Transcripts For CSPAN Morning Hour 20150316

The majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. The chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip limited to five minutes. But in no event shall debate continue beyond 1 50 p. M. The chair recognizes the gentlewoman from indiana, mrs. Brooks, for five minutes. Mrs. Brooks i ask unanimous consent to address the chamber for up to five minutes. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mrs. Brooks thank you, mr. Speaker. I rise today to discuss the sobering but extremely consequential topic of christian persecution. Last week i had the honor of visiting with more than 100 parishioners at st. Al fon as Catholic Church in zionsville indiana. Including many Interested High School students who shared with me their passionate concerns about the senseless persecution of their christian brethren. Through the churchs social action committee, they wanted to know how a small faithful community could make a difference in bringing attention to this commonly overlooked matter. However, they wondered if their cries for mercy were falling on deaf ears in washington. They felt helpless in bringing to light the barbarity torture, and Living Conditions that christians in places like iran endure. The parishioners felt that too often horrendous massacres are met with isolationism and arguments that its not americas job to promote human rights beyond our shores. Today i want to let the people of st. An fon sews and all those who seek to give the voice of the silent victims of religious perfection cution know i hear you and others in washington, d. C. Do as well. I believe that america must reassume its leadership role in protecting those most destitute and downtrodden. That American Leadership in the world should advance not only our National Interest but also the interest of those who yearn for freedom across the globe. That christians who have to shield their faith for fear of crucifixion or beheldings have beheadings have an ally in america, an ally who will fight for the dignity of all mankind. Incidents of persecution of christians more than double in 2014 alone. I wish i could say i was surprised by this increase, but im not. I think this is part of a larger trend in the globe. The world we live in is remarkably unstable right now. People lack security. Too many regions of our world are fending off the rise of groups that espouse extremely radical ideologies. Groups that hate this nation. Groups that often hate all other religions. Groups that feed off of destruction and fofert groups that value violence over peace. Groups that are clearly not a true or worthy representation of the religions they claim as their own. The parishioners at st. Alfonsos church asked me what we can do. I told them America First needs a smart plan because the threats christians face is significant and not going away. The United States must work with free nations across the globe to reaffirm a simple but important message, human rights are not negotiable. Countries dont get to pick and choose which rights they allow and which ones they deny. We also need to work more locally to raise awareness for the specific issue of christian persecutions. There must be a strong grassroots element to this effort. Each month approximately 180 christians are killed across the globe because of their faith. Thats a startling number. In america, a country where its so easy to take our freedoms for granted its easy to not notice the pain and suffering of others. But we must. And i know we are a truly generous and kind. When japanese communities were torn apart by a massive tsunami in 2009 americans mobilized, donate more than 700 million in charitable relief. Americans always answer the call when people are suffering. Today, theres clearly a tsunami of hatred. Sweeping parts of the world and there are people who need our help. So churches and other groups with a concern for their fellow christians and all global citizens need to take a stand. Like those at st. Alfonsos have, christians and people of all faiths across this nation need to reach out to their elected officials and let them know of the tragic persecution of christians that it deserves attention. The religious freedom is a value we must defend and promote. Only then will everyone in this body know what was foretold in matthew, that blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for they are seeking the kingdom of heaven. Let us work to bring that kingdom of heaven closer to earth. Thank you. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman yields back the balance of her time. Pursuant to clause is it 12a of rule 1 the chair declares the house in recess we will check in with mike, congressional reporter for the hill. Guest thank you for having me. Host the posturing in washington about iran how do you see things taking shape in town this week as negotiations continue . Guest this is, the letter started a fire. Everybody is still talking about it. A lot of support for the letter and a lot of blowback on the republican side. Senators who signed it seemed to be regretting or walking back some of their support for signing the letter to the iranian leaders. The question is how is this going to affect legislation on the floor . This goes back to the sanctions debate. This was always a bipartisan push. There were a lot of democrats on both sides of the aisle who want tougher sanctions and they are even ignoring obamas calls not to use legislation well he was negotiating. That changed when john boehner asked Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of israel, to speak. Wendy politics of that got involved especially in the senate, democrats said this is going to become so political. We are going to stop pushing for sanctions to allow space for obama to negotiate. Mr. Mcconnell is saying he wants to bring something to the floor. We are in the middle of the debate over Human Trafficking and the Loretta Lynch nomination for attorney general. We are not sure when that would have time to come to the floor. There is this conflict now between do we do sanctions, do we get obama the space, it has become a very partisan issue. In the past, it was not. Host you mentioned Loretta Lynch. We thought a vote or debate was coming this week. The majority leader changed course over the weekend. One of the headline says the Human Trafficking bill stands in the way of the pic for attorney general. First, are theese two issues related . Guest not at all. Two Different Things happening. The fight over Human Trafficking, this was another bill that was bipartisan and supposed to sail through. Everybody thought it would come to the floor and be a done deal and they could move on to Loretta Lynch. What happened late last week democrats discovered an antiabortion provision in the republican bill, it was not in the house passed bill. They say they were caught offguard. Republicans say it was in there all along. There has been that debate happening. The crux of it is it does not seem like the bill now has the 60 votes needed to pass it through the senate and mcconnell went on tv yesterday and said we are not going to move to the Loretto Lynch vote until they can break the impasse over the Human Trafficking bill. So it is tough to say how that is going to end. Are republicans going to pull the language out sit on it and hope they can get democratic votes to pass it . We do not know how that is going to play out. We will know soon enough, Tuesday Morning is the coach or vote Tuesday Morning is the cloture vote on the Human Trafficking bill. Host how are the votes lining up for Loretto Lynch . Guest the expectation is that she will be approved. 3 republicans voted her out of committee, a good sign. The fact that there is a lot of opposition is not good for her or the white house. In testimony before the Senate Committee last month, she was asked pointedly by a lot of republicans whether or not she supported president obamas executive actions on deportations and immigration and she said explicitly that she supported it. So the backlash from republicans has been pretty severe. We do anticipate a lot of republican no votes but probably not enough to sink her. We expect her to become the next attorney general is a question of when. Host mike lillis, lets talk about the budget. Reading that the gop will lay out it Budget Priorities this week. Re looking for two . What are we looking forward to . Guest the senate is controlled by republicans for the first time is 8 years. Over that time, they went after democrats for not putting forward annual budget. It became a talking point. And a lot of pressure to bring a bill that balances the budget over a decade to the floor and to pass it and unite it with ehousepassed bill. With a housepassed bill. Two things, in 2011 they pass the budget control act and set caps on domestic and defense spending. Theres a Deficit Reduction Group on the republican side that wants to keep this caps on place and thinks they are important for the health of the economy. Then you have defense talks on the republican side who want more money for the military. That battle is going to happen internally within the party. People who want to lift a sequestration caps on are ready to deal with democrats to do so, democrats want to lift domestic spending to other programs which is anathema to a lot of conservatives. House republicans in the past they have had control of the house in the past four years unlike the senate. They have put for these types of proposals, paul ryan was chairman of the Budget Committee and he made specific cuts to entitlement programs medicare and medicaid. That was part of his messaging strategy. He is the policy wonk and he was the Vice President ial candidate. There were political reasons for him to do that. We do not expect Senate Republicans to do the same thing, they just want a topline number and date want to let committees who have jurisdictions make specific cuts. I think you will see a little bit of a division between the house and the senate in terms of how they go about proposing these cuts. This is a bill that just sets topline numbers, it does not go to the president. It is not an appropriations bill. We will see what happens but that is going to be the big fight this week. The start of the big fight. They want to pass these things before easter recess. Host yesterday texas senator ted cruz was in lincoln, New Hampshire and spoke on a range of issues including isis, education, tax reform. [applause] senator cruz well, thank you very much. Thank yall for coming out. God bless the great state of New Hampshire. [applause] i spent all of last week down in washington, d. C. So it is great to be back in america. [laughter] now, jennifer, i enjoyed hearing you said that you thought New Hampshire was ready for hillary. Im actually told that they tried to get hillary to speak. Unfortunately, they couldnt find a foreign nation to foot the bill. But i will say weve seen some exciting news. Ready for hillary has announced their new director of email security. Lois lerner now has a job. [applause] im thrilled to be back in New Hampshire with so many friends. I appreciate yall being here. These are extraordinary times. Theyre remarkable times. Every one of us is here, we came out tonight because were deeply concerned about the direction of this country. Every one of us is here because were concerned about our kids and grandkids. There is right now i think an urgency to politics unlike anything any of us have ever seen before. This next election in 2016, i believe it is now or never. I dont think weve reached the point of no return yet but we are close. There comes a point where the holes too deep. There comes a point where the debt is too great, where our liberties have been too far eroded, where the world is too far gone, and i believe if we continue four or eight more years down this current path we will risk losing the greatest country in the history of the world. Now, the men and women here are assembled because none of us are willing to let that happen. None of us are willing to go quietly into the night. None of us are willing to let go and give up on the United States of america. [applause] you know, to underscore how extraordinary this moment is, today for the first time in history a majority of americans, 65 , believe that our kids will have a worse life than we did. I want you to think about that. In centuries of our nations history, that has never been true until right now this instance. It may be the noes unamerican idea has ever been. The basic american ideal back in the 1700s and today has been that our kids would have a better life than we did and their kids would have a better life than they did. Theres something extraordinary. So i want to talk to yall about how we turn that around and i want to come to you with a voice of hope and optimism. I think the central challenge in this country in 2016 and Going Forward is how do we reignite the miracle that is america, and i want to suggest we need to do three things to make that happen. Number one bring back jobs and growth and opportunity. My number one priority since showing up in the senate has been Economic Growth, because Economic Growth is foundational to every thing else and i can tell you across the state of texas it doesnt matter if youre in east texas or west texas or the panhandle or the valuey the top priority is jobs and growth. And that ought to be a bipartisan priority. That ought to bring us all together and say, look, regardless of what we think on other issues, if we have Small Businesses pros perg and growing and creating prospering and growing and creating jobs and opportunity, that lifts all ships. Now, everyone here knows growth doesnt come from government. Government comes from the men and women in this room, from the private sector. The government is awfully good at screwing it up. [applause] and the two most effective levers that government has to facilitate the private