i am not an al franken fan. he is a comedian who never made anybody laugh. he is a writer who never wrote anything worth reading. just went around talking about how he is going to be elected to the senator from minnesota and he got that handed to him. i don't see him doing anything useful. minnesota to me -- absolutely the most stimulating place in america. >> could you not hear that? >> i said minnesota means progressive sir, the farm labor coalition. it is a serious state. i know it is on the verge of socialism. i am so terrified. >> there is a question right here. with the blue shirt. >> the finding your hard to miss norman mailer? >> i was very fond of norman mailer. i can't say i was fond of his writings. i was published in 46 that he was published in 48. we are close contemporaries. there's a nice picture if you like pictures, norman mailer and me in vanity fair. but good journalist -- and the war was heating up and walking around for the great voices of american literature speak against the war in the middle east and so on. and the only three voices f

>> if i may repeat your words, to bring al franken and jim demint together would require an act of godng for it every day. >> you've served with four presidents, starting with bush 41. >> i remember a special moment after the authorization resolution passed. it was a great honor to talk to him and he thanked me. i said, this is an awesome grant of authority to you, mr. president, and i suppose some people would be president that i worry about whether they would handle it as i liked even though i think it's important to get suddam out of kuwait but i don't have any doubt you'll handle it just right. >> bill clinton and you -- i say this -- you were cut from the same ideological clock. >> right. >> you guys were arguably, potentially policy soul mates. fair? >> fair. there's a personal story here. the first time i ran for public office, 1970, i was 27 years old. challenged the incumbent state senator democrat in a primary and bill clinton volunteers on my campaign. >> how is the relationship right now? >> the relationship is a good relationship. i'm very proud of what he did over the yea

these types of software is and also on the hill funny enough probably less than a month ago senator al franken himself was grilling facebook and you know facebook's lawyers over the use of this technology especially the fact that it's not really disclosed to any of the users so in other words as i mentioned before hand you are already submitting to all of this without really knowing the extent plus that what you should really be worried is that data bank because without anything to cross-reference there you go there is nothing so you've seen a little bit but at the end of the day you know does safety trumps your privacy that's sort of the question there and that's one thing you know when you go on facebook especially if you don't have the most secure of settings you're choosing to give up that privacy and i lot of people in younger generations i mean this is just what they have always known they have always known a world with status updates and facebook you know uploading cell phone pictures of the energetic union to where you are at all of these things and you know we make choices to do this

al franken cast the 60th voters. you say voters fraud could have a bigger impact.at way. >> florida has a new program they started to find a lot of noncitizens on the voters roles. they found 50 with a prelimary program of not citizens who voted in the election. whether they will get the voters registration cleaned up by november that is unclear. >> gretchen: they have been sued by the department of justice. i want to point out in the state of georgia, what happened with voters id law. >> it is in place for five years. turn out of africa-american and hispanic went up after the voters id law went in place . increased than in states without the law. we know that all of the claims of suppressing the voters minorities is not true. in indiana, strictest law and who won the state? barack obama. >> gretchen: check out the new book who's counting. hance van presoky. >> thank you. >> gretchen: the number of doctors saying they will not accept patients. and then the accused fort hood shooter refused to shave his beard and the trail was delayed and now there is word of anothe

the 60th vote was presented by senator al franken. and we all know obama care wouldn't have passed if he hadn't been there to provide the vote. it united states turns out his victory march was very, very small out of four million. we now know through a group called minnesota majority that 1100 felons voted illegally in that election. 1100. and 190 of those have been convicted of voting illegally in that election. another 66 in the pipeline. we may get to the point where more people will have been convicted of voting illegally than the margin of victory. >> do you think felons illegally elected franken? >> we don't know for sure how people voted. i know fox news went out and interviewed 10 of those people. 9 of them said they voted for franken. >> it is all in the book. looking forward to seeing you. >> thank you, eric. >> and of course there -- as always, if you expect voter fraud or problems at the poll where you live tell us. there is the address, voter fraud at fox news.com. >> and it has been jammed from what i hear. governer romn

al franken took heart calls up on capitol hill and she ultimately, through his efforts and the efforts of others, was able to bring her case and ultimately get heard. but she has to live with that constantly. so, we have these problems. disclosure and education are solutions. we have to do that. >> we appreciate everyone coming. when you think about how deeply this is integrated into the american story from "to kill a mockingbird" to "12 angry men" to "hot coffee." we think about how much we've got to this idea of an independent judiciary. that remains a great part of the american tradition. we want to thank them deeply for their courage in their profession. [applause] >> the report we put out on the table is the short version of a much longer report with a whole bunch of analysis in different cases. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> in seven days, watch coverage of the republican and democratic conventions live here on c- span, your front-row seat to the convention. next, "q&a" with walter pin

