we don't really know much. leading up togue this speech. he could still call for mexico to pay for it, although he is going to meet with the president of mexico before the speech, so there could always be some changes to that policy after this meeting which he could talk about in terms of compromise.

we know that he will really double down on stronger enforcement and getting criminals out of the country. host: talk about arizona. why there? and specifically what has been the reaction from those in arizona about this speech? guest: arizona is a republican state. lot, but ap by a recent poll had him by five points. it is a comfortable state working to be in. he has the endorsement from sheriff joe arpaio, who is very strong on immigration. arizona has a growing hispanic haslation, so mr. trump been going back and forth over there with people who do not like his policies at all. the democrats have tried to tap into that side of things.

there is definitely a mixed message. overall, it is a republican state with an endorsement of the illegalwho is strong on immigration. host: there have been stories leading up to this on the changing immigration policy positions. for those interested in that, how are they watching this speech? guest: what we are watching today is if there is any softening from him. his team said last night that will definitely not happen. the reason we're looking for that is because last week he met with his hispanic advisory board. coming out of that meeting, he said a few things. at one point, he said he would be open to softening on his stance, which we know this has been his signature campaign issue throughout. he is very strong on it. softening would be a big deal.

the other thing he said is he would be willing to work with law-abiding, undocumented immigrants who are willing to pay back taxes. he cannot couple days after that and said that is not true, and said he was just soliciting opinions from people. if any of those things come through, that is actually a change in his stance. host: what about the meeting with the mexican president today? was it just donald trump who was invited? i imagine immigration issues will be at the top of that agenda. what else might be discussed? guest: we don't know much. hillary clinton was also invited. apparently the president of mexico invited them both on friday. we did not hear anything until late last night. it is a strategic scheduling, not just travel wise, and

although mexico city is closer to arizona than new york. sayinggo into the speech he met with the president of mexico, and we discussed this and came out with these plans. it is definitely a presidential move. it was not by any means just directed by donald trump. we do not know anything besides that. we do know that leading up to the election, the countries are connected, let's talk about things, assuming immigration up., host come host: anything else for our viewers to watch for? caller: we are really looking for -- guest: we are really looking for details. you can talk about the law and getting criminals out. what about these 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country right now? we are looking at what will happen to them. he previously said get them all out. we are curious about how he will

do that, or if he is willing to let some of them state. host: talking about that speech by donald trump tonight. ms. collins, thank you. guest: thank you. host: you can watch that speech live at 9:00 this evening on c-span and view it on c-span.org and also on our radio app. democrats line, washington, d.c., dave. what do you think? caller: i am a doctor. i have written and reviewed hundreds of these documents. there are three critical, very important items your viewers should know. first of all, in no letter would a doctor state as in mr. khan's letter that 8 -- mr. trumps there were only positive results, meaning something good. a positive result means something pathological has been

found, the disease process, the syndrome, and illness. no doctor would say that. no doctor would write that laboratory test results were, as the letter says, astonishingly excellent. the reason why is that does not describe any kind of medical finding, any kind of test result, any data whatsoever. it is hyperbole with no medical meaning whatsoever. no doctor would ever state or could ever state that if elected, mr. trump, i can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. it is not possible to make that statement because it is not possible to examine each person since george washington or even in the modern presidency to make

that comparison. it is a statement that is so obviously nonmedical that it really points to the extremely high probability that this letter was dictated or provided to the doctor, given to the doctor in those terms since we have heard this kind of hyperbole before. it is very clear that this type of information would not, does not, and will not come from a doctor's examination of a patient. as far as mr. trumps health status, based on this letter, it remains unknown. thank you. host: let's go to steve on the missouri independent line. caller: thank you, pedro. good morning. two statements. -- we had apple computer move their headquarters

to ireland to save them from paying american taxes, and they would not even pay the ireland taxes, paying less than 1% with ireland. that is where our money is going. donald trump is hiding something. that is number one. number two, if you go to mcdonald's to get a job to flip hamburgers. you need a drug test. why shouldn't these politicians, including donald trump, take drug tests and mental tests because i think donald trump is on drugs. from ohio, democrats line. caller: good morning, pedro. --ould like to start off verse of all, until recently i was a republican. my valuesnot stand on and morals and vote for a guy like donald trump.

i really believe he does not want to release his taxes because he is hiding something. something he does not want voters to know, that is the first thing. the other thing is donald trump got numerous deferments to stay out of the vietnam war so he would not have to go fight. supposedly they were medical deferments, but now he is supposedly extremely healthy. i want to know what he got that was wrong with him so he did not go in vietnam and fight like everyone else. this has to be brought to light. he is hiding too much. host: except, tennessee, tennessee line --, -- next up, tennessee, republican line. caller: i want to respond to the doctor who just called and. -- in.

i disagree with that. the doctor tells me what is going on. he says i am in excellent condition. soell him to write that down i can show it to my wife. that doctor's wrong. records matterl to you as far as -- or even the financial records matter to you? caller: not in this case. i am 64 years old. this is the first time i am ever registered to vote. on going with trump this. host: that is roy on the republican line. next up is alberto, new york, new york, democrats line. caller: hello. i just want to say i am not interested in the medical records. i am more interested in what they establish their campaign

on. as far as i'm concerned, donald trump has based his campaign on the willful wall street. street." hewall says i am rich and successful. i know how to make trade deals. host: because of that, you would not be interested in his financial records? caller: i am more interested in what they base their agenda and policies on. -- itagenda and policies is the rich and powerful policy that will be incremented. they say what they want will be done. in newhat is alberto york. recent polling taking a look at both candidates, reporting that donald trump is gaining some ground on hillary clinton in the polls, leaving her with a smaller leave heading into

september. she had her largest margin on august 9. the average of national polls, she was consistently receiving the percent of support, but she has shrunk to 3.4 points in the average, and is now falling short of the 50% mark in the latest polls. has fallen into the mid-40's. mrs. clinton remains the favorite to win. that is the hill this morning. if you go to the front page of the "wall street journal" this morning, it takes a look at mrs. clinton and the foundation that she runs with her husband. this is talking about democrats concerned about those ties a democrat from arizona saint, "the foundation has become a

distraction, politically speaking, cut the ties to the family. what is the big prize? the big prize is the presidency of the united states." a scholar at the brookings institution says the most prudent course would be to begin the presidency with a clear line of separation between the family and the foundation. this would not be an easy decision, but in my mind it would be the best for her administration and the country. the front page of the new york times this morning talking about the obama's role in the upcoming campaign, saying he will make at least one doesn't appearances -- dozen appearances. saying that his task is not to sway republicans or independence that they should choose mrs. clinton over the outcome, but will instead urges most dues yesterday supporters, young voters and african-americans, to

be sure to turn out to vote for mrs. clinton. scott from washington state, republican line. caller: good morning. i kind of think history has shown us that the presidential candidates, their medical records show us nothing. fdr got in with polio. we did not know that. jfk had a lot of problems with his health. africans disease. kins disease. reagan with his alzheimer's. there are a lot of things we will never find out. taxesturns, they pay less than the little people do. it is the politicians that set up the taxes, not the businessman. look at the politicians taxes. thank you. host: from burlington, iowa, william, democrat line. caller: how are you? host: i am well.

go ahead. forer: anyone that runs office, especially the office of releaseidency, should their attackers. they are important because one of the things that americans do here and part of being american is pay taxes. you can be the richest millionaire or billionaire and the world all you want to, but you still have to pay taxes. if you don't want to release those tax reports so people can see what you have been doing with your money, claiming your been making all this money and it is not coming in from other countries and whatnot, excuse me, what is the problem? to pull everybody else out dirt on everybody else but himself. he is not above the law.

he is constantly beating up hillary because of some records or stop that he wants to see -- stuff that he wants to see. when people ask things of him, he wants to hide it. he says the judge is not good enough to look at hand or judge him. who does he think he has? show the records. regardless of what he does, my vote is for hillary. i think he should release those tax records so everybody can see. host: let's hear from north carolina, independent line. caller: i am independent and gay and voting for mr. trump. can i say something real quick to the last three callers? someone said they thought it --

donald trump was on drugs. hillary clinton is a pathological liar. she cannot be trusted. the gentleman that just called said these people -- well, hillary, i want to see her and 33,000 e-mails. more on benghazi is coming out this morning. it was not turned over. she swore it was turned over. you cannot trust a clinton. of theor the records candidates, what do you think? caller: i think both of them could pay off a dr. to say they are in excellent health. just like one gentleman said about jfk and fdr and president reagan. tax returns, i would tell her, when we see all those e-mails that she deleted, then we can look at his tax returns. i am worried about our country more than his tax returns right now. i don't trust her.