sector, to facilitate Small Businesses creating jobs are tax reform and regulatory reform. Now, tax reform, right now the current i. R. S. Code, you know there are more codes in the i. R. S. Code than in the bible. Not a one of them is good. Ill tell you the best and simplest tax reform. We should abolish the i. R. S. [cheers and applause] we should move to a simple flat tax thats fair and that less every american fill out their taxes on a postcard. We need to padlock the i. R. S. Building and put all 110,000 agents on our southern border. [applause] now, i say that somewhat tongue in cheek to our friends who are with us, but i want you to think for a second. Imagine you had traveled thousands of miles in the blazing sun, imagine youre swimming across the rio grande and the first thing you see is 110,000 i. R. S. Agents [laughter] youd turn around and go home too. [applause] and when it comes to regulatory reform, we have seen over the last six years federal regulators descending on Small Businesses like locusts. I was out one time in west texas and i said the only difference is you cant use pesticide on the regulators. And an old texas farmer looked at me and said, wanna bet. I got to admit, that kind of seems like an attitude folks here in the North Country would understand. The single most important regulatory reform, we need to repeal every word of obamacare. [cheers and applause] look, obamacare is a train wreck. It is a disaster. Five years ago maybe reasonable minds could have differ on whether this could have worked. Today we have seen millions of people lose their jobs millions of people forced into a parttime work millions of people lose their Health Insurance, lose their doctors, pay higher and higher insurance premiums. You know, some months ago i was in nebraska. The big rally out in north plat, nebraska where 1,000 people in the countryside out in north plat, a young woman came up to me and hugged my neck. She said ted, im a single mom. She said, i got six kids at home. My husband left me and hes not paying child support. She said, im right now working five different jobs. Neither one of them is even 30 hours a week because obamacare kicks in at 30 hours a week. She started to choke up. She said, im having a hard time keeping clothes on the backs of my kids, but the single hardest thing is i never get to see my kids. I got from job to job to job and they dont get the mom that they need and they deserve. Look, thats who were fighting for. Thats who obamacare is hurting. Its the people who are struggling to achieve a better life. Our First Priority needs to be to bring back jobs and growth and opportunity. Our second priority is to defend our constitutional liberties. [applause] all of them, the first amendment, the right to free speech. You know the i. R. S. Has been demanding of citizen groups, tell us what books youre reading. Tell us the content of your prayers. You know what, the federal government has no business asking any american the content of our prayers. [applause] you look at the assault on religious liberty that every one of us is seeing. Sadly, it was manifested in my hometown of houston when just a few months ago the city of houston subpoenaed five pastors. Issued subpoenas to the pastors to hand over their sermons. Now, i got to know. Listen, if we had gone out and said if i had gone out on fox news and said, the government will come out and subpoena pastors theyd dismiss me as some black helicopter conspiracy kook and there there was the city of houston asking pastors to send over their sermons and notes and any correspondence over their sermons. Well let me tell you a story that will lift you up. Heidi and i are members of First Baptist church in houston. I called our pastor, pastor greg. You seen what happened . He said, oh, yeah. Ive seen what happened. Ive been praying about it all morning. I said, well, tomorrow we want to organize a rally of pastors throughout the city of houston to stand for religious liberty. Wed like to do it tomorrow thursday, at 11 00 a. M. And i wanted to ask you if its ok to do it at the church. Wed like to host of rally for pastors there. My pastor began laughing. He said, you know, ted scriptture says god has ordered our steps long before we are aware of it. A month ago, he says god put on my heart we needed to pray for our city so i reached out and i invited pastors from all over the city to come pray for the city. There are 50 pastors coming to my office tomorrow at 10 00 a. M. [applause] i got to tell you, that was powerful. I mean were both sitting there going, wow. So at 10 00 a. M. I joined the pastors and we dropped to our knees. We prayed for our city for an hour. Then we went down to a rally of 50 pastors across cerebral and ethnic lines socioeconomic lines, 50 pastors. I mean, we even had First Baptist and second baptist together. That aint easy. But we stood together and said caesar has no jurisdiction over the pull pip. And when you pulpit. And when you subpoena one pastor you subpoena every pastor and i tell you the light and health and attention that came down on the city of houston was so intense that within a week the city withdrew the subpoenas and abandoned the challenge altogether. [applause] were a country that was founded on religious liberty, and the federal government should not be coming after it. We need to defend the Second Amendment. Nobody here likes the Second Amendment . [applause] look i was going to say, i dont believe that for a minute. Im pretty sure New Hampshires definition of gun control is kind of like what it is in texas. Gun control means hitting what you aim at. [applause] we need to defend the fourth and fifth amendment our right to privacy. [applause] how many of yall have your cell phones . Let me ask you. Please leave your cell phones on. I want to make sure that president obama hears every word we say. We need to defend the 10th amendment. [applause] or as president obama calls it, the what . The fundamental protection that says the power is not given to the government federal government are reserved to the states or to the people. That means there are certain Core Functions the federal government is given that it needs to do well. We need to protect our nation. We need to support the armed forces. We need to secure the border. But there are certain functions the federal government has no business sticking its nose in the middle of and right at the top of that list is education. [applause] and we need to repeal every word of common core. [applause] besides, we have a common core in this country. Its called the constitution of the United States. [applause] the third thing we need to do is restore americas leadership in the world. You know, for six years we have seen the consequences of the obamaclinton foreign policy. Leading from behind is a manifest of disaster. Over the last six years, america has receded its leadership in the world. We have abandoned our friends and allies. And our enemies no longer fear or respect us. You cannot win a war on radical islamic terrorism with a president who is unwilling to utter the words radical islamic terrorism. [applause] you know, just a few weeks ago following the horrific terrorist attack in paris, president obama described an attack is a random act of violence. When a radical islamist goes into a kosher deli with a meat cleaver seeking to murder jews because of their jewish faith, there is nothing random about it. Likewise just a few weeks ago when 21 christians in egypt were beheaded, the white house said that 21 citizens had been murdered because of their egyptian citizenship. They werent murdered because they were egyptian. They were murdered because of their christian faith. Pope francis powerfully said, their blood confesses jesus christ. [applause] and the single gravest threat facing the National Security of America Today is the threat of Iran Acquiring Nuclear Weapons. [applause] now, two weeks ago i was honored to sit on the floor of the house of representatives and listen to israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who gave an extraordinary address before congress. I have to say walking out what struck me is that we are hearing echos of history. We are hearing echos of munich in 1938. And the adjective thats been most frequently applied to Prime Minister netanyahu is churchillian because hes speaking with a clarity and a moral gravity, at least a dozen members of Congress Said to me after his remarks, that is what a real leader sounds like. [applause] now, instead of grade greething our friend and ally, instead of standing with israel, the white house threw a temper tantrum. The president refused to speak to the Prime Minister. He said he didnt even watch the speech. I got to say, heidi and i, we have a 4yearold and 6yearold. Im kind of familiar with the strategy of, i cant hear you. The president of the United States ought to be above that. And then this past week i was proud to join with 46 other senators in sending a letter to iran. [applause] now, im not sure about it, but i kind of get the sense the white house is upset about it. The president publicly said he was embarrassed for the 47 senators. I got to admit, i was like, hot diggityy damn, he can be embarrassed by something. Who knew. You know watching the hysterical reaction of the president and the democrats invokes the words of shakespeare. Me think she does protest too much. The 47 of us who joined in that letter, what did it say . The letter to iran conveyed a very straightforward fact that under our constitution there are only two ways something can become a law. Either the president can negotiate a treaty that he then submits to the senate and it is ratified by 2 3 of the senate or congress can pass a law that the president signs into law. Those are the only two ways to make a law. If the president doesnt submit it to congress, any agreement is not binding on the United States of america. Now, you know, it really is a sad thing that such a letter was necessary. How many are is there anyone here in junior high . [laughter] all right. Well go high school . All right, high school. Yall are taught ok. Yall are taught in high school, the constitution, that a treaty, to become a treaty has to go to the senate and get confirmed by 2 3 of the senate. Theyre nodding. Ok. Youre definitely nodding. Youre nodding emphatically. President obama has been the most lawless president this country has ever seen. Why did that letter prove necessary . Because the president has repeatedly said hes not going to follow the understanding of the constitution that any student in junior high or High School Civics had. Instead, hes going to refuse to send this deal to iran for ratification. Now, its lawless and its why it prompted a lettory make clear the constitution is still the law in the United States of america. [applause] now, the followup from the white house in response to 47 senators saying, follow the constitution, the white house is now floating that instead the president is going to take this lousy deal with iran that only accelerates Iran Acquiring Nuclear Weapons ok. That was eric holder. [laughter] the administration is very unhappy with this line of argument. Instead of submitting it to congress, the white house is saying theyre going to go to the United Nations. To try to end run congress and the American People. Irans foreign minister in response to this letter issued a letter on International Law. Dont you understand International Law binds nations and if the president agrees there is nothing you can do about it. Well, i will note this is a topic that i happen to have more than a little bit of history with. Before i was elected to the senate i was the solicitor general of the state of texas. The chief lawyer for the state in front of the United States Supreme Court. I served in that role 5 1 2 years and over and over again, texas led the nation defending conservative principles before the u. S. Supreme court. [applause] we defended the 10 commandants monument on the State Capitol and won 54. We defended the pledge of allegiance, the words one nation under god and won anonymously. Unanimously. We defended the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms and won 54. [applause] we defended New Hampshires presental notification law before the u. S. Parental notification law before the u. S. Supreme court and won unanimously. [applause] but of all the battles, the biggest was the a case versus medellin vs. Texas. It began with a horrific crime. Two teenaged girls who were murdered in houston and the case took a very very strange turn because the world court the judicial arm of the United Nations issued an order to the United States to reopen the convictions of 51 murderers across this country. Was the first time in history a Foreign Court has tried to bind the u. S. Justice system. I argued medellin before the Supreme Court twice. On the other side was the world court, the United Nations, and 90 foreign nations that came in against the state of texas. Also on the other side, im sorry to tell you, was the president of the United States and it was not president obama. It was president george w. Bush. Now, listen, i think george bush is a good man. Hes an honorable man but in this instance he signed a twoparagraph order that attempted to order the state courts to obey the world court. Now, i got to admit its a fairly unusual situation for the state of texas to be litigating against the president of the United States who was a texan, who was the former governor of texas who was a republican and a friend. Yet, i sat down with our attorney general and im proud that twice i stood before the u. S. Supreme court with george w. Bushs lawyer on the other side and we argued, number one, that the United Nations and the world court has no authority over our justice system. [applause] and number two that no president of the United States democrat or republican, is give up the sovereignty of the American People. [applause] and we