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.

we are looking at this as a campaign event. we are not sure if he is what did talk about business, the campaign, or both. i amis a tweet from trump, now going to the trump international hotel in d.c. for what he is calling a major announcement. we will see what he has to say on the campaign. nancy is calling from michigan in the meantime. nancy, are you there? what do you think? caller: i think you should be pardoned. withve seen what happened whistleblowers before. are not taken seriously enough for anybody to try to do anything. i definitely think he should be, and he should be brought home where he wants to be. host: ok. that was nancy. jamestown,om dana in south carolina. caller: good morning.

yes, sir. he should be pardoned. i will give you an example. where we live, my wife is what you call a whistleblower on a county business, i will not call the name of it. work for 25 give us years, and they cut us off because she reported something that was not safe in the environment. a matter of fact, a few days later, one of the workers for the agency walked up to me and called my wife that i in the sky, which is another word for a snitch. i let him know to go on. which he did was right. she was looking out for children riding their bikes. it really bothered me that she eye in the sky. maine.: on to jail in

good morning. caller: good morning. they should try him for treason. i was in the service in the navy. if you messed up there, they kick you out and ruined your life with a dishonorable discharge. you can't get a job if you got one of those. what he did was way worse than anything i ever saw anybody do in the service. the trouble we got now with the russians spying on us, he must have helped them. he should have been a whistleblower. that would've been ok. host: thanks for calling. as we wait for donald trump, some news of the overnight that developed. from politico and elsewhere, trump talking more about obama's citizenship. we have to suspense going, ok? political right said mr. trump

passed up another opportunity that he except the fact that president obama was born in the u.s. promising to make a major statement on friday morning in front of his latest hotel project. and he blamed his opponent, hillary clinton, for raising doubts about obama's birthplace in 2008. some type of major announcement we will have after one more call and alan from texas. caller: thank you for taking the call. i absolutely believe that snowden is an american hero. landverriding law in this is supposed to be that the u.s. constitution and the fourth amendment clearly and unequivocally protects americans from unlawful searches and seizures.

whatever the intervening laws -- that dictate the constitution are null and void. if you imagine -- you should ask angela merkel if she believes the prime minister germany, if snowden is a felon? he is a patriot. he stuck his neck out and risked virtually everything to bring awareness to the american people of the humongous, surveillance that each and every one of us is under. and if we want to be under that kind of surveillance by the u.s.

government, and they ought to pass constitutional amendment to that effect. and revoke the fourth amendment. thank you for calling and thanks for everyone who took part of this friday's addition of "washington journal." we will be back tomorrow. we will take you now over to the trump international hotel. this is the old post office pavilion in d.c. on pennsylvania avenue being turned into a five star hotel. mr. trump is there this morning to make what he is calling a major announcement. we will wait and watch. if you are looking for more coverage on hillary clinton, we will have her tomorrow night along with the president at the congressional black caucus foundation dinner. you can look for that on saturday evening on c-span. hope you enjoy the rest of your day and we can and we will see you back here tomorrow.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

here at the brand-new trump international hotel waiting to hear from donald trump. as you may have heard the tweet he posted. to the brand-new trump international hotel in d.c. for a major statement. a number of news organizations, reporting that donald trump is giving a statement on whether he believes president obama was born in the u.s. they say donald trump will speak from his two hotel in washington. we are live and we will have live coverage. jennifer jacobs who covers politics for bloomberg reports on a couple of background details on this speech this morning. she is saying that she tweets that the thinking on this, what trump says at the hotel on the obama birth meant -- it would be

a final obstacle to getting voters on board. she tweets that the speech at the post office hotel is meant to rip off the band-aid obama birth issue. get rid of it now so it is not an issue in the first debate. tweets, trump's chief describes the speech as doing the right thing to remove the last vestiges of an issue that the clinton could attack. those tweets from jennifer jacobs of lumber politics covering the speech this morning at the trump international hotel in washington. another thing to keep an eye on, 10 days away from the first presidential debate. presidentsion on the debate announcing soon on which candidates will qualify for the first debate. from a report, the commission says that it is virtually impossible for any other third-party candidates to make

the cut. last month, the commission suggested that enough that would come mid-september ahead of the first debate scheduled for september 26. we will keep our ears open for that and we will wait here live and bring you live coverage when he gets underway with donald trump this morning at the trump international hotel. until then, part of this morning's washington journal concerning efficacy. host: at the table is marilyn about ethics and the topic of transparency. the transparency -- is transparency a greater problem this presidential cycle? if so, why? guest: efficacy is a problem in every cycle. you have one candidate who has never run for public office before. there is no record.

no 10 year record or 20 year record of being in the public eye. as mr. trump, you really don't have a lot of information. a lot of candidates weapon in the public eye for so long, there is a lot of information available. with hillary clinton, you have the mirror opposite, someone in the public eye for decades, so there is a lot of information available about her. there is an overarching narrative that has followed her time in public life about her struggle at times to be transparent. out what do you figure folks are putting out is worth it in terms of people knowing what is going on? host: they can be very difficult because a lot of time you have people who want a lot of information. there is a public policy question about how appropriate is it to have -- and 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 be able to have information that allow the public to determine the magnitude of the conflict of interest. so you had categories of values for different polling. there was a decision to go down that path of financial disclosure as opposed to releasing your irs form. your tax forms of other kinds of information that may not be relevant to your serving in public office. we the presidential level, have this tradition that has been established where they do release tax forms. you have a public policy standards ss financial disclosure is sufficient. your tradition that says, no, for the president, we want the tax forms. where is the public policy main street in a discussion? that is a discussion the country is having right now.

