representatives. >> alabama voters went to the polls today in a special election to fill the senate see the vacated by attorney general jeff sessions last february. democratic candidate doug jones is running against republican roy moore. we'll have live coverage as the results start coming in. tomorrow we'll hear testimony from deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. that's live wednesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3. and on thursday, the federal communications commission meets to consider its plan to change net neutrality rules. f.c.c. chair ajitpai is currently proposing to give internet providers control over how broadband content is distributed. live coverage of that public meeting thursday starts at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span3. also follow it live online at cspan.org or listen on the free -span radio app.

>> next, today's white house briefing with press secretary mr. sarbanes: -- sarah sanders. she discussed president trump's tweet criticizing new york senator gillibrand and denied it included sexual innuendo. his is 35 minutes. sarah: good morning. he's here to provide a briefing on the attempted suicide bombing in new york and how it was enabled by flaws in our immigration system. after he speaks and takes your question, i'll be back up to answer questions on other news.

as always, if you can stay focused on the topic at hand, that would be great. hanks so much. >> hello. i'm here to talk to you about yesterday's incident and give you some of the context and perspective in the immigration system, how to works or how it didn't work in this case. and what are the sorts of things that our administration's proposing to change to make it better. as you all the know, yesterday, the suspect was arrested in an attempted bombing in new york city. and there's an immigration aspect to this. the immigration aspect is that he immigrated to this country. he was a green cardholder. lawful permanent resident. he came to this country based on a family connection to a u.s. citizen. mr. sicc -- mr. cissna: the u.s. citizen in question was his uncle. that u.s. citizen many years ago came to this country originally as a visa lottery winner. so this is the general

background. i now want to try to explain what all that means, where those terms come from. what the significance of all that is. first, i would explain that for those who aren't aware, our immigration system has two principle components. there's a family-based component. through which the suspect in yesterday's attack, it alleged bombing incident, came through. and there's an employment-based component. in any given year, we have about one million immigrants. one million people come here and get green cards, immigrant visas. in fiscal year 2015, for example, of that one million, about 72% of our immigrants came based on a family connection. and only 6% or about one out of 15, came based on employment or job connection, job offer. so you can see the immigration system is heavily weight toward family migration -- weighted toward family migration. there are other categories of people who immigrate as well.

including refugee, asylumees and the visa lottery people i referenced. those are very small compared to the two larger categories. i want to talk now about these in particular. the family-based, employment-based and the visa lottery. in the family-based migration category, there are multiple kate categories of people -- categories of people. the principle categories are called immediate relatives. these are people who are the spouses or children, nuclear family members of u.s. citizens. in a given year you have about half a million people in that ategory. in fiscal year 2016 in that category, these are people who are the nuclear family members of u.s. citizens, there were about 566,000 people that immigrated. additional category in the family-based universe are what are called preference categories. these are more extended family connections. unmarried -- the

first category. unmarried sons and daughters of u.s. citizens. second category, spouses of green cardholders. sons and daughters. brothers and sisters. that's the category that yesterday's suspect came in under. so, suspect in yesterday's bombing came in under the most extreme, remote possible family-based connection that you can have under current u.s. immigration law. that being the child of the sibling of a u.s. citizen. under the employment-based categories, that's a much smaller number. only 140,000 slots are allocated in a year to that category but you really only get half that number of actual workers. because the spouses and children account toward that. there you have a number of categories including categories for extraordinary ability workers, you have people with advanced degrees. you have people who are skilled

professionals. and immigrant investors. multiple categories. but much smaller number than the family-based categories. and again, i remind you. only one out of 15 of our immigrants come in under those skilled categories. let me turn now to the diversity visa. which is the other visa program that is relevant to yesterday's events. the diversity visa or visa lottery as it's called colloquialy, is a program that was established back in 1990. there were precursor programs before that. but basically the program as we know it was established in 1990. that let's in about -- lets in 50,000 people a year based on immigration lottery. the qualification for registering for the lottery are that you have to be from a country that had low immigration, in previous five years. and the person who is applying for the lottery has to either have a high school degree or, if they have no education, at least two years of experience in a job that requires two years of training.

so the criteria are very low. the problems with the visa lottery are various. first, because the criteria are so low, either you have no education at all and very little skills, or you have a minimummed of education and no skills at all. and because it's a lottery, pretty much anybody on the plan whote is from a equal fige country can take advantage of this. the state department in 2003, the state department's inspector general office observed that this low eligibility criteria could lead to exploitation by terrorists. they warned about this in 2003. the g.a.o. in 2007 echoed that warning. again, warning that terrorists could take advantage of the diversity visa program. also, the program is racked with fraud. in 2003 the state department i.g. 15 years ago noted that the program was ripe with pervasive fraud. the fraud, the low eligibility standards, all this contribute to its potential exploitation by terrorists and other actors.

