Speaker. Banging on. Mr. And. Football. Fine, she is. Unsurprisingly they bread it so. I have been trying since the beginning of this month to get them some support here. D i have failed to get a response to me because ive been rejected on the ground that theyre not habitual residents here. I threatened them in the question time. They werent getting no support from the dwp. Whats a Prime Minister going to do. I have no resources. Im very happy to look at the case. Because shezz mentioned you must be absolutely terfiving. All the thanges are happening. Im very clear on first responsibility is to help tack ebola in. I done think its bad. In terms of united states. N terms of our constituents. And order youve been watching the Prime Ministers questions this week you can see it close in time live on wednesday at a special time. 9 00. Agains on or watch any kind where you can ind be res mples monday night on the communicators president and wireless crecro. And this process allowed the Lessons Learned has really been learned. Its going wonderfully. Eight of the paired. Ss. We are so excited about getting to a. W. Three. I think fabulous discussion is really going well too. The which values the speck drum. O a business decision. Were excited about both options and certain that our carriers will come to them with big checkbooks. On monday, former house speak erden niss hastert and ichard jeff heart scullingsr discuss the majority now compared to when they serve. This is an hour and 20 minutes. Issues before the house, senate and executive branch. 1976 to dt, from 2004, home to his birthplace st. Louis, he was elected to serve as House Democratic leader for 14 years. And minority leader from 1995 to 2003. I want to start with you. You were elected in 1976. How much money did you to raise . For grand sum of 70,000 two companies were primary in a generally contest primary. Mr. Speaker, you were a high school coach. You were offered a job as a principle. But then you went to congress. How did your role as being a coach help you in your role in speakership . I think first of all is a great coach. You have to look at the team. Happy you moved a group of people forward. You know, i think the skills that you built during those years of coaching and springing people mentoring. You had to break people live. You set goals. You try to achieve those goals and you try to move forward. Interesting thing is when i was offered the job of a principle. I looked a the prince ls off. He had the same chair out size his office all the time. Theyre raising heck on the school buses and just all sorts of on the other side of the officers were teachers. They wouldnt to. And theyve been looking our kids. I dont want to do this for the ext 20 years of my life. Its 535 people and theyre trying to Reach Agreement on very controversial, emotional issues in the country. And so its always hard for them to operate, for them to make those decisions. You know, i always say politics is a substitute for violence. It really is. And when people come here, they find out theres 534 other eople in the building and in many countries one person makes the decision. A small group here. We have this huge group and so its always hard. Lately its been a little harder than usual and i chalk it up to the fact that we had the worst recession since the reat depression from 2007 or 8 until just recently and when you have a big recession, a lot of people lose their job, lose their house, lose their pension, they get angry, nderstandably and they tend to send people to represent them who are equally angry. And having made up their mind that these are the answers and its going to be my way or the highway. So theres been less willingness to compromise to on some important issues. I think people who came with that frame of mind are starting to either change their mind or theyre leaving congress. So im an optimist. Think in the days ahead youre going to get back to a more normal situation between the congress, within the congress, and with whoever is president and i think youll get a better atmosphere. But remember, its always hard. It was hard when we were there. And it was hard when anybody is there because the issues are tough. Theyre controversial and everybody has a different opinion in that group of 535 on what to do. Are you optimist as ell . Yes. This is the best governmental system in the world as far as im concerned. If you want real democracy and real participation, this is where its at. I think most people around the world if they had the opportunity, they would be here in this country. I see some of the same problems that my colleague. We were across the aisle but we were also just across the river. His district in st. Louis, my istrict in illinois are pretty close together. I learned a long time ago that when i was serving in the llinois legislature, theres a couple of people in the Illinois Legislature i couldnt understand where they were coming from. They were antifarmers and antibusiness. I thought just protagonists all the time. One time i got on a train in springfield. And i went from springfield to st. Louis and passed through the district these folks came from. It was called down below. It was all closed down factories and refineries that were closed and broken up and it was very, very dire. So i learned everybody thats in the congress, everybody thats elected comes from someplace. They represent a group of eople. And one of the things that you have to realize as being a leader is that