there is a lot more gay americans out here, you cannot believe the people we have registered in this state. is in north carolina on the topic of records. he mentioned e-mails. additional e-mails, that is the wall street journal this morning, saying the state department found approximately you-mails from the clinton that could be related to the benghazi attacks in 2012 it did not say how many of the e-mails were previously public, facing the possibility that they were month the 55,000 e-mails already released to the public. it could also say with certainty identifyand then -- e-mails were related to the benghazi attacks. an event that takes place concerning the islamic state and

a key spokesperson for that saying the public face of the islamic state's worldwide propaganda campaign has been killed. the group announced that yesterday. thefounding member of brutal jihadi network was killed in northern syria according to a tweet sent out by the groups online propaganda operation. it announced that he was killed while serving operations to repel military campaigns in the northern syrian province. republican line. you are next up. caller: good morning. -- i think -- excuse me. i think there are more important things to think about and worry about than taxes. medical records, yes.

i think they should both release those because i think hillary clinton needs medical help. host: wire taxes not a concern for you? taxes not a concern for you? caller: they will tear him completely apart for the next two months. it does not matter to me about his taxes. what have they said about her taxes? have they even got into her taxes other than she released them. i have not heard one thing about her taxes other than she released them. if he releases his, it will be all over the news. the media will drive us crazy over his taxes for the next two months. mitt romney did not release is until november. why should donald trump? host: joe from michigan, democrats line. caller: i think people are missing the point on a lot of these things.

i could care less about hillary clinton's e-mails. i could care less -- i think she is in good enough help to run for president. -- health to run for president. donald trump has used the bankruptcy laws three times. when republicans are in office, this country is in bankruptcy after three or four years. the lady who just call sounded old enough to get her social security check thanks to fdr who was in a wheelchair. i get a social security check thanks to democrats. i serve in an integrated military -- democrats, i am black. medicare, women's health, all of these things by democrats. i'm not so much worried about hillary clinton as the party. what is the party done? i know what republicans will do and donald trump will do. to the gay guy who called, good

luck to you if he ever gets in office a la hitter. host: marco rubio one the nomination on tuesday night. that enhances republican chances of retaining that seek and the majority-- seat in the of the senate. senator debbie wasserman schultz defeated the college professor judging her. he raised $3.4 million in small donations and with support of bernie sanders. counts facing a 22 federal corruption indictment. lawsonstate senator our won the democratic nomination. john mccain faced a vigorous primary challenge from the right in arizona. she attacked mr. mccain is being

too weak on immigration. from oak park illinois, independent mind, you are the last call. caller: i called about health records. but i want to say to the man in michigan, what have you done for me lately? you have destroyed your policies and every city in this country. on it. -- own it. is yours. hillary clinton has a seemingly very sick husband. all you have to do is look at man and understand his history with health issues have taken their toll on him. we will have eight years of his illness having a direct effect on the president. it will be a major stress event for her. this country will pay the price if she is distracted tending to

his health issues. host: one more thing to show you. this is john boehner sending a tweet yesterday about his life leaving congress. he is driving an rv around the united states. road, god bless america." we will look at subjects concerning systems in the united states. how safe are those systems? our next guest will talk about the breaches the fbi found against two systems, what is being done to protect the system as a whole, and we will look at the price hike of the epipen. washington journal continues after this. ♪

>> this weekend, our c-span cities tour will explore the literary life and history of denver, colorado. we visit a bookstore founded in 1971, consider the cornerstone of the great culture in denver. -- literary culture in debtor. >> the original barnes & noble superstores were modeled on this. thompson living with his father, hunter s thompson. >> he was born in 1936. when he was growing up, he did not grow up in an era where fathers were typically heavily involved with raising the kids. that was part of it. second, writing was always the most important thing. family was secondary.

>> this weekend, as part of our cities tour, some history of denver, colorado. nuclear siteflats transition to a wildlife center. >> elk use this area. we also have dear. there may be some bonds out here. coyotes are common. occasionally there is a bear in this area. >> kimberly field, author of the book "the denver mint." she talks about how to make change the city. >> by the 1880's, denver had gotten rich from mining. it wanted to become the queen city of the planes, the center of commerce, the leader of the

western united states. city founders at that point decided that a man they can be -- mint they could be proud of would be part of that process. f denver,span2 o colorado. working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are joined by michael isikoff of yahoo! news, and investigative correspondent. good morning to you. how did you find this out? caller: first -- guest: there have been a lot of concerns about potential for hacking the election. a lot of this arose over the summer with discussions that the democrat national committee had

been hacked. officials said they believe that russian hackers did this. oft did raise the specter russian tampering with the elections. crossing aussians line, not just gathering intelligence, but by dumping those e-mails actually trying to influence or disrupt our democratic process? the week of the democratic convention, there was a gathering of national security experts in aspen. it is an annual event. they put out a letter that week that raised concerns that if the reports were correct and the russians did this with the dnc, what else could they do? into they seek to hack

elections themselves and tamper or disrupt the results? this has been an issue that election security folks have been talking about for quite some time. it comes up every four years. what are the older abilities? -- vulnerabilities? that letter really raised the stakes. a couple weeks later on august 15, homeland security secretary jeh johnson had a conference call with state election officials in which he warned that this is something we are concerned about, and here are steps we would like you to take to protect your election systems , and also offering federal cyber security help if they wanted vulnerability scans, and also suggested that the

department was looking at designating elections as part of the nation's critical infrastructure, which means that it could provide -- they could provide federal protection. host: then the fbi got involved. guest: three days after that conference call, the fbi sent out this flash alert saying they had uncovered actual penetrations of two state election voter databases. website --it on our published it on our website. sources tell us is illinois. hackers got in and essentially stole data on up to 200,000 voters. this seemed to move the issue from the radical to the real --

theoretical to the real. we do not help who is behind this. there are indications that this is boring hackers. -- foreign hackers. there are indications that ip addresses have past associations with russian hacks. the really ramped up concerns about this issue. host: we will continue our conversation. if you want to ask them questions, (202) 748-8000 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8002 for independents. you can tweak your questions, too. we will listen to the fbi director and get your response. [video clip] >> we take very seriously any effort by any act or, including nationstates that moves beyond

the collection of information about our country and that offers the prospect of an effort to influence the conduct of affairs in our country, whether that is an election or something else. aree kinds of things something we take very, very seriously and work very hard to uiperstand so we can eq the rest of our government to deal with it. host: can you speculate what he means? guest: that seems to be a strong confirmation of everything i was saying. they are looking at this, the instances a possible of just what the director said. you have foreign governments le inng to metal -- medd our elections.

this is not a partisan issue. this is something that should be of concern where you are on the spectrum. you were talking about the two states, well put someone clean from those -- glean from those databases? guest: that's what makes this puzzling. on its face, this does not take you directly to tampering with election results. we can discuss the vulnerabilities there. these were what a registration databases. much what a registration is actually online. for one thing, there is personal information that goes beyond what you can get online. the last four digits of social security numbers, driver's license numbers. the kinds of things that hackers traditionally might want to get cyber crimemmon

purposes, the kinds of things we have seen in so many other hacks. why this is being taken more --iously than just that is into or part of a probe wheredversaries to see older abilities are, how they can get into the system? it is conceivable that if you get into the database, you could start the leading names. suddenlyow up and their names are not on the registration lists. in most cases, there are backups, you can file a provisional ballot. havocis a way to create at the polls. that may be all the goal is here.

if it is a foreign adversary, just to sow confusion, raise doubt, undermined confidence. host: we will start with bonnie in louisiana. republican line. caller: good morning. first off, i don't believe russia has anything to do this. i don't know why russia is getting blamed for all this. we have all these other corporations that are putting these machines out. if you watch the documentary, hacking democracy, you can tell within 30 seconds they can fix the vote. you can go to blackbox voting.com. they will tell you how to do it. we need to go to paper ballots. there is no way we can trust these computers. guest: a couple of things. the concern about russia is because u.s. intelligence officials have made it clear they have high confidence that

the hack of the dnc came from russian state-sponsored hackers. they have not the treated that in a political way. that in ated political way. there have been pretty consistent statements along those lines. the -- where the vulnerabilities are in the election, the caller is right. they are there. they use optical scan machines which are backed up by paper ballot. safe,are reasonably experts will tell you. you have the security of a backup. in six states and parts of water others, including some swing states, pennsylvania and

electronicou have voting machines in which there are no paper ballots. those are computerized voting in which there is the potential for mischief, for someone to get in. i think that is where -- one area where people are concerned. in addition, in about 33 states you have internet voting for overseas and military ballots. clearly, that is another point .f vulnerability in the system elections are conducted at the state and local level. each state is responsible for its own voting. it would be difficult for somebody to pull off a nationwide cyber attack on the election.

