important for having a diplomatic effort. i am fond of quoting one of my foreign service colleagues who gave a lecture in 1946 at the national war college in which he said, you have no idea how much more civil and civil and polite diplomatic exchanges are when you have a little bit of military power sitting behind here. and i think that is an important facilitator for the president. i would add that i think there ought to be a supplemental, an emergency supplemental as chairman thornbury and senator tom cotton have called for to deal with some of the readiness problems that have been identified by the obama administration and the chiefs by now. >> on the question about the number of priorities. that is a shrewd question. andy looked after this question in 2001. if my memory is correct, there were two big ones, taxes and education, both on the domestic

side. this administration currently is planning to do at least four, possibly five, huge lists. is plt least four, possibly five huge lifts. of the four, immigration, tax reform. supreme court. we could goor not on but you are already seeing the sense of scale. you do have an unusual circumstance were much is possible. the question will be how much.

implications on how you were supposed to manage your policy stuff. the question about preparedness. exactly right. i would add two things. think about the foreign policy and defense policy. i think both foreign and defense institutions need a profound overhaul and rethinking. the memory of a we did in the 1970's and 80's.

we need that kind of gravity of thinking now. take the example of cyber security alone. for a much in the news today. we do about about that. what options could a president consider under the normal circumstances, it's not just a defense matter. and above all, if you make it spend more money, if you spend more money and basically into dysfunctional and broken institutions, you will get, like, 20% thermal efficiency for your spending. you'll make a better case with congress. >> if they couple that with dramatic and vivid interests in a different story.

after 9/11 don rumsfeld was given between fy 01 and fy 06 a trillion dollars of additional defense investment not counting the oco badges. more than a trillion dollars. what did we do - did we get a trillion worth of bang in adaptation for that buck. i contend we did not. we shouldn't do it again. trump tweeted about the 747s for the president, and said bowing was overcharging. today he tweeted f35s are too expensive. >> what do you think about the idea we need a new story here, and should we expect that donald trump will take on the defense industrial complex? >> i agree with philip that, you know, i would not invest a

trillion dollars going forward in the program of record as it exists now. the truth is the department of defense has been living on the benefits of the carter-regan defense build up for a very, very long time. and we have not been investing in maintaining our qualitative over potential adversaries for a long time, which is why secretary hagel and carter has been very focused on the focus of our losing that edge, and the importance of what they call the third offense strategy. which is an effort to find ways to leap ahead in new technologies, it's an important effort. it will be interesting to see what the new administration does with that effort as they come into office. i am troubled by the way the president-elect has been attacking bowing and lockheed and neither are paying me to say this. you know, the president of the

united states has just enormous power. and i'm not sure that the president-elect appreciates how much what he's doing is stock price of these companies, is going to shape the way they respond to different kinds of defense department requirements and contracts. there's a whole chain, concatonation of things that will float from this that i'm not sure he's thinking all the way through. i think it's troublesome. 35 has had its problems, as a programme. but i don't think this was - i don't think tweeting is the way to deal with it. >> thank you all very much. [ clapping ] thank you to the people that pulled this all together on the

governance study side at brookings, and the general staff at brookings, our own staff from the miller center, particularly karen mcgrath, tony lukadoha, howard, and the advisory council for the first year project. many of whom are here. i would try to name them all. there are handouts in the back that have them there. for fear of leaving someone out. pick them up on the way out. thanks to the terrific final panel.

[ clapping ] look if digital advertising and its role in the 2016 election. google hosted the discussion and you can watch it live on c-span two. later in the day, the outgoing home and security director jeh johnson talks about security threats and top priorities for the next administration. that is live at six -- 6:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> i do think you can learn from failure. if the next president aspires to be like someone, they would probably aspire to be like washington or lincoln. what do you do next?

you aspire to be james monroe -- i do not know. but you can aspire not to be james buchanan. >> robert strauss talks about james buchanan's presidency in his latest book "worst president ever: james buchanan and the legacy of the least of the lesser presidents." >> the differentiation between good presidents and bad presidents. fdr and washington are at the top of the surveys that historians take. they were decisive men. you cannot come to the top of the ladder and not be decisive. you can in was a waffler. james polk hated him for being a waffler. he went back and forth on decisions. that is how he was as president. at 8:00 p.m.ht eastern on c-span's q&a. are joined by tom ecklly in d.c. and bruce vlad

in new york. the centeras head of of medicare and medicaid services during their spec of years in the federal government. they join us now for a discussion on the future of medicare and medicaid. let's start with bruce to get us all on the same page. can you remind us about the differences between medicare and medicaid and the basic services that each provide? isst: very quickly, medicare a traditional social insurance program that grew out of social security and is part of the social security act. it is financed in part by payroll taxes that everyone .ontributed is it is also financed by general tax revenue and premiums paid by beneficiaries. essentially everyone over the age of 65 in the united states with any work history or who has

a spouse with anyone with work history is eligible for medicare. in addition, medicare covers about 8 million people who are receiving social security disability income and is below the age of 65. they have been determined to be permanently disabled and are receiving disability insurance through the social security system. the medicare is benefit package by and large is unfortunately a little bit originally modeled on the standard blue cross blue shield plan that was in effect in most of the united states in the early 1960's when the legislation was written. there have been some significant additions over time. tom is probably responsible for one of the most significant, which is the addition of part d, which covers prescription drugs. it is a classic health insurance

program in the sense that it doesn't cover long-term care. it doesn't cover most services like eyeglasses. hospital care, physician services, related services, it's quite apprehensive. medicaid, which was enacted in the same time as medicare, is a joint federal and state program , which historically covered folks who are eligible for other .orms of cash assistance low income mothers and children, the disabled and blind, and the low income. it has expanded over the years. states,amacare, in 31 it expanded even more broadly. and now covers in the states that have expanded medicaid

essentially everyone who is legally in the united states and has been for five years or more up to 138% of the federal poverty level. in a non-expansion states, the coverage is much more limited . medicaid is a comprehensive benefit package. hopkins folks at johns were asked to do a study of what the best benefit package was available for severely disabled people, they looked at all the private plans in the market and came back with a report saying medicaid is now the largest insurer of the united states. more than 60 million beneficiaries on any given day. birth and the the united states are paid by medicaid. traditionally by law a relatively stingy payor for services.

most beneficiaries get their services through managed care plans, but the rates are based payments for hospitals, physicians, drugs, other services that historically by law had to be the lowest prices. part, the federal government pays a variable share of the cost of the program. although it is administered by the state, it pays at least 50% of the cost in more prosperous oftes and 95% of the moment the cost for the so-called expansion populations. available as a response of obamacare. formuladetermined by a based on state per capita incomes. , itdministered by the state is subject to federal rules and

supervision. host: the cost of medicare and medicaid both to the end-user into the government certainly a topic that we want to talk about in this 45 minutes or 50 men discussion that we are having here. medicare and medicaid recipients, you can call in on a (202)al line for you -- 748-8000. all other viewers --(202) 748-8001. i want to hear your questions and comments. comps: as with -- tom scully is with us in bc. bruce talked about the expansion under the affordable care act. how did aca affect medicare? that much, by the way could that was a hell of a summary. you can tell he is a professor. for people up to 40% of poverty, they can get into the private health plan and they get

subsidies for that to expand medicaid. the impact on medicare, there were modest impacts, but it really was not mok focused on medicare. medicaid,impacting on can you talk a little bit about the cost of doing that? what was the bottom line for that expansion? guest: the bottom line will get complicated especially with the states with the option to expand. states, forsouthern example, did not cover single men or women with kids. family,re a low income and i think most of the northern states did. he had a huge increase in the population. and the health care business, there are in albuquerque and the uninsured went from trouble we 18% to 8%. 8%.ent from probably 18% to

it took the uninsured rate down in states that did it, but not all states did it. president trump will either freeze it or he may turn into a per capita cap. some states basically took 100% of the money and did what they want like mass expansions. others did not. where do you freeze it? you will find it interesting when most of the southern states did not take the money. they're probably not going to be excited about freezing it exactly where it is now. the northern or western states that took the money, we're going to lock them in a $10,000 ahead it's going to be huge formula fights with most massive local issues around medicare expansion. have you basically change the structure? host: i want you to weigh in on this as well. what happens with this medicaid

expansion under present trump and republican congress? guest: i have no idea. i think tom described some of the political problems pretty accurately. fight inhrough this so-calledith the contract with america congress p th, ,. they passed a block grant and the president vetoed it. there was a years worth of negotiation between the administration and the national governors association to come up with a formula or a per capita cap that would protect beneficiaries at the same time gave the states some of the increased flexibility. they said they wanted those negotiations and they essentially went nowhere. it's a very difficult political problem. as we say what was in the health care finance and menstruation, --icaid isn't rocket science

finance and ministration, medicaid isn't rocket science. moving those kinds of dollars around when different states have different stakes and perspectives, given the design of the congress is a pretty complicated undertaking. host: go ahead. guest: what you will find is that a lot of republican and democrats fight, but want to get into the money, it's much more often that you get into the weeds of the medicaid state versus state and not republican versus democrat. program, the rules are so byzantine. i'll think there's anyone in the unite states he can explain the funding to you. there are a lot of problems with the light which. -- with the language. if you like getting it done, it's very complicated. host: we are going to get into

some of those issues over the course of the next 45 minutes. tom scully is a former administrator for the centers of medicare and medicaid services from 2001-2004. k is the former administrator of what was then known as the health care administration. we will take your comments. we will start with jimmy on our line for medicaid recipients, calling in from pennsylvania. you are a first. go for it. caller: since obamacare came in, you have a lot of people going on disability and their collective medicaid could president -- and they are collecting medicaid. present obama took money out of medicaid. how long is it going to last? guest: there's about 8 million people on medicare. if you are disabled, you go on medicare.

it would cover you if you are 65 or older. one of my great concerns over the last years and i know bruce will disagree is that i think the disability rules in the last 10 years have gone to high. i think a lot of the areas to the disability qualifications have been lucent. medicare and medicaid should cover people who are disabled. the floodgates have opened. in the last 10 years, you have a lot of people coming to medicare that my opinion should be on social security disability. i think the collar has a point. disability has been a little out of control. host: do you agree? guest: no. thats followed a pattern during recessions in every that therezed nation is some kind of disability insurance for working people.

when the labor market gets very weak and unemployment increases, the willingness of employers to hire people with some really physical or psychiatric impairment does ministers because -- diminishes because they can find people without such limitations eager to work with them at lower wages. when the economy gets better over time, the expense has been in the united states and every other country with disability insurance that the number of people becoming newly eligible for disability begins to fall again. i think the great growth we have seen in this and the last decade attracts what happens in the labor market very closely, starting with the great recession of 2008. if the increased enrollment were to continue over the next several years while the labor market has gotten substantially

healthier, that i would begin to worry about it. but we have seen so far is just consistent with historical in employment rates and the availability of jobs for people who are less than completely physically fit. the tom scully, caller was concerned about money being taken out of medicare for other purposes. i just want you to explain when we say the medicare trust fund and the concern about using that money or dipping into that fund. fund: the medicare trust is known as the medicare part a trust fund, which is for hospital. andyone pays that and taxes you see that on your payroll stub. some of your income and your employer does and that funds hospital part a. funded 45% by the

federal treasury directly. the bolt is roughly $25 month . i think you can talk about taking money out of the trust fund. thus make the two trust funds. i think it's hard to find what has happened. n christmas eve behind closed doors, about 3:00 in the morning, they shut out the republicans totally, wouldn't to anything that they proposed.e they wouldn't even hear of. now one comment i want to make on television d

is one of the senators, i heard not about his is health care, this is about people.ing the that, it was gotten by fraud because a president lied. he said, if you like your doctor, keep your doctor. if you like your hospital, so on and so on. my husband lost his insurance and now we pay. it is just terrible the way it was gotten, it really is fraud. it was big deception and even that goober who was responsible for putting it together said he had a lie because of stupid people, they would not you know. want to take us back to politics of the passage

of the affordable care act in guest: one thing we can say about the affordable care act, it's generated more rhetoric than any other piece of health legislation in the united states an it has generated in environment in which people can ake all sorts of claims and claim all sorts of things that aren't true or distort them or context.em out of i think that is litigating an old fight. think the fact of the matter is we've been living with want back to politics of the passage of the affordable care act obam care now operationally for three four years, there are substantially fewer americans than t health insurance there were before it, before the ate of increase and healthcare cost has been slower than it has historically been, although it pick up again. the health benefits are show through a variety of studies in terms of health for people who now have access to healthcare and economists have looked and out, upside down, to find negative effects on the market from obamacare, hether it's cutting back in

hours for people who want to or reducing jobs, where reducing employment related insurance, none of those happened.pear to have is it perfect? not by any means. fixed? need to be absolutely. the fact is there are 20 million today who are better off than they would have been enacted and the costs born by just about everybody else in society have relatively modest. ost: raising his hand to jump in. uest: we disagree on lots, world trends and, you know, the healthcare politics has gotten ugly, the reality is, obama was do the right thing. overdid s correct, but it. the fundamental issue, who do you subsidize and how much? 10 to 15 years ago, the ated -- roughly 40% of

population. what obama care did, took it to poverty, 15 million more people, 67% of the population. when you have a great insurance the population, that is a lot. had epublican view, they too many benefits for too many subsidized highly and mes kayed expansion was too big. got to the point where last six or eight years, republicans thought this was the worst thing in the world blowing up and democrats think it is perfect and we shouldn't touch it, the reality is somewhere in between. republicans will repeal it, i think, scale it back significantly. hey will not take 20 million and throw them off, but make the benefits less and fewer people up in the income stream and make cheaper, which is what they wanted to begin with six years ago, they were cut out, i think that is the caller's point. unfortunately for everybody, to be 100% partisan vote in both houses

and turned into a nasty policy ar for six years, which is too bad. host: future of the affordable care act has been our topic. medicare and medicaid, specifically the of those programs. a special line for medicare and medicaid recipients. on 748-8000. others call 202-748-8001. john is on the line for -- may i make a semantic entirely t is not irrelevant. raditionally, we have used the word medicare beneficiary and now we use the word medicaid beneficiary. recipient is a term applied to people who receive welfare and fact, t working and in essentially all medicare beneficiaries paid into the system, contributed to it throughout their working lives that creasingly in states expanded medicaid, the majority f medicaid beneficiaries are

people who are working and who are xes and/or elderly or disabled and worked or paid taxes before becoming or disabled. always had a has more connotation and eneficiaries deserve that, not stigma of implying they are getting welfare. beneficiary in youngstown, ohio. you are up. caller: thank you. this program ave on right now. i have an interesting situation and i'll ask my question. retired at 62, live on $965 a social security and just got my medicare in the mail and denied part b because vimedicaid. is, how do i have or 120 a ay the 105 month taken out of my social check and then second,

