that is just true of who refugees are. i would go back to the data we have rather than just relying on antidotes that we hear. the data suggests that refugees are an economic benefit to the united states and of a pay more -- and they pay more in than they take out. i also think our responsibility to people fleeing war and persecution in the world should supersede the idea that these people are looking for handouts or things of that nature. or that if a refugee is pregnant, we should look up more harshly at her persecution or her need to find refuge simply because we are concerned about the potential of our using public benefit. host: adam bates, joining us for discussion on refugees and united states, thank you for your time. guest: thank you very much. shortly,: starting

live coverage on c-span as former vice president joe biden will talk about the search for a cure for cancer. this coverage from the biting cancer initiative summit in washington, d.c. scheduled to start shortly. before we hear from the former vice president, we will take a look at some of today's washington journal. michael are joined by aten. he is their manager of research investigations and policy analysis. a new body of work taking a look at this topic of dark money, especially its use and campaigns. good morning to you. before we start into the details, defined dark money. dark money and politics means secret money. organizations,e secretive organizations that are spending tens of millions of dollars in elections without disclosing their donors. that is really what we mean by dark money. host: had we get to the point where these organizations can do that without disclosure? guest: the world changed dramatically in 2010 when the supreme court issued the

citizens united versus federal election commission ruling. if you are a candidate running for office or a political party or political action committee, one of the rules of the road is you have to disclose your donors. voters can assess candidates based on where they are getting their money from. which might see industries or interest groups are helping fund a candidate. that is helpful information for voters to be able to assess those connections. l information. after citizens united, there were corporations including nonprofit corporations that were allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertisements that expressly calls for the election of candidates. registered those are and these are social welfare organizations or trade associations by law that generally do not disclose their donors.

people are being bombarded by ads that they do not know the providence of who is paying for them. host: organizations and dark money, what is the main take , the line thatay gets people the most? guest: there's been an explosion of dark money. more than $18 million has been spent by all of these dark money groups. our new analysis found that the top 15 organizations account for 75% of that surge of secret money and elections. we were really shocked that it was such a concentrated play. e groups that are supporting democrats, republicans, neither side want to be left behind and we have seen a surge of opaque organizations now active in election after election, year

after year at, and most of the 15 organizations are still active in the 2018 midterms. host: if you have questions for our guest about this topic, his investigation, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans, independents (202) 748-8002. you said 15 organizations, the top of the list, the u.s. chamber of commerce. how much of their interest in getting this money? guest: the chamber of commerce plays in politics in a number of different ways. they have a political action as theee and they ranked number one dark money spender since citizens united. the chamber alone has spent about $130 million on ads that are independent of any candidate. helping gore criticizing a candidate and a report the spending to the federal election commission, and the chamber accounted for about

a one dollar and every six dollars of dark money spending. dog on thise top list, and they advocate for a lot of different business interests. they were the number one spender -- the number two spender on that list at $110 million was crossroads gps, one of the biggest nonprofits that formed in the wake of citizens united. this was put together by a handful of republican operatives to support republican candidates. at the time they formed, they had a sister super pac called american crossroads and then this dark money groups and parts because donors were telling them, they want an avenue to be involved in elections but not have their name attached. four.formed a 501(c) fou

host: so the americans for prosperity -- guest: that organization is connected to the network of billionaire industrialists charles and david coke, it has emerged as a very big player in the post of citizens united worrall and has been active in the still active in a number of elections. unitedhe post citizens world and has been active and is still active in a number of elections. they fell one this list -- guest: about two thirds of the were conservative and republican leading and one third -- democratic leading meaning. -- leaning. , thereriot majority usa were groups that exclusively supported democrats when they were spending in politics. the dangersot about

of dark money and the evils of dark money, but there are operatives on both sides of the aisle who do not want to be left toind and they want fight fire with fire and they are trying to use every arrow and that includes forming dark money groups to support democratic or republican candidates and one of the main thrusts of this report is that at the federal level and state level, politicians are getting frustrated with this dark money. citizens are getting frustrated with the spending, and there are bipartisan concerns and solutions. host: you talk about the idea of the difficulty of transparency. how did you connect the dots to come up with names and figures? guest: all of the spending is reported to the federal election commission. we analyzed the data that was , and we werehe fec able to look at this list to

come up with the 15 biggest players. these 15 organizations do not disclose their donors. we have figured out that there are a number of backdoor avenues that sometimes you can find information about who is funding these groups through obscure public records. the research team at issue one look at filings with the department of labor, the internal revenue service, the fec, and a number of other records to try and figure out do we know percentages of the money coming into these groups, and over the course of a year, we cataloged every transaction that we could find. ultimately published a searchable database online that contains about 1200 records from about 400 unique donors and the donor organizations.

