we're in great shape. >> now, he is real hell on career politicians. some critics, though, look at the maneuvers that happened in kentucky so he could run both for president and for senate is by changing from primary and caucus and saying well, if there's anything that would define a typical career politician type move, that would be it. >> well, the reality is if you look at most -- it's been common in presidential elections for things like that to occur. four years ago paul ryan was simultaneously running for reelection and vice president. four years before that you had joe biden running for reelection in the senate. it's a fairly common thing. >> i think that's making my point. it's something politicians do all the time. >> well, paul ryan, is he a typical politician? >> he doesn't claim not to be a career politician, i don't think. >> i think that will be up to voters to decide but i don't think anybody would ever classify rand paul as a conventional politician.

>> are you privy to how often he talks to ron? and does ron give him advise and say "hey, son, this is how it's done"? >> ron's been out a few times. he was at our announcement speech. rand was in texas a month or so ago doing fund-raising and ron was there. just two weekends ago they saw each other in st. louis at an event where rand's mom received an award for from eagle forum. so they see each other from time to time. >> let me ask you the two questions i want to ask everyone at the end. is there any moment from another candidate or campaign where you thought that was smart, that was shrewd, gosh, we should have thought about that and what is the most endearing rand paul quality the rest of us might not be aware of? >> there have been several moments. there have been several really good campaigns that are out there. i mean, i think the way carly handled trump and the remark that trump had made about her

appearance was well done. >> she really cut his balls off with the precision of a surgeon. >> i thought, you know, carson's -- his closing statements from two debates ago, that was well done. i think rubio's announcement was well done. there has been an a number of opportunities that people have done well and as for rand and endearing qualities, i think the fact that for about 20 years he has done free eye surgeries, he's an ophthalmologist and eye surgeon and he's been doing charitable ones. >> i flahear from donald trump s an okay surgeon. [ laughter ] >> this year he went to haiti. last year he went to guatemala to do it and i think that speaks to his heart and passion. >> how long have you known him? >> have i known rand? >> yes. >> i've known him for a few years in cycles past, he has

supported some candidates that i worked for but really working day and so well really less than a year. >> thanks so much for being with us. appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. [ applause ] >> we're waiting for danny diaz from the bush campaign. he might be too busy reorganizing his strategy in light of the scott walker news. i felt a little like dan rather when someone handed me the note "a.p. reporting scott walker quitting the race." is this true? well, if the "new york times" says it, of course it's true.

ladies and gentlemen, danny diaz making his dramatic entrance on the stage. thanks so much for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> how shocked are you by this news about scott walker? >> well, it's surprising. i think these campaigns are tough and i think scott walker is a good guy and we'll see what the news is that's coming out of this. i think his press conference is at 5:00 central so i'd like to hear it first. he's a good man, sure. >> so lett me ask you a couple questions that come from the conventional narrative about your campaign. you're obviously welcome to push back. one narrative is that you guys coming into this supposed shock and awe, you maybe were going to

scare people out of the race but you certainly were going to be in a fairly dominant position from the beginning, at least where mitt romney was which which is a pretty solid second all along even though people bumped up ahead of him at various times and instead we see bush kind of -- 9% but just kind of there. >> well, i think when you're running for the presidency of the united states you can take nothing for granted and you have to work hard everyday and we have a candidate who will not be outworked, who works his staff, outworks his staff each and everyday. we're very confident that our team and our strategy and everything that we've put forward has a long game focus. this isn't about being the president of the united states in september or october, it's about rising in february, being competitive in the march states. being able to communicate your

message more effectively. i think from our perspective we're confident once the cards are on the table that jeb bush will be the nominee. >> so when you say he outworks his staff, what's -- tell us what that looks like. >> i mean, he's putting in 18 hours a day everyday to be elected president and anyone that knows him should know that that's not entirely surprising. that's the way he governed for eight years as governor of texas -- as governor of florida. so from our perspective that's what we see each and everyday. >> so another thing you'll hear often said about the governor is that he famously said prior to getting in "i'm only going to do it if i can do it joyously." and it seems as though a presidential campaign in this era just sort of inherently is not that joyous for a guy like jeb who's a policy wonk, maybe a little bit of an introvert and especially this time when it's been dominated by a guy -- you

may not say this but i'd be certain that jeb bush considers donald trump a clown and he's losing to him. >> your words. >> and he hasn't seemed to particularly enjoy this process very much to those of us looking at them from the outside. >> well, someone who looks at it from the inside, what i can tell you is -- >> i see what you did there. that was good. [ laughter ] he's having a lot of fun running as president. i think the thing is jeb enjoys meeting people, he enjoys hearing their stories, he really likes talking about his ideas and policies and the impact that they'll have on these individuals. so when the governor rolls out a tax policy, for instance, and he's able to meet with real people and talk about the impact that it will have for them, when he's able to look back on his gubernatorial record and talk about those stories particularly in the area of education, i

think he enjoys that. so we're having a great time running for president. you may see something different but i get to look under the hood. >> it's also taken as gospel among journalists that the constant low energy jibe from trump has gotten under his skin and gotten in his head because he seems to bring it up all the time himself now and, in fact, his secret service code name is going to be response to this charge. he's going to be ever ready because that's high energy. >> well ever ready was the term that he used even when he was governor. so there was a consistency there. i think there's a lot of talking in presidential campaigns. i think there needs to be more showing in presidential campaign. i'm not worried about the blip in september. i have a candidate out there working hard everyday rolling out serious policies, whether it's how to reform washington, whether it's how to beat isis, whether it's how to grow the economy, whether it's regulatory reform tomorrow, and on and on.