bangladesh is an interesting case. that's the country where yesterday's suspect came from. that country was a high user of the visa lottery program. in fact, in 2007, which was the peak year for that country's use of the visa lottery, the 27% of the immigrants from that country came through that program, through the visa lottery program. uzbekistan, the country of origin of the alleged -- the truck driver from october 31 in w york city, in 2010, 70%, came through the visa lottery program. so that program was used as a prime avenue for immigration for many countries. finally, let me touch on the subject of chain migration. when i use that word, what i'm talking about is a person who comes to this country and who in turn employs one of these many avenues that i just described. principally family-based. to sponsor relatives who are in

home country to come and join him or her. because the categories that we have that i just described in family-based migration is so expensive -- extensive, it's not just nuclear family. you also have, as i say, adult unmarried children, brothers and sisters, he's ins and nephews. you can -- nieces and nephews. you can sponsor a person like yesterday's alleged terrorist at the extremity of that chain and then that person in turn can sponsor people and so on and so on indefinitely. hundreds of thousands of people come into this country every year based on these extended family migration categories. and it is my view, it is our administration's view that that is not the way that we should be running our immigration system. a system like that, that includes something like the diversity visa program, these extended family categories, are not the way anybody would design them gration system if we were to start from cratch today -- this immigration system if we were to start from scratch today. we want to be able to select the types of people who are coming here based on die their

-- criteria that assure their success. and random lotteries, extended family connections, that's not the way to run our immigration system. so i appeal, we appeal to the congress as they consider these matters, as we speak. and in the coming weeks, to seriously take into account these concerns that we have with the way the immigration system is structured and its vulnerabilities. nd correct that. at that point, my formal comments are concluded. i would answer any questions ou have. reporter: is there anything the president can do on his ownby executive action, by executive order to change the process for either chain migration or the visa lottery? mr. cissna: well, i mean,

that's something we're looking at right now. in uscis, my agency. which is the agency that administers all these visa programs. there are some things that we could do. there are some things that the president has directed us to do by executive order. in particular, with the temporary visa categories. we're talking about green cards here. but if you look at temporary visa categories, yes, there are a lot of things we can do and we're going to do, for example, to increase protections of american workers. in the green card could he domain, it's a little harder -- domain, it's a little harder. congress has occupied that field more densely than it has in the temporary visa area. but there could be. there could be some things we could do to clarify how these categories are administered, yes. reporter: there's so much talk about daca legislation right now. do you think any daca bill would have to be tied to bring in a merit-based system?

mr. cissna: well, we about two months ago, the president announced his immigration priorities. you can find it on the white house website. it's a long list of about several dozen priorities that we, career officials at d.h.s. and at the other relevant immigration agencies, at the time i was a career official, came up with, things we need to be able to do our jobs. in that list there are these fixes that i'm talking about. including getting rid of the diversity visa program, because it's just -- it just degrades the integrity of our immigration visa programs generally. ending chain migration. these are all things we have suggested in the priorities that the president's advanced. so we hope, we hope and expect that congress will take those priorities seriously and we'll do -- will do as much as they can to accomplish the goals we set forth. reporter: [inaudible] -- the president signs a daca bill, it has to have a merit-based -- [inaudible] mr. cissna: i can't speak for the president's priorities on what he does or doesn't want in

a bill. i know what i want is something that i can implement and that i can implement well to get at the priorities that we've set forth as something that we need to do our job. reporter: would you be in favor of extending the blanket travel ban as far as the countries that are concerned? such as bangladesh, which isn't on the list currently. mr. cissna: my position on that is that my agency needs as much information as it can get from these other countries to vet and screen people adequately to ensure that bad actors don't come into the country. to the degree that that can be done, under the executive order , the protocols established by the executive order, i'm all for it. but i'm not in a position to prescribe whether the blanket ban as you put it should be extended or not. i want the information that these countries can give us to screen people. reporter: how do you deal with people who have been here for yorse and then become radicalized once they're here? how would any of that deal with what happened in new york? he'd been here for many years. mr. cissna: two points.