host: what is that main street? guest: but the presidential level, you are talking about something different because it is the most powerful position. and there is this tradition of understand as president, your ability to make decisions has such a wide-ranging effect. there has been efforts to require that the irs and tax forms be disclosed. that has never gone anywhere. i personally don't think that would be the best way to do it because i don't know if the tax forms are necessary the best way for the public to gauge the interest. we know the financial disclosure forms, as they currently exist, are not sufficient. host: phone numbers on the bottom of the screen for our guest, meredith mcgee with the campaign legal center. she is policy director there. we have separate lines for democrats and republicans and independents and look for to your calls coming in. campaign legal center --

campaignlegalcenter.org. let's watching here a little bit of hillary clinton about transparency. [video clip] >> i think i have worked very, very hard to be more transparent , not just my opponent, but in a comparison to anybody. the medical information i have put out, and we will put out more. it meets and exceeds the standards that other presidential candidates, including president obama and mitt romney another's have met. 40tax returns are out there years of transparency about my tax returns. so, i think that the real question needs to be directed toward donald trump and his failure to even need the most ballistic standards that we expect someone as a nominee of

the two major parties. host: meredith mcgee, what you think? guest: she has a point. she has put out a treasure trove of information if you will. there is this tendency in the media to have what i will call a false equivalency. she gets attacked for something that she omitted, at the same time obviously, mr. trump has been nowhere near transparent and that is a fact. that is not a pro or a con. i am not totally nonpartisan on these issues. effective the amount of information available on the side of hillary clinton is much greater than it is on donald trump. host: we will talk more as the segment goes on. let's get a call from ralph from battle creek, michigan. you are on with meredith mcgehee. good morning. caller: i want to talk about the trunk tax return problem. it has been suggested that trump is line about this as well that

he is not under audit and he was asked in one of his -- one of the spokes people were asked if trump release the irs notification that he is under audit, and what years are under audit? the spokesperson said, no, we could not release that information. i am frankly not sure what years are under audit has mr. trump ever said, this year is under audit, this year is under audit come but i will release the years not under audit. at this point, i don't even believe that we can believe trump when he says he is under audit. withould release things returns are not under audit. guest: i would agree the presidential level, the expectation and a tradition that the candidates will release her is really a part of

the american political process. as you may recall mitt romney was running, there was a big push because he was considered to be a very wealthy man. people wanted to know where that wealth will he sat. but there is a line here that i think is important to make clear. part, where all the conflicts in the potential conflicts when you have large amounts of holding? let's be real, some people just want to know how wealthy he is. there is a must a gossip part of this. one of the things we need to do a step back and say what is the public see -- what is the public policy interest. whether it be at the presidential level or the gubernatorial level? it is not to find out how wealthy in particular candidate is. it is really to say to the public, here are my holdings. i am going to be transparent. when i make a decision, if there is a potential conflict, it will

be clear to the public what my holdings are, what the potential conflict will be, and i can be held accountable for the decisions i make relative to those holdings. that is the point of having this transparency. not so we cannot find out how wealthy any individual candidates. host: cary, warsaw, indiana, democratic line. good morning. caller: mi on? -- am i on? host: yes, go ahead please. caller: i don't know why there is a push --for trump, they stay on hillary about everything to do with her financial disclosures. withress just bombards her all of this pressure and stuff. and then trump seems, with his financial, you know all that stuff going on with russia, and

all that. stuff that has been brought out -- and morenancial of a push to get him to come as far as the press, and any other groups to get him to be more transparent with his financial tellosures because it will us who he truly is as a person. and all thatrity stuff he says he has done for people. it would just bring out his ,haracter of who he truly really is. hillary, they have done everything to make her look like she is nothing. i just think there should be

more pressure put on him to get is taxes out there. host: thank you. meredith mcgee? guest: in the coverage of presidential politics, one of the phenomenons that i would call an overarching narrative -- by that i mean, it is kind of like the dan quayle is not smart because he can't spell potato. for the al gore is kind of robotic and has to wear brown suits to try to one of his image. the overarching narrative on hillary clinton has been this question of secrecy, and it comes out of the experience of whitewater and a series of tweets. the media seems to glob onto that and maintain a narrative and those narratives often follow people through public life. think of richard nixon when he had been labeled tricky. tendency that has gone

on. obviously, it is dangerous because it does not round out a full and robust picture of the candidate who is going to potentially lead this country. in terms of donald trump, because he has not been in public office and essentially a newcomer, even more than if you compare him to dwight eisenhower, who had not run for public office, but had really been in public service most of his life. really, the phenomenon with trump is none of this has been sticking yet because he is new to this particular arena, and this agreement a very particular arena that kind of faith these overarching narratives that tend to follow politicians there -- through their lives. host: with donald trump's empire, what is known about it?

historye other cases in but they have had significant business dealings and questions have come about conflicts of interest? guest: i would say yes. this is not very new in american politics. look back at kennedy. his father had lots of money and there were questions raised when he was running about the holdings. we did not have the financial disclosures and regulations in place. the roosevelts are very wealthy. was -- time, it you compare that to a harry truman who was seen as comparatively poor. it was a significant contrast in american politics. but this notion of having wealth in the upper echelons, particularly for presidential candidates, is really fairly common throughout our history. what is different i think this year, as i say, not only that

trump does not have a record, but with mitt romney and trump, rather than having family wealth, there is a question of business wealth. that raises questions simply because of the holdings that they have. as you make decisions, those holdings can be affected significantly by the decisions of the president. midtier from glenn from lancaster, california. good morning, glenn. caller: good morning. would like to talk about hillary and what she has done to yourself. she set up a private e-mail server. she has made money through corruption pointing to people like jim johnson who donated $500,000 to the democratic party. james comey, who used to be her ,anker, who did her tax records

and she has got away with so many criminal acts as secretary of state, that the american people shouldn't --she has the to run- she has no right for president. she is a criminal. her clinton foundation is a money laundering machine for foreign governments. she has ruined the american dream, her and barack obama with their corrupt, crummy, crap. thank you. it host: why don't you start meredith mcgee about the opinion piece published in law news. legalized corruption, why hillary clinton won't be prosecuted for clinton foundation allegations. what do you say here? guest: the point i was making in the article is that there is one perception of what constitutes

corruption in the public, and there is another standard of what constitutes corruption in the courts. what if you seen from the -- what you are seeing and the supreme court is a step-by-step process which the definition of corruption that can be prosecuted has been made about this big. it is very, very narrow now. it started from a standard that -- therruption is appearance of corruption is very broad making sure that the american people have faith in their public officials. citizens united, that standard was not down a notch in which they said, if there is the appearance of a conflict, that is not going to decrease america's faith in the government, which is a pretty astounding statement based on no facts whatsoever. they you have a second decision in which they started saying that corruption is only quid pro