everybody has a right to be there. Everybody has a right to be heard and everybody has a right to be part of the process and the process isnt always pretty. But its constantly trying to move people together and i think what the leader did and what i had to do is constantly put people around the table to try to find some consensus to move forward. Im not sure thats happening today but that will happen. Right now a lot of the focus is on the midterms and the big question is whether the senate is going to flip. But then on november 5, the day after the 2014 election well be talking about 2016 politics, ill hillary run . Of course the answer to that is yes. But everyone is watching her closely. Mr. Gephart, you ran for president twice, what is that experience like and how is it different . Its a fabulous experience. Its a fabulous country and the people are fabulous. Thats all i can tell you. When you go out and try to get people to help you and people do without asking for anything, they dont want anything, they just want good government, then they let you stay in your house. They go to door for you. They give you money, they give you food. Its an incredible experience because of the greatness of this country and the greatness of the people. So both times i really enjoyed it. We put people through a very tough task to be president and i think its a good task. Youve got to go to iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina or a variety of states and meet people oneonone in small groups like this. And youve got to make your argument and let them know who you are, let them into why you want to do this and what your goals are and what motivates you to do this. Its a fabulous system. It really wasnt that much different. I ran in 19 8 and then in 2004. It was the same. The money amounts got bigger because time had gone on, inflation and so on. But the process was very similar and the process candidates go through in 2016 will be very similar to what we did in those years. Speaker hastert, john boehner who you served with is now the speaker and hes been battling some tea party members. Es struggled to move some fiscal bill. Does speaker baner have the toughest job . I think the speakership is a tough job and its a job where you constantly have to bring people with different sides together to find a olution. I see this unhappy discourse that goes on in Politics Today somewhat as a result of a legislation that was passed in 000. What happened basically that legislation took money out of the parties for various reasons people didnt want especially in a president ial race state Political Parties to be involved to skew the results one way or another. Basically the parties were viscerated as far as a Funding Source for candidates. The Democrat People werent members that gotten elected to the party system werent too far to the right or too far to the left. They were pretty ainstream. And so what happened is that money was taken out of the political system from the parties and so money finds a place to go. It went to the far left and far right. Not the choosing of the andidates but the messages hat are out there are paid for by people from the far right nd the far left. And these people are looking over their shoulders and listening to these messages and knowing that if they dont listen, theyre going to have a primary and theyre going to be hallenged. I think that creates it only takes a small percentage to create this type of back and forth within the party. So i think Speaker Boehner has a tough job, but thats what speakerships are for people to have tough jobs to get results. They called the speaker. They should have called me the istener. We seen the Supreme Court get involved with Citizens United case. Are they a big part of the problem . Look, theres no magic answer to the question of money nd politics. We all have different ideas and how important it is and what to do about it. In fact, one time long ago i presented a constitutional amendment which is the only way to really deal with it if you want to deal with it because we have to freedom of speech in he constitution. And the court has said money eek walls speech. So as long as thats their opinion, if you want to change it, youve got to change the constitution. Of course, thats impossible. I dont have any brilliant nswer. I have faith in the people. You know, a lot more money has gone into campaign for the last 0 years. And you have super packs on both sides that are coming in with millions of dollars, usually for negative ads against . Candidate theyre trying to beat. And ive been amazed the public reaction to these ads has not been i think what they expected. People are tired of this and theyre just turning it off. In my view a lot of the super ack money is wasted money. Im sure the tv stations are happy to have it, but i dont think theyre getting the esult they want. The American People are smart nd they dont want you know when they hear negative on this one and negative on that one, i mean theyre both horrible. So who do we pick . And so they start getting information from other sources about who they want to vote for. So im not so pessimistic about this whole thing. A lot of people think its the end of our democracy and its ruining our politics. You know, i can devise a better system but its the system we have. It is in the constitution that we have freedom of speech and people that have money can speak louder than people who dont. Thats the way it is. And we just got to trust