could somebody do it in isolated instances in some of these days that use electronic voting machines -- states that use electronic voting machines, it is not out of the question. host: voting machines, some that have paper records and somewhere purely electronic. pete is up next for our guest. he is on massachusetts on the republican line. guest: this is a subject that troubled me for some time. i read a report wall street journal but it could have been another publication a couple of years ago. it was reported that george soros, through an entity in voting machine

entities in the united states, or soros is a dangerous man in my opinion. and he is reportedly behind the black lives matter and other entities like that. and i would not call it mischief. he is trying to fix the vote. , this is a man who is visited the white house. hundreds of times in the obama residency and it is a very scary and. this is a man who is basically try to rig the financial system. he is brilliant and cunning but he is very dangerous to the constitutional functions of this country. guest: i am not familiar with -- heanish voting machine

is a huge political donor to hillary clinton. he has given millions of years to democratic causes. so he is probably the equivalent on the left of the koch brothers on the right. we have lots of -- a fair number of billionaires out there on both sides who do their best to influence the election. in ways that are important with their political beliefs. the open society is among those. they are believed to have been hacked by the same russian into the dnc.ck and some of those e-mails -- one of thee

victims here. host: on the republican line, go ahead. caller: if it is such a concern breach, why would she want to put this information on tv, where in fact, it it could hacker or whoever is trying to do this? and telling them where the electronic ballots are? like thislmost sounds -- if donald trump or to win then they will name donald trump for the election. is there a political component to this? guest: the reason we are talking

about this today is because it is a concern for state officials and ought to be of concern to the public. it should be something that people are aware of. and there are precautionary steps that could be taken that the fed is urging the states to take. as far as how this plays out. this is a bipartisan issue. wantly, i think we all this to reflect how people actually voted. hackse of the dnc attributed to the russians and the allegations about the trump the association some of its top people have had with russia, this has become a democratic issue.

havee other hand, you donald trump talking about the election being raked, himself. if,t is almost as regardless of the results, one side or the other, if there is any evidence of tampering or fodder, it could become for the losing side in the election and that is why i said before, the real danger here resultst be the actual flipping and the loser becomes the winner but that there is confidence in the election results. that is the underlying. is there a move for homeland security to say that we should go in and provide additional guidance? guest: jeh johnson had that conference call.

he is connected april or ability scans on their computers. -- raising the prospect that this could be a federal takeover of the elections. we had jeh johnson from earlier this month we will listen to a little bit of it. cracks after the 2000 election, there wasa commission a dedication to the security around the election process -- there isountry

more to do. i think we should consider whether our election process is critical infrastructure. like the financial sector. like the power grid. the election process contributes nationalre is a vital interest in our election process. so i think we need to consider whether we should be considered infrastructure. host: can you offer insight into what that looks like? guest: what can or can't? good questions. as i understand it, even with

the designation it would still be up to the states to request. the federal government can't go in and take over a state election system. vulnerableate feels or a state election official feels vulnerable, they will have more opportunities to had cyber security people come in and take steps to help protect them. i think that is basically it. because jehmore johnson, in that conference call, it did offer federal help anyway. so this may be more a symbolic move in an actual move. avenues fore are the states to request assistance right now. host: bert is on the democratic line. hello. caller: a lot of these institutions could solve

problems by keeping information in computers that are not connected to the internet. actually, one of the steps that jeh johnson and the fbi has urged is to disconnect your voting machines from the internet. and that seems like a simple step that at some point, with an electronic voting machine, which is tabulated by computers, the code has to get in there. there are various points at which it does have to get connected to the internet. now certainly, the day of the voting or the week of the voting, one could probably take steps to minimize one that is. -- i don't think you could you cannot completely divorced them from the wider internet. jean on the democrats

lied. you are on with our guest. good morning. caller: i have a question about mail in ballots. do they receive the same scrutiny as to whether you show electionte with officials? i've often wondered about mailing in my ballot. how does that work? guest: well, you can, in up to 30 states, you can send in your certainlye-mail so i would be concerned about that. as to what sort of protections there are around that. questions of also been raised by privacy experts on this. the internet voting does theaten the privacy of secret ballot. host: just to clarify. presidential voting booth, a touchscreen. does that mean it is connected

to the internet currently? or does it get connected later? guest: there is a paper ballot backup. when you go you can see the paper ballot and you can have it be printed out. there is something that could be checked or verified if there was a question. host: connecticut on the independent line. edward, hi. caller: i agree with most of the callers. as far as fixing this problem with our voting system. our democracy depends on it. the i think we are allowed to vote on representatives to represent us. and they are allowed to put this problem on the floor of the house. and then vote on it after they have, with some six for the

problem. we have gridlocked. so if we going to go to paper ballots, it will have to go up for a vote, just like everything else that goes up for a vote. will not get this taken care of before the major problems that they are dealing with now. that some of them -- not all they are percentages, the way we could get things done like paper islots or any other problem to make our votes count by voting on the things that our representatives put on the florida house so that they can things that the majority of the voters want. the time to fix our nation together through our votes. host: thanks.

guest: i'm natural what the caller is referring to. with the logistical problems and costs. i'm not sure it would be a practical solution. you talked about georgia resisting assistance from the homeland security. elaborate on that? guest: we are hearing this from some republicans. there is partisan politics here. because it is the democrats that have pushed the russian hacking angle. republicans see that as a political tax on donald trump. i think the instinctive reaction is to push back. harry reid did this. ,fter my story the other day

asking james comey to investigate the role of whether russians are trying to hack into the elections. in addition, you have four or five democrats on the house writing a measure yesterday asking for investigations into allegations of the trump campaign. so there is politics with this. more than a bit. i think separate and apart, you do have the reality of what the fbi was warning state election officials about. with what they discovered in illinois and arizona. and i don't think that is political. is a real cyber intrusion that had a lot of people concerned. read the fbi flush alert that we

put out on yahoo! news the other day. fbis pretty clear that the is worried it was not just the two states. they're asking all the states to report. indication, they are concerned that this may have been a broader attack. can show up the story, there is a link to the fbi flash alert that people can read for themselves. host: the story we are talking about about the fbi looking at state voter breaches. it is, a story you will see including a link to the fbi. charlie from arkansas. go ahead. caller: i watch c-span all the time.

-- president obama flew to cuba. and they showed that there were several hundred people getting a andrnment check for $1800 then they said, how can they do that without a social security card? and they are making social security cards up from people who died. can they bring those over to vote? everybody ise blaming something on mr. trump. i don't know anything about that. go to daniel in south carolina. the democrat line. i heard a report specifically pointing to the fact that it would be very difficult to hack these machines. have an you have to

army of hackers at each polling location that could get onto the wi-fi network. basically making it almost impossible to to the people that to impacts change. i understand you mentioned something about it being tabulated and put towards a database. but from there, he would be able to notice serious inconsistencies. that is all i have on that. interesting that the caller is watching rt -- russian television. run by the russian government and obviously, they have their perspective on these things. accountsy given the from u.s. intelligence officials where they believe it was the russian and -- the russian government behind the hack. they have denied that.

that is what you would expect them to do. just as we deny covert intelligence operations that we have been implicated in. but yes, i think that to this is probablyaller right. this would be difficult to pull off because the elections are so disused. out,as jeh johnson pointed cyber actors have gotten pretty sophisticated. they have managed to get into we sorts of systems that thought were impenetrable and create all sorts of hacks. the expert write off