ecause medicare has roughly 5% administrative costs, i'm wonder whying they don't just lower the age limit over 10-year span down o zero and have everybody on medicare? host: i'll let you start. take that question is hours. as far as your specific issue, assuming ly are 62, you are on disability because otherwise you wouldn't be medicare. general matter and i don't know specifics, depending on your income status, the medicaid will not pay medicare part b, but medicaid should cover other wrap-around benefits. partisan issue between democrats and know ares. republicans believe medicare is fixes rful program, it prices and inefficient because government is setting prices and running single-payer 75% ofent-run system for people on medicare, who are not on private health plans. people on medicare are on

private health plans. service government program where the price is set and administered. most people on the republican side would say, look, worst thing to do is expand below 65, get a more competitive system. most medicaid is managed care. away from the government fixing prices and having ssential cms, bruce and i both worked at. set prices and get in private insurance. know bruce disagrees with that, we talked about it over the years. odds of next 10 years i think of the retirement age for going to 65 or fairly slim. most republicans will push it to push it up. host: mr. black, give you a chance. guest: the fact of the matter is works better than any other health insurance plan in the united states. cost, the est overhad highest proportion of professionals who participate

the dwifrngz between in network out of network that is so critical in many private effectively ns doesn't exist in medicare where 7% of all physicians and essentially 100% of all ospitals participate in the medicare program. -- it doesn't have, which private health insurance plans are required to under the aca, cap on out of pocket expenditures and that has to be but unless have you those kind of catastrophic expenditures, your out of pocket cost on day-to-day basis are ower than they are now in typical private health insurance employers.ided by so historically before the care act, people who did not have full-time jobs ages of 62 and 65

were in a total no man's land in terms of healthcare. insurers wouldn't cover them and among the greatest beneficiaries of the affordable act have been people 65 who aren't yet eligible for medicaid and ouldn't historically afford or purchase at all private health insurance. one of the really interesting about repeal and what the going to be congress decides to do about vulnerable ally population because without a mechanism like the exchanges and subsidies for premium prices for povertyelow 400% of the level, people between 62 and 65 related have employer insurance have traditionally been totally locked out of of course rance and that is an age when people begin to be increasingly vulnerable to

healthcare problems of one kind or the other. o that will be, i think, pivotal question in whatever the how ssor to obamacare is, does it address the needs of those people. i think expanding medicare to 62 for the very good economy, would be good for older would iaries and permanently solve the problem of what to do about health people who are no longer working, but not yet old enough for medicare. plenty of callers on the line for those with questions. back to e two and come the panel. middleton in west virginia, good morning. kwau caller: good morning, john. both of your commentators comment on this serious issue that i think, they had to do with medicare supplement insurance program that allows to do urance companies

you with pre-existing conditions, they can deny you a had anything have done within six months or a year for a policy that they can deny you and turn you own because of your pre-existing conditions. it has been in the medicare law will work on ody that problem. i like both of them to comment it affected because me when i wanted to switch my insurance company to another one. me three different companies denied me because of conditions. to have a comment on this. host: we'll let them do that, let's hear from james in florida on the same line for the questions about medicare and medicaid. go ahead, james. caller: yes. to have a comment this. host: florida, zephyr hills, been disabled since '65 -- i'm 1998 and what medicaid program s a special

called share of cost. the share of cost is figured on onthly basis through medicaid and share of cost is almost what your social security is each it is totallyeans impossible for you to meet your to a of cost and go doctor. plus, doctors are all pecialists, they put me on a catastrophic program. still not going to help me hatsoever because of the share f cost is so high, like 2168 per monthly, monthly, before they'll cover anything. and the to a doctor doctor wants big deductibles. the deductible to see the doctor, they tell you to the hospital, which i've been doing off and on since 1998. the size ofin tumor a golf ball right outside the brain. chronic an enlarged

prostate gland, i've had removed, but er they sent you to the hospital won't wait on you at all. medicare is a sham, too, these medicare, they deductibles, they want you to meet payment to them, besides premiums you pay, which make it hard for people on medicare. host: all right. start with you. complicated questions. caller in he second florida, every state is different, as bruce mentioned earlier. states and six territories, different plans, what medicaid requirements are contribution limits depend, they make you contribute to the cost of your care depe depending on your income and offset with your social security check. i'm not that familiar with

florida. media gap or supplemental is private insurance, lightly regulated by the federal limit depend, they make you contribute to the cost government, nothing to do with medicare. is basically gap filler. when you buy a plan from blue or mutual of omaha, private insurance plans, one of y biggest problems with medicare, i like medicare advantage, i never liked medigap. i was promoter of advantage and we put it 2000 in 2003 medicare, asecause wonderful as it is, has high deductible and copayments and a of people buy medigap to pay for that. expensive, they can in fact, depending what state you are, pre-existing limitations.other i think one comprehensive humana, or blue cross, medicare advantage covers all that together in one package deal.better you have seen patients, gone through 4% on medicare advantage to 32% and 50% of lower income private healthcare plan tis a better package. do with nothing to

medicare. it is a wrap-around package and its is in most place not -- in?: can you weigh guest: medigap is important to of medicare supplemental beneficiaries, me and my wife, for example. on ite continuing attacks scully and so forth. medicareeen overpaying throughout the history of their really ent in response to some of the distortions and impact rmation about the of medigap policy. my reaction to both gentleman, from being sympathetic and problems ing what the re is the not entirely

facetious decision they should move to new york wrshgs we do medigap policies to limit coverage or pre-existing beentions when someone has continuously insured for a year medigap and where rograms require people requiring chronic care for disability are substantially better. that rk is not alone in regard, i might add. frankly, if you and i'm long enough out of politics, ki say his safely, if you had to rank the quality of medicaid programs state by state across the country, both florida and west virginia would be close to the bottom. and that raises the further question as to whether it would terms of prudent in protection of beneficiaries for the congress under per state by state across thecapita cap formula or block grant or states moregive the

discretion over how they manage now.caid than they have because even with the existing of federal regulation and number ons, there are a of them that do a pretty mediocre job. ost: a question for you, mr. scully, from a viewer following on twitter. in medicare people receive more in benefits than paid into the system? on is from jay sanders twitter. guest: yes. you pay taxes in your whole life a and pay premium to part b o. average this year, people various levels of cost, on average medicare benefit is worth about, value of the payment, is bout $14,000 a year, you pay $100 in peoplium. average beneficiary today pay $1000 to $1200 in part b premium $14,000 insurance benefit. a.ust fund for part

persons getting medicare are getting more out than paid in, es, significant subsidy out of the general treasury. people love medicare, it is a wonderful program. it is an insurance program you are roughly getting federal 90%.dy a little over host: brian from madison, ohio, uestion about medicare or medicaid. go ahead, brian. caller: good morning, john and gentlemen. thank you brian for having foresight to bring c-span along days and i have a experience. in '90-'95, i lived in nevada, regulation, costs were out of control. i was hit by a drunk triefr, broke me. i come to ohio, which has a wonderful healthcare. have private insurance, va care and i have the

coverage, of all three, the va is the worst without question. but, what is wonderful about aving all three is that i'm covered pretty much for and the, no extra bills ohio ranked really high our healthcare and i think that there is a lot that learned from states that rovide very well, very good healthcare to fix whatever problems the aca has. host: mr. vladek, on learning states? guest: i think your point is well taken. it.nk you for and the issue of the large the e of variation among states and the way they regulate theate health insurance and way they administer the medicaid program has been a concern to involved in health policy for many years. care act created

standardization, especially in the regulation of a private health insurance. so it defines, for example, a basic benefit package. it limits so-called medical nderwriting where health insurer can refuse to ensure you cancer ore history of other chronic duce or so on and so forth. we of the continues ment ras hear from republicans, sort of ideological spectrum within the republican party is esirability of giving more responsibility to the states, limiting federal direction and oversight both private health insurance and of the medicaid program and my concern that it would exacerbate the problems you identified in nevada or the kind of problems the previous caller

had, where the quality of the access re you get your to health insurance at any given level of income or any employment status is view, a -- in my unacceptably large extent function of where you live. 20 minutes left in this round table. want to get to as many calls as can. several callers lined up. we'll do two in a row and back scully.mr. murray, good morning. caller: i watch c-span. very informative. -- directed at mr. scully and vladek as to previous how it affects the remarks they have been making this morning. 'm speaking from personal

experience, i'm 81 years of age. i respondent 35 years of my life in the insurance business and within my own family, people since birth abled and how insurance has affected them. people in the medical ield, okay, who experienced very, very bad things as a result of the power of the of them.d the rest okay. the other very particular point serious is , very very fact it has been announced on the t.v., radio and newspapers, everywhere, where our life expectancy, mr. scully, down, okay. it is less than what it was before. you're well informed individual you know all the facts which attribute to that result, can spend 1.5 tomahawk ollars on a miss and i will mill carry complex absorbs anywhere by 55 62% of our budget, that is a

bad statement for a country hat claim we are going to be greater. i think we lost some values because christian nation, we came in with nothing and we're going to leave with and we're going to be judged by the way we care for between.her in host: i'll let you think about your answer to murray and hear brian in iowa. good morning. caller: hi, good morning. i have three very quick comments. affordable care act, mr. scully said democrats think it is just fine. i haven't heard any democrat say it is fine, i've heard them say fixed, that is a convenient lie. i was 21 bled when years old in a car accident, which was not my fault.

on $800 a month for years and my final comment is, if we had single-payer healthcare and companies insurance and instead paid $100 a month in to have the x government provide us our be in -- it e'd would be a much better thing. scully, couple comments for you. -- i i'm supportive for disagree on big-picture hilosophy, i spent my life working on disability, medicare, you are disabled, i think the state government and government should provide you with as much care you can. subsidized and how much? most people i know, god bless accident,were in a car disabled, 1000% behind giving you as much support as cuget. people i know, know somebody wandering around their on , they think, you are

social security and disability, have you to be kidding me. people to find the right to support and where, the aca, or anything else. get into issues of disability, i'm supportive of that. single-payer, here is the issue in insurance. blue cross plans, for example, run medicare, a single-payer program. do you want to pay blue cross, pick maryland, blue cross of maryland runs most medicare program, the fact they do. 10 blue cross plans run medicare. want the federal checkbook setting prices doctors pay them to id and write checks? that is how medicare works. tell the blue r cross plan, here is $15,000, you is how isk, that medicare advantage works. most people believe price fixing has never worked in any society and giving third-party risk and regulating them well is more efficient. that is the issue between single payer and private insurance, i third-party have

get the risk and manage the program. going back to the other issue and my back tlt ground bruce's. i worked in senate for a senator from washington state. the white house working for president obama in the white doing healthcare from 1989 to 2003. ran cmsack later on and for george w. bush later. i've been in the policy world time.long i currently work in new york for investment firm, not involved in politics, we invest in healthcare companies, the last 10 or 12 years i've been doing that. i hope my biases are, i'm sensitive to the programs, i i believe we m, should subsidize poor people, disabled people and people of income. who do you subsidize how much? subsidizingblem aca 67% of americans. we don't give food stamps to 67% americans. we have to decide who gets subsidized how much for what, who do the tough issue,

you support? host: john in sebring, florida. you doing? i got a couple comments. first, i'm on medicare and pay a supplement. it is really good. i love it. been on it for 10 years and second comment is, obama has let somalians and foreigners come in and once they get off the plane, covered under our medicare and supplement, our social security, they have never into, they are breaking the system. do it.lowing them to the last bunch, seven different -- or nine different of.es, took it out and these illegals come in and benefits that the we paid in to and please do not gone, everybodyt knows they are. host: can you -- uest: medicare, have you to have a certain number of quarters to work, not possible to get on medicare. can through disability and

supplemental security income. there may be some people, i is hard to -- immigration issue and i'm not want to get into that one. host: some people? million? guest: bruce and i disagree, 4.5 million to 9 million in the last and there is debate who should be on there. i am supportive of people on disability. i've been involved in medicare and disability for 30 years, it the wonderful program for right people, it is great. i have zero problem with someone on disability get og disability. a couple court rulings the last opened up qualification significantly, more people are let in. massive programs, your tax dollars and we should support and subsidize people who should be appropriately subsidized. at some point, you need to make get -- who needs to host: the question about illegal mmigrants getting on some

programs specifically, medicaid scully was talking about. do you know how often that happens? s this a million -- guest: really never -- the on eligibility for public programs not only for aliens, but for legal aliens in the united states for years is enforced routinely and effectively. suggest that the are r of illegals who receiving health insurance of ny kind is actually historically greater in the private sector than among public programs. i was out of touch for about technicales, we had a problem. if i may, i would like to respond to the earlier well, and the s comments. what the gentleman said from new was, about ess it

reduced life expectancy in the united states in 2014 and the gentleman from dubuqe said reminded me that while we really know why life expectancy in the united states facts remain the among the wealthy industrialized the ned of the world, united states is the only one that doesn't have government and many cases, overnment administered universal health insurance and the only one according to news reports on life expectancy in expectancy fell in 2014. it is also significant that all countries spend substantially lower proportion healthcareconomies on

than we do in the united states. now i'm not saying i should have government-run healthcare in the united states, i'm not saying we should have a single payer in the united states, but i am saying somehow every other ndustrialized country has managed to do a better job of eeting the difficult conflicting goals of covering everyone providing high cost to them, producing good outcomes from the keeping e system and the cost within reasonable bounds. only in the united states have do that and toto me that is fundamentally a political problem. running out of time. mary has been waiting in winterville, north carolina. are on with tom scully and bruce vladeck. wondering if was y'all are aware if any of the rates have gone up? scully.. exact bruce may know the

number. premiums or to rates that provider?pays host: she hung up. fw ahead. uest: premiums for most beneficiaries went up a very year, compared to last year. there are two categories of for whom they want more. who are in re those the top 10 or 15% of income medicare beneficiaries who surtax hasax and that gone up n. addition to which in e has been higher bump premiums for people coming into the program in 2017 for the time. but for most beneficiaries, the forget the ease, i exact number, in the low single digits. two, we have a minute or

jop lin, missouri, liam, can you quick?ur question caller: yeah. affordable care act, isn't that that richard nixon put up? hy do republicans hate it so much? and, that is my question. scully.r. guest: i don't think republicans hate it, they think it was out spending was too much, benefits was too much, the thing passed on partisan basis ago.years the issue going forward, with a lot of calls, medicare is not touched, unlikely touched in any meaningful way. about scale bate back affordable care act, scale ack exchanges, scale back medicaid expansion. bruce will not like it, politically that is where we are. constructive bipartisan discussion about how to shrink this thing. shrink in way that doesn't affect people who

healthcare support. ost: mr. black, last 60 seconds. guest: one, the affordable care ct was a modeled on a health plan adopted in massachusetts who republican governor principle health advisor is the republican governor of massachusetts. howink that says more about the republican party has shifted since the time of president logistics about how of healthcare or healthcare policy have changed. republicans can repeal obamacare and not take away coverage from some of the million people who have obamacare or er cutback on the benefits that reproductive age or people with psychiatric problems who have employer-based insurance getting under obamacare, more power to them f. they do square the circle and prove that humans have nothing to do with global warming.