won 63. [applause] so this iran deal matters for a lot of reasons. It is an acute threat to our National Security. A nuclear iran is an ex existential threat and that doesnt mean a frenchman and chain smoking. I like it because it takes a second. Its a half second delay. It means quite literally going to the existence of the nation of israel, but it is also a grave threat to the National Security of this country. Now, New Hampshires going to play a Critical Role in the 2016 election, and one thing i would encourage each of you to ask, any candidate who shows up in front of you, either democrat or republican, if president obama negotiates a bad deal with iran that undermines our National Security that makes it more likely that iran acquires Nuclear Weapons and if he doesnt submit it to congress will you repudiate that agreement in january of 2017 . [applause] and any candidate who is not willing to say yes, who is not willing to put the vital National Security of this country above partisan interests is not fit to be the commander in chief of this country. I want to close with two points. Number one, i told you that im very optimistic. Scriptures tell us theres nothing new under the sun. I think where we are today is very, very much like the late 1970s. I think the similarities between barack obama and jimmy carter [laughter] are uncanny. Same disastrous economic policies same misery stagnation malaise, same arrogant and naive foreign policy. In fact, the exact same countries, russia and iran, openly laughing at and mocking the president of the United States. You know, the one person in america thrilled with the job Barack Obamas doing is jimmy carter. [laughter] and thats tough to do. But let me tell you why that analogy gives me so much hope and optimism. Because that story had a happy ending. We remember what happened in the late 1970s and 1980, a Grassroots Movement began to sweep the country, millions of men and women came together and became the reagan revolution. Now, it didnt come from washington. Washington despiesed Ronald Reagan. Despised Ronald Reagan. By the way, if you see a candidate who washington embraces, run and hide. [applause] it came from the American People. It swept up as a tsunami from the grassroots and it turned this country around. We went from stagnant Economic Growth to by 1984 booming growth at 7. 2 a year millions of people lifted out of poverty and into prosperity in the american dream. Now, i want you to imagine for a second for some of you who might think, some of the things cruz is saying are pretty audacious. Abolish the i. R. S. , really . [applause] but you know in washington, that view is pretty out there. Repeal obamacare, really . I want you to imagine for a second, we were all in this room in 1979 and i want you to imagine that Ronald Reagan walked up to this podium and told each of you, were going to take the top marginal tax rate of 70 , were going to cut it to 28 . Were going to take the current stagnant Economic Growth for four years averaging less than 1 a year and within four years it will be 7. 2 a year. Were going to take our hostages languishing in iran they will be released the day im sworn into office. And within a decade were going to win the cold war rebuild our military and tear the berlin wall to the ground. Now, look, according to washington reasoning, that would have been nuts. You cant do any of that. Everyone in washington knows it. Compared to that abolishing the i. R. S. And repealing obamacare, that aint nothing. The reason im optimistic is the same thing that happened in 1980 is happening today. One of the real blessings of serving in the senate, i get to travel all over the country. I tell you everywhere you go, people are standing up, theyre waking up, they realize what is happening to our country, the same thing is happening today that happened then. The reason im optimistic is simple. Its because of each and every one of you. It is because of each of the men and women in this room. If you look to washington, youll have nothing but despair and dess pondency but if you look to the American People youll have hope. What im trying to do more than anything is energize and empower the American People. You know, each of you has your cell phone. Id encourage you to send a text. Text the word constitution to the number 33733. I will give that number again. Text the word constitution to the number 33733. The only way were going to turn this country around is building a Grassroots Army in New Hampshire and in all 50 states across this country. The last thing i want to share with you. For every one of us, liberty is not some abstract concept. Its not something we read about in schoolbooks. Its something personal in your family and my family. Its something thats very real to who we are. You know, in my family, my dad was born in cuba. And he fought in the revolution as a teenager. Anyone here 14 . Youre 14. Sorry. Remind me your name . Kirsten. Ok. Imagine when my dad was 14 he started fighting in the cuban revolution. I was in Student Council in high school, if you could imagine, and the revolution in cuba was mostly fought by kids. Anyone here 17 . All right. When my dad was 17, he was thrown in prison and tortured. Bautistas army almost beat him to death and he fled cuba. Anyone here 18 . All right. 18. When my dad was 18, he arrived in america. He couldnt speak english. He had nothing but 100 southern into his underwear. I actually advise not carrying money in your underwear. And his first job was washing dishes making 50 cents an hour. Imagine being in a strange country where you dont know anybody, youre penniless and alone but youre filled with hopes and dreams and passions and he ended up paying his way through school at the university of texas, going on to start a Small Business. Today my fathers a pastor in texas. Now, my whole life my dad has been my hero. But do you know what i find most incredible about his story . How commonplace it is. Every one of us in this room, every single one of us could come up here one at a time and tell a story just like that. Whether its us our our parents or our great great, great grandparents, what ties americans together is we are the children of those who risked everything for freedom. And that is the fundamental d. N. A. Of what it means to be an american to value freedom and opportunity above all else, live free or die. [applause] that sums up what it means to be an american. And ill tell you when i was a kid, my father would say to me over and over again when we faced oppression in cuba, i had a place to flee to. If we lose our freedom here, where do we go . Thats why the men and women are here because we will not go quietly into the night. We will rise up together and we will pull back and save this shining city on the hill that is the United States of america. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] i am happy to answer or dodge any question you like. Yes, sir. Thank you, senator. Thank you for being here tonight in my hometown of lincoln, New Hampshire. What you said was great and we all agree with you. Why is it our senators and congressmen in washington will have to wait so long to get rid of obama . What is the formula . I dont care what nation you go to, this guy is being crucified. Look, it was we should have won in 2008. We should have won in 2012. And right now with the republican majority we should be standing up with all of our might to stop this outofcontrol obama agenda. Listen, the truth of the matter is i think people are frustrated all over this country and theyre frustrated. I think the biggest divide we have in this country its not between republicans and democrats. The biggest divide we have in this country is between career politicians in washington in both parties and the American People. [applause] and i think the avenue for turning things around is not relying on washington but it is the American People rising up to hold every elected official accountable. Me included. To make sure we do what we said we would do and get back to the principles we should be standing for in the first place. [applause] senator, you talked about common core. Do you have any thoughts about closing the department of education . Senator cruz let me quote the movie jerry maguire, you had me at hello. [laughter] of course we should close the department of education. And ill tell you why. Look education is too important for it to be governed by unelected bureaucrats in washington. [applause] education should be at the state level or even better at the local level. Look every one of us as parents should have direct input on the curriculum and whats being taught to our kids. And if you dont like whats being taught to your kids you can go down to the local principal, the local superintendent the local school board, make your views known. If they dont listen to you you can say, you know what, ill run for the school board. You can have direct impact. On the other hand, if education decisions are decided by some bureaucrat in the bows of the department of education, he or she doesnt care what you or i think. It needs to be close to the people because its too important, and education should reflect the values of each community at the local level. [applause] we understand that you want to get rid of obamacare. What do you say when they say, what do you replace it with . Senator cruz a great question. Look everyone here agrees we need Health Care Reform. That once we repeal obamacare, Health Care Reform should follow some basic principles. It should expand competition in the marketplace. It should empower patients and consumers. And it should disempower government bureaucrats from getting between us and our doctors. Here are some specific proposals that manifest those principles. Number one, we should allow people to Purchase Health insurance across state lines. [applause] now, what that will do is create a true 50state National Marketplace which will drive down costs enable people to buy lowcost catastrophic insurance policies. Look, if the goal is more coverage, every one of us wants to see more people covered. The number one barrier of coverage is cost. If you want more coverage, you want more choices and lower costs. What does obamacare do . Its fewer choices and higher costs. The second concrete reform we should do is expand Health Savings accounts. [applause] so people can save in a tax advantage way to meet more routine medical care and prevention. And third, we need to work to delink Health Insurance from employment. A lot of people dont know its an historical accident that Health Insurance is tied to employment. It arows out of world war arose out of world war ii and employers couldnt use higher salaries to attract employees so they began offering perks and benefits and Health Insurance in the federal tax code favored that. The problem is, look we dont live in leave it to beaver 1950s anymore. Most people dont go work for one company for 40 years, retire and get a gold watch. We live in a mobile transient time where people move from state to state, from industry to industry, from company to company and if or i lose our jobs, we dont lose our life insurance. We dont lose our car insurance. You dont lose your house insurance. Theres no reason on earth you should lose your Health Insurance. And its the worst one because thats the number one cause of preexisting conditions when someone loses their insurance and cant get a new policy. Every one of those policies are free market, they empower patients and consumers and they keep the government the heck out of the doctors office. [applause] im from vermont. Senator cruz fantastic. All the way here from the burlington area. How can you how can we get you to go to vermont . Get a passport. Our senators leahy and sanders would love to see you so please consider coming to vermont. Senator cruz i will confess, i know both of your senators well. And listen, ill say Bernie Sanders i at least respect that he admits hes a socialist. Look ill give him credit for candor. I actually respect someone as you know sanders ran as a socialist as a lion on the ballot. I can respect someone whos candid in what theyre doing much more than many of the politicians who get elected pretending to believe in commonsense conservative values and they go and vote exactly the same as a socialist would vote. I love vermont. Its wonderful. I will confess there is something about the 2016 calendar that orders the timing people visit various states. [laughter] senator cruz, president cruz, your first day in office, what will you do with the isis threat . Senator cruz its a great question. Isis is the face of evil. Theyre crucifying christians. Theyre beheading children. Theyre using rape as a weapon of war. Few months ago i was sitting down meeting with the president of kurdistan who described a young man he met who told him in tears he said, isis, they raped my mother, they raped my sister and they raped my wife. How can i live with myself . It is not every muslim. But it is a dangerous political philosophy of jihad, and the reason i say apologist, some people in the media were astonished. An apologist means someone that gives rationalizations, and justifications for the behavior of it. The comparison to the crusades is one that radical islamic terrorists are fond of making themselves, and it does not help having that president of the United States saying there is a moral equivalency to all of this. When you have men and women locking people in cages and lighting them on fire, that is evil. Your question specifically, i did not forget it but i wanted to lay that out, we need to do absolutely everything necessary to destroy isis. What does that entail . It is difficult to say, 21 months from now where we will be. But right now what it would entail, let me answer it now because i could not reject what the military condition would be in 2017, number one, we should be using overwhelming airpower to destroy isis. Number two, we