host: andy kroll?here hisdo know money came from, because in terms of the money he raised or his campaign, it was a record- setting amount. some 700 $15 million in cash hundred $15 million in 2008. we know that the bundlers were also named by the campaign. but the caller is absolutely right. president obama said he would use public financing. he opted out. john mccain longtime advocate of finance reform made an issue around that. that is something we covered in 2012. how much president obama relied on big donors. looking postelection how organizing for action, the rebooted version of the campaign by offeringnors them access to the president. money in politics should apply to president obama without a doubt. we have continued to look at it along the way and will continue to do so and in 2016, we will look at those candidates. hillary clinton, of course, as well. kroll'su can see andy latest piece on "mother jones." behind campbell brown's sneaky outfit? you can see all of the stories on "mother jones."

vanessa we are talking with andy kroll the dark money reporter for "mother jones." thanks for joining us. vanessa are you there? i think we lost vanessa. we will go to mark this morning from acolla florida. mark, good morning. >> caller: good morning guys. i host and andy i loved your level of enthusiasm for seeking out the truth. i am the john kennedy fan and as a child i campaign for bobby after john was shot. i grew up in a lucky household that listen to martin luther king speeches so the first time my uncle at age 18 posted for -- voted for president carter is a young marine. i couldn't wait to get on infantry duty. i was stationed in okinawa and i have a question for andy. i just wanted to give background as a young marine i couldn't wait to get on infantry infantry duty and i ended up in central america in 1978 on honduras and from their couple of years later i ended up in argentina. i learned so much about the world and our domestic economy and what andy talked about actually ties all of this together. concessions of an economic kidnap a john perkins is a gre

good morning, you're on with ndy kroll. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wamented to ask, correct me if i'm wrong, but the stop act. i do not think it passed congress. i think -- is that correct? guest: i think what we ended up with was a neutered version of it in which it did not cover congressional staff or at least that was the latest and that was the most important parts of the advocates. caller: it doesn't surprise me. i remember hearing stories about -- [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> good afternoon, everyone. i hope you're having a good time and making the connections that can help your businesses grow. it is such a privilege for me to introduce our next speaker, president barack obama. i am proud to call him our president and i am honored to call him a dear friend. simply put, the united states has been very lucky to have president obama as our commander in chief for the last five years. in my 27 years in business, i have seen the qualities that make a great leade

andy kroll, really appreciate you coming on the show tonight. thanks for your time. >> thank you. >> now, it's time to see what's trending on al jazeera america website. >> it's something many of us take for granted, and some of us don't even like in our foods but in india, on yuions are essenti. they are to curry as rice is to sushi which is why the rising onion prices india have the people there up in arms. in the last three months alone prices c qu quadrupled. things are so bad that india, the second largest onion grower in the world is turning to pakistan for the vegetable. in september, groupon india had a sale that was so popular, it crashed their website. they were offering about two pounds for 9 rupies or $0.15. now, it's going for up to 10 times as much. it may even play a key role in next month's state assembly elections. it wouldn't be the first time. until 1998, hindu nationalist party was ousted after a surge in onion prices. in 1980, the late leader gandhi retained favor on the back of rising onion prices. they broke down the impor

at 9:00, andy kroll examines money and politics in this year's campaigns. lauryn williams gives us an update on the political battles over william -- women's issues. ♪ host: good morning. it is thursday, october 31, 2013 on this edition of the "washington journal." we will be featuring several reporters and editors from "mother jones" magazine as we put a spotlight on that publication. for we do that, two very different pictures of the new health-care law were painted yesterday with president obama touting the affordable care act in a speech in boston. just hours before that, his health and human services secretary cap points of bilious --

we're right now in the shutdown, we have the debt krolling coming up october 17th with potentially catastrophicces if there is no resolution of the debt ceiling issue before then. so from what i'm hearing you say, is your strategy here, is your strategy to democrats to basically keep this posture, we are not negotiating on this at all and you believe that the political pressure will rise to a certain point that republicans will have to feel the debt -- >> that is the only strategy. now in the end, there is a majority as you said before, there is a majority in the house that would vote to end this right now. you have 20 or 25 republicans, which is more than enough that said publicly they would vote to pass the continuing resolution to fund the government for six weeks at the number which is their number, not the democratic number, which is a terrible number, by the way, one we can't live with, temporarily okay they would do this. there are two ways they can effect effectuate that. they can vote on -- or against the motion on the previous question. if that fails, then the democrats can put a clea