, i do this, you do that, and it has to be explicit. that is what justice roberts did. and then you had the case for the court basically said all of these gifts that the governor of virginia took do not constitute a criminal violation. there was no quid pro quo. the gifts -- there was no explicit, if i do this, and give you this wedding gift, i will do this for you, rolex, or whatever that you will perform the fact. even though we know that governor donald did in fact give this businessman access to the governor's mansions and set up meetings for him. we know have a standard, at least in terms of prosecution, enoughless you are dump

to sit down like duke cunningham did, and write your list on a napkin, you can get with the most anything. we had this very stark contrast between what the public considers to be corruption, and now how the courts have defined political corruption. host: anything particular to the last caller regarding hillary clinton you want to mention? guest: this notion of criminality for secretary clinton are for many of our public officials, because the courts now have defined that standard, it is at such a low level --when i was describing what happened in the clinton foundation. we are now at a point where the court has said access and influence, meaning you get a contribution to either a campaign committee, or you get to a foundation. i would note the clinton foundation is not the only foundation connected to powerful

politicians. the reality is that you can get that appointment and get in the door. that is the way the system is in washington, particularly for large campaign donors and for those who have the resources to get the foundations. host: let's hear from margaret in leavenworth, kansas. you're on the line for democrats. good morning, margaret. caller: good morning. . you know, it bothers me that the last caller was innuendoy and starkey. the clintons have been around. i lived in arkansas and she did some wonderful things. you know, when you see people quit served -- when you see people who have served and work hard to bring health care to children, and the work she did for women and she has traveled. it is so wonderful.

-- and nothingt they threw at her never stuck. it was all in you windows. innuendos.ll in you foster --t kill them she did not kill events foster. i don't know why this is so sexist. and so unfair. it is like this whole thing -- i just want to say, i think they have lawyers, and trump has much more lawyers. as far as i can say, the have a horrible real estate deal like trump does. and have all of these holdings holdings in russia

and everything else for his business. i think people need to really thataway from the haters just cannot stand this woman being president and making up these things with no actual proof. the last caller did not say one specific thing. did she still the white house silverware? no. she is out there, and the foundation was created to help people. you know, like carter goes and builds houses. i think we're lucky to have them in the political system. i think when you tear down and make up lies, like somebody is not really a real president of the united states or that they , and you this or that cause them to be unable to lead,

like donald trump did to obama, i think there should be a charge of harassment. host: margaret, thank you for calling. meredith mcgehee? guest: these two dollars strike strikehese two callers me. it is about the polarization of america. there is this question about dysfunction of congress, how congress is at loggerheads and cannot even pass of the zika funding bill. a lot of times you look at dysfunction in congress, and i work on issues regarding money and politics or ethics in government and making the process actually work, and these are very important issues. one ofwo callers show the reasons and there is this dead zone, if you will, this gridlock in congress is that we have a very divided country. we have seen that since the 2000 election.

we have seen that in this election, where the polls show the differences between those who favor lenten and those who favor trump. there is a chasm between that. the people in the middle are miniscule. what is going on in washington, , a fair portion of that, not all of it, there are changes in the campaign finance system that needs to be made to deal with some of the dysfunction. another part is it reflects the polarization in our country. i think these two callers are an illustration of that. may: donald trump, jr., news this week talking about tax returns detracting from the political message. it says that because he has a 4000 page tax return, that would have financial auditors having everybody in the country asking

questions detracting from my father's main message. what do you think of that? guest: i think it is silly. is every american going to go through 12,000 pages? no. will some people go through 12,000 pages and highlight the most absurd parts? absolutely. the american people are sophisticated enough, and certainly reporters from the right and from the left and in between, and they would be able to handle that information. host: one more voice from the trump campaign, specifically the campaign manager. on msnbc tuesday talking about privacy and donald trump. [video clip] late. trump had a physical last week in advance of us knowing that hillary clinton had pneumonia or what happened on 9/11. he had that physical because he believes it is important for the public to know what his basic health condition is, and he has

said the doctor is preparing his report, and that will be made available this week. i was not present for his physical. >> so we do not know if it is in same doctor that reported december, which was very brief? remember, i am with dr. awes and millions of americans on this. i do not know why we need such extensive medical reporting when we all have a right to privacy. frankly, most of the american people are very upset that many of them had to change doctors after many years with their theors under obamacare, affordable care act. why would somebody change a doctor when they are in good shape and have been healthy for so long? that has been lost in the conversation. the doctor is being reall ridiculed by someone who is not a licensed professional. privacy,e right to

certainly for most americans, to all americans, is very important . but we're not really talking about all of americans. we are talking about people running for president, about two people since we are past the primaries. certainly, while there is a right to privacy while running for president, it is a very grueling job. jobhave to really want that because it is a nonstop, 20 47 job for four years -- a nonstop, for four years. i think the expectations are different. you do not give up every right to privacy, and i think that is certainly a concern in this modern day and age. 'sen you see colin powell personal e-mails being made

public, i think it is a concern. i want to go back to the public policy interest here. the public policy interest for a presidential candidate and for voters to be able to assess these two 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 interest they bring to the table . obviously, this question about physical health is important. otherwise, did president roosevelt hide for many years the fact he was in a wheelchair? because he was concerned to how the american people would react. can you imagine in this day and age, given all of the health problems that he had, when we learn later that dwight eisenhower had a heart attack and the public was not told for a long time afterward, so there is a balance here, certainly 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, you know, is interesting, but it is really not the public policy concern. host: back to phones. salem, oregon, on the republican line. caller: starting off, my uncle is a district attorney. i would like to start off with carmen you know, obama, lois , they are there, and many have president clinton on an airplane with lynch. that is a no-no. then you have her servers, which is illegal.

she knows better than that. colin powell told her that. you know she is getting money from countries that liked to .ill gays and lesbians for them to be married or whatever, that is their business. she is deplorable. i am in that basket, i guess, but she is -- i'm sorry. [laughs] that is pretty much what i had to say. host: ok, let's get a response from meredith mcgehee. hadt: the first reaction i was she sound like many other that are i talked to increasingly trending toward a more libertarian view of government in how they want to interact with their government. kind ofould have expected in this election that you would have a growing segment of the population that is really trying to separate out from the traditional democrat viewpoint

of, you know, labor union support and the government safety net and the traditional democratic values and he kind of traditional republican values, you know, promoting business, and in the last several decades, very conservative on social issues. it is now a fairly significant and growing segment of the people who want government out of their business. at the same time, on social issues, they also want government out of those issues, those issues that are really married with, excuse the pun, with the republican party over the last decades. the caller is representing growing segment of the population who is probably what you might call conservative and terms of the government's role and some of the privacy concerns that fairly liberal when it comes to social issues.

from chattanooga, tennessee, on the independent line. caller: good morning. i was calling just to say that i think that you need to hold all republicans that are working on the congress, you need to hold them, as well as trump, on issues of taxes. that because republicans want him to become the president, they should be the ones to say, hey, you need to show your taxes, 40 years of his taxes need to be shown. at first, i really thought he would be great. but as far as i am concerned, he is not. i think he is crooked trump. tom kind of twisted on who vote for, and i do not know who i am going to vote for. i truly believe that this man is very dangerous.