these donors contributed about $760 million to these 15 organizations over the last eight years or so. that only represent one in every nine dollars that these groups have raised. a dollars of every nine dollars, the public has no idea what that money is coming from. is still darky the spite our best efforts are trying to understand the sources. information, and our guest referred to it, issueone.org, this research is available in a searchable form. michael beckel is here to talk about it. our first call comes from tom on the independent line. caller: good morning. one of the most important things for you people to illustrate is how many people get influenced by these dark money ads and fail heck it is where the

coming from. for example, there is a national touting howpe ads wonderful a man brett kavanaugh is. this is for a supreme court justice, it is like he is running for president or something. the next question, common people -- how many people are too lazy to bother looking into it, whether or not they question the depth of the insular our guest referred to it, issueone.org, overall, talk about the dark money. guest: thank you for that question. in of the things that we see so many of the ads that people are being bombarded with is that

people are not necessarily aware of who patriot majority usa is or americans for prosperity. many of the groups on the top 15 list have names that are not household names and the new groups are forming all the time postive connotations that people see these and they want to trust them because they do not know, are they being funded by liberals or conservatives, are they being funded by special interests or not, and we see that over and over again. the research says if you are a viewer that does not have any connotation our preconceived judgments, you are going to trust that message more than if he saw that ad with a group that you had a negative connotation with already. that is why you see groups constantly branding themselves with positive and uplifting sounding names and it speaks to

the fact that we think there should be more transparency for these dark money ads. with more transparency, voters would have more information to address more credibility and assess the information they are seeing. host: bill in south dakota. caller: yes, i am calling to ask if your guest has never read the book "the intimidation game." by author argues that opening up people to threats of themidation -- she notes in 1960's, the naacp had to list donorsonors, and the may be up to threats for people who did not the -- did not agree with the naacp.

it is a way to undermine free speech. guest: thank you for that question. gain, whene and time a it comes to the most political of activities, there are rules say candidates need to disclose their donors, the spenders of these overt political advertisements need to helpsse donors, and that people assess the information that they are seeing in tv ads. we know the supreme court has said repeatedly that transparency helps the public assess the information they see in these ads. they want the public to be a will to assess the credibility of the message and the messenger. one of the things that former supreme court justice antonin scalia said was that when it comes to per -- to

publicpation in the arena like this, speaking out for your viewpoint that demonstrates the courage and having that engagement makes america the home of the brave and the land of the free. being able to get up in public and defend your beliefs and that basic tenant is something that liberal justices and conservative justices on the supreme court have supported. host: oscar in virginia, democrat line. caller: hi, good morning. i want to ask a question and i have a comment. when citizens united back in 2010, what is their relationship partyht -- with the tea -- when i came around, with the tea party affiliated or had any donations like ted cruz? thatecondly, my comment is

, religion. scalia was trying to separate -- separation of state and church. we had a lot of christians. week said i amt not religious, i am christian. host: we will leave it there. guest: to your first question, 010, a lot was changing and a lot was happening. you had the citizens united decision from the supreme court groups on you had the right and left trying to take advantage of these new campaign-finance rules. of conservative groups, some affiliated with the tea party and do some not, and a host of liberal groups that were andciated with candidates

everyone was trying to make sense of these new rules and take advantage of the contours of the way campaign spending was changing. usa on patriot majority the left or americans for prosperity on the right trying to adapt to the new landscape. our report goes into the fact that you have liberal groups and conservative groups who have tried to take advantage of this ruling over the last eight years. one of the other things we found was that regardless of whether it was a liberal group or most darkve group, money organizations were spending overwhelmingly on attack ads. some of the worst of the worst that were poisoning our politics. 14 of the 15 groups on our than half of their spending on political ads went to negative ads. in six cases, more than 90% of their ads were negative attack ads. that was another huge key take

away of this report. host: of you are off of twitter talking about the unions and whether they have a role in this. guest: they definitely do. the report details a number of liberal groups, conservative groups, and donors to the organizations. ultimately, labor unions are funding some of the biggest dark money groups. our report found over $13 million from labor unions like the national education association, ask me, and we searchable in the database that you can find at issueone.org. democratic groups traditionally have received money from labor unions and some of the biggest dark money groups on the left are getting money from labor unions. we found money from labor unions, trade associations, publicly traded companies, and