the people to ferret their way through all of this information and make good decisions. I think they will do that. There are 435 seats in the house. And even though this congress has been called one of the worst congresses run by republicans in the house, democrats in the senate. As far as the house, 435 seats, basically were tracking 40 to 50 reelection. Everybody in the house is up every two years. Is that a problem . Some of the critics say its sometimes its a bipartisan solution just to protect their ncumbents. Does this process need to be changed . Yeah. Youve got to go back to the constitution again. It will say that its up to the states to died how theyre going to lay out those apportionment. So unless you change the constitution again, youre not going to change the process. You know, one famous politician once made a speech the fact is, it is what it is and you live with it and you work with it and sometimes states lose and sometimes they win, epending on the give and take. My state of illinois, we lost five seats on the republican side last time because other states have other things that happen. It plays out. What happens is what we really want is the people can elect who they want and get something done. Mean, what i think are fed up with or or tired of this business. Everybody blaming somebody else all the time. Hey want someone to set some goals and say were going to achieve it. You have to do it on a bipartisan basis. Dick and i didnt always agree with each other but while we were there we did pave down 650 billion of public debt. That had never been done before and it hasnt been done since. Can you do things on a ipartisan basis . What do you think about gerrymandering . Is it here to stay . The one thing you can think about is some states are going to bipartisan commissions to draw the line. I agree with the speaker. Ou know, the gerrymandering process or the has always been a highly political process because people are trying to get more supporters into their district so its easier for them at election time. Before we had computers it was not a precise science. Now with Computer Technology and google maps, we can go down and say, you know, we know his house, he votes democratic. Want him in my district and i want to get rid of the republican. So its become very precise and very effective i might add. Youve got some districts that are drawing to be 75, 80 republican or democratic. That leads to what the speaker said which is those candidates are only worried about the prinal airy. Theyre not worried about the general election. We had to listen to the other side. So i think that would help. Iowa i think has that process. I think california moved in that direction. So there is a movement to try to take this away from legislatures and give it to bipartisan commissions. But thats going to be a very hard process because legislatures and Political Parties dont want to give up that power. So i wouldnt be very optimistic that a lot is going it change very fast. Im running out of questions. m going to ask one more but if you have any questions, please line up at the milks and then well call on you. When we call on you if you can identify yourself. One we i want to ask thats very important. When i talk to members of congress they mention this because its a democrat administration. It happens in all administrations. And basically Congressional Democrats dont feel like president obama calls them enough. He doesnt usually golf with democrats. And we heard this when george wr bush was in the white house as well the house and senate was upset and they started to publicly criticize the president for not communicating. Is this a problem that the president and this president ho served in the senate, is he enough with ting members of his party on capitol hill or is it not getting their egos stroked . Youve got to step back and look at this job we call president and what it requires somebody to do today. I think it is by far the toughest job in the world. It always has been a tough job because the president always has to work closely with congress. The constitution created congress in article one. It is the most important thing they did. And they gave most of the power to the congress. The Congress Spends the money. The Congress Declares war or doesnt declare war. It has to sanction all of the candidates the president s wants to put up for the cabinet and other important positions. Theres always been required a lot of time on task for president s with the congress. And i guess id say president s cant meet with them often enough, but we also have charged the president to be in charge of Foreign Policy in a world in which youre on this little bitty planet. With todays transportation and communications, president s are wanted to communicate with every other country in the world almost every day. So it is a really demanding job with demanding requirements. Now, you always have to go to the personality of whoever is president. Everybody is different. Some president s like meeting with congress. Bill clinton was one who relished it. He liked it and he did a lot of it and i think he was effective at it. It could be that and i dont know, im not there. It could be president obama doesnt have that exact type of personality and he wants to do other things that he thinks are equally important. And im sure he has more than enough to do 247. So i dont know. Always i think i get some complaining from members they dont get enough time with the president