should be arming the kurds, the peshmerga, the fighting forces of the kurds. They have stood with United States for decades. They are very effective fighters. They are fighting isis right now. Isis has american weaponry that they seized in iraq, and yet this administration will not arm the kurds, they instead send twopes baghdad and they wont give it to the kurds. Right now the kurds are boots on the ground for us to go after isis. There is a lot of debate more broadly, should we have american boots on the ground . I think you would need at a minimum embedded special forces to help in the overwhelming air assault. But i do not think the view of boots on the ground should be viewed as a political question. You have some people in politics saying, never boots on the ground or it some say, always boots on the ground. We should do whatever is necessary to destroy isis. The spokesperson from the state department recently said, we cannot solve isis by killing them. We need to get them jobs. There comes a point where you cannot make fun of this anymore. Like saturday night live had a classic episode where they had Donald Rumsfeld years ago during a press conference. And the reporter saying, mr. Secretary, is it unfair that you are dropping really big bombs on the taliban . And on saturday night live, rumsfeld goes, no, the object is to make them dead. This administration does not seem to understand that. Yes, sir. Senator, can any elective official be a progressive and swear to defend the constitution of the United States without committing perjury . Senator cruz it is a great question. Let me put it this way. We have yet to see anyone try it. And let me give an example of what i mean by that, because look, one of the saddest things in modern times, there used to be a tradition of Scoop Jackson democrats. There used to be a tradition of democrats that would stand up to their own president ial leader. One of the saddest aspects right now is the complete absence of any democrat in the senate who will stand up to president obama and his lawlessness. And the illustration of this you asked if anyone can be a socalled progressive and still uphold the constitution. One thing that was not widely reported but happened last year, its the single thing that dismayed me the most the last two years in the senate. Is Senate Democrats introduced a constitutional amendment to repeal the free speech protections of the first amendment. And every single Senate Democrat voted to repeal the free speech protections of the first amendment. Now, i gave a senate floor speech. In defense of free speech where i said where are the liberals . There was a time when democrats stood for civil liberties. I had a picture of ted kennedy next to me. Scared the living daylights out of my dad. He turned on cspan and said my sons gone to washington has gone native. But ted kennedy in 1997 when democrats tried to do something similar, ted opposed it. And what he said is, we havent amended the bill of rights of over 200 years and now is not the time to start. When i called out on the senate floor, where are the 10 kennedys where the ted kennedys, there is not one lion of the left who will stand for free speech. It is heartbreaking. But let me wrap it into a final point because as extreme as it is, that is part of why i am so optimistic. Sometimes things have to get really bad to wake people up. And people are waking up all over this country. Doesnt make sense. The obama economy, people are hurting. Obamacare is a disaster. And they want to get back. You know in washington things are viewed through a weird lens. What do i believe in . Live within your means. Dont bankrupt your kids and grandkids. Follow the constitution. It is only in washington, d. C. That those are viewed as extreme and radical propositions. Precisely because things have gotten so bad, thats why people are waking up. Thats why i am here. I am honored and humbled to be with you and to thank you because were fighting together for your kids and mine. Were fighting together to turn this country around. God bless you. You cant leave without leaving with some stuff from New Hampshire. Were giving you some things from mount which is where our former governor thompson was, and some maple syrup. I hope you get it on the plane. You get to pour a little on top. For politics and eggs tomorrow. Thank you very much for coming, sir. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [inaudible] the u. S. House of representatives comes in to session in just under half an hour 2 00 p. M. Eastern. Well have live coverage here on cspan. After debating several bills, members will vote at 6 30 eastern. Well expect work on a bill to fund Trauma Care Centers and another that exempt local fire democrats from having to provide Health Insurance to firefighters under the Affordable Care act. The house live here at 2 00 p. M. Here on cspan. Until then a conversation from this mornings washington journal about the Affordable Care act. Washington journal continues. Host how guest is Kimberly Leonard to talk with us about the Health Care Law enrollment and cost projections. Thank you for joining us. Guest thank you for having me. Host first time on the show. We are glad you could make it. What should we know about the recent aca enrollment numbers . Guest there is another open enrollment that started beginning yesterday. 11. 7 million americans have enrolled, but because a lot of americans might not know about the Health Insurance penalty they have over the tax period to be able to sign up for insurance and not get a penalty next year. Host cbo is projecting a decrease in spending. Guest a decrease in spending on the program. It will still cost the country 1. 2 trillion over the next 10 years. But the projections keep getting lower. In january the projections were 11 higher than they were found to be last week. Host what is the reason for the decrease in spending . Guest several Different Things, one of which has to do with lower enrollment numbers in the exchanges than had previously been thought. The Congressional Budget Office had originally projected that about 13 million would enroll and as i said earlier, that number has been 11. 7 million now. The department of Human Services said that the numbers would be close to 9. 9 million. Host our guest is Kimberly Leonard of u. S. News world report. We will take your calls in a couple of minutes. Democrats, call 20274 88000. Republicans, 7488001. Independents 7488002. Where were you writing prior to your current assignment . Guest the center for Public Integrity. Host tell us about what the cbo has had to say about the spending projections in the future . Guest one of the important factors to note is that subsidies are going to be are less expensive than had been projected. They have been projected to be close to 5200 or person per year 5 5,200 per person per year. Now it is closer to 3900. Were spending 20 less per person per year than we thought we would. Host one of the headlines a shot here of a man holding an obamacare sign in miami. The controversial Health Care Law will cost the cut will cost the government 1. 2 billion. How often do they do these analyses . Guest several times per year, but typically after the president s budget, they reevaluate where the budget stands. Host white house officials may point to projections that the program is working, the price tag is lower because fewer americans will be covered than previously thought. Do you think that trend would continue . If you can spread it out, what might you see . Guest it is so hard to make these projections. The fact that we have had fewer people and role in the marketplaces could be seen as a positive or a negative thing. It could be that fewer are enrolling because more people are getting jobs to provide Health Insurance. Or it could be that they are simply choosing to go without insurance. Obviously one of the major goals of the informal care act is to get as many people enrolled in Health Insurance plans as possible. Guest host if fewer people are insured, how much would that reduce money paid by taxpayers . Guest about 20 . Host kimberly, a democratic caller. Good morning. Caller good morning to both of you. My daughter, who is 27, a fulltime student and had earned last year 9,000 when she called her republican senator and asked why she could not get into the Affordable Care act network because she did not make enough money, they basically told her to project upward. My daughter said, well, i probably will not make any more money, i will probably make less. There is nothing for her. No insurance, no Medicaid Expansion in our state. To have republicans tell her to project up, knowing that she will not be able to make any more money, i wonder if there are any other instances of that. I was rather perplexed and dismayed, and my daughter is a very honest person and would never project or pretend she was going to make more in order to get into the Affordable Care act network. Guest this is something i have heard about. I am working on a piece that is looking into it, but i do not know all the details yet. If you have an income of 9,000, it certainly would qualify for medicare for medicaid through the states. Host what would you be trying to find out as you dig deeper . Guest how often is it happening, and especially if it is having if it is happening in states that do not have medicaid. Host democratic caller colorado springs, good morning. Caller i really enjoy your guest. I love reading u. S. News world report. Guest thank you. Caller my comment, because your answering everybody elses my comment is that our children were put on our insurance after the aca went through in college on account of the Affordable Care act. We appreciated it. It saved us a of money helped with College Tuitions because we saved money. One of our children has a preexisting condition since birth and after the age of 27, now he can afford he can get on any plan through our state with aca. He appreciates it now that he is on his own, out of college before which he could not have gotten insurance because of a preexisting condition. We were afraid of this for 20 years. Thank you, president obama. Every day we wake up and thank him. Thank you very much. Host anything you want to follow up on . Guest many more people have been covered under Health Insurance who would not have been covered before the Affordable Care act. We hear stories like this a lot. A lot of people are concerned about the Supreme Court decision that might do away with subsidies that would help people pay for insurance, and this is certainly a message i hear a lot. Host i want to ask you about with the impact might be on what the court says. Dig deeper into that case have how it might affect all of what we are talking about. What it boils down to is whether the federal government can legally distribute subsidies through healthcare. Gov. Only 13 states and the District Of Columbia have created their own marketplaces. That means the majority of people have signed up through healthcare. Gov. If the Supreme Court were to rule that subsidies are illegal the numbers vary based on what group is giving them the department of health and Human Services estimates that 7 Million People could lose Health Insurance. Host lets go to add in ann arbor michigan lets go to ed in ann arbor, michigan. Caller i think i heard that we spend twice as much as a percentage of gross to mystic product, the gdp, on health care than any other country. We have private insurance, medicare medicaid. So if you compare our costs, we pay more for surgical procedures more for drugs. I think twice as much as canada does. Host let me ask you to hang on for a second and talk to our guest. Is that true, what he is laying out . Guest yes, it is. We are still spending more on health care than most countries, and the cost is continuing to rise. It is rising at a lower rate than in recent years, but it is still rising. Host why do you bring all of this up . Guest the other thing caller the other thing i wanted to say is that obamacare is the old republican idea of competitive healthcare exchanges, private insurance competing with others to to require people the individual mandate that came out of the heritage foundation, and the republican proposal in 1992. They came up with an alternative to hillary care. A lot of people like me thought we would want a singlepayer system, a singlepayer system, medicare for all or so obamacare is really an inbetween compromise partly republican idea, correct . It was romney care in massachusetts. Romney had it in massachusetts. Guest a lot of what you are saying is true but the former care act was passed without a single republican vote in congress. So it is not seen as a copper mines between the two parties. Host here is a tweet from jean in ohio. Guest medicaid is supposed to be expanded under the Affordable Care act, and states are concerned about how they will pay for the program in the future. Whether they will be able to keep up with that spending, we will have to see. Let any cuts to medicaid would make it difficult for states likely. Host where is medicare spending at this point . I read a story that it was level or declining a little bit. Guest this is something really interesting happening in health care. Even though we have the baby boom generation aging into medicare, they are younger and healthier than previous groups. We are spending less on medicare than we have in a very long time, and the rate of medicare is growing at a lower rate than it has in the past. So even though this is happening now and it is considered good news because medicare takes up about 20 of health care spending, there is a projection that after the next decade the rates of medicare will fill back up here it will fill back up. Host lets hear from damien in woodbridge, virginia. Caller two quick questions. The first has the aca inoculated the Insurance Market to highdeductible plans . The second question is, is the reduced spending in