thank you very much. host: ok. let's get a response. guest: it is interesting, this notion that republicans in congress and elsewhere would be able to bring pressure on mr. trump. so far in this election, it does not seem like anyone is able to bring pressure on mr. tromp, certainly within the republican party. there are many people within the republican party who are doing everything they can to distance themselves, whether it be national security officials or generals, and then you have the competing generals. and so it is a very interesting dynamic within the republican party. i think it is a fascinating to this, and it will be after election, what happens with the republicans. there are many republicans who have been in kind of -- i would not really call it the rhinos, republicans only, but the teadom to party -- freedom

party, which does not quite know what to make of trump or do you have kind of the moderate republicans, traditional republicans, who are kind of horrified sometimes by the dramatic statements he makes. and then you have republicans who feel like the party has left them. it is going to be fascinating to watch how the republican party brings its of out of this election. that being said, if mr. trump wins, than the party will probably remake itself in an image of mr. trump. host: here is a tweet about congress -- voters are unhappy about everyone in congress except their own representatives. guest: that is a statistic that has been floating around for many years. i would say that if you look at some of the polling, which shows that, yes, we hate congress but like our representatives, those numbers have actually decreased

over the last decade. many memories of congress do not like anyone -- many members of the public do not like anyone in congress. if you look at some of the polling about the faith people have in the american system, the faith in elected officials making decisions based on what they think is best for their constituents or best for their own conscience, those are sometimes in the single digits. they are saying decisions get made because of who the contributors are. when you see a poll that says the american people do not believe that their representatives are making decisions based on the member's own conscience or what is best for the constituents, that is a very concerning dynamic. i think the traditional expectation is changing over the last several years. host: carol from newport to tennessee. democratic caller. caller: i am calling about both

candidates. he asks whatump, african-americans have to lose, and being african-american, i think we lose our dignity. not only african americans but people of other races and cultural backgrounds. i am glad someone spoke up yesterday. someone else should do that if he starts to berate anybody. if they tell him like he did and tell him, no, this is not the place, then he would have been stopped a long time ago. he keeps on wanting to say he has something important to say on this white piece of paper in and nobody just makes him pull it out. he did it at the forum for the

military, and that lower did not lauer did not have him plot the piece of paper -- did not have him pull out of that piece of paper, which said about the military backing him. hillary clinton, she needs to be more available, more available with information on the negative things people are saying about her in regards to the clinton foundation. her speech is too wall street. go ahead and give everybody what they want. that is the only way you are going to put the things that have been said to rest, all of those things. hopefully in the coming days, she does that. and then this whole thing, the basket of deplorables. i really believe that she was not speaking to the people but

the actions of the people, which are deplorable. host: several points. anything you want to respond to? guest: first, i think mr. trump double have a challenge in getting support of people of color -- i think mr. trump will have a challenge in gaining support of people of color. we will see what that challenge looks like in getting voters to the polls. a lot of people i have talked to say they will stay home this year because they do not like the choices. transparency, one of the problems that hillary clinton has herself exacerbated on this question of transparency is by not holding press conferences. i would contrast that to win mr. mccain was running, and he had the reporters on the bus. they had almost total access to him. in fact, it benefited him on the coverage.

so this kind of reluctance to engage with the press and do it on a regular basis and have that kind of openness is, i think, damaging her and in terms of this overarching narrative, it is a reinforcing that. trump dos donald better in that area? there have been some media complains that he could be more accessible in answering questions from folks. guest: sure, but that is a different style. he has a style we have not had before. he makes statements that drive the media coverage because it is speak.olitician there is a way politicians speak in our country. he does not have all this baggage that she brings, but he is also making his own news because he makes statements that no other politicians imagine making.

not quite appropriate in the sense that they each bring to the table their own problem. one of the ways that i think ms. clinton can manage her problem that are is to increase her availability. one of the ways i think donald trump have managed his problem better is not doing the off-the-cuff speaking and make statements that rile up folks. that is easier said than done when on the outside. from "usa is a quote today." the president clinton for addition would enter ethical but he writesrs, about two ethical situations that are very different but have one commonality. the trump organization and the clinton foundation arc annexed toy -- are complete link to their founding family. it makes separating the personal and political even more difficult.

importanthink it is to note that the clinton foundation and the trump up foundation are not the only foundations that have politicians connected to them. one example is mr. dole, senator dole, who was senate minority leader, longtime senator from kansas. he created the dole foundation many years ago. it worked on disability issues and did great work. but word got around town pretty soon that if you really wanted to get on mr. dole's good side and you were a player in washington, you would give not only to the campaign of mr. dole -- he did not need that much money, but you could give to the dole foundation -- foundation, and that got you on the radar screen of access and influence. it is very dangerous. has the mcconnell center at the university of louisville, and it gets contributions from any interests

lobbying him. mr. leahy, a democrat, has the leahy center in vermont to manage deals with environmental issues. the point is that the work, obviously, certainly for the clinton foundation, the dole foundation, the chairs, they do good work. if they were just shams, that would be one thing. that is not the public policy problem. the problem is that people figure out pretty clearly that in the washington money game, how you buy access and influence. avenue fores a clear that money to enter the system, and that is a problem. thoseou run for office, should be severed. host: republican caller, eric, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call, and thank you for c-span.

listen, a really interesting discussion, but what is really starting to worry me, actually bother me, is say hillary and trump provider tax records and medical records and answer all these questions we have been asking every day. what difference would it make? they are still not talking about issues important to the american people, and that is what scares me the most. we have an election coming up, and we have not talked about anything that is important to us. i do not know what it will take to change that. i hope the american people wake up, and we get smart and do something about it. host: let's hear from our guest. guest: the caller makes an excellent point. when you start talking a lot about the tax returns or the i amon foundation, i mean, not saying these are not important issues, but certainly in terms of the presidency, many of the public policy decisions

the new president will make will have to do with education, with the environment, with social security, with foreign policy. this campaign has been lackkably notable for its of specifics and lack of -- toication to gov t give the american people the policy choices on those areas. what is the difference between where hillary clinton stands on education policy and where donald trump stands? i can make a pretty educated guess the most americans cannot urge the late their differences on those policies. host: maria in westfield, new jersey. thank you for waiting. caller: i have two sites i would like to recommend to viewers. the gateway pundit, a report of how the clinton foundation and wrenched itself by ripping off haiti. the second is investment watch blog. this is important.

