>> "washington journal" is next. the political conservative action conference was this morning. cruz,l also hear from ted the education secretary, and the labor secretary. c-span, where history unfolds daily. created as an was public service by america's cable television companies. today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy of vents in washington dc and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your satellite or cable provider. >> coming up, former energy

secretary on it nuclear threats facing the u.s. and the world. then cavett phillips. later, meredith >> i don't believe teachers should be armed. i believe teachers should teach. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> but that's exactly what's wrong with this country. we have people in washington, d.c. representatives, senators and legislatures telling teachers what they should do without asking teachers what do you want to do? [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. isit ncicap.org] host: that was sheriff steve israel, part of cnn's townnal florida last night which followed yesterday's white house listening session on school safety and guns. the president meeting this morning with state and local officials on school safety and

that's where we'll pick up the conversation this morning on this thursday, february 22, 2018. welcome to "washington journal." our conversation asking you how would you make schools safer? we've divided the phone lines like this. students, 202-748-8000. educators and administrators or parents, 202-748-8001. for educators and administrators, 202-748-8002. we welcome your comments on facebook as well. facebook.com/cspan. send us a tweet with your thoughts. that's @c-spanwj. we'll show you some more from that town hall, some more from yesterday's listening session at the white house and get to your calls and comments in a moment. here's how the "miami herald" and miamiherald.com reporting the event last night. a look here at senator marco rubio, bill nelson and ted deutsche.

rubio admit boos at town hall says young adults shouldn't be able to purchase guns. senator marco rubio walked into an arena, alumni and parents on wednesday, most of them in no mood to consider arguments from the florida republican one week after the nation's deadliest high school shooting. but even though rubio was booed and jeered by the crowd at times, the politician who enjoyed the support of the national rifle association since ntering elected office in -- a look at some of the hero newspapers across the country, the front page of the "wall street journal" this morning. the picture, anyway, is leading the wal-mart. a solemn white house gathering

on school gun violence and a picture of the president and some of the students and parents that surrounded him. we'll also show you "the washington post" front page this morning from "the washington post." they're looking at both the gathering yesterday in tallahassee with the students meeting with educators and rallying at the capital in tallahassee and also the story this morning. fix it, parents plead with trump for action to stop shootings. they write that president trump leaned forward and listened intently for nearly an hour wednesday afternoon as students, parents and teachers begged him to do something, anything, to prevent a mass shooting from happening to another school they wouldn't group offered a wide ariety of suggestions --

host: let's go to steve from maryland. go ahead, steve. caller: good morning, sir. as i was listening to the people yesterday at the white house, especially the dad with the three sons and he lost his daughter, he just -- you just really have to feel this these people. for me, i have a stepson right now and i have a daughter on the way, i'm like i have to need changes. we all need to see changes. we can't accept this everyday as a society. maybe something starting off simple in schools like schools have what, 44 main interests? you put a barrier when you walk in at the entrance with doors. you have automatic locks.

you have some kind of security. somebody shouldn't be able to walk in the school all willy nilly. so you have a barrier. you check them out. you have automatic door you unlock the doors and you walk in. you should be able to check out people when you walk in. nobody should have all the other entrances closed off. have more automatic looks like firearms and stuff like that -- locks and firearms and stuff like that. it should be something simple like that that we could start off with. and make the age limit older for people that goes. why 18 that you could get an assault rival? -- arrive until i don't nderstand. -- assault rifle? i don't understand. caller: i think there should be armed guards in schools because it doesn't necessarily have to be teachers. it just has to be somebody who has the training and who has,

you know, experience. hire former marines or air force or whatever. they should have lockdown procedures. and also just one other side note. people say the n.r.a. is responsible for all of it. the n.r.a. hardly gives anything to congressmen. the most is about $12,000. and there is no such thing legally as an assault weapon. host: jarrett, you talked about armed guards. do you have police officers, resource officers in your high school? caller: no, no. but there was dish actually go to a private school but there was a law passed. the guards with more than 300 people but they weren't armed guards and small schools didn't have that. so if your armed personnel, the schools won't have to pay for the guards. host: let's go to stony brook

and hear from janet from our parents' line. caller: hi. what i wanted to say as i was listening to the president's meeting with parents and what nicole hawkley, the mother of the child who was killed at sandy hook said is what i totally agree with. i have two sons. one went through our school systems with no problem. it's not stony brook, it's a different school and the second one was a little bit more -- he was more rebellious than the other. and what happened in our school is my son was in an incident with a bunch of other boys when he was about 13 years old and decided to -- so they wouldn't get sued by the other child's mother, the girl, they decided to suspend the boys. and what they did was they hired a very high priced overnight this particularly up does most of the suspect hearings on long island and they -- superintendent hearings in long island and it was like a

kangaroo court and they made the case like a criminal when it was sort of like a minor incident. and i thought at that point, you know, i'm getting my son in therapy, i'm doing this. i was very involved participate, involved in my son, not involved with the school because i worked full-time and i took it personally to make my son understand like, you know, don't even be involve and when something's going on. but i could see that child who did this act and he was a child, 19 years old is really still a child, needs, you know, rather than a school expel and nobody said that the school did something wrong but i feel like why expel a kid in you're putting them into society without support. the school needs to step up like the parents did in sandy hook and help them out instead of just throwing them out in society like they're already criminals. they're teenagers and they need our support.

host: the suspect in that shooting expelled from douglas high school. one of the apartments was andrew pollack, the parent of meadow poll whoik died in the shooting. here's what he had to say. >> i'm very angry that this happened because it keeps happening. 9/11 happened once and they fixed everything. how many schools have to get shot to stop here at this administers and me. i'm not -- administration and me. i'm not going to sleep until it is fixed and mr. president, we're going to fix it. because i'm going to fix it. i'm not going to rest. and look at -- my boys need to live with this. i want to see everyone. you guys live with this. me, i'm a man, but to see your children go through this, very -- so that's what i keep saying

because i want it to sink in. not forget about this. we can't forget about it. all this school shootings, it doesn't make sense. fix it. should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it! and i'm pissed! because my daughter, i'm not going to see again. she's not here. not here. she's in north lauder dale, whatever it is. king david cemetery. that's where i go to see my kid now. it and all stops. we come together and come up with the right idea that school safety. it's not about gun laws right now. that's another fight, another beach. let's fix the schools and then you guys could battle it out, whatever you want. but we need our children safe, months, tomorrow, whatever it is. your kids are going to go to school. you think everyone's kids are safe? i didn't think it was going to

happen to me. host: andrew pollack, the father of meadow pollack, killed in the douglas high school shooting. d he also said in the "hill" saying we protect airport, we protect concert stadiums, embassies, the department of the education that i walked in today has a security guard in the elevator. how do you think that makes me feel? on twitter at twitter.com/cspanwj. an english teacher with a nine milliliter blasting an ar-15? lease. they significantly reduced violence. protect the campus like a bank or politicians with guns. your thoughts on how to make schools safer. we've divided the lines like this. 202-748-8000 for students. 202-748-8001 for parents. and for educators, administrators, 202-748-8002.

westminster, maryland, amy, an educator there. good morning. kd caller: i'm a school psychologist in a public school system in maryland and, you know, we see so many kids that have significant mental health needs and there's so much more that needs to be done in schools. we need to do training for staff care and adverse childhood experiences. our kids are experiencing so many things in their lives at home that impact them at school and impact them in the community. so we need to be able to provide those mental health services within schools as well as having those services available in the community. of students that have assists but we have -- assistants but we have parents

that parents are involved and the mental health providers are not able to cover the high needs of kids that need those services and, two they don't all accept different forms of insurance. so then a lot of that mental health support comes from schools where you have school psychologists, school councilers, social woveragese they're also spread so thin because there aren't enough of us to meet those needs. you know, it is interesting that betsy devos was at that meeting with the president. host: right. caller: because we have, you know, every student succeeds act which included components for mental health support and that wasn't something she's champion. and funding for education has een cut.

it doesn't seem like people actually are going to follow through and do things. and i know the whole gun discussion is really uncomfortable for a lot of people and, you know, personally, i don't think school staff should have guns in school. i don't want that. i think that we need to address the needs before it gets to that point. we need to help these kids that have trauma in their lives that are not being addressed through mental health services. we need to train our staff so they know what signs to look for kids that will in crisis and train students in how to identify their friends and the other kids in their class that, you know, something's not quite right with that kid. somebody needs to talk to them and make sure they're ok. we need to have violence assessments for these kids and follow through from that if determined they are prone to violence. host: amy, you talked about looking for signs.

first of all, after a shooting like this or shootings like this, do you notice an uptick on students coming to you with concerns? and secondly, without giving any privacy information, have you had a student that you've been so concerned about that you've spoken to your administrators or to law officials about? caller: well one thing i will say that we've had a huge increase in children from puerto two who have to social, emotional conference. the school shootings were talking about high school students but that doesn't start t high school. we need to front load that support for elementary students. we have students at the elementary level who were attacking other students, they're threatening others. they're threat it can themself,

we're bending over backwards of trying to get these kids mental support which we're able to provide because these kids need deeper therapy other than conflict resolution and feeling identification at schools. they have significant deep seated issues that they need to work at and that really can't happen. we need to have community resources. like my school system is really fortunate that we have partnerships with our mental health facilities in the community where they'll come in to schools and provide support. but a big issue with that is that many of the students that need those services would need medical assistance to get that additional support. i have a parent who's been trying to get their child hospitalized because they're so concerned about that child and there aren't -- able for in-patient support.