health care currently due to what was built into the aca, costsharing measures, of people maybe putting off care or differing care in many cases because of the deductibles associated with it . Guest i hear from a lot of readers who are concerned about highdeductible plans. They sign up for premiums and think they can afford insurance for the first time, and then they pay way more than they thought because we are aware of the details of the plant because they were not aware of the details of the plans and how the deductibles play into all of that. In terms of whether the Affordable Care act has slowed the rate of spending growth, that is something that is being evaluated. It is unclear to what extent the four double care act plays a role in Health Spending rates at this point. Host what kind of changes or tweaks might you expect in washington on the Health Care Law this year, in the coming years . Guest the Supreme Court case is by and large going to be the most important decision that could happen to the Affordable Care act. Republicans have tried to dismantle the law several times and president obama obviously would not sign any law that aims to do so. So the Supreme Court decision is going to be the major factor that is going to play into the Health Care Law. As far as other parts that go into that, the medical device packs is something that could potentially be repealed. I think that in terms of other fronts, i do not see anything moving very quickly. Host lets hear from john, st. Louis, missouri, a republican. Caller i would like to ask the lady since they passed the Health Care Law, there are still 30 Million People who have not been covered. What the Affordable Care act was supposed to do, it did not do. I mean, i am sorry, but it just frustrates me to no end that the democrats push this through congress before the republicans had another senator in there to keep it from passing. Pelosi said you have to pass it and then read it. To find out what is in it. Mr. Obama turned around and i do not know how many times he has changed the law which he does not have the right to do. Congress passes laws. The president has to back the laws and not change them. Im sorry. I will let you guys talk it over , and i will be listening to you. Host thinking about those 30 million uninsured. Anything you want to add to what he said . Guest we have about 11. 7 million who have signed up on the exchanges, and than 10 million have signed up on medicaid because it has expanded. The number of people who get insurance and whether they are satisfied with the insurance they are getting whether they are able to see the doctor and other Health Care Providers that they want to see. Because some of these plans are costing less because it is because the networks are so narrow. Whether this results in better care i think is another thing to look closely at. Host lets talk about penalties for the uninsured. We have statistics we can put on the screen from 2014. The penalties back in 2014 95, 1 of annual income, whichever is greater. Currently this year, 325 or 2 . 2016, 600 95, or 2 of annual income. Give us some more perspective on those numbers. Guest if you did not have Health Insurance in 2014, this year is the year you will be paying 95 or 1 of income as the penalty. The reason the department of health and Human Services extended the deadline for people to sign up for insurance, they created a special Enrollment Period yesterday that goes through april 30. It gives people a Second Chance to look at their tax returns and say i did not know about this penalty. Now it is too late for next year when the penalty is even higher. They are giving people a Second Chance to sign up for insurance if that is what they choose to do. If you do not make that choice, you will pay the penalty although there are exemptions. Host we will continue to take calls, like this one from ray in california. Caller thank you. You have great general a stick you have generalistic characteristics. Are we dealing with the establishment of welfare states . [static] you know what i mean . They get health care, money so in respect to the wealth speed of the people what i am trying to say is [inaudible] i do not see that being associated with the workmens comp. That is one thing barack obama may want to do with. Normally the thing is, if somebody gets hurt, in other words, through cal osha, it is assuring. Obama down here could push the issue well, you do not need workmens comp. Because if you get hurt we will cover you. You could have a major injury, and through omission or error that would be one thing. I think obama is cool. He is great but i stand with him. He is an excellent president. Host the connection was not the best, but is there anything you want to respond to their bank . Want to respond to there . Guest like most americans, he agrees with portions of it, if not the whole law. Host lets go to mike on the democrats line. Caller the original reason i was calling in, i am a florida resident. Working in the u. S. Territory of glom the u. S. Territory of guam. The effect that obamacare has on the taxes of people in the territories that are not entitled to vote actually looking at my president , i will probably vote republican next term. The facts are here. Hundreds of u. S. Veterans, in puerto rico and the u. S. Virgin islands and stuff the lack of attention to those areas, to sit here and watch tv and feel like i am in a foreign country when i am in a United States territory is disgusting. Another fact of obamacare and it is not one issue. Everyone wants to talk about the mexican immigrant. I live here in california. It disgusts me to look and see how Everyone Wants to blame a mexican immigrant who comes here to work. Or look at the somali immigrants who come in and want to create pride, and we want to give them benefits. Or look at the folks in the territories who pay their taxes. What do they get for that . Host thank you for calling from the territory of guam. Guest the Affordable Care act is not explicitly address care for veterans. But for people in the country illegally, there are ways they can access care, but they are not eligible to sign up through the insurance exchanges. In fact, thousands of people who had signed up but could not show proof of documentation or had some issues with mismatching data, things like that, ended up not receiving subsidies for Health Insurance. Host here is a headline from the New York Times. You can see a graph here with some of the numbers. Last year, 5. 4 million in the federal run, 2. 6 million in the state run. This year, 2. 8 federal 2. 8 million federal. Guest in any of the states that establish their own exchanges the people who live in them would not be affected by a Supreme Court decision. The fact that all of the exchanges are up and working this year and that we are not here talking about technical glitches today is a major accomplishment. And the fact that so many people have signed up is something that the administration has celebrated. As i said before, it depends on how the care turns out to be and whether people will be able to access the doctors and hospitals and providers that they want to be able to access. Host there is a tweet from wild and wonderful. Wanting to go back to penalty waivers. Why is the procedure for getting upheld the waiver so rarely explained . I guess he is looking for more information about how it works what the procedure is. He is not seeing enough. Guest forgetting a waiver for not having Health Insurance. There are certain ways that people can demonstrate that they can buy Health Insurance outside of the enrollment so, which is a threemonth period. There is a special enrollment now, but having a baby is one example. Changing jobs, losing your job getting married all those factors can give you an exemption for signing up later. Waivers specifically have to do with religious objections and cultural objections as well. Host steve, detroit, michigan, on the line for kimberly lenard. She is with u. S. News world report. Caller the first question i have is, did obama lie about obamacare . Host what do you mean by that . Caller that you can we are going to leave this segment of washington jurem right here. You can see the remainder of it on our website. Go to cspan. Org. The u. S. House is about to gavel in. Work on six bills later today including a measure to fund trauma care septemberers and to exempt Emergency Responders from the nations Health Care Law. Also this week, members are expected to take up a senatepassed resolution that would disapprove the regulations on Union Election rules. The white house issued a veto threat on that measure. Live coverage of the u. S. House here on cspan. The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. Chaplain conroy let us pray. Gracious god, we give you thanks for giving us another day. In this chamber where the peoples house gathers, we pause to offer you gratitude for the good land in which we live and for this great nation which you have inspired and developing over so many years. Continue to inspire the American People that through the difficulties of these days we might keep liberty and justice alive in our nation and in the world. A week after many members of this assembly traveled to selma to remember historic and heroic actions 50 years ago, may the house be energized to guarantee the very rights so many suffered to obtain back then and which still elude so many of their american descendents today. May all that is done this day be for your greater honor and glory, amen. The speaker pro tempore the chair has examined the journal of the last days proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. Pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. The pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentleman from michigan, mr. Kildee. Mr. Kildee please join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The speaker pro tempore the chair will entertain requests for oneminute speeches. For what purpose does the gentlewoman from North Carolina seek recognition . Ms. Foxx i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. Ms. Foxx thank you, mr. Speaker. Last month the Obama Administration admitted that it sent inaccurate tax forms to 820,000 americans who receive Health Insurance through obamacare. Individuals who receive subsidies must fill out the 1095a form to document what they received for the past year. The government is advising people not to file their tax returns until they have the correct forms, but just last week kevin, the man responsible and accountable for leading health care. Gov declined to say when obamacare participants will get the correct tax forms and if all the new forms have been created. Since its implementation, the president s Health Care Law has proved to be a hindrance not a help to the health care market. This debacle is yet another example of why we must continue to work towards repealing this illconceived law and replacing it with policies that empower patients and promote access to Affordable Health care options. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady yields back. For what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition . Mr. Kildee i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. Mr. Kildee thank you, mr. Speaker. Well, i just got back from spending a week at home in michigan talking with the people that i work for, meeting with Small Business owners. And i heard a lot of frustration. Frustration about the priorities of the Republican Leadership in the house and of congress in general. Instead of legislation to create jobs here in america, to make it easier for hardworking families to buy their own home, to afford to send their kids to school to save for retirement, this congress has bounced from one manufactured political crisis to the next and is not taking on the big challenges that the people sent us here to take on. Lets put away this dysfunction and this paralysis. Lets get back to the work of the American People. As we now are set to consider our nations budget, lets make sure that the priorities of the American People, goodpaying jobs, affordable college, homeownership, the ability to save for a decent retirement, those priorities are the priorities that we include in this important budget document. This is what the American People expect of us and this is what we should take on. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. The chair he lays before the house a the chair lays before the house a communication. The clerk the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. Sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2h of rule 2 of the rules of the u. S. House of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on march 16, 2015, at 10 38 a. M. That the senate agreed to, Senate Concurrent Resolution 7. Signed, sincerely, robert reeze, deputy clerk. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to clause 12a of rule 1, the chair declares the house we will check in with mike, congressional reporter for the hill. Guest thank you for having me. Host the posturing in washington about iran how do you see things taking shape in town this week as negotiations continue . Guest this is, the letter started a fire. Everybody is still talking about it. A lot of support for the letter and a lot of blowback on the republican side. Senators who signed it seemed to be regretting or walking back some of their support for signing the letter to the iranian leaders. The question is how is this going to affect legislation on the floor . This goes back to the sanctions debate. This was always a bipartisan push. There were a lot of democrats on both sides of the aisle who want tougher sanctions and they are even ignoring obamas calls not to use legislation well he was negotiating. That changed when john boehner asked Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of israel, to speak. Wendy politics of that got involved especially in the senate, democrats said this is going to become so political. We are going to stop pushing for sanctions to allow space for obama to negotiate. Mr. Mcconnell is saying he wants to bring something to the floor. We are in the middle of the debate over Human Trafficking and the Loretta Lynch nomination for attorney general. We are not sure when that would have time to come to the floor. There is this conflict now between do we do sanctions, do we get obama the space, it has become a very partisan issue. In the past, it was not. Host you mentioned Loretta Lynch. We thought a vote or debate was coming this week. The majority leader changed course over the weekend. One of the headline says the Human Trafficking bill stands in the way of the pic for attorney general. First, are theese two issues related . Guest not at all. Two Different Things happening. The fight over Human Trafficking, this was another bill that was bipartisan and supposed to sail through. Everybody thought it would come to the floor and be a done deal and they could move on to Loretta Lynch. What happened late last week democrats discovered an antiabortion provision in the republican bill, it was not in the house passed bill. They say they were caught offguard. Republicans say it was in there all along. There has been that debate happening. The crux of it is it does not seem like the bill now has the 60 votes needed to pass it through the senate and mcconnell went on tv yesterday and said we are not going to move to the Loretto Lynch vote until they can break the impasse over the Human Trafficking bill. So it is tough to say how that is going to end. Are republicans going to pull the language out sit on it and hope they can get democratic votes to pass it . We do not know how that is going to play out. We will know soon enough, Tuesday Morning is the coach or vote Tuesday Morning is the cloture vote on the Human Trafficking bill. Host how are the votes lining up for Loretto Lynch . Guest the expectation is that she will be approved. 3 republicans voted her out of committee, a good sign. The fact that there is a lot of opposition is not good for her or the white house. In testimony before the Senate Committee last month, she was asked pointedly by a lot of republicans whether or not she supported president obamas executive actions on deportations and immigration and she said explicitly that she supported it. So the backlash from republicans has been pretty severe. We do anticipate a lot of republican no votes but probably not enough to sink her. We expect her to become the next attorney general is a question of when. Host mike lillis, lets talk about the budget. Reading that the gop will lay out it Budget Priorities this week. Re looking for two . What are we looking forward to . Guest the senate is controlled by republicans for the first time is 8 years. Over that time, they went after democrats for not putting forward annual budget. It became a talking point. And a lot of pressure to bring a bill that balances the budget over a decade to the floor and to pass it and unite it with ehousepassed bill. With a housepassed bill. Two things, in 2011 they pass the budget control act and set caps on domestic and defense spending. Theres a Deficit Reduction Group on the republican side that wants to keep this caps on place and thinks they are important for the health of the economy. Then you have defense talks on the republican side who want more money for the military. That battle is going to happen internally within the party. People who want to lift a sequestration caps on are ready to deal with democrats to do so, democrats want to lift domestic spending to other programs which is anathema to a lot of conservatives. House republicans in the past they have had control of the house in the past four years unlike the senate. They have put for these types of proposals, paul ryan was chairman of the Budget Committee and he made specific cuts to entitlement programs medicare and medicaid. That was part of his messaging strategy. He is the policy wonk and he was the Vice President ial candidate. There were political reasons for him to do that. We do not expect Senate Republicans to do the same thing, they just want a topline number and date want to let committees who have jurisdictions make specific cuts. I think you will see a little bit of a division between the house and the senate in terms of how they go about proposing these cuts. This is a bill that just sets topline numbers, it does not go to the president. It is not an appropriations bill. We will see what happens but that is going to be the big fight this week. The start of the big fight. They want to pass these things before easter recess. Host and a quick reminder that legislative work gets under way in the house about 3 30 eastern. Live coverage here on cspan. Of course you can see the senate live. They start at 3 00 eastern on our companion net york cspan3. Cspan3, the hearing on the proper use of inaccurate Social Security records resulting in improper payments to the deceased or withholding of money from people who are wrongly listed as dead. By the Senate Homeland security and Governmental Affairs committee. That will start at 4 00 p. M. Also live at 6 00, transportation secretary anthony fox will talk about anthony foxx is at the council on foreign relations. Hes expected to highlight a 30year plan to restructure roads, highways, bridges airways and railways and how all of this plays a role in u. S. Competitiveness abroad. Again, that will be live starting at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. Last week a group of journalists discussed the importance of Investigative Journalism and its impact on consumers today. Abcs brian ross and yahoo s Michael Isikoff were among the group of speakers at this years Consumer Federation of america consumer issues. I think were going to begin right away. Thank you all for staying in place. Were going to move quite quickly through todays program. My name is jack gillis, director of Public Affairs for the Consumer Federation of america. And id like to welcome you to todays panel on investigative reporting. For consumer advocates and those working with the media, investigative reporting is one of the most critical components in being an effective advocate. Today were going to talk about something near and dear to the hearts of advocates and thats investigative reporting. The traditional and as a result of the internet, the increasingly difficult business and the increasingly difficult business challenges facing news outlets the new types of investigative reporting. Well look at how all of this impacting a key pillar in consumer advocacy. Because the media is so critically important to advocates, there are new questions being raised that will affect the way we are able to change policy. Who is emerging as credible news sources on the internet . Do the new Business Model affect editorial content . What is the relevance of print and broadcast outlets to their internet partners . How do news recipients, how do we as consumers address the concerns that internet content may not be as carefully edited as daily print content . Are blogs real competition to traditional news outlets . And what are the challenges in integrating blogs social media, User Generated Content into organizations like abc, nbc, yahoo , the wall street journal and pro publica who have new and blue chip reputations for unbiased and carefully researched content . The bottom line is well look at where investigative reporting is going in the next five years. As we ask these questions the news about the news is kind of scary. A recent pew report discussed that continued erosion of news reporting resources combined with the new Media Opportunities present growing opportunities in politics, government and agencies and corporations to take their messages directly to the public without a filter. Heres a snapshot from the pew report. Newspaper newsroom cutbacks put the industry down over 30 since 2000. In local tv, sports, weather and traffic now account for an average of 40 of the content. Cnn, the kabul channel that branded itself around deep reporting, has cut story packages in half. Across three of the major cable channels, coverage of live events and live reports during the day, which requires expensive crews and staff, have been cut by 30 . Heres where it gets interesting. To combat dwindling resources, a growing list of media outlets, such as forbes magazines, uses new technology to produce content by way of algorithm. No human reporting necessary. This adds up to a new industry that is more undermanned and underprepared to uncover stories dig deep into emerging ones and to question the information put in their hands. And all this is happening at a time as howard keurtz said, that the average consumer can in effect create his own news, picking and chooses from sources he trusts and enjoys rather than being spoonfed by a handful of big media conglomerates which we have here, the big media conglomerates. Almost every year for 20 years we examined the media from a variety of perspectives and weve had some incredible participants. I can say without question that this year we are honored to have what could be considered the best collection of Investigative Reporters in the country. So thank you, all, very much, for joining us. So what id like to do today is just ask a series of questions and encourage the panelists to interact with each other and more importantly encourage you to interrupt, ask questions and be part of this discussion. The first question goes to brian ross. Brian is abc news chief investigative correspondent reporting for world news, nightline, 20 20. He began his career actually prior to nbc where he was before abc in would a lot, iowa. While hes a chicago native, hes a graduate of the university of iowa, which explains that waterloo, iowa, beginning, which i couldnt understand when i first read his bio. Hes received many of the prestigious awards in journalism including seven duponts, six peabodies, five oversea press awards and five edward r. Morrow awards and many, many more. I could spend hours listing the stories that brian and his team have done to generate these awards. A couple of them are worth noting, however. Exposing the dangerous conditions at factories in bangladesh making clothes for tommy hill figure and walmart. A toyota report which prost proverpted one of the largest automobile recalls in history. Pay to play grading systems by the Better Business bureau. Again, exposing walmarts use of overseas child labor for their buy america clothing campaign. In fact, i was in a walmart recently and theres pictures of brian all over the place. Do not let this man in. [laughter]. Jack theres many, many more stories but it must have been when he was 10 years old but brian also broke what some of us remember as a very important story and thats the abscam story. I guess, brian, you can be credited with a great movie american hustle. In introducing brian, i also have to acknowledge cindy galy who is in the audience today. Probably one of abcs star investigative producers and someone who i know many of you know quite as well. So cindy, welcome as well. So brian, one of your awardwinning stories was done in cooperation with the center for Public Integrity. How did that come about, what was the relationship, what do you see as the future for joint investigative reports, and if there is a future, what protections do you engage in when selecting a partner to avoid the appearance of bias . Brian thank you, jack. Its nice to be here. We partnered with the center of Public Integrity on an incredible story about whats happening to coal miners applying for benefits under the black loan law and what we discovered working with a great researcher at the center, chris, was that one doctor at the countrys most prestigious hospital perhaps Johns Hopkins, became the coals company goto doctor and over the course of 10, 15 years, in every single case he failed to find black lung. In every single case. He thought it was some remote sort of bird disease. He had lots of explanations but he never found black lung. And what chris amby at the center did was go back and compile the precise medical records of some 1,700 1,800 cases and examined the findings and some of those people had died and after they died the autopsy showed they in fact had black lung. So chris came to us from the center and with producer matt mosk we worked together using the incredible research and frankly the kind of research that we probably would not spend a year and a half doing. Thats what chris did. And then putting that together with our ability to sit down at Johns Hopkins and interview this doctor. After our report that program was suspended by hopkins. The department of labor since moved to reopen every single case where miners had been denied and again and again there were many miners who died who had been determined by their own doctors they had black lung after this doctor at hopkins said they did not. The government actually reached out to take back the benefits. Some of them were in debt for 50,000, 60,000, because there was a clawback of the benefits. That was for me one of the most powerful stories weve done in recent time and led to a number of awards but more importantly led to real changes in how the law was administered and how that program is being looked at again by the department of labor. And it was, you know, partnerships are not without their issues. We all seek to have credit and we tried to share their credit as much as possible. There are a number of awards. The center one a pulitzer prize. We won the goldsmith award at harvard jointly. We won a number of awards for it. It was one of the more rewarding projects, i think, but frankly, as i said, abc probably would not have spent a year and a half, as hamby did, going through every single file. He did incredible work. We helped shape the story and give it as broad as possible broadcast and it went on every