host: we'll have to end it there. ahead.go guest: the government is just a friend of mine, i was involved -- look, i love romney, massachusetts waiver was expanded, not one enny from massachusetts, that was through federal financing scam, as most of them are. fiscally e responsible. host: debate we can continue time.er tom scully joining us in d announcer: c-span washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. , a book on why president us succeed and fail. then, the role of vice president elect mike pence will play in

the trump administration. and a look back at the indiana governor's work in his home state. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal," live this morning beginning at 7:00 a.m.. was the first to work outside the white house of the first ladies. -- manieeisenhower "mamie pink"r's was sold as a fashion item. to featured innd c-span's book "first ladies --

presidential historians on the americans." ic everyes the front line on first lady in american history and how their stories resonate today. share the story. ladies" in paperback now available at your favorite bookseller and also as an e-book. announcer: coming up next, legal experts on the u.s. legal system followed by u.s. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell sharing his thoughts on the new congress. later, turning general loretta lynch talks about the increase in hate crimes and the need for americans to stand up to bigotry and the other forms of hate. now, a look at how the u.s. political system is being

influence. this was hosted by the new york university school of law. it is 45 minutes. >> is so the panel that we have here and i will make more. those of you who heard a prior panel about political parties know it was about party financing. we will have a little conversation about that but we will broaden it out. there i begin, you have brochure and you know we have a distinguished panel. on my left, from new york university law school laid noted constitutional and election lawyer who has written widely in the field. now we have the pleasure of hearing him deliver a lecture on party financing, contemporary issues, and the struggle between parties and university groups at the university of houston.

on sam's left, david donnelly, the president of every voice. a noted campaign-finance reform advocate. he has done extremely interesting work with considerable success that does not normally get noted at the federal level about campaign finance at state and local jurisdictions where his organization has been very active. that is an important and often times omitted part of the story. left, anybody who knows anything about election law, writes about it, inks about it, has read his writing. the 2016 election cycle output acrossas in newspapers the country. new york times, slate, i cannot even begin to name them. probablymarks them as the most prominent commentator on federal campaign finance and

other federal election issues in united states. he is a professor at the university of california at irvine love school. -- law school. vice president biden earlier today, open up the conversation by saying briefly and then not continuing that he thought there was too much money in politics and it was corrupting. earlier, there was a discussion on a panel that the evidence of how much corruption or not corruption there was of clinical money was at best mixed. some of our panelists thought it was nonexistent. i will begin with rick and moved on the row. are we at the end of the berkeley view that money is corrupting politics in the sense that it is so evidently of the clearly a corrupting influence that we need to continue to fight for significant congressional controls on campaign finance if we can get a

court that allows it? >> thank you for the opportunity and for your kind words. person on the reform side that thinks corruption is a major problem in politics. feedback? ahead. is one that is about rising inequality that comes from those who have the greatest wealth transforming their economic power. question posed by the latest election is whether the -- maybe i should switch microphones maybe? doesn't seem like it is going to work. let's see.

me?you hear that sounds better. i think the question is whether or not we are seeing a -- with the latest campaign -- a transformation of our campaign-finance system, a bifurcation of our finance system or if it was a blip. we don't know yet. someone on the last panel said we are in the middle of something but it is hard to figure out what is going on. what we had with the donald trump campaign was a celebrity-driven campaign run through social media that went around the traditional institutions and the traditional mediation by the press and others. and, it is a question of whether future campaigns will be run this way. whether we're going to have a a campaign and 2020.

a series of celebrities. opera. if that is true, what is the role of money, to start off with donald trump who did put 66 minute dollars of his own money into the campaign and he did, in the end, not only court the ,uper pac donors but he also when he started his transition, he literally gave the seat at the table to rebecca mercer as one of the big super pac donors. it is hard to know with her this was a transformative campaign, whether donald trump is just an asterisk or whether we are going to see a bifurcation and what i mean by bifurcation as it may be that the rules for the president, because there's so much free media, someone said $2 billion worth of free media given to donald trump during the last election cycle, whether

money will matter in the same way for president. if you look at the senate races, if you look at governor races, the role of outside ribs and super pac's, wealthy donors are having ever more influence. to get back your question, i never thought corruption was the main issue. i think the courts will still talk about it in that frame and i think that is a mistake. i think the road problem is one of economic inequality and it is one we'll see whether social media and this new celebrity kind of campaign changes the equation or shifts the money into social media, digital advertising rather than traditional advertising and we will see the same kind of campaigns. >> i will argue what you just described, the growth of inequality both an economic and clinical spheres is a version of corruption. -- political spheres is a

version of corruption. when you think about rebecca mercer- sitting at the table that is not what joe biden was talking about. think about a corrupted process, some people having more assets than others, it flows to the top and not to the rest of us, that is still a version of corruption. also when we think about solutions on these matters we need to move more towards the question not just of dealing with the corruption bed of dealing with participation said the answer to the question is not about getting the money out or stopping the wealthy from having all the power or having influence, it is about increasing the influence of the rest of us and changing the organizing principle around this kind of questions of money in politics to encouraging more people to get involved in the process through incentives, small donations, incentivizing other types of education in the process and that will be the

antidote on a policy matter. to the other point, yes, paradoxly there is a that in the race wilma the best, money matters the least. because we'll know it the best. a tremendous exposure for presidential candidates and you just need to enough money to be able to get your message out but not saturate everything. the reason mitch mcconnell raised 35 main dollars for independent expenditures for senate candidates run the country is because they knew they needed to pour that money out to pull off some very tight senate races across the country. even at state and local levels, money matters a tremendous amount. hmm this impact fundraising has on political race outcomes. sam: i have lots of microphones.

i am partially in agreement and partially want to push away a little bit because i think the community got distracted by the narrow window left open and likely on the corruption russian allah has tried to package everything through the corruption argument. needn't say money matters, clearly it does matter. it is hard to get off the ground as a candidate without an initial expenditures of funding but at the one time you might also think it is not just the money but where the money is that is the significant issues so if you look at the narrative would forward for the election, it was on one side largely the problem of citizens united. the problem that the wealthy

mostols, whoever gets the money is going to dominate and one of the candidates had as a seal ofve approval on any supreme court nominee, a promise to overturn citizens in united. it dropped out altogether from the discussion after the election because it turned out the better funded presidential candidate lost as did those during the primary season. to go back to the theme picked up this morning, where the money is. we have unfortunately institutionalized three critical events over the last 20 years. this morning.ned a pair of supreme court rulings very damaging. the two colorado decisions in which the court basically held that candidates are at risk of being corrupted by the parties

and therefore you have to put up a very hard wall between candidates and the thereby diminishing the influence of the party. the other two were on the ground events. internalized in 2004 when john kerry ran out of money and it turns out you could run a perfectly adequate campaign without the candidate or party through the form of private funding. presidentn 2008, obama not only make the decision to forgo public funding but showed you could get a significant amount of money harnessing the technology for direct appeals to raise funding to bypass the hearty organization all together. that was the lesson internalized by the outside challengers this time, bernie sanders and donald trump of how they would get the

seed money. in addition to donald trump's individual fortune but bernie sanders did it without an individual fortune. , in terms ofbined the funding and organization of the campaign, the ability of outside funding to basically replicate the party activity and need fordown of the the party as an intermediary between the candidate and money has pushed in the direction of whatever money there is being held further and further from the candidate and the parties, as was discussed this morning. host: there was a lot there. let me go act to this for a second. you have been an advocate and this is going to tie into something david has worked on much of his career and it ties into what was said earlier about the potential of supplying particular kind of aid to

parties. you have been an advocate of vouchers. overall limits but vouchers. some form of public financing to compensate for whatever restrictions are placed on the supply of private money. in your view, and david you can answer this on the state and local level, where in your view is the political basis for the increasingly due to scarce public resources, could ever be feasibly argued to be allocated for the support of political campaigns are how would you approach that issue with the skepticism that is likely to greet one that front? more about,uestion is their public support for public finance in general or about vouchers and particular? >> generally. the food stamps for politicians mode when he was

asked about public financing. i do not think it is happening on the federal level. i think if anything is going to happen on the federal level it is going to be a further loosening of campaign finance restrictions, especially limits on party fundraising. i think that will be the first to go. the new supreme court with the new strike down of what remains of the money rolls which will put parties in. some on the federal level, not only do i have no hope for any kind of public financing much let's vouchers, but on the state and local level, i think the campaign for public financing is greater and the vouchers is greater and we know that because we are starting to see places such as seattle adopt vouchers. we will have to see how they play out as much as an

alternative i like, small donations which new york city and other places has as well. thing is, and empowers voters by giving voters the chance to decide and donate to political activities. do i want to give that to this candidate or this interest group or this political party? vouchers thatout has been raised is whether it would be further fragmenting and create a situation where if you write about populism on the left and right, it is just exacerbated. one way of dealing with that is we can say some of the voucher money gets routed to political parties. you can decide to give it to the green party, libertarians,

i am actually pretty optimistic not on the limits side because i think the supreme court at is going to move further but do we need the vouchers -- especially in the states and localities passed by butter initiatives. to present the voters -- [indiscernible] >> there is some feedback. >> several around the country [indiscernible] -- the 12 million votes cast in

reform measures for the five actual statutes. they are one overwhelmingly. inrturned citizens united different counties. country 186-14s to overturn citizens united. statewide in washington state as well. when people get the opportunity presented to vote, they vote for it. last twohe five in the years have one and that is beginning to work well. we went back to the ballot last year to upgrade the system from the law passed in 1996. we saw a jim attic uptick in the system -- we saw a dramatic uptick.

through partyaged expenditures. i like the idea of incentivizing a lot of all donations. a lot more access for parties to have resources to support their candidates. if we do that, their policies, like the professor said, we could drop that line between parties and candidates if it is coming from lots of individual donors. if we allow the line to be job but the money is still coming from large graduations, then we risk the problems we see in a brighter places where big-money calls the shots. -- in a variety of places where big-money calls the shots. dragged you have two people on either side who thought providing financial aid, public support for political parties would be a good ring, but you also have evidence that more and

more people are disaffiliated from the political parties. particularly in the millennial cohorts, they are disassociating older voters. -- don't they >> i think the question is and what form it's given to the parties. if you look at the experience of other democratic parties like western europe where they had always enjoyed the trade unions, the social unions for the democratic voters or the small associations for the christian democratic 30's. as soon as the parties start to base, theymass increasingly try to use parliamentary advantage to secure funding. to give subsidy, a welfare system to politicians who had lost the faith of their flock

and that seems to be a bad system or a system that locks partiesclerotic said of -- set of parties just at the point where they lost the parties. i like the idea of using the parties as the channel through which funding flows but to make the funding dependent upon their ability to engage and get support. countries that have for example undertaken public provision of television time so you take that out of the money area, of course that is chasing yesterday's technology with today's message but leave aside whether it is the exact right way to do it. look at brazil, argentina, mexico, they portion television time depending upon your success in the last elections. then there is a lottery system

for additional slots so new entrants can come in and it is not just a freezeout of any new claimants for clinical power. i like the idea of political funding being tied to small donations because that is a way everyone ignore incentivizing the relationship between the population and political parties. at the question is, where do you and that isey to go a separate question from how much and how it gets there. if it does not go to the parties, there is no evidence whatsoever that the small donation or this kind of private funding is conducive to a healthier brand of politics. there is every reason to believe that candidates needing to raise funding on their own will pitch to the extremes because that is what you pay attention to. a salient, striking, shrill ad is more likely to raise passion

and get reaction than a well composed, moderate, born, center type appeal. unless you type appeal. unless you have a strategy that includes the mediating institutions, i have no confidence that any of these mechanisms will improve quality of governance or political engagement. thatck, it you would say finance reform might be dedicated on promoting appropriate vision of quality. additionals there is force shaping policy and that would be to try to arrive at a healthier political system and which dialogue is civil, informative, whatever. are you comfortable that we can address the legislature to shape rules to make politics healthier?

>> first of all, i trust the voters to make this kind of judgments about trade-offs. i am not a big believer that we are going to be able to use campaign-finance rules or other rules to great mark deliberation and thoughtfulness in our politics. we are at a point where polarization is such that we cannot use the lever of campaign finance to deal with that. the biggest impediment to that kind of problem is our system of divided government and it led to gridlock. looking forward to the next congress, we are going to have republican majority in the house and senate, a republican president and soon what i would call a republican supreme court. one of the advantages of such a system is that voters will be better able to decide whether or not they like the output that comes from a republican government and then rejected the fate do not.

they cannot reject the supreme court but they can reject the other branches. what we have now has been a system of gridlock where democrats blame republicans, republicans blame across, you cannot get things done. >> this is moving far afield but if we want to have a system where the government is responsive and has the policies people one, a system of unified government where voters can look at the policies and reject or accept them and keep those people in office is one that i think will help our politics. not in terms of deliberation but in terms of getting policy outputs where people can judge what they like and don't. >> david, on the state and local level i have to questions. the voters and brace of these initiatives, these public financing initiatives. what in your view is the decisive argument? us, can you also tell because we tend to think of initiatives as voter choice, the

turnout on those initiatives, what those were. david: i may not be able to answer the second question completely. messaging on these campaigns varies from state to state. one of the themes that is pretty consistent as accountability. people want to have an accountable government. they want to hold elected officials accountable. the second theme is they want the legislature to look like themselves. something reflective of the community in which the legislators are pulled from and will serve. there's a lot of talk on whether not to use the corruption language is a selling point for winning these policies. and the jury is out on that. sometimes corruption is a hot you can getthat excited about but it does not leave people in a hopeful place. there is a lot of debate about that and it certainly test off the charts.

it leads to a variety of solutions that we think reform. in terms of turnout, we had very strong turnout in seattle in 2015 when we did a ballot measure there. it turned out a little bit lower in maine, and off-year election. lower than we anticipated. this year the initiatives that one, one south dakota. south dakota passed a voucher system. washington state fell short of winning in howard county, maryland, and berkeley. across the country this year, like i said, 12 million votes were cast for reform measures. in an election where there is a pretty significant antiestablishment message delivered by the presidential outcomes, this we think is an important lesson that people will actually vote for policy and changes. dramatic policy and changes in the political makeup.

