records, medical histories, and more. "newsweek" senior riser kurt eichenwald will talk about the finances of the clinton global initiative. ♪ host: good morning on this friday, september 16. "wall street journal the"wall street journal" -- and"wall street journal" others have written to the president asking him not to pardon edward snowden tear you may remember him as the former national security contractor who leak stolen records about the agency in 2013. 23 members of congress have signed this letter. every member of that committee. all of this comes as the new movie, and oliver stone movie,

about the life of edward snowden is released today. what do you think it should president obama pardon edward snowden? if you think yes, call this number, (202) 748-8000. you don'tnk not, if think the president should pardon edward snowden, call this number, (202) 748-8001. if not by phone, you can weigh in by social media. our twitter handle is @cspanwj , and facebook comments are coming in at facebook.com/cspan. go to the website of the american civil liberties union, the aclu, you will see this posting by the executive director there, anthony romero. "obama should pardon edward snowden, and we are launching a campaign to make it happen -- and we have got a lot of help." mr. romero writes --

host: they point out here at the aclu site that they are being joined in this campaign by amnesty international and human arty havech, and they an impressive list of more than 100 former national security officials, legal scholars, technology and business leaders, human rights activists, and artists on board. and they include, some of the names here, george soros, steve wozniak -- the cofounder of , jimmy wales, founder of melvinia, they have goodman, a former cia division chief, as well as bruce ackerman, a yale logical professor, also a writer, and actor daniel radcliffe. here is edward snowden in his own words. he spoke this week with the "guardian" newspaper about the situation and why he should be given a pardon. [video clip] me,rd: this is not about

this is about us, but the public by and large cares about these issues far more than i anticipated, so it has led to this wellspring of support that i am incredibly fortunate to receive. but more than anything, the key here is -- what kind of society do we want to live in? run the campaign. again, i am not involved in this, but what we are seeing is a conversation about the war on whistleblowers that has been occurring either for the last decade but of course has escalated under the most recent presidents, who has brought more charges against whistleblowers than all other administrations combined, and this is a chance for the public to have their say, to speak about how they feel about this. dealing thing i can do is stand to the site and be thankful. someone has said recently that you have done a public service. do you think that would help

make the case for having a pardon from obama? edward: it is not for these disclosures, if not for these revelations, we would be worse off. yes, there are laws in the books that say one thing, but perhaps this is why the pardon power exists, for these exemptions, for something that seems unlawful for letters on a page, but when we look at the morally, ethically, when we look at the result, it is obvious that these were necessary things, these were vital things. host: interview there with "the guardian." here is a look at the letters from the house intelligence committee. "dear president obama, we urge you not to pardon edward snowden, who perpetrated the largest and most damaging public disclosure of classified information in our nation's history. if mr. snowden returns from , where he fled in 2013,

the u.s. government must hold him accountable for his actions." we will have white house reaction it little bit later. the movie is coming out tonight, the oliver stone movie called "snowden." we get to your calls now. mike from south carolina. go ahead, sir. caller: no, i do not think they should pardon snowden. if each of us in this society can make a decision as to what appropriate, you know, it is a strange thing. i think if you do it legally, if he had done at the correct way, by surfacing a concern he had, it would have been addressed appropriately. and then to say it is not about him -- it has always been about him in his mind and his right to ,o whatever he thought regardless of what he signed in his employment contract or anything in which he agreed not

to do exactly what he did. if we are totally unbounded -- and i do agree that each of us do have some rights, but this is such a different thing that i think he needs to be held accountable or else every person will be running their own way. mike ine voice their of south carolina for a we go on to prudence who is in aubin, utah. -- south carolina. we go to prudence who is an ogden, utah. should we pardon edward snowden? caller: absolutely. raised that if i did what i considered to be the best thing for my country and all the other things, they do not have to keep us in the dark. that is what they want to do for your we are supposed to just walk around, look stupid, pay

our taxes, and let any member of congress do what they want. and what they want is to keep business as usual whatever and they do not really necessarily care for my country the way i do. host: prudence, let me throw a quote at you from the letters of the house intelligence committee. they say that mr. snowden is not and they do not really necessarily care for my country the way ia patriot, he a whistleblower, he is a criminal. where is that line drawn, in your view? sure, but itnot would take a lot of looking at what he is doing and what they are doing. want to keep us on knowing about everything, and they want to know everything. i guess that is some kind of power, but it is not particularly impressed me. i want my country to be run the way -- the ideals of my country were given to me when i was a child and i was growing up. when i was a child and growing was a lot longer ago than you would imagine -- and i really do not see the great

benefit of secrets. and the secrets are always there for other people to know, but as u.s. citizens who are supposed to vote, who are supposed to know, and who are supposed to be educated by our country, to know what our country is and what our ideals were, i just simply cannot imagine that i am supposed to sit here feeling really stupid, never knowing half of what you see every time there is a whistleblower, they want to string him up. you cannot know anything. the military -- they classify everything. it is like that old story about shot everybody and said he would let god sort them out. that seems to be the wait it is with classifications in the military. i cannot member this government -- and i worked for the military dailyago -- the

news was classified. the daily news. because i was here in one place, i could not discuss it in the office with other people, and all they were talking about was the news that i had talked about -- we do not get too much news anymore, i suppose. i think that is the problem. host: all right, thank you for calling. we have alice from kalamazoo, michigan. should the president pardon mr. snowden? caller: absolutely not. he broke the law. now, this is supposed to be the land of the lost. if he broke the law, he needs to go to prison. he probably put a whole bunch of people's lives in jeopardy, so why should he be pardon for doing wrong? if that would be the case, why of theou put all lawmakers in prison because i'm pretty sure they are breaking the laws, too. was alice for michigan. here is jerry from boston. go ahead

. caller: hello? host: jerry, if you can turn your sound down on your set, we will hear you a lot better, sir. caller: i will turn it down. host: what you think about this question whether edwards noted should be pardoned? caller: well, i think he knew what he was doing, sir. they do fingerprints -- they do fingerprints, and they do everything else to get to be a part of that nsa thing. him he had his dad helped from all the way from california where he was from smuggle him over to china, smuggle him over to russia so putin can stick his fingers and obama's eyes because him and obama do not get along. if he got along with obama, did some a say, "you

terrible to the united states. we need to turn you around and send you back to the united states of america so that you can stand trial for the things that you have done." -- putin did it in spite despite president barack obama, so they kept him over there , na"g, "na, na, nah like little kids, and i hope everybody that is calling in can understand what i'm trying to say. putin does not like obama, and that is what i wanted to say. host: all right, that was jerry from boston. writes thatpost" the intelligence panel in the house rejected arguments that .nowden acted out of conscious

host: a little but more from "the post." they said that snowden failed basic training for employees on a key position of the foreign intelligence act, fisa

hear from arthur now. arthur is in memphis. good morning, sir. i do not think he should be pardoned because i think he is behind the hacking of the dnc. i think he helped russia do that. so no, i definitely do not think he should be pardoned. host: let's hear from johnny calling from nashville, tennessee. hey, johnny. caller: how are you doing, man? host: good morning. caller: good morning, sir. just a couple of quick statement that i could. your question earlier, where do you draw the line between criminal and patriot? i guess that depends on which side of the fence you stand on. beon't think the man should prosecuted. if it wasn't for people like him bringing things like this up to the forefront, we would never know what big government was

doing to begin with. as far as that goes, i guess it would depend which side of the fence you stand on, whether you are the one going to get in trouble or whether you are the one to get people in trouble. the second thing is that most everything that the man did put out there, i really did not see -- i am former military myself -- and i really did not see a whole lot of anything that was going to be very damaging to national security in what was released. the big deal with the fact was from what i see is that people got caught doing what they should not have been doing. the administrations have done this time and time again, over and over again, and it is just about time that somebody put them in their place and let them know that we are subject to a nation of laws, and that goes for anybody and everybody, you know, from all the way down to bourbon street to the elite who

are currently running the white house. i appreciate your time. thank you for taking my call. host: johnny, thanks for being part of the conversation this morning. melanie is holding on from omaha, nebraska. should obama pardon snowden? caller: absolutely not. i think he should stay in russia with putin. he gave him his three computers to get all the information out of. i also believe that he is probably behind helping the russians get all that information for the dnc to hack into it, and i don't think he is a patriot at all. i think he is a criminal, and i think he should stay with putin. that is where -- and also, wants to know everything, but yet we don't know nothing about trump.

we don't know anything, and these people want to vote for trump, but what do we really know about him? nothing. thank you. host: all right, melody from omaha there. we don't know anything, and these people want to vote for jim writes, going to twitter hader, -- "cann a snowden hader tell me one national security secret he disclosed up with a nation at risk?" evidence wills, " show mr. snowden seriously hurt america. i predict little chance that president obama will grant him a pardon." [video clip] >> i don't think that makes sense because edward snowden is not a whistleblower. there actually is a specific process that is well-established and well protected that allows whistleblowers to raise concerns that they have, particularly when it relates to last the fight or confidential information, to do so anyway that protects national security secrets of the united states.

that is not what mr. snowden did. put americanct lives at risk, and it risked american national security, and the policy of the obama administration is that mr. snowden should return to the united states and face the very serious charges that he is facing. he will, of course, be afforded the rights that are due to every american citizen in our criminal justice system, but we believe that he should return to the united states and face those charges. >> has he or any of his representatives made a reach out of any sort to the president? >> i am not aware of any conversations or communications between mr. snowden and the president. host: and more of your voices out there on facebook this friday morning. dennis writes, "yes, he should be pardoned.

look at hillary clinton, the e-mail scandal. the sad thing is, she is hands-off and is running for president." itinald writes, "i suppose is a real question. yes he should. i do not agree with the method he did it in, but he definitely deserves a pardon." rob writes on facebook, "we have it all backwards when it comes to whistleblowers. they exposed the truth knowing full well of because it was his. since true today as more hit and then over to, they become pariahs and set of the heroes they really are." good morning. should the president pardon mr. snowden? caller: absolutely, and that is just the beginning. i think the man is a hero, he is an american hero, and, you know, not only does he deserve a pardon, he deserves the thanks of this nation. i hope someday to welcome him home and a tickertape parade in new york city somewhere.

i think the people who should be prosecuted, friendly, are the government officials and the government officials who violated our laws and our constitution. these are the things that snowden exposed. .e did not commit these acts they committed them. they are the criminals. thank you. host: calvin is in north carolina. good morning to you, sir. kudos: good morning, and to the continued excellence job you and the rest of the c-span team do. i do not think mr. snowden should be pardoned. i think it is interesting that he chose to go to russia as opposed to some of the "allies" of the united states like a european or south american or even african nation. but on a separate but related note, i think someone who president obama should pardon is of the united states like a european or souththe honorable o led the universal negro

improvement association and the african community leagues at the turn of the century. he was deported back to jamaica. he was opposed to j edgar ,oover's early intel program and there was a movement being conducted by a number of lawyers pardonedrcus garvey because he was convicted back in the early 1920's and deported to jamaica. his sentence was commuted, but he was never pardoned. calvin p are we covered a news conference several weeks ago with marcus garvey's son. if you want to watch that, go to c-span.org, and in the search bar, type "marcus garvey." , thanks forer weighing in. what do you think? caller: can you hear me?