single Major Program at abs. At abc news. Jack is this something that could happen again and how do you work out this organization may bring a particular bias that you want to try to avoid . Brian we dont want to work with any group with any bias. We worked with pro publica on joint projects. We are picky and there are people in news management who make decisions about who we would and who we would not work with in that kind of joint effort. Now, were prepared to interview lots of people and do stories about all kinds of groups. We actually will go in the trenches together as journalists, were very picky. Jack well, next we have mike isikoff, chief investigative correspondent to yahoo . Prior to that he was with nbc chief core spendent for newsweek and the washington post. He broke repeated stories for his reporting on the governments war on terror, u. S. Intelligence failures, the abu ghraib scandal, ethics abuses, president ial politics and the coverage of the aftermath of 9 11. What is particularly mike is particularly wellknown for a couple of stories. In fact, his exclusive reporting on the lewinsky scandal gained him National Attention and his coverage of the events led to the president s bill clintons impeachment. National magazine award in reporting, the National Headliner award the edgar a. Poe award and white house correspondence award and gerald r. Ford award for journalism. Hes the author of two New York Times best selling books and as a result both of those books were chronicled much of his reporting. And in 2009, mike, along with brody, who youll meet in a couple of minutes, was named one of the 50 best and most integral journalists in white house by washingtonian. He graduated from wash u in st. Louis and received his masters degree in journalism from northwestern. So, mike, were familiar with nbc and qulings news week which today maybe were not so familiar with. Tell us about yahoo s news philosophy and how are they reaching an audience with news . Michael well, thank you. And actually, its this is sort of new, uncharted territory for me in the Digital Space but and its evolving. Yahoo has made a commitment to as to be a serious news player. Its invested heavily in recruiting people. Katie couric is sort of the chief global anchor. Matt buy from the New York Times is our chief political columnist. I came onboard last year. Were hiring other people. And were trying to basically although yahoo is a is a huge Silicon Valley player, its in the news side, its sort of like working for a startup because were inventing it. Were trying to see what works exploring, experimenting with different ways of delivering news, both written and video. But a couple things stand out. One is the incredible reach that we have. Yahoo has Something Like 800 million users globally. When i write stories for yahoo now, i rarely see the numbers. There are people that track these things. But you get a rough gauge by looking at comments. I dont i never read the comments on my stories. Thats a true way to go down a rabbit hole. I do sort of look at the numbers to give you a sort of idea whats out there. And the numbers of comments i get on what i do now at yahoo is 10 to 20fold greater than anything i would get when i wrote for newsweek or online for nbc news. There is a very vast audience in the Digital Space that sees your stuff. Thats one reason why a lot of major news organizations have wanted to partner with yahoo . In fact we have a partnership with abc that was just renewed and that was a sort of highly other networks wanted to partner with yahoo . We chose or yahoo chose to continue the abc relationship and thats because to the extent that more and more people are getting their news digitally and mobile, this is where the audience is increasingly going to be. So in some respects, although in, you know, in Silicon Valley, yahoo has a reputation as something of a legacy company. It was one of the early internet companies. It is, i think very much a pioneer in the in news on the web and weve got weve got resources and there is a commitment and im sort of very excited about the opportunities. Jack thanks mike. So youre famous for these in depth investigative stories. The penn state scandal comes to mind. You spent hours and hours. How does that translate to two paragraphs on a yahoo page . Michael the stories that, you know, im doing at yahoo are a lot longer than two paragraphs. Maybe thats what people might see on their mobile or something, but its all there. Weve been able to do some pretty interesting investigative pieces. Theres one that got a lot of attention last year. Ive done a lot of reporting on the governments war on terror and particularly drone strikes and the effectiveness of those. We discovered a drone strike in yemen last year that killed a bunch of innocent civilians in a town caused a huge uproar in that village. Antiu. S. Protests, backlash because one of those killed was an anti was antial qaeda imam who spoke out against al qaeda. A Police Officer was killed. And this has led these sort of errant drone strikes has led to a real question because the whole Drone Program is cloaked in secrecy, what does the u. S. Government do what does it do when it kills innocent civilians in a foreign country like this . When the u. S. Military inadvertently kills civilians, theres procedures for condolence payments. Its they will make compensation to the families, but what happens with drone strike programs that have been cloaked in secrecy . We found a guy who was the relative of some of the innocents who were killed who recounted an incredible story. This had been a c. I. A. Drone strike. We tracked him down in yemen. Interviewed him by skype and were able to get a whole bunch of records showing that after the drone strike and after some Human Rights Watch had written about this, Human Rights Group brought him to washington to actually meet with members of the white house, he gets called to the National Security bureau in yemen. It was still functioning them. They still had a government in yemen then. Not sure what would happen now. And basically he was slipped a bag full of 150,000 in cash. Greenbacksy quentionally numbered but no greenbacks, sequentialally numbered, pay the families but dont say anything about it and there will be no record of it. Fascinating account. We were able to actually get the records showing how the money was ultimately wired to an account in the guys village fully crab rating his corroborating his story. We had others who was able to do it and this was the first window into first the u. S. Acknowledging that it was killing innocent civilians in a town of yemen and also what it was trying to do to sort of tamp it down. There was a sort of big debate in the village. Some people thought it was hush money. They didnt want to take it. They ultimately took it, but it was a fascinating window into what happens in the aftermath of a drone strike that was something that we were able to do on yahoo . We spent a lot of time on it. We had some really gripping video, and it got a lot of attention. So im thats just an example of the kind of work we can do in this sort of new era of digital news. Jack fascinating. So quick question before we go on to larry. You invested all this time, money and effort in this particular story. Which could have been anything, including consumer investigative story. You put it up on the internet. What do you have any concern that other reporters will just grab it after your investment and then repackage it . Michael i had that concern at the washington post, newsweek, people see your story, dont give you credit, they run with it. By and large people sort of know you had it first and where it came from. And its very hard to take a story like that that took a lot of time and effort and a lot of, you know accumulate lating documents and interviews for somebody to sort of rip it off without it being clear where it where the storys coming from. Jack lets go on to larry, lawrence roberts. Senior editor at pro publica. Previously he was investigative editor at the washington post, executive editor of the huffington post, projects editor at harvard and editor in large at bloomberg news. He helped start an alternative weekly and became a Foreign Correspondent for united press international. As an editor larry was a leader on the team that received three pulitzer prizer. One for the currents investigation into the flaws of the hubble space telescope. Another an examination into the Vice President dick cheney and another for exposing the details of the abramoff scandal. He directed a series showing how a. O. L. Misused accounting to fuel its disastrous merger with time warner which won the jared loeb award. He taught at wezz Lane University and graduated from franconia university. Pro publica seems to be the hottest discussion item among media analysts, among research and polling communities. So what in the world is pro publica how are you funding whats your overarching mission . Lawrence thanks, jack. Glad to be here with this illustrious panel of reporters. As a lone editor im sort of the odd plan out. Propublica is a nonprofit independent newsroom that started about six years ago and that was in the midst of the real upheaval in the way the internet was changing the News Business. There is a real fear among many of us at the time that traditional news organizations, because of the change in the Business Model, were not going to be able to devote the amount of resources and time to investigative reporting in the sense of longterm in depth work that takes reporters, you know, months to produce. And at that time, a lot of different kinds of elements of the news ecosystem started to spring up. Propublica raised money from foundations, from individuals and has built over the last six, seven years a newsroom of about 50 people focused only on journalism in the public interest. And that of course includes a big swath of reporting on consumers, on how, you know, abuses of unfairness, abuses of trust, fraud and the what propublica brings to the table is a longterm commitment to working on stories however they take to do a big commitment to Data Collection and analysis and a feeling that every time we produce a story thats based on a huge amount of data we try to extend that reporting to local communities by partnering with people across the country who can do their own versions of it. For example, we recently started a series on workers compensation, took a reporter named michael graybell about a year to produce and he analyzed how workers comp laws and rules had changed in all 50 states, showing these enormous disparities on how people are treated if theyre hurt in, you know, oklahoma as opposed to new york. And built this into a big database Interactive Chart and now were working with news organizations, local and regional around the country where they would do their own versions of the story sort of based on the research that weve produced. And thats been kind of replicated along a number of stories like how pharmaceutical Companies Pay doctors which is up until now had been sort of a hidden you know, hidden thing. So propublica is like a couple of other nonprofit news organizations, some of which were mentioned up here before, the center for Public Integrity, which is the one that brian worked with, the center for investigative reporting based in san francisco. As the internet has changed things and produced a lot of problems for what we call legacy news organizations, its also opened up a lot of opportunities for different kinds of organizations to spring up. And were one of those groups. Jack so larry what in your reporting does propublica see as one of its roles the object to influence and change Public Policy . Lawrence yes. Thats right. The as a much more sort of focused way. Implicitly all Investigative Journalism thats done by anybody from the washington post, New York Times, washington journal, nbc news, theres an idea if you expose things that are hidden or people dont want things to be known or abuses of consumer or abuses of power that may lead to change. We have a much more explicit mission, when we tackle a topic we want to take it to the point if people want to act on reform or change they can do it. So that what that mainly means in the choice of what we choose to pursue were looking for things that could lead to actual action. Jack fascinating. Well next we have brody mullins, an Investigative Reporter for the wall street journal, priring to joining wall street journal he reported for roll call. He first covered tax legislation ands then did investigative stories about congress, lobbying and the culture of washington. Recently his examination about how wall street minds government for information to trade stocks helped inspire congressional legislation known as the stock act that banned members of congress and their aides from trading in stock based on inside information. In 2010 his series of stories on lawmakers traveling overseas on official government business exposed a series of abuses, prodded congress to cancel plans to spend 500 million on new luxury jets and led to reforms on how congress travels abroad. Brody has twice received the everett dierkson award for distinguished reporting on congress and the National Press club award for the best political reporter under age 33. I didnt know they had the age brackets. [laughter] brody i think its 34. Jack it gets older as you do. He also received the george polk award and was a finalist for the jared loeb award and is washington magazine called him one of washingtons best 50 best reporters. Hes a true d. C. Native, graduated from Gonzaga High School and ultimately northwestern university. All right, so brody, as a paper focused on business and business people, for many advocates the wall street journal is somewhat of a mystery, yet much of the investigative reporting done by you and your colleagues have as a resulted in very consumeroriented reforms. Sort