he worked for norm coleman when he successfully challenged his loss to senator al franken.ublican senate committee and the republican congressional committee and advised the swift boat guys in 2004. now ben ginsburg is the lawyer for the romney campaign. he's one of those guys for whom you still might want to set a google alert. when big important things are going on in the republican party, he's usually there on the ground. where is ben ginsburg today? at a rules committee meeting in tampa, pry trying to prevent the republican party from ever again having the ron paul problem they had earlier this year. ron paul supporters used the party political process to win delegates from multiple states. there are almost 200 ron paul delegates at the convention because of that even though he didn't win any states. ben ginsburg just pushed through a new rule that will basically says when a candidates wins a republican party primary or caucus, they get the full dels. they moved up the day romney will be crowned the republican nominee at the roll call that was supposed to happen on wedn

we may get to the point in the al franken race more convicted -- >> you don't like to see things expandtion to these issues putting more money into this process, hiring better people, more people so there's integrity of the system. >> we need more imagine native approaches. something like 65% of our poll workers over the age of 70. we have to train a new generation, should have high school and college kids encouraged to get credit and paid for working at the polls. we do need better electronic voting machines. some concerns about software and transparency. >> all this costs money, right? >> yeah. but it's pennies and i'm not opposed to actually -- 40% of the country believes their votes are not counted accurately or fairly. that is a level of nonconfidence in our system which is toxic. >> that's true. >> but do you think -- i mean obviously in the laws, perhaps, in pennsylvania and elsewhere we've seen this ideological political move from the right to make voter i.d. logs and so forth, is it in your view primarily a question of bungling incompetence, old poll workers or some concerted -

al franken took her calls, through her efforts and the efforts of others was able to -- we have the problems and disclosure and education are the solutions that we have to do that. >> well, we were appreciate everyone coming. i think how deeply it is integrated from the "gill kill a mocking bitter" when you think about how many shows on television are something noble "law and order" or "csi" we value the independ view jew dish area. these are two men that work on that. we want to thank them for their courage and profession. [applause] [inaudible] if you want a full version, you should go to american progress.org. >>> the soviet bear may be gone. there's wolves in the woods. we saw that in saddam hussein invaded cue wait, the mideast mite have become a nuclear powder keg, our energy supply hostic, we did what was right, and what was necessary we destroyed a -- free to people and locked a tyrant in the prison of his own country. >> tonight 10 million of our fellow americans are out of work. tens of billions work harder for lower pay, the incumbent president says unemployment guys up a little b

in 2008, we saw an incumbent, senator norm coleman lose to challenger al franken by a margin of roughly300 votes only to later learned that more than 300 votes had been illegally cast. the outcome of that election gave the senate a democrat supermajority that allowed passage of historically controversial legislation like the affordable health care act of election lines not been broken wood that had happened? elections have consequences. and we continue to see the version of process, the insufficiency of safeguard. i don't know if you read this, but just yesterday and can tacky, there was a lot of news coverage about a new drugs for votes scandal, where people were being paid and drugs for the sale of their votes. reports out of new york, new mexico, virginia, florida, wisconsin, indiana and all reporting different types of frauds, diverting the process in different ways, but all with the same alarming implications. in april of this here come the pew research center released a report that estimated nearly 13% of our nation's voter registry is inaccurate. over 2 million dead voters on the

al franken took her cause up on capital hill and she ultimately -- because through his efforts and thefts of others, was able to bring her case but she has to live with that constantly. so we have these problems, and disclosure and education are the solutions, and we have to do that. >> well, we really appreciate everyone coming. when you think how deeply this is integrated into the american story, from to kill a mocking bird and 12 angry men and hot coffee and the appeal, when we think about how many shows on television are about something noble in law and order or csi, we think of how much we value this idea of an independent judiciary-these are two gentlemen who are fighting to make sure that remains a great part of the american tradition and we want to thank them deeply for joining us today and for their courage in their profession. [applause] >> you can get a copy of the full report oner in for american progress.org. >> coming up, a look at the american technology on the rest of the world. ... ... >> on wednesday, u.s. airways doug parker on his efforts to merge with american airline