passage in believe a berkeley of the campaign-finance system. one 10 actually rejected years ago. >> fair enough. sam, just on this question because you raised the issue about small donations. the notion that somehow democracy sized campaign donation. donations canmall mean a democracy is less healthy than we would like it to be but the question is, how do we monitor for that? i mean, how do we decide what is robust of a credit debate and what is unhealthy democratic debate? i am thinking of one measure and mccain-feingold, the stand by your ad requirement. i'm barack obama and i approve this message. it was supposed to have the .andidates have second thoughts it does not seem to have changed

much. the general tenor of the advertising. even if we adopted the message, what confidence would we have ort changing the rules tailoring the rules to that objective could be successful? >> it depends upon what successes. i disagree a little but with rick on the effect of the campaign-finance laws. i do not think we can expect a change in campaign-finance laws will quickly change what works and the public domain. will tweets were, people tweet. if you have 140 characters, you killert your fighting line one with the other because that is all you can get across in that space. the cumulative effect of the division of parties from candidates, the growing inability of the parties and the candidates to raise funding on a level competitive with the outside groups, it does have an affect on our politics.

in two ways. the parties are weaker which means the coordination function diminished.ce is our governmental institutions are unable to deliver public goods the way they were when you could cut deals. one of the bazaar, interesting proposals going on right now is bringing back earmarks. i used to think this was the height of corruption, private money to these congressional representatives to deliver to his or her district. it turns out that gets them in the game of needing to cooperate a little more with cutting deals and it may be a small price to pay for more effective capacity to govern. and if you diminish the money being the fuel for the centralizing mediating functions of the party, than money will simply reinforce what we have a hand pushed to the margins.

it does not matter if it comes from the polar big donors who are far from the center as it stands or from the polar small donors who are likely to be mobilized along the same lines of catchphrases and more ideologically rigid or single-issue positions. i would like to direct this back to what is the aim of this. civilizedant to discourse. be angry, haiti the other side. that is good. that is the history of our country. damn it.s wrong, god oh, please don't keep them in bondage. what is that? be mad. public policy itself is what boats., not show

>> i should mention for the record, the vice president earlier thought we could maybe not hate the other side. [laughter] -- >> it is harder. just a note. with the supreme court, let's talk before we turn to audience questions about the supreme lord. you are obviously not -- the buckley court however, looks unfavorably on the inequality rationale. how would you reformulate that if you import the was opened to it and listening? would you say to that court? the basis for any quality rationale that had a limiting portion in it? to promulgate the most wide-ranging rules it could. >> yeah. it is a perfect academic question. because there's no way the court could move that direction.

it will move in the opposite direction. not one justice scalia is replacement comes on because then it will be 5-4. but if one of the liberals leaves the court in the next four years and is replaced, then i think things could move further. we have been calling for the demise of buckley to die. it is still standing. they've been saying this for 40 years. the question is whether these can possiblyup take within the next few months, the avenue for a nail in the coffin. but in the alternative world, which you asked me about, i excepting -- equality [indiscernible] -- is no reason not to oppose him

campaign-finance reforms on it and if you subjected to strict scrutiny and to require the courts ensure there remains robust clinical speech and avenues for speech than i think that is the limiting principle so i would not think that limits the long would be constitutional without some kind of voucher system or other way of ensuring that there are multiple voices and people can get their points across. >> we are at question time. i would like to remind those if you have questions, there are little cards you can write your questions out and send them in. let me stay in the alternative universe for a second because one of the questions was, there are concerns about the quality voice. sufficient to justify policies that would subsidize some voices or encumber others.

what would the supreme court -- would this pass constitutional muster? this is an alternative universe. thoughts? >> i think we could subsidize all voices, right? so when you think about this alternative universe, it is actually not that far away even know it is in seattle. it is actually in this country. scioscia of candidates like maranda gonzalez who on january 2 will begin collecting $25 vouchers from people who will mail them. the city of seattle. she will be running for office on the lease is almost entirely of these small donations. every single registered voter in the city will get. that is not diminishing anyone's voice, that is making sure that everyone has a chance to be heard. so when we did about that alternative universe and the future of campaign finance

reform law, that looks a lot different than this panel, right? more will be multicultural, diverse, more reflective of the rest of the country. that is what is exciting about the possibility. how that stands in front of the courts is an incredibly important question and i think my colleagues to my left and my right will be much better suited because they are experts on the constitutionality of that i'd as a political, practical matter, if we're not in that direction then we are missing the opportunity to participate our way out of the problem rather than trying to prohibit activities we do not like. workthink these programs reasonably well at the local level as seed money. there is no evidence that they scale. no evidence of a public seriouse to run a campaign for the leadership of the central government of our country.

and so it is well and good to experiment at the local level. that is why we have this concept of the laboratories of democracy and that is as it should be. but if you're talking about the big show, it is not going to happen. we had a public finance system for president of the united states until it was broken. it did not work. it did not have enough money. you cannot run a campaign. and the public commitment, even when the federal election campaign act was established was to set the amount at two-thirds of what george mcgovern had spent in 1972 and what was the most disastrous presidential campaign of all time. many people run for president -- here's a little secret -- actually want to win. and they don't want to reproduce two-thirds of the successes of mcgovern, just boston and the

suburbs. that is not the way that our politics has been organized. this view, the -- where has led as in the arizona case the went to the supreme court, is the recognition that there is not enough public funding for that so you couple the public funding with an attempt to dampen down other voices or other sources of funding and that is what has been constitutionally problematic and it would take i think a number of votes on the supreme court to get that to be approved. the idea that you can silence speech in the name of supporting other speech. rhetorically that is where an tone and scully a without the strongest in this area but constitutionally as a doctrinal matter, that is where he had the biggest foundation. >> would you like equal time to respond? >> the next question is that one of the panelists this morning, david keating, was positive

there was no evidence that contribution limits reduced political corruption or increased trust and government. do you all have a reaction to that comment from someone steeped in campaign finance and campaign-finance reform? >> i think you trust in government question is a tricky one and i know that nate personally has looked at it and i think the public does not generally pay enough attention to campaign-finance to have a sense of exactly how things work but they believe that everything is corrupt and i think it was after mccain-feingold corruption , the views of corruption went up. talking about public perceptions come i think that there is some validity there. in terms of no problem with corruption from large contributions, well, if i could give $10 million directly to a

candidate i think that is the kind of influence i would have ,f that candidate would be much much greater than the kind of influence that someone who does not have that kind of money to give. we might call that corruption. i would tend to call that a problem of inequality, but it is no question a crazy system that those with the greatest wealth of the most ability to influence not just to his elected but what public policies are favored and i think that is very problematic whether we color corruption or we call it something else. >> look, you have to compare reality to reality. to the question is not whether few gifted me dollars to a candidate that is going to get your phone call answered. the question is, is it worthwhile to give the $10 million to the candidate instead of going through the facade of giving it to a super pac named after that candidate which is the way it is handled right now.

so whether it is more or less corrupting, it is really hard. i go back and forth on this because if you give $10 million to the candidate directly and it is transparent and that is something would have to enforce, but if it is transparent than there is an accountability from and take in those 10 me dollars where if you laundered through indigos into the super pac and there's no identification or does to where of theo identification institutional backing of the money or the individual backing of the money and there is no apparent accountability of the candidate for, think we're probably in the worst of all worlds right now. so yes, if everybody had the same amount of money to give that is one thing but that is something world we live in right now and i thought that the comment this morning was really directed at -- maybe it is time to liberalize the money going to the actual players in the system. >> this is the last question for

this panel and it is somewhat of a curveball and i asking only because i got a handful of questions for this morning's and on the same subject. the electoral college. i encourage you, if you wish, to take the law school path rather than answer. but the question is in keeping with the themes of inequality, what do you think about professor lessig's argument that the electoral college votes should be cast proportionally or in some different way or as i heard this morning on a number of questions, gone. no more electoral college. >> i wrote an article 10 years ago saying that what is most troubling about the electoral college is not the institutions, but the allocation system for the voting. we have a long history of constitutional and statutory attacks in this country on

at-larger multimember districting is it suppresses minority votes. if you are a hispanic voter in texas and there is reasonably polarized voting between anglos and his spanish in texas, it means -- and hispanics in texas, in texas, it means your vote is 40 of the electoral college. we know from a long line of cases in texas both under the constitution and voting rights act, if you had any other office in taxes that was at-large at that level, any other multi-member office at that level, it would be unconstitutional around lawful of boating.rization i'm cost of two or unlawful ofen the authorization voters. leaving aside larry lessig has always crusading idea he is going to overturn the last five elections or some number of the last elections, leaving that aside, the problem is not that it is such a big departure.

it is certainly less of a depression than the senate from equal population but the problem is, the winner take all aspect of it is completely discordant with where our law has moved in the last 40 years. word. the last >> i will take a more general look where i see lessig's comments fitting into a liberal desperation to avoid a trump presidency. it fits in with the joel stein recount in another aspect and going back to the never-trump movement. people are looking for ways to get around the usual rules and order to get a political outcome they like better. if lori wants to litigate over whether or not the current way the electoral college votes are unconstitutional, you do not raise that argument after the election has been had. you raise it for the election

coming. he has for years now to litigate that and if he wants to, let him go ahead. but you cannot go back and rewrite the rules after the election has been one. drag so, always forward-looking, let's say thank you for the past panel and ask our next catalyst to come on out. -- our next panelists to come on up. thank you very much. [applause] announcer: that same forum included a discussion on technology and how social media in particular is used as a way to reach out to voters. this is just under one hour. [laughter] settle in. to we come to our fourth panel of

today and our moderator today actingeral counsel and secretary of the department of commerce where he led the department internet policy task force and he is now serving as senior counsel in austin and is primarily in the privacy, security, and information area. do you want to into do sure panelists? >> sure. thank you sally and thank you for sticking this out. we have been to the panels, do the parties make any difference? is money make any difference? does the media make any difference? now we're onto, does technology make any difference technologyively, is to blame for all of the sins we

have heard about earlier today? role ofy, the technology in campaigns has transformed with the explosion of communications technology, the explosion of data. it is changing every kind of enterprise. campaigns are no exception. we have come a long way from the discussion i remember early in jim2004 campaign when jordan, the then-campaign manager said, there are no votes on the internet. at that time we were watching the howard dean campaign take off. by the internet. 2000, campaigns had websites and that was about it.

2004 was -- we were still in the and --email and dale-up and dial-up and we saw particularly the explosion of will.as a fund-raising in 2007, along comes the iphone and things begin to change. we recall that the obama harnessed that8 technology, harnessed social media and many other things as well as data and analytics. of course, things have built on that sense. we have with us on our panel today some of the breakout stars of those earlier campaigns. dean mentioned the

campaign as one of the first to campaigns to harness the power of the internet and technology. the component of that campaign, went on to found a digital company and lead the obama campaign's digital effort a.m. to work on the 2012 and numerous other campaigns. scott followed a similar path and worked on the obama campaign social and mobile campaign. went off on his own to found revolution messaging, which help engine of the digital the bernie sanders campaign.

and then on my left we have nate fsiis the james b mcclatchy at stanford law school, at the expert on the machinery of them are elections, fundraising, campaign finance, and has looked at the impact of digital technology on that. there because nate, to, you know you just helped ofanize a summer discussion ,his year's campaign particularly the role of digital technology on the other coast in silicon valley, the heart of the beast. think we heard that mentioned

this morning. let me ask you, i will ask each of you to pick this up in succession. was, give us an overview of how technology was used in the 2016 tempe. set a baseline for the discussion here. year, 2004 wasis the year of email. what was 2016? ad, lastly, how is it that campaign that was widely perceived as much more digitally sophisticated, bringing in the export ease of obama in 2008 and 2012, was -- did not prevail with technology and other things? let me start with you for that

overview and then i will ask you, scott, and joe, to look at that from your perspective and particularly what the technologies were that you worked with and that campaign and how you sought having an impact. >> first, let me thank everyone here who organized this. and bossme employer and comrade in arms bob bauer. -- i amns mann of sometimes referred to as the demon spawn and i were that probably. [laughter] >> and thanks to the conference at stanford last week and the digital campaign. when we planned this conference, ben ginsberg and i come about six months ago, thought what the conference was going to be about was -- cap here is how hillary

clinton's campaign marginally improved on barack obama's campaign of 2012 and here's how she won. needless to say, we had to change the topic. in part just not because it was a surprise victory by donald trump but there are all kinds of other issues. who knew we would have to talk about macedonian teenagers putting up websites? or robots? this is not something that could've been forecast in the last eight months or year or anything like that. there is a lot to be said. it is a big question. let me tell you about three things. digital tools are only pills, right? the fundamentals of the campaign and the quality of the candidate are not affected by those rules. thatdly, there are things donald trump did in this campaign that were innovative, unexpected, and not well known that i think the degree talked

about in the third is sort of a larger question as to what even the digital campaign is in this environment given how many changes we have seen in news and the like. on the first point, sort of an obvious point that we need to the quote that victory has 1000 fathers but defeat is an orphan. is the case that wintry be good too much to the digital tools of yesteryear that they were seen as so critical to obama's success and now maybe we're cindy tools failed hillary clinton. the truth is, we had an incredible candidate in barack obama besides the digital tools and hillary clinton had certain flaws that were maybe a part from the -- up it from the digital campaign. tobe the models we used

predict elections were different than they were four years ago so we should not overemphasize the use of digital tools as being determinative of the campaign. that is first. secondly, donald trump's operation was not as -- i mean, people sort of looked at the two operations in the summer and fall and it looked like hillary clinton had a digital operation and donald trump did not have one. to some extent, one of the things we have learned, there are a few features. i think ginsberg mentioned this. donald trump did spend more money on facebook than hillary clinton. at least according to the campaign, they spent fully half of their money on digital and split it evenly between digital and tv and she certainly spend more on tv. the amount of money spent on digital in this campaign was three to four times the amount and previous campaign so we are seeing more in that direction but the campaigns, the media buys, what they spent their money on was radically

different. one example, donald trump but almost zero local cable television advertising, something you would of thought four years ago was something everyone was doing this time. so, because his was more of a ,amshackle, impromptu improvised operation, he ended up outsourcing a lot of his campaign architecture to platforms themselves as of the --porting it in house which because hillary clinton had an operation that had been in development for some years so that one reason he ended up spending more money on facebook than hillary clinton did was because he used the people there to help the digital operation and. that ithe things he did think was different than previous times, i will give you one example that has come out which is the way that he covered the third debate. it has never happened before that the campaign actually read

what was basically acquires i television studio to cover it sound debate. in the third debate, in the live stream of what we thought was trump tv, trump's digital operation covering the third debate, actually broaden 9 million viewers and it was more stream, abc news live the official live stream. he was also able to raise $9 million from that one production a totally different type of experience than we have seen before. the use of live video and even though it was, again, sort of -- you know, it was not published, they had the live video going around with mike pence for a day, going around with mike pence for it if you can handle it. they experimented with. their digital operation, when

you look at what they did, it does not seem like it is so different in its basic strategy than what you would have expected from any other digital consultants. there are certain things they did that work effective. one of the things that was mentioned before is how they used native advertising. they put native advertising in two places like politico and other areas. and the way that they were able to use certain other digital tools that have been used for years before. story and howg you define the digital campaign trump,age of trunk, -- is to think about this problem. how do you explain the digital campaign when breitbart is putting out a story on donald

trump or hillary clinton and the campaign manager of donald trump's campaign is steve bannon aand breitbart retweets story. there has been a long time that these barriers have been raking down. it is difficult to find out where these boundaries lie. you can talk about where did beginl and traditional and end. donald trump using his twitter feed to command the attention of legacy media. it is not just the power he has on twitter, but that his twitter feed became the platform off of legacy-span that cnn and cover his campaign.