of like the rachel show resulting in more government Less Government regulation. So its kind of an oxymoron. In terms of investigative reporting, how important is it to the fundamental mission of the journal . Brody how important is investigative reporting . Well, i think to the washington journal its important in part because the problem weve had in investigative reporting overall is it declined in immediate decline in Regional Newspapers which created this big vacuum or opening for people doing big broad stories about problems in the government or abuses by lawmakers. These types of stories were the bread and butter of the washington post, New York Times, bloomberg and the journal years ago as well as dozens of Regional Newspapers. The problem is the Regional Newspapers dont have the money anymore to invest in these types of stories. The issue is that you were talking about putting reporters on a all three of you were talking about putting reporters on stories for upwards of a year. I think that if a regional reporter went to their boss and said, hey, im going to work on something for a year, they would be laughed out of the building. I certainly would be. That has created sort of an opportunity for abuse. I think lawmakers know at the state level or National Level that no ones watching them. Thats a real problem. Jack so do you see the center for integrity or propublica to be competition to your investigative reporting . Brody i certainly do. I think theres enough out there that people can stay in their own lanes. Theres enough to cover. I think another problem is the people doing this well right now are nonprofits. The you know, we work in businesses. We need to make money. And hopefully over the next few years, coming years newspapers and journalism overall will figure out how to make money from these type of stories. The problem, again if you invest in a reporter to cover a story for a year, you could use the same resources to use five people to write 500 stories. The challenge is how do you try to make money by investing in longer term stories . Jack i think the wall street journal is somewhat unique in terms of being able to make money. I guess one of the first and continues to be successful at generating enough revenue from its online subscription to be viable. When you are proposing and developing investigative story ideas to your editors do you ever rush into pushback that was often in the local press where, you know, thats a great story but im not sure our advertisers are going to be comfortable with that . Brody i have not dealt with that at the wall street journal. Im sure other papers have. Certainly regional papers dealt with that for a long time. I think the journal is big enough and has enough advertisers they are not dependent on a one or two, you know, individual subscribers to carry the paper. But that is a big problem also. Jack so going back to brian, all right. So weve got a million story ideas in this room. How do you decide which story ideas you are going to pursue and what kinds of things are you looking for from advocates to get you started on a story . Brian i guess i start with am i interested . Have i heard of this before . And then as a tv reporter, to be honest, are there pictures associated with it . Are there people that have been hurt . Do we have some representation of that . Whats going to make a story that will work on television . Is a key part of it. I think part of it, we have done well because we figured out a way to make almost any story, you know, visual. Its not easy but its a challenge. Its part of the craft. Those are the questions. Am i personally interested . Do i want to spend the next three months on something that is interesting to me, that hasnt been out there before, that would be would have an affect on people or have an affect on policy . Those are the threshold questions for me . Jack so the big question that any of us get, are there any victims . Do you know the victims, where are the victims . I think, larry, this is where you come in. You seem to have the ability to pull together the data and how do you go about pulling about the data to shows there are victims out there and that does affect x number of people . Lawrence well, its sort of a methodical process to collect data on a topic where we think there might be something new there. One of the things i wanted to point out about the internet is that while it initially was seen by us in the News Business as something that was disruptive to what we were doing, it also presents an enormous opportunity to reach people and have a twoway conversation with readers of the news, consumers advocates and judges and everything else. So once we sort of embark on a storyline, we often will put in our stories, you know, hey, if you know about this or you have something to tell us contact us. And thats become an enormous source of, you know, stories, as you say victims. Individual stories, examples of things that are happening in places that in the old days would have taken a lot more time and effort to reach. Jack well, you know, going back to brody again the wall street journal is known for precision, for you know, its expertise, sort of a nononsense approach. Given what larry said, what do you think about the concept of crowd sourcing for information . And somehow testing whether or not that information is real or legitimate . Brody its not something we have done directly. Part of the problem with information that goes out on the internet, news on the internet sometimes not these publications, is credibility. And i think that sometimes thats why you need a big name behind some of the information that goes out because i think if were not there now were going to get there soon, people dont know what to believe. And in the 24hour cable environment we live in theres constant information even on television that turns out not to be true. There was a story yesterday that turned out not to be true. I think readers will have to look to name brands or brands they trust and say, ok soandso is saying this. I trust it that is true and that puts a burden on us to make sure we dont, you know, try to follow a story by 30 seconds that we make sure that its right. Jack all right. So that brings me back to you mike. Obviously you are one of the more trusted reporters, literally, in the world. Thinking about this trust and thinking about yahoo and the internet, what kinds of differences have you experienced . I mean, youve had amazing experience, the post, nbc, newsweek, were you under different guidelines to and how are you going to create this credibility that some people wonder about the internet . Michael well, first of all, in terms of guidelines, the short answer is no. There are standards in our profession and standards of professionalism. I pretty much had that in all of these experiences. Actually my direct editor now at yahoo , danny, was my editor at newsweek, former bureau chief and managing editor at newsweek. The editor is megan lieberman, former editor of the New York Times magazine. So its the same sort of professional ethos and standards. I think to a large extent your work speaks for itself. People can read a story and get a pretty good sense once they start, you know, delving into it of whether the work is there, whether its kolb rated whether the corroborated whether the sourcing is good whether the information can be trusted. Now, i do think so i think when you do good work regardless of where it is, people do recognize it. If youve got something that people havent seen elsewhere, it will break through. There is a lot out there, and this is i think this is true for all of us. There are so many sources of news now so many not just the traditional legacy news organizations but a whole range of, you know ranging from nonprofits to blogs to Regional News services to ideologically driven news organizations that it is theres just a lot of noise and a lot of stuff can sort of slip through the cracks. This is my frustration as a reporter trying to keep tabs on everything thats out there. You know have i missed something . Is somebody very often its just word of mouth. Did you see that . Because if i missed it on my twitter feed i may not have seen it at all. Brian just did a great piece on Human Rights Violations by the iraqi army. I happened to see it on twitter, watched it watched the whole video. It was really good. I didnt even know it was on world news tonight. I had to ask him, did you make that on the news . Thats the way were getting our news these days. And while in one sense thats good because ill see a lot of things like that story that i wasnt watching world news tonight last night. I was traveling at the time. I was able to see it. But it also means very often theres so much out there that good stories get lost in that way. Brian except i think its very good because it gives huge numbers of new platforms a story that might not make it on the world news it will be on apple tv, a whole number of investigative stories. I think its an exciting opportunity for all Investigative Reporters because there are fewer limits on space and time and great opportunity. And, you know, in our company and i think others, we partnered with yahoo , were racing to be part of the digital future. We can see thats where thats where its going. So thats something we embrace. Were not afraid of. Lawrence i think all of this news thats going on, one other trend i may be a polyanna about it, there is a growing sophistication among the news consuming audience about what is credible and what isnt. I think that some years ago it was a much more free for all where something would pop up and people would believe it for a long time or it would come from an organization that no one ever heard of. I feel as though there is a coalessing of some sense of what a credible source is and what isnt. And i think thats a great trend. Michael brian said something that registered to me as a former tv reporter myself. One of the frustrations i was at nbc to fit in to the nightly news or the format, the stories got shorter and shorter and shorter. Two minutes is a huge takeout on tv news. I dont i dont labor under the same incumberances at yahoo . I just got back two weeks ago from cuba and was actually it was a fascinating trip. I had the first interviews with the cuban five spies since they had gotten released by obama. And we were able to put together a sevenminute video that ran on the web that had, you know, really great stuff, both from the interviews, walking the streets of havana with these guys who were celebrated as National Heroes down there. If i had to do that for one of the network news, it would have been, you know, if i could have gotten two minutes it would have been it would have been a real gift. But, you know, i was able to do something much more in depth, much more satisfied, actually. Jack so brian, is that proliferation of what youre able to expose the public to, one of the reasons why abc chooses to make a very large investment in your team . Brian i think so. Jack if you just had the nightly news, maybe you wouldnt they wouldnt want to make that investment . Brian im not sure about that, but i know that we are urged. You know we are encouraged, almost demanded of us that we first, the story about the iraqi army and allegations theyre committing war crimes just as bad as isis itself, that was not particularly the kind of thing that would be desirable, you know, at the breakfast hour as people are watching having dinner. And so we had a shorter piece on world news. Nevertheless, that was nine Million People watching. And then a much longer piece that appeared online, on facebook. And so that kind of reach i think justifies the investment that abc makes in an investigative unit. For us theres almost no story we cant tell and find a place for it and that gives us an opportunity to expand it. You know, the in terms of the business they make a lot more money from television than they do right now from whats online. But thats something that will evolve. We figure if, you know, you do good stories and theyre available people will find them. Jack so brody, following up on larrys comment about the increased im not sure this is i would agree with this but the increased sophistication in the news consumers starting to be able to differentiate on the internet what is a legitimate source and what is an ill legitimate source, how does the wall street journal deal with that in the sense that, you know, like mike said, you dont want to go down the rabbit hole of all the comments about your reports because that can be very, you know, hard to listen to and hear. But the bottom line is, how does the wall street journal differentiate itself from first of all a myriad of trade associations, magazines that are starting to look like the wall street journal and starting to sound like legitimate news publications as well as all the other stuff out there . Brody we have a big advantage that weve been around for years. People know who the wall street journal is. A lot of people trust the wall street journal, a lot of people dont trust the wall street journal. Especially on our editorial side of course, this is ok, this is coming from coon serve tiff point of view. I agree with it or its bunk. On the journalism side of it, as you said earlier, weve written a lot of stories that are sort of more proconsumer, stories that you hope affect Public Policy for good. It sort of goes back to my point about credibility. And being careful that you dont make mistakes or that youre a credible messenger. All you have is your brand name. As soon as you make the mistakes or report things are incorrect, you lose that and youre not going to have the trust of reaters of readers. That goes back to you, larry. A lot of people are concerned that much of the information on the internet and internet news sources is unfiltered. Youre an editor. Is it because of folks like you and editors that are starting to clean up some