i think president obama should pardon him, but he cannot pardon him, but he should. now, look at hillary clinton -- no one is doing anything about her. he should be pardoned, but he --not be pardoned because donald trump would definitely pardon him. said, he cannot pardon him, but he should. hillary clinton has got to change the justice system. [indiscernible] i do not know you can hear what i am saying, but that is what i think. host: a bit of reporting from "the atlantic."

they remind us that in may, eric holder, former attorney general in the u.s., said that while snowden's leaks of classified information was "inappropriate and illegal," the whistleblower performed a public service. others do not agree. donald trump last year called snowden "a bad guy," and suggested he be executed. democratic nominee hillary said snowden should return to the u.s. to face trial. we have jams on the line now. he is calling from brandon, mississippi. welcome to the program. caller: yes. i do not think he should be pardoned. i'm not a democrat. i vote for the person who is best for the job. ever since barack obama has been everyone has blamed him for everything he has ever done. i am a veteran. who put us in the war 15 or 16 years ago?

it was mr. bush, and nobody brings that up. but they always run around bringing up what barack obama has done wrong and never say nothing about what he has done good. so many people have health care now who have not been on health care in their life because they could not afford health care. served, whenpeople off to war in vietnam, did not get praise for nothing, come back, and everybody was on the side of the road with the flags waving. i'm not a democrat. i am a military person. i do not care black, white, i think he is doing a good job. ms. clinton i think would be a good president. in my book, mr. clinton was a and all thent,

democrats want to do is raise minimum wage. who can blame them? $7.25. thanks foright, jim, calling. two lines on a screen, one for you, one for no cure to is calling on the yes line. john, why do you think the president should pardon mr. snowden? caller: i think in terms of individual freedom, most people do not understand that they really don't know how free they are or how free they are not until they move in the direction away from the masses. look at the soldiers, sailors, marines, and other people in the federal government. first of all, there is no regulation that requires them to or, youa lawful order know, not to release that information or illegal information that they may come in contact with.

there is no requirement relate that they have to report that. on the other hand, they are not disobey an unlawful order. with snowden, the basic point is, you do not know, none of you, how free you are until you move seriously in a direction away from the masses. thank you very much. host: thanks for calling in. stephen is on the line now in sioux falls, dakota. caller: thank you for taking my call. snowden, no, he does not need to be pardoned. what we need to is give him a m edal for exposing the corruption, and the wars for global domination, that has been brought up by the republican, five-star general eisenhower with his military complex, and before that with butler, the

1935, withral in "war is a racket," saying these wars are for big business, not for our american freedoms. and as you look at it, as edward snowden is pointing out, our freedoms are not being fought for. even if people are , nonmilitaryned fighting for our freedom, that is not the effect they are having, so i would hope that what snowden is bringing out, people would be inclined to look at this in a fresh light and recognize what is really going on. i are being lied to come and do not like being lied to. forecastilly mitchell the invasion by the japanese at pearl harbor long before it happened, and he also was demoted for standing up to the top brass at the time and then

got reinstated, so this is history. , and the system as it is those of us who have eyes open can see it. thank you. host: thanks for calling. we have matt on the line in california. thanks for getting up so early, matt. what do you think? caller: i see a lot of misinformation here. overall, i think that snowden should be pseudo-pardoned because what he wants us not be tried under the espionage act because what happened is that under the espionage act, there is no record of the trial, so nothing becomes public record, and what he wants to do is the public interest to come to terms with what he did. he is willing to serve jail time, he just wants to be able to admit on the record what he did, why he did it, and get a fair trial. host: what is a pseudo-pardoned? how would that work? caller: not try him under the but try him under

just a normal trial that has public record. under the espionage act, all information is classified. host: thank you for calling. sorry to cut you off. i fight you are finished their. here is the voice -- i thought you were finished there. here is the voice of a top democrat who talks about all of this, about a pardon being push for edwards noted. [video clip] >> i think one of the facts that really leave that to me because of the snowden narrative as he is telling it is the vast majority of what he took has nothing to do with american privacy or the privacy or rights of other people around the world. the majority of what he had to military to do with secrets, and i think that is for a much at odds with the narrative that we want to tell that he is a whistleblower when in fact snowden new about the

whistleblower provisions and new how to take advantage of them and in fact had taken advantage of the opportunity to talk to people within the proper chain, not about privacy interests, though, which is the interesting thing. so he knew the process is available to him, but instead stole all of this information, went to first hong kong and then russia, to places, both under chinese and russian authority, that have very little by way of privacy. so we do intend to make public what we can. we have asked for the declassification of the entire report, and we think it is very important that the public have information. host: we take that yesterday as newsmakers." eastern i at 10:00 here on c-span. helen is on the line. good morning, helen. caller: good morning.

no, he should not be pardoned. he is a traitor. right now, he is in russia, and as far as i'm concerned, he can stay there. and i happen to be a center-left democrat who voted for obama twice, and i want obama to refuse to pardoni want obama ton him. thank you. on the line from kingston, pennsylvania. good morning, dan. morning.ood thank you for c-span. this man is obviously a traitor. he knew that he stepped outside of the whistleblower format. , what is theabout old cherry or motive of the individuals seeking for this man to be pardoned? -- ll terrier motives therier motives of individual seeking for this man to be pardoned?

host: thank you for calling. a little more from the atlantic piece about what mr. snowden told the guardian. he has repeatedly said he wants to come back to the u.s. homeid i will end up back and history will be on his side. "when the officials who fell like they needed to protect their program, careers, have left government and we look at things from a historical point of view, it will be clear the whistleblowers does not serve the interest of the u.s., whether it harms them." how are you? caller: i am still above ground. that is a good day. i am a 30 year marine veteran. i hear people calling up talking about he is a hero. are buriedeople that in arlington that are heroes. i do not think that mr. snowden

even rises to that level. happenedack to what he to accomplish by taking those documents, even if you want to argue that maybe the material is not sensitive, he knowingly took something that he was not supposed to have, unauthorized, and left the country. his intent was there here they want to compare him to mrs. clinton. she did not run to russia. she went through the process. was she given special quarters because of who she is? that is another argument. law, is only one criminal criminal violation, in the constitution. that is treason. read what treason is, it applies to snowden. it is not applied to hillary

clinton. that is the only criminal violation law in the united states in the u.s. constitution, treason. he knowingly did it. i'm not going to call him a hero . if nothing else, what he did was wrong. putin does not like us, so he cap 10. i challenge the people, those voting for mr. trump likes mr. putin. issnowden is there and he elected, give him an opportunity to pardon him and see if snowden comes back for trump and if putin sends him back. host: we have 10 minutes for your calls. good morning. .aller: good morning as a retired military officer, do not pardon him. incould not have lived russia without the kgb. we want to crucify a

presidential candidate because she unwittingly, unknowingly, misused information. this individual gave away information and lived in russia? no. no. not without the knowledge of the kgb. we all know that. host: normally we do not dabble in movie reviews much on "the washington journal" but here is some from the snowden movie. ae wall street journal says complex life turned to stone. that is their headline to this review. weekend arts section of the new york times, security made him insecure. the man whose disclosures made us look over our shoulders. this is a short piece from the trailer of the movie "snowden." [video clip] >> you're making people very happy. >> thank you.

>> how is this possible? >> a google search, they also look at everything they don't. >> chat, whatever. the nsa is really tracking every cell phone in the world. host: a couple more here. usa today, snowden, guilty of retraining its audience. the biopsy is routine and covers no new ground. snowden is a hero to some and a traitor to others. the film could tip the scales in his favor. by the court of public opinion, they are asking that question in the style section of the post. that movie is in theaters. david from north carolina, todd north carolina.

caller: i think that he should be pardoned. that may give you my basis. i comment every day for four years of c-span. some of my comments are being deleted, especially video comments that we make, cut, and paste. criteria under which you are operating under, and none of this became apparent until obama had the meeting a couple of months ago. host: you're saying exactly what got deleted? caller: my comments on facebook. they consistently get deleted. sometimes it is only after 5 comments, other times it is pertinent information. host: we don't have control over that. we are going to -- the avenueave tried of government to find out who has control.

right now, ted cruz is fighting for internet -- would you explain that? host: there is a piece that i was going to get to that has to do with the continuing resolution. the government funding, much of it runs out by the end of the month. the washington journal talks about slowing down the spending so that they call it a divide on whether to transfer much of the oversight of the internet to a nonprofit. on the hill onks a bill needed to keep the government running. a push from ted cruz to stop the transition has become an issue to combat zika and keep the government running past the 30th. conservatives have been working to block or delay the transfer of authority of the internet's address book to the internet namesation were assigned and numbers. the california-based

organization oversees technical functions that allows computers to find websites. they are worried turning over by carly to a group icahn would -- let me see if i can find the place. icahn and other nongovernmental organizations could allow activity, they have been handling domain, name system under a contract with the it is notnment, and carl icahn, it is the internet corporation for assigned names and numbers. sorry for the stumble. there was a lot to read. matthew from alexandria, virginia. caller: i am a 24 year marine veteran and i worked for the nsa for years. i do not think edwards noted should be pardoned.

there is a mechanism well-established in the communications for whistleblowers. he is not a whistleblower, he is basically a coward who took information that was not his. took it to another country. instead of standing before the man and saying "there is a problem here. i have identified a problem." and face any charges coming his way. nsa than likely, have the look at the information he provided and say we made mistakes and need to correct ourselves, which is what they do on a daily basis. no one walks to the nsa in the morning and say, i can't wait to get into work to collect information on my neighbor. they're working hard, everything is rooted in the fourth amendment. oversight, butof

there are missteps. it would not surprise me if obama pardons him, because it would fit with his legacy of weakness. host: eric from compton, california. good morning. caller: good morning, america. i agree that it is not that snowden should be pardoned, we as a country should show compassion. this information that snowden got is just digital data that doesn't mean nothing. they're using this information to hold over everyone's head appeared we need to clean the system. this universal pardon, there is on the liberty bell that every 50 years there is a universal pardon. we know the history of the country, we have never done it. down bybeen involved information. that is why donald trump is doing so good.

because of the misinformation. that is one god's honest truth. if you're not standing on god's honest truth, are you biting off of the apple of evil and misinformation? we need to be apart from the past bad behavior. that is what is going on in america. we have to learn compassion and mercy in the name. that is what fixes the problem. host: ok. a couple more comments on facebook. john writes, yes. hillary clinton was pardoned for worse. in his case he is the messenger and the whistleblower. your never supposed to "shoot" them. pardon him for what reason? after his trial the jury may find him not guilty. skip rights oh hell no. he is a traitor. that can stay in russia.