it shows how the clinton federation parlayed american donations in order to get a rare permit for gold-mining in haiti for hillary clinton's brother. also, i would like to say it is deplorable that hillary's brother got the goldmine and the haitians got the shaft. haiti should for be monitored, and i think everybody should agree to an audit of the clinton foundation, which they have refused. host: meredith mcgehee? guest: i am not aware of this particular link about the gold-mining in haiti. i certainly agree that having transparency in terms of the clinton foundation and the trump foundation, given that they have been in the news so much, would be helpful. i do not know that it would change anybody's minds at this point.

i would like to get back to what the previous caller said. there are many other substantive issues that the american people could benefit from more clarity on. so that we have a very keen awareness in terms of the choices that each person can make -- the point is to have the information out there so everyone can make up their own mind about how they feel and what they want their president to do on a range of issues. everybody has an issue they care about more than the other. this election has been remarkably content-free. host: danny from alabama, democratic line. caller: yes, thanks for taking my call. i have not heard anyone say anything about this, but trump's financial disclosures is a security.national 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. he could make a decision that will benefit him and not our country. i would like to hear what ms. mcgehee says about that. host: final thoughts? guest: this is the process of transparency, to be able to understand what the conflicts are, what their interests are. if you have a holding in a foreign country or in holding affected by what happens in a foreign country, the american people should be able to hold you accountable for decisions you make regarding those decisions. i think the caller is right. this is the purpose of transparency, to protect against these but to joe conflicts and to ensure decisions are made for critical issues of national security or for the economy or trade, etc.

the transparency for these candidates is so key. more onu can learn their website. the policy director has been our guest, meredith mcgehee. thank you very much for coming out to talk to us. guest: thank you for having me. >> here on c-span, we continue to wait for donald trump, who will be speaking this morning at the trump international hotel, 1100 pennsylvania avenue, just a stones throw from the white house. what is he expected to talk about? that heization writing is giving a statement today about whether he believes president obama was born in the u.s. they write, trump made frequent attacks are a president obama's term, questioning his birthplace. u.s. on thursday, he avoided a question in a washington post interview about whether he still questions obama's birthplace. hours later, trump campaign

released a statement saying the businessman believes obama was born in the u.s. you can read that article at thehill.com. we will have the comments live when they get underway. we have been showing you what is going on inside the hotel. we also have some video outside. >> and some of the protesters on the pennsylvania avenue side of the trump of international hotel . here on c-span, we will have the event live from the hotel when mr. trump begins speaking. until then, back to this morning's "washington journal," a conversation about the clinton foundation and donald trump's finances. kurt eichenwald, senior

writer for newsweek magazine has this piece -- have the trump organization is it foreign business ties to open u.s. national security? eichenwald, good morning. thank you for joining us. give us a sense of the size and scope of the trouble organization. where does most of its money come from? guest: you went to the heart of the question. it is actually impossible to know, because the trump organization is sort of in a black box. it is a private company and does not file any information that is in any way public you does publicly reviewable, except for when an entity was in it borrows money from the public debt market. but that does not happen all that often anymore. -- rying to dig through it

>> a big round of applause for our pow's and mia's. [applause] >> i am going to address a couple things before i introduce donald trump op, who will then make some remarks, and we will have some of the individuals behind me, some of the heroes behind me make some comments about what it is that they believe and the direction the country needs to take under some really solid leadership. the first thing i want to address is this notion of deplorables. i will tell you, you know, if it is a badge of honor to wear, and i do not consider myself a deplorable person, but if it is a badge of honor to wear -- you think about the individuals who ran out to lexington common and

formed against the british to begin to serve and fight for american patriotism, fight for them and they believe in, or as they trailed back to the northbridge, and you are familiar with the shot heard around the world am a they aggressor at that time, and you take that people who continue to serve in combat zones, those are not deplorable individuals. we should continue to respect the idea of patriots and people who are willing to volunteer and give them last true measure of devotion this country requires in order to fight for it. what we have now is a deficit of leadership in this country right now.

it is a staggering deficits of leadership. hillary clinton, she is unfit to be president of the united states and commander in chief. people talk about temperament. trump forwn donald welcome and his temperament is the temperament of winning, the idea of winning. temperament a problem for anyone who watched the commander in chief town hall, you saw the temperament riser for hillary clinton, and when she stood up on the stage who argued with the gentleman who was a navy veteran. tough question, and she lost her temper. that is something we have to pay close attention to. we cannot have that kind of judgment in the white house.

ok, a couple of things before i bring donald trump out here. represented behind me and you have seen all the numbers of flag officers, generals, admirals, today we batch,lled out another and their numbers continue to come in. site officers who have stepped up to say we completely support donald trump to be the next president of the united states and be the next commander in chief. and i will tell you, this is not out of frustration. this is out of determination and resolve to get our country back on track. that is what it is about.

represented, we also have 17 medal of honor recipients who have also stood up and said we support donald trump. unbelievable. so for our military who continued to serve, who i deeply respect, and donald trump deeply respect everything they do, our veterans, we need to take much better care of veterans, and families, our families remained the silent group who are struggling. we have met with many military families the last couple weeks, and our gold star families. we have a couple gold star family members represented today. we want to make sure that they are taking care of and we can do everything we can to cherish everything they represent for this country.

so with that, i want to introduce the next president of the united states, donald trump. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] mr. trump: thank you very much, everybody. please sit down. nice hotel. under budget and ahead of schedule. it is a great honor. this is a brand-new ballroom. you only see a small piece of it because we had broken down, but

the hotel was completed, we will be having our opening ceremony in october, and it will be something very special. it is such an honor to have our first event. this is our first event. it is such an honor to have our first event for medal of honor winners. they are the finest. and we get so many endorsements from the medal of honor winners, is incredible, and i look forward to spending more time here. they have a lot more courage than i do. have this an honor to particular ceremony be the first germany, because i think when the hotel opens officially, it will be one of the great hotels anywhere in the world, and i

want to thank the gsa, the general services. they have been spectacular. spectacular people. these are tremendously talented people. all the workers, all construction folks, all the managers, hotel staff, amazing how good our country can do when we want to do it. but we have put in tremendous amounts of work and energy and really believe, i sent this will be the best hotel in washington. i think it may be one of the great hotels anywhere in the world. honor to have this is our first event. so i am pleased to be here this morning with two medal of honor recipients, and the six flags and general officers. we have a tremendous amount of talent. a lot of generals, and general kellogg, general flynn, we have

the room stacked with generals and talented people, and leaders. i love leaders. 120great people represent flag and general officer endorsements. 120. in the number is going up very rapidly. and now 17 medal of honor recipients. in addition, a tremendous amount of very brave people. i am honored to be joined by the many veterans that are supporting us all throughout the room. thank you very much for being here. honored to have a gold -- janee, jean horton ?orton -- where is jane