host: and the parent is concerned because of violent tendencies? caller: they're concerned about violent behavior, attacks on other adults, on students. host: amy, i appreciate you weighing in this morning. i think thank you for listening there at 90.1 f.m. we go to james next in brooklyn. brooklyn, connecticut, who's on our parents' line. james, thanks for waiting. go ahead with your comments. caller: how are you doing? listen, i live not far from sandy hook right here in brooklyn, connecticut. and the day the that shooting happened, i was in school lking to my psychologist inside a school about how they were handling the way that these kids are segregated in these

schools. one thing -- the main problems that's happening is that people are not looking at these teachers. it's the teachers that's the problem. these teacher come and they favoritize these children. they put some children in the point to where that they are successful and other children are not. son-in-law children feel like they are headed for the future, some children feel like they are failures. and they take these kids and they purposely separate them so that they can have some that's going to be prosperous and some that's going to be a failure. and when these children get in their minds that they're going to be a failure because they can -- the way they grade things, they are destroying these children. it's the teachers that's doing that. and they talk about this money that they have, they got football teams, they got gymnastic teams, and they get them top of the line uniforms and everything that they need. you go there and you see -- our

team, our team, our team and at the same time, i can't even get a book inside my son's school. it's the teachers that are creating these problems and we need to address the way we are learning in school make everybody feel equal inside the classroom. until we start doing that, all of these things that's going on, because they're creating it. and when they create this thing, this problem for a part of iting and they say oh, he got a mental health problem. oh, he got this kind of problem. oh, there's some kind of trauma going on. and they do this so they can ake money on it. that's job security for them, talking about mental health. this is a big giant game to separate people so they can keep a job just like the teacher can't be fired. they have the ability to stop this. the teachers do. host: that's james in connecticut.

we'll go to bill who's a student from jefferson township, pennsylvania. caller: the best answer was when the president got the people together, the father from columbine high school who lost a child at columbine. he gave the best answer. and he says it starts at home with the parents. the parents must know what their children are doing at home. it's not a mental health issue. respect to students to respect one another. communicate with one another. and to love one another even. but that -- the school, what goes on in the school, it's like fix the violence and the society that we live in, the culture of death that we live in. there's no respect for human

life. host: an article this morning reporting about this. conservatives stay on gun message even as florida shooting stirs anger. they write that as conservatives prepare to gather today for their closely watched national summit, the strategy for talking about guns seems deceptively simple. don't shy away from the issue. be compassionate, don't let anti-gun activist hijack the debate no matter your viewpoint on the second amendment. these are moments for intro pecs, says the chairman of the american conservative union which organizes the political action congress. gets underway today in nearby maryland suburbs and we'll have coverage here on c-span beginning at 10:35 a.m. eastern. vice president pence is speaking this morning and the education secretary betsy devos who was at that meeting yesterday at the white house and speaking today, senator ted cruz of texas.

all of that getting underway at 10:35 a.m. eastern. here's mary in indiana. james, who's an educator there. james go ahead with your omments. caller: thanks to c-span you. guys do a great job. i'm a grandfather of 17. and i am so tired of driving marianne and seeing flags at half-mast. i have a personal feeling that i'm going to continue seeing flags fly at half mass -- half-mast. i have a personal feeling that this is not the end of the road for these things. but i can tell you this. president trump two nights ago talked about bump stocks and that he was willing to take those off the streets. let me say this. a bump stock is just as lethal as an assault rifle. they're just one difference --

two differences between bump stocks and assault rivals -- assault rifles. bump stocks, there are only a few how to of easy to in our country. the money goes back -- that's five or six hundred million dollars. a lot of that money goes back to washington, donations, basically to one republican party. what i'm saying is that is where the real money was. that is why bump stocks are being mentioned by our president took $35 million from the n.r.a. that is why the president is talking about bump stocks and is not talking about assault rifles. and the lethality of both is equal. now the school was being covered by a single policeman, probably had a block in or a pistol.

but the firepower of that assault rifle and the cartridges and the ammunition, that policeman had no chance nor would a teacher or anybody else. t's a matter of firepower. we will always have mentally disturbed people in our -- always have had, always will have. just let's not give them the machine guns but remember this. this goes back to money and this goes back to the n.r.a. directly because when we eliminate this assault weapons 10 years ago, these mass shootings doubled. these other countries who have these low rates of murder and no problem in the school. they do not have the n.r.a. to contend with. i guarantee you that. host: here's susan in florida

who's a afternoon. good morning. welcome to "washington journal." caller: yes. part of the conversation i think that's missing and the lady who's a teacher touched on it and why are we raising such violent children nowadays? these questions don't seem to be answered. the school shooting situation started approximately 20 years ago. and i just think there's reasons for this. they're desensitized to all types of violence on television and video games, to first-person shooter games. and i think this needs to be a bigger part of the conversation. demaffle the short term, we're going to need armed guards in our schools. next up, riley who is in maryland, an educator there. asking you how to make schools

salary. riley in maryland, are you a teacher? caller: yes, i am. hi, bit. thanks for having me on. i'm on my way to work. i teach at a school in momentary, maryland. during second period today, we are going to have a lockdown drift. i'm not giving anything away, you know, like every kid know t. my wife and i are teachers. so this is something that we talk about, you know, op a daily basis, certainly when things like this are going on. but there's such a profound irony in the fact that, you know, we as a culture are having this conversation about what can we do to keep schools safe. and i watch, you know, marco rubio talk about how banning some gun isn't going to do

anything. and i hear people on c-span talk about how school is a racket and teachers are just looking to protect their job. what i'm going to be practicing today during second period is how to protect my students in my classroom when something happens. how i will be instead of teaching them science, instead of teaching them about hereditary of genetics, i'm going to teaching them about or making sure they appreciate and understand how important it is that they be absolutely silent, that they not move. how when something terrible is happening, now they have to stand in the corner of a room, away from windows at the door and how they have to wait there for maybe hours in the hopes that the person with the gun who comes to our door is a swat team member and not some other person who brought an assault rifle on the streets. and so when we talk about like schools are a place of

opportunities. there are bad schools out there. and there are amazing schools at bad schools and there are great amazing schools out there and there are bad toorps -- teachers at those schools. but to talk about anything but doing away with weapons that are designed to kill, to kill in, you know, with speed and efficiency and in volume is to miss the entire point. i work at a -- i'm committed to the idea of learning. we talk about the second amendment. it is literally the place where we talk in social studies class about how important it is to follow, you know, to understand the institution -- constitution. so you can't talk to people at schools about the second amendment. this is a matter of life. that comes first, right? life, liberty. life comes first. it is doing away with weapons with high magazines.

any when that you don't have to -- weapon that you done don't have to reload, it's as simple as that. host: the president tweeting about comments he made on teachers and educators with firearms. president trump this morning tweeting saying i never said "give teachers guns like was stated on fake news cnn and nbc. what i said was to look at the possibility of giving concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience -- only the best. 20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to." that's just tweeted from president trump moments ago. riley there in maryland, one of the school districts that a number of high school students, anyway, skim school yesterday to put it bluntly. they skipped school went down to the white house and here's a look at the scene outside the white house with the headline hundreds of schools protest gun violence and some of our own

photos here of that scene yesterday. they write that dan had just returned home from school when the news flashed on his tv screen. it happened again. a gunman had walked into the school and opened fire this time in florida. when the videos of the shooting from inside the school came out, the first thing i said was enough was enough. the senior from richard montgomery high school said and that teacher commented in the appearance last night by marco rubio at the cnn town hall confronted by the participates, the father of one of the victims of the shooting at douglas high school. here's some of that 3. >> your comments this week and those of the president have been pathetically weak. [applause] cheers and applause]

>> so, you and i are now eye-to-eye. because i want to like you. look at me and tell me guns were the factor in the hunting of our kids in this school this week. and look at me and tell me you accept it and you will work with us to do something about guns. cheers and applause] >> fred, i'm not -- first of all, what i -- let me explain what i said this week and i'll repeat it. i'll repeat what i said. and what i said -- and then i'm going to tell you what we're going to do. we're going to talk about guns and here's what i said this weekend. i said that the problems that we are facing -- >> let him speak.

i think we immediate to hear. >> the problems that we are fashion today cannot be solved by gun laws alone. and i'm going to tell you what we've done already and what i hope -- were guns the factor of the hunting of our kids? >> of course they were. >> it is the weapon of choice. can you say that? >> number one, fred, i absolutely believe that in this country, if you are 18 years of age, you should not be able to buy a rifle and i will support a lieu that takes that right away. [applause] >> fantastic. >> i will support -- i will support the banning of bump stocks and i know the president has ordered the attorney general do it and if he doesn't, we should do it by law. i will support changing our background system so that it includes more information they hadn't includes now and that all states across the country are required or incentivize the forcing and -- report and information into it. host: part of last night's florida town hall. we're asking your ideas on making schools safer.

202-748-8000, the number to use for students. for parents, 202-748-8001. educators, administrators, that's 202-748-8002. we welcome your comments on twitter as well. this is from wild and wonderful who tweets generally speaking, people do recognize signs of mental health problems and others including disturbed teenagers. that's not the problem. the problem is you can report it and there's no established institution that will do anything about it. helen tweets that g.o.p. representatives received $5.9 million from the n.r.a. and gun manufacturers in 2017 to protect the lethal second amendment that lets any crazy person legally buy guns, assault weapons so he or she may randomly kill children. thanks, congress for serving us. from rick, armed teachers watch the mulet liesed education certificate that they worked for and then watch the students

learn in the environment that con concedes that now have no chance. get well soon, america, before it's too late. back to calls. jose in east los angeles, california. he's on our parents' line. caller: yes. you know what, there's a lot of moronic statements about the so-called assault weapons. assault weapons have been banned in 1932. those are machine guns. machine guns have been banned since the valentine's day massacre 1928. nobody can own machine guns. so the definition of assault weapons is a military grade machine gun. that does not exist in the commercial market. and the point that i have that blows my mind is nobody is looking in the fact that the state and the local police knew that this suspect had psychotropic drugs, he had major behavioral issues, he had 30

visits by the police department and most some of them were because of violent family fighting. you're telling me that the police never reported to the federal background check agency. that never reported the fact he had vipet background this and that. in other words, the state never reported the fact that he was behaviorally unstable and which was known. he had psychiatric treatment. the school also had the knowledge to be aware of this suspect. in other words, they had the threat, the threat of the school being a target of this maniac. they knew about it. they had photos of him all over the school. and you're telling me that knowing the fact that he made a

threat publicly, reported to the f.b.i., nobody bothered to go in and take his guns away. host: dan, -- jose, let me ask you about you point about machine guns being banned. you will admit there are firearms that have quite the capacity to shoot a lot of rounds in a very short period of time, correct? caller: well, that's up to your finger, you know. it's basically one pull per round. so, i mean, that's honestly what's available commercially. host: to your point on the f.b.i. missing signs, here's a commn irritate for the "wall street journal." the f.b.i.'s parkland fail. he where is missed signals at ome level of the federal level frieded in southern springs texas, 25 kills, charleston, five, fort hood, 13, sab bernardino, 13 the boston marathon bombing, three dead and multiple severed limbs. the list goes on, amtrack's