.ophisticated state actors to be able to pull off intrusions. that would be concerning. .y the way i should point out that washington journal just posted a piece saying that russian hackers got into think tanks that were doing research on russia. universe of the people in washington who have actors,acked by these who have been out there, is getting wider and wider. host: do states have the resources to protect themselves from these types of attacks? guest: probably not. the federal government doesn't have the resources to protect themselves as we have seen in .he opm attack and others

so when you get to some of those that the state level, no. this is an overwhelming problem. debbie is up next from massachusetts on the independent line. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. first that io say do agree with one of the callers from a little while ago saying that the media sometimes gives out too much information, publicly. even by stating that pennsylvania does not have paper backups for the ballots. i feel that with the media lately, it is totally biased. i don't stress a lot of what the media says. they seem to be definitely for the democratic party. by givingieve that out all of this information today, it is almost like you are

setting up the story so that if donald trump does win, you can -- it wasd and say tampered. the results are not correct. and that it is another ploy. why does the media have to -- it was tampered. speculate so much about what could happen? why can't we discussed what did happen? what has been happening? and go forward with that? i know everybody talks about the e-mails. why can't we talk about things like that or the issues at hand? how are we going to solve the problems in the economy? instead of speculating and getting out information that could possibly damage the voting system even further. host: well, look. that this is aon problem. the federal government is worried about it.

election officials are worried about it. caller i of the suppose she would want us to sweep all this under the road? and not tell the voters about the real concerns that people who are trying to make sure our election operates the way it think that isn't the appropriate role of the news media. it is our role and obligation to bring all of this out and inform the public and have an informed debate about steps that can be taken with the election. host: what was the reaction from the fbi? guest: the fbi did not complain. i heard from cyber security experts that did complain about us publishing the alert because it is a need to know basis.

a confidential document meant for state officials. it was not meant to be public when thiseing said, comes up and federal officials are really concerned about publishing a document that they think might cause damage to investigation or to national security, you hear about it. and i haven't heard anything. host: gary from indiana. good morning. caller: hello. say, just like you have a lifelock system to protect against the use, shouldn't you have something to protect against these other types of hackers to? maybe a required password? i think that type of system might be beneficial. there are other types i want to point out.

when they go against the independent voter, i think that is wrong. lost bernie sanders the election. host: thank you. guest: what was he saying? that was done? election results -- he wasn't too clear about it. jim in pennsylvania. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. this is a very important election. you might say it could be the rebirth of america. 30% of the voting age are not going to vote for donald trump or hillary clinton.

i think that it is because bernie sanders was cheated out of anything by the machines that don't work. 85% have been tampered with. and elizabeth warren would be a good ticket. guest: the only point i want to how muchn here is suspicion and paranoia there is about our election. we all remember florida. after 2000. 2004l remember ohio after and the disputes about whether there was some sort of tampering results bylts spy -- the building contractor.

so this is why this is such an important issue. because even the slightest evidence of some discrepancy or a hack or an intrusion around the time of the election could give rise to conspiracy theories calleranoia that the just reflected. i don't think there is any evidence of massive fraud that took place during the democratic riemer he spent there was plenty of suspicion on the part of bernie sanders supporters. that wehe more reason will be taking this issue seriously. host: catherine, hi there. taking myank you for call. i agree with michael that we should be concerned. we had suspicion in 2000.

why haven't we corrected the problem? in michigan, we have a paper ballot. i have never heard of electronic voting. why do we have things that cause as more problems? guest: in part, some of the movement towards electronic voting crew out of the experience of florida. you had paper ballots there and let the states to look at other ways to conduct elections.

it was not on the same radar screen in the way it is now at the sophistication of hackers has become exponentially greater since then. it is a much bigger threat today than it was back then. the: jeh johnson mentioned help america vote act. that was not what the act was about. host: annie, hi there. caller: thank you for taking my call. -- i believe there is a lot of corruption. they keep changing the voting places and rezoning our people. really like to see this done on a computer where everyone has a chance. not only that but we were speaking to a friend who visited us from elgin.

last week. and he was talking about the election where they are very concerned about donald trump. belgium,y said that in everyone must vote. it is a law. america, it a lot in when we are the leaders in democracy? that is my question. well, requiring people to do something that they may not want to do creates its own institutional issues but think the callers raising a whole set of other issues about voter id laws and access to voting. you had states pass laws because of the concerns. primarily driven by republican that is ind republican-controlled states with concerns about voter fraud where they have restricted hours of voting and required picture

ids. they are separate from what we're talking about. like i said before, the fbi alert says that they are clearly concerned that there may have been other states. as we are speaking this morning, i don't have evidence that other states -- something the fbi is looking at. host: from tennessee. you are next. caller: good morning, gentlemen.

a lady made comments about the election in florida. where itne in ohio took days for them to come up .ith more than an election have we been investigating what went on in those two states? and here we are talking about another country infiltrating our computer systems and all this cyber -- whatever is going on. what is the investigation on that? guest: are we talking about florida in 2000? there are plenty of investigations through the legal battle that went on.

, after the claims of -- plenty of investigations of that. but i don't think your -- i don't think there was hard evidence to temper. host: john from virginia. go ahead. there are two things here. the release from fbi has been very sparse. i have to look at that whenever he read the articles on this. -- thewe don't know

pressure to indict hillary clinton for the horrible crimes with those things i don't know how anybody could trust that this get handles. the fbi alert is sparse on details, deliberately so. the fbi doesn't like to put out information. more information than it has to. it listed ip addresses that have been used in the attacks and asked for further information about penetrations. i talked to the illinois border of directions who talked about how the attack caused the election database to be shut

down. briefed by the fbi. and a voter information was compromised. the caller is right that the fbi put out sparse details but that doesn't mean that the fbi doesn't know more than it is putting out publicly. host: the chief investigative correspondent on yahoo.com. sikoff. is of an up, the price epipen has gone up. caitlin owens joins us to talk about the drug pricing and what can be done to help control those costs. -- talking about the piece, are we any safer talking about the

the attack? washington journal continues after this. >> with the house and senate returning from summer break next preview four key issues facing congress this fall. federal funding to combat the zika virus. >> women today want to make sure that they have the ability to not get pregnant he tells mosquitoes ravage pregnant women. >> today, they turned down the but they are gambling with children like this. >> all of these votes are very vital to the future of this nation. at a time of turmoil.

>> criminal justice reform. cracks every member of this body . >> we must continue to work towards nonviolence. and senseless killings everywhere. >> commissioner of the internal revenue service for high crimes and misdemeanors. we reviewed the expected -- join usal debate thursday night at 8:00 eastern. washington journal continues. >> our next guest is caitlin

owens. good morning to you. the topic of the epipen is what we will be talking about. it has come to light recently that the price of the has gone from $100 and has increased. people are setting to take notice. host: what are lawmakers interested in learning? a lot of lawmakers are starting to write letters and reform committees. andell as going to the fda talking about the competition here. that is the crux of the issue. so what makes epipen's

special? what makes it special about things in this? epipen does is when you are having a severe allegedly action, it inserts epinephrine. it has been around for a while. and there is competition on the market for it right now. it is the only alternative out there. host: is it the way it is delivered? guest: the chemical is vital but it is in a device so the candidate can apply it themselves. host: so there is no competition as to that chemical being delivered via a different device? guest: at the beginning of this

my lawn announced that they would make their own generic version. host: well that satisfy folks on capitol hill? guest: the original epipen is $600. and that announcement, the generic that the announcement is talking about, $300. so it is still more

significantly expensive than when mylan first bought it. it depends. (202) 748-8001, republicans. (202) 748-8000, democrats. independent.2, our guest this morning is caitlin owens talking about epipen's. the closest we are houseg right now is the oversight committee. we are seeing a lot of committees talking about it. senate judiciary committee has been very proactive in trying to get to the bottom of this issue. the chamber of commerce is looking at it as well as a committee which has been looking at drug prices for a while. host: as far as house oversight, what are they looking for? what are they doing? guest: i think they want

answers. a lot of lawmakers are curious why the price increases were made. how we jump so high over less than a decade and why when this wasn't a new product. to knowlawmakers wanted why this hasn't been a generic approved by the fda. host: let's hear from some callers. john is from new hampshire. on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you to c-span for taking my call. a couple of quick things. i use the epipen. is a life-saving drug. i'm allergic to bees. this summer, for example, camping, i got down. i got out my anti-pen but if i hadn't, i would be dead. and the thing is, you have to look at these. it is also the expiration date. then youwo years and

have to replace them, usually. as it is a matter of life and death and i can't understand why a drug company, especially for a drug such as this, i am just flabbergasted. i can't even fathom the thought. host: john, how much do you pay for your epipen? me $90 it used to cost for two of them. you get two when you pick them up. it cost me $598 when i pick them up at the beginning of this spring. and the insurance company wouldn't cover it because of the cost. so i had to pay out of pocket. if i come into contact with shellfish or bee stings, it is a no-brainer. it is life or death.