the criticisms that we have of the diversity visa program and the chain migration, in particular the diversity visa program, the vulnerability to exploitation by terrorists, because of the low eligibility criteria, and because of the prevalence of fraud, that's not changing. that's a sad fact of that program. for that reason, regardless of when the person became radicalized, i just want that door shut. because it's a vulnerability, it's been recognized for 15 years. with respect to that person in particular, and what do we do of people who radicalize afterwards, my agency in particular is focused very much so on ensuring that immigration doesn't stop when the person gets the green card. it's an ongoing process. i view it that way. i think that we have -- well, i mean, because what you want is an immigrant to become a citizen. citizenship is in the name of my agency. we ultimately want people to naturalize because

naturalization is one of the best signs that a person has full where assimilated and it's also, once -- fully assimilate the and also, once you naturalize, it's a guaranteor of success in society. we want people to naturalize. my agency is seeking to do everything it can to ensure people are enabled to do that and succeed in that quest. reporter: is there a timetable on it? reporter: to follow up quickly, is it your understanding that the suspect was radicalized before he came here or do youity it happened here? if it did happen before he arrived, then something was inherently missed. mr. cissna: i have no idea. reporter: can you give us any idea of where he -- [inaudible] mr. cissna: i have no idea if he was radicalized at all. i don't know about that part of the investigation. reporter: you just said that because of the criteria, how low it is, that chain migrant immigrants, or diversity lottery immigrants are more susceptible to being self-radicalized. do you have data on that? mr. cissna: no, i think my point is if you have immigrant

visa programs where the eligibility criteria are low to nonexistent for even an outright lottery, you're not going -- you're not selecting for the types of people, according to -- that we want in this country, according to criteria that will ensure their success in our nation. that len sure that they will assimilate well -- to ensure that they will assimilate well. reporter: i get that's a matter of priority, you want to select immigrants. but you seem to be saying that these kinds of immigrants are more likely to become terrorists. mr. cissna: no. what i'm saying is that if you have a system that doesn't select at all, or is barely selecting anybody, we don't know what we're going to get. it's better if we take an active, affirmative role in our immigration process and establish criteria that correspondents to things that we want to see in our immigration pool. reporter: data shows that immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than native-born americans. other than these isolated incidents, is there any data behind this plan?

mr. cissna: i don't know that i agree with your first point. i don't know where that data came from. but i can't comment any further. reporter: incarceration rates would be exun example. mr. cissna: that's a bigger debate that i don't know that we have time for here. based on my questioning the validity of the premise of your question, i don't know that i want to engage in that dialogue at this time. reporter: does this administration believe him that grants are more dangerous than u.s. citizens? -- that immigrants are more dangerous than u.s. citizens? mr. cissna: i don't know that anybody has said that. reporter: i have you saying with the diversity visa program that there is a certain vulnerability because of the low eligibility criteria. by that i think you mean because there's no higher education standards required, i mean, what is it that makes these people more vulnerable to radicalization and becoming terrorists? mr. cissna: well, there's two parts to that. the -- my criticism of the diversity visa program is the eligibility criteria are next to nothing. and there's a random element to

it -- to it. reporter: you said vulnerability. mr. cissna: right. it's vulnerable to exploitation by terrorists because the criteria and the ability to fraud the system. fraud is pervasive in the program. if you want to use that program to come into this country, it's easy to fake a high school graduate certificate. reporter: the suspect was radicalized approximately 2014. he entered the united states in 2011. so that is why so many of us are asking these questions. it sounds like you are implying that u.s. intelligence or homeland security missed something. mr. cissna: i'm not implying that at all. i'm just talking about the immigration program. i'm not talking about this one guy. reporter: [inaudible] -- at screening out terrorists. you're saying when they get here, because these people are more vulnerable, if they come in on this program, they are then subject to exploitation more easily? mr. cissna: no. what i'm saying is --

reporter: we're not -- what's the next to us terrorist? -- terrorism? mr. cissna: if you have a visa program that is easily exploited by malified actors, including terrorists -- reporter: [inaudible] mr. cissna: he didn't come in on the visa lottery program. he came in as be a extended family-based immigrant. with respect to the diversity visa program, which is also at play here, that program is at the state department and i.g. found 15 years ago and as the g.a.o. confirmed in 2007 exploitable by terrorists or malified actors because the criteria are so low and easily faked. and it's a lottery. so on multiple levels it's an open door, it's problematic. it needs to shut. that's what i'm saying about that. with respect to the individual in yesterday's attempt, i would say i don't know. i don't have a command of the facts relating to the investigation as to whether or if he was ever radicalized d. what i'm say something if you have any sort of visa program which is normally -- minimally

selective which is based solely on chance or lottery or low eligibility criteria, then we as a government aren'ting could our -- doing our job in picking the people that come to this country in a competent and careful and intelligent way. and if we're not doing, that bad guys can come in. reporter: are lottery winners vetted? mr. cissna: yes. like any other immigrant. reporter: so it's an intelligence failure. mr. cissna: i don't know that there's any failure. yes, last question. reporter: we know from your confirmation hearing, testimony, that your brother and mother-in-law are immigrants. how did their experiences shape your thinking on this position and do you have any reason to believe that they both would still have been able to come in -- [inaudible] -- mr. cissna: the fact that my own mother and my mother-in-law

are both immigrants has indeed influenced everything -- that's one of the reasons why i'm interested in this field. why i'm interested in it. why i'm very passionate about my duties every day. i think, though, that a policymaker or a citizen who is examining all these questions should not be handicapped or shackled by previous immigration programs from which we have all been -- everybody in this room has benefited from immigration laws of the past. that doesn't mean that every generation doesn't have its own prerogative, its own duty and responsibility to look at the situation that we have now and determine for itself, ourselves, whether the immigration laws should be changed. it's perfectly rationale. so moving forward, maybe we'll change things -- rational. so move forward, maybe we'll change things. sarah: thank you, director. continuing with national security theme. as many of you saw this afternoon, the president signed the national defense authorization act. this legislation, which was

approved with bipartisan support, represents an important milestone in the president's plan to rebuild our military and bolster our national security. for the first time in seven years, we are increasing rather than shrinking the size of our forces. this ndaa also provides our military service members with the largest pay increase they've seen in eight years. to put into historical context, it authorizes one of the largest defense spending increases since the days of ronald reagan. previous administrations sadly oversaw deep cuts to our armed forces with serious implications for our military readiness and capabilities. this hindered the fight against isis and other enemies of freedom and made our people less safe. in signing this bill today, the president once again made it clear that we are serious about enhancing military readiness, expanding and modernizing our forces, and providing our incredible men and women down range with the tools they need to do what they do best. fight and win. president trump also called on obstructionist democrats in congress to stop threatening to shut down the government.

as the president said at this time of grave global threats, congress should send a clean funding bill to his desk that fully funds our great military. we certainly hope that will happen. and we look forward to that taking place. and with that i will take your questions. reporter: the president said today that senator jill grand would do anything -- gill grand would do anything for -- dill brand would do anything for campaign -- gillibrand would do anything for campaign contributionings. many see this as a sexual innuendo. what is the president suggesting? sarah: i think the president is very obvious. this is the same sentiment that the president has expressed many times before when he has exposed the corruption of the entire political system. in fact, he's used similar terminology many times when talking about politicians of both parties, both men and women. and certainly in his campaign to drain the swamp. the system is clearly broken. it's clearly rigged for special interests. and this president is someone that can't be bought and it's one of the reasons that he's president today. reporter: you're saying that

this quote, senator gillibrand would do anything, is a reference to campaign contributions in washington, the swamp. this has nothing to do with her being a female? what is he alleging would happen behind closed doors with her? sarah: he's not alleging anything. he's talking about the way that our system functions as it is. that politicians preetedly beg for money, -- repeatedly beg for money. that's not something new and that comment isn't something new. if you look at past comments this president has made, he's used that same terminology many times in reference to member. there's no way -- men. there's no way that this is sexist at all. this is simply talking about a system that we have that is broken in which special interests control our government and i don't think that there's probably many people that are more controlled by political contributions than the senator that the president referenced. reporter: does the president want roy moore to be seated in the senate -- seated in the senate if he wins tonight and he does he plan to call him tonight? sarah: in terms of cause, i'm

not aware that anything is scheduled wirnings or lose. in terms of of being seeth, i can't speak on a hypothetical. certainly not one that could be influenced -- that could influence an election one way or the other. reporter: does the president agree with his outside legal counsel that a special prosecutor should be appointed to look at the election campaign of 2016? since the revelation about bruce ohr, the former society deputy attorney general? sarah: i think it's sthag certainly causes a lot of concern not just for the president and the administration, but i think probably for all americans. and something that if we're going to continue to investigate things, let's look at something where there's some real evidence and some real proof of wrongdoing that looks pretty bad. and i think it's something we should certainly look at. reporter: would he support the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into this? sarah: i haven't asked him that directly but i know that he has great concern about some of the conduct that's taken place and

something that we certainly would like to see looked at. reporter: congressional leaders are saying that they hope to pass -- they have no plans to reimpose sanctions on iran by the deadline tomorrow that the president initiated back in october when he dessertified iran's compliance with the nuclear deal. is the white house ok with this, no action? and if so, where are the teeth in the president's move to decertify them from compliance? sarah: the administration continues to make encouraging progress with congress, to fix the u.s.-iran deal. and address long-term proliferation issues. there was actually no deadline to act by this week as the administration did not ask that congress introduce legislation, to reimpose jcpoa-related sanctions. reporter: senator grassley said that he's advised the white house to reconsider the nomination of the federal court in texas and alabama.

has the president spoken to senator grassley about his concerns and does the president plan to pull hiss back the nomination? sarah: i'm not sure. reporter: thanks. bashar al-assad and rod rigo recently have used the term fake news. a state official in nine mar said rohingya doesn't exist and added it's state news. is the white house concerned at all about authoritarian regimes adopting this phrase, fake news, to try to delegitimatize the press and does president trump bare any responsibility -- bear any responsibility for the popularization of this phrase among world leaders? sarah: i think the white house is concerned about false and inaccurate information being pushed out to mislead the american people. i think i made that clear yesterday. in terms of other leaders, i'd have to look at their comments to be more specific on what they've said. but our concern is making sure that the information that the people receive in this country

is fair and accurate and when it isn't, that it's corrected and corrected in the same fashion in which it was first presented when it was wrong, which is very rarely the case. reporter: -- when you hear autocrats using the term fake news to describe events that reflect poorly on their regimes, that doesn't cause concern here? sarah: i'm not going speak to specifics of another country when i don't know the details. what i can talk about are the problems that we have in this country, with inaccuracies that happen frequently within news stories. and so that i feel comfortable speaking about. without that information and that detail in front of me, i don't want to weigh in too deeply. reporter: the president tweeted today that the accusations against him are false. fabricated stories of women who i don't know and/or have never met. fake news. and yet the reality is he's pictured with a number of the women who have accused him of the misconduct. so do you concede that that part of his statement is not true? the pref -- the presidentrah:

is referencing for individuals who were part of a press conference yesterday. simply stating you don't know someone means you don't have a relationship with them -- reporter: [inaudible] sarah: he is referencing the three from yesterday. of congressmbers have called for an investigation into these accusations. with the president support such investigations? sarah: the president has answer these questions. he has spoken to these andsations and denied pushed that they are false and fabricated. if congress wants to investigate things, they should focus on some things that the american people would like them to investigate, like how to secure our borders, defeat isis, past tax reform. if you look at the issues in by aafter poll taken number of the outlets in this room regularly, the issues that are top mind, number one every

single time -- the economy, jobs, national security, immigration, health care. yet we never talk about those issues. 90% of the coverage -- i'm going to finish this statement. 90% of the coverage that comes out of the media is negative and rarely covers those topics. those are the things the american people want to talk about. if congress wants to investigate something, i think they should look at the priorities of the people they represent. reporter: [inaudible] there have been a number of people who have been fired over this. why not allow this congressional investigation to go forward? the president seems confident in the accusations being false. sarah: the president has addressed these concerns directly. you guys spent months talking about them on the campaign trail and the american people voted for this president, they have confidence in this president, and they wanted him to lead our country and focus on the economy, health care, fixing our

broken tech system, our borders, and focus on national security. that is what we are here to do, that is what we are focused on. these questions have been asked and answered and we are ready to move forward and focus on the questions of the day that the american people have. is kirsten gillibrand owed an apology because of the misunderstanding from the president's tweet this morning? many people think it is about a sexual innuendo. were not inur mind the gutter, you would not have read it that way, so no. openter: what he said was and it was not mind in the gutter. sarah: he is talking about political, partisan games that people often play and the broken system he has talked about repeatedly. this is not a new sentiment or terminology. he has used it several times before. as i said a few minutes ago, he has used it referencing men of

both parties, in fact. i think if you look back at the past comments he has made, it was very clear what his reference was. reporter: looking at this issue with the system, the president gave almost $8,000 to senator gillibrand over the years. his daughter also gave for $2000. what specifically did they get for these contributions? sarah: i think oftentimes what you do, you are getting access. a member of congress will take your phone call, will take your meeting. something asiving a businessman that the president may or may not have been driving at any particular point, you can talk to that individual about it. that is the reason we have a broken system. that is the reason that often special interests control our government more than the people. that is one of the reasons this president ran to be president. it is one of the top reasons i think that he won and is sitting in the oval office and hillary clinton is not, because he could

not be bought and everybody knew she could because they have seen it time and time again. reporter: [inaudible] sarah: i think he is admitting he has participated in a rigged system. he said that on the campaign trail, he knows how the system works. i think it would be disingenuous for anybody not to understand that, but at least this president is being honest about the process and his willingness to fix it and drain the swamp. reporter: kirsten gillibrand called for him to resign and he says over and over again he is a [inaudible] the next day he wakes up and here is the thing he is tweeting about the campaign finance system. sarah: i am talking about the fact he is controlled by special interests, a wholly-owned subsidiary of people who donate her campaign. she is a puppet for chuck schumer. i'm talking about a number of issues she has, none of which maker an independent individual, but somebody controlled by people that helped donate money to her cause. that is all i am stating.

reporter: [inaudible] sarah: the president has been talking about the need for us to put a stronger ban on lobbyists participating in the government process. stronger ethics pledge under this administration than previous ministrations. i think those are some of the first steps and something we are going to continue working on over the next seven years. reporter: you are familiar with the president's tweets, he tweets pretty often. [laughter] in this particular case, his criticism of senator gillibrand was very personal. why would he criticize in such personal terms? he told a sitting -- he called a sitting u.s. senator a lightweight. why go after her in such a personal manner? sarah: i don't think it is all that personal. look at the comments she has made about this president over the last several months.

the president is always going to be somebody who responds. we have said that many times before. he is simply talking about a system that does not work for the citizens of this country and he wants to fix it. reporter: two quick questions, one following up on john's question about a second special counsel. does the president have confidence in the fbi as it exists today? sarah: the president has confidence in director wray and his ability to clean up some of the mess left behind by his predecessor. he certainly has confidence in the rank and file members. reporter: today bloomberg has an article about the bloom -- about the trump administration considering saudi arabia for u.s. companies as it relates to building nuclear reactors. does the presidency this as an opportunity to bring up human rights in yemen? sarah: i'm not aware of any specific conversations. i would have to ask and get back to you. one last question. there were interesting

remarks at a luncheon earlier today with strong terms about china, saying there were undermining international order and stability. he went on to talk about russia ,n particular, russian meddling distribution of propaganda, basically pitting people against each other to create crisis of confidence. withthe president agree general masters' statements? is that a foreshadowing of a national security strategy that will take a heart attack on russia -- that will take a harder attack on russia and china? sarah: he has been hard on russia from the beginning. there have been sanctions. we have increased energy exportations from this country and done things to put pressure on russia, asking them to engage

in a bigger and greater way on some common enemies. in terms of a rundown, i have not had a chance to sit down with the president and go detail by detail. general mcmaster certainly is someone who understands and knows the president's feelings and our relationships with foreign partners and something we certainly feel confident in him speaking about. thanks so much. could we please see the president out here, sarah? it is election night in alabama and we are live at the headquarters of roy moore, the senate special election, the seatmate opened by jeff sessions becoming attorney general back in february. the governor appointed luther strange to fill that seat. today for the special election, roy moore, the republican candidate, former state supreme court judge in alabama. the polls closing just a few minutes ago.

at the headquarters in montgomery, the state capital, public integrity tweeting that the washington post, the first out that the published reports of roy moore's alleged sexual misconduct, has been denied access to his election night events. about 100 miles north in birmingham, the headquarters of the democratic candidate, doug jones, a former u.s. attorney in alabama, jamie dupree in atlanta tweeting that the last democrat to win a u.s. senate race alabama was richard shelby in 1992. he points out that senator shelby switched to the republican party in 1994. should roy moore win tonight, republicans in the senate will hold a meeting tomorrow morning. here is the headline in politico -- republicans plan a meeting to discuss roy moore." tentatively scheduled for 10:00 a.m. tomorrow if he defeats democrat doug jones according to

two republican sources. they are reporting that among the questions that will be addressed are whether it is possible to deny moore committee assignments or membership in the republican conference. read more about that at politico.com. results coming up tonight about 9:30 eastern. they are starting to trickle in now with the polls closed. full results tonight beginning at 9:30 eastern, live coverage over on c-span2 will also include your feedback, phone calls, and tweets. all of that coming up tonight over on our companion network on c-span2. back on capitol hill, the house and senate passed the annual defense authorization bill, which sets pentagon programs and policy and authorizes $700 billion in spending for fiscal year 2017. the president signed the bill earlier today at the white house.