and those ideas buttressed with a record of performance that is unmatched in the field, unmatched, he has the best conservative record of accomplishment in the field. so i think he has a lot of credibility when he goes out and says, you know, this is what i'm going to do for america. why? because this is my record in florida, 4.4% growth. 1.3 million jobs. $19 billion in tax cuts. eight years of a balanced budget. $8 billion in the bank account. aaa bond rating. america would be a little better off if we had a record like that and someone with that kind of stewardship of our country. so from our perspective we know if we tell the jeb story, we're confident he's going to be the last guy standing in the nomination battle. >> so you're a real pro and you've been at this for a while. did you at any point or do you at any point now worry that jeb as someone who hasn't run since 2002 has some rust?

>> no. >> and you don't think he has -- you think his performance right now is as good as it will be three months from now? >> i think any candidate, every candidate needs to improve everyday as does his team. that's part of the process and from our perspective, we're working hard every single day. and there are always things that can be done differently or more creatively or whatever else. and so from our perspective as i said this is about growing. this is about building on yesterday. this is about getting better. this is about winning. that's what winners do. it's a long season. we won't declare who the winner is of the baseball season halfway through. you need to get to the playoffs. from our perspective, that's where we're at.

>> circling back to trump, a couple of months ago the governor made a definitive statement "i am done talking about donald trump. enough. i'm going to do my own thing and not address him." and within another couple of weeks he was deliberately going after him and at war with him. what changed? >> well, i think your colleagues in the great fourth estate have a tendency to ask questions that are exclusively focused on one individu individual. from our perspective. i think what needs to be focused on the a greater degree is the policies he's rolling out, what he's doing each and every day, for instance address the u.s. hispanic chamber of commerce, a regulatory policy tomorrow and that's really the crux of this campaign. it's those ideas, it's those policies. and that's what he's talking about day in and day out. now, in the scrum of the

campaign, some things may get kind of heightened attention. it's the nature of the beast if you will. but i think if you look at what the candidate talks about in its entirety, in its totality, i think far and away he's focused on what he believes what his record is and how he can help people. >> so there was no moment where people sat down and said, you know what? everyone thought trump would be a summer phenomenon, that's not true, we have to throw some punches? >> i think -- look, no candidate or campaign is going to allow attacks to go unresponded to. so there's an element of that for sure. you win the presidency by selling yourself. you win the presidency by selling your ideas. you win the presidency by making sure that you connect with people on how those ideas are going to positively impact their lives in a forward looking way. that's what needs to be met. that's the threshold that needs to be crossed.

we're running for the highest office in an incredibly consequential time. so when i know i have the candidate that's created the record of achievement with the best vision to move the country forward and i think has the most credible argument to be a great president, why would i hide that? why wouldn't i put that front and center and make that argument the crux of what we do each and every day. and that's what we're doing. >> so how seriously are you guys going to play in iowa and can you survive a fifth or six place finish there? >> we play and play to win. you don't play to lose. >> so you expect to win iowa? >> from our perspective, we intend to run a competitive campaign in all the early states and we intend to do well. we have a candidate who ran three times and the -- the most populous state in the country, the most competitive purple state, the largest purple state. he left office for something near i think a 60% approval

rating. somebody who gotten a outsized amount of hispanic votes. an outsized number of female votes. we believe with that record of success with the policy ideas that we can compete anywhere and we will. and we happen to have the resources to do it. >> so you're all in in iowa. there's not the cute footsy that mccain and perhaps romney played? you're all in and you expect to win there? >> we're playing to win. >> in iowa? >> we're playing to win in all the four primary states. we're playing to win in the march states, we're playing to win afterwards. >> so new hampshire. i get it, you're probably playing to win there. >> smart man. >> i learn, slowly. how much harder is it going to be in new hampshire having to deal with a john kasich that early on here as shown some potency in new hampshire and chris christie who i think we

can conclude from the last debate may have more life in him than he's shown so far and the conventional wisdom is those are two more establishment center right candidates in your lane. >> i think the republican party should feel very kind of proud of the embarrassment of riches that we have on the stage. there are a lot of really accomplished guys running for the highest office in our land and from our perspective, obviously, we're going to compete and compete very hard in new hampshire. we have visited there frequent ly. that will continue to be the case. when you look at issues in new hampshire such as the economic and tax issues and the governor's record of accomplishment, it fits very nicely. when you look at concerns with how d.c. is so broken and dysfunctional and look at the reforms he instituted in

tallahasse, look at the policy he's put forward with regard to term limits, the balanced budget amendment. you look at these other areas, line-item veto. those are policies that resonate strongly with voters in new hampshire. so we look forward to a spirited conversation with governor christie, with governor kasich. >> should i read that as a threat? "spirited conversations" a threat? >> i think once again we have the best most established conservative record on the stage. we have the soundest policies and we look forward to the conversation. >> so what do you think one of the governor's best moments in the debate last week was when he pushed back against trump's attack on his brother and said "well, one thing i know about my brother, he kept us safe." and ever since then you've had liberal columnist ins and outfits saying that's untrue and showing photos of the traworld trade center s getting attacked on september 11. what do you think of that pushback?