derailments, national security agency letting edward snowden walking away with its crowned jewels on the thumb drive or the deadly veteran's administration. why do these mistakes continue to happen? the reasons are complex. so -- host: jeanette is in springfield, new york, calling this morning on the educator's line. good morning. go ahead. caller: yes, good morning, c-span. ok. so i'm twofold. i am a educator and -- [indiscernible] i'm just a little confused. it seems that we have this happen every year. and we're talking about safety in schools, which, of course, is

important. but remember, a lot of these incidents or some of these incidents happen in churches. they happen in concerts in las vegas. they happened at nightclub. and the most important factor is that these were assault weapons. armed guards could in the schools, what's happened to people -- when people step outside the school when they have a disgruntled student or disgruntled educator? you know? we also have to remember there e people in rural or communities like the bronx, brooklyn, chicago. they live this every single day. and unfortunately, only affects a community, our community, then it becomes important and we

really need to look at having these assault rifles illegal. host: let's go to our apartments' line. chris is in tennessee. hello there. caller: yeah. i hear a lot of comments being made about the n.r.a. and the money that they throw around. i think we maybe need to have a show on highlighting lobbying money and how it's influencing our politicians. we need to hear some truth of what the n.r.a. does and maybe some of the other groups does as far as how much minutes lobbied to congress. host: chris in tennessee, thanks for that. other news this morning. many papers including here, front page of the "u.s.a. today"

reporting on the death of reverend billy graham, almost 100 years old, born in november, 1918. evangelist blazed numerous trails and includes in there a piece by his son, franklin graham. i'll pull this off and show you some of the -- he's been called america's pastor. his interaction with presidents going quite a ways back and a picture here with in 2007 on the "wall street journal" with george w. bush, bill clinton. billy graham, his son, franklin and former president jimmy carter. they write that william martin, a prophet with honor the preacher was one of the most dominant christian figures over the last 75 years. no more than one or two popes and one or two other people came close to what he achieved. they write mr. graham's influence also extended to washington where he counseled presidents for half a century, beginning with dwight eisenhower, lyndon johnson

sought his favor. he offered frequent advice to nixon including during the watergate scandal. he offered a prayer at bill clinton's 1993 inauguration. and played a role in george w. bush's decision before he became president and stopped drink and became more serious about his faith. is nicknamed "america's pastor." back to your schools on how to make schools safer. we've divided the lines on parents and educators. we will go to you are parents line. this is stacey. go ahead. caller: good morning, america. and i don't want to say thoughts and prayers but my heart goes tout all those beautiful kids out in florida and as well as all the kids who have suffered by the hands of these legislatures. nd these guns.

one point i want to make and my fellow american from california touched on it. when he spoke about the meds and why can't it be both? i can assure you if you give a kid a drug that is intended for schizophrenia, it's going to have a negative effect on a non- schizophrenic, it could be fatal. if a drug can make some people suicidal, it can make others homicidal. and you don't have to take my word. you can go back and read the drug manufacturer's warning that these drugs that we give our kids be it ritalin or adderall or abilify, these are anti-psychotic drugs. they have the equivalent to the p.c.p. or acid or even worse, a meth or a crack cocaine or heroin. these are the drugs that they're giving our kids as young as 18 months old. they're feeding these kids these anti-psychotic drugs and the

flip side is psychosis. and they're giving these kids access to guns. i can tell you right now, anti-psychotic drugs and automatic weapons do not mix. ok? and we cannot allow -- and the biggest problem that we have in school is when the pharmaceutical companies got into the schools and tried to get the school counselors and teachers to diagnose these kids with adhd or autism or any manek depression, whatever you -- but they had a pill for it and every kid that got a pill, they got some money from the state, from being on that pill. ost: let's go to santa barbara line, bic. you're next. caller: i understand the students are really upset about the assault weapon and they want them banned and people with mental problems didn't have access to they want they need better background checks. and obviouslies the f.b.i.

dropped the ball on us and the local police department. but the bottom line is say you get the ban on assault weapons the millions of people that own assault weapons now become criminals. and the only way you can possibly repeal this is to go into these people's homes and take their countries guns away from them. and i guarantee you that's going to be a tough process and a lot of people, the reason you have these guns is not for hunting. governments nnical and military governments. host: so bics, do you think that's why most people would want to purchase an ar-15 because they believe that they need it for in your words, a tyrannical government? caller: i think they're just fun to shoot and most people probably don't go hunting with they want north korean people don't have any weapons. and you can see the way those people are treated. so, it's going to a real problem if you go into people's houses and take their weapons away from them. host: we've set aside a line for

students. that's 202-748-8000. one of the students that was at the white house yesterday, the white house listening session as douglas high school student samuel. here's what he had to say. >> i was on the second floor of that building. texted my mom. texted my dad. texted three of my brothers. that i was never going to see them again. and then it occurred to me and my 14-year-old brother was directly above me. and that classroom where scott beagle was murdered. scott beagle got my brother in the class. he was the last kid to get back into that class. and i'm sure a lot of you have read my texts on the internet with my brother.

i didn't plan for them to go viral. i just wanted to share with the world because no brothers or sisters or family members or anyone should ever have to share those texts with anyone. and that's why i'm here. lost a best friend which is practically a brother. and i'm here to use my voice because i know he can't. and i know he's with me, cheering me on to be strong but it's hard. and to feel like this, it doesn't even feel like a week. time has stood still. i can't.ike this ever, i can't feel comfortable in my country knowing that people have

, will have, ever going to feel like this. and i want to feel safe at school. you know, senior year and junior year are big years for me when i turn my academics around, started connecting with teachers and i started to actually enjoying school. and now, i don't know how i'm ever going to step foot on that place again. host: that is douglas high school student samuel zeif at yesterday's listening session. by the way, all of that is available at our website at c-span.org. we've had a number of people call and tweet about the national assault rifle, the n.r.a. lobbying efforts in washington. this is an ad from a group opposing the n.r.a. a group called every town for gun safety and the moms demand action for guns. it's an ad that was put in yesterday's "new york times" and perhaps other newspapers. they list these members of congress take n.r.a. money but

refuse to take action to pass gun safety legislation. that's when it says at the top. let's just look at florida alone and i don't know. i assume but i think these are total numbers. not annual numbers. gus rida, representative has received 16450. vern buchanon, 19. 40. $5,000. congressman, $32,000. representative neil dunn, $5200. matt gates, $1,000. brian mass, $32,000. bill posey, $16,000 from the anyway anyway. tom roueny who announced his retirement from congress at the end of the session, $10, 500. dennis ross, $19,375. john rutherford, $1,000. representative ted owe hoe, $4,000. nd senator marco rubio, $1

million from the n.r.a. this is from every town for gun safety action fund. there's more at everytown.org. let's hear from mary in south carolina. good morning. thanks for waiting. go ahead. caller: ok. i just -- i'm a great grandparent. i've got eight grand grand sons, ok? and i'll tell you something. when thee kids turn 11, 12 years old, their dads are going to be out teaching them to hunt. and i don't think there's anything wrong with that. and they also teach them about gun safety at the same time. they don't take them out at 21 and say now it's time to learn how to hunt. and i believe that we should have guns in the schools. and i believe we should have armed guards. i don't think teachers should need to be on so much. i think ex-military, ex-police

officers, people that know how associatese guns and are given -- bad position of what's going on at the time. i mean, it's horrible to think about children being shot in schools. it really is. and they're not assault rifles. assault rifles is when you have an automatic weapon. and i don't know what bump stocks do. i've never heard of them until shooting in las vegas. i do know that our children need to be safe and i think that's one way to make them safe. and thank you very much. host: thank you, mary. those bump stocks were an additional add-on to the stock of the firearm that made it easier to fire rounds faster and there's consideration on capitol hill, possibly the president calling, of course, his support for banning the sale of those. here's harve, who's an educator in arizona. go ahead. caller: good morning america.

i heard me a good idea from tom hartman. we register our cars. we insure our cars. they can kill people. we should treat guns the same way. register them. have a license to operate them. and have an insurance policy on each gun you own. this will keep people from having hundreds of guns. they couldn't afford it. and maybe it'll keep the education going when you get your license. you'll have to be able to operate the gun proficiently. and i think this is a one way we can do it. but, anyway, good morning and good luck. bye-bye. host: ok. allen, next up, brooklyn, new york, who's a parent there. hello there. caller: good morning. first i want to have a shoutout to that last comment, very sensible. when we talk about putting guns on teachers to lessen its

effect, we have to realize that something like bacterial resistance occurs when you introduce any kind of solution it's a medical system as you begin to develop germs at a resistance to it. you start putting guns at the hands of a teacher, the nature of a threat is likely going to change. if you don't have only deranged students coming there and firing randomly, who can possibly be subdued by multiple teachers with guns. but now you have terrorist who is are looking to exploit the powder keg created by a school filled with teachers who are armed. you can have people sent in a terrorist to just create the sounds on sound devices of gunfire and drawing circular firing squads from multiple points within the building. if their job is to create maximum mayhem. and this would be a powder keg. you also have the model of the russians who have taken the existing divisions in our politics and exacerbated beckham

by putting fraudulent messages into the facebook stream. what if they came in and they have shooters or noise creator who is are directly trying to exploit the weaknesses that are created by a school filled with untrained gun carriers? we could have massive casters of a new kind because you're -- disasters because you're creating a environment of any kind. we have to reduce the threat by doing what these students, these marvelous students are saying and reduce the number of weapons that could get into anyone's hands and ensure them, license them, restrict them, lower the quantity of ammo and magazines and go to the source of the problem and not create these false illusions that you can solve the problem by adding more guns to an already volatile environment. host: the annual conservative political action conference gets underway. our two days of coverage beginning today, 10:35 a.m.

eastern with vice president pence among others. the education secretary betsy devos will speak today. and texas senator ted cruz among those speaking today. uncertain if the n.r.a., the head of the n.r.a. will speak. cpac keeps his name off the schedule after florida shooting. this is sarah westwood reporting in the "washington examiner" the other day. they said the organizers of the political conference withheld the name of the top national assault rifle executive from the schedule of the speakers they released on monday. just days after a young shooter killed 17 children and adults in parkland, florida, high school. the spokeswoman for the n.r.a. was on television last night. she was part of the cnn town hall on guns and school safety. here's some of that. >> i don't believe that this insane monster should have ever been able to obtain a firearm.

ever. i do not think he should have gotten his hands on any kind of weapon. that's number one. this individual was nuts. and i nor the millions of people that i represent as a part of this organization that i'm here speaking for, none of us support people who are crazy, who are a danger to themselves, who a danger to others can get their hands on a firearm and we have been for over 20 years. and i have been screaming about this, which is why i'm here. because i have kids. and i'm not just fighting for my kids. i'm fighting for you. i'm fighting for you. i'm fighting for all of you. because i don't want nip to ever be in this position again. i want everyone to think about this for one second and this goes right into your question. do you know that it is not federally required for states to actually report people who are prohibited possessers, crazy people? people who are murderers?

no? we've been actually talking about that for a long time. let me answer the question. let me answer the kept you can shot me down when i'm finished but let me answer this question. it is not federal law for states to report convictions to the system. it's not federally mandated. that's the big question and i wish that this network had also covered more as other media networks would have covered it. that's a huge -- wait a second. >> you guys, if i can't hear her statement, i can't come up with a rebuttal. please. [applause] >> wait a second. do you guys want to stop mentally insane individuals from getting firearms? yes? they have to be in the system. if they are convicted. you can convict them. you can adjudicate them mentally unfit. if a state does not report to it the national crime information center when you run that form, this individual pass -- this madman passed the background check. how was he able to pass the

background check? because -- he was able to pass the background check because we have a system that's flawed. host: n.r.a. spokeswoman dana at the cnn town hall in florida on guns. a couple of comments on twitter here. the report is tweeting one possible interpretation of the second amendment might suggest a well-educated militia means that owners of military assault weapons should be registered members of a local millicha. steve tweets that end the n.r.a., take the second amendment and rewrite a self-defense right that does not aid and abet crazy gun owners. president trump also tweeting following of comments and news reports on his support for arming some school officials. here's so much what he said. i never said give teachers gun like was stated on fake news cnn and nbc. what i said was to look at the possibility of giving concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience only the best 20% of

teachers, a lot would now be able to." immediate fully fire back if a salvage sicko came to a school with bad intentions, miley trained teachers would also serve as a deterrent of the cowards that do this far more assets that much less cost than guards amount gun-free school is a magnet for bad people. the attacks would end. history shows that a school shooting lasts on average three minutes. it takes police and first responders approximately five to eight minutes to get of the site of the crime. they would solve the problem instantly before police arrived. n the nation's capital, an educator. good morning. welcome to your exempts. caller: good morning. i've been an educator for almost 20 years. and in public, private and charter schools. and one of the things and i know teachers engage in some amazing

acts of courage and bravery every single day. i completely get it. but i want to go hard on my colleagues here, because i feel like we're having this conversation to some extent because teachers have advocated their civic duty of being politically active. i think teachers have been so afraid and so tepid about expressing political views that their profession is the manufacture for them and not with them. and so this is me talking about, you know, after several years of trying to get teachers engaged in movements against standardized testing and movements against oppressive teacher evaluation structures, against oppressive administration in school leadership. and teachers have resisted becoming politically active out of fear of losing their jobs. but i think educators should seize this opportunity and actually become vociferous advocates for their students rather than advocating their responsibility of motivated and

forceful political action. host: sorry, another educator this shreveport, louisiana. jay, hello there. caller: hello there. thanks for c-span. one of the wonderful things that y'all do is allows the public to comment on pressing issues like this this one. how is a great example of goofy so many people are and uninformed. first, i began my shooting training at age 10 at a program sponsored right the national rifle association. i continue throughout the years to hunt. i was in the air force and qualified expert because of my nra training. at one time i had a concealed carry permit. i am retired.

if i was still in the classroom i would jump at the opportunity to have a weapon locked in my desk for the hopefully unlikely cominglity of some nut on my floor and i would have no whatsoever to shoot someone that tried to hurt my kids. thanks. host: one more call on the issue. gwendolyn in georgia, a parent. because itm calling seems to me we want to address the entire gun population as the problem, whene the fact of the matter is what we have is a certain demographic of young people going into schools and shooting each other down. also howo focus on this modern day problem of young people killing each other started.

we need to look at the videogame industry that starts these kids out as young as four to five years old putting guns in their hands in their minds, and now these goggles on and become the children in the games. societal problem of love of guns, and yes we do need to restrict some rapidfire weapons, but we need to address the love of guns. the videogame industry is not likely to take any responsibility for creating teens that do these types of things. host: thank you for all of your calls and comments. from thehear next former energy secretary of monizt money's -- ernest

and cabot phillips. ♪ >> the c-span bus is traveling across the country in our 50 capitals tour. we stopped in little rock, arkansas and asked what is the most important issue in their state? >> there is a huge hispanic population, so what we see is important, it is

that not only hispanic, but everyone has the opportunity to whether or not i have documentation i'm going to college. that is important right now. to me issue important animal welfare. i am in animal rescue and we deal with a lot of abuse and neglect. we do not have law enforcement backing -- we do have laws in arkansas, but they are not enforced or a very strict. issue for us because we deal with the animals, we see what they go through, and we don't have any place for the animals to go, we don't have funding for them, and people are not held accountable for the abuse that they inflict. issue for me, stricter laws and enforcement of those laws, and the backing of rescues and shelters to hold

people accountable for what they do. >> i really don't want everyone in government doing much of anything. state's putting limits for the government and creating things and seeing how they work. most of the big government things, if they don't work out well it is hard on the entire country. going back to what the founders wanted us to do, use the states. importantthe most issues i think for little rock is for ours

representatives to look at the affordable care act. they talk about the intensity of the flu season. important for each individual. important, but without health care you cannot perform those to the best of your ability. i think that is a major issue for little rock citizens, arkansans, and all of america. >> what leaders and d.c. do to help arkansas is support our farmers. billve an upcoming farm that they can look at to protect our farmer's right and the poultry industry. farmers.protect our

i think that is the most afforded thing for taking care of our constituents at home. >> voices from the states on c-span. "washington journal" continues. next 45ining us for the minutes is the former energy secretary of the obama administration ernest moniz. iz, thank you for being here. you have lived through the nuclear threats of the cold war, can you compare that to the potential threats that we are aware of today in the world of iran, north korea, and other areas? guest: at the end of the cold war in the early 19 90's, a lot of people were hoping that the specter of nuclear weapons use was behind us. unfortunately today, i would have to say that the possibility

of a nuclear weapon being used is probably higher than at any time other than the cuban missile crisis. our concern is less on the intentional use as opposed to an accident, miscalculation, or blunder that provides faulty information to the president of the united states or the president of russia and leads to nuclear use. host: is is the feeling you are feeling when you were energy secretary? guest: yes, indeed, though i think it has gotten worse. for example, russia, let's face it our relationship is very poor at the moment. much less communication going on even then at the height of the cold war. that is what leads to the idea munication -- and that a miscommunication could lead to a bad outcome. organization the

doing to mitigate nuclear threats? guest: it has been in place since early 2000 one and was established by turner and nunn. would allow me to move into the ceo role, is that it is a think tank, and more than that it operationalize his programs. it helped to move very dangerous nuclear organization material oa during the hostilities there. last year, we cut the ribbon on the low-enriched uranium bank that provides security of supply to discourage countries from having enrichment technology. host: when you look at the and of the cold war on the nuclear issue, where there are opportunities to cut back the

threat that is now further developing in countries? guest: in the 1990's there were strong efforts done to control and eliminate nuclear materials and weapons. it is not nuclear directly, but indirectly, issues with russia began to build. the nato expansion is something that russia had problems with, mildly.t these things have been building, but clearly the issues around ukraine in 2014 exacerbated the relationship. now, we are in a situation that is very dangerous in not having sufficient communications, including between our military leaders, so that we know what we are doing and we understand what each is doing and we do not blunder into a nuclear confrontation. host: in the wake of the trump administration's release of

their nuclear posture review, what is that conference all about? guest: the security conference is a legendary annual event that brings together leaders, literally president said prime minister's, defense minister's, foreign ministers, and others from the private sector once year to discuss a range of security issues.you mentioned the nuclear posture review , that certainly got a lot of attention in munich. to be honest, there was a lot of concern. i think the first thing about the nuclear posture review is that it does have a lot of continuity with the past. it does endorse continuing moratorium on nuclear testing. it maintains the deterrent posture nuclear like.s and the the two areas of concern that were raised where that on the

one hand it seems to expand the field of use of nuclear weapons, including non-nuclear attacks. it appears to include things like cyber attacks. secondly, it talks about putting a new class of weapons on submarines that most of us think would move us in the wrong direction in terms of miscalculation. host: erased concerns along with former senator sam nunn, it will no nuclear and arms expert, writing that the negative political dynamic between nato includes regular .osture the u.s.'s defensive nato stands with the uncertainty that has

engulfed the trump administration's relationships with nato and russia. you write that forward deployed nuclear weapons in russia possibility of blunders. the trump administration's national security strategy of goes to analysis that would emerge from a hard look. do you think those forward deployed weapon should not be there? guest: what we're calling for is a re-examination. let's get it on the table. i think that there is a consensus, including among the military, that these weapons do not satisfy any military objective. we have a capable and flexible nuclear deterrent without them. to imagine ahard

u.s. president imagining that the first use of a nuclear weapon would come by us having a plane and pilot from another country being the delivery vehicle. ofrth we have a new world terrorism and instability on the southern flank of nato, turkey and syria for example. at the minimum, a serious analysis of what the risks are matched up. no military benefit that we can see is there. we recognize that at a time of difficult relationships with russia, it would be difficult to address political, geopolitical, reasons for deployment. it is time to do serious analysis and a v balance the serious analysis and balance the risks.

making it clear our absolute commitment to nato and nuclear commitment to nato. is this something you raised in the nuclear posture of the obama administration, and what is the role of the energy department in overall nuclear strategy when it concerns the military? nuclear posture was done in 2010 before i was in the administration. president obama had a very comprehensive, and i think forward-looking, view on the nuclear deterrent. let me make it clear that the president always said as long as we have nuclear weapons they have to be safe, secure, and reliable. the president did put forward the modernization program in terms of saying we are relying on a nuclear enterprise that has facilities that are 50, 60, 70 years old.

we will have to reinvest to have a reliable deterrent. the president was for that, but at the same time put forward the correct approach saying we have to keep working to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our military strategy while never losing our absolute deterrent to prevent use. the department of energy especially through our national laboratories, are responsible for the design and maintenance of the nuclear arsenal. that is not a policy role, but the secretary of energy is on the national security council and we nuclear issues are discussed the president has a seat at the table, as i did, and my predecessors, and my successor. host: let's open the phone lines. , republicans.

democrats.000, all others, (202) 748-8002. first caller, robert, go ahead. caller: can you explain how the asked germanyent to build a nuclear sub for them? second question is [indiscernible] host: the relationship of israel and germany in the terms of nuclear weapons? of all, germany does not have nuclear weapons, though they as a member of nato

are part of our integrated defense of europe in the umbrella. to my knowledge, there is no specific relationship between germany and israel with regard to the nuclear deterrent of the united states, the united kingdom, and france supply for european defense. obviously -- east, i worked in the administration and continue to work to enforce nonproliferation norms. we don't want to see nuclear weapons spreading anymore than they have, unfortunately, over the last couple of decades. host: travis, cold chester, vermont. caller: good morning first of all i wanted to thank you and

commend you for your work in negotiating and securing the iran nuclear deal. secondly, my question has to do with your former role of energy secretary. i was wondering if you could speak to the risk to the electrical grid that solar flares pose. i'm sure you are familiar with the carrington event. do you feel that hardening our electrical grid to solar events should be a priority? guest: let me say broadly that i think hardening the grid, making it more resilient against a -- youof threats mentioned solar flares and in extreme circumstances those are an issue. frankly, i would say that cyber threats are probably a greater present danger. in general, we need to get a

much more resilient system. we need to continue the deployment we started nearly 10 years ago in terms of more able sensors that can detect disturbances, lead to ways of isolating parts of the grid that have problems. it is not only on the high-voltage transmission systems, but also when you get to the distribution systems, the lines that go to people's houses and hook up your internet addressable appliances in your home, we create the possibility of tremendous services for consumers. at the same time we are elevating things like cyber risks. it is an integrated view of looking at the whole spectrum of

issues. the electric grid is the lifeline of all lifelines. every other infrastructure, financial and more, depend upon reliable, high quality electricity delivery. this is an area that is critical. put forward ation couple of weeks ago a framework for addressing american infrastructure. i think that program, many of us we see every day how we need new infrastructure, but i would elevate very much in those discussions the energy infrastructure and especially the electricity infrastructure ourur teeth my flight -- key lifeline networks. host: i want to show you this tweet from president trump in the wake of the administration's

oppositions to that to undo that deal. never got over the fact that president obama sent $1.7 billion in cash to iran and no one in congress, the fbi or justice called for an investigation. what do you think the trump administration is trying to do in its view of the iran deal. guest: i don't want go into detail the issue of that statement. that was the payment of a court ordered settlement of resources appropriated by the united states in the iranian revolution time. let's go to the agreement, that is more relevant. i think that there has been a misconception from the beginning in 2015 in terms of the agreement. the principal criticism was not of the agreement, but what the agreement is not.

-- neverver attended intended to a dress, yemen, hezbollah, or human rights. we had a lot of problems in the region, and now syria is in there as well. believe we of us should be pushing back hard with our allies and friends on these issues. very concerned about the security of israel with hezbollah and iran supporters of lah.ol in the obama administration, after the iran deal, additional sanctions were placed on a -- on iran that were not related to nuclear. does not relieve the need to address the other issues. now we hear a lot about the sunset of the agreement.

i want to make it clear that this agreement does not fundset. there are restraints on iran's nuclear activity that do go away, however to core of the agreement, the most important thing are the verification measure put in place. what are we most concerned about? irane end it is not what is telling us what they are doing, it is covert activity. transparency, the ability to go anywhere in the country in a short timeframe to look at anything suspicious is what is critical. that never sunsets. this is a permanent, unique, verification measure. that is the strength of the agreement. if we break the agreement while to be incknowledged

compliance we would never get that back, and that would be a terrible blow to ours and our allies security needs. host: massachusetts. caller: good morning. you are doing a great job, guys. i would like to say, you were part of the worst administration that ever governed our country. that, evenl record though right now the democrats live in denial of what you people did to our country. you were the worst administration ever. q aftere who died in ira obama told them they could create isis, that blood is on his hands. he could have stepped in and the arab spring and stopped the

syrians from being slaughtered by assad. then the russians landed. you have the very worst international things going on that i have ever seen in my life. would take a long time to answer all of these assertions. if you would like to talk about foreign-policy issues, i would like to go back to 2003 and talk about what a great year that was for u.s. diplomacy. host: louisiana, the republican line. 28 years in the united states air force, 26 i was a pilot in the strategic air command. point of the end of the spear that would wage global nuclear war with the soviet union. we were trained for it, equipped for it, and were going to do it.

there is a little bit of humor that comes with the job, because it would drive you crazy if it didn't. we wondered why the department of energy was the department store for nuclear weapons. we would conjure up that we have this nuclear weapons that we got from the grocery store and we would use it. i'm sure that there was a hand when we were done i wondered if we would have to account where we put that. on the series fame the nuclear deterrents worked. the job that i was doing kept the united states and soviet union out of war. china and north korea were involved in a proliferaal -- proliferal way. a lot of people, for whatever reason in the early 1990's want

to forget that like it never happened. there are lessons that can be learned and used today because nuclear war is nuclear war. it is nasty and will be horrific, but is something that the united states and the soviet union were willing to engage in, and we would have won it. i wanted to toss that out as donene who been there, that, got the t-shirt on the pointed end of the sphere. -- of the spear. guest: i don't know if you were a b-52 pilot, but i did fly in one on a training run and it was interesting. the professionalism of the crew was showing. i want to thank you for all of that. it is absolutely the case. war statement about nuclear , i hope it doesn't come to pass

. we need to maintain a strong deterrent to avoid that from happening. then your experience, strategic bomber fleet, which is not only bombs but cruise to ours, remains core deterrent. n,ank you for that, and agai the obama administration and the current administration, every administration, has been committed to a strong nuclear deterrent. host: how can we deter north korea and learn lessons that our caller talked about with russia versus the u.s. in a different situation with north korea? the north koreans had a very effective deterrent before they did a nuclear test in the s hostageholding seoul

with traditional artillery. now they have demonstrated nuclear weapons and some degree of missile expertise. the reality is that we have to maintain our commitment to a nuclear-free korea, but also be realistic that that is not going to happen very fast. deterrence is part of that. not only thetary, nuclear military, but the conventional forces, we have a lot of deterrence for north korea. a war there would be horribly destructive. i believe, and we have written about this, that frankly we need to have a broader discussion of of entire security needs

north korea, south korea, china, japan, the united states military posture, russia has some involvement, but it to ato broaden security context and not simply nuclear weapons focus. host: on the context of north context, how concerned are you at how quickly they develop nuclear and how far can they go? guest: there might be a misconception that this happened in the last few years. this has been a systematic program going on for a quarter century in terms of developing nuclear weapons and missile technology. hide our heads in the sand. it is a reality. they have nuclear weapons. i doubt that they have the ability now to deliver a weapon to the united states homeland, that we should not forget that we have commitments to our

allies and south korea and japan. we have enormous numbers of american military personnel deployed there. we are in a deterrent situation and we need to work at it with china, japan, and south korea to ultimately get to a the nuclear ized northenuclear korea. did a wonderful job with everything you did to help us deal with iran. with the current administration, look to they replaced it with. rick perry. they are on the wrong track. you did a wonderful job, congratulations. thank you. guest: thank you. host: republican line, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to know the difference between the

agreements we made with north korea over the last 25 years, how it differs with the deal with iran.at the most all we did was slow them down . they are still testing missiles. to think they are not studying the nuclear program i think is ridiculous. i would like to ask, why did we sell uranium to russia? all i'm hearing about russia is how bad, evil, and mafia-like they are. guest: let me first comment on the korea-iran juxtaposition. totally different. iran does not have a nuclear weapon, number one. number two, the agreement is not about missiles. it is not about yemen. it is about taking the

existential issue of a nuclear weapon verifiably off the table. the word verifiable is the most important part of the agreement. that will go on forever. have, frankly, the most intrusive verification regime of anywhere in the world. north korea is the opposite. a very closed society. one of the problems with previous deals is that it did not provide the kind of verification tools that the international inspectors could use to find out what was going on any place in north korea other than the places where north korea wanted them to look. the iran agreement is an enormous step forward, in terms of the verification to make sure they are in fact not developing

a nuclear weapons program. host: he asked about selling uranium to russia. president trump has tweeted about the role of the administration in favoring this group, uranium one. what actually happened? guest: i'm not terribly familiar with this. this happened before i was in the government. i have to be honest there is not a security risk. sia has a of natural uranium. my understanding is that not an enormous amount. i don't know the details. well-developed process in which the government looks at foreign ownership deals that

could jeopardize our national security. it is very thorough. the department of energy plays a big role in that. time sure that the department of energy would have been involved l raisedtime if the sel any national security flags. that is all that i can say about it. host: what about the nuclear posture review over the administration they write that the nuclear weapons infrastructure has suffered the effects of age and underfunding. half of the nsa of the structure is over 40 years old and half dates back to the manhattan project-era. a half ofa page and projects, new and renewed, for infrastructure in the u.s.. in general, do support that effort? going backme start to the issue raised by the air

force pilot in the nuclear service. he raised the issue of what he called the grocery store of getting weapons from the department of energy. may be it is worth saying that the reason it is so critical, frankly, that the department of energy continue in that stewardship role is because fundamentally the job of sustaining those weapons is a science job. is the threehat big so-called nuclear weapons laboratories. and franklynce job, i think that those laboratories, working in the science and technology culture of the department of energy, is why they can do such a good job of that. we also run the production sites. these are half a

century-year-old, plus or minus. i, as the secretary of energy, had a big concern about the safety of our workforce. is our high hazard operations. , we haveot classified things like ceilings falling hazardside of high operations at the so-called production sites. there are the 3 three labs and the sites i do the work on the weapons themselves. in tennessee, in texas, in south carolina there are major parts of the production enterprise for these weapons. we cannot have people working in ancient facilities. therongly supported

probably $80 billion to one -- $80 billion to $100 billion for the facilities. caller: it is an honor to speak with you. -- iember when we had remember when george w. bush first took office. the south koreans and north koreans had a very friendly meeting they were looking forward to. it was something under the sunshine law. george w. bush came out, i think he was only president for a month. powell on one side and dick cheney on the other, hand he said don't trust the north koreans. and theyalled it off

started their nuclear program because they were called the axis of evil. trump doing a sword dance with the saudis. how fast people forget that 3000 americans died a horrible death. 15 of the 19 hijackers were saudis. they had safe passage that day on 9/11. there were some official saudi officials and george bush gave them safe passage out of the country. host: a little off-topic, but thank you. robert, republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i want to thank you for your program. you're the only thing that i trust for verification. regarde of questions in

to a couple of guest that made the example that north korea and the iran agreement are different. i tend to differ with you that when clinton negotiated with north korea it was similar to what obama has done with iran i believe. i could be wrong. he said that the iran verification of nuclear weapons is undeniable. how can it be undeniable when we don't have access to the military sites? i await your answer. guest: on the second part of your question, we do have access to military sites. any site in the country for which there is a legitimate suspicion is open to the international inspectors. i might add that the same thing was said, lack of access to

military sites, before the agreement was implemented. it was signed in july and implemented in january. in that intervening period, access to a military site was required. otherwise, iran would not have had the deal implemented. this is not correct that military sites are on the table. if you talk to someone like jim clapper, and absolute straight inoter, head of intelligence the obama administration, director of national intelligence. what he said with the iran agreement is, as an intelligence professional, i'm never going to tell you there is find% guarantee we will

anything iran is doing outside the agreement. what he said is this agreement is so strong in terms of its verification measures that the bar is raised incredibly high. the risk to iran is raised incredibly high if they try to cheat on this agreement. going back to north korea, you are right in going back to the 1990's when the framework was put into place. cheat., north korea did there is no question. that was possible precisely because there were not the kind of verification measures we now have in place with iran. personally, i think that if we are going to make progress with north korea, as i said, we need a broader security discussion

than we have been having. 2, we have to make clear up front that the international community is not going to trust north korea. there are going to have to be extraordinary verification measures if there is to be any agreement ultimately with north korea. you are dr. moniz of theoretical physics at stanford and m.i.t. were floodedatures by extremely mild air on both sides with record warmth in the nation's capital. how closely do you watch climate science? guest: very closely. half of my time is on nuclear threats, half of it is on global warming and clean energy solutions to that. it has been predicted for a long time.

as we have global warming, and that is a fact not a scientific speculation, the world is warming, it has been known and predicted, and observed, that the arctic warms twice as fast as the temperate zones. we are seeing, in front of our eyes and satellite eyes, tremendous changes in the arctic. some say, isn't that wonderful? we will have a northern passage for ships. that might have some benefit, but the reality is it is extraordinarily dangerous for those living there. villageseen whole already compromised with the global warming today. the arctic is at tremendous risk. of course, a lot of what they do in the arctic depends upon having things like a frozen

tundra, etc. canhose begin to change, it have a runaway effect in terms of global warming by releasing more greenhouse gases out of the tundra. kalamazoo, michigan, democrats line. go ahead. caller: i have a question i would like to have people look into. if clinton would have forced saddam to allow weapons inspections, which he did not for the last two years of his presidency, would bush have been able to get the vote to start a war in iraq? i could see no way he could have weapons expections through the last two years of clinton's administration.

there has been global warming a long time ago way up high. that is one of the last things that melted going through illinois. guest: let me say on the global all knowart, first we that over the history of the earth we have had extremes and major ice ages and warmths and the like. the point is that the earth has never seen, certainly since humans have been on earth, we have never seen these kinds of changes. hat is the change that we are seeing in terms of putting carbon dioxide into the rapidlyre occurring compared to the previous geological time scales. frankly, our earth systems don't

have time to adjust. we are seeing something like zika virus. those the skin does have a range much further north than was ever the case. droughts. all of these patterns. the extreme impasse of hurricanes in the gulf and florida. these are long predicted patterns playing out in front of our eyes. through their reality is that we need to balance mitigation by cutting down greenhouse gas emissions against the very expensive adaptation that we are already doing in many parts of the country. right you are absolutely in terms of the long-ago earth history, but in the last decades we are seeing changes at a pace that the earth has never, never seen. that is what the risk is.

thefirst question, iraq, e go to 2003,en w 2002-2003, the reality is that the experts in nuclear intelligence were quite strong in saying that there were no nuclear weapons. no nuclear weapon program in ira q. unfortunately, as they did not have the last word in terms of the intelligence community and political aspects of how that intelligence was looked at. host: there's a lot more that we could talk about, hopefully we can get you back. ernest moniz, former energy secretary. he is on twitter if you want to follow more developments.

we will take you to national harbor in the maryland suburbs. to 2018 cpac conference is getting underway. cabot phillipsby for a discussion on millennials and meredith mcgehee on the report on the shortcomings of the house and committee ethics work. we will be right back. ♪ >> c-span, their history unfolds daily. c-span was created as a public service by american's cable television companies. today we bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington dc and the country. you by yourought to cable or satellite provider. a,sunday on c-span's q and

them a more "everything happens for a reason." reflecting on being diagnosed with stage four colon cancer at the age of 34. god,felt the presence of all of the intense prayers. the second that i got sick my entire community got together prayed like marathon runners for me. as you arehe sense making preparations was that someone or something needs you there. journal"ngton

continues. host: the conservative political action conference getting underway in the maryland suburbs. on your screen is cabot phillips . tell us about your organization, the leadership institute, and your purpose at being at cpac this week. guest: we are a nonpartisan nonprofit organization whose goal is to train the future generation of conservative activists,'we hold trainings around the country and in arlington, virginia, where they are based. getting people ready to join the political process, anyone who wants to learn the tools of the trade. we offer training from young people to old people on anything from being involved in campaigns, using social media, media training, public speaking training, anything that you can imagine.

one of our main focuses is college campuses where we help grow the conservative movement on college campuses to foster activism among conservative students. that is a hole in conservative there.m, we help it rise it is nonpartisan, so everyone come to our school and they will receive the same top-notch training. host: when you started doing this professionally, came into political activism and training people, how did you find the standard set of rules that was currently underway? when i was in college i went to a quite conservative so i was surrounded by people who thought like me so i had a good base of other conservative activists that i was able to grow with and

empower me and my personal political journey. i realize talking to my friends at other colleges around the country that there was a need for young conservatives willing to help one another and grow the movement on college campuses. that is why after college i got involved with an online publication as an opportunity to help students who did not have the experience that i had. to give them tools and resources that they needed to get their opinions out there. there is such a lack of , fromzational -- a lack an organizational standpoint, of helping conservative students. there such pressure for them to go to the left, they don't have much of a chance,. really our students defend free speech and say let's help you in the political process, get conversations going so you can make up your own mind, and not

be forced to any side. host: we're talking about millennials and the conservative movement with cabot phillips at cpac. here's how we are breaking down the lines. if you're are between 18 and 34, (202) 748-8000. 35 to 49, (202) 748-8001. for those of you above 50, (202) 748-8002. we welcome your tweets. going to school at liberty, everyone with similar political ideals. you come to the washington area, and you mentioned this in your opening statement, welcoming people from different views, do you feel like the nation's capital, capitol hill, is an area where people are more con -- more accepting

of conservative ideas? ofst: there was a wave conservative presence in d.c. since the election. that is natural when there is a change in administration. on college campuses, that is where i am, they all have one thing in common. that is an overwhelming liberal bias. people ask why my group is necessary, it is because it is so necessary because there really is such a lack of a conservative presence. liberals, who consider themselves progressives, or whatever, they have their views reinforced in the classrooms, in the administration, by their peers, the media, and hollywood, so often a conservative students deal like their views are unacceptable. we are necessary to help get those students the resources that they need, to empower them,

and give them a voice to help them realize it is ok to be young and conservative. just because you don't see a bunch around you on college campuses, it is ok to disagree. we feel like we are necessary to empower them. that is what our group is about, to shine a light on the lack of discourse on college campuses today. on our 50ave terry and over line. caller: good morning. the question that i hear the young man -- that i heard the young men say, is he likes to talk to people who think like he thinks and believes what they believe. my question is, can you be andervative and liberal else,ndent, and whatever

at the same time? can you take all of the good things of conservatism and use it when it is necessary? and all of the rest? thank you for indulging. host: thank you. guest: yeah. i think it is important you box. put your self in a i would never encourage anyone to say i'm solely republican and not willing to compromise. i would encourage anyone to not just assume they feel a certain way on an issue because that is the way that their party feels. our organization is encouraging discussion. you mentioned that i like to surround myself with people that i agree with, that is a misrepresentation. conservatives are not surrounded by people that agree with them. it is important you hear from people who you disagree with so you become stronger.

we find that is not happening and conversations are not being had on campus and the liberal status quo is left there and there are no conflicting views been brought in. we have noticed trends that when conservative ideas are brought to campus, we had a conservative speaker, and those ideas are deemed unacceptable. rather than having a debate and discussing why they disagree and letting people make up their own mind, the main tactic that we see from students and often administrations, is to shut the idea down because they make students "uncomfortable" or nervous or unsafe. our mission is to get people to realize that just because an idea makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean it should be shutdown. you can go your whole life without learning to process ideas you disagree with, that will be a bad life and you will not learn how to truly become an adult and empathetic old to what

america is all about if you shut down someone just because you a -- just because you disagree with them. we find it is more the left doing it and that is a problem. it is important to surround yourself by not only people that you agree with, but to break up the echo chamber to make yourself and those around you host: let's go to our millennial line, and hear from anne in reston, virginia. caller: i'm here. thank you for taking my call. having been raised conservative and kind of transitioning over to the left after going to college, i don't think it was a lack of -- a lack of conservative influence, but more education on what each party stands for, and recognizing that the right tends don'tdone things that really jive with the millennial generation, like hatred and

closemindedness. i'm curious why you think that they are being influenced to go to the left, rather than making , and thatecisions maybe those ideas just fit better with the values and the morals of the millennial generation. host: all right, anne. thank you. guest: part of the question -- more of a statement there -- brings up the point i am making. conservative ideas are often -- people disagree with them, but to give a blanket statement of, if you agree with the right, you are condoning hate -- that is part of the problem we see where people are not willing to have a discussion. they want to say anything they disagree with his hateful. you bring up the statement about the pressure students feel to go to the left. much of that does come from peers, but also the classroom. we have seen case after case at

the campus reform and leadership institute where professors are using classes as a pulpit rather than a classroom, pushing their ideas. different, i am on campuses. students come up and say, i am afraid to go to class and speak up because i do not want my great to get docked, or i have a biased essay i'm supposed to write about donald trump, and i do not want to write it, or i will be ostracized in class, or my grade could be docked. there are students that could be physically threatened for holding these views, and i think that is wrong. i think it starts with professors, with the administration allowing the classrooms to become a place of discussion. professors may not even realize they are stifling discussion by investing their own personal bias, but every professor in look at hows to they are teaching, and if it is a marketplace of ideas. organizations are about helping

them tell their story. we are all about accountability. people should know what is going on on classrooms and campuses. campus reform-- is what we are trying to cover on a daily basis. at the leadership institute, we are trying to empower those students to make a difference. virginia caller from said she was raised in a conservative household. what about you? what was your background, the political conversation around your table at home? guest: i grew up in a conservative household as well. the main things for me growing up when i tended to go to the conservative side was my faith. i am a deeply evangelical person. , i havelife now attended church regularly. that is a big factor for me. but i would not say that my own were big fortics me until i got into college. i think it was there that i began to read political philosophy. i started to get into government

courses. i had an internship in washington, d.c., and i realized how important it was for young people to get involved in therecs, and i realized was a lack of conservative leadership, of young people around me. rather than complain about there not being so many young conservative voices, i wanted to get involved. it is not about me. --goal is not to route promote any one person, but the students who feel they do not have a voice, to tell their story and give them an opportunity. i think there are a lot of students that feel that no one has their back. we want to make sure they know that if you come forward and fight back, there are other people that will go along with you. i think my story is similar to a lot of people in the sense that growing up, many times, you believe what your parents believe. if you never go beyond that, i think it is a problem. tohink every person ought truly examine if they believe what they believe because their parents posted on them, or if they made it their own. question your beliefs. study what you believe, and why. that is why it is important to have debates with people who disagree with you.

maybe they can change your mind. if they cannot, your beliefs are going to end up being stronger than when you started. host: let's go to the 18-34 line, billy from boston. do withwhat you discussion, the underrepresentation of conservatives in academic -- i disagree with the reason why that is so. i think that is so because -- i came from princeton, and it is pretty conservative for the army legs. 40% republicans. republicansho were generally went to the business and private sector, rather than academic. -- academia. i wonder whether you can respond to that. i do not think it has to do with a bias, just it's an organization that conservatives do not go into as a career choice. valuest think it is the in the classroom. as a teacher, i foster conception, and i

do not think it is a stifling as you would present it, just to push back a little bit. thank you. guest: you bring up an interesting point about professors many times -- conservatives choosing may be more lucrative career paths in the business sector. but i think that is a smaller subset of a reason for the overwhelming presence of liberal professors. there are studies that show for every conservative professor -- going off of political donations -- every republican professor, there are about 12 liberal democrat professors. it is an overwhelming thing if you look at the members of where professors stand. i think much of that has to do with the environment in academic right now. i think many conservatives looking to get into the field, getting into the higher education field -- they look at the environment currently, and i think many could be scared away. they have seen what happens to conservative professors. we covered a story at ucla where

a conservative professor was trying to hold a free speech hims, and the school gave smaller and smaller classrooms. he felt it was because he was conservative. theas facing pushback from administration. smaller and smaller classrooms, even though they had 100 students trying to get in. i believe he had to leave the university.the another example is evergreen college. professor weinstein is a fairly progressive professor. he called himself a liberal's entire life. there was a day of action, when they asked every student who was not a person of color, to leave the campus. he sent an email saying, this is a little racist to force people off campus based on the color of their skin. the students called him racist, and said he was not in line with the narrative of what the students believed. the school ended up having to let him go because it was unsafe for him to come to university. that is someone who was not even a conservative, but pushed back against the trend of what was going on.

i talked to dozens of professors the last year who told me, i am a closet conservative, or i have conservative ideas i want to bring to the class, but i am afraid of what other professors will do to me. of what the administration and the board will do to me. the liberalit is professors that do not feel any threat when it comes to job security and the way they are going to be treated socially and professionally. we dos part of the reason not have more conservatives going into the field, or do not have conservative professors making it known that that is their believe. even if it was a conservative professor in the classroom, pontificating and indoctrinating students with conservative ideas, especially at a public school, i would have a problem with that as well. whatever personal ideology to professor has, it should not seep into the class.

a professor's job is to identify their bias, make it known to students, this is where i sighed, but these are other ideas. side,ur best -- where i but these are other ideas. do your best. caller: good morning, praise the lord. this is a great day. take you for letting me be on, and thank you for the host. mr. cavett phillips, i thank god that you went to the virginia liberty university. i am 72 years old. it was very evil when it first started. i am a black woman, native american, and i am also an ordained minister who loves the lord and savior jesus christ. this word y'all are throwing around, liberal bias -- you all are selling so much bias, as if

y'all are only the ones who are able and should be able to be biased. that category should be taken out of your mouths. second, to be an evangelical is to be evil, hateful, hypocritical, a hypocrite, liars, deceivers -- everything that the word of god says that christians should not be. to be an evangelical is also to be a great, humongous sinner. is made up of only saints and sinners, and i am a saint, not because i am more righteous than you, but because christ lives in me, and his love makes me righteous. his blood. host: that is francis in houston, texas. times itthink many boils down to a partisan issue. and it comes to free speech, many view it as a left versus right issue. i don't think it has to be.

i think free speech is something everyone should be able to agree on. anytime there is a suppression of someone's rights, --time there is free speech people say, let's identify the problem. by no means is this a partisan issue, but the reporting we do -- hundreds of tips we get every month from students around the country. it is overwhelmingly a problem being perpetuated by the left. it is important not to just name not identifyyou do who is perpetuating a problem, you are never going to fix this. i do think it is important that we call out. if there are people on the right shutting down free speech, contact at campusreform.org. we want to know what is going on. it just so happens that overwhelmingly that bias is coming from the left. if we don't identify the problem and who is committing the offense, we will never be able to fix it. it is the left overwhelmingly that is doing this. host: i want to ask your

thoughts on a pole coming out from nbc about millennial views on president trump. the president will speak at cpac tomorrow. the approved/disapprove -- strongly approving of congress and president trump, not many and 2%.% strongly disapproving, 46% of those millennials surveyed. what is your take on that? guest: i would be interested to know also how many of those students really -- are their views going to change once they get jobs, once they begin to pay taxes and all those things? for me personally, i became more conservative when i got out of college and had to make my own financial decisions to get into my career. that could be a factor as well for those students. the only way they really formed their political opinions is in a classroom, what they are seen in the media, and what they are getting from their peers. all of those things have overwhelming liberal bias, in my opinion.

that can be a reason for poll numbers like that to come out. important that as conservatives we don't write off millennials and save those kids will always be liberal. it is important we continue outreach efforts and reach them on a level they can understand. say, here isnt to an issue on why fiscal conservatism is good for you. come to them with issues. here is why we are pro-life, and --e is why the finance is not just writing them off, saying poll numbers show they are liberals. it is important we consider outreach. that is what is exciting about being at cpac and campus reform. i get to meet young conservatives, here out why they are conservative. the next generation is getting ready to get involved. i do think it is important that we continue to reach out to them. soledad.e is mr.

delano stands for swamp in scotland. i wanted to ask mr. phillips, what is the state that gets the most defense money? host: defense department money? caller: yes, sir. host: do you have the answer for us? caller: i do, from google. google -- do you know? guest: i do not. i am not aware. caller: it is virginia. i thought it would be texas, maybe california. but virginia gets most of the money. , a softmy question answer turns right, but grievous words stir up anger. thank you, c-span. host: edward in keyport, new jersey. good morning. caller: thank you. my question is, i think that even if you had fox news in every millennial's bedroom that

your points just don't make much sense to a younger generation. i would like to ask you, what is it that you want to sell millennials? right now, we are looking at the party that does not believe in science, the party that believes , the partycal sharia that does not believe in minimum wage. i am going to ask you, what points can you tell a millennial that you can sell them on conservatism? i am a millennial and i talked to hundred thousand millennials every year. one thing i've noticed they all have in common, left or right -- they don't trust the government in many cases. they just want the government to get out of their lives. i think the side that wants smaller government, that once people to have increased personal freedom, is the conservative side. i think that is a selling point, making sure people know that if

you trust the government to run your life, if you trust the government to make decisions about your health care, other as you beginsions to start a family, go to the left. liberals are perfect for you, because they want the government to make more of those decisions. if you trust your family and want the government out of your life, go to the right. picking up on that fear -- that --trust of the government young people overwhelmingly want to be able to voice their opinions, and many of them do not like being told what to think. i think there is a backlash coming in the future. i think this next generation that is coming up, we see studies coming up that they are more likely to be conservative than millennials. i think much of it has to do with young people consistently being told, you are young. you have to be a liberal. i think that is beginning to backfire. in people, if there is anything they do not like, it is being

told what to do. think it is going to begin to change people's minds. of that,lecting some an opinion piece in "the washington times, "they say stop asking millennials to join you. join them. millennials are the first generation who consider themselves political independents. we do not join political associations, avoid labels, and embrace diversity in every sense of the word. we are not attending your conference. they are boring. we don't want to go to your meetings, and that is ok. keving us from cpac is phillips. we go to missoula, montana. this is tj. go ahead. , your: mr. phillips opinion and outlook is refreshing. i would like to ask a question and make a brief comment. my comment first -- you said three words a little while ago. you said three words that stuck out as the most important words

any person can hear. they are "think for yourself." my question is, do you consider donald trump to be conservative? itst: well, i think when comes to thinking for yourself, people have to make that decision for themselves. i am not here to tell anyone what they believe. my personal goal is to defend people's ability to make up their own minds. and it comes to donald trump, i think there are a lot of people in the american conservative union who believe donald trump is a conservative. a lot of people i have talked to say they feel he is. i think that is an important take away. i appreciate the support of the phrase "think for yourself." that is something we are trying to encourage people to do. our organization is here to defend the right to think freely. if you come to a different conclusion politically, that is

totally fine. but having the chance to come to the decision without having all the bias thrown at you -- being differentar how ideas, make up your own mind, that is what is important for the next generation. or we are going to have a problem moving forward. millennials are now the longest -- largest voting bloc in america. they will be electing leaders for decades to come, electing leaders. it is important we have a well-educated electorate. joining us from cpac is cavett phillips, outreach director for the campus leadership institute. thanks for being with us this morning. guest: happy to be on, thank you. host: washington journal continuing coverage from c-span. issue one executive director meredith will be here to talk about congressional ethics, ethics reform, and a new reform put out by her group on the issue, focusing on the house of representatives. all of that ahead here on

>> forgton journal ago in depth hasrs, featured the best-known nonfiction writers for live conversations about their books. this year, as a special project, we are featuring best-selling fiction programs -- fiction fictionfor "in-depth -- edition." we are joined by jeff shaara. his most recent book is "the frozen hours." which aretten novels cap the military history of america, from the american revolution to the korean war. during the program, we will be taking your phone calls, tweets, and facebook messages. our special series with author haara, march 4.

on c-span 2. history series, "landmark cases, season two, starts monday with a look at mccullough v. maryland. this case with us are in associate law professor at the university of virginia, and a law professor at the university of arkansas, and author of "mccullough v. maryland: securing a nation." watch live on c-span, c-span.org, or listen with the free radio app. of background, order a copy the landmark cases companion book, available for $8.95 plus shipping and handling. for an additional research, there is a link to the national constitution center's interactive constitution.

"washington journal" continues. host: house and senate out this week, as good a time as any to talk about congressional ethics. joining us is meredith mcgehee, executive director with issue one. what is your organization? guest: it is a nonpartisan nonprofit, focused on a bipartisan effort to fix the broken political system. members offormer congress, cabinet secretaries, ambassadors, who are part of this effort. 55%of those republicans, democrats, people like senator jack dam first. former porter goss, the representative from florida and republican head of the cia. we had democrats like tom daschle. we have a wide variety of ideologies. what issue one is focused on is really solutions. solutions people. how do you get change in washington in a bipartisan way?

host: joining us specifically for a discussion on your new report, "the ethics blind spot -- how the house and senate ethics committees failed to uphold high ethical standards and solutions to fix the problem." first of all, the problem. what did you find out? guest: there is a problem in the system where you have, on the senate side, a black hole, where ethics problems go to die. if you believe what has happened in the senate ethics committee, problem merited any action in a public way in the last decade, i think most people would find hard to believe. if you look on the house side, the good news is that the office of congressional ethics is an independent investigatory office -- the problem is that the house committee continues to take the , oftenndations from oce takes no significant action, interprets the rules in a different way, and there are continuing efforts to try to

undermine the office of congressional ethics. the only independent ethics investigator on capitol hill. oft: oce, the office congressional ethics, is a relatively new creation. why was informed, and when? guest: it was formed after scandals mostly involving super lobbyist jack abramoff. this is a scandal that caught up, as some people might remember -- tom delay, known as the hammer, representative and majority leader from texas. scandalse a series of that raised questions about whether or not the house ethics committee could really do the an independent investigation. in 2007, there was a move to create the office of congressional ethics. i testified before a task force in 2007. i testified before a task force in 1997 to create such an office, bring in more independents. you have people that one they

are on the house floor, representatives, and they are going to be members in saying, i have this concern. will you vote for my amendment? will you support what i am doing? the ethics committee, they could go that afternoon and be in there in the ethics committee, trying to pass judgment on the same member they just tried to get to their side. there is a built in conflict of interest. the creation of the office of congressional ethics, which started its work not quite 10 years ago, is just to say, let's take that question of an allegation when it comes in, have an independent investigation, and make a public recommendation as to whether it should go forward or be dismissed, and bring some credibility to the process. a quick snapshot on the house side of things. since 2008, the house ethics committee has recommended just one reprimand, and issued 10 letters of approval. they have publicly impaneled 50

in investigative subcommittees out of 190 investigations begun since the 111th congress. 125 of those cases have been resolved confidentially. nine of those cases were referred to the oce. they are still under review. reporthics blind spot begins with grounding this whole thing. this is a constitutional duty of the bodies of congress -- in other words, to create their own rules. but beyond that, it is almost anything goes. end, as you note, the constitution says the house and the senate are the ones who have the constitutional responsibility to decide who is able, in a sense, to stay in office. there are people that have pushed for having a totally anependent process to set up independent commission. i think that does raise constitutional questions. the creation of this office of congressional ethics was kind of the best answer to say, we need to bring independence into the

process. the investigation should really be done through this body. we recognize the house ethics committee, or in that case the senate ethics committee, in the decidee the power to whether there will be penalties. all that being said, that does not answer a lot of questions about the degree of transparency, the degree of independence, the kinds of penalties that a member of congress or a staffer might incur -- those are all open committeethe ethics has the power to decide. it is important, when you think of the office of congressional ethics, to remember this is a body that is made up of independent voices. there are former members on it. almost every case that they have put forward has gone through on to the ethics committee, when

they have recommended there be further action by the house ethics committee. almost every time, it has been a 6-1 vote. a majority or unanimous vote that this move forward. in a body that is divided between republican and democratic appointees. the: meredith mcgehee is executive director of issue one, talking about the role of the house and senate ethics committees. we invite you to join the conversation. republicansmber for , one for democrats, and one for independents, on your screen. let's go to the independents line first and hear from bill in sebastian, florida. caller: good morning. i would like to ask the guest about the [indiscernible] believe the investigation should be held into kris kobach. and voter suppression.

at theat -- i look appointment of -- the supreme court, and how i think he was pushed through. host: a couple of different issues. gerrymandering obviously coming up this week in the pennsylvania case. a little bit off-topic area but tell us a little bit about the members --hat are on members in a house and particular, elected every two serving representatives back home. serving on the ethics committee is a tough position. guest: it is one of the hardest jobs in congress. a lot of times, you do this if you are a member of congress as a favor to the leadership. everyone recognizes how difficult it is to judge.

and a lot of ways, i would say even the office of congressional ethics is a little bit like the internal affairs department and a police department. you are never going to be popular. i get very concerned when there are repeated efforts to undermine the office of congressional ethics, because you never know if they are going to succeed. if the office of congressional ethics, the independent outside body, was popular inside congress, we would think there was probably a problem. their job is not to be popular. their job is to do a very independent assessment. if you look at being on an ethics committee, it is very hard for those members to be in that conflict, that is why there needs to be transparency and accountability in the process. and keeping that part in the process is a struggle every day, because the natural instinct is to want to circle the wagons and protect each other.

i will quickly note on the gerrymandering question -- i think we are seeing -- we will be seeing a court decision this year from the supreme court. that issue is before the court. the real issue here -- i know many people believe that if you fix gerrymandering, you may change the outcome, may favor the democrats, may favor the republicans. there are states that have republican jerry manders, -- gerrymanders, states that have democratic gerrymanders. every individual has a right for their vote to count. we know the line. voters should choose their elected officials. elected officials should not choose their voters. that is the problem right now. what the court says in the upcoming case, when they have a chance to decide whether or not partisan gerrymandering is constitutional, will provide enormous guidance on that question. the house ethics obviously funded by the house. what about oh cae? where does that budget come

from? guest: that comes from the house. the office of congressional ethics has to be reauthorized every two years. we have seen over the years -- the fight just at the beginning of this congress, there was an attempt to cut the office of congressional ethics. it was slipped in, in the dark of night, the night before a vote on rules for establishing the rules for the 115th congress. billy house, reported that. we got the word out to everyone. even president donald trump at that point tweeted out saying, this does not sound like a very good idea. we beat it back. but that threat remains constant almost every congress. every vote, if there is an opportunity, you have to be vigilant to protect the office. here is an e, fairfax, california, republican line. caller: good morning. this might be a dumb question, but how does the ethics committee relate to the

president? actually, the ethics committee in congress has absolutely no power or jurisdiction over president trump. the office that deals with executive branch ethics issues -- it is a little confusing sometimes. it is called the office of government ethics, oge. and that agency is headed by a director that has a five-year term. i would note on that question, there has been turnover. there has been a new person nominated to replace the acting director. obviously, there have been a lot of -- there has been a lot of discussion of whether or not oge and the requirements they were trying to negotiate with the incoming trump administration officials was working properly. on the oge, the office of government ethics for the executive branch side, congress has not held meaningful

oversight hearings, in my view, of that agency for years. we have put together a package which is available on the issue one website, of the changes we think need to be made on the statutory authority for the office of government ethics, to ensure it has the ability, the capacity, and the statutory authority to conduct ethics investigations and to set the ethics standards that are needed for the executive branch. some of that is just pure legislation. i would note for example the requirements for conflicts of interest, as we have heard during this administration, do not apply to the vice president and president. that is a question that would be revisited. oge is the office that applies those standards to everyone else. host: from new jersey, john, democrats line. caller: how you doing today? guest: good, thank you. host: fine, thank you. caller: i think it is really great what you are doing over

there. hearing the percentages of democrats and republicans is really refreshing. i do believe the bridge between the democrats and republicans is really what is kind of holding this country from moving forward. think barack obama was dealing with this very well. even michelle obama is the first to admit she has a huge [indiscernible] go to new york. independent line. guest: good morning. caller: i want to applaud your group's effort to support the ethical side to add to congress. my question is, i watch c-span and i read and watch the news. a bodywe expect to have like the congress to be full of integrity, to be ethical, when as mentioned, in regards to the ethics