those lines have been blurred. there is a lot more that can be discussed figuring out the lines between foreign and domestic in an age where you have russian twitter bots being used. we don't really know the impact of think ms. on the selection -- this election. there is no knowing how big of the effect it did have. one study, 20% of the election related tweets were done by box thisis -- bots in election. twitter admits that roughly 8.5% of tweets on the entire platform are done by bots. that is something we need to investigate. this is now a worldwide phenomenon. she was talking about the

regulatory issues of how countries regulate this. of populist,n internet focused campaign is not unique to the united states. what we saw in italy last sunday, the five-star movement there, the so-called pirate party in iceland, the second-largest party in iceland, the use of the internet the prime minister in india, what we are seeing is the ability of nontraditional politicians to go over the media and run their campaigns through different means. >> joe, it looks like you can reach the microphone off the table. go ahead. >> can everybody hear me? , obviously thank you for having us and we appreciate the opportunity to have the conversation. i think the part i agree with

credit andt the blame goes to the candidates. every campaign is a reflection not just of the candidate as a person and their message but there is now the end and schmidt style and leadership tendencies -- leadership style and tendencies. i think one of the best parts about working for barack obama is that his leadership style and personality allowed for a special next of the types of things -- mix of the types of things you need to run a large digital and grassroots campaign very well. a cautious rule following obama, deliberate person who wants to get things right and the deliberate and measured about things.

there is the community organizer up andts to shake things do things differently. i think those aspects of his personality and biography were reflected in the campaign and in a creative tension between operatives that came from folkscs and a bunch of who came from the outside. i was 25 when i started on the campaign in 2007. there were a bunch of us who were more of the insurgent side of the party. we managed to coexist together and put together something that was consensus driven, but also in service of a different type of way of campaigning and a different approach to politics from the other campaigns in that first race in 2008. if there is a band of possible outcomes for obama, i think we operated near our sibling --

ceilin that being saidg,. if we had lost in 2008, i know where we could have raised an incremental $100 million because we did not think of things fast enough. we were building the team as we went. there was more we could have done. when you think about the 2016 campaign, i think donald trump operated from the digital and technology perspective in the bottom half of potential outcomes because when you look , for all of the things you are pointing out, they did get started late. he did not bother building much of that during the primary. what we know is that like compound interest, the learning and organization you put together from scratch gets more effective and more powerful as

you go. in the end, for all of the hacking and christmas ornaments with make america great again on aboutdonald trump raised as much in small dollar money as mitt romney did, probably less. compared to obama who was over three times as much as that in both campaigns. for the outside, i think there are a few things to look at. the innovations in 2004 and 2008 and 2012 were within the campaign apparatus and control. i think that was an error on the romney campaign is that they outsourced big parts of that infrastructure to the rnc, so they did not have the ability to control in a disciplined way. for the most part those innovations outside the campaign

and party were mostly around big dollar donations and putting those in the media. there was not this other set of outside forces in the same way that there was in 2016. the cause media forces of breitbart in cahoots literally with the ceo of the campaign being embedded from that organization and all of the fake , and also thets hackers, the actual actors that are going in and trying to take down an organization through illegal activity. that is something we saw in the other races but were able to repel. a much bigger operation this time. i think the other thing that is not mentioned about the digital campaign this time is that the weaponize outside forces, the quasi-media like breitbart, the

fake media, there is also just the mechanization of abuse online that really had a toxic effect on the ability of the electorate to have a conversation with itself about the campaign. i think that is obviously related to the fake news, the breitbart, and all the rest. i think it is also related to the traditional news being asleep at the switch and not necessarily enforcing what they would otherwise in terms of their policies about how their platforms should be as a public space on political content. i think that is something that was unfortunate and not something anybody had a good answer for outside the platforms other than talking about bullying and all of the rest and trying to appeal to the better angels of our nature. to folks who had the ability drain the swamp of abuse and the political conversation online,

which was a big force in the selection chose not to. we are starting to see some reforms, but there seems to be a level of denial about that. when we are looking at campaigns,across the i think you saw incremental moves from both of the candidates and parties in the general election. i think the big changes were outside the campaign this time. >> scott. just said.what joe a lot of this discipline comes from the top down. at some point technology evolves and evolves to become part of the campaign. if you think about the obama social media program that i had the honor of working with under joe in 2008, we were creating the rules as we went. we wanted these to be embassies

of the campaign. we created rules. hateful, xenophobic, racist, misogynistic things, we kick you off of our platforms. if you said things about our opponents, we kick you off of the platform. we give you links so you can find the truth. created fight the smears campaign to do search engine optimization around all of the falseness. my point being that this year we saw the exact opposite. the ugliest, darkest corners of the internet being elevated by not only the candidate but being talked about by the media and everybody. instead of, we are only going to use social media in the way to

get it positive, social media has grown up and the internet has grown up, and we are now elevating and read waiting the darkest corners -- retweeting the darkest corners in a way that is not good in my opinion. i disagree a bit with nate on the panel. technology keeps evolving or i would be standing up here talking about how barack obama is a myspace guy. we are humbled on the technology side to figure out what is working and what is not. i think there was a raise, if any of you go to the sxsw conference, it used to be the newest technology introduced, now does a bunch of venture capitalists and reporters running around looking for the newest technology and no people

actually working on new technology. you saw things like this is the periscope election, this is the vine election, this is the snapchat election. people were racing to call it some new technology thing versus what the evolution of technology was, more people on mobile. 50% of bernie sanders campaign came from a mobile phone. 42% of our contributions came from a mobile phone. is that sexy and worthy of headlines versus a platform you have never heard of for the election, probably not. you saw this rush to be that. the bernie sanders campaign, we were scrappy. we did not invent a lot of technology. we used to state digital, we used facebook. facebookmore money on

than hillary, and we were jumping up and down that she was not spending enough money on facebook. >> i don't disagree with that. i was comparing -- >> i look at it and say that it is not that technology is not evolving. it is incremental evolution and how it was set up. to david give credit love and david axelrod to allow us to sit in the right place in the campaign at the right time. everybody got paid equally. it was about winning. if i had a cool, scrappy idea about ways to use something and i could bring it to joe, we would do it and do it quickly. it was not 22 approval processes like mitt romney's campaign. real inauthentic and that we were making stuff up in the middle of the night and rolling it out the next day. an internet video, we were burning up laptop commuters --

computers on the tarmac and leaving them out in the rain using livestream video. maybe the trump campaign did something different with livestream video. i did not see it. campaign was using livestream video. >> i think you are almost looking for disagreement where there is not any. i left bernie sanders out for time reasons. >> he gets left out of all of these things. it is fine. yes, not onlyers, the way they use facebook but the way they fund raise also broke all kinds of records. i don't disagree. i hope i wasn't minimizing the importance of technology. i was simply saying that despite spending a lot of money on technology and having a sophisticated operation on the democratic side, the ramshackle

organization donald trump was able to put through was successful. injoe, what does it say that 2016 barack obama showed up at sxsw? >> i tend to agree with scott's analysis of that particular conference even though that is the price of success of growing anything like that where people begin to come looking for the thing you are known for. i think the great thing about technology with the campaign's, and this is more true on the democratic side, i did not really received the crowded republican primary as a petri dish of innovation where people were trying out these different digital tools, techniques, approaches, structures. donald trump was obviously doing something very different.

it was not really a different set of innovations whereas, i unfortunate the things of the democratic primary being these two big operations is we do not have the -- did not to see have the opportunity to see a lot of different models play out under different candidates. if elizabeth warren and joe biden had been in there, folks would have looked downstream from the candidates and their personalities. the number of people who came up through the obama campaign who were ready to run a scrappy chris dodd campaign and get that experience and cut their teeth and prove different models and innovations and ideas, i think that would have been beneficial to the party. will we know is at the beginning is that at the beginning bernie

sanders operation was not huge, they were able to take a bunch of pieces of infrastructure whether it was blue state digital tools or mobile platforms and just go and do it on a shoestring before the money started coming in. the results of the two obama campaigns from a small donor and grassroots organizing perspective, from what was available through the party and rapid response messaging, the barriers have never been lower on the democratic side of sophisticated, meaningful campaigns to be put together and to play out in terms of leadership and organizational culture. i feel we may be missed a little of that opportunity by having a pretty small primary field. >> i want to pick up on

something that was talked about earlier in the context of journalism. that is not getting too much and the trees of data analytics. into what you talked about, joe, as one of the things that the trump campaign did, which is to outsource a lot. that the clinton campaign overlearned some of the romney mistakes and spent a lot of time developing their own technology. model, a lovelace, the mother of computer science. a model that did not flag that wisconsin was an issue and

allocated resources to other states and relied heavily on that model. theisten, ultimately campaign where i learned this from down the road at american university is about three things. time, people, and money. you are supposed to figure out the right in question of time, people, and money to win. that is it. toyou are able to talk elders in the field and people in wisconsin like a good friend of mine teresa or amy chapman in michigan, who both of these folks worked with clinton in 1992 and 1996, or obama in 2008 and 2012, and they are telling .ou a problem is there if you listen to your labor unions, and they tell you there is a problem.

i have been clear in my assessment of this. andof the data and modeling everything else in the world, the best tools and technology don't mean anything if you cannot actually have a real message that is connecting and resonating with voters. the models may have been genius and accurate, but they were not listening to voters. this is where the art and not science of campaigns comes in. whether you should be building these tools in-house or out of house, i go back to the original sentence of mine. it is about time, people, and money. in the bernie sanders campaign we did not build a massive crm operation, because i think joe built that and it cost us $20,000 off the shelf to use his tools. that grows bigger you get. eventually you have your own servers. facebook events was a very popular tool. if i had that when i was doing

antiwar organizing, i will not have had a website, i would have just used facebook events. i don't know if these campaigns should have been holding warships. i think donald trump stumbled into that because he did not have the time and the people, he could have had the money, to build his own worship. -- war ship. >> let's talk a little bit about where things go from here. in some respects campaigns don't change. abraham lincoln wrote a manual in 1840 the said the state must be so well organized every week can be -- whig can be brought to the polls. voters,erfect list of keep constant watch on the doubtful voters, have them talk to buy those in whom they have the most conference -- confidence, and on election day see that every whig is brought

to the poll. how does technology change that? what do you see next? what are going to be the innovations of the next cycle? pull out your crystal balls. >> i think the great thing about technology and the digital campaigning culture is that it is a way to bring all those things to life, to do those things better, smarter, and more efficiently. i think that is going to be the question. the one that sticks out is that they hear from in whom they have the most confidence. that question of trust and how people are willing to stand behind their candidates and the issues they care about and their role in the election is on the table from a civic perspective.

online and inuse the new york city subway is undermines the civic and political fabric of speak's willingness to and campaigns in a meaningful way. what i hope we will see even before the next presidential campaigns get started is more politicians and more organizations working to build and reinforce that trust and asking more ordinary citizens who are concerned about the future of the country to take up and spend that social capital they have in their neighborhood, their family, their workplace and try to be out there standing for something. the public thanksgiving conversation next year and -- equivalent thanksgiving conversation next year and the year after that is one where people are having discussion and

influencing each other as opposed to the let's just agree not to talk about detente that happened at so many tables this year. >> where i see this going, i think there are a couple things the trumprn from campaign that are impressive. if you want to tweet emotion at 3:00 in the morning, i don't agree with the tone or the waysnt of his of noxious -- obnoxious ways, just the emotion at 3:00 in the morning to change the entire conversation at drivetime is something impressive that i urge every democrat that wants to be an opposition leader to do right now. i am watching a lot of democrats with millions and millions of followers as assets not getting in the game and showing rage the

way you saw joe biden earlier today talk about his real emotion around leaving office. we felt that way. there were people in the audience that were tearing up. evolving online in ways that donald trump did by spending 50% of the money roughly is something very different. the bernie sanders campaign, as much as we did online, our spend was not to that expense -- extent. we did around 30% online. google and facebook and folks like that are saying it depends whether it will be 20% or 30% or 40%. corporate america you are seeing spend 50% in branding and persuasion tactics or mass communication. of adk that the increase servers and technology is growing.

i think people the use to say early money is like yeast, i would say early advertising money is like yeast. these things actually compounding interest. bernie sanders when he first launched give us enough money to do acquisition and get enough repeat donors from young donors who gave $20 at a time, was important and is only going to grow more important as advertising technology of all spirit -- evolves. >> the trump campaign said they did 50% digital and 50% traditional. we will see. one of the problems and stunning this is we do not have good disclosure of where money is spent outside of tv. we may never know. the trends are quite clear. given how much money was frittered away by jeb bush and his campaign or hillary clinton on television ads, the

generational shift that is already underway in campaigns, those folks are going to get older anyway. they will be dominating the campaigns in four years or eight years. this sense in which the boundaries of the campaign are disintegrating and whether it is the platforms or the media organizations and trying to figure out more broadly how to integrate all those other great areas that are relevant to the campaign, i think that is where you will see the action. very few people are going to have the kind of immediate name recognition and ability to get media attention as donald trump did. the $2 billion just in the primaries by the way, that was free media. it was double that if you look through the general election.

that a few campaigns announced are going to be able to generate that kind of attention. the playbook is there about how you are going to try to use these new digital tools to run a campaign. >> let's step back. we should take up one more topic and then go to questions. let's talk a little bit more the dollar impact on democracy. the grateful dead letter says rob the decoration of independence of cyberspace, among other things we are creating a world where anyone anywhere may express his or her beliefs no matter how singular without fear of being coerced into silence. you brought up some of what is

going on in parallel around rura l. we heard a lot of discussion today about some of the native impacts of social media. to what extent do you see technology as to blame or not to challenges toe stability --se and civility? >> the platforms where the discourse is taking place have more control where they are exercising and enforcing a basic standard of decency in their codes of conduct they already have. that is something that needs to be addressed. more people voted in this election than any other. that is in spite of really

concerted efforts by people to prevent groups from voting. i stick by republicans to prevent people from -- should say by republicans to prevent people from voting. there are some silver linings, things like automated voter registration. the initiative that just passed in alaska will provide a fascinating set of data for the academic world to look at the effect of broader voter registration on turnout. julie ares --t arities ofs -- peculi the election process will hopefully become more of a focus of attention but also become more of a bipartisan and less polarized issue.

i am not sure what the political task for that is. . think that is a key aspect i am encouraged by the fact that the fight is on and we are seeing some progress on it. it is tough times out there for civic life. the politics is not helping with that. what i can see from where i sit, we work with progressive and democratic advocacy groups part of the time. we also work with 501(c)(3) charities a lot of the time. charities like museums and universities and partners like unicef and things like that. what we are seeing in the data across hundreds of these organizations is that both the political and advocacy groups that are fighting for civil rights and justice and everything else are seeing a big uptick as has been reported in

the media. also the 501(c)(3) charities are seeing historic giving tuesday totals and fundraising. while the social media scene can be one depiction of civic life that feels like it is in the ditch, we see on the back end of the data is people are sitting upright as a result of this election season and are deciding to give on the progressive side to causes they believe in and folks they think will be on the front lines of whatever the policy conferences of this administration are. >> this sounds like it is your wheelhouse. >> your question as i think it is where is the technology taking us as a democracy. unmediated democracy, the old

mediators are not there whether you are talking about political parties or traditional media organizations. it is a different situation when a candidate is able to talk to his twitter followers than when they had to talk through walter cronkite or they had to pay money to get airtime. i think that has a lot of troubling consequences, which we have seen. so while there is always the utopian and dystopian view of anything dystopian -- internet related. .verybody has an equal voice but then there is the dystopia side, enabling a lot of the more racist fringe to have a greater megaphone as was just the fact -- as well as just the fact that democracy needs mediators. you need political parties to and thete the policies

way that 300 million people yelling is not the way to run a government. consequences, the unique consequences of the move toward internet democracy is it is really about the effective anonymity and by rally -- virality of" discourse -- of political discourse. one thing that enables a lot of hateful rhetoric online is the fact that unlike if you were to run a television ad to a mass audience because of the anonymity of platforms, you do not have to take responsibility for the speech. it facilitates the kind of hateful language we see. the idea of sovereignty or extraterritoriality, when we were principally looking at

television as the way candidates were communicating to voters, you do not have to worry about -- only in the manchurian candidate sense would you worry that there was more an influence going through an official. now you do not know the origin of internet munication. it could be coming from anywhere in the world. thed, in relation to discussed views, virality is the currency. it is not about what is true, it is about what is popular. you try to get your message to have as much residents and popularity as possible. this is the problem for the platforms. if you listen to what facebook says. when mark zuckerberg talked about when he does not think saidook is the problem, he their purpose is to create an engaging experience.

that has nothing to do with truth. a meaningful and engaging extent have all to do with hearing all kinds of signals that you want to hear. the same is true for search engine. their currency is relevance. figuring out whether the messages you receive are relevant to other characteristics about you. that has nothing to do with whether it is true or not. that is very different from traditional media institutes as moderators. >> thank you for that. we have time for only one question from the audience because we have another part of the program ready to go. -- is says that because of the universal accessibility, social media is used at a high rate by people with disabilities. voters with disabilities are 36 million voters but turnout at only 42%.

using see campaigns social media to bridge this type of voter gap in the future since we are trying to look forward? this should be a fairly quick, but i would like your best views on this. >> it is an interesting niche. when i was serving social media platforms originally for obama, it was before facebook -- you address, and you cannot have more than a certain amount of followers, i think 5000. there was the disabled american social media platform. you can have intelligent conversations with people on these unique platforms.

there was the largest ever in american social media platform 500,000 over 5000 -- followers for barack obama before any of the other platforms. i think you need to organize and talk to niche-based communities in unique ways. now that all these other platforms have died and it is now on facebook, facebook's algorithm of figuring this out and having a platform or showing and not telling and doing videos communities these is super important. it was almost easier when every community had their own platform. now through much easier advertising networks we talked about earlier you can engage these communities. i think the biggest problem with this election is not that technology is not there, it was using a message and engaging these immunities. the one thing i would say that

is different on video whether it is viral versus engaging is if you are trying to organize people in iowa, you don't care if the voter has 200 -- video ers, you000 view care if it has 5000 people in iowa. being strategic is often a lot more important than virality. >> thank you. i would like to express our appreciation for this panel. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] journal@c-span.or [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] morning, whythis presidents succeed and fail. indianapolis reporter connie cook and the national review about the role vice president-elect mike pence will

play in the trumpet ministration and a look back at -- trump administration and a look back at his ears in indiana. be sure to watch "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. this morning. join the discussion. c-span's documentary contest is in full swing. we are asking students to tell us what is the most important president andnew congress to address in 2017? documentary, help for homeless euros. tell us about your documentary. >> my partner and i produced a documentary where we contacted homeless veterans on the streets in california. we decided that these people who have given all to our country streets,iving on our

not having anyone care for them, that is not ok. to talked we are going about this issue within our community. we decided to make a c-span documentary about it. >> i encourage all seniors and juniors in high school and middle school are's to use this totform -- middle schoolers use this platform and raise your voice because your generation deserves to be heard in this government. it is a better place to speak to these issues. my advice for the students who are on the fence is to really look into your communities and see what is affecting those around you because they are the ones you love, the ones you see the most, the ones you are surrounded with almost every day. if there is an issue that you see happen every day on the street, that is probably where you can start.

be part of this documentary because you want to be a voice for your community. >> thank you. if you want more information on documentarycamera contest, go to our website. >> senate majority leader mitch mcconnell voiced his support monday for a bipartisan investigation into russian efforts to influence the election. he had a news conference on capitol hill and discussed the republican agenda for the new year. this is 25 minutes. [laughter] well, i think this has been one heck of a year. i would hate to see it end. water -- louisville's

louisville sweater on. winning the heisman trophy last night, finishing off a terrific year. the things i care about like pulling the senate and electing a president. i'm going to read a statement which i typically do not do at these. so that you fully understand what i have to say on the issue that i think is mostly on your mind this morning. any foreign breach of our cyber security is disturbing. i strongly condemn any such efforts. prior to the election, the director of national intelligence released a statement saying the russian government directed the recent compromise of emails from u.s. persons and institutions, including from u.s. political organizations. that is what the intelligence communities believe can be said in unclassified remarks without risk sources and methods.

anything else is irresponsible, likely illegal, and potentially for partisan political gain. i agree with senator schumer, chairman mccain, and others that this simply cannot be in issue that is partisan. the senate intelligence committee on which i said as and ex officio member is more than capable of conducting a complete review of this matter. senator schumer will soon join us on this committee and can review this matter through the regular order. i have every confidence in chairman bert that he will review the matter in a responsible way. the obama administration is now launching a review, and when the office of the director of national intelligence completes their review, there will be additional information released to the public and a responsible

manner. chairman mccain has announced that he will conduct a review within the armed services committee of the threat we face from cyber attacks. that will be useful as we need to integrate our cyber capabilities into our overall war fighting doctrine. the obama administration for eight years attempted to reset relations with russia and sat back while russia expanded their influenceinsurance -- and attempted to bully baltic countries. it defies belief that somehow republicans in the senate are somehow reluctant to review russian tactics or ignore them. i have the highest confidence in the intelligence community and the central intelligence agency, which is filled with selfless agents who risk their lives for

the american people. can i have some water? yes. let me just say of congress, and then i will open up to your questions. by any objective standard the 114th congress looks pretty good compared to the previous one. everything from the cure is bill bill, first long time highway bill in many years, the water resources bill, permanent tax relief. we addressed the opioid and prescription drug epidemic in a major way. a complete rewrite of no child left behind, the k-12 education issues.

v.a. accountability, cyber security, human trafficking, trade promotion authority and many others. even though there were some pretty big differences in a time of the mighty government, i think we are able to search for the things and it was my desire to search for the things we had some agreement on and make some progress for the country. there were a number of things on which we were able to score some points for the american people. let me throw it over. >> from what you understand you believe that the russian government was intentionally trying to sway the election for donald trump? mr. mcconnell: the reason i read that statement is i think that thoroughly covers what i am prepared to say about that issue. reporter: you talked about an investigation, a bipartisan investigation, or do you want to do this through the intelligence community? mr. mcconnell: we will follow

the regular order. it is an important subject. we intend to review it on a bipartisan basis. >> you mentioned in your statement the obama administration attempting to reset with russia. does it concern you that the signals coming from the new administration of a different attitude, orientation, and more friendliness towards russia? mr. mcconnell: let me speak for myself. the russians are not are our friends. invaded crimea. senator mccain and i and some of our democratic trends met with representatives from the baltic countries just this week. to say that they are nervous about the russians would be to put it mildly. we intend to keep the commitment that were made in the nato agreement. by any objective standard, it has been one of the most

if not the most successful military alliance in world history. i think we ought to approach all these issues on the assumption that the russians do not wish us well. >> is it a problem that the incoming president is sending signals to russia that he is sending and what he has to say about -- >> i am going to save us a lot of time by saying that i addressed just out how i feel about the russians. i hope that those will be in positions of responsibility in the new administration share my views. your confidence in u.s. intelligence agencies, but are you concerned that the president-elect continues to know nine that russia was behind the hacking and is now questioning the credibility of the cia? >> i have already addressed my

own view about where we are on those issues. i really don't have any intention of further elaborating. trumpuld president-elect nominate rex tillerson, would you have any concerns about a nominate that could potentially financially benefit from sanctions on russia? >> i have been impressed with the nominations so far. we will have to wait and see who is nominated for secretary of state. we will treat whoever that is with respect. they will go through the regular process and respond to questions . >> do you think rex tillerson could be confirmed in the senate if he is nominated? >> let's wait until we get nominees. of the nominees we are already aware of, i am optimistic that they will all be confirmed. on a't want to comment

phantom nominee today. can you just go back one more time and clarify for us -- you had expressed skepticism in some of the closed-door briefings about the intelligence, can you clarify is that accurate? >> i clarified for you in the statement that i read at our open. do you think this president-elect is getting off on such a great putting with the intelligence agencies overall -- with the intelligence agencies overall, the general trajectory he is on right now? a i think mike pompeo is excellent choice for cia. general mattis is outstanding choice for defense. i am optimistic the president

will have a good national security team, all aspects of it , in place. >> with regard to his relationship to the intelligence agencies. >> i think that pretty well cover that. -- three-year transition to replace obamacare. some conservatives in the house are saying that is too long. the you agree that it is too long to wait that long to replace obamacare? >> the status quo is not sustainable. the notion that we could do nothing and allow the current law to implode is unacceptable. i hope no one believes no action is possible or appropriate, therefore we will move after the first of the year on an obamacare replacement resolution. then we will work expeditiously

to come up with a better proposal than current law because current law is unacceptable and unsustainable. we will be working with the various stakeholders to get their best advice about what comes next. with regard to the phase in. that has yet to be determined. let me say again, doing nothing is not an option because you have seen the headlines across america all last year about the status quo. >> do you have a personal preference as to what sort of these and you would like to see? >> when we get started on that, i will be happy to let you know. >> -- warning about the dangers that would happen if replacement is not established before repeal happens? how does that factor into your decision? >> none of these people are

happy with the status quo. they want changes. we will come up with a better system than this monstrosity that was left behind by the obama administration. >> will there be any framework in terms of repeal before? >> we will move forward first with the obamacare replacement resolution. what comes next is what comes next. legislatively we will then determine what the replacement is going to be. >> while you are trying to put together that replacement, is one of your principles going to be that you will cover as many americans with health insurance as currently have it now? >> 85% of americans have coverage. there are still roughly 25 million who don't. if coverage was the issue, obamacare was an abysmal failure. surely we can do better. that is what we intend to do.

that means as i said earlier that we will move first with the obamacare replacement resolution and then we will come with what the replacement will actually be. [inaudible] , hisecemeal over time position that a lot of people keeping children 25 and under on parents plans, is that an approach you would like and think is reasonable? >> i don't know how many times i have to say the same thing. we will be working on phase in and what it will look like once we get to step two. we will turn to that after the first of the year. >> back on russia, what exactly will the intelligence committee be doing? will this just be in the intelligence committee?

will you be talking to speak orion? ryan?eaker >> senator mccain and senator burr will be looking at this issue and doing this in a bipartisan basis as i said. from germaneard price on the house either you expect the budget resolution to be bare-bones. is that your goal to see the same type of document from the senate side? doing to budget resolutions this year. the first will be the obamacare repeal resolution. we will do one later in the spring that will largely be dedicated to tax reform. there will be two this year. they will set up reconciliation

follow-up vehicles for us to address two important issues that we all care about, repealing and replacing obamacare and doing conference of tax reform. we are all worried about and concerned about u.s. jobs. the single biggest reason for that is our tax structure, which makes it very difficult in many instances to stay here because the corporate tax rate in the individual tax rate that most businesses use as well is way too high. it is an uncompetitive situation. the president-elect has made it clear that he is going to move on as many regulatory changes as he can make as soon as he takes office. much of that was done by executive order, regulations of one kind or another. the two biggest impediments to growth in our country are

overregulation and the tax structure. the president-elect seems to be committed to addressing both of those, and the republican majority are as well. >> one of your top goals for this past year was getting regulatory reform through the process, and passing budget bills on time. you obviously failed in that. >> democrats for the first time in memory decided to ball up the appropriations process, which you can do if you have enough of a minority to do it because they wanted us to end up in a year-end situation like we did. we will see whether they have a different view next year. i hope so. i gave up to six weeks to try to process individual appropriation bills. the democrats would not like them out of the senate. let's put the failure where it belongs. smallermajority will be

this year than it was last year. why should we expect anything to be any better next year? >> i hope so. there will be enough some democrats -- senate democrats to ball up the process if they choose to. this past year, when they had the president they like, balling up the process gives the president a lot of clout at the end of the year and actually benefited them. it will be interesting to see if they think balling up the process when you have a different president of a different party in the white house makes sense. maybe they'll have more

incentive to cooperate on trying to get back to a regular appropriations process, which the speaker and i would both very much like to do. >> so it's all on them? mcconnell: it certainly was this year. and the minority in the senate is not irrelevant unless it's a little-bitty minority. yes? >> senator, last week, democrats tried to get the president-elect to weigh in on the coal miner issue and buy america. did you speak with him or encourage him to stay out of it? and what do you make of the fact that he didn't kind of take the bait? crosstalk] senator mcconnell: yeah, i -- i haven't discussed it with him.

my own view on that is the coal miner health care issue, i had hoped we would get a full year. we ended up getting enough -- a fix through the duration of the cr at the end of and it's my april. goal to try to get that coal miner health care issue fixed. -- yes? >> senator mcconnell in the past [inaudible] have talked a lot about the massive debt we have. it's going to be $20 trillion the next time the debt limit expires. are republicans going to take any affirmative action that will actually reduce the debt? and are you going to be committed to pay-go and tax reform paying for itself, et cetera, and doing things like that you talked about before the election that you hope to do next year, things like medicare and social security, which are obviously very difficult to do politically? sen. mcconnell: again, i can only speak for myself, but i think this level of national debt is dangerous and unacceptable. and so whatever we choose to do next year, i hope we will not lose sight of steps that we could take that would exacerbate the problem. and so i am concerned about it and all of those things -- i

think we ought to take into consideration on each of the things that we do going forward. because the president-elect has talked about a massive infrastructure plan, over $1 trillion. he talked about a lot of other huge tax cuts, which nonpartisan outside experts say could add trillions of dollars to the debt. >> would you commit to saying [inaudible] things that will add to the deficit? mcconnell: well, my -- my preference on tax reform is that it be revenue neutral to the government, that it not exacerbate the issue that you raised. and on the infrastructure issue, it will be interesting to see how this is put together. we want to it see -- i'm interested in seeing what is the administration going to recommend? and i think the details are really important. what i hope we will clearly avoid, and i'm confident we will, is a trillion dollar stimulus. take you back to 2009. we borrowed $1 trillion and

nobody could find that it did much of anything. it seemed to me basically what it did was plus-up a bunch of federal accounts, and when you looked around trying to find examples of things that actually occurred, they were darn few. so we need to do this carefully and correctly and the issue of how to pay for it needs to be dealt with responsibly. yes? >> sort of a legacy question. i'm curious how you would describe your last eight years dealing directly with president obama, and moving forward, how you describe your relationship working so far with president-elect trump? how often do you guys speak? i understand he speaks very frequently, almost daily, with the speaker. sen. mcconnell: well, i -- i think president obama's a very smart guy. he wanted to move the country significantly to the left and he did. he did it the first two years because he had total control of congress; $1 trillion stimulus, obamacare, dodd-frank. and then i was wrong in my prediction three times. i thought after the 2010 election, president obama would pivot to the center. he didn't do that. i thought after the 2012 election when he didn't get the house back, he'd pivot to the center. he didn't do that. i thought surely, after the 2014 election, he would pivot to the

center and he didn't do that. so it's pretty clear now if you look back over the last eight years, the president wanted to move america significantly to the left. what i would call the europeanization of america -- high taxes, overregulation. and what you get in the end is slow growth and we've been underperforming from a growth point of view through these years, the poorest recovery after a deep recession since world war ii. so if you bear in mind that that's what he wanted to do, i think he moved the country significantly in a european direction. the good news for us is that a lot of that was done by executive orders and regulation. and to get the country going again, in my view as i said earlier, we have to deal with a regulatory onslaught to take our foot off the brakes.

i think the president was very effective in doing what he wanted to do. the middle. clinton, when he lost the house reform in did welfare we balanced the budget three years in a row. i think we can safely say about president obama, he was not a centrist. and with regard to the new president, we have a terrific relationship. and he's a very high-energy person. just to give you an example, in talking to my colleagues on the floor last week, it was astonishing how many of them had been talking to him. he's very, very accessible -- very energetic. i wonder if the man ever sleeps. and i think we're all excited about the energy and the direction that he seems to want to take the country. and the best evidence of that i

think are the appointments that have been made so far, all of which i think have been pretty impressive. >> senator mcconnell, during the obama years, you said the debt ceiling should be used as an instrument to actually cut the deficit. do you want to apply that principle during the trump years? and do you view that as an instrument that should be -- >> well, on one occasion it was helpful. the budget control act in august of 2011 actually did end up reducing government spending for two years in a two for the first time since right after the korean war. and the much-reviled sequester has put a lot of pressure on domestic discretionary spending. there have been other times when we have raised the debt ceiling and not done it in connection with some effort to reduce spending. but at least on that one

occasion, i think it was -- it brought us all to the table. this was the first of three deals that i did with the vice president who is very transactional and a terrific negotiator. and i think if the president had wanted to do more deals with us, he would have designated biden. but that was all in the first term. there were three major deals negotiated in the first term. i did all three of them with biden -- the august 2011 budget control act; going back to the year before, the two-year extension of the bush tax cuts at the end of 2010; and then the fiscal-cliff deal new year's eve of 2012. obviously, the vice president

was not freelancing. the president gave him the opportunity to negotiate. in the second term, mccain, who has a wicked sense of humor, as all of you know, said, "joe -- joe was in a witness protection program." so, their best negotiator was not around here in the second term. and i think there was nothing the president wanted to negotiate. i'm sorry for rambling on here, but i think it's unclear to me whether the raising of the debt ceiling will end up carrying other things with it or not. >> senator mcconnell? senator mcconnell: one more. you're up. >> will senate republicans respond when legislatively if president trump revokes the 2012 executive order that president obama did affecting about 750,000 dreamers, the young immigrants who came here [inaudible]? senator mcconnell about what? : the -- the different action for (inaudible) daca, the 2012 executive order (inaudible)?

yeah, i don't -- we'll have to wait and see what the new administration recommends in that whole area. well, have a great christmas, everyone. we'll see you next year and we'll go back at it. thank you. announcer live from the heritage foundation, former house speaker new gingrich at 11:00 a.m. eastern care on c-span. then politico editor susan glasser, author of a recent essay entitled "covering politics in a post-truth america." that is at 2:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. i the presidential and duration of donald trump, january 20. c-span will have live coverage of the days events and ceremonies. watch live and listen live on the free c-span radio app. >> an annual report from the fbi shows hate crimes against

muslims in the united states have increased by more than 65 percent. attorney general loretta lynch's book about the issue on monday at a mosque in sterling, virginia, where she urged all americans regardless of religion hate.nd up to act of this is 45 minutes. attorney general loretta lynch: they do offer that warm welcome. thank you for coming here today. thank you so much for that warm introduction. you mentioned it you did not have the analogy for our little excitement on stage but i think you do. because when you fell, everyone came to help. and that is the story we have to process. [applause] attorney general loretta lynch:

when one falls, we have to step up without regard to our own safety. without knowing what laid behind that curtain, everyone went to help. when one of them is threatened, we'll have to speak out regardless of the discomfort in may cause upon us. when one of us is in harms way, we are all in harms way. and that is the story of today's event and yes, want to thank you for illustrating that for us. [laughter] [applause] attorney general loretta lynch: i consider down now but being from the long line of baptist ministers, you know that i will not. but let me say, all of the faith leaders, all of the community leaders, all of the members in this beautiful mosque who came together and welcomed me so beautifully this morning, can we anothere again have hand for all of our children who

did so well this morning? [applause] >> all of your hard work paid off. i want to thank all of those who spoke before me for their moving words but most of all for their commitment, for the recognition that the god that we'll share does not see a difference when he looks at us. in 20 weeizes children hurt, he hurts. in does we saw before, when one of us is hard we'll have to step in. so let me thank all of you, the faith leaders, the community leaders, the activists, the advocates, for everything that you do all do every day to strengthen, to empower all of

our communities. thank you so much. [applause] attorney general loretta lynch: i am tremendously honored to be here in the space and most importantly, and from of this audience because we're all here today in this mosque as men and women of all races, creeds, colors. some of us were born in the united states, our immigration status having been resolved some generations ago but immigrants none the less and some came here more recently in search of a better life. we may speak different languages, read from different books of scripture, we may call our god by different names. but we all love this country. we all love the ideals for which it stands. and, we're all committed to upholding them will stop we'll

want to our children to lead lives of safety and opportunity and will probably claim the title of american. and just as brandeis proclaimed, we all declare the most important political office there is, that of private citizen. that is our strength. our bond. we're all together in this. here today i see a living expression of the american promise. a living picture of america. the conviction that every person's dignity is inherent and equal. we know that promises as old as our nation itself. centuries and two to score years, our forefathers boldly proclaimed that all men are created equal and of course, when those words were witnessed, they had a ways to go because betweens a gap

america's founding ideals and america's founding realities because the very hand that put those words on parchment had also signed deeds for the sale and purchase for other human beings. for many of our ancestors, for women, african-americans, native americans, all immigrants and countless others, the promise of american life rang hollow for far too long. words come clear and plain as they were, were too powerful. to self-evident in jefferson's words for that state of affairs to endure because generation after generation of americans heard that promise and read those words. they took them to heart. and, they demanded they be fulfilled. they stood up. women who injured radical and condescension for seeking the right to vote. african-american soldiers who defended freedom overseas only to return home to a nation that

would not let them vote. and, that sometimes even repaid their service with violence. the marchers who braved the jaws of police dogs in birmingham and the lgbt individuals who fought for their civil rights at stonewall inn. all of these are examples of courage and determination. of these individuals and countless others who came before us but they also illustrate the great truths that every generation must keep this battle on. every generation must push this fulfillever forward to those promises. now, we have built a society that is so much further along. reflectivemuch fully of our founding father's creeds of liberty and justice for all. but our work is not finished. work has been challenged on these and so many other fronts as we are all aware.

this work is never finished. now, as we talked about just last month, the fbi released its statistics on the number of hate crimes committed in 2015. that is not even this year and already we see the disturbing trend. these sobering indication of how remains to be done. overall, the number of reported hate crimes increased 6% from 2014 and that figure is an against in hate crimes jewish americans, lgbt americans, african-americans, and most troubling of all, it showed a 67% increase in hate crimes committed against muslim americans. this is the highest total of anti-muslim incidents since 2001. caused so manyf

reprehensible acts. we know there are many hate crimes in all communities across this country that go unreported. it ise also know is that easy to trump up the numbers and statistics and the report but behind every number is a person. behind every statistic is someone whose rights have been violated. behind the pages of the report like communities who are now more afraid than before and more freight dan any american should ever feel. seen theof us have flurry of recent news reports about hate crimes and harassment. we have seen stories where hijabs have been pulled off women's heads. swastikas on churches. the story told about the young

boy who was told he would no longer have a friend or a place in this country. that is what is behind all of those numbers. wheni say to you again, one of us is threatened, all of us are threatened. when one of us falls, we all have to help. that is our obligation. that is our commitment. that is a choice we've all made as citizens. the department of justice is working on this issue. the fbi is working with authorities to review multiple incidents. they're working to assess whether the cases constitute violation of federal law. we will provide our support nonetheless. because these numbers, and more importantly the people behind them should be a concern to every american regardless of faith, background, regardless of whether you are involved or not.

crime's target more than just the individual at the fabric of our communities. they stay in our dearest ideals. they stain our nation's very soul. there is a threat. it is pernicious. it is strong. there is a thread to connect the act of violence against the woman wearing a hijab to the toth of a transgender man, the death of nine innocent african-americans during bible study at mother emmanuel in charleston. there is a thread that links all of those and when one of us is threatened, all of us are threatened. when one of us falls, we'll must step in. itpresident obama has said, is what we fail to see in another common humanity, the very moment when we fail to recognize in a person the same

hopes and fears, the same passions and imperfections, the same dreams we all share. that is the moment we see. that is what is illustrated by this thread that runs through all of these issues. the reason we have so many people here today is a beautiful cross section of this community, leaders from somebody different faiths, people in so many different areas, because we all believe so deeply in certain common values. regardless of our faith, regardless of how we denominate that faith, what we call ourselves. we all believe we must treat each other as we wish to be treated regardless of the name of our denomination or our faith, we believe every individual is precious. regardless of the title of the church or synagogue or house of

worship we attend, we believe in our common humanity. and we all believe that in the words of martin luther king junior, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. and that is why the department of justice, which i am so proud to lead and the entire obama administration regards hate crimes with the utmost seriousness whether they target individuals because of their race, their religion, their gender, or their sexual orientation. and that is why we have worked so tirelessly over the last several years to bring those who perpetrate these heinous deeds to justice. that is our function. walls ofhe on just the our own building out into the community because when one of us .alls, we'll must step up a cornerstone of our work, of course, is investigating and prosecuting hate crimes against muslim americans as well as this perceived to be muslim.

it was after 9/11, the first individual to be targeted in a perceived muslim attack was an fact a seek individual in the southwest. seikhm americans, americans, muslims of all faith, you are all our friends. the history of africans in this country is of course a history of african-americans. we have neighbors, doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, business owners, teachers, thousands of muslim americans have fought under the flag that we all pledged allegiance to today. [applause] atty. gen. lynch: when they

pledged the allegiance to the flag of america they knew it might call on them to lay down their life than they did so for all of us. for all of us. and yet, too often, especially in this last year, especially with the number of tragic terrorist incidents, an increase in some of the most divisive and fearful rhetoric we have seen in years. we have seen muslim americans targeted. we've seen them demonized. simply because of their faith. of their faith. of how people choose to worship a loving and merciful god. and i would say to you does clear, my friends, to both a blanket stereotype to characterize any members of any faith because of the actions of some who provoked that faith.

it will take our nation backwards. it is to go backwards in our thought, our discourse, in fact it insult, to repudiate those who founded this great country. our first amendment, the very first one, it guarantees the freedom of religion in that first clause. that is how we came to be and that is what we have to remember. that is why the department of justice has moved to prosecute the actions that have demonstrated this ignorance, fear, and hatred. that is why am so pleased that the leader of the civil rights department is here with me today. an outstanding group of dedicated professionals have given most of their time, they work all day and well into the

night defending the right of every american. i am also pleased that my friend from virginia is here because doma and so many other attorneys work with the civil rights attorneys to defend rights of americans but particularly where we are seeing this increase in hate crimes. division hashts recently conducted a connecticut man for hiring a high-powered rifle at a mosque. shooting at a house of worship. how un-american is that? recently convicted a florida man for threatening to fire bomb to mosques and to shoot their congregants. for our of an local mosque there and a north carolina man who yelled and young woman and tour offer you

shop on an airplane. shop --or off her he an tore off her hijab on airplane, where she had every right to be. and the arrest of three men plotting elsewhere. these are just a few examples. while we are tremendously proud to do this work and uphold these bayous, our greatest wishes that they had never occurred. that is of course what we have to work on. there's so many other matters we enclose partnership with our state and local it law enforcement partners are still investigating. one area of great importance to us is our work to protect the rights of religious communities to build houses of worship without unlawful interference or harassment.

just the right to build a house of worship. a place to come together to pray into honor god. but unfortunately, that chance of her texting this right has become more urgent in recent years. the civil rights division have heard repeatedly about more overt discrimination about the tone and framing of objections to plan to religious institutions, especially mosques and islamic centers. our primary tool to combat such discrimination is a statute called therepeatedly religious land use and institutionalized persons act. of 2010, that is just the last six years, we have .pened 50 investigations we have filed to lawsuits involving land use and we have

filed eight amicus briefs in private parties to inform the courts about the laws provision and requirements. in the last six years, 38% of the civil rights division land use cases involved mosques or islamic schools. 38%. this is a dramatic increase in the percentage of those cases brought during the previous decade. now, we all know religious institutions are not the only vulnerable spaces we are determined to keep free of hatred and violence. it is well know, in order for our children to learn and thrive, in order for them to do what they did so beautifully here today, they need access to safe and inclusive classrooms. earlier this year from the civil rights division launched an initiative with our u.s. attorney's office and that was to significantly advance our

ability to address religious discrimination in schools. because the place where you go to school should be a place 's minds areildren open to other ways of thinking, are open to different religions, open to other cultures. not closed up and made to learn to hate other children. now, i am also pleased the head of my community's relation services, paul montero is here today. paul and the crs worked so hard to ease tensions, and promote understanding in communities that have been rocked by tragedies. people heal,l -- literally. way of one example, after a

young student, a young woman, was allegedly forced to remove herhe shop in school and -- school, the school was to show them how to better handle this. we now have a program manager kh communities.si i am pleased she has joined us here today. also concernede about the crimes against our sisters.hers and in october, we commemorated the seventh anniversary of the matthew shepard hate crimes prevention act. we should stand as a federal definition of hate crimes to

include crimes based on gender, disability, and sexual orientation. we brought a number of hate crimes cases and states around the country and i am traveling to new york tomorrow to meet with lgbt use to reaffirm that department of justice steadfast commitment to the rights and well-being of all americans, including lgbt family members. these are all important efforts we are proud to carry out. their impact has been amplified by the outstanding partnership we have with our local law enforcement agencies from state attorney generals to sheriffs to police departments across the country. our efforts to work and train local federal agencies and how to recognize and investigate

hate crimes, how to engage with communities, and how to better encourage hate crime reporting and data collection. these initiatives of helped us tremendously to forge the partnership i referenced, which are so important number bringing the community needs to the poor. thepartnership -- needs to he fore. i know this will serve as able work against hate crimes for years to come. over the last eight years, a few points i have been proud to mention today but i also know, i know that we face challenges in the years ahead. we face challenges that will require the department of justice to remain in active force for good in communities from coast to coast. our federal hate crimes laws are

among the powerful tools we have and equala more just nation. justice department prosecutors will continue to enforce the laws. [applause] >> the men and women of the department will be here but we also need all of you. we need you to be our eyes and ears. we need you to raise issues. we need you to work in partnership with us. we know some many americans are feeling uncertainty or feeling ,nxiety or feeling fear frankly. as we witness this recent eruption of divisive rhetoric. as we note the hateful deeds live in talking about. i know many americans are wondering, are they in danger simply because of the way they

?ook or where they pray some are also wondering if the progress that we have made at such great cost and over some many years is an danger of sliding backwards. i understand. i see that when i meet with groups and i trouble the community. we continue to demand a nation where all people are treated equally and fairly, we will be met with prejudice, bigotry, and condemnation. that is a sad part of our history. come asnow that we have we say in my church, a mighty long way. there is nothing preordained about it. nothing guaranteed about our march toward a more just and peaceful future and there never have been guarantees. this has always been hard. it always has been hard.

project, thislong wonderful experiment in democracy, we're all in the middle of it. our goal of creating a more perfect union. that is not great. that is not destiny. that is a result of countless individuals, some well-known, some with names will never know, some famous, some invisible, they all made the choice to stand up. to demand recognition. to refuse to run. wouldtheir children inherit a nation that was more tolerant, inclusive, and more equal. ordinary people just like all of you here today. they were the ones who made the progress that we celebrate. they were the ones who gave us the examples that we use in the cases that we make. that is why it is so fitting that we are here today in this beautiful house of worship.

this place of deep and fundamental faith. because it has been the faith that has sustained this fight since the beginning. small, upstart colony could take on the greatest power in the world and build a new country founded on freedom and equality. faith that this new nation could survive. that it never resolved and a divisive and bloody civil war. faith it could in fact overcome live up to its ideals and not just faith but the works that made that faith reality is what we celebrate here today and that is what gives us the courage to move on when there is .o air t of success that has been the harbinger of

every movement in this country. people trying themselves into the fight without a guarantee, simply the knowledge they were working towards what is right. i think of examples. two members of my own family who also happen to be faith leaders. i think of them often. my father and father because they both lived in the southern part of this country at a time when this country regarded them as less land fully human simply because of the color of their skin. they both did their part to make this country little bit more free, a little bit more fair. they had no idea how it would turn out. my grandfather was a preacher and sharecropper in 1930 plus south carolina where in the middle of the night on a dark road there were no equal rights. there were no miranda rights. there was no equal for texan. they used to hide neighbors who were in trouble with the law

under the floorboards of some until they could leave the state for safety. a generation later, my own would, who had seen this, let civil rights groups use the basement of his greensboro, north carolina, church to organize sit-ends and protests at north carolina with the students at amc. neither one knew the results of those actions, both of them lived in fear for the possible consequences. they were acts of enormous ofrage but also acts enormous faith and hope because they were two men living in a country that even years apart anger.aced obstacles in the

they never lost their hope and although this country was far from perfect, it was capable of doing much of that and they both risked a great deal for that. never knowing how it would turn out. never imagining that the daughter of one and the granddaughter of the other would be one day the chief law enforcement officer of this country. [applause] >> my friends, that hope is still alive in this country. that faith is still here in this country. that ability to phase incredible

odds with nothing but the desire and the knowledge that you are entitled to the rights of every thiscan is still in country. as you all know, with the declaration of independence is all men are created equal it means us. it does mean us. you and i know the when the constitution says we the people, it means us. that is the strength of this country and the backbone of this country. so as we leave here today, united in the knowledge that those are our words, these are our ideals. .his is our fight let's be united in our confidence. inspired by our faith and strengthened by our courage. let us leave here with a renewed commitment to demanding nothing less than a country that is true to its founding promises and let hope.ve fair in faith and

the same faith and hope that his brought this country so far, two centuries and to score years and will carry us even further. now, is going to be hard? yes. it has always been hard. there will be challenges ahead. we have always known that the price of freedom is constant vigilance. , notve to work to maintain just to gain, but to make advances. but of course the question, particularly in these times, particularly in these times of concern endings i-80 i know the question is will we persevere? will we succeed? we always have. we have moved this country forward bit by bit, day by day, right by right. do we get strength?

allow me to quote from a spiritual from my faith. the late mahalia jackson. she used to sing, lord don't move this mountain but give me the strength to climb. [applause] attorney general lynch: to the faith that is all recognized by the people today, persevere no matter how high that mountain looks. we have accomplished so much. there's so much more to do. that is what we do. that is what we do as americans. that is what we do as people of faith. that is what we do as people of hope. we keep moving. we push forward. i want to thank you for letting me spend just a few minutes with you today to talk about the country we all love and to the future will cherish and the work

we all have two do. you areu all for what already doing in your congregation, your community, you're wrong, your bathroom, to vindicate the promise of america life. my promise of attorney general is coming to a close but to everything there is a close buto everything there is a season. the work does not stop. i pledge to you my commitment to these the and these ideas in this work will not stop. i will continue to stand beside you in the cause of liberty and justice for all. share it with me. applause] attorney general lynch: sharing with you would justice brandeis office ine highest the land that a private citizen and the most powerful. thank you very much the american bar association takes a look today at assisted death and

health care fraud as a look at the health care system. that is live at 8:30 a.m. eastern on c-span3. later, the center for strategic and international studies hears from the attorney general of opec on the global economy. that is live at 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span2. >> i do think you can learn from failure. i think that if the next president once to aspire to be like somebody, they probably want to aspire to be washington or link in. you cannot re-create the country, you cannot have a civil war. what you do? aspire to be james monroe? i don't know. when you can do is aspire to not the john mccain and -- john buchanan. book,cer: in his latest

." e worst president ever washington, lincoln, fdr are always at the top of the surveys historians take. they were decisive men. you cannot come to the top of the letter. james buchanand for being a wallflower of secretary of state. back in for thought decisions. so, that is how he was as president. announcer: sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. reince the new congress meets in january and includes several new members. we spoke to one of the incoming freshmen during a recent visit to capitol hill. >> representative-elect anthony brown, you were a familiar face here in this area. what did you do before coming to

congress? >> e4 i had the theilege of representing district, i served as lieutenant governor for eight years. with governor martin o'malley and before that, i spent eight years in the maryland general assembly in the house of delegates. i served on a number of committees. i served as vice chair of the judiciary committee and finished my eight years as the majority whip. about 16 years in public service and state government, i am looking forward to bringing that experience and the work with constituents and issues here to washington, d.c., and capitol hill. >> what about that work do you think will help you here on capitol hill? >> a few things. in as whether your work state legislature or the executive branch, what you learn is you get things done through compromise. finding consensus, finding common ground. a great to disagree where we do but where we have a commitment

to getting things stand. so for eight years in the legislature i did that on some very weighty issues as well as as lieutenant governor. infrastructure investment, the mystic violence, early childhood education, college of portability, trying to find common ground. toope to bring my experience washington. i am excited about the congress. there seems to be a real interest in getting things done in washington. i am hopeful we will find common ofund on these core sets issues so we can go back to our constituents and say, hey we are making government work or you. >> why did you want to run for a house seat? >> for me it is always looking for opportunities to serve. i grew up in a home where my father taught his children, my father and mother, the

importance of service. i served in the united states army in the reserves here and interact as i mentioned. and in the house and as lieutenant governor said for me being a member of congress is another opportunity for me to serve the constituents in the fourth congressional district. there are a lot of important issues. i have experience with a number of them but i'm very excited about this privilege. >> you lost to larry hogan, republican. what did that teacher about politics and about coming to washington to serve in the house? >> 2014 was a life lesson. a listen my father taught me and a listen i try to teach my own children. that is, sometimes in life you have successes, sometimes you have setbacks and even in the face of setbacks if you believe what you are doing it for me it is public service, pick yourself up, brush yourself off, stay in the fight. my fight is for good schools and

safety neighborhoods. creating opportunities. a strong economy that crates jobs for more and more. after 2014, i could myself up and said, hey this is what it is all about. stay in the fight. if there are more opportunities to serve, do it. that was a life lesson i learned and i can tell you just does hillary clinton said on wednesday morning, after her iteat, just two weeks ago, hurts. because you put your all into it. a lot of people were there supporting me. volunteers and others. i am grateful for that and that is why ailsa felt an obligation to them to continue to work and continue to fight. >> how would you describe your ideology. that's one of compromise. certainly i believe i am progressive on many issues, you know i support for example reasonable gun regulations. i do believe that government is it text up for many and

should serve the role of making sure people do not fall through the cracks and that is why i support investments in equity education. public i believe for example when it comes to investment in transportation infrastructure that we should partner with the private sector. public-private partnerships as well as traditional ways of funding infrastructure but i say on many issues i am progressive, a lot of economic issues i'm considerwhat one would more moderate, looking for partnerships with the private sector but i think first and foremost i described my ideology as one of consensus building. ?> where you have deserved on what committees? that is the 64,000 question that every new member is asking. with my experience as lieutenant governor, my expense any armed services, there are a number of committees i think i could add

value to, when offending the house armed services committee, the other being transportation infrastructure. i led the charge and maryland that will now be the delivery of the purple lion in the capital region area. i have done a lot of education and early childhood education. or a number of committees and i am very excited about damaging the end i hope i will have the chance to serve on the house armed services committee. >> tells about your family. >> i am blessed with a wonderful wife, carmen, who is very supportive of my public and she, too, is you know, a professional. she works inside the home and outside home helping raise kids. our three children as i mentioned. i have a daughter who is at the university of maryland at college park in her last year, so that it's pretty exciting for her. i have 216-year-old boys.

not twins, one is about to turn 17. it is great. it is a blended family and my 16-year-old son jonathan we adopted as an infant. i have a stepson, anthony. there are a lot of anthony's in our home. you decide to adopt? >> you know, i believe every child, you know, deserves the opportunity to be raised in a loving and caring home and at the time my wife and i were looking to expand our family and we knew there were many children wanted, deserve to be in a loving, supportive family and we felt we could do that so we adopted jonathan. what a joy. we thought that, you know, we were doing jonathan somehow a favor by bringing him into our home and we learned the gift and the favor was all his towards us because he has just been a wonderful addition to the family. mentors for use writer your political career?

>> a few of them. and not arole model political mentor but muhammad ali, who i think taught all of us that a few things. one is that nothing in life comes easy and no matter how easy made it looking he reminded us it took a lot of hard work and he used to say that you know, he would run long on the road before he got to dance under the lights. he worked hard. i also admire and respect him because he was willing to sacrifice what achievements he made to speak out publicly on issues that were important to him and at the time it was his opposition to sending u.s. troops to vietnam and it cost him his heavyweight belt. that he was able to regain that. most apparently, he spoke on on what was most important to him. i look at him as a role model. former attorney general steve sax helped me out a lot. i look at former members of congress. elijah cummings who is a current

member and has been very helpful to me over the course of my career. the democratic whip supported me in my run for governor. we've had a great relationship throughout. so i know that, you know, where i am today is because of the lot of hard work through so many marylanders who paved the way. i am grateful to come to congress answer. >> anyone you are looking forward to working with our meeting or anything your looking forward to working on here? >> in terms of what i am looking for joy working on it like to continue to do the work in education that we have been working on and maryland and that is expanding early childhood education. i do believe every four-year-old in maryland and across his country should have axes to affordable quality early childhood education. another 14-your handles aren't re-cake they then start candor pre-k, they then start kindergarten with a higher degree of success. the numbers are tremendous for

how well they do. graduation rates and prospect after high school. so, early childhood education. career education. we think a lot about preparing students for college and we think of for-year institutions but there are many jim a four-year degree is not what is really on the horizon right after has go but the students need something as well to prepare them for the work force. vocationalcollect technology, now a college career technology so i would like to welcome that as well. then college affordability, whether it is expanding the pell grant, incentivizing higher education, looking for ways to make college more affordable. those are some of things in education field i would like to work on. in terms of people, i am excited about being down here and the 400 35 members of congress, republicans, democrats, men and women representing districts throughout the country.

i am looking forward to getting to know all of my colleagues on the hill. >> you are replacing representative donna edwards who ran for the senate this time around. has she given you any advice? like she has given me a lot of assistance in the transition. really the folks at non-constituent services which is a top priority for me on for donna. how do we make government work whether it is a veteran having it for call the getting their disability claims approved, whether it is a senior citizen who is having some difficulty and rolling in medicare and a host of other constituent service issues. we had a long conversation about that and she shared with me how her office operates. advice you gave me was look, as a first-term member dumping bashful. don't hesitate. there is no such thing as when your turn. speak up and being gauged on issues important to end issues that are important to our

constituents. >> that was anthony brown, we appreciate your time. they for talking to c-span. >> thank you very much. announcer: c-span, were history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was graded as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to today by your cable or satellite provider. here on c-span, washington journal is next. at 11:00, former house speaker thecan gorge talks about 2016 election and what policies he expects the incoming trump administration to focus on. later, we take you to the white house where president obama's signing legislation to fund medical research including the cancer moonshot initiative. >> on today's washington journal, author elaine talks book, "whyost recent

presidents fail and how they can succeed again" then we will look at vice president mike pence and his role in the incoming administration. we will >> today donald trump is expected to announce his election of exxon mobil chief executive office, rex tillerson, for secretary of state. it is an appointment that democrats are ready forcing concern about. it comes a day after republicans and congress say they supported investigations into reports of russian cyber attacks. we begin our program by asking our viewers how d think the incoming administration should approach russia? do you think they should work for closer t