if he comes back to america, put him on trial. good morning. caller: how are you? host: doing fine, how are you serve? caller: doing great. i think he should be pardoned because i think he did it for the people. he did it because he was there, he was inside, he knew what was going on. personally, i think that they negotiated with him enough before they would bring him back to america, now they are saying what we think before they bring him back. up thea is "cleaning mess the government has made why not pardon him? i am seen worse. host: thank you for calling. for everyone who called. we will do this again on the back end of the program at 9:20 or 9:25 eastern. we have more material to get

through. we do need to wrap up this first segment and move on to the guest segment. table talk with the campaign eheel center, meredith mcg about ethics on the campaign trail. eichenwald. join us throughout the weekend. we have our c-span cities tour. thehe road exploring history and literary history of grand rapids, michigan. restoring the graphics on the grand river flowing through the city, here is the mayor. >> a lot of people say, where are the rapids. on the river, you will see we don't have rapids. we did in the 1800s.

there were massive rapids in the city. in the heart of the city, one mile and a half, we have an 18 foot drop in the grand river. early 1900s, ahe number of dams were put in your behalf five in the heart of the the uniformve taken rapids and created stagnant water of steps. ago, we started working with a group in the city , a group of individuals, who decided we needed to restore the rapids. we started the process and became an urban water is designated project through the federal government. we are working through the permit process and working to raise money. it will cost $30 million. the intent is to remove the dams and restore the rapids. we are looking at, how do we

face and embrace the river? how do we make the river and asset to give people the opportunity to be in the river in a safe way. we're looking at properties along the river and redeveloping them. not having them used for industrial use. or asphalt parking lots or storing trucks. seehe next 4 years, we will massive redevelopment along the river. it will be catalytic. it will completely change the face of downtown. it will spur incredible economic development. than that, for a long time the river has been a between thehe city heart of downtown and the west side of the city. this is a tremendous opportunity to see the river as a connector. how do we embrace the river, bring people to the river, and

not see it as a dividing line between the heart of the city and the west side of the city. >> washington journal continues. host: at the table is meredith policy director for the campaign legal center to talk about presidential campaign ethics and transparency. good morning. transparency and greater issue or problem this presidential cycle? if so, why? guest: it is a challenge in every cycle. what is different about this cycle is you have one candidate who has never run for public office. there is no record. no 10-year or 20-year record of being in the public eye. with mr. trump you do not have a lot of information. most of the other candidates have been in the public eye for so long there is a lot of information. with hillary clinton you have

the opposite. someone who has been in the public eye for decades. there is a lot of information available. there is an overarching narrative that has followed her through that time in public life about her struggle to be transparent. host: how do you gauge transparency? how do you figure out if what folks are putting out is worth it in terms of people knowing what is going on? guest: it can be difficult. a lot of the time you have people who want information. there is a public policy question about how appropriate is it? let me give you an example. many years ago there was a decision to require candidates to file financial disclosure statements. the idea was for the statement to have information allowing the public to determine the magnitude of a conflict of interest.

you had categories of values for holdings. there was the decision to go down that path as opposed to releasing your irs form. your tax forms obviously have other information that may not be relevant to your serving a public office. at the presidential level we have a tradition established where they do release their tax forms. you have a public policy standard that says financial disclosure is sufficient. you have a tradition that says for the president we want tax forms. where is the public policy, the main street, in that discussion? that is the discussion the country is having. for the presidential level, you are talking about something different, even to members of congress and governors. position most powerful and there is a tradition to understand that as president

your ability to make decisions has such a wide ranging effect. there have been efforts to require that the irs tax forms be disclosed that has never gone anywhere. would be thek that best way, because i don't know the tax forms are the best way for the public to gauge interest. we know the financial disclosure forms as they currently exist are. host: phone numbers for guests. meredith mcgehee with the campaign legal center, policy director. we have separate lines or democrats and republicans and independents. calls. over to your campaignlegalcenter.org is the website. let's hear a little bit from hillary clinton's phone interview with tom joyner talking about transparency. hard tonk i worked very be more transparent than not

just my opponent, but in a comparison to anybody who has run. the medical information i put out. that meets and exceeds the standard that other presidential candidates, including president obama, mitt romney, and others have met. my tax returns are out there, 40 years of transparency. questionsat the real seem to be directed toward donald trump and his failure to even meet the most minimalistic standards that we expect from someone being the nominee of one of the two major parties. host: meredith mcgehee, what do you think? a point that she has put out a treasure trove of information. tendency in the media to have what i would call a false equivalency.

she gets attacked for something she admitted. mr. trump has been nowhere near as transparent. that is a fact, not a pro or icon. con here the amount of information available on the side of hillary clinton is much greater than donald trump. host: we will talk more about donald trump as the segment goes on. let's get a call in from battle creek, michigan. good morning. caller: i wanted to talk about the trout tax return problem. trump taxn -- the return problem. it has been suggested that donald trump is lying about this. that he is not under audit. he was asked in an interview, release thetrump irs notification that he is under audit, and what years are

under audit. the spokesperson said, no, he could not release that information. i am frankly not sure what years are under audit. has mr. trump ever said this year and this year are under audit, but i will release the years that are not under audit? at this point, i don't believe we can believe trump when he says he is under audit. he should release things, the returns that are not under audit. guest: i would agree at the presidential level the expectation and tradition the candidate would release the tax forms is part of the american political process. when mitt romney was running, there was a big push because he was considered to be a very wealthy man. people wanted to know where the wealth sat. there is a line here that i think is important to make clear.

one part of this is where are the conflicts and potential conflicts when you have large amounts of holdings? some of it is people just wanting to find out how well the heat is, there is almost a loss of part. art. we need to step back and say of getting interest information whether it is at the presidential, senatorial, or gubernatorial levels. the point is that not i doubt how wealthy any candidate is, but to say to the public, here are my holdings. i will be transparent when i make a decision that if there is a potential conflict it will be clear to the public what my holdings are, what the potential conflict could be, and i can be held accountable for the decisions i make relative to the holdings. that is the point of the transparency.

not so we can find out how wealthy any individual candidate is. indiana.saw, democratic line. caller: mi on? on? i -- am i host: yes, go ahead. caller: i want to know why there is not more of a push for trump. it seems they stayed on hillary with everything having to do with her financial disclosures. the press on bards were with -- bombards her with all this pressure. frump with his financial stuf going on with russia, all of that. stuff that has been brought out about his financial -- why isn't there more of a push to get him to, as far as the press and any get him to beto

more transparent with his financial disclosures? truly is as who he a person as far as charity. all of the lies that he says he has done for people. characterring out his of who he truly, really is. hillary, they have done everything to make her look like she is nothing. i think there should be more pressure put on him to get his out there.taxes host: meredith mcgehee? guest: in the coverage of

presidential politics, one phenomena -- one phenomenon that is an overarching narrative, it is like the dan quayle is not smart because he cannot spell "potato." gore is robotic and wears brown suits to warm up his image. the over ark of hillary clinton has been secrecy coming out of whitewater. a series of activities. the media grabs onto that and maintains the narrative. they often follow people through public life. think of richard nixon when he was labeled tricky dick. american tendency in politics to define the overarching narrative for each character, if you will, in american politics. it is dangerous that it is not thed out a full picture of character of the candidate that

will potentially lead the country. in terms of donald trump, because he is not in public office, he is a newcomer -- even more than if you compare him to dwight eisenhower, who had not run for public office but had been in public service for most of his life. , isphenomenon with trump that none of it has been sticking because he is new to this arena. this arena is a very particular arena that creates overarching narratives that follow politicians through their lives. trump's business empire, what is known about it? you mentioned mitt romney, but are there cases in history or presidents had significant business dealings and questions have come up about conflicts of interest? guest: yes. this is not new to american politics. kennedy, his family and father

of money. there were questions raised about the holdings when he was running. have the financial disclosure regulations in place at the time. the roosevelts, a very wealthy family. richat time it was the were going to take care of all of us. ,ompare that to a harry truman who was seen as comparatively poor. it was a significant contrast in american politics. the notion of having wealth and the upper echelons for presidential candidates is fairly common throughout history. what is different this year than , not only that trump doesn't have a record, but with mitt romney and donald trump is rather than having family wealth you have the question of business wealth. actually raising

questions simply because of the holdings they have. as you make decisions those holdings can be affected significantly high the decisions of the president. lancaster, california. good morning glenn. caller: i would like to talk about hillary, what she did to herself. she set up a private e-mail server. she made money through corruption, pointing to people who donatedhnson $500,000 to the democratic party. james comey, who used to be her banker, who did her tax records. she has got away with so many criminal acts as secretary of state that the american people -- she has no right to run for president. she is a criminal.

clinton foundation is a money laundering machine for or in governments. she has ruined the american dream. her and barack obama with their corrupt, crony crap. thank you. host: why don't you start with a little bit about the opinion piece you recently wrote and published in law news. legalized corruption? why hillary clinton will not be prosecuted for clinton foundation allegations. guest: the point i was making in is that there is one perception of what constitutes corruption in the public, and another standard of corruption in the court. what you have seen from the supreme court in particular is a step-by-step process in which the definition of corruption that can be prosecuted has been

made this big. it is very narrow. it started from a standard which , when you have any appearance of corruption, very broad terms of making sure the american people have faith in their public officials. citizens united, that standard was knocked down a notch. they said if there is the appearance of a conflict, justice kennedy wrote, that will not decrease america's faith in the government. that is a pretty astounding statement based on no facts whatsoever. you have the second decision where they started saying that corruption is only quid pro quo, tit for tat. where you have an explicit agreement, i give you this coming you give us that and it is explicit. then you have the mcdonald case where the court said all of the

gifts that the governor of virginia took did not constitute a criminal violation. there is no quid pro quo. dore was no explicit, if i this, give you this wedding gift, a rolex or whatever, you will perform this act. even though we know the governor did in fact give this businessman access to the mansionr's and set up meetings for him. we have a prosecution where unless you are, if you will, dumb enough to sit down as cunningham did to write your napkin,an -- on a you can get away with almost anything. we have a start contrast between what the public sees as

corruption and what the court has defined as corruption. host: anything in particular to the last caller you want to mention? guest: the notion of criminality , for secretary clinton or many public officials, because the court has defined that standard at such a low level, and we're not describing what happened in the clinton foundation, we are at a point where the court said , meaningd influence you give a contribution to a campaign committee or foundation -- the clinton foundation is not the only foundation connected to powerful politicians -- the odds are you can get in the door. that is the way the system is in washington. particularly for large campaign donors and those with the resources to give to foundations. host: you are on the line for

democrats. caller: good morning. you know, it bothers me the last caller. snarky.l innuendos and it reminds me of someone climbing out of the deplorable basket. been around.have i lived in arkansas and she did wonderful things. when you see people who have served and worked hard to bring health care to children, the chips program, and the work she did for women as she has traveled, it is wonderful. nothing that they threw at her ever stuck. it was all innuendos. she is not her husband's sex crimes, or whatever he did. she did not kill vince foster.