guest: john, you bring up several important points. thank you for sharing. they are supposed to be replaced every 12-18 months. this is not a one-time cost. are seeing these costs year after year. another point that you shared that consumers are sharing as at fullpaying for these price -- whether you are uninsured or a consumer with a -- a lot ofble plan consumers are seeing the $600 price tag come out of their pocket. guest: on the independent line, good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to know why the medicine was developed back in the 1900s, early, and the cost

of the medicine is between one dollar-three dollars per shot. the -- was developed by the u.s. army in the 1940's. and the lady's salary has $18eased from $2 million to million. and i heard that she moves the headquarters overseas so she wouldn't have to pay taxes. yes, we are seeing these it isincreases in drugs, unchanged. it is the same drug we have seen in epipen's for quite some time. and i think that is a lot of the question here. why the price increase? what is the decision-making behind that? is it profit motivated? what has changed? a lot of the why is what we're trying to figure out. the medicine is not very expensive to produce.

it is pretty cheap. especially compared to the list price of the job. hello. caller: thank you for taking my call. and around andd around, but at the end of the day, i believe that the price of epipen has risen alongside the ceos salary. corporate greed -- that is my opinion. it has been proven that the drug doesn't cost that much. capitalism is fantastic. it is what makes america great. it is corporate greed. guest: a lot of politicians are

talking about while there is speculation along those lines, we don't know a lot about what goes into drug pricing. politicians want greater transparency. how does all of this breakdown? this point.able at host: is this a patent protection one? guest: anyone can go to market -- the fda said there was some concerns there. from pennsylvania, steve is up next. guest: thank you for taking my

call. why are we subsidizing these companies if they are doing these pricing's? guest: a lot of what we're talking about, the drug , there is a lot of concern about innovation and selloffs. the question now is how to .ncourage innovation caller: i want to say i was recently switched from one generic ranch to another and was told that i was -- that it was

exactly the same but i have drastically different reactions. said that only 60% of the original prescription is in there. i was shocked by that information. and if that is true then i think that you need to know that. guest: what interesting partially about what is going on lawn announced that they're making a generic, it will be exactly the same. a lot of them do that. host: their concerns from the

market and legislatures. guest: cracking down on the drug companies. has talklinton specifically about the epipen she issues. she pointed to her own policies. and a lot of those are more common drug policies. importeddrugs to be from abroad. greater transparency. host: have we seen reaction from the white house? guest: we have. has been a lot of talk from the white house about looking at the

drug prices and considering what it wants to do. host: michelle from michigan. the independent line. i have a question that bringever heard anybody up before. i am diabetic. i use one of those pens two or three times a day. i go into the doughnut hole in april so i know about how much they cost. if anybody given that any consideration? guest: a lot of attention is

being paid to that, whether on private -- consumers are paying a lot out of pockets. there is a conversation about what to do about that. with relief from the cost. aboutthere is a question the patent issue. they say that alternatives are awaiting fda approval. hence, mylan's monopoly. the fda has had a backlog of generic products that they -- trying to host: from illinois, democrats are up next. good morning. caller: i'm calling in about the insulin problem.

fairlymy wife have a good income. retired but our insulin prices for the two of us for three months is $1400. but i can buy a 70-30 over-the-counter. and that is for $24.95 a file. so i'm not sure. i can't afford the other. aret: yes, i think we seeing questions about consumers are seeing out-of-pocket costs. it has to do with insurance benefit design. some of it has to do with the cost of the drug in general. a consumer has a 20% co-pay on a is $1000, list price

that is $200 out of pocket. so i'm not sure about that exact situation. but that is a concern that goes by many. about how much people are having to pay, even with insurance. host: from arkansas, on the independent line -- george, go ahead. caller: yes, what is the theedure to approve company? i would sell them for $100 for a two pack. guest: it is a long process. there are applications that must be submitted to the fda and they have a strict safety standard. so it is the subject of conversations. how can we speed up the process while still ensuring safety. fbi is the integrity of the . -- of the fda. us more about mylan.

our they connected to another company? guest: mylan has strictly operated in the generic space. they acquired at the pens in -- thed since then daughter of a senator is the ceo. it is a big part of the revenue. -- we are seeing host: are they connected to pfizer? guest: they are. pfizer manufactures these job -- these drugs but mylan prices and markets them. it is clear what the contract looks like. it is not clear about what the contract looks like. of a being the daughter

u.s. senator, does that complicate the investigation? concerning drug prices, he is concerned about the birth but it is unclear if there is any kind of special circumstance here. host: paul is up next from north carolina. caller: yes. mostis pretty much the all my life ie -- have run businesses. as a journalist i am struggling, i have to pay three have in prices for drugs here that cost

ents in third world countries. but in america, they think we have more money and they charge whatever they want. and insurance companies fix politicians look at these cameras. they laugh all the way to the bank with the lobbyist checks. guest: i think you brought up a good point about the price debate at large. you have these drugs, especially cancer drugs and therapies that they are very

expensive. . example of the epipen is different because it is an off patent drug with no competition, currently. it has just been increasing isis. as we talk about drug prices going into the election and next eventually we will see this address the legislation. i think we will see this more and more often. host: bob, hi there. caller: good morning. what i want to know -- since -- a common drug that

.as been around for years there is no competitive manufactures. is it obamacare? that you don't have competitive manufacturers? you can have one manufacturer. they can charge whatever they want. has that been looked into? guest: i think that is what is being looked into right now. a complex problem. you hit the nail on the head. the argument is that if you only have one manufacturer, they can charge .hatever they want

there is a lot of focus -- this is current in the senate -- how do we get more competition? how do we incentive i drug makers to get into this space? how do we make this affordable? these are questions that are being asked. comparisonhere any between the prices of obama care? guest: you are seeing that partially from my lawn. the ceo has talked about how insurers are charging high deductibles and co-pays. why consumers are feeling it more. it doesn't change the fact that the price is changing. so, we have seen that under obamacare. a more prominent amount of having to pay out-of-pocket. but cause. host: we heard the previous

caller. do insurance companies cover a good deal of the cost of epipen? ratio is there? guest: it varies plan by plan. have apparently if you have a aan that requires you to meet $3000 deductible before they start kicking in that is why the -- if that consumer tries to buy one most likely they will play that -- they will pay that $600. host: hannah, thank for calling, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. in regards to expiration dates. i've had the epipen for my daughter for the past 10 years. we have never had to use them but have to have six of them every year, two for home, too for school, two for after school. in past recent years the expiration date is much closer than what it used to be. it used to last for one year.

now sometimes they have to to be replaced within six months. ?s there anything changing why is that happening? host: how much do you end up paying for the and? -- the epipen? caller: it depends on my insurance. i used to have to pay $20 for every -- $60 for the six but then i got better insurance. $10 for every two. it depends on my insurance. host: thank you. guest: it is recommended that people switch out at the pens every 12 to 18 months so that medicine does not expire. having to buy these new epipen's every so often, whatever the recommendation is, usually every year. i think that's a big part of why you are singing this become a big issue now because it's back-to-school time. if you have to have -- it is

time to renew your epipen you leave with your school nurse, kind of that mad rush of parents who are saying this is almost unaffordable for me and my children. host: our independent line, marietta, georgia. mark caller:. caller:good morning. a little bitet offset of what we're doing and make a recommendation for c-span about energy. if you could look into magnetic energy i would appreciate that. for your viewers i would like everyone to look up vaccines, the true weapons of mass distraction. host: let's go on to jeff in west virginia. democrats line. myelin is theo of daughter of my state senator, joe manchin. there was controversy a while back of her claiming to have an mba from west virginia

university. the claim she did not have it. landed of giving her an mba and let me read this to you. controversy, the university announced in april 2008 that it would resend -- however you say her name, degree. michael garrison was reported to family friend and former business associate of however you say her name and a former consultant and lobbyist lan.my several university officials resigned. that, could comment on did you look into that aspect of it or anything? guest: i think there has been passed controversy but i think ight now the focus is on

mylan. senator manchin shares his colleagues concerns about this. host: what is the congressman's history and looking in the topic of rising drug prices? they had the former ceo of turing pharmaceuticals talking about price increases his company put in. what resulted of that? is there a history of congress doing something? guest: this is kind of how lawmaking works. a lot of investigations and letters going out. we are seeing people like martin shkreli asked to testify. the ceo of valiant pharmaceuticals -- a valiant from a pseudo-goals. .- valiant pharmaceuticals these epipen like drugs were the price increases overnight and kind of lawmakers outraged about that. specific companies like this is