he points out in minnesota senator al franken's election was decided by 312 folks, when almost 400 convictedons were found to have voted illegally. your comments? guest: this is where there's a lot of information out there that is misinformation. the study found 400 allegations --felons who voted -- \ / who voted, and they looked into these allegations, and they found 10. they were people under the state law in minnesota where felons cannot vote, and there were some people who had then felons, and maybe they went to the dmv office and given a voter registration form and they did not understand. you get into motivations. were these people that were trying to vote fraudulently, or did they think they were performing good, civic duty? so, if you want to address the felon the voting issue, follow the lead of states, a couple of them, that allow felons to vote. you do not have to restrict voting after people have done their time. there are other ways to approach this than just saying these people should never be able to vote again, which might induce them to feel on wanted it and commit more crim

caller: you mentioned the al franken vote. there was auditing on the election and that there were convictions. voter fraud is an issue and it is a concerning issues. guest: i did not mean to minimize the concerns of people voting should not be voting. i suppose in a close race, that could be a problem. my expertise is voting systems. thousands of votes can be added with a single malfunction, thousands. unless we have good auditing and good balance reconciliation practices in place, you are not going to catch those. that is different band 1, 2, or three people came when there -- than one, too, or three people voting when their registration is taken away because they are a convicted felon. when people have served their time, their voting rights should be restored. host: new haven, connecticut. chris, a democrat. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have seen that the elections from the past. the lbj-kennedy elections were really fraudulent. what really bothers me is that local officials seem to have control of most elections.

that is not true, because the passing of ted kennedy and al franken, there are a lot of them out therewould like to see all of these things gotten rid of. host: thank you. on our democrats line, hello. caller: the comments the congressman made about rape, he was a candidate in the primary. i think he should go on to the election. the people have a choice between him and a democrat who is running against him. my greater concern is for the future of this country after the decision of the supreme court about how corporations are the same as people. and that corporations now have the right to spend billionaire'' money to influence the national election. i think that is a greater danger to the future of this country than any comment that one particular congressman candid it can say. -- candidate can say. host: do you think that will change? caller: i was hoping that would happen already. unfortunately, it does not seem to have done so. i am really worried about that. i was listening to a judge this morning who was active in the nixon campaign as one of his supporters. he was expressing conc

you see senator al franken there sitting behind him. we're going to on the to monitor his remarks.t to share with our viewers right now some new poll numbers, national poll numbers, brianna, that are just coming into "the situation room." this is an nbc/"wall street journal" poll. among registered voters, president obama nationally 48%, mitt romney 44%. quickly, john king, these are consistent with numbers, doesn't show much of a bounceryan, does it? >> it shows you essentially a statistical tie. which tells you the period we're going into it. first the republican convention, then the democratic convention. critical to both candidates in both parties. then you move into debate season and beyond into the stretch. the president, the gender gap, we talk about the todd akin story, republican platform discussion. 51% to 41%, president obama leading governor romney among women. however, among seniors, democrats trying to make a big play on the medicare argument. governor romney continues to lead there 49% to 41%. that's not as big as league as george w. bush had. john mccain won among se

al franken took her cause up on capitol hill and she ultimately, because through his efforts and thefforts of others was being able to bring her case and ultimately get her to achieve got to live with that constantly. so we've got these problems, and disclosure an education are the solutions and we got to do that. >> we really appreciate everyone can i think what you think about how deeply this is integrated into the american story from "to kill a mockingbird," 12 angry men caught coffee, and the appeal we think about how many shows on television are about something as noble, csi, we think about how much we value this idea of an independent judiciary, these are two gentlemen who are fighting to make sure that that remains a great part of the american tradition and we want to thank and deeply for joining us today and for the courage and their profession. [applause] >> the report we put out is the short version. includes a whole bunch of analysis and different cases but if you want a full version of it you should go to american progress.org. thank you. spent coming up on c-span at 1250

al franken took her cause up on capital hill and she ultimately -- because through his efforts and thefts of others, was able to bring her case but she has to live with that constantly. so we have these problems, and disclosure and education are the solutions, and we have to do that. >> well, we really appreciate everyone coming. when you think how deeply this is integrated into the american story, from to kill a mocking bird and 12 angry men and hot coffee and the appeal, when we think about how many shows on television are about something noble in law and order or csi, we think of how much we value this idea of an independent judiciary-these are two gentlemen who are fighting to make sure that remains a great part of the american tradition and we want to thank them deeply for joining us today and for their courage in their profession. [applause]