at 9:00, andy kroll examines money and politics in this year's campaigns. lauryn williams gives us an update on the political battles over william -- women's issues. ♪ host: good morning. it is thursday, october 31, 2013 on this edition of the "washington journal." we will be featuring several reporters and editors from "mother jones" magazine as we put a spotlight on that publication. for we do that, two very different pictures of the new health-care law were painted yesterday with president obama touting the affordable care act in a speech in boston. just hours before that, his health and human services secretary cap points of bilious -- health and human services uscretary kathleen sebeli repeatedly told lawmakers to hold her report filed -- to hold her responsible for the heard the rocky start. we are asking viewers whether you think it is appropriate to holder to blame, and who should be held responsible and what should happen next. republicans can call in at (202) 585-3881. democrats --(202) 585-3880. independents, (202) 585-3882. if you are outside th

the length of the debt krolling is house is proposeing is much shorter than the senate t.enate is saying let's extend it to the end of january. the house is saying six weeks. there is a difference there. do you see these things, can they reconcile this? >> they may not be able to reconcile it. it may be the senate approach here that gets shut down speaker boehner's throat. i'm sorry to use such -- why did lindsey graham come out of john boehner's office with chambliss, lindsey graham is one of the republican senators saying all along this is a stupid idea, why are we are doing this? he will come out and say we have a deal in 24 hours. he is trying to put the thumbs on the scales to get the house to agree. >> is the modem for somebody like lindsey graham is thinking of, what happened with the fiscal cliff where john boehner's house couldn't get the act together. the senate had to put it on the floor? >> even further back the fiscal cliff, go to 2011, super committee debt reduction deals and the names we haven't mentioned yet, which is mitch mcconnell, which had been in a si

kroll -- ndy washington journal is live every morning starting at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> thursdayhearing before the senate foreign relations committee. >> i never expected to write an entire book on cancer until i was diagnosed at a relatively young age. i was astonished at how different i thought i was, how different a was going through treatment than what i had heard about, that what i expect the cancer to be. it to be a well oiled aboute, where people knew my particular cancer. i found something different. i couldn't help but write about it. >> a cancer survivor explores the economic impact of cancer on american society. >> kathleen sebelius apologized wednesday for what she calls the low -- slow rollout of the health care website. she testified for >> good morning, everyone. let the cameras -- good morning. energy and commerce committee welcomes the president's point person on health care, secretary sebelius, as part of our continuing oversight of the health care law. we look forward to a thoughtful conversation on a number of issues including transparency and fairness. over t

40s, lowest numbers of his presidency, you take the shutdown now and what's coming with the debt krolling coming up, to republican, not the entire party, but a couple of republicans of the senate that made this her to calling card, some house member was are calling republicans in the senate, history is going to be pretty clear that they did more to hurt their own party than anybody in a long time. i can't think of a parallel. i really can't think of a parallel. >> i don't think there is a parallel. a couple of republican senators. one republican senator specifically basically acted the as speaker of the house if controlling the small caucus of republicans in the house that disrupt the function of government and i would imagine, sam stein, that there must be a level of feeling inadequacy within the congress. i mean, people i think in this country foley that we are at a point where perhaps we are a government given the behavior of both parties in washington and i am wondering how much has seeped down into the elected representatives that you speak to. >> very much. so i would survey everyon

. >> so what's the best way to end this thing without raising the debt krolling, with or without defaultingt? >> first of all, there is zero chance the u.s. will default on its dent it's unfortunate, people have not completed this idea of this debt ceiling without defaulting on our debt. we bring in tax ref few 12 times as much money to pay our interest on our debt. there is no way any treasury secretary or administration would willfully choose to have the catastrophic defaults occur when it's not necessary. so this is pretty well understood in financial circles. you see treasury provides have barely moved. i have legislation that would codify and formalize the obligation to make sure under no circumstances we would default on our debt. interestingly, the white house threatened to veto it precisely because they want to be able to hold the specter of a catastrophe in front of republicans to tell us and intimidate us into giving the president what he wants, which is a whole lot of additional borrowing authority with no reforms whatsoever. i think that's irresponsible. >> i can't agree with yo