happening. behind the scenes and less in the spotlight of investigations and letters there is a growing concern about your everyday drugs and the cost of the health care system and cost of patients and insurers. the discussion is only wrapping up host:. what's the likelihood we will see the ceo for congress? guest: based on past experience i would say it is wholly pretty likely. -- it is probably for the likely. host: jean, hello. caller: my first time ever getting through to c-span and i am thrilled. caitlin, that is a great name. a couple of questions. why now? what are the raise the price so dramatically now? if you can answer that. the other question i have, how much research do you do as opposed to consulting? apparently you did not research

this greatly. guest: that is a question that lawmakers are asking, why now. this did not jump overnight. ylan007 is when m acquired the epipen. year-over-year until we reach that 600 -- that $600 price. host: here is adrian. caller: thank you for having me on your program. my big question is my son requires an at the and for food allergies and he has had some close to brushes. is there any type of co-pay assistance in the state of tennessee for this? -- mylanipen and mylan has announced epipen does have a discount program. it had it before this whole controversy surfaced and double

down of the program as a response to the controversy. at the national level there is assistance to help people with their cost-sharing. host: you wrote recently about the topic of orphan drugs. what are they? treat rarean drugs diseases. it affects a small portion of the population. there was a law passed a few decades ago -- the issue was if your population but can treat it small how are you going to recoup the cost of treating these costly diseases? a law that incentivizes drug companies to create cures for these diseases that affect only a small part. host: diseases such as? guest: some autoimmune diseases. very specific kinds of cancers. host: when was the law passed? guest: in the 1980's. host: what have we seen as a result of the passage? guest: a lot of new drugs come to market the treat these were diseases. they have been life-saving.

a great thing for people with these diseases are yet i think what you're seeing is drugs coming to market under the orphan drug law and being used for other purposes that are not for these small populations and that is where the controversy comes from. host: given example. guest: say you have a drug slated for a disease that affects 2000 people and all of a sudden it's discovered that it could treat the common cold. you get massive recouping of cost. massive profits. that is where the issue is here. if it's not being treated for these populations and charged that high price and having all these tax prices -- host: who is looking into this issue and how is it being resolved? guest: i think it is coming on lawmakers are' -- on lawmakers' radar.

i'm not -- this is one of those deeper issues under the drug price debate. not as prominent as epipen or martin shkreli. this is a more complicated issue. host: michael is up next talking with caitlin owens. michael is from new york, democratic line. i spent half a century in hollywood fighting the copyright wars except i was there to fight for the public domain. this is a question not so much of copyright or patent thought of anti-trusts. in 1987, ronald reagan announced he would not be pursuing any more antitrust actions. it is from that to this point now -- these people, these big pharmaceutical companies with these drugs that anyone can make , they go to these small generic

companies. in some cases they have offered them $1 billion not to make a generic. the theory is we can screw the taxpayer out of $9 billion over a period of time. a formula for one of these things. they set we can soak the public for $9 billion. we will cut you wonder -- we will pay you $1 billion not to create a generic. this is how this kind of stuff comes about. 1974, been taking since two very common drugs. one is a muscle relax or another pill. a pain i used to drive to tijuana when i was in los angeles. soma for $85000

for $80.furious set they were made in southern california. today, my doctor gave me a somaription for some effort 20 pills it was $138. this is the kind of thing going on across the board. this lies with the administration, the president. they have to bring these antitrust laws. host: thank you. guest: another thing to bring up again about the storyline with epipen is there was a lawsuit a few years ago between mylan and pfizer to stop a generic from coming to market. ,here are generics in the works did not make it through for whatever reason. we might see that come back again. in this case we did see an effort to stop a generic from coming to market. host: a viewer on twitter saying

is price gouging going on knowing competition is coming online soon? guest: that is something that happens. something experts talk about. especially, maybe not this case is much where it you have an instance where you know a patent will expire these companies can increase the price with the expectation of there will be a generic that comes to market shortly so let's recoup costs while we can. that was part of the epipen discussion when they thought there would be a generic come to market in 2015. maybe that was part of the rush. that generic never materialized. host: samantha, philadelphia, pennsylvania. independents line. caller: thank you for taking my call. on -- alln is based of these reporters in stories. the topic currently is wise their price gouging. my question is why our journalists doing their job in reporting on who exactly is receiving the money from these

big pharma companies. hillary has received almost $1 million from big pharma. how is she going to solve the problem when she's receiving money from big pharma? behind her there is a list of republicans who have received tons of money from big pharma. why aren't we reporting on that and talking about who these lawmakers are? receiving political donations. one of many organizations that donates money to political campaigns. i think that you see politicians struggling to figure out this issue because on one hand pharma -- pharmaceutical companies in general it a lot of life-saving treatments and cures . while lawmakers want to facilitate that in grade miraculous things to market they want it to be affordable for consumers. it's a tricky conversation. host: peter is from

pennsylvania, republican line. caller: good morning. my question is when you go to the doctor, i've been on pain pills for years. you go to the doctors and say he puts on their you can refill it five times. sometimes,a bill more if i'm in pain. when i go to get them refilled i might have two refills left but they say they cannot refill it unless you go back to the doctor and get another prescription. why will they let your refill it until all your refills are completed? guest: i think we see a lot of consumer safety laws in this space and there's a lot of regulations to make sure there is not abuse especially of prescription painkillers. that tension is only

heightening around this issue of opioid epidemic. while it might be inconvenient for some consumers it also is designed to help deter abuse. host: you can find caitlin owens reporting at mooring consol.com. thank you for spending time with us. guest: thank you for having me. host: the atlantic's steven brill joins us for a look at safety in the years passed september 11. we will talk about what's been done and spent to keep the united states safe. coming up next when washington journal continues. ♪ month we are this showing booktv programs during the week in primetime. in case you're not familiar with our weekend features, booktv takes our public affairs programming and focuses on the latest nonfiction book releases through author interviews and book discussions. signature programs are in-depth,

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guest: i have done a book about the aftermath of 9/11 in 2003. have gone on to writing about other subjects and doing other things since then. as the 15th anniversary approached about one year ago i started to think, i wonder what we have done. how would you tally the score? did we spend it wisely? where do we waste money? how to change the country? i approached the atlantic with this idea for a project to take a real look 15 years later at what we have done and where we are today. host: how would you assess where we are today? guest: i think we are a lot stronger. we did a tremendous amount in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to change our security posture from what it was on september 10, 2001, which was not

much of a security posture at all. we don't a lot. that is -- we have done a lot. the bad news is the threats have multiplied and changed. while our defenses are stronger the potential offenses are even stronger. in particular, we have gotten pretty good at being able to connect the dots intelligence wise. contact the kind of orchestrated carefully planned multiparty attack that was the september 11 attack. we are pretty good at finding out about that kind of stuff. while that has been going on. we have suffered a new kind of threat from so called lone wolf's or small groups. even homegrown terrorists who don't have to breach our borders

to do us harm because they are already here. that stuff is much harder to defend against especially in the country where pretty much anyone can go into a store and buy an attack rifle and go to a shopping mall and have the kind of firepower that other countries reserve for their police and military. if you have the combination of lone wolf's who are inspired by , playing sooups disaffected they want to make a mark on the world and some play, if you have the ability of the availability of weapons and who are not deterred by the prospect of death those kinds of threats are difficult to prevent. host: if you want to ask our guest questions about the safety of the united states in the years since 9/11, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000, for democrats.

for independents, (202) 748-8002 . what has been the price tag for the safety? guest: we have probably spent domestically leading aside the war in iraq which was supposedly a response to the 9/11 attacks and a response to the threats of .error, which it was not leaving that aside we probably spent something over $1 trillion. some of it was well spent. probably $100 billion to $200 billion of it was basically poured down the sinkhole. wasted on technology. government contractors in washington promised would be infallible and never worked that all. dollars onllions of a border security system that boeing sold the government that basically had to be taken out

because it did not work. all these alarms and sensors on towers all across the southern whenr and they sent out mosquitoes flew over the border. they could not see downhill. the whole thing was a total fiasco. almost a comedy except it was an expensive comedy. host: as far as money that was well spent, give us an example. guest: we certainly did a good job of preventing the kind of attack that happened on 9/11. we have a much better trained security force at the airports as much as we like to ridicule them. cockpitsied all the and airliners so that even if some "plain they can't get access to the cockpit related to on september 11. we have installed a lot of good technology at our ports.

various potential threats such .s radiological material down the country we ford some very good money homeland security in our major cities. on september 10, a country where a natural gas pipeline was pretty much completely exposed on the west side of manhattan where it was running from the midwest of the new england and came up in this place on the west side of manhattan and a minory anybody with explosives could have set the whole thing off. hundreds of thousands of instances of vulnerabilities like the that we spent money to really fix.

where i am in new york, we are so exposed that basically someone with a backpack getting on a train could have caused much more death and destruction than the hijackers caused about 11. we strengthened the train tunnels. there are less examples like that. this is a story of tens of withands of real heroes the department of homeland security, local enforcement agencies now working together to make us a lot safer than we were on september 10. it's also story of a lot of wasted money and wasted effort and a lot of political posturing. host: are we any safer?

, takingby steven brill your calls on this topic. harry, you're on first with our guest. good morning. safer? are we definitely not. i have been fighting with the nra since 1976 over assault weapons with extended magazines. why don't we buy those magazines back, put an dropdead date on them and give those extended magazines to the military insider buying them. we are trying to dollars at and put band-aids on things. tell elected officials to get their heads out of the sand. guest: i agree with that. if you talk to law enforcement officials, homeland security officials, whether they are republicans or democrats, conservative or liberal, they pretty much agree it is a

suicide pact. , to haveane to allow access uniquely in this country. easy access to assault weapons. there are lots of things we cannot prevent one of the things we can do is if someone is inspired by isis or just crazy to go into a shopping mall or a church and she people, at least make it so that they only kill six people before law enforcement gets there as opposed to 30 or 70 or 200 people. host: from columbus, ohio. only is up next on the democrats line. a simple question. follow-up sort of two harry of st. louis. in your opinion, or would you comment on would this be a

favorite country if we were in a rebate program of some kind. couple that with registration of weapons. focused on removing assault weapons from the hands of a population. a multiyear thing. various cities and the country have done it at various times. had turn in programs for guns. this is not rocket science. we are the only country in the world that allows this kind of easy access to assault weapons. we even allowed in the nra has fought restrictions on armor piercing bullets whose sole purpose is to penetrate bulletproof vests worn my police

officers. value of armor .iercing bullets that is insane. relatively easy thing to do compared to the other challenges with homeland security such as dealing with dirty bombs, .adiological weapons bioterror this is something we could do that does not cost much money and is fairly sweet -- fairly straightforward. host: the creation of the department of homeland security. how is the merge going now? doit was a logical thing to in many respects to take -- just to you. -- you were greeted

and inspected at the airport by an integration and financial services person to make sure you as a person was allowed into the united states. and by a customs officer to make sure that the materials you are to the united states were ok to bring in. one officer, one agency doing that also makes sense. also, for recovery from a disaster. it tends to put them together. the bad news is you create such a large industry that it is proven difficult if not person to for any one -- manage the ba

response in an efficient way. jeh johnson, the incumbent secretary, my impression from all the reporting i did is that he is really focused on good management, efficient management. he seems to be having a good effect. there's no mistaking the fact that this is a massive bureaucracy. there are all kinds of problems with a bureaucracy like this. i think they have been making progress in the 13 years it has existed. host: how many agencies are under dhs now? guest: depending on your definition it is 22 or 23. almost indicative of how -- debate over health many agencies there are. host: from district heights, maryland. tony, go ahead. caller: and the republicans for smallerre

government and they're going to create the department of homeland security? what terrorism attacks have they stopped? 14 of the 19 hijackers from saudi arabia and this is the reason why think terrorism is a joke. 14 of the 19 hijackers are from saudi arabia and we have not dropped one bomb on them. i guess if you have oil it's ok for you to have terrorists. if you have oil to give us it took a few have terrorism. we are only interested in countries we claim have terrorists that don't want to give us their oil. we have the audacity to be here in other countries labeling their citizens terrorists. the only country that can get away with something like that. -- it ison terrorism starting to spread internally. we have cops treating black

people like we're isis. guest: i don't agree with a single thing that caller said. host: clyde from new jersey. democrats line, you're on. caller: good morning gentlemen. i feel unsafe especially against foreign and domestic. the only reason why, not too long ago we had a shooting harbor township in the law. a little girl in camden got shot in the head by stray bullet. you just feel unsafe. you're free to go anywhere. host: someone on twitter references a point you made earlier and they ask how flexible is homeland security ?are they proactive on that front ?

guest: a combination of agencies. homeland security is much more engaged in the nitty-gritty work of seeing who's coming into port at the airports. who's getting on airplanes. the fbi is charged primarily with preventing an actual attack. as i going to great detail in the article they have adapted radically and quite successfully since 9/11. on september 10, 2010 the fbi went to john ashcroft and the attorney general and said we need more money to fight terrorism. ashcroft turned him down. 10 2011,n september literally that day, brief members of congress and said the threat primed terrorism

was from animal rights activists. the turnaround in pasture and positioning some 9/11 has been absolute. increased the size of government for more important devoted lots of people, lots of resources to intelligent analysis, connecting dots. the fbi and the cia and the department of homeland security constantly daily share intelligence information. ,qually important, share it although sometimes in a grudging way, share it in exchange it with local law enforcement, the people on the front line. , thenk the adaptability flexibility, is there. having said that there is a natural inclination among

security people and politicians to fight the last war. in other words, whatever's currently in the headlines is members politicians and of congress put pressure on the homeland security people to worry about. the example i given the article, you'll recall after 9/11, the week after, there were the amtrak attacks. someone mailed anthrax in an envelope to several media offices and offices of members of the senate. several people died. , bioterrorism was the watchword of the dead. it was an vote. we spent tens of hundreds of millions of dollars on biosensors to deploy in cities around the country that we never perfected the technology. down -- headlines died

they are still in cities across the country. the consensus that they don't work. 15 years later we have done nothing to improve the technology unit as we continue to spend $80 million to $100 million a year maintaining the stuff that does not work. we cannot hear anything about threat of a bioterror attack anymore because it's not invoke, not in the headlines and the ,epartment of homeland security the officials were asked at a congressional hearing -- not a single member of press attended. at that hearing had happened in 2001 it would've been standing room only. undersecretary of homeland will have you on this new technology that will actually work so you can detect a bio threat.

he said, we're probably three to eight years away from a fixed. this is 15 years later saying we are free to eight years away because it is not in the headlines. anthraxne mails another bundle to someone today or someone sprinkles it, got been on the sidewalk somewhere, we will spend billions more to have that fixed by tomorrow. flexibility. also a tendency to run after the next headline the way soccer players who are untrained, andybody runs at the ball forgets the overall strategy in the overall game. host: stephen from connecticut, independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. so much to talk about. i just want to talk about a couple of examples.

overclassification. into dustnect between a mystic intelligence in foreign intelligence. some of the newer stuff -- domestic intelligence and foreign intelligence. organized raids that took place in paris. an example of a plus work would raid. osama bin laden all that stuff on the downside is slow over classified. why don't the academics have it? be a plus side, the response to boston. the lone wolf attack. i would say they schooled people . i still don't see enough communication between these extreme ends of u.s. --elligence talking about

nobody is talking about cell phone intelligence threat. brill?r. guest: i did not understand the question. host: he talked a little bit about information sharing which you talked about her it remember after 9/11 there was a term called stove piping in which information toguest: we have done a lot share information. we've also been a lot to deal with the reality. the fact that terrorism is going to happen. this is where the politics comes in. the republican party has attack president obama for admitting that some terrorist attacks are going to happen and therefore as the responsible president he's got to spend money and effort on

mitigation, lessening the damage from attacks and recovery. the department of homeland security in recent years has paid for a series of drills all around the country in various cities to get all of the local first responders, state, federal, city people, fire departments, police departments, ambulance drivers, to get them to have a coordinated plan in the event of a disaster. they practiced these plans. as it happens, about six months before the boston marathon bombing the federal government department of homeland security, paid for exactly that kind of drill in boston. as a result of that, because they had worked out in advance what method they would use to disperse injured victims to various hospitals around boston, how they would deal with that, communicate with each other, they were able to get the

injured from that bombing to hospitals so efficiently and quickly when it actually happened. whoculously, nobody died did not die at the scene of the bombing. .hat is mitigation it's of unsung. does not make a lot of headlines. that beingorts like financed and practiced all over the country? has been obama attacked by republicans who say if you talk about mitigation recovery you are throwing in the towel. is we have to talk about mitigation recovery because the reality is president 9/11 thisaid after will never happen in this country again, that is not realistic. especially not realistic in an age when you have lone wolf's or

small groups with access to weapons who can be inspired rather than deployed from around the world. there will be terrorist attacks. the question in part is what we do to mitigate damage and what we do to recover. if we remember that the goal of terrorists is to scare us out of our way of life and scare us into turning against each other to the extent that we are resilient when there is an , it boils their goal. best it foils their goal. caller: hello. thank you. i just want -- she said when i -- do you feel secure? i don't.