there are horrible made up things. like she is some kind of, i don't know, it is so sexist. i think, so unfair. it is like the whole thing she is keeping something. i want to say that i think they muchlawyers and trump has more lawyers. as far as i can see the contents did not have to cheat people with trump university or horrible real estate deals like trump does. also, she has all of the holdings -- he has all of the holdings in russia just for his business. he will not let that go. away, need to really take the haters that cannot stand this woman being president, and

making up things with no actual proof. the last caller did not say one specific thing. did she sell the white house silverware? no. the foundation was created to help people. that we are lucky to have them in the political system. i think that when you tear down , that someonees is not the real president of the united states, or have done this or that, and you cause them to be unable to lead -- like donald trump did to obama, there should be a charge of harassment. host: thank you for calling. .? -- meredith mcgehee? guest: the caller strike me about the polarization in america. one issue that i hear a lot of

the times is about the question of the dysfunction of congress. how congress is a loggerhead, cannot even pass the zika funding bill. a lot of the times you look at the dysfunction in congress. regardingn issues money in politics, ethics in government, making the process work. these are important issues. these two colors show one of the reasons -- these two callers show that one of the reasons there is gridlock in congress is we have a divided country. we have seen that sense the 2000 elections. we have seen that in these showions where the polls the differences between those who favor clinton and trump, there is a chasm between them. the people in the middle are miniscule. what is going on in washington, in my view, a fair portion of

it, not all of it, there are changes to the campaign finance system needs to be done to deal with the dysfunction, but it reflects the polarization in the country. apte 2 callers are an demonstration of that. host: tax returns "detract from the political message" they are trying to put out. the quote from him, he has a 12,000 page tax return that create financial auditors from everyone in the country that would detract from his father's main message. guest: i think that is silly. this is what good reporters do. is every american going to go through 12,000 pages? no. are there going to be some that go through all 12,000 pages and highlight the most absurd parts?

absolutely. the american people are smart enough to be able to assimilate reporters from the right, left, and in between to handle that. host: one more voice from the trump campaign. aboutnne conway talking privacy and donald trump. [video clip] >> mr. trump had a physical late last week. in advance of knowing hillary clinton had pneumonia or what happened on 9/11. he had the physical late last week because he believes it is important for the public to know what his basic health condition is. he said the doctor is preparing his report. it will be of -- will be made available this week. i was not present for his physical. >> we don't know if this is the same doctor who released a report in december that was very ?rief

a four to five paragraph letter? >> dr. oz and millions of americans, i'm with the band. i don't know why we need such extensive medical reporting when we have a right to privacy. i am with most of the american people that are upset that many of them had to change doctors under the obamacare affordable care act. why would someone change a doctor when they had been healthy? that is being lost in the conversation. he was being ridiculed by an anchor that is not a medical professional. that is out of hand. host: anything to respond? right toe notion of privacy, for americans it is very important. we're not talking about all americans. where talking about people running for president. we are talking about the two people passed the primaries. -- past the primaries.

there is a right to privacy, but it is a grueling job. job fornonstop 24-7 four years. there is some right to privacy, when you enter the most powerful office, not only in the country but in the world, the expectations are different yet you do not give up every right to privacy, and that is certainly a concern in this modern day and age. 'sether it is colin powell personal e-mails being made public, it is a concern. it is easy to model these together. i will go back to the public policy interest. the public policy interest for presidential candidate is for voters to assess these 2 candidates in terms of their ability to serve in the office,

their capacity to serve in terms of their physical wherewithal, their mental capacity, and any conflict of interests they bring to the table. the question about physical health is important. why otherwise did president roosevelt hide for many years the fact that he was in a wheelchair? he was concerned about how the american people would react. can you imagine in this day in age given the health problems he had, or when we learn later that dwight eisenhower had a heart attack and the public was not told for a long time afterwards -- there is a balance on the health question. the public policy interest is to know is this person capable of withstanding the rigors of serving as president? that is the public policy question. having a detailed physical about every aspect of their health is

interesting, but not the public policy concern. host: salem, oregon on the republican line. good morning. caller: thank you for having me on. starting off, my uncle is a district attorney. i would like to start off with obama. havelerner, then you airplanet clinton on an with grant, that is a no-no. you have her servers, which is illegal. she knows better than that. colin powell told her. she know she is hiding money from countries that like to kill gays and lesbians. gays and lesbians, if they want to be married that is their business. she is deplorable.

i am in that basket, i guess. i'm sorry. that is pretty much what i had to say. host: let's get a response. guest: when the caller was speaking, the first reaction was they sound like many other to thats i've talked are increasingly trending to a more libertarian view of government and how they want to interact with the government. have expected in this election to have a growing set of the population that is trying to separate from the traditional democrat viewpoint of labor union support and the government safety net. the traditional democratic values, and traditional republican values of promoting business. in the last several decades,

they have been very conservative on social issues. you are finding a significant and growing segment of the american people who may be deemed conservative in government intrusion. on social issues they want the government out of those issues. issues that married, if you'll , with the pun republican party. this color is representative of the growing set of the population who is probably what you would call conservative in terms of a government's role and privacy concerns, but liberal when it comes to the social issues. host: let's hear from lydia in chattanooga, tennessee. caller: i was calling to say that i think we need to hold all congress,s working in asneed to hold them as well

trump on issues of taxes. him to republicans want become the president, they should be the ones to say "you need to show your taxes. " 40 years of his taxes need to be shown. i thought that he would be great at first. as far as i'm concerned i think .e is crooked trump i don't know who i'm going to vote for. i believe this man is very dangerous. thank you. host: a response? thet: it is interesting notion that republicans in congress and elsewhere would bring pressure on mr. trump. so far in this election, it does not feel like anyone is able to bring pressure on mr. trump,

especially within the republican party. many within the republican party are doing everything they can to distance themselves. whether it be -- security officials, generals, it is an interesting dynamic. it will be fascinating to watch after the election what happens with the republicans. as a party are in disarray. many republicans have been in, and i would not call them the , republicans in name only, we have the tea party which does not know what to make of mr. trump. on many social issues they disagree. you have the moderate, traditional republicans who are horrified sometimes by the dramatic statements he makes. then you have republicans who feel like the party has left

them. it will be fascinating to watch how the republican party brings itself out of the election. the said, is mr. trump wins party will probably remake itself in the image of mr. trump . host: we have been talking mostly about the presidential race, but here's a tweet about congress. voters are unhappy with everyone in congress except for their own representative. why is that? guest: that has been a statistic floating around for many years. if you look at some of the polling, it shows we hate congress but like our representatives, those numbers have decreased. many members of congress do not -- many members of the public do not like anyone in congress. if you look at some of the polling that has been done about the faith in the american system , faith that elected officials

are making decisions based on what they think is best for constituents or their own conscience, those are sometimes in the single-digit. they are saying decisions get made because of who contributors are, or what the party wants great when you see a poll that says the american people do not theire that representatives are making decisions on what is best for the constituents or their own conscience, that is disturbing. this dynamic is changing over the last several years. host: carol on the line, a democratic caller. regardsi was calling in to both candidates. first of all, mr. trump is , asking what african-americans have to lose? i think we would be losing our dignity because of some of the only abouts said not

african-americans, but other races and cultural backgrounds. i am glad the preacher spoke up. someone else would only do that they wouldnyone that step in like he did and say, this is not the place. he would have been stopped a long time ago. say that heting to has something important to say on this white piece of paper in his pocket. pulle ever makes him say out this piece of paper. the first time he did it was at the presidential reform for the military. something people in the military that he said was backing him. , shey, hillary clinton

needs to be more available, more available information on the negative things that people are saying about her in regards to the clinton foundation. her speeches to wall street. go ahead and give everyone what they want, because i think that is the only way that you are going to put the kinds of things that have been said, put to rest those things. hopefully, in the coming days, she does that as well as this whole thing going back to back, the basket of deplorable, i think that she was meaning that she was not speaking to the people, but the actions of the people are deplorable. for calling.ou anything to respond to? guest: first, i think it is clear mr. trump will have a challenge in gaining the support of people of color because of what he has said. that will be a turnout question.

we will see what that looks like to actually get the voters to the polls. a lot of the people that i've talked to may stay home because they don't like the choices. in terms of transparency, one of hillarylems that clinton has exacerbated on the question of transparency is by not holding press conferences. i would contrast that to when mr. mccain was running. he had his bus with reporters on the bus. they had almost total access to him. it benefited him on coverage. this reluctance to engage with the press on a regular basis, to have the openness is i think damaging her in terms of the overarching narrative, which i referred to earlier. it is reinforcing that narrative. host: does donald trump do

better in that area? -- one been complaints of the general sense of actually answering questions from folks? guest: he has such a different style. he is a candidate in a style we have not had before. he makes statements that drive the media coverage because it is unon politician-speak -- -politician-speak. he does not have the baggage that she brings. he is also making his own news, because he makes statements no other politician would imagine making. inis not quite appropriate the sense that they each bring to the table their own problems. one of the ways mrs. clinton could have managed her problem better was to increase her availability. one of the ways that donald trump could have managed his

problem better is probably not doing off-the-cuff speaking and making statements that riled up folks. that is easier said than done on the outside. host: there is one quote i want to read to you from usa today thethe headline for president clinton foundation to enter ethical uncharted waters. 2 ethical situations are very different with one commonality. the trump organization and the clinton foundation are inextricably linked to the founding families. earn their success to the personal brands of their families, making separating the personal and political more difficult. the clinton foundation and the trump foundation are not the only foundation that have politicians connected to them. one example, mr. dole, senator dole, the longtime senator from kansas created the dole

foundation years ago. the dole foundation worked on disability issues and did great work. word got around town that if you really wanted to get on the le'sggle's -- on mr. do good side, you would give not only to the campaign, give to the dole foundation and i got you on the radar screen of access and influence. the connection between politicians and foundations is very dangerous. mr. mcconnell has the mcconnell center at the university of louisville that gets contributions from interests lobbying him. leahy center and from what deals with environmental issues. the point is that the work, and certainly for the clinton and dole foundation, the chairs do

good work. if they were false front that would be one thing. that is not the public policy problem. the problem is that people big euro pretty clearly that -- people figure out pretty clearly that in the washington money game how do you buy influence? these foundations provide a clear avenue for the money to enter the system. when you enter public office, when you run for office, those connections should be severed. host: good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. thank you for c-span. this is an interesting discussion. it is starting to worry and bother me. say hillary and trump provide their tax and medical records. they answer all of the questions we have then asking every day. what difference would it make?

we are not talking about issues important to the american people. that is what scares me. we have an election coming up and we're not talking about what is important to us. i don't know what it will take to change, but i hope the american people wake up, get smart, and do something about it. host: let's hear from our guest. makes a pointler p or when you start talking about tax returns, or the saying they i'm not are not important issues, but in terms of the presidency, many of the public policy decisions the new president will make will have to do with education, the environment, social security, foreign policy. this campaign has been remarkably notable for its lack of specifics. a lack of clarification.

the american people, the policy choices, in those areas. what is the difference between donaldillary clinton and trump are on education policy? i would make an educated guess that most americans could not articulate the differences on the policies. host: 2 more calls. thank you for waiting, maria. caller: i have 2 things to command to the viewers be at the whichy pundit of 171816 is a report of how the clinton foundation in which to itself by ripping off haiti. it shows how the clinton foundation parlayed american donations in order to get a rare permit for gold mining in haiti are hillary clinton's brother. also, i would like to say that it is the horrible that

hillary's brother got the gold mine and the haitians got the shaft. all of the funds for haiti, along with what bush was supposed to monitor, should be monitored. everyone should agree to an audit of the clinton foundation, which they have refused. host: meredith mcgehee? i'm not aware of the particular link in the gold mining in haiti. would agree that having transparency in terms of having the client and -- clinton and trump foundation, it would be helpful. it would change anyone's mind with these few weeks to go, but i would like to go back to where the previous caller said that there are many other issues that i think the american people could benefit from more clarity on. we have a very keen awareness in terms of choices that each person can make.

the point is to have the information so that everyone can make up their own mind about how they feel and what they want the president to do on a range of issues. everyone has an everybody has an issue they care about more than the other and this election has been remarkably content free when it comes to public policy. host: danny from alabama, democrat line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have not heard anyone say anything about it but donald trump's financial disclosures are a matter of national security, he has businesses in foreign countries and we need to know what his financial disclosures would say. because he might not even be able to make a decision against a country that he got a business in or whatever and we -- he could make a decision that would benefit him and not our country. i was like to know about that.

host: a final thought from our guest. guest: exactly the purpose of transparency, to understand for the presidential candidates, what the conflicts are and their interests are. if you have a holding in a foreign country, a holding that is affected by what happens in a foreign country, the american people should be able to hold you accountable for the decisions you make regarding that decision. this is thes right, whole purpose of transparency is to protect against these conflicts and to ensure that decisions are made on critical issues of national security are in the economy or other issues about trade etc., this is why the transparency for these presidential candidates is so key. director of the organization has been our guest. thank you for coming up on this friday to talk to us. guest: thank you for having me.

host: when we come back in a couple of men to come we will talk with kurt eichenwald, a senior writer for newsweek how he will talk about his new story on donald trump's global financial ties and his work studying the finances of the clinton foundation. we will be right back. ♪ + booktv brings you 40 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend. here are some programs this weekend. saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, we talk with the new librarian of congress. she is the first woman and african-american to hold the position. at 10:00, new york times president and ceo mark thompson looks at what he calls the roshan of public language in his what has goneaid: wrong with the language of politics?" examining a change in language. he is interviewed by arianna

huffington. >> polity has changed in substantial ways. -- politics has changed in substantial ways. it has become more disruptive and over the western world you can feel the big traditional political parties under pressure . >> sunday at 10:00 a.m. eastern, booktv live from the brooklyn tv festival -- brooklyn book festival, the largest literary event in that -- new york city featuring literary stars and emerging authors and featured authors and topics that include a discussion on economics with marc lamont hill, politics with sarah jaffe, fred kaplan on digital privacy, moss a guess and on terrorism. ralph nader looks at political parties and elections, military and war with molly crabapple. viruses takes a look at

-- ed young takes a look at viruses. >> adams was not a good president. if his career had ended at the end of his presidency, as his father's career ended at the end of his presidency, i would not have written a book about him. about the we talk book john quincy adams about the life of the sixth president of the united states and his career after the presidency in the u.s. house of representatives. >> be things that strikes you, he is a politician, he has done whatever you do, he did not form alliances. he did not do anything you would do in order to be able to persuade people otherwise who might not have gone along with your agenda to do so. his four years in the white

house or pain, everything was hard. he achieved almost nothing. >> sunday night on 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. journal"gton continues. host: joining us from dallas isk, senior writer from newsweek. how the trump organization's foreign business ties could of been u.s. national security. thank you for joining us. --e us a sense of the skies size and scope of the trump organization, where does most of its money come from? ofst: you went to the heart the question, it is impossible to know because the trap organization -- trump organization is in a black box, a private company that does not file any information that is publicly reviewable.

except for when an entity was in it borrows money from the public debt market. that does not happen all that often anymore. trying to dig through it is really an effort at trying to break down a wall and see what we can see. we cannot get a whole picture. host: how the organization's foreign business ties can of been u.s. national security, they say his global deals would make it impossible for him to conduct foreign policy in many countries without padding or depleting his wallet. tell us more. guest: to do this story what i had to do was contact a lot of people outside of the trump organization, financiers who have been doing business with him, people who have tried to do partnerships, people who are

aware of what the partnerships were. the way this works is that within the trump organization there are hundreds of subsidiaries, we are talking in excess of 500. those subsidiaries -- i looked at 15. each of the 15 had business partners in overseas countries that play very critical roles to american national security. as you trace through the connections, i found that the business partners were often either directly connected to the government or supported by the government, were allied with particular parties of particular governments, were involved in the criminal investigations or criminal activities and time and again be scenario that was being laid out where you have a

circumstance where somebody was paying money directly to donald trump or directly to the trump family through the trump organization, the interests of the partners and the scenario in the interest of the factions within those countries ran counter to the interests of the national security of the united states. host: give us a couple of examples, the piece takes us from india to south korea to turkey to the middle east, can you point to a couple of examples that you are talking about to give -- to help amplify what you are saying? guest: the two easiest, one is very easy and one takes more time. in azerbaijan, donald trump has a business partner who is the son of a senior government official. that government official has been identified by american intelligence backend 2010 -- 2010 of having been

laundering money for the iranian military. donald trump's business partner's dad has been found by american intelligence to be involved with the military of an american enemy. engaging in a criminal activity. there you have what is donald trump going to do about that if president if it comes down to where he needs to take action related to the azerbaijany government official who is the father of his partner, will he think about his business or about the partner or a national security of the united states? if a criminal case he falls, will it be -- he evolves, will it be to the detriment of donald trump's business or not? a more complicated one is in turkey where you had a family which has a real estate

enterprise, also runs a media enterprise that strangely is government critic. agreementmp struck an with them, they were close enough to the president of turkey that the president of turkey came out and dedicated the building. he was the featured speaker at the opening ceremonies and donald trump met him and sure can. -- show cans. -- shook hands. fast a few years when donald trump is running for president and making anti-islamic comments and there is an uproar in turkey. an uproar directed at the turkish president who at that point was not far away from having a coup against him. the turkish president turned very strongly against donald trump, very strongly against the

family that are his partners. the turkish president -- there has been an indictment of members of the dogan family and from -- in the story a report that people have been talking to the president say that he is so angry regarding this entire situation that he is in because of donald trump's business/campaign that he is not going to be willing to continue to assist the united states in giving them access to a critical military base under a trump administration. that military base is a staging area for the american bombing of isis positions. host: phone numbers on the

bottom of the screen for our guest kurt eichenwald of newsweek. you begin by saying if donald andp is elected, will he his family permanently sever all connections to the trump organization? what have they set about this -- said about this? guest: his responses sounded good but he is too smart of a businessman to know what he is saying is not ridiculous. he said i will put the company into a blind trust. people do, thinking not know what a blind trust is an most people do not. it is when you take a portfolio of investments and give it to an independent individual who will have no contact with you. that independent individual is trading your investments, trading stocks, trading bonds on a daily basis. and you do not know what you own at any particular time. donald trump is saying i will

take my company and put it in a blind trust and my kids will run it. that fails on every level. it is like raising a curtain around the trunk the building and saying i wonder what is behind the curtain. he knows the trouble company, the trump organization is in this blind trust. it is not blind. he knows what the deals are that have been done that are contractually not going to be canceled. they cannot be coming he knows who is paying him money. he knows that the dogan family is paying him money. he knows what money he is getting from south korea and who the partners are. he cannot blind himself from that. and the children have two issues, they are not independent and the fact that they will continue to get this money is also a conflict. you are in a position where a president trump will be looking at a scenario knowing that the money is there for him in the

future but let's say it is not -- it is his kids money. what will he do about azerbaijan? what if there is a trump organization stand up because of that relationship? we are talking about his children, what pressure will he put on it? said we will not be making decisions, we are a private decision -- private company, we will make decisions in the interest of america. unless donald trump will share classified intelligence information or foreign policy planning, that is an impossibility. when they made the deal in azerbaijan, are they claiming they knew the father of their partner was suspected by american intelligence of engaging in criminal activity involving the iranian military? of course they did not because they are not an intelligence agency. do they know that the deal they

have in india was going to result in conflict between india and pakistan? of course they did not. you cannot say we will rely on the trunk kids -- donald trump gets to decide what is an american best interest and what is not in their dealings. there is a way to handle this and if they think the united states future is important, it is the only thing they can do which is to sever all ties permanently with the donald trump organization. they can sell the company, they will make a lot of money, start a new company if they want but they cannot continue operating or receiving benefits from the trump organization in any way, shape, or form. and avoid this conflict. host: kurt eichenwald is in dallas. let's hear from michelle from

midland, georgia, a democrat. go ahead. caller: good morning. i have two statements i would like to make at this particular time. listen, all democrats, all blacks, all latinos, and all muslims, trump is a fraud and a klansman and we have him on our ipad, if you would go and talk to david corn of mother jones, he had a piece in may where donald trump and his butler were planning on assassinating president obama. i would not vote for this hook of trash if you came down and sat in my front yard, he is dangerous to blacks, he is a klansman. have said he is a

klansman twice, where are you getting that from? caller: on the internet. host: where on the internet? caller: black internets and we have black people that are on the ground, we know he has ties to the clan, look at david duke. host: want to try to stay on topic and that is the piece kurt eichenwald wrote, the headline is how the trump organization's foreign business ties cut up and national security. -- maybe notr you so simple, can you compare the trump organization to the clinton foundation? how are they different in terms of what we are talking about? guest: dramatically different. a lot of what has been the clinton foundation controversy

has been people adding -- looking at one thing and another thing and saying there we go. the clinton foundation is a charity. ted charity, 90% of the money it receives, most of which comes from grants, goes to charitable endeavors. if i take $1 million, i give it to be clinton foundation, $900,000 of that money goes for safe buying aids drugs in africa, one of the largest suppliers of aids drugs of any entity around the world. $100,000 goes to the operations of the foundation which is a very, very high number of money to program to money to operation. not of that money goes to any member of the clinton family.

i heard a caller who was on the last program saying there is no audit of the clinton foundation, that is untrue. pricewaterhousecoopers, an international accounting firm, audits the clinton foundation. i have reviewed the audit. the numbers i am giving you are coming out of the audited financials. i know what money goes to the clintons, nothing good i know where the money is spent. flesh -- slush fund argument is fantasy. that is the whole pay side. gaveon met with people who money to the foundation. the question comes down to were that any meetings secretary of state would not have otherwise had and i have yet to see one. you have something like a nobel prize winner who is a major individual in the economic

actions in bangladesh met with the secretary of state, no kidding. and so you cannot simply say there is a contribution and they had a meeting. you have to say what advantage was there from a beating, did somebody get something they would otherwise not gotten, absolutely no indication of that. givenot think people will -- the idea people are giving money to charity and some of them who otherwise would have set down with the secretary of state got to sit down with the secretary of state is an issue. this is totally different, one more fact, all of the contributors are public information. -- that is how we know who met with her and who are contributors are. trump'snows who donald business partners are, it is a secret, it is a black box.

he took on a norma's amount of time for me -- it took an enormous amount of time to find out who are the partners are in 15 out of 500 entities. taxesnot releasing his coming it is the on that, he is not telling us who his business partners are. those people, when they make a deal with them, are paying donald trump, not going to aids drugs in africa, it is going to donald trump's butler. i mean he is getting it and spending it for his own interest. a completely different thing. it is personal financial interest versus charitable contribution. host: mount clemens, michigan. kenny is on the line here if you cannot hear, i will take notes.

caller: thank you for taking my call, i am a little nervous so please be patient. i am a veteran, i served from 1987 to 1993 in the army. , was going to be in a warden above top secret, i did not get it. the point i am trying to bring out is that it seems curious to me, because i read the art of the deal when i was 17, 18, it seems curious that he wants to be our president, our commander-in-chief and he had the opportunity to join the military when there was a war if i am not mistaken. it seems odd to me that he is healthy enough now, i am the healthiest president that is ever been or whatever the pundits put out there. anytime he had the opportunity to defend this country, he was

not physically able. host: thank you for calling. guest: do you want to -- do you want to respond? guest: i want to thank you for your service. even if you were nervous, thank you for calling in. those are facts that you are laying out. vietnamot serve in because he got -- because he was -- to have a be health problem that prevented him from fighting, a permanent health problem that he is saying he is the healthiest person in the world. i do not have any other information then the caller does -- than the caller does. is that an issue? if it is an issue for someone

listening, then it is an issue. i am not big on telling people what they should and should not think in terms of making their votes. i am saying here are facts and those are the facts. host: michigan. go ahead, sir. caller: good morning. let's backtrack. the problem, conflict of interest concerning the clinton e-mails, that was brought up by the state department, they have their own inspector general. people like me noticed that it was kicked over to the fbi. who does the fbi answer to, here is where your complex keep going, obviously the attorney general in which we all know was appointed high -- appointed by president clinton is the one who promoted her within the ranks and rightfully so.

you have a clear conflict of interest because the attorney general says they have been friends so how can you have oversight. this does not make sense, this is a clear conflict of interest which is why we have had all these problems and white was kicked over to the fbi because they knew the outcome. host: kurt eichenwald. guest: a couple of things. number one, we have gone issue,ic, the e-mails again, i am not here to tell people who to vote for or what issues to be concerned about. if you do not trust the outcome of the fbi findings and you think that the e-mail issue is of sufficient import that that should influence your vote, that is your decision. i am a big believer in democracy and what i consider my job to be

reporting, talk to people that voters do not have the time to track down and talk to. and lay the facts out there to they can either accept the facts i am laying out, question the facts i am laying out there, ignore it and take another issue and say this is more important to me. that is the nature of democracy. if that issue is an important one to that caller and that caller does not trust the outcomes of those investigations and believes they are conflicts of interest, that is an issue that he needs to consider when casting his vote. host: here is donald trump on fox and friends thursday morning responding to the newsweek article. mr. trump: i did not read it, i

heard it made me out to be extremely successful with a couple get economy, my company is simple, i have deals all over the world, i make great deals and it is a very simple company from that standpoint structurally. i own my own company. it made me to be -- if you read the first paragraph, it got me out to be very successful which i am. they start by saying if you win, will you and your family permanently sever any connections to the trump organization while in office? sever trump: i will connections and have my children run the company and not discuss it, it is unimportant compared to what we are doing about making america great again. i guess you could say there was a conflict because as the country get stronger, that is good for all companies. i would not care, it is so unimportant when it comes to what i'm doing right now.

host: kurt eichenwald, any response? guest: this is the problem in a lot of what he was saying -- and a lot of what he was saying was nonsense. start off with i will not know what is going on. does donald trump remember who he took to the prom and high school, i remember who i took. if i put my life in a blind trust what i forget who i went to prom with? he knows who his business partners are and the american people do not. story, thisin the is a man who sought business ties to moammar qaddafi. we are talking about a circumstance were almost no one was off the payroll. muammar gaddafi was bombed by ronald reagan and identified as one of the world's leading terrorist and the trump

organization is trying to cut a deal with his government. is there anybody else in their? number two, the fact that your family, your children, maintaining these direct contacts, direct connections to all of these partners and all future partners, the conflict is not over. the father has a conflict with -- because of his children's business. imagine that chelsea clinton had dealings in india where that was a major part of the money she was bringing in. then a president clinton was faced with decisions on what to do regarding indian -- india and pakistan, of course she is conflicted. the worst part of this goes back to the donald trump's argument

on everything, trust me. we know less about this meant that we have known about any political candidate in history. i cannot say that, in my lifetime. we do not know where he gets his money from. we do not know who he is working with. we have not seen anything close to a true medical history and medical report. we do not know what he pays in taxes. we do not know what his tax information is. we know he says i give millions of dollars in charity. the washington post doing great work, they cannot find it. there are so many questions and donald trump says i will not answer that. in this one, he is saying it is not a couple get a complicated company, fine, release the names of all the partners. release the names of all the

partners. once we have that, we can look into it and maybe a way can be figured out that a donald trump president would not be conflicted. but we have to know what it involves. we have to know who they are dealing with. there are connections in russia. there are connections in libya. there are connections in south korea. he talks about south korea, he said south korea may be should get nukes. business partner in south korea would be a beneficiary of whether or not there was a nuclear south korea. i do not think that is a non-issue. the president of the united states should only have one concern, should only be thinking about the national security of the united states.

not about his own financial health, not about the financial health of his children. character is of such that that concept never enters his mind, this will be a existedn that has never in the history of the united states. that is something that is a reality and donald trump cannot just simply wave it away and move on to the next issue. this issue has to be answered. it is not whether he is handed a couple of pieces of paper to dr. oz. it is about the national security of the united states and it is important. there is a lot of nonsense in this campaign. we are deciding who will be the leader of the free world. we need to know, is that person able to act without conflict?

we need to know the names of the partners and what they will do. and, if they are going to separate from the trump organization completely. full family, does not sound like they will. host: a call from harriet in maryland, republican caller. itler: good morning, i take you do not like mr. trump at all. guest: i have to stop. caller: should we -- caller: -- host: i cannot -- guest: i cannot hear anything. host: can you hear better? guest: barely, somebody needs to turn something up. got it. guest: she said it is obvious you do not like mr. trump? guest: this is the problem. i have been asked questions about hillary clinton and i have

said if that is an important issue to you, that should help formulate your vote. facts, ifto marshal you do not like them, that does not make me someone who does not like donald trump. it makes me someone who is trying to do my job and present issues. if you do not want to listen to those issues, i am disappointed. unfortunately, in this country, we have people who say this is who i support, and i am done. i am covering my years. -- ears. i do not want to hear anything unless it is negative about the person i oppose. that is not patriotic, i will go that far. we have to go more in our consideration then i have decided and i do not want to know anything else and anybody who tries to tell me anything else is bias. if you have some facts to

challenge, i will listen and if i am in error, i will correct that fact. if all you want to do is say, the only reason you are writing about a man who might be president of the united states is because you do not like him, that is a sign of how deteriorated the national conversation has become. people seem to believe that if they support someone, nothing should be said about them. other than, let's make him president or let's make her president. host: louisville, kentucky, democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? guest: yes. caller: ok. i am a registered democrat. i have almost always voted republican but my opinion of these two candidates is that

they are the academy -- academy of corporate america, the rich getting richer on the backs of the poor. i do not even want to vote for either one. i will not be happy with either one, they have nothing to offer us. host: let's hear from david in,, massachusetts, you are on with kurt eichenwald. caller: good morning. i think most americans of rational thought can agree that there are conflicts of interest with both of these candidates. opinionious about your on the conflicts that arose from the bush administration with regards to halliburton and the carlyle group. and what conflicts we might have

endured if let's say bernie sanders was the democratic nominee. thank you. conflicts ining the bush administration, i was doe early on non-uncomfortable with the fact that dick cheney had been chairman of halliburton . he resigned and that was that. where things got a comfortable was when halliburton was awarded single source nondata contract bid contract for rebuilding iraq. i think that was a bad decision in terms of optics and it is pretty hard to escape -- there are true conflict if you

the former chairman and there is a non-bid contract awarded. that was a conflict. in terms of the carlyle group, i have never believe there is any conflict in any relationship related to that. host: here is a picture as part of the piece in newsweek, a billboard featuring donald trump for a luxury residential apartment in india. it says, he is trying to lower trump by using the donald name, how does he use his name around the world? he calls himself a developer but the piece says how he uses his name to generate lots of income. guest: one of the things that people do not get is that donald trump is no longer who they thought he was. he started as a developer. he became a casino operator.

an airline owner. went bust and the airline went bust and had to be sold off and it was not making a dime. the developments, he has stopped building the buildings. what he does now, he is trading off of his international fame from being a reality tv show host. and he is selling his name. that is his business. that is why you see trump steaks , trump vodka. there are a lot of developments around the world, including in the united states, that have the trump name. trump university, what is coming out is that he's sold his name. it is really somebody else who

is the developer, the business partner, the people generating all of the money. what you have -- donald trump, one of the things very unattractive reality is that there -- when there are developers with a project that fell through and has been mismanaged and something terrible and lawsuits are filed by people who lost tons of money that they put up to buy apartments, donald trump says i had nothing to do with it, i am just selling my name. if there is an apartment building or some other development that works so well, he turns around and says that shows how great trump is. he plays it both ways but he knows what he is doing is selling his name on an ongoing basis to partners all over the world and he is making annual payments off of that.

their success is his success. host: pennsylvania, a republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. let's get off of donald trump for a minute and get back onto mrs. clinton. percentagenow what of the money taken into the clinton foundation, two questions, what percentage goes out, i have heard as low as 10%. you say they do not take any money, their daughter is the head of that, you tell me that there is no -- she should not be in that either. you cannot have it both ways. should completely absolving cells from their foundation and do it today. -- absolving themselves --

absolving themselves from the foundation and do today. i am a donald trump supporter, i do not like her because i do not think she is honest and i never have. he is a businessman, businessman and politicians deal with this world totally differently and you know that. i know that. i would like to hear what you have to say about the clintons and their foundation. host: thank you for calling. to the question if you can and tell us more about what you know about the clinton foundation in context of this story. guest: again, this is the problem, the world we live in is that people will throw out information and people like your caller will hear it and think that it is real. the 10% number is false. i have gone through their financials. -- there are a series of charitable analysts

who grade these charitable organizations based on how much of their money goes toward the actual charitable endeavors. the number is 90%. there is a reason why charity navigator, basically a system that people who want to give money go to to figure out which one -- if i give money to that toity -- am i giving money help the veterans or helping the organization. they give the clinton foundation an a because of the high proportion of money that is going to the program versus that is being used to operate the program. we can have our own believes, we cannot have a run fax, the fact he said about the amount of money going to the program or false. chelsea clinton is not the head of the clinton foundation. she is an unpaid member of the board of directors.

there are many members of the board of directors, all are unpaid. let's go to the next step. we are talking about a charity. bob dole, to give you a sense of how far we have gone, bob dole had a charity that he operated when he was the senate majority leader on the republican side. when he was the republican nominee for president also. a great charity that did a lot of good. people who gave money to the charity also gave money to bob dole's campaign. people were not making that a political issue because it was charity. could people have been buying influence with bob dole? if they were, they did not to give him campaign contributions. that issue was off the table because people understood the difference between making money and not making money.

bob dole was not making money off of the charity. the clintons are not making money off of the charity. the money coming in is going to charity. that is fine. if what you are saying is that you do not trust hillary clinton , that is also fine. trust you will not someone, it does have to be based on fact. we can have our own opinions, we cannot have our own facts. the issue of a businessman being president, i have no balls about about that but i think it is important to know what is the business, who are the partners? standing up and saying i am a businessman does not address the issue. the head of the enron corporation was a businessman.

we certainly needed to know a lot more about what that enterprise was. i am not saying the trump organization is enron, i am just saying the entire concept of you just let a label on somebody and that is that under does it. the concern here is that donald it is all very simple. it is not simple. if it is simple, he needs to release the information. we cannot be in a situation where we have any president who has any question, any issue that might enter their minds other than what is best for the united states of america. if we have no idea, we will have no idea. i can tell you one thing that will happen is that if there is a democratic -- i'm sorry, a trump presidency and a democratic senate, the trump

organization will be hit with hundreds of subpoenas because these questions will have to be answered and there will be a lot of time wasted trying to figure out what are the conflicts of the trump organization as they relate to the president. these are problems that could be completely avoided if donald trump will simply do what any other businessman will do, say, i am going to end the conflict, my family is out, i am out, we will sell the company, what we really want to do is be making america great again and then there are no more questions. they are not doing that. they are not giving any indication they are doing that -- they are not giving any indication that they are doing that. i do not want to have a we have towhere spent months and months and months of hearings trying to find out things that could simply be released.

or could be avoided by making one simple step. sell the company. host: let's get a couple more calls in, saint augustine, florida is on the line on the democrat line. caller: good morning. i have a very simple question. considering all of mr. trump's international business ties, should he really be receiving national security briefings? host: kurt eichenwald? guest: yes, he is the republican nominee for president. and nominees for president get national security briefings. what you are pointing out is conflict, the discomfort, it is uncomfortable knowing that there are all these issues. donald trump right now might know more about issues

surrounding his business partners than he did beforehand. that is a troubling situation. but should he be getting the briefings, absolutely. i think when you have a presidential candidate who has so many secrets and he does have so many secrets, he will not release in the -- real medical report or his taxes, he will not release the names of his partners, he will not release information about the trump candidacy, all we really know is that he was the host of a reality tv show. to hiss truly dedicated stated mission of making america , then he has to show a commitment to it and let people know who he is, what his interests are, and what they are voting for.

host: cottonwood, idaho, republican caller. flabbergasted at the misinformation this clinton partisan is spewing on television. host: let me stop you, what have you heard? list things you have a concern about. ,aller: the clinton foundation the author of the book clinton cash, i hope you will have him on as a guest. i have heard that the actual charitable donations from the clinton foundation is around 7%, not even 10%. here is an example of their so-called charity. i saw this on national public television. clinton was handing a

$500,000 check to a bishop in africa, i believe the country was kenya, not 100% sure on the country but i do believe it was kenya. a bishop who was actively engaged in promoting gay marriage and abortion in kenya. he was given a grant from the clinton foundation. they go around promoting their agenda in africa and all over the place. for receive money from instance george soros. their foundation is tied to corrupt countries all over the world. it is amazing, the misinformation -- as far as donald trump, he is not speculating,he is he does not know whether donald trump will actually sever his ties.

he cannot claim he will not because his children are handling his business. he is claiming that he is giving facts but he himself is by cutting on what donald trump would do as president. so i really think -- i hope people will understand and take this man's information with a grain of salt. host: anything you want to respond? guest: another situation where you start out with, i believe this, no let me attack everything that disagrees with it. how do i know what donald trump will do, he has said so. he said what he plans to do, going to put his company into a blind trust managed by his children. a blind trust has a meeting, not just a word. it means you have no idea what is in the trust and the person operating it is independent from you. donald trump is smart enough to

know what a blind trust is but he is describing it as not a blind trust. again, i do not know what donald trump will do, the only thing i know is what he said. i can only operate off of that knowledge. all the other things you are talking about in terms of the clinton foundation and what you know, i am operating off of the audited financials of the clinton foundation. financials that are reviewed by -- there arep five five major accounting firms in america who are responsible for the vast majority of auditing of all corporations. one of those top five is pricewaterhousecoopers, they are the auditor of the clinton foundation. i have read those financials.

and i have read what the audit report says. what the financials and audit reports run contrary to what some book or person on the internet or something whatever said. i do not care what you can find on the internet. i do not care what you heard. some persone what writing an attack line said, i care what does the actual report say. in terms of this issue of a handed a check to a bishop, they are not giving money to a guy. what you have to understand is that there are people -- i do not know who this person is. but i do know what their programs are. i do know what the money goes toward. that is in the documentation, the public documentation. if this concerns you, i urge you to read it. because it is the charity, it is publicly accessible information.

we know they're one of the largest suppliers of aids drugs in africa. we know that they along with the savant foundation is one of the -- saban in -- foundation is one of the most important helpers of global diseases. they are engaged in the norma's health programs. -- enormous health programs. if you want to criticize, that is fine, but criticize based on actual, real records on actual, real auditing. if you want to say that everybody who says anything different other than what you , id somewhere by some guy know the book you are talking about, i can spend an hour talking about that book. go to the real documentation to do not just trust somebody because they say what you want to believe.

if you want to make these decisions, i am not here to tell anybody who to vote for. i am not advancing one candidate over the other. i am saying, here are facts. if those facts do not matter to you, that is fine. if other facts matter, that is fine. base it on isll conspiracy theories and things you see on the internet, i find meet anailure to obligation as a citizen. we are obligated to know reality. not conspiracy theories. host: kurt eichenwald in dallas. we are running short on time, senior writer with newsweek, he authored a piece about donald trump and his business ties which you can read at newsweek.com. thank you for being with us from dallas. guest: thank you for having me.

host: to the caller that mentions clinton cash, we had the author on an in-depth program a year ago. go to our website, type in those two words, clinton cash and you will get the full segment with the author. folks can go if they would like to -- folks can go if they would . we will return with a question we started with, should president obama pardon edward snowden? it, thecomes out about aclu and others are pushing the idea of a presidential pardon. here are the numbers to call, yes 202-748-8000. if the answer is no, 202-748-8001.

we will get back to your calls in a couple of minutes but first a little bit more about the world on capitol hill, we took a tour of one of the largest and most well-known art displays in the capitol complex that decorates an entire wall of one of the busiest court hours that members, staff, and visitors travel each day. donaldre in the can and on the house side -- the canon tunnel on the house side. talking about a competition, the congressional arts competition. students can apply? >> our competition is for all u.s. high school students. we estimate about 30,000 students a year participate. each district takes one winner and they send it to washington and they sit in the hallways of the capital for one year which is amazing. for a state to get a piece of art hanging in the apple takes a vote of the entire congress.

this is an honor. >> each district takes one winner but i imagine several students participate for each district, how is the winner chosen. >> each member of congress decides how to take it, most of them tend to get an art teacher or professional artist to judge it. if you are a member of congress and you pick the winner, you can make one grateful person and 20 angry voters but most have some system by which they pick the artist and it is a competition which they spread throughout the high schools which gives them a chance to go into high schools and talk to kids and make the opportunity available. >> any restrictions on what you can make your art piece about? or what materials you can use? >> restricted to two-dimensional art, note wrist restrictions, ,an be pastel, oil, pencil whatever the artist wants to use. even creative photography.

28x28 in dimension. students come up with incredible things. the art is so incredibly done, and so incredibly diverse. people talking about experiences in their lives that may be painful to people who are patriotic talking about very beautiful things. the diversity of different artwork that is done is incredible. >> do you keep track of the student artists? have any of them gone on to become famous artists? >> we don't really keep track of them, but we hear of some artist becoming more successful. that seesly, someone a painting wants to buy it and contact the artist.

there are many people who travel this hallway over the course of the year. some of these artists give an opportunity -- get an opportunity to show their artwork to the broadest audience possible. it is -- the opportunity for these kids is outstanding and really great. -- severalwaiting tours that come through stop along the way and point out to their constituents there district's art pieces. >> members get together from both parties and it is a celebration. democrat,always a republican cochair and they get excited about it. you get members of congress serving in a bipartisan way. it gives you an idea of what things are like if they were

like this. >> explain how you got involved in this? >> institute is designed to help members of congress communicate with their constituents and educate the public with national legislature. they got involved 11 years ago, but this has been going on for 35 years. we have been involved a little over a decade. morethat time, more and offices have participated. >> what are the excuses from the offices of those who do not participate? >> wide-ranging. saying that it is not in the competition -- saying that it is not in the constitution. the vast majority participate. they like to show up there district's picture. some of them can be very different.

some are traditional. you get this amazing collection of artists. it is as diverse as the country. that is what makes it so great. >> thank you so much for the time. >> my pleasure. host: back to the edward snowden question. if you go to the aclu's website, they have this -- obama should pardon edward snowden. we are launching a campaign to make it happen and we got a lot of help. the post is from anthony romero. edward snowden's act consciousness, we have made strides in our fight for cyber security. stone'sse of oliver movie, calling for president obama to pardon the whistleblower --an essay whistleblower -- nsa whistleblower. they have an impressive list of

leaders former national board.tists on some of the people on the list are george soros, steve wozniak, the founder of wikipedia, melvin goodland, a former cia division chief, daniel radcliffe, the actor, and bruce, professor of yield loss goal. that is what -- here is a little bit of edward snowden in an interview about why he should be given a pardon. >> this is not about me, this is about us. cares about these issues far more than i anticipated. it has led to this wealth of support that i am fortunate to receive. more than anything, the key is what kind of society? do we want to live in --what

kind of society do we want to live in? i don't run the campaign, i am not involved. what we are seeing is a conversation about the war on whistleblowers that has been occurring easily for the last decade and has escalated. the recent president has brought --rges against more charges has brought more charges against whistleblowers. the only thing i can do is be thankful. he has said recently that you have done a public service. do you think i would help make the case for having a pardon from obama? revelations, these we would be worse off. yes, there are laws on the books that say one thing, but perhaps

this is why the pardon power exists for the exceptions, for the things that may seem unlawful, but when be see them ethically and we see the result, it is obvious that these were necessary things, vital things. a letter thatis they u.s. house intelligence committee put out just this week. they wrote to president obama and they say that we urge you not to pardon edward snowden, who perpetrated the largest and most damaging public exposure of classified information in our nation's history. if mr. snowden returns from russia, where he fled in 2013, the u.s. government must hold him accountable for his actions. that was signed by all members of the house intelligence committee, 23 in all. here is a little bit from the washington post friday morning before we get to your calls. this letter came out, the intelligence panel rejected

arguments that snowden acted out of consciousness and insistent he should be held accountable for his actions. the lawmakers reminded obama that he had said in a news conference in 2013, i don't think mr. snowden was a patriot. we agree with you. mr. snowden is not a patriot, he is not a bustle blower. he is a criminal. we have mike on the line from pittsburgh first. what you say about all this? caller: i would say i don't know too much about snowden. i should be pardoned because think anytime anyone from the inside comes out and calls out our government for doing something they should not be doing, they shouldn't the villain eyes. they should be -- they shouldn't zed.illainiw

host: we have another caller. caller: i don't think you should be pardoned. we need to know what other countries are doing so they do not overtake us. [indiscernible] thank you very much. host: should president obama pardon edward snowden? that is the question here and alan is on the line from west virginia. good morning to you, alan. caller: good morning, sir. when i get this information about snowden, i am remembering the gulf of -- where people were being deliberately misinformed as far as i know.

of course, they have done a lot of verbal manipulations, but with time, that is the way things have settled out with me. i believe that is not the only time that there has been a release of a e-mail to the -- ct that the president at that time was saying that it was being effective. a more recent thing dealing with security that most people don't think about anymore is the from obamat obtained a.the dn the dentist removed the two and got a bit of the tissue to an agent the united states. watching tv quite a

bit and did catch at that time a boast that they knew it was him by dna. suspected -- indicated where the information came from. i have not heard anything more about that dentist. what i have not heard about snowden, and perhaps you can enlighten me, is precisely what ,roop movements, deployments decoding that would be current enough to mean anything, or anything like that that actually had been released that might cost people's lives. although i understand -- this is , from allison in wonderland, removal of the top from the top-secret materials to hillary clinton,

even though i believe the ,-mails she had used herself yet she has maneuvered so that she says that she does not therefore, i forget the legal term for it, deliberate violation of the law that the fbs should go on. host: thank you for calling, alan. from police in california -- letter from eli se in california. caller: thank you. this't know how old snowden was when all this happened, i believe he was 23, 24 years old? his life has been absolutely destroyed because of something that he just happened upon by accident. this waszed that

important information that the american people should know about. so, i would definitely encourage barack obama to pardon him because his life has been in shambles, a young man's life and that shambles just for releasing something that he found that we should know about. that is my opinion. host: heading onto victoria las vegas. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i don't think edward snowden should be pardoned by the president of united states, barack obama. the reason might i say that is if it was known and believed he was doing something correct the united states of america, then he would not have run away to russia. why run away to russia? this is 2016. he has been there since 2013. so he if he thought in his heart that he was doing something

right, then he would have stayed here, and he would have brought it out to the people of united states of america, saying this is what i found. i don't believe the last caller happened upon it. no, he did not happen upon a because he was working in that department. when he found whatever he was searching for, and he found that, then he should have came out, and went to the public, that is states of america, and said what he found. not bring it out and then run away to russia. and he has been there all of this time. the president of united states of america, barack obama, to pardon him, and everybody says that he should be pardoned. why should he be pardon when he committed a crime? he committed a crime against the diocese of america. and i think that he should come

back to the united states of america, where he was born, where he is a citizen of united states of america, and he should be a man and stand up and say, this is what i did. has comingatever he to him. now, i am not saying put him in prison, but i am saying, be a man, stand up. if you thought it was right, if you thought what you did was right, why did you run away? and why are you still in russia? host: thank you for calling, victoria. atlanticto that the reports on this a little bit and they point out that snowden has repeatedly said he wants to come back to the u.s. in the interview, he says i think i will end up back home. he says history will be on his side. here is a quote -- bossy officials who felt they had to careers have left

government and start looking at things from a more historical perspective, it will be pretty clear that this war on whistleblowers does not serve the interest on the u.s., rather it harms them. here is what the press secretary had to say. >> it does not make sense because it was noted is not a whistleblower. there is a specific process that is well established and well protected, that allows whistleblowers to raise concerns that they have when it relates to confidential or classified information. protectsin a way that the national security secrets of the united states. that is not a mr. snowden did. conduct but american lives at risk. american national it isty, and that is why

the policy of the obama administration and mr. snowden should return to the united states and face very serious charges that he is facing. he will be afforded the rights that are due to every american citizen in the criminal justice system. but we believe that he should return to the united states and face those charges. >> has he or any of his representatives reached out to the president? >> i am not aware of any conversations or communications between mr. snowden and the president. anti-facebook him a couple of comments -- yes, about a pardon for edward snowden. the government should not be spying on its own civilians like that. what terrorists have the ever stopped? you bring a little bit of clarity to government and you are a trader? people don't think about hillary's e-mails. shannon writes heck no.

him asking for a party is an admission of guilt. even daniel ellsberg did not run away and refuse to face justice when he released the pentagon papers. snowden is a coward. let's see what george has to say in frostburg, maryland. good morning, george. good morning. i am a vietnam veteran. oliver stone is also a vietnam veteran. oneas done several movies, nixon, the other jfk, and this thing with snowden. andof the things i agree most were veterans agree, that we have come to realize that our government does not be honest with the people. had aspecific case, i security clearance during the vietnam war, and i know all about the misinformation that

was given. i was in a position to know how we were being deceived. had, i problem i have agree with the noted when he said there is a war on whistleblowers. i found a complaint with my congressman about veterans being physically abused at a v.a. hospital. they found the allegations were true. of course, he has been replaced by a new congressman. since that time, i have been a unbelievable whistleblower abuse retaliation. , there are seen measures within the institution to address whistleblowing complaints. what i have found out in my

institutionsthe don't work in snowden is correct about that. the unfortunate reality is that i am seeing my country fall apart because of institutions we people andailing the the social unrest it is creating among our citizens, is destroying this country. justifiable reasons why there are social unrest in this country like there is. unfortunately, we cannot trust our government. i have been blackballed as a result. after the other congressman left, they twisted my medical records. paper trade me as some kind -- they have for trade me as some kind of monster. subsequent politicians in this andn looked at about the life he told about me.

snowden is trying to do something right, just like i did it.i that victimized for host: george, thank you for sharing your thoughts. let's give him barry. should the president party mr. snowden? caller: absolutely not. this is why i believe that edward snowden, they should have used -- the chain of command was in his department, and if that did not work, he should have moved on up. he could've found a way to deal with this besides, you know, leaving and going to russia. i am pretty sure that russia did not give him a clemency and accept him just because he is a good old boy and decides the american people aren't being treated right. so, in lieu of that, i think maybe there was probably a trade

he had to make for the russian government to back him up in and of all of the packing stuff that is going on right now. i am pretty sure that the word trader should be thrown in there. that is my opinion. thank you.host: let's hear from ian. caller: thank you. please let me talk for a bit. i think he should be pardoned. he is doing -- they gave him, a viewer said he needed to go through the proper channels. donald trump says he needs to be executed. he was looking at history. what is this guy's name? drake who has worked at the nsi essay for 25 years was a whistleblower who went through the proper channels and he had his life ruined and

he was lucky he was not put in jail for what happened to chelsea manning. he is in jail -- she is a jail for 25 years now. won't could on until she is in her 50's or 60's. [laughter] they gave him no choice. attacks government whistleblowers, there is a guy who revealed how many billionaires had overseen accounts that were sheltering money from cap is. he ended up getting a four year jail sentence. none of the people violating the law and refusing to pay taxes to not go to jail. they just paid fines. this guy is a hero. host: ian, thank you for calling. we want to get a more couple of

calls. we also wanted her from the house committee. he gave us his reaction on a newsmakers program. that getsthe facts left out --he is telling it. the vast majority of what he took has nothing to do with american privacy, or the privacy rights of other people from around the world. the majority of what he took was military secrets and defense secrets. is very much at odds with the narrative that he wants to tell that he is a whistleblower. he knew about the whistleblower provisions. yet taken advantage of the opportunity to talk to people within the proper chain, not about privacy interest. availablee process of for him, but instead,

stonewalled this information, went to hong kong and in russia. both under -- have very little by way of privacy. we have asked for the declassification of the entire report, and we think it is important that the public has a information. host: congressman adam schiff is a democrat from california. interview newsmakers with us yesterday and we will show the full interview this sunday at 10:00 a.m. eastern at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. james is on the line calling from mississippi. good morning, james. what you think of all of this? caller: good morning. i think a lot of the times when we are listening to the media and beer listening to certain commentators, there is a lot of hypocrisy going on because i remember when president bush and

9/11, whene -- with they had an investigation during the campaign, they were talking about it -- the no weapons of mass destruction. , nancye democrats won pelosi came on tv and said that we will not be impeaching president bush. now, you are trying to tell me , theyhe democratic party want to charge this man, why did nancy pelosi, tv, nationwide and say that there would be no impeachment of president bush, and we are going to let it go? now, you tell me, i mean, even if he did not do those things, why did they not impeach him, but then want to bring charges

against this man? that tells you something, when certain political campaigns win a position, they want to change their minds. that is the thing i got. matter of fact, i think it was on c-span when she made that announcement. host: all right, james, thank you. on to fort lauderdale, tony is on the line. good morning, tony. caller: good morning. it is a miracle. i find myself for the first time in my life agreement adam schiff. he put it perfectly. snowden did not just blow the whistle. then he ran. he went to two countries. -- howg has been living has he been living on this time? it is not like he's getting food

stamps. he looks like he is doing well. if we decide this on a theyby-case basis, which are able to steal a doubled to foreign parties, we are dead. host: that was tony from florida. stone's new film is out in theaters today called "snowden." in the style section of the "washington post," has a piece on it. it says snowden is a hero to some in a trader to others. and making a murderer, overturned by the court of public opinion. from the short piece trailer to the movie snowden. >> you're making people very happy. are you ready for the collection? >> this looks juicy. how is this all possible? >> we are looking at everything they don't.

>> which people? the in essay is really tracking -- the nsa is really tracking every cell phone in the world. host: susan is calling from fort myers, florida. should the president pardon mr. snowden? caller: no, i do not believe he should. i am agreeing with the caller before me. -- first of all, it has nothing to do with this. it should have a bearing on it. i do not understand, if he felt that he had to leave, why did he go to russia? couldn't he is gone to england, germany, france? at least one of our allies? how has he been living?

does he have a job? no. and the old kgb rules are still there. that he has not been manipulated, and how much has he shared? who is supporting him? he needs to face the music. i agree with the other callers that he could've had other areas he could've made this public. especially when it comes to military situations. i think it is very dangerous. it is not a virtual reality game. it is a matter of concern. fairlys to be prosecuted and justly, but he needs to be prosecuted. host: bill is calling from san antonio now. what do you think? caller: i don't know. i believe snowden formed something good for this country that we would have never known what our government was doing to us. and not just us, to the rest of the world, too. that is my opinion.

have a good day. host: ellen is calling from saint pete, florida. what would you like to say? caller: pardon him. there are real traitors in this country. obama is covering bush b utt. it is bipartisan. they spy on the people of this country and we have people wanted to prosecute the man who blew the whistle. they are all bipartisan totalitarian enemies of the american people. host: thank you for calling. it is 10:00 in a couple of minutes, we will take you live to an event with donald trump and his newest hotel, the trump international, a couple of blocks from the white house.