.lease stand thank you. thank you. incredible. jane lost her husband, specialist chris horton, in afghanistan on september 9, 2011, and, jane, it is such an honor to have you here, and i hear so many things about chris, and he was a winner, and thank you very much on behalf of the country. thank you. it is incredibly humbling to be andhe company of these real true heroes. i have the privilege to introduce our first medal of honor recipient, mike thornton. mike is a retired united states navy seal, a tough cookie. and a recipient of the united

highestlitary's decoration, the medal of honor. thehis actions in vietnam, vietnam war. in addition, he is the recipient of a silver star, three bronze stars, and a purple heart. i am proud to have him on my team. it is such a great honor for me. and also, fellow recipient bob patterson, who likewise as the medal of honor, who is also here. we have 17 medal of honor recipients, and they have all endorsed before president of the united states, and i have been endorsed by generals and many of the generals have become very good friends of mine. we seem to have a very good chemistry together. but even the generals admit there is something very special about medal of honor recipients.

mike, if i might ask you to just say hello, say couple of words, and thank you very much for being here. mr. thornton: thank you, ladies and gentlemen. when it was not fashionable to support the military in 1986, some great people like donald trump and sacked fisher, the uss us atid, and he supported that time. the medal of honor i proudly wear around my neck i feel i do not deserve. it belongs to every man and woman who have served our great men and women in this country. because ladies and gentlemen, freedom is not free.

right now today is the most life, and lifemy is very short. i had been around for almost 70 years. .is election means so much we do not need any more bureaucratic leadership from washington, d.c. leadership from the top. mr. trump has never failed in anything because he listens to his advisors, his people. for the last 80 years, our president has not listen to anybody, that is the reason why we have lost cia directors, we have lost secretary of defense, and many, many general officers that have dropped out or resigned because of his leadership. we cannot stand for four more years of leadership like that. we need somebody that is going

to lead from the front like donald trump. so thank you very much for having us here. not bless you. not bless america. and god -- god bless you. god bless america. and god bless donald trump. i'm supposed to introduce bob patterson, my good friend for 45 years. i am here to tell you something right. i spent 26 years defending this country. and after that i spent another 17 years taking care of those veterans who i served with an we are still serving, because i worked for the 17 years for the v.a. before i finally retired.

i have watched our country to get complete turnaround from where it was. we used to be the shining star on the hill. and we are getting dimmer and dimmer and him are, and it is all because of all the bureaucrats here in washington, d.c. and it is time we send somebody to washington that knows how to say you are fired. the gentleman i am going to general, is a major the ceo and president of the mexican chamber of commerce based in washington, d.c. held positions on many commissions under many presidents.

1964,ered the military in and he has numerous awards and decorations, including the silver star, five bronze stars, and a purple heart. >> what bob just did to me, he made me older than anybody out here. mr. trump, thank god for you. being a vietnam veteran answering all the way through the iraq and afghanistan war and the department of defense as the chairman of the reserve forces policy board for half of the military that we deployed for that region, 15 years ago, and you're still there.

we are national guard and reservists. when they came home, he could not use the v.a. because they were not veterans because they were still part of their reserve and national guard unit. i know the next president, donald trump, will fix that. i also would like to say deplorables are also deployables. gentlemen, it is an honor for me to be here in supporting the next president of the united states, who will lead from the front, who is the kind of leadership that we need and is not afraid to make that decision. ladies, i am really honored to be with donald trump, and i am all with you.

[indiscernible] i actually probably did this on purpose, because this next fellow is a personal friend and respect for him. he won his silver star in korea when the north koreans tried to take over our location in the dmz. he is a very special warrior. he is a major general. honor to introduce you to him. >> thank you, and we do go way back. i do not go back to the korean i was awardedhere the silver star. after 40 years of serving this nation in uniform and four combat deployments, i am convinced our nation needs a multidisciplinary approach to

cruisedur enemies and to victory. what we need is fresh thinking, innovative approaches, and strong leadership. it has been my privilege to have spent quality time with mr. trump on and off the campaign trail over the past few months. and i have been extremely impressed with this dome and's stamina -- with this gentleman's ammonite, and you would be stamina, gentleman's and you would be amazed what he could do. in addition to his stamina, i have been impressed with his intellectual curiosity and his raw intelligence and his energy and his enthusiasm, and yes, indeed, his temperament. he has the right temperament to be in the white house.

but the thing i have been most impressed with is his love for the men and women in uniform and he is going to get from them to the white house. -- andan guarantee you at homeir families will not be in vain, in addition to the billions of taxpayer dollars that are supporting them, and that is why i am supporting donald trump as the next commander in chief. now it is my pleasure to introduce a fellow comrade in arms, admiral don warren. he guided a destroyer squadron. he was an executive assistant to our naval forces commander and he ended a career as a deputy director for strategic planning

for policy. it is my pleasure. >> thank you, everyone. we are a group of national security professionals who have dedicated our lives to the security of our nation as deplorable as we are. we are not a political group. we are a national security group has chosen to support a political candidates. discussions you have all listens to mr. trump have deal with national security . national security is not solely about the military. it is comprised of many facets, defense, diplomacy, development, economic security, energy security, border security, cyber security, homeland security. the logical --

the logical policy presentations that mr. trump has delivered over the last few weeks lay out a sound strategic approach to providing the security of the nation and the security of all americans. these policies comprise a holistic approach to addressing the complex facets of national security in a complex and extremely dangerous international world. mr. trump combines this multifaceted approach to our security with a pronounced committed to those in uniform serving our nation today. veterans whoall have worn the cloth of the nation. and that commitment extends to the families of those who have served. for as all of us in this room know, their sacrifice has been

desperate -- has been equally difficult. george washington said with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how the perceived veterans of earlier wars were treated and are appreciated by our nation. mr. trump has embraced those words of our first president. mr. trump has also shown an extreme dedication to those that have shouldered the wounds of battle in the service to our nation, and we have several of those people with us today. and he has committed himself to the words of president abraham lincoln, words that are

emblazoned in the motto of our department of veterans affairs -- to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan. this is why all of us here are assembled to support donald trump for president. we have -- we have lived national security for a large part of our lives. we understand how a strong economy, cooperative governance, combined with skilled diplomacy, sound energy policy, found alliances, and a united american public all defended by a well-trade, appropriately funded, fully committed, and technologically unsurpassed military come together to make america strong and make the world a safer place.

and, finally, finally, all of us on this stage, all of you in the audience who have served, you took a nose, you pledged --an oath, you plants, sealed with your honor and commitment to your lives, not solely to the country, not to a flat, not to a chain of command, not to a commander in chief, but an oath to a piece of paper, a piece of parchment upon which is written those ideals in which we believe, those values that define us as a nation, is very virtues that those who have served before us defended with their lives. theath to defend constitution of the united states from all enemies, foreign and domestic and bear true faith and allegiance that constitution, to form a more perfect union, to establish

justice, to ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. oa is important to usth who -- that oath is important to us here today. that oath remains the cornerstone of our lives long after we have taken off the uniform. is important to donald trump, and he will take that on january 20, 2017. that is why we assembled in this room, along with many other veterans and their military families, all support his candidacy for president of the united states america. together we will all make

america great again. i thank every single one of your service desk every one of you for your service to our nation for yourone of you service to our nation, and god bless america. it is my pleasure to introduce general tom mcinerney, a west point graduate, but we will not hold that against him. he joined the air force, completed pilot training, and went on to a long, distinguished literary career, including assistant vice chief of staff at headquarters u.s. air force. his awards include the distinguished service medal, legion of merit the distinguished flying cross, bronze star, a true good american hero, tom mcinerney. mcinerney: thank you, don.

it is very simple. we, all warriors here, are supporting mr. trump because he has the only budget, the only economic plan that can rebuild the military. if you elect hillary clinton, your get 1% growth. 6%'re going to get 3.5% to with myth administration, because he knows how to take the handcuffs off for the american economy. we need that. make it very clear to the american people there is only one candidate that can rebuild the united states military, and make us great again. pleasures my distinct to introduce lieutenant general keith kellogg, who is on the

national security part of mr. trump's team. he is doing that transition for defense and the af fares. keith had two tours in vietnam. he has a very distinguished career, culminating in the defense of the 82nd airborne division, the all american division, and finishing up as a j6 in the joint staff because the chairman wanted a warrior. keith is a warrior. god bless you, mr. trump. keith kellogg. thank you, and i am honored to be on the stage with medalgreat americans, two of honor winners. these are men who know the meaning of courage. they know sacrifice, character, and they are with us. the last one i want to identify,

jane orton, the goldstar wife of chris horton. chris was a great young sniper, with the 45th infantry division, the thunderbirds of oklahoma. to meet these great veterans tiny, and we started last week there were 80. we have 165 today. these are men and women who have led at all levels of leadership. and believe deeply in his temperament, his leadership,'s vision, and-- his his guts to be commander in chief. watching, letou me tell you about the people who support him, the people behind me, and the people who are not here.

and to the millions of americans who are probably watch it, these are commanders who fought in afghanistan, iraq, they fought in mogadishu, a fought in panel. panama.-- in we have leaders who have been wounded fighting for this nation. one of the commanders of this althoughed down escobar, the colombian drug lord. we're in the middle of a change election. it is quite civil. for those of you here today, to those of you this thing out here and those who are watching them if you want to keep the status quo with all its failures and promises of more of the same, then you know where you can go. if you want to move forward with courage, be what we can be, what we should be, and what we will be, then you will elect donald trump to be president of the united states of america.

to those of you watching, join with us on this stage, joined those millions who already have stood what us in the past months, to carry this man and with him our nation to victory november. god bless you, and thank you. >> without further do, the first person you were here to see and listen to, the next president of the united states, donald j. trump. mr. trump: thank you, everybody.

>> usa! mr. trump: thank you, everybody. please sit down. this is such an amazing honor, and the difference is we all want to get back to work, or it is building our military or building our country. we have to get back to work. having not worked more to do. we have been very much left behind speaking with the admirals and generals and all the military people. we talked about the word depletion that the military has been so badly treated in terms of its equipment, and this is a time where we need our military perhaps more than ever. when you look at the number of ships, you look at the number of military personnel, you look at the numbers that are setting weords for all time lows, cannot have that. there is a world out there and to say, but there are a lot of very, very evil

people heading up some potentially very strong countries. we have to be prepared. we have to keep our country so great and so strong. and that is why to have all the support from so many generals, so many admirals, people are respect so much, they are smart, they are tough, they know what is happening, and i believe in them totally, and that is why the fact that they believe in me is one of the great honors of my life. so i want to thank everybody. now, not to mention her in the same breath, but hillary clinton startedcampaign of 2008 the birther controversy. i finished it. i finished it. you know what i mean. borndent barack obama was

in the united states, period. now we all want to get back to great america strong and again. thank you. thank you very much. thank you, everybody. thank you.

>> very briefly, i want to they that they things that have come out today, to what you heard today, first, we want to deeply thank all of our military men and women who continue to serve this great country. if being a deplorable and wanting our country to be great again, then i am a deplorable, but those individuals deserve the military, then veterans and family who stood behind all they are notces, deplorable americans, they are great americans. word came out today and the theme of what you just witnessed. one working out is leadership. we need leadership desperately in this country.

-- one word that came out is leadership. we need leadership desperately in this country. thank you all for being here today. god bless this country. great again.erica thank you. usa! usa! usa! >> an event at the new trump international hotel, hearing from military supporters of donald trump and donald trump saying in his last few statements there president obama

was born in the united states period. starting that by saying hillary clinton started this in 2008. hillary clinton responding with a couple tweaks this morning about that -- we know who donald is. for five years he has learned birther movement to delegitimize our first black president, tweeting further, or obama was born in america lane and civil. donald trump owes him and the american people an apology. we will let you know about our additional coverage coming up today. we will bring you michelle obama campaigning for hillary clinton and tim kaine. that is coming up from george mason university in fairfax, virginia, like coverage at 3:00 p.m. eastern. coming up in just a bit, we expect to take you over to the white house at 11:45 this morning. the president has been meeting on the transpacific partnership with people like former secretary of the treasury hank

paulson, michael bloomberg, john kasich, and others. we expected her from those -- we expect to hear from those visits. we will have live coverage when it starts. until then, a look at campaign ethics from this morning's "washington journal." 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 a 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 trump tax 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, will donald trump release the 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 is under audit and this year is 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 candidates 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 that wealth really sat. but there is a line here that i think is important to make clear. the 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 wealthy he is, there is almost a gossip part. we need to step back and say what is the interest of getting information whether it is at the presidential, senatorial, or gubernatorial levels. the point is not to find out 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 can be, and i can be held accountable for the decisions i make relative to the holdings. that is the point of the transparency. it is not so we can find out how wealthy any individual candidate is. host: warsaw, indiana. democratic line. caller: am i on? host: yes, go ahead. caller: i want to know why there is not more of a push for trump. it seems they stay on hillary with everything having to do with her financial disclosures. and the press bombards her with all this pressure. then trump seems to, with his financial stuff going on with russia, all of that or 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 other groups, to get him to be more transparent with his financial disclosures? because it will tell who he truly is as a person as far as charity and all of the lies that he says he has done for people. and it would just bring out his character of who he truly, really is. and hillary, they have done everything to make her look like she is nothing. so i think there should be more pressure put on him to get his

taxes out there. host: meredith mcgehee? guest: in the coverage of presidential politics, one phenomenon is an overarching narrative, it is like the dan quayle is not smart because he cannot spell "potato." or that al gore is robotic and wears brown suits to warm up his image. the image on hillary clinton has been secrecy coming out of whitewater, a series of activities. the media gloms on to that and maintains the narrative. they often follow people through public life. think of richard nixon when he was labeled "tricky dick." this is a tendency in american politics to define the overarching narrative for each character, if you will, in american politics.

obviously, it is dangerous that it is not round out a full picture of the character of the candidate who will potentially lead the country. in terms of donald trump, because he has not been in public office, because 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. the phenomenon with trump is that none of it has been sticking because he is new to this arena. and this arena is a very particular arena that creates overarching narratives that tend to follow politicians through their lives. host: donald trump's business empire, what is known about it? you mentioned mitt romney, but are there cases in history or presidents where they had significant business dealings

and questions have come up about conflicts of interest? guest: yes. this is not very new in american politics. kennedy, his family and father had lots of money. there were questions raised about the holdings when he was running. we did not have the financial disclosure regulations in place at the time. the roosevelts, a very wealthy family. at that time it was the noblesse oblige, rich were going to take care of all of us. compare that to a harry truman, who was seen as comparatively poor. it was a very significant contrast in american politics. but the notion of having wealth and the upper echelons for presidential candidates is fairly common throughout our 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. that is actually raising questions simply because of the holdings they have. as you make decisions those holdings can be affected significantly by the decisions of the president. host: 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's made money through corruption, pointing to people like jeb johnson who donated $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. her clinton foundation is a money laundering machine for or foreign 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 this article is that there is one perception of what constitutes corruption in the public and another standard of corruption in the courts. what you have seen from the

supreme court particularly is a step-by-step process in which the definition of corruption that can be prosecuted has been made about this big. it is very narrow now. it started from a standard which said corruption, 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, in which you have an explicit agreement, i give you this coming you give us that and it is explicit. then you have the mcdonnell 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. the gifts -- there was no explicit, if i do 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 governor's mansion and set up meetings for him. we now have a standard, at least in terms of prosecution, where unless you are, if you will, dumb enough to sit down as cunningham did to write your

list on a napkin, you can get away with almost anything. we have a start contrast between what the public considers as corruption and what the court has defined as corruption. host: anything in particular to the last caller you want to mention? guest: this notion of criminality, for secretary clinton or many public officials, because the courts have now defined that standard at such a low level, and we're describing what happened in the clinton foundation, we are at a point where the court said access and influence buying, meaning 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.

earnest: good morning, everybody. nice to see you all. i am joint at the podium today by a person from the city of atlanta georgia, and by governor john kasich of ohio. both of them had indicated their strong support and believe that congress should approve the transpacific partnership, and they have had the opportunity to discuss that with the president this morning, and i invited them to discuss it here this morning with all of you as well. each has prepared a brief opening remark. we will have them have their say briefly, and then we will be open for questions. do you want to start? >> good morning. i want to begin by thanking

president obama for giving us us inportunity to join expressing our dues yet the support for the transpacific partnership today. i am honored to be among the bipartisan gathering of leaders that included governors, ceo's, financial individuals from the financial sector, former treasury secretary. thati was honored atlanta was hosting the final round of negotiations, in my judgment the most aggressive trade agreement in u.s. history. i am proud that more than 100 mayors have stayed shoulder to shoulder with the president in tpp.ffort to pass in atlanta, small businesses are the backbone of our local economy and the primary drivers of growth and innovation. nationally, we know they represent more than 98% of businesses in our country, but

only about 1% of those of small businesses are engaged in international trade. pass tpp, id tpp -- am confident that number will increase. barriers andce focus on small business exports by cutting tariffs and reducing nontariff barriers, opening the fast-growing pacific rim region of the world. represent 12%es of global gdp and account for 1/3 of global trade. metro atlanta now is already now the 13th largest exporter in the u.s.. war than 150,000 jobs in the metropolitan atlanta region are supported by the tpp. georgia exported 37% of its billion, to 14.4

tpp countries in 2011, and we expect that number to decline. nationally, 11.7 million jobs are supported by countries that make up the tpp market. and we came today because we intend to see this bill was passed. and the president asked for our thinking on how it will get past. one of best -- passed. one quotation from a former ambassador and he said something that would resonate with our group. he said people who run for office often campaign against trade. people who become president of the united states and of supporting trade. there are a number of very important reasons for us not to let this matter fail. and the most important in my is determining who

is going to set the rules of the road. we have been working on this transaction for more than five years. and ambassadort froman have done an exceptional job negotiating a very favorable agreement that is now becoming known to the world. if we want to make sure that the united states continues to lead and continues to set the rules of theroad with 40% global gdp, we need to get this deal done. one of the other factors that is not mentioned enough is that the tpp group also forms the basis for more than 40% of future gdp growth. and so once again, we think that it is in america's vital interests and in the interests of small towns across the united states of businesses that engage in international trade are more successful, pay higher wages to

their workers. we have come together to make sure that with so much political noise, a bill that is vital to the united states'long-term interests don't get left aside. i would like to bring forward the governor of ohio, governor kasich and -- governor kasich. thank you. gov. kasich: i think the mayor has done a great job of laying out the economics of the agreement did we have a unique opportunity again to put country in front of politics. i think many of the people that are in the congress of the united states understand what this is all about. they understand the implications of trade, but there is one thing i think they all understand. all of us in this room need to reflect on this. the tw