i think the united states is in terrible shape. to go why a kind of want with trump because he is going to try to stop some of this from beingd drugs brought into this country and i think that is what is causing all of the crime. so much drugs. even now starting in kentucky. heard they were shipping truckloads in here. , hearingws every night so many have died. it's terrible. clinton is not going to do and can about it. at least trump said he try. face andto somebody. at least he's going to try. i hope he does put a stop. guest: with all respect to the caller, if the topic is -- in the article i wrote i praise much of what president bush and his team did,

tom ridge is for secretary of homeland security think was very effective and appraised much of what president obama and his team have done but i must tell you that one of the areas in which both president bush and president obama deserve praise is they refused to take the bait and call terrorism a war against islam. they refused to call it that in the reason they did was the terrorists major goal in their warped mind, what they want most of all, what they envision, is the great battle of civilization in which western civilization fights a crusade against the muslim world. that is the way they try to inspire people to join them. president bush never took that they. president obama never took that bait. donald trump takes that date

every day and makes this a war between us and the muslim world. , i don't want to get involved in presidential politics but to my mind he would -- hiseat victory victory would be a victory for the goals of isis, which is to have someone who is the president of the united states declare war against islam and insight more people over to their side. host: you speak about a program in your case called countering violent extremism under the department of homeland security. talk about that program and its proactive nature of this issues. guest: what that program is trying to do, nothing more nothing less than trying to get to people, particularly young people, before they go over to

the underside. to reach people who might be disillusioned, might be disaffected. yield to theted to isis kind of propaganda online witho find those people online messages of their own to go into the communities where those people might be and to their friends, neighbors, loved ones and say here is a way to reach these people. it sounds really soft and it is. it's the kind of thing where you can't really gauge results because you can't tell what you prevented. we would be negligent if we did not try to do it because the other side is really trying to do. host: $50 million prize tactic that program.

money spent all over the country for community groups, website, there is even a contest among colleges and universities to create the most effective peer-to-peer age group to age group messaging and social media and online. spread thinlyn is all over the place. host: let's you from michael in dallas, texas. glad bush and obama stance and gett suckered in. too bad bush got suckered into going to iraq but that's another show. what i want to say is this. as far as a black man, black terrorism. scared of

we've been terrorized every single day we've been in this country. host: don is up next. democrats line. caller: i watched that fiasco in orlando. that sunday on cnn for three hours. the only good thing they did was first responders and the rest of them government people, only thing they did was interview wounded people. do not send a soul in there to help. they knew there was only one shooter. it took them three hours messing around with equipment before they ever do decide to go in. just another reason why people in this country -- you'd better have your own weapon. you can't depend on government at all. thank you. host: a response to either of

those collars best callers? guest: as for what happened in the bar in orlando i think we are waiting for the so-called after action reports. yesterday skeptical since they are often written by the people whose conduct is under question. -- any think anybody person with common sense, is against people having weapons for self protection as long as they have been screened before they get those weapons and as long as those weapons are not military weapons fire some protection weapons. my basic view of the world, and this comes from talking to law enforcement officers, we ought to treat guns like cars. we certainly all have the right to draw the car the before you can drive a car you have to

prove that you know how to car and you have to register the car. you have to prove your qualified. i think that's a common sense way to treat guns. , youu want to the car could get a car but you would not be in the drive an abrams tank down the street which is probably the equivalent of an ak-47 when it comes to guns. host: (202) 748-8001 four republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8002 for independents. topic of happening -- the topic of hacking has coming to light. where are we as far as protection from it? guest: we are certainly more aware of it. -- i was ablenly to interview lots of government officials who say they are working on it 24/7.

intelligenceber control center that i visited and described in the article. frankly, you don't know. i think in some ways the threat has been overblown. i don't think our power grid is quite as vulnerable as some people i said it is. i described in some detail the kinds of drills and exercises the federal government has encouraged. those who own our critical infrastructure -- a privately owned it such as the electric power companies or water companies to go through drills can simulate attacks. in this case the kind of attack most likely to occur to the power grid would be a cyber attack. having said that, you wake up every morning and you hear about something else, hacking the

democratic national committee or attempted hack of voter sites in arizona or something. you really don't know just how .afe or unsafe we are i know there are a lot of people spend a lot of time worrying about it. it's one of those things where for all the effort he spend we could still wake up tomorrow morning and there would be some kind of a significant catastrophe. host: here's jim from ohio. republican line. steven brill, looking at safety after 9/11. caller: good morning. regards to in weapons in the hands of citizens. that?what you mean by

caller: what does our constitution say? the second amendment? i've asked people this. and how manyinged people have read the constitution. what is the definition of the word infringed? believe to violate or to break the law. it is declaring that if we are required, the ,itizenry, to have a permit we're breaking the law, or the state is breaking the law by making us have a permit to carry a concealed weapon. guest: with all due respect that

maybe what you believe but the most conservative members of the supreme court in recent memory, antonin scalia, in the heller decision, the decision that overturned the gunoverturned the district of columbia, justice scalia himself said this did not mean that the government could not enact regulations to limit the kinds of guns and circumstances under which people could have guns. there's a clause in the constitution that guarantees you and i the right to travel interstate. that does not mean states cannot require me to have a drivers license before i get behind the wheel of a car. host: from mike in pennsylvania, independent line. your next. -- you are next. caller: the people dying this

country every year in large five figure numbers from heart attacks, cancer and diabetes. even though there are 600 people eat in the year who die slipping and falling in the bathtub. i was wondering why you are such onaser beam of attention being afraid of terrorists and terrorist danger when there are so many other things that can cause one's demise in this country that are more prevalent? i will take the answer off tv. guest: that's a really good question and question i asked president obama what i was doing this article. you're exactly right. we regard terrorism as a different kind of threat. i think it's because, first of that we cant assume slip and fall in a bathtub. we don't assume that we are bad

drivers. we assume that we can control a lot of that about our health. terrorism scares and angers us because it's so unpredictable. innocent people. we did not do anything to be victims of a terrorist attack. it really angers us because these people are our mortal enemies. we see them indiscriminately trying to kill children. does. what terrorism and angers us because it is indiscriminate, unpredictable. we have seen an san bernadino or orlando at it can happen anywhere. it's not just an iconic building , not just an airliner. you could just be in a community service center in san bernadino or bar in orlando and this can happen.

it upsets usis why and causes us to focus more than the causes of death that you so rightly outlined. host: when writing the piece, what surprised you? things you did not know before. guest: what surprised me was we still have not done enough in dealing with the threat of a dirty bomb. a bomb where you take radiological material, the kind you can -- the kind used in a hospital or various industrial uses in processing plants by logging companies. it take this material and he mexico with a standard explosive and it really -- and mix it with standard explosive. the bomb my kill half dozen people but it produces radiation levels.

when the police show up with radiation detectors it will show radiation levels equivalent to a super -- around a large, 30 to 40 to 50 square-foot block area. that won't some ways cause panic, cause you to have to abandon the area. i was surprised we had not done much about that including educate the public that those radiation levels are probably not as dangerous. the tabloid headlines might make them. advanced the bio beyondsensor technology the rudimentary technology we had on the morning of september 11. that really shocked me and drove home the point that we continue to chase today's headlines as opposed to sit down and line up

a list of threats and really assigned a priority to them not based on headlines. based on risk, based on the feasibility of dealing with the threat. we have not done a perfect job. we have made progress but have not been perfect job. host: greg from wharton, virginia. go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. when it comes to guns in our country i've heard a lot of discussion about this. the fact is we are awash in guns. the criminal path -- if criminals have ar-15 come ak-47, they have them. .t is too late we cannot get rid of all of these guns. i hate to see people living in fear of these terrorists. that is what the terrorists goal is. host: sorry about that.

we have to move onto another event. final thoughts? guest: i think that is what terrorists want to do. they want to scare us. politicianshave using that same rhetoric of fear , the better off the terrorists are. brill contributed this to the atlantic. are we any safer after 9/11? things were time this morning. at the national press club, an event taking a look at the topic of terrorism and national security. former senator bob graham who will be speaking on classified information that was held after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that have recently come to light. he was pick about what the information found and what he thinks of it. [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] >> more transparency into the worst terrorist attack on united states soil. senator graham is the co-author