>> i think what the governor stated is fairly apparent and obvious for any kind of objective person that's looking at what transpired and, you know, very proud of, obviously, his family as he said repeatedly, his dad and his brother. so there's that. but once again i kind of get back to what i was saying earlier, kind of my core message. when you run, particularly for the presidency, it's kind of a -- it's the most personal vote that a voter makes. when you look at the next most personal it's probably like a governor. and so voters are really going to look at you. they really want to know who you are, what you believe, what you've done and whether they're going to watch you on that television set in their kitchen for the next four or eight years. and so from our perspective we need to show our heart, we need to run hard, we need to tell our story. luckily we believe that we have the resources to do that fairly effectively and we're going to

compete everywhere. we're going to build a grass-roots organization that's technologically savvy and we're going to compete to win. >> so comprehensive immigration reform. some version of which the governor supports was defeated in 2006, almost sank john mccain's campaign when he supported it, the gang of eight bill was defeated this time around and marco rubio took a swoon, at least immediately after that. >> terry's in the wing, you can ask him about that. >> this is a warning to terry, it might come up. but even now you look at the party and it seems further right on immigration than it was in '06, than it was a year two ago. how hard does that make it for the governor to sell his position on immigration, one, and, two, are you guys worried that with the talk we've heard about immigration, the well has been poisoned some and jeb's

entire -- not his entire but an element of his general election campaign of appealing to hispanics will be much more difficult? >> i think the polling data clearly demonstrates that people want a solution. there's a problem, they want to resolve it. i think the governor has put forward a comprehensive plan with respect to how one addresses the border. he's written a book on the issue of immigration. and this is one of those big issues. it's one of those big issues that's been 30 years since he's been addressed. who has the wherewithal to get it done? maybe the person who dealt with medicaid in florida. maybe the person who has big, big achievements. so that would be a key indicator of who has the wherewithal to get it done. it's an important issue. it's an important issue we need to debate. when you talk about governor bush, as i said earlier, he's someone that had an outsized performance with hispanic voters in florida. he's someone even today around

35%, 36%, 37%, in polls, general election polls with hick pick vo -- hispanic voters, he can win, he's campaigning with his arms wide open. he's campaigning bringing people into the process. that will secure the border that will put in place the mechanisms. i think the record bears that out. and i think he's going to continue to campaign as someone who is solution oriented. >> best moment for another candidate or campaign, most endearing quality? >> i think the most endearing quality is that he gives out his e-mail address to everybody he meets. a number of the exchangers are like "this isn't you? is this really you?" and the back and forth. he's someone that wants to engage people at a very

individual level. i think that is a really important quality in a leader. as far as something one of the other campaigns did that was pretty smart, i thought the response ad from fiorina's super pac to the donald trump attack was well done. >> danny, thanks so much. really appreciate it. [ applause ] >> next up is terry sullivan of the marco rubio campaign. terry, welcome. >> thank you very much. [ applause ] good seeing you. >> good seeing you. >> so since we're living in an instant reaction world, any instant reaction to the thing that's not quite happened yet but that is reported is going to happen, scott walker's exit? >> right. we've actually just nailed down his new hampshire state co-chair

to endorse marco. so a little bit of news there for you that i got just a minute ago. and we're working hard and i think we've got a few other folks but we're -- you know, we're prepared as people move on from the race and -- to kind of capitalize on it and pick up their supporters. >> how shocked were you to hear the news? >> not really. i mean, it's -- you know, the -- people don't stop running for president because they run out of ideas or a desire to give speeches, they stop running because they run out of money it's why we've run such a lean campaign at times, taking knocks for it. we don't know why but i would assume that is the case. >> so tell us a little bit more about how lean -- what are some examples of things you guys aren't doing that other people are doing that you think is start a way to husband your

resources? >> staff is so expensive. it's extremely expensive to go out and pay someone -- especially early staff. late staff, when you're paying someone for three months, not too bad when you're paying for them 12 months it's a big difference. everybody on our campaign has taken a pay cut to take the job, myself included. for whatever job they had, some people came from the official office, other people came from other lines of work or other campaigns, everybody who's less and i want peopleeahhñ in shç because they dvbme don't make staff news, we don't send outlb it's not az

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for anybody. butfb%0 low is he needs bush to collapse. or to fizzle on the launch pad. any truth to that? and whether or not there's truth, is bush fizzling on the launