.asis we know that we also didn't have the countermeasures outbreak. we did not have diagnostic tests that were validated or animals we could use to test the dog at the time and we didn't have policies in place to show how we would handle it, quarantine, those types of things. i'll call out to usda, dod, those people all came together and quickly put together policies and procedures and validated the diagnostic test so that we have those. in that event we were very much laid bare on how we're going to handle about particular case. had there been other animals and other companion animals, where would they have gone? wherewith they been put in quarantine? we do have some critical gaps that still exist and are prepared. i think there's been a lot done since 2001. we have the surveillance plans, we've got to step up plans from

usda. we've got business continuity plans that have been developed with our industry and sectors. all of those things have been done since 2001 and they have coordinated with our federal government, the states with her industry partners. i want to give a shoutout to this agencies that help coordinate that into a private industry, and academia's role in all about. however, as i said i think we do still have a lot of gaps. we don't have a conference of biodefense program. we talked a lot about barda, and that is a production of countermeasures for humans. but we don't have anything on the animal side that is analogous to what barda is. the strategic national stockpile is limited to a much greater extent than a national veterinary stockpile, and so we have to give some light to an empty shed some light on the

agriculture and companion animal side of the house when it comes about and agro defense. that's what we're here today. success addressing these gaps will be really dependent on one health concept and taking and all of agency, all of state, all of industry approach to addressing these things. as i mentioned i think we have to have some capability to incentivize this activity and it will come through funding. it's going to come through all all the real leadership at the top it's going to encourage people to work together. there are people working together today through one health initiative, within agencies, but we have to bring this more into focus on a very much higher level. then we have to incentivize people to work in this area. the other thing i will say is on a global level. these diseases occur naturally. we are doing a lot on the global level to global health security agenda. we work with a partners to help build capacity in the international arena.

we do so through incentivizing them in these developing countries, to work anyone health concept. we do that much less in the u.s. because the way refunded because the medical side is one thing and animal side does the other thing. we have to come the industry from usda, dod, we have to bring this initiative together so that we are using our resources a better, so record getting better and leveraging resources so we talk about barda there's an animal side. when we talk about the strategic national stockpile we are funding for the national that their stockpile. we have to bring this together and have a higher level conversation on how we coordinate these events. that's all i have. >> 1 to 10? >> you're going to make me put a number on it. i will give it a six today. >> bob?

>> first of all thank you for the invitation to be your and be part of this panel. certainly this is of great interest to me. i would take a similar approach in terms of cataloging of ride a different element of what we have here but i'm going to start with the number. because quite frankly if you can't get a single number because i think tammy will probably put up identified is there's a federal component to the state and local including commercial industry component. i will start with the commercial industry. i give them an eight or a nine because why? their brand and publisher depends on ability to provide safe food to us. you can imagine if there is a circumstantial something is deliberately introduced into the food chain for something naturally acquired in the food chain, and it is their bacon that has to be protected in terms of how they will respond to that. in some ways the incentives are implicitly better for the industry to do these things, and they do it. i think from the state and local activities, and i will use iowa as an example a double kind of embellished look at about chairman rogers talked about in terms of avian influenza outbreak that occurred in iowa in 2015, that single outbreak

not only killed 25% of the bird flock but across $1.2 billion and 8500 jobs. it decreased both federal and state tax revenues. the effects of these events even when they're fairly localized a pretty enormous. so state and local authorities that have significant agribusiness in the area whether the california, iowa, north carolina, arkansas, whatever, they take this seriously because it's their home turf and quite i give them seven or eight on that. when i look to the federal

government and for the reasons i think the previous panel said with great i think detail and authority more than i can offer is simple is probably about a three or four. why? because it's not an obvious visible priority. if you look at the latest farm bill and asked yourself what provision was in there, for for defense or agriculture security, i think you'd think you would be hard-pressed to find anything of that nature in that bill. is that an issue of congress, initiative the president of the executive branch? the answer is referred many silos of excellence that exist across the domain and quite frankly the preponderance in the biodefense area that i can speak authoritatively on this, have been focus on human health issues. during my tenure in the white house when i served originally back in 2002 to 2005, and again 2007 to 2009, the issue of one health was emerging as a concept. the idea that this has not been embraced entirely through the entirety of government i think is really a function, i think as senator daschle spoke eloquently on, about leadership. focusing on these areas.

the gentleman's question about resistance and what is that fit in? i say it fits squarely into the food ago defense business because as we found out to that experience the preponderance of antibiotic use is been in the food agriculture business where that is put great pressure on the creation of arguably resistant strains. as companies now are voluntarily withdrawing the use of these antibiotics on widescale, that's putting an onus on those companies to basically use the other kinds of methods to limit the growth of pathogenic bacteria that could get into the food system. it focuses on our ability to have good surveillance and how do we monitor those herds or whatever the animal species is to ensure that they are not necessarily posing a risk to the consumers of those products. i would say that is one area. the last thing i will say is and begin to give you low marks of the federal government,

someone mentioned hspd 9. it's one of the few you don't hear from much of the biodefense world. i will say the author of this was a fellow ksu grad, kurt, a veteran of some distinction who went on to be a deputy secretary usda, but here's the challenge with that is that does not figure in some of the conversations they are having in halls of congress or in the halls of the executive office buildings around town. it's because primarily again one issue in leadership. if you look at the number of things that are contained in that particular document, which is awareness and warnings, assessments, mitigation strategies, response planning, research and development, you heard some of these things have

been set into motion and quite frankly have been taken strictly. lots of people at the ground level with the muddy boots that are growing the crops, managing those herds have been focus entirely on those issues, they did it because that's their livelihood, that's their professional careers. but in the washington sphere inside the beltway that has not had the same sway. i think it does get to the point of senior leadership and focus and priority on these issues. the obama administration recruited the senior position in the white house for biodefense security. where is that veterinarian is managing these issues? i don't know if that person exist yet, but arguably there's a great opportunity with the transition, now to a new administration. the idea that this can be essential part of that whether it's the vice president or someone else who manages that portfolio, it's critical that it does get managed. just to highlight one thing and again we talked a lot about terrorism and i don't doubt that terrorists are out there planning bad things against the

people like us, but i think we live in a very different world and i'm going to give you a little bit of a reference to something that is worth a read, which is talk about the gray zone. it's the idea that competition amongst great powers are countries in the world today will exist probably below the level of overconflict. a gray zone you will find some scholarly military papers on the subject but it's also called hybrid warfare. this idea you can conduct war for as we've seen with cyber in a way that is not attributable are very difficult to attribute to basically take its toll on society or a country. you can talk about cyber being information technology. it has economic input your but arguably you can look at the same set of issues as it would relate to someone who deliberately try to attack one of our gemstones of our society, and that is our food and agricultural production, our around that.

i just offer that as an issue that as we go forward that has to be central to whoever takes over the reins of government both in congress and in the white house. in congress it's a little harder. you have a number of committees of jurisdiction. we talked about the department of agriculture, the agricultural committee. the department has a role to epa has a role in this. hhs has a role in this. you can imagine the difficulty that will happen but a lot of these difficulties can be managed with good leadership and a prioritized focus on the senate issues. >> i, too, am going to join bob in issuing multiple numbers for multiple things. the reason for that is we are talking that agricultural like it is a singular thing. one word for one thing. the truth of the matter is the sector is comprised of all different kinds of things. the supply chain in food and crops and farmers and industry and people involved in

pharmaceuticals and all of it. all of it. it's so much. so you would have to assign a number for each and everyone of of thoseery one elements. and how the average out i don't actually know. but i would also say that the number we might assign today is going to change tomorrow, different lastly, last year, a few years ago, back when bob was in the white house and so forth. i think that's ok. i just wish that somebody was continuing to ask that question, where are we? how do we feel about it? i think that in addition to just an enormous and extremely complex sector that we are worried about being attacked and affected, naturally or intentionally, this issue of economic impact is a huge driver. and as a driver for everybody, all the way down to the lowest

level person, boots on the ground, different types of boots on the ground, down with the farms. people are concerned about it but they're concerned about in terms of their livelihood. if you can't get somebody to be all excited about it because somebody is working on an agent and weaponizing or moving it or whatever, you can get people interested in this issue just on the economics standpoint. the case in point for that would be white house studies that were done shortly after the foot and mouth disease outbreak in europe a number of years ago. we don't see a whole lot of national economic council studies on disease events that we did back then. it's an important driver, but again we're talking about the economy and talking about inputs into the economy and how we

optimize various elements of the economy. even so going back to elicit earlier by chairman rogers. we have statements from terrorists and nation-states, actors saying they want to attack the economy. this is one way, and we can't afford to just disregard it. i think another point i would like to make is that in our attempt to address complicated problems, we take a tangle of what they are composed of and we separate those pieces out, and we say there's human disease over here, there is this cyber thing happening here, we have a livestock issue, we have a crop issue, we have potential for attacking supply chain performance was and so forth, and we separate them and then we say, department of commerce, you're in charge of this and that sounds like a department of ag thing.

i will accept that. but we separate them out and we try and address those individual strands individually, not that we're doing such a great job with that, but that's what we try and do. i think then that leaves is separated, and we unnaturally leave them separated in terms of policy come in terms of activity. what's happening over here isn't happening over there and maybe it should. it's actually a tangle where everything is touching everything else. i think we have to be more realistic about that. i don't think it's just a matter of putting somebody in charge, although we did of course put out that recommendation, our number one recommendation, was vice president be put in charge. i think it's also a question of right leadership, right minded, right educated folks. we have a political system which

is wonderful, but if we want somebody to address agro defense issues, biodefense issues, and so forth, we need people who know about this issue sitting in those political appointments. we have to have people taking positions, high level in the government and throughout the government, who have a clue as to what they're doing and what they're talking about. one of our big examples of this is what happened with fema and hurricane katrina. everybody ragged on the administrator at the time, and i to the state do not rag on the administrator because he only did what he was supposed to do from a political perspective. he went for a political appointment and got it. he was not the right person to be in the position at the time. what did we do after that? we said if we're going to somebody in charge of fema -- do we have that somebody who has a

significant and the emergency management background. that is also political, and we went in that direction. we have to do the same thing in this arena. i think last week, i know we need to move on, i think we mentioned what we want to do from a state and local perspective. agriculture is a state and local issue as much as it is anything else. we talk about fusion centers and role of law enforcement and so forth. i think more than anything else with the sole exception of human medicine, agriculture affects every state in the country. somebody has got something going on with absolutely everything. not everybody has a nuclear weapon sitting in their state. some have some nuclear material in their hospitals that they have to get a hold of. engaging everybody requires actually understanding that. and then turning everybody on whether it's a primary activity in the state and locality or not. so while i'm heartened to hear

the kansas fusion center is taking a look at this, i am not so heartened to think the other fusion centers or not. they should be. we are talking about protecting the nation from something that could affect the entire nation and every state in the nation. and so as we think about this, we have to have people who think in that manner as well and are not so constrained to a few states or consider to a few diseases or to a few departments and agencies. >> we are going to leave time for questions from the audience out and i had a number of questions, but one thing i want to take away from this conversation is building upon senator daschle's comments earlier is this agency, the coordination of a number of agencies and the alphabet soup of agencies out there.

bob, you mentioned a number of agencies but i would like to agencies, but i would like to shout out as the generated department of defense. this coordination is a big issue going forward. we will jump over -- i think we touched upon the previous bet and you'll have touch upon it but let me go do something very down into the weeds a little bit. and that is in 2014, 2015, department of agriculture had to transfer a think about $1 billion from the commodity credit corporation to take care of bovine encephalitis, influenza, and bovine tuberculosis at that time. that agency's budget doubled just because of that one issue.

from maybe -- tammy, maybe from you -- how do you rate our dealing at that time, the federal government? positionam: not in a to make a comment. toopoint i want to make is often we are reactionary. and we are not proactive. in fact, we're having to transition my to an agency that has this response ability to take care of these things is reactive and not proactive and that's what we are here to talk about today. i will tell you during that outbreak i do think they handled it well. i think that there was a number of things that they had to step up to the plate obviously and do and these are routine things to do on a daily basis. they redefined laboratory definitions.

we have the national animal health laboratory network where we of 57 labs that are testing for avian influenza. we are to reactionary, not proactive. i will say i do believe these agencies have taken all the after-action plans. they put steps in place to as nice after action plan on the usda website at the tops of the things they learned during the outbreak and again preparing is always better. we are often too reactionary, and i think that's why we had to do is to call more attention to to talk about how we are on the front end so we are better ready. having said that you can never really fully prepared for what's going to happen. it could be many different variations it was a deliberate introduction, you could have foot and mouth disease introduced across the u.s. which would be at issue.

we need to be prepared on a surveillance site. we need to be prepared to detect and respond. i think there has been a lot of progress, and i go back to the non-laboratory testing, surveillance programs. too often we think disease by disease. we don't think emerging diseases or all of the one health approach towards disease preparedness. we talked about amr. you asked that question. what are the things we can leverage? we should be leveraging our surveillance systems that are out there for this. for instance, when i was at texas a&m we were developed as a system where we are engaging veterinarians to provide information to electronic means. why could we is that same system to collect data on amr instead of different agencies, funding different people to collect that data but that doesn't make any sense. we have to look at this as more of an all of agency, state and federal partner, industry approach. and only if we do in academia come to leave academia out,

that's where i'm at, dealing with tenured professors, but if we come together through academia, if we come together we can address these issues. >> if i could just add, a different note, i think the recent zika event highlights the challenge of our government respond to these kinds of events. that is that you have to have congress appropriate money to do this. so the fact of able to do an internship the budget, pace of movement across, it's something that quite traumatic traumatic as well as disrupted the agency that's involved. it certainly wasn't the case with hhs with zika but had to shuffle money around to get appropriation. it's interesting where this thing called the disaster relief fund. every year we put money into a fund that, based on the presidential declaration, that money can then be used.

it's already appropriated and everybody knows that all disasters are local, so i think policies should you understand that the flood in -- could be a tornado in kansas tomorrow, but that might be set aside for those kinds of legitimate emergencies and they don't require congressional action to do. it would only make sense and actually to kind of highlight something that came up in the recent campaign, that was proposed that the public health emergency response fund as a means to basically have a pot of money so that in the case of the next zika you don't have to do that. it was one make more sense to have a similar fund on the same fund that could be used for these kind of veterinary or agriculture emergencies that are significant, maybe not as costly in some ways but certainly significant. but the fact is these are the kinds of things arguably that the leader can say we need that could suggest that in a presidential -- next presidential budget, that money is allocated to do those kinds of things so that we shouldn't

be surprised. we may be surprised that two strains -- are not or maybe it's another form of avian influenza, but the point is that these are the kind of anticipated emergencies that can be prepared for in a way that accommodates our -- i won't to say our ponderous form of government, our democracy in a way that lives by the constitution, that we can have these funds set aside to do with legitimate emergencies in a time sensitive fashion that minimize the impact economic and personal impact that these things have. >> thank you. i'm the moderator, but i concur on your position on this -- but there are those things that we

know that we will have to find time and again a short amount of time when i want to get a shadow to the kansas state university's project you have in your biosafety level. i heard in the previous panel that the money has been funded for the building, construction and ongoing. we've got authorizing appropriations staff. tell me, once this is built, how will we keep it operational? shouldn't the ag sector through user fees or mechanisms, shouldn't they be contributing since the impact this would have on the tag sector is big, don't they have a role also to play in helping to fund these kind of activities? >> the national bio defense facility will open in 2022, it will be the gold standard state-of-the-art facility for studying diseases and so on.

having said that, a $1.25 billion facility has been funded to open in 2022, 2023. at this moment we need to start looking at programmatic funding for the usda and department of homeland security programs that will be housed in this facility. right now if you look at the funding, we're talking about $3 million or $4 million budget within the respected usda programs and dhs budget somewhere around $15 million for programmatic, not looking to expand as i understand over the next so years in ag. that's the problem. the program needs to go into to be somewhere around 15 million, to be real fair and to be able to execute the program that they need to execute within a one health environment. and to be able to beat it to partner with the cdc's of the world, with the fda, hhs, within that one health concept. right now i'm not sure of a lot of activity that's going on to

build a budget over the next several years that will include everything from workforce education. as we know a lot of the plum island staff will not be transferring to manhattan. they would need to be a concerted effort to do that. as we talk today we need to be anticipating that and starting to put dollars in educating the workforce from both the aphis -- biological technicians. we need to be educating and training this workforce that's going to go in this facility. and we need to be increasing the budget and getting that money appropriated so that we can build the right size scientific programs that can be collaborative with our human health counterparts. >> bob, asha, if you were elected to congress or president

next year, what's the one or two things you would say needs to be done quickly in this area? ms. george: i would say that, i would say that we really do need that later and the council recommended. but as part of that, pulling the usda, department of interior, department of commerce, some of these departments that we are not used to thinking about when it comes to defense-related issues and homeland security issues, making them true, making them true partners in this endeavor is critical. >> bob, any thoughts? you have been elected. what do you want to do?

the short story is basically convened a cabinet and basically saidsay this is a priority. this is a priority, dni, secretary of agriculture, secretary of defense, secretary of homeland security, this is a priority. you all have something to contribute, you all have something to do. what you need to do is build a plan that will basically make our agricultural and food industry resilient. this is a partnership not with the federal government but with our state and local partners and with commercial industry. i would expect you to convene with a respective parties to come up with applicable report back in 90 days what are the three or four things we need to do that i can take to congress to make sure that it's part of my budget that's a sustainable budget over time to drive this as a priority for the country. >> would you like to take a shot at -- would you like to be elected? speak was no. elected?

ms. beckham: i think you need take a look at what would be, i do want to see the inside of the house like that so i would encourage you need that subject matter expertise on the agricultural side. i would convened a group to reach out to the stakeholder and to the industry and academia, and to the states to decide what are the top two or three priorities, to shore up the agricultural defense. >> we have time here for about 15, 15, 20 minutes of question as in the previous panel, please identify yourself and ask the question and directed any of the panelists. there was a question right up here in front. >> with the association of american veterinary medical college. last week i was involved in a daylong process of figuring out what's going to go into the next farm bill, the authorization and still a little ways off, but if you could have your sort of dream authorization in that bill to kind of address some of things you talked about today, what would that be? what would that look like?

ms. george: i think when it comes to the farm bill and other authorizing vehicle, i think it's important to ask the question you just asked and make sure people are clear. i think part of this has to do with setting expectations. it's never been expectations of the farm bill to include something to do with come in a national security issue. somebody has to set that expectation, then the congressional staff and congressional members will respond to that. but i think specifically there are very, very specific activities that are already ongoing that need to be authorized if they haven't been authorized already. waiting around for national animal health labrador network, for example, to get authorized until just recently is a little ridiculous. it could very well have gotten into the farm bill. i would not want to see thousands of pages of that sort of thing, but somebody needs to make sure what's already

happening is authorized and will allow congress to conduct the oversight it needs to. i would put that in there, and i would make sure that a national strategy similar to what we are requiring or recommending for biodefense in general, that a national strategy activity be put into the farm bill as well. particularly addressing agriculture, obviously, but giving the department of agriculture a leadership role in that along with the other major players. i think that's really important. as with human biodefense, there are a million little strategies and plans and policies all over the place that have to be brought together and form a really good strategy. the rest of it -- you start getting into pieces and parts, right? which happened to congressional legislation, i understand, but i think without strategy, we are continuously disorganized.

>> questions? question over here. >> my name is dennis lee. so pulling on some of the things that have been said here and on the last panel, i know dr. beckham talked about being not proactive enough. the former panel talking about all these different agencies and unified command and control. i think one of the question is how do you think incentivize all these agencies or any other actress, commercial actors or whatever, to start being proactive instead of being reactive? is there a way we can do this? do you have suggestions for how this could happen? >> if i could take an initial stab in this. until they get to make the case to the commercial industry to be proactive. they are on top of these things because it really does reflect their brand and their profit share.

the question is, is from the federal government particularly what other things they can do to set in motion, to be prepared for the next event. part of these things are very, i will not say not sexy. it's making sure we have, you have a professional cadre of people out there that are trained, trained out there that can do this. the conversation before this panel started, i was talking with -- and identified a number of applicants to better name schools are going down come at a time when we probably need more veterans until veterinarians for a number of reasons, small and large. so that's one reason we can incentivize right there. it gets to the idea of training to ensuring we have a robust career field that allows you to draw upon people. you can't predict the next disaster and the idea to have

the money set aside for these things is a significant one. >> i would just comment by saying, it comes with -- money to incentivizing the output and hold people accountable. i think as far as the industries he's right. the industries you have a sense because of the brand and the commercialization obviously. the biopharmaceutical industry, how do we incentivize them to develop vaccines and diagnostics for basically a market that doesn't exist in the u.s. today? how do we look at that? how do we incentivize them to do that? is that work with our federal government partners to develop programs like barda to incentivize them to develop that type of countermeasure that we need? the other thing i would say just going back to the comment about veterinarian colleges. we have to continue to grow the workforce. we have about 1.6 applicants to those, to the admission ratio. i think we have to continue to get folks there in the veterinary colleges interested

in these areas to work in, whether that the federal government, public health. a lot of our graduates to go to practice companion animal medicine. that's wonderful. that as colleges we educate for all spectrums of the profession, but we also need to open their eyes to the other opportunities, and global veterinary medicine and the global health security agenda really relies on the one health concept in getting out and doing capacity building a broad and these are rewarding careers and educating the veterinary profession. and those kids and veterinary colleges now to those opportunities will be critical. i think elevating the value of that veterinary degree, take a look the role veterinarians play in the world today, protecting the food supply and protecting your pets and keeping them healthy. we play such an incredible role in society, and just getting that message out and elevating the value of that veterinary degree is so important as we move forward in this area.

>> questions out here? there's one back here. >> good morning. i'd like to thank both of our enlisted my name is kathleen giles. i'm an agent with the fbi. i'd like to comment on one of the previous questions and comments from the last panel as far as what the federal government is doing. right now i will say that my unit is working closely with aphis. we're about to launch a class we have written called animal plant health. basically joint criminal, epidemiological investigation course and that's training boots on the ground come industry, local better name, state veterinarians, local state law enforcement of laws federal out of work together. that means information sharing when it happens. if the fbi finds out three years

later, we will not be able to find a path to solve the if it was intentional. i know in the past our animal and plant health experts not necessarily think anything beyond accidental or natural. so let the expert, the fbi, but let the local law enforcement think about intentional. working together is a great partnership. so what we're doing in december at mexico state university for the very first class we are teaching us to our local coordinators, local enforcement, border patrol, anyone that has a stake in this. so my question to this panel and to the previous panel would be, we recognize the vulnerability can wear time to come up with a way to bridge that gap but we don't have money to actually do this. we are working on, we've been promised 29% of what we've asked for and that's across the unit, and we're launching all these new initiatives, and we try and put congressional notes out so we can speak to the experts in congress and to the lawmakers. what do you suggest?

obviously we want to be partners with you on this. how can we fund this? tammy, you should not have a huge investment and not have anyone staffing it. sorry. ms. george: i think that this is a challenge for every single topic we could possibly come up with everybody asks the same question. and i would tell you, about 10 years ago members of congress would sit in local field hearings and say united states government is broke and say what we needed is more money. that said, we have a budget and we have mechanisms going on. in order to increase the amount of money put in a budget item come there are a number of things that have to happen.

one is the president has to put in a budget. if it doesn't make it over there than that is coming over to congress to respond to. the other is what's happening corporations and authorization. if now be on the side is asking for either. then come now you have a huge gap. as far as the role of the fbi is concerned, the bureau has got to get out and say this is what we need and this is why we needed, of course, and there are. but it becomes a complicated thing and went to look at those various elements. the reason i bring it up is that it's not enough, it's simply not enough to say we need more money. we have to take it down levels lower and lower to where we are identifying exactly how much money we need. we are communicating up on the legislative branch and executive branch and all the different branches and getting stakeholders who ask the same thing of the folks that putting

money in, and then the other issue has to do with public private partnership and industry putting in money as well. it's not -- as much as we would like to because we love the fbi, it is not the fbi's entire responsibility to execute some of these activities. i think we have to think smarter and get some agency funding in as well. >> first of all, thank you for making that contribution. but could i just ask this? had heard about this project before? >> yes. >> good. that's good. >> i would say maybe an opportunity to raise this issue as illegitimate, educating if you of the first responder community, educating the commercial industry. to give it seems to me that would be a functional area that could be part of the farm bill provision. >> it would be interesting to get the judiciary committees to weigh in on the farm bill.

i'm not sure that they ever have in the past. >> they should have some interest in that. any other questions out here? i see no other questions and i know our cameras are going to shut down in a couple of minutes, so let me first of all thank all of you. thank the panelists. just a little closer from my perspective. first of all, as mentioned, i grew up on a farm, so i saw veterinarians long before i ever saw a medical doctor, i can tell you that for sure. in fact, my brother saw what the veterinarian was making and became a veterinarian. but a small animal veterinary and. that's the direction you wanted to go. and doing a little prep for this event i read sections of jared

diamond's wonderful book, some of you may remember it, "guns, germs, and steel." and in the book he relived the events surrounding the mandan indian tribe from the great plains which i think ever part of kansas and the great plains out there, and how in 1837 the tribe contracted smallpox from a steamboat that was traveling up the missouri river from st. louis. that i don't think it was intentional per se. i think we have some bad history that there was some use of smallpox as a weapon, but in a couple of weeks that tribe went from 40,000 down to something like 40. it was a tremendous drop. so terrible diseases from animal-related pathogens clearly has a long and quite frankly very scary history. we kind of hope you at the

bipartisan policy center that this discussion today elevates bit. i would love to see this more discussed in residential campaign that it's been discussed. and i hope that we can continue to press on it. so thank you very much. thank you all for joining us this morning, and have a good day. "road to the white house" continues this evening at 7:00 p.m. on c-span2. the tar heel state is considered a swing state. 8:00ht debates starting at p.m. eastern, the wisconsin senate debate. and with senate minority leader determined, nevada has an open seat.

see the debate live at 10:00 p.m. eastern. weekend, "book tv" brings you 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors. live from the southern festival of books in nashville. the festival features over 200 authors, panel discussions, and book signings. saturday, coverage begins at 11:00. national booke hochschild,rlie beth macy, and, patrick phillips.

livey it is day two, beginning at 1:00 p.m. eastern. beck,s include joseph oliver, andrew maraniss, marjory wentworth, herb frazier, and bernard powers. words." 9:00 p.m., "after >> tuition and fees are less than half and maybe only 30% of the total cost of attending

college. the real hangups students have are the need to pay their rent, to pay their utilities, to buy food, and they cannot do those things in the same way when they are in college because they need to spend time in the classroom. it is those kinds of things we saw trip them up over time. it was not tuition and fees. for the booktv.org complete weekend schedule. >> this weekend on c-span3, saturday at 6:00, the battle of spotsylvania courthouse. >> in the wilderness, the armies fought for a couple days, they came to a stalemate, grant moved left and south. they had been here at spotsylvania for a couple days,

and now there are reports of the federal forces moving south. what do you think that puts them in mind? university duke professor gunther peck. >> they define refugees not as political refugees, as anti-communists, who are our allies and predictable americans as they fight communist oppression abroad. we have an obligation to them because they are anti-communist. i can tell you when bob was later and i worked under -- we were in the senate 18 years together, but bob was leader for six of those years -- >> 10. >> excuse me.

>> i thought i was leader after i left. >> i saw you work with your committee chairman, and you make sure that you were working together. that is what we need again. 6:30, the 1984 presidential debate between reagan and mondale. warned five we were days before that explosives were underway. the terrorists have won each time. the president told the terrorists he was going to retaliate. he did not. residents reagan: we are not people -- we want to know we are going to retaliate those who are responsible for the terrorist acts. complete american history tv schedule, go to www.c-span.org..

candidates for the north carolina senate race debated last night in durham. and deborah ross discuss it health care issues and the bathroom law. this is an hour. >> this is the north carolina u.s. senate candidates debate. this program is sponsored as a public service to the citizens of the state by the north carolina association of broadcasters educational foundation. here is our moderator, jonathan karl. >> thank you for joining us for the u.s. senate candidates debate. and i amthan karl, delighted to be here. we want to take a moment to note

that difficult situation that north carolina as faced in the aftermath of hurricane matthew. our thoughts and prayers are with those who tragically lost loved ones. to introduce candidates, richard served in the u.s. house of representatives from 1995 to 2005. welcome. and representative ross, the democratic candidate, served in the north carolina house from 2003 two 2013. thank you for participating. here are the rules. we will start with opening statements, and following those candidates will respond to questions from myself and those members of the digital news association of the carolinas. each candidate will have one minute to respond.

the debate will conclude with the closing statements by each candidate. andorder of the opening closing statements and the order of the questions were agreed to prior to the debate. ms. ross will begin. ms. ross: thank you so much to the broadcasters for hosting this debate. it is so important that you hear directly from the candidates and to families and loved ones who are suffering from the effects of hurricane matthew. my thoughts and prayers go out to you. i am running for the united states senate because washington isn't working for you. i've traveled the state and i've heard your stories. i've heard your struggle. i know that your paychecks are not going as far as a used you and i know that you are worried about saving for retirement and your kids' education. and i know what congress' failures have meant for your

family. senator burr has been in washington for more than 20 years. he has looked out for himself and for the special interests. he has voted to raise his own pay but voted against raising workers' pay. it doesn't have to be that way. we can change washington by changing who we elect. i grew up in a small town. my dad was a doctor in the air force. my mother was a preschool teacher. they taught me the importance of doing what's right and looking out for our neighbors. i've worked on a lot on our hard issues and haven't backed down. i would love to earn your vote. moderator: mr. burr. senator burr: our prayers go out to the people of north carolina. i want to thank you for the opportunity to have this debate. i've been there for 22 years.

my focus has always been the people of north carolina, to provide them the best constituent service. and in the past year, and we have yet to complete it, we have given 26,00 tours to north carolinians at the united states capitol. we have handled 500 cases where people had problems with federal agencies. we answered over 37,000 phone calls -- excuse me, handled over 37,000 pieces of mail and 15,000 phone calls. i have tried to do my best, but i am ultimately up to the judgment of the people in north carolina. i've also had a focus on the policy side. i have focused on education and health care and agriculture and energy and national security and veterans. these are all important to north carolina. but the one thing that makes me

the proudest is the most recent bill i've passed, to create a 529 account for those families that have disabilities in the family. and we break down finally this penalty that the federal government puts on a disabled person and we allow them to seek whatever god enabled them to achieve. thank you. moderator: i want to begin with the presidential candidates you have each endorsed. much of what you have been able to do in washington will depend on who wins the white house. ms. ross, you have said hillary clinton, that she is prepared to do the job. but in a recent poll, north carolinians by double digit margin more said they found donald trump more trustworthy than hillary clinton. why do you think so many north carolinians simply do not trust hillary clinton? ms. ross: i have great faith in

the people of north carolina and i've been all over this state. politics is a rough business and it is very difficult to always get the traction that you are looking for. one thing i can tell you is that hillary clinton is prepared to be commander in chief on day one. donald trump has demonstrated particularly this week that he is singularly not qualified to be our commander in chief. on the national security front, he has talked about having russia hack our computer systems and it is very disturbing to me what we have learned about these tapes. senator burr has stuck by donald trump during all of this, and i think that that shows a lack of judgment. what i want to do is get up every morning and work for the people of north carolina every day, and you can trust me. senator burr: i think any lack of judgment as a decision to put

top secret and special access programs on an unsecure server where our enemy can access it. i think bad judgment is when one chooses to lie about e-mails to the american people and to lie about things like benghazi four americans lost their lives. i'm the son of a presbyterian minister. when someone asks for forgiveness, you grant it. now i'm not going to defend donald trump, what he said or his actions. i have spoken out quickly and loudly when i disagreed with something. but when i look at our choice, it's not close for me. i'm going to support my nominee. i'm going to support donald trump. ms. ross: senator burr has toed

the party line even when donald trump has crossed the line. the important thing for the people of north carolina is a government that keeps them safe, that cares about their everyday problems, and that works every single day at their job. i will do that for the people of north carolina. mr. karl: you are not only a donald trump supporter, but a donald trump advisor. last week, you were named to his national security advisory council. we had a group of top officials, like michael hayden, who said that trump would be the most reckless president in american history. can you say, as the current chairman of the senate committee that you have no concerns about donald trump handling nuclear codes? senator burr: i have concerns about both candidates.

i have more concerns about hillary clinton because of her lack of judgment, because of the way she has handled her official business as secretary of state. let me remind you. i have criticized donald trump. ms. ross has not criticized hillary clinton for any one of these acts. i don't blame you go into this. i don't go in blindly. i assess it. jonathan, you know me. i will help whoever is in leadership part of the senate intelligence committee and i have done that for the trump administration. jonathan: let me follow-up, many of your colleagues have rescinded their support of trump in the wake of the 2005 video with his lewd comments about women and now we've seen in the past 24 hours several women come forward and say they were

touched or kissed by trump without their consent. trump has denied those charges. you honestly stood by him come as you just did. you say he asked for forgiveness. that you consider the behavior that donald trump described in that video to be sexual assault? senator burr: i think if in fact he did it isi take him at his word. sexual assault. he said he didn't do it. now let's address how many members have abandoned him. five republicans publicly since this news came out last friday out of 54. there are many republicans in the united states senate that have stuck by him. so let's make sure we accurately describe what has -- what has transpired. ms. ross: well, thank you so much for that question, jonathan. i want to be clear and it's been on the record that i believe that the way hillary

clinton handled her emails is inappropriate. she has said so and i have made it very clear from the beginning of my campaign that i think she did not do well by emails. donald trump is an entirely different matter. donald trump has encouraged people to hack into our e-mail servers. he has talked about the nuclear codes, as you mentioned. and he has bragged about sexually assaulting women. i completely understand forgiveness. you can forgive somebody, but you do not trust that same erson with the awesome responsibility of commander in chief. donald trump is not qualified to be president. jonathan: well, mr. burr. senator burr: i think she just said donald trump has allowed people to hack into our email system. i don't know how that happens. we have a threat from nation states and from individuals.

the next leader will have to decide how we are going to secure america's infrastructure, both critical and from the standpoint of our top-secret back bones. hillary clinton has already proven that she has a disregard for it. 'm not sure how you can be critical and not be explosive when you see what she said. jonathan: let's turn now to health care. ms. ross, bill clinton recently referred to aspects of the affordable care act as "the craziest thing in the world." in north carolina, we now have a situation where 90% of the counties will soon offer only one insurance option in the marketplace. blue cross and blue shield. last year blue cross and blue shield raised premiums by 32%. they say there will be another increase this year. my question to you is two parts. first, if you had been in the

senate in 2009, would you have voted -- up or down vote -- would you have voted for obamacare and what would you do to fix it now? ms. ross: the affordable care act clearly needs to be fixed. but it's much better than what we had before when insurance companies could deny you coverage for pre-existing conditions and women were denied the same rates as men. now, senator burr would like to completely repeal the affordable care act and turn it back to the private insurance companies and we know what kind of service you got at that point. he has also taken more than a million dollars from the insurance companies, so it is not a surprise that that would be his solution. let me tell you about a man i've met in troy, north carolina. he couldn't get health insurance before the affordable care act. it was $1,400 a month. after the affordable care act, he got insurance care and his wife got him to go to the doctor.

he found out that he had advanced prostate cancer. because he had insurance, it saved his life. we simply can't go backward and our state legislature bears a lot of the blame for the rising health care costs because it refused to extend medicaid. and we need to fix it. but we can if we work together. jonathan: but if you had been in the senate in 2009 when it was voted on, would you have voted in favor of the affordable care act? ms. ross: i would have voted in favor of the affordable care act because it was better than what we had. had i been in the senate in 2009, i would have been able to got amendments. expand medicaid, particularly in our rural areas, and i would have rolled up my sleeves and try to make our health care system the best as it possibly could. senator burr, again, would have just turned it over to the private insurance companies.

jonathan: mr. burr. senator burr: let me just say, jonathan, obamacare is run by private sector insurers. it was never the federal government that took the risk. it is blue cross/blue shield of north carolina, one of the last one that covers about 60% of the state as the only choice. it's president obama said, if you like your plan, you get to keep it. govern mark dayton said this week, the reality is that the affordable care act is no longer affordable for an increasing number of people. this week, the administration started sending to beneficiaries whose insurers ad left a notice that said you either need to opt out of the affordable care act or the government will assign you your carrier, your private sector carrier. government-run health care is already here and it's called obamacare. jonathan: ms. ross. ms. roar: well, senator burr

doesn't like obamacare, but he also wants to have the private insurance companies be in charge. we need to get a handle on this. we need to give consumers more choice. we can have consumers have choice with nonprofits, with co-ops like they've done in other states. but we also have to recognize that the north carolina general assembly did not do its job by extending medicaid, and senator burr's answers are all in the private sector. jonathan: the shooting death of keith lamont scott sparked massive protests in charlotte last month. so let's to the issue of race and policing. mr. burr, do you understand the anger that drove those protests, and do you think there is a systemic problem in this country of racial bias in law enforcement? senator burr: jonathan, i think i do understand. country of racial bias in law enforcement? i grew up at a time where riots, when i was a young boy

in winston-salem, happened. this is very different today though. it is for a different reason. and the trust with law enforcement doesn't exist. it is a community responsibility, the community leaders and law enforcement has to reach out to those neighborhoods that could possibly feel disenfranchised. you know, in many cases, building a school and building a health care clinic isn't enough. we've got to go into these neighborhoods and create jobs. we've got to find a pathway so these kids get a good education. we've got to make sure that when they look down the road, they dig hard because they know that employment is a real opportunity. in most of the cities we have seen this problem, they have huge unemployment and no hope with a job. jonathan: but is there a problem with racial bias in law enforcement? senator burr: i think it would

depend department by department, city by city. but i don't think people get into law enforcement to carry out any personal bias. so i would have a very difficult time believing that. in the case of charlotte, it was african-american officers. i'm not sure they are going to show a racial bias. jonathan: ms. ross. ms. ross: well, this is such an important question, not just for charlotte, but for our entire country. we've seen incidence of conflicts with the african-american community and our law enforcement all over the country. right after the incidents happened in charlotte, i was on the phone with leaders in the community, with members of the clerky and with citizens. -- clergy and with citizens. we need to make sure that law enforcement and the african-american community work together for the safety of

everybody. i have experience working on racial bias issues. i worked on one of the most comprehensive anti-racial profiling laws in the country. and i did it with the head of the highway patrol and with the secretary of crime control and public safety. e also need more community policing, where law enforcement and the community were working together. i worked on those issues, too. senator burr voted against unding community policing. i would not do that. we need to bring our communities together. senator burr: jonathan, there is a rule of law in the united states. it's absolutely crucial that we follow it. there is a process of nvestigations. we've got to ask our citizenry let these investigations take place. the rule of law in america means we are going to hold somebody responsible when they do something that's wrong. the fact is she spent a

lifetime standing up for criminals. not for victims. but for criminals. jonathan: what was your reaction when you saw the video of mr. scott getting shot? i actually found it to be on the part of law enforcement, on the effort to try to get somebody to obey their commands and that command was to drop whatever was in his hand which they thought was a gone. jonathan: let's move to foreign policy. ms. ross, we're witnessing what is maybe the greatest humanitarian crisis in our time in syria. in aleppo alone, more than 100,000 children are trapped. hundreds have been killed, more are getting killed every day. so my question is, does the united states have a moral imperative to do more to stop the slaughter of children and their families? what specific actions do you think the united states should be willing to take?

ms. ross: the crisis in syria is something that has been in -- intractable for a while. we have tried to be able to have cease-fires with the russians and with the syrians and that has not been successful. ultimately, for the syrian people, we're going to have to come together as an international community and stop what is going on in syria. but what we've got with the refugee crisis can be dealt with by having no-fly zones over syria. making sure that we have good vetting programs that protect our people, but also let people in when we know that they are not going to be a threat to the united states. i've been to a refugee camp in jordan after the iraq war and seen the devastation. we need to make sure that we work together as an international community to stop the slaughters in syria, but also to make sure that we take care of the refugees. jonathan: should u.s. ground forces be on the table to deal

with the humanitarian crisis or to go after isis? ms. ross: we need to go after isis. we need to do that primarily with airstrikes and, working with u.s. ground forces, with our allies on the ground to take back territory. in syria, i think making sure that there's no-fly zones in order to protect of the refugees or folks that would become refugees would be a good first step. senator burr: i called for same -- safe zones three years ago from the obama administration. they said they couldn't do it. what we've seen is over 300,000 syrian women and children killed. they've been killed by chlorine barrel bombs dropped by the -- bashar assad and most recently we think russia. ly one person at the table

sat across the table from bashar al-assad. i know him to be a ruthless man. but this is genocide. and america has never stood by and watched genocide and not react to it. now it's time to create safe zones for these children and women can go to bed at night and be safe, leverage our middle eastern partners who have 30,000 physical troops to maintain the physical security and use our airpower to tell the russians and the syrians, fly anywhere near here and we will shoot you out of the air. ground forces should be on the table as it relates to the removal of isil. ground forces are not needed in -- based upon safe zones because we have been offered 30,000 gulf state troops from the gulf state partners to handle the physical security of those safe zones. jonathan: ms. ross. ms. ross: we need to make sure that we deal with the syrian

conflict in syria. now, senator burr has talked about his position as the head of the intelligence commission -- committee, but having that position doesn't necessarily mean that he has done everything that he can to make people in syria safe and to make us safe. he's threatened to shut down the department of homeland security over a spat with the president about how we deal with immigration. he also hasn't always made sure that we deal with isis in a direct way. jonathan: for you next, mr. burr. last week the u.s. intelligence committee named russia as responsible for the recent hacks of the democratic party. donald trump has made it clear he doubts that finding. you are the chair of the senate intelligence committee. who do you think is right about this? your party's nominee or the 16 agencies that make up the u.s. intelligence community? senator burr: jonathan, i will

limit my answer to say that the director of national security has made a statement in that he named the russians and i will stand by what statement he's made. jonathan: so what do you think should be done if russia is behind this? what kind of retaliatory action should be taken? senator burr: this is not the first time that the rush and cyber actors have played inside the united states. they've done it with data. they've done it with intellectual property. but it's not limited to them. it's iran, it's north korea, it's china. you would think that we would have a punishing sanctions program and maybe some type of offensive action against them. my opponent was in favor of the iran nuclear deal. this just put about $51 billion in the hands of iran, the world's largest funder of terrorism and a frequent hacker within the united states. jonathan: but i'm asking about

this allegation. you're the vice chairman of your committee, the senate intelligence committee, dianne feinstein said a couple of hours ago, you say that the government is interfering with the goal to elect donald trump. [laughter] senator burr: jonathan, the department of homeland security has looked at every election system in the country and there is no ballot boxes that are connected to the internet.gover interfering with they have assured every state that, from the standpoint of the vote count, they are confident that it can't be intruded in in any way. the reality is that they have gotten into 22 states where they have done something with the voter files, but not exfiltrated that information. jonathan: what she says these hacks of the democratic party are an attempt to interfere with this election. senator burr: if you are

talking about the hacks of the democratic party, i'm not sure that the director of national intelligence has specifically addressed who's to blame for those. director clapper in his statement that was released was referring to the intrusions into the election boards of 22 states. jonathan: you don't think the russians are behind the hacks? ms. ross. ms. ross: i think this is a broader problem about our relationship with russia and vladimir putin. we talked about syria earlier. russia is clearly flexing its muscles getting into a situation similar to the cold war. so what we've seen, we've seen problems with syria with not being able to have a cease-fire. we've seen cyber threats. and we have also seen russia's incursion into the ukraine. what we need to do is be strong and tough with russia. and if that means cracking down

on known cyber attacks, then we need to do that. but donald trump is the absolute worst person to deal with that issue. he is enamored of vladimir putin. and senator burr has endorsed donald trump and trusts donald trump to be the main -- the president and the main person who negotiates with the russians. that's simply not making us safe. jonathan: mr. burr. senator burr: let me just say that hillary clinton is the architect of the russian reset. she talked about resetting our relationship with russia. where's it gone? it's gone south. just like the foreign policy of the united states in the middle east when she was secretary of state and she counseled with this president. it was combined, their efforts, that led to the challenges and the problems that we've got in syria and iraq today.

jonathan: we will take a short break for a public service announcement from the north carolina association of broadcasters. >> ♪ i like calling north carolina home ♪ >> so many call north carolina home. living here puts you in prime adventure territory. residents enjoy 300 miles of pristine beaches and some of the world's oldest forests and mountaintops. broadcasters in north carolina are proud to provide high quality free, over-the-air programing that educates, informs and entertains. the north carolina association of broadcasters leads the nation on educating the public and businesses about the uses and value of broadcasting. through the north carolina association of broadcasters, over 300 radio and television members support our local community and our state by connecting viewers to their world. the north carolina association of broadcasters educational

foundation is proud to make tonight's debate possible as a public service to the local community that they serve. jonathan: before we get to the next question, i wanted to clarify something you said. the u.s. intelligence community statement on russian hacking said, "the u.s. intelligence community is confident the russian government directed the recent compromise of emails and from u.s. persons and institutions including u.s. political organizations." so it seems the statement is directly talking about the hacked emails. senator burr: i was referring to director klapper's release, where he addressed specifically russia's involvement in the election process. i don't think that release had anything to do with the e-mails or the political parties. jonathan: but my question was about the statement of the u.s. intelligence committee and the 16 agencies saying that the hacking of the e-mails was done by the russians. do you agree with the intelligence community or do

you agree with donald trump? senator burr: jonathan, i am not at a point where i can comment on that. i'm not sure that the reports that you read are from official sources. given i can't remember whether this administration has released anything about that and i'm bound and protected under classified information. jonathan: ok. it was a joint statement from the director of national intelligence. and the intelligence community. let's move on to the next question. ms. ross, when you lead the north carolina aclu in the 1990's, you raised concerns about a bill establishing the state's sex offender registry saying at the time the bill would "make it harder for people to reintegrate into society and start over and could lead to vigilantism." senator burr's campaign says that you want to "protect sexual predators over victims."

your response. ms. ross: that's politics. the fact is i voted 18 times to strengthen and update the sex offender registry. i've always been for the sex offender registry. the sponsor of the sex offender registry bill said that i helped him draft it. you've seen him on tv. so there's no question that i'm in favor of a sex offender registry, and i have a strong record of protecting women and children. i was a leader in domestic violence reforms. i introduced a bill to their up a rape kit backlog. and so my record protecting women and children is long and heart-felt. now, senator burr on the other hand voted against re-authorizing the violence against women act and he voted against the bill that would have funded the sex offender registry. and i'll put my record of protecting women and children of against his any day of the week. jonathan: but didn't you say it

would make -- this bill would make it harder for people to reintegrate into society and start over? and could lead to -- you were opposed to this bill when it passed. ms. ross: when this bill was eing considered, like a good lobbyist, lawyer, legislator, you have to look at the implications of the bill. ultimately, the bill is working. the law is working. like i said, i voted 18 times to strengthen and update it. and raising issues isn't the same thing as opposing a bill. jonathan: mr. burr. senator burr: jonathan, the reason this is difficult for my opponent is because she was the lead lobbyist for the aclu. and in that role, she did make the statement that you read. but she also went on to say, in the burlington times" in 1995, just because you know somebody

in your neighborhood is a sex offender doesn't make you safer. and then she went on in 1997 to say it will have an unintended consequence and it won't protect your child. let me just say this. the one thing we need is transparency. government is not going to protect your children. it's going to be parents and the community, and when there's a sex offender in the neighborhood, we have an obligation to share that with neighbors, with the school, with local officials. i believe that north carolina understands that she has been opposed to this because her words and her actions don't support her claims. jonathan: ms. ross. ms. ross: well, i think 18 votes are definite clear actions and i find it disturbing that senator burr doesn't believe my actions, but he's willing to forgive donald trump for admitting that he as -- that he sexually assaults women.

donald trump has admitted that. senator burr seems to be fine with that, voting for him and having him as our commander in chief. those are actions, my friends. senator burr: i'll forgive you if you'd like me to. ms. ross: take it any day of the week. jonathan: ok. let's move on to government spending. the national debt has doubled since president obama took office in 2009. defense spending and entitlement programs are the prime drivers of our debt. so are there any cuts or changes to those programs that you would be willing to consider to get this debt situation under control? ms. ross: when i served in the north carolina legislature, we had to balance the budget every year. some years, we had surpluses. some years we didn't. like any family, if it was a year when we had a deficit, we would cut programs and we would sometimes have to raise revenues. and so the federal government is going to have to deal with the debt that way.

so there are programs and redundancies in the federal budget they can be cut. there's also waste, fraud and abuse. i have worked on those issues as a state legislature. -- legislator. we need to do three things to get a control over the debt. first of all, we need to make sure people have jobs that pay good wages. because when they do, they pay taxes. they stimulate our economy, and we have more money in the ystem. we also need to look at programs we can cut. without hurting essential government services. and then of course if we need to raise revenues, we need to be honest about it and do it in a fair way. senator burr: jonathan, yeah, we do have a debt problem. the debt has increased under this president as much as every president prior to this president. we are just shy of $20 trillion. i think it's safe to say you can't cut your way back to fiscal sustainability.

let's look at what we have done while we were in congress in the last three years. we put budget caps in. we saved $1.2 trillion. part of that now we realize is sequestration on the military. we will have to go back and rethink that. then there were things even the president proposed. let's merge agencies together. maybe put the commerce department and the labor department together. maybe the department of energy and the e.p.a. together. the president proposed it. i offered it and the democrats wouldn't let it come up. you've got a understand that there is a rich history, even with my opponent, ms. ross, of taxing and spending as the answer and not necessarily looking for efficiencies in overnment. jonathan: ms. ross. ms. ross: well, congress hasn't been able to put together a sustained budget over a long period of time. that's another way that congress and washington are not

working for you. and senator burr's idea of how to deal with tax policy is to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, which would result in having to increase taxes on average working folks. if we are going to pay for good schools, good roads and all of the important things that government does. i would put my budget balancing experience of against his any day of the week. i had to do it for more than 10 years. jonathan: another flashpoint in this race is the house bill 2, the so-called bathroom bill. at a different point you said it was a state issue. you said it was far too expensive. recently, you said we should go back to where we were. bottom line, should transgender individuals in north carolina be able to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity? senator burr: i don't think senator burr: i don't think so. what i've said is that i think the charlotte city council tried to fix, find a solution for a

problem that did not exist. and the north carolina general assembly did what a state legislator can do. they passed a law and the y reversed it. i can't change that in washington. the president tried by dictate to expand this to the country under title ix. and the courts looked at that and said you can't do that because this is an education title for equity in women's sports. it didn't fit. and it's my hope that, after this election -- clearly we are not going to get done during the election, but the general assembly and charlotte will reverse themselves and go back and rethink whether this is a good policy. but here's what i would suggest. include the people in charlotte in this decision. let it be a ballot initiative if in fact the local leaders want to do it. ms. ross: i've been opposed to

hb 2 because it discriminates. it is a federal issue and it has hurt our economy and our good name. senator burr said he did not discriminate and was not a federal issue and would not hurt our economy. wrong, wrong, wrong. i've been all over the state of north carolina and the economic devastation has been extraordinary. wilmington has lost the film industry. high point is losing many vendors here at they are going to las vegas. i even went to lexington for an event and heard that house bill 2 had to be repealed from a member of the chamber of commerce you said, before house bill 2, they had a new industrial park. people were coming in calling every week. after house bill 2, completely gone. everybody needs to be safe in the bathroom. but house bill 2 has been a bad bill and senator burr has not shown any leadership since the beginning to deal with this issue.

senator burr: well, jonathan, i'm not here to defend the governor, but north carolina has the fourth fastest-growing growing economy in the country. four years ago, we had one of the highest unemployment rates, more people on extended unemployment. the governor came in and said we are going to change this and they have. and we've got one of the lowest unemployment rates today. we are still attracting business every day to north carolina. investment in north carolina. i think we've got the fourth fastest-growing economy. we might have missed a few .eople like paypal it is their loss, in my estimation. jonathan: so you don't think this bill has hurt the economy in north carolina? senator burr: based upon what i see and the economic data, we still attract investment and we still create jobs every week.. it is their loss, in my estimation.

jonathan: another question to you. you have been in congress for two decades, 23 years, as you pointed out. your opponent has criticized you for taking millions of dollars from special interests. you are just one of three senators who voted against the stock act. my question to you is how do you respond to ms. ross's allegation that you basically used your position to cash in? senator burr: it's a lie, quite honestly. she has claimed that my personal wealth has grown phenomenally. let me share with you -- when i left the private sector 22 years ago, my retirement account was switched over to an ira worth a little more than $200,000. today, it is worth $258,000. not a track record of investment many of the people in this country would follow. my wife created her own business with a couple of partners. it is a very successful real

estate business. she has done very well. when you look at our net worth, hers is 66% of our debts of the total net worth. we share jointly 26%. and i have 8%. now what ms. ross did is she attacked my wife. this is the first time in 22 years -- 24 years to be exact, that my family has been brought into a campaign. i'm proud of my wife. i find it disgusting that anybody would question her success. and i think quite frankly my wife deserves an apology. ms. ross: well, senator, i have the utmost respect for your wife and i have the utmost respect for women who work and make money -- more money than their husbands and support their families.

that's one of the reasons why i am a proponent for equal pay. but to your question, jonathan, fact that senator burr was only one of three senators who voted against a ban on insider trading for members of congress. and he called that the brave. he also voted seven times to raise his own pay. but voted against raising the minimum wage and voted against the lilly ledbetter fair pay act and the fairness paycheck act. that doesn't help north carolina families and it certainly doesn't help north carolina women. most people earning minimum wage are women. you can count on me to stick up for north carolina families. senator burr: [sigh] jonathan, the fact is i've never

voted for a pay raise. i have voted against them. as a matter of fact, i have authored bills. one of them that i was a cosponsor on in 2009 is the reason that we haven't had a pay increase since 2009. the reality is, when i went off the amendment prior to that, harry reid did not let it come up. the democrats raised the pay of congress. jonathan: ms. ross, on the issue of immigration, a year ago, the governor signed the sanctuary cities law that block any municipality. from blocking local law enforcement's ability to cooperate with immigration. you support comprehensive immigration reform. but until or less that passes, do you support cities that don't want to help the government enforce immigration laws?

ms. ross: our immigration system is broken. and congress has not addressed it. it compromises our security. it hurts our economy. and it breaks of families. i would have voted for the bipartisan immigration reform they came in several years ago. senator mccain voted for. many supported it. it would have secured our borders, made sure there was a fair, tough path to citizenship, and it would have helped our economy. it was supported by the north carolina farm bureau, the north carolina chamber of commerce, and our tech communities. but senator burr voted no. as your u.s. senator, i will make it a priority to solve the immigration issue so we don't have spats among state legislatures and local governments.

senator burr: we've tried desperately to put together a coalition that can have common sense immigration reform. it starts with fixing the legal system. i think mr. trump has talked about that. but so a have republican and democrat members of the united states senate. we just haven't had the platform to take it up. you see, if we start with fixing the current system, we can get onto fixing other things that need to be broken, individuals who have not committed a crime should have a legal status that is temporary. individuals that want to seek citizenship should have to leave the country and do it like everybody else and then come back in. but i think it's safe to say that there's no pathway that i can support that provides amnesty to anybody who came here legally. jonathan: i want to move to our last question which is to both

of you. if the presidential nominee of the opposing party wins the election, what issues would you be willing to work with him or her on? ms. ross, on what issues would you be willing and able to work with the donald trump on if he is elected president? ms. ross: that's a great question. i want you to know that i have worked across the aisle in my political career. when i served in the state house, i served when democrats were in charge, republicans were in charge and the house was equally divided. and i got my bills through in all of those scenarios, more than 90% of the bills i got past had more than 50% of the republicans voting for them. as far as mr. trump, i know he is tremendously interested in new for structure. that is something i have a background on.

i was a municipal finance attorney, helping cities and counties get roads and bridges done. i would roll up my sleeves and work on the issue in the united states senate. senator burr has a 95% record of voting with his party. the only time he seems to want to split with his party is on things like the stock act. i feel like i can work with -- worked across party lines. i have done it before and i look forward to doing it again. hopefully with my colleagues in the senate. jonathan: mr. burr, on what issues will you be able to work with hillary clinton on? senator burr: i'll give you the list. let me just say this. it is illegal in law, even for congress, to trade on insider trading. that is the reason why i opposed the stock act. north carolinians did not send me to washington to duplicate existing law. that is what the stock act did. i've worked with hillary clinton. she was a member of the united

states senate with me. i look forward to working with her on health care. she will have her hands full because obamacare will financially implode in the next 17 to 24 months area i look forward to working with her on the economy and jobs. that is the number one issue that america needs. we have americans who want jobs and can't find them. i think it's safe to say that i will work with her on national security because the threat the faces our country and the world is too great not to find a bipartisan approach to make america a leader in the world. ms. ross: certainly, the most important thing that we should always work on in a bipartisan way is national security. we all care about the people of north carolina and we all care about the people of this country. and we must come together to work on national security, defense and foreign affairs in a bipartisan way so that we have a strong country going forward. jonathan: that concludes the questioning portion of this

debate. we now turn to closing statements. 90 seconds to each of you. ms. ross: thank you so much for tuning in. and i think you heard tonight that senator burr and i have very different visions for the future of north carolina and how we would approach being a eunice -- a u.s. senator. for senator burr, it's ok to vote against a bill that bans against insider trading. what north carolinians are looking for is a change. i have been all over the state and i've heard your truck -- your struggles and i know you are frustrated that washington isn't working for you. i want to go to the united states senate and make sure that your everyday struggles are taken care of. i will be a different kind of senator, one who listens. and i won't back down or sellout when things get hard.

i will put your interests first every single day. and i hope very much to earn your vote. thank you so much. it takes a lot to commit toake> ms.for office, and i thinank wells for doing it. i am reminded about a trip i took with my dad years ago, i went to see my dad, and i said how are you doing, and he said two words -- i am sorry. i said, sorry for what? so you, i fought a war would not have to go through this. all his brothers and sisters were serving in the war. he only way -- made one mistake, they said who can swim, and he

raised his hand. no wonder he became a presbyterian minister when he came back during it was not until i started thinking about running for reelection how tough the plate was of issues we were going to deal with, how easy it could be not to run, and i realize what my dad was telling me was life is not about sacrifices, it is about responsibilities. you see, he did not see world war ii as a sacrifice. a responsibility. the reason i am running for reelection as i want to make sure the next generation inherits what i inherited, which is an unlimited opportunity. i need your vote. if i have not earned it tonight, i hope i earn it over the next three weeks, but i look forward to what america can create in a bipartisan way forward. thank you. this debateludes your i want to thank mr. burr and miss ross.

thank you for watching, and good night. ♪ [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] c-span's road to the white house coverage continues this afternoon with a donald trump campaign rally in charlotte, north carolina, and you can see that live as the plug him eastern on c-span two. the tar heels eight is considered a swing state in the presidential race. vote spiritectoral tonight, live campaign 2016 debates starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern. a wisconsin senate debate between incumbent ron johnson and former wisconsin senator russ feingold, who sen. johnson: in 2010. in 2010.r johnson beat and democrat catherine cortez

master for attorney general. see the debate live. >> c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up saturday morning, washington examiner campaign reporter ryan lovely will talk about campaign 2016 as a growing divide in the republican party over donald trump aired in the executive director of the sentencing project was does the voting rights of felons. and michael schmidt will discuss the role of the united states in yemen after the u.s. military fired missiles inside the country. earlier in the week, rebels in yemen launched missiles on to u.s. navy missiles -- ships in the region. be sure to watch "washington at 7:00 a.m. eastern saturday morning. join the discussion.

this weekend, c-span's cities tour, along with our comcast able partner, will explore the literary life and history of fiona, illinois. on book tv on c-span2, jesse hogan, author of the book "lincoln incorporated," talks about modern marketing and the son of abraham lincoln. --so he is really a trade portrayed in peoria as a hero, as someone who stood his ground against the spread of slavery. pensoneauuthor taylor about brothers, legendary gangsters, exploring organized crime through the legendary gangster family. init led to an all it war lan anda between the k the bootleggers.

>> on american history tv on talks3, h. wayne wilson about. es history of the whiskey capital of the world. >> it was primarily because of the quality of the water. water is filtered, in essence, through limestone tiered that is perfect for brewing and distilling. >> and visit the usda center, where in 1951, scientists credited for saving thousands of allied lives during world war ii. the c-span cities tour saturday 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2's book tv and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on american history tv on c-span3, working with our cable affiliates in visiting cities across the country. >> this weekend on american

history tv on c-span3, historian christmas kinski -- chris mckinski on robert e. lee. >> in the wilderness, we'll make fought for a couple of days, the cam a stalemate -- became a still might, and they were here the area for a couple of days, and now they got reports of the troops moving left. what he think that put in their minds? 8:00 on lectures in history, duke university professor talks about the cold war immigration policy toward refugees. >> we define refugees as fundamentally not just political --ugees but anti-communists what are prototypical americans as they fight communist oppression? we have the obligation to let the men because their anti-communist. >> sunday afternoon at 4:30, bob

talk about their years in congress. nancy: i can tell you one bob was leader, we were in the senate 18 years together, butnab was bob was leader for six of those years -- bob: 10. in -- no, when i was bob: excuse me, i thought i was leader even then. [laughter] work: but i saw you both together. and i think that is what we need again. at 6:30 on road to the white house rewind, the 1984 presidential debate between andident ronald reagan former vice president walter mondale. mondale: the terrorists have

won each time. the president told the terrorists he was going to retaliate. he did not. mr. reagan: we were not simply going to kill people. we want to know when we retaliate that we are retaliating for those responsible for the terror acts, and terrorist acts are such that our on united states capitol in washington has been bombed twice. >> for a complete american history tv schedule, go to c-span.org. forext, candidates pennsylvania's eighth congressional district to meet for a debate in bristol. republican brian fitzpatrick and democrat steve sent to zero -- discuss several issues. brian fitzpatrick is brother of michael fitzpatrick, who currently serves but will be retiring in january. this is one hour and 20 minutes. >> good afternoon.

buckse to the lower campus. i am stephanie chambless, president of the college, and it is my distinct honor to welcome you here today for the debate between the two pennsylvania congressional district candidates. civic engagement is vitally important to our democracy. we are pleased to host this debate once again, having done so for every congressional election since 2004. the lower bucks campus truly embraces our role as a viabl vibrant sender for community engagement. i would like to it knowledge all the students here today. we have students from holy ghost prep somewhere, raise your hands. there we go, back there. [applause]

shanblatt: as well as bucks county community college students and members of our community at large. i hope all of you have come here to listen, to learn, and then to go vote. it is now my pleasure to atroduce our moderator, political science and history instructor here up but county community college. thank you. [applause] mr. pezza: hello again. today has been breast cancer awareness day. i hope every congressman elected next month across the nation will bring a passion to washington to combat this as well as other devastating diseases. welcome to another in a series

of congressional debates that the community college has sponsored in every primary and general election since 2004. we are proud to play a role in what we repeatedly described as a celebration of democracy. we take the responsibility seriously and we are equally proud of the audience decorum exhibited in the past and the duke we know we will have today. -- and the decorum we know we will have today. i want to recognize our campus executive director and our director of security, as well as our technical crew for their work in preparation for this event. this debate is being broadcast statewide by the pennsylvania cable network as well as nationwide by c-span.

debate questions were solicited by our faculty and the final selections and formation of the questions were made by me. after reviewing the long list of potential topics, i have concluded what we really need is a seven hour debate. [laughter] mr. pezza: however, we will do the best we can with the 75 minute allocated. there will be two-minute opening statements for each candidate with a one-minute follow-up and then we will move through the nine follow-up questions with a possible 10th if time permits. there will also be one minute closing remarks. speaking order will be determined by a coin flip. 30 seconds left in a segment, we will see a yellow sign briefly. you can put it down. when there is no time left, the red sign should go up, in which time you can finish your sentence and close your remarks. we ask there be no comments or applause except now as we welcome the candidates to the stage, democrat steve

santarsiero and republican brian fitzpatrick. [applause] mr. pezzo: let me begin. voting for years -- i started when i was 10. i have never seen the low-level of rhetoric we have seen this year. some students and young people paying attention for the first time, i wanted them to know that this is not the norm for presidential politics. i am confident these two gentlemen we have before us today will demonstrate what meaningful political discourse should be like.

firm, tough even, passionate, maybe, but always respectful. in the precious time we have together today, we will focus on issues of substance that may separate these two highly qualified individuals enough so we can cast an intelligent vote. our opening statement is from brian fitzpatrick, based on coin toss. mr. fitzpatrick: thank you, mr. president, thank you, steve, for participating. people in the audience, this election is about you and i hope you get involved despite what was said earlier about the vitriol that has unfortunately taken over a big part of the election. do not lose faith because we need you involved in the process, we need your voice to be heard, whatever that voice is, make sure you voice it.

my name is brian fitzpatrick and i come to you from a very different place. 14 years in the fbi but we will get to that in a second. i am a lifelong resident of bucks county. my entire life i grew up right down the road and middletown township is where my parents still reside. grew up here and went to grade school here, levittown high school. i went to penn state for my degree. i am an eagle scout here. a certified emt here. licensed attorney here. i had the honor to serve my country, prosecuting violent drug and gun crimes. for the past 14 years, i have the honor of a lifetime to serve my country in a very significant national security role with what i consider one of the finest organizations on the planet, the

fbi. it is a job i miss dearly. it is the hardest decision in my life to leave that place, and i miss the people there and i left for one reason, because like everybody in this room, i love my country and want to step forward and do my part to offer my background and credentials and experience in what i believed be the two most pressing issues facing the country today, growing our economy and defending our homeland. i started my career as a cpa. i made a career of balancing books and budgets and creating jobs. as an fbi special agent, keeping our country safe from counterterrorism and counterintelligence threats, cyber security threats, border security threats, all of the threats that face our nation. i will address them confidently from day one. i look forward to the debate, thank you. mr. pezza: thank you. we are not going to do that today.

mr. santarsiero: thank you, bill, thank you, brian, i want sentiments, i want to thank especially the young people, college students here at the county community college, as well as the high school students. many of you know that after september 11, i decided to switch careers and ultimately wound up teaching social studies. it is one of the greatest career moves in my life. i love teaching. i saw the promise that next generation has, and it makes me fundamentally optimistic about our future. i also saw the great challenges, in terms of being able to get a good job when they get out of college. it is one of the things that has motivated me to seek office. no matter how this functional it may be at every level, it