all that is outlined in this database that is searchable and available. florida,y ellen in independent. caller: my question is that our campaign-finance laws it seems to be antiquated. when we have facebook and google with the ability to sway public opinion towards one ideology or another, however, they are not covered by the campaign finance laws. the other question i have is about transparency. we know that people who were involved with the tea party were actually targeted by our own government, by the obama administration irs. there is a point to be made that perhaps having some privacy might be a good thing because your own government could use

political affiliation against you to investigate you for the irs. industryhe technology has not been addressed as far as campaign-finance laws and that is really dark money. host: thanks, caller. guest: thank you for that question. one of the things we have been focused a lot on his how to make sure that the 21st century campaign environment keeps up with the laws and regulations. we know there is bipartisan support for it a bill called the honest ads act that would address a lot of those questions about facebook, twitter, google, and the ads people take out. we want to make sure there are not foreign actors using those influencetforms to our elections and we know there is bipartisan support in congress for that commonsense legislation. the other prong of that

question, one of the central this report was that 15 organizations have accounted for so much of the dark money spending in elections. the teawent through party targeting scandal a few years ago, it was unfortunate that so many citizen groups got weret up and these organizations, some of which you were trying to get tax-exempt status under 501(c)(3), charity like the red cross, and some were trying to get tax-exempt which isder 501(c)(4) the social welfare designation so groups can be more politically act this -- politically active. asked different questions of different 501(c)(3) organizations, 501(c)(4) organizations, groups on the left and the rights, when they

apply for the tax statuses. one of the things that we came back to was how rare really the irs took action against any of these major political players who have been spending tens of millions of dollars are hundreds of millions of dollars in our elections. we found one example in arkansas , there was a group that the irs said was to political for .ax-exempt status by 501(c)(4) it had spent over a million dollars helping out the senate democrats who is running for reelection in that state, and they told irs that they got 45.9% of their spending was political in nature. 501(c)(4),on is a you can not primarily be involved in elections. they had a very aggressive interpretation in that. the irs said, no, 85% of your spending was during the election periods, and they revoked the

group's tax-exempt status. these are the types of aestions that the irs is in position to answer, and we raise the fact that these organizations have accounted so much of the political spending and a driving political spending. whatever regulatory decisions are being implemented should take this pattern into account. host: the legal decisions on this matter are reflected in the editorial of the "washington post." the ruling that dark money ofups can hide the identity donors. -- added added to that the supreme court refused to block the decision. number ofknow that a the groups are top 15 list have complaints filed against them with the federal election

commission alleging that they are masquerading as a nonprofit when they should be registering as a political committee and disclosing their donors and so the public can assess who is bankrolling these ads. one example of that was crossroads gps. deadlocked 3-3 on whether to require them to have some additional disclosure. in the wake of that, there was a lawsuit filed by another watchdog organization and that has been proceeding through the courts of justice week, the supreme court -- through the courtd. -- that has been proceeding through the courts. ruledhis week, the court and there was a big win for transparency that people are going to know more information about who is bankrolling the political expenditures of these organizations regardless of whether their primary purpose is

social welfare. if they are spending big bucks on politics, the public has a right to know who is funding those ads. the lawsuit is ongoing. this was a big win for transparency. host: let's hear from anne in washington dc, democrat. caller: good morning. i do not know if most americans know, but i remember when the president obama castigated the supreme court at the state of the union address. what is the reason that the supreme court allowed this n ondisclosure? from a commonsense point of view, it seems to be an awful thing for you -- thing. why would they choose to put the american public at risk in a political life like that? guest: thank you for the question.

one of the things we outlined in the report is that the citizens united ruling did two different things. they created this avenue for corporations including certain nonprofit corporations that do not disclose their donors, to spend without limit in elections. at the same time, part of the citizens united ruling was decision in8-1 favor of transparency. you had justice kennedy writing for majority opinion that we live in this internet age it will be disclosed in real-time and shareholders and the public could evaluate it. report,he things in our that is not to disclosure rules. it took us a year and we were only able to account for one dollar and every nine dollars that these groups are raising. the transparency rules that we

have in place are not adequate to capture most of the eight information that the public needs -- most of the information that the public needs to assess these ads. we want to help the public get more information about who is monitoring them with all of the attack ads. host: more information is available at issueone.org. michael beckel announcer: you can follow -- all of c-span washington journal segments online at www.c-span.org. former vice c-span, president joe biden expected at the biting cancer initiative summit being held and washington, d.c. he will be talking about the search for a cure for cancer. running a bit behind schedule, it was supposed to start about 30 minutes ago p we will wait here for the former vice president to arrive.

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hello, again. hello. thank you. that was awesome. how about another round of applause for zoe keady, how amazing? [applause] believe -- today, i discovered the secret to joe biden's success. and that is that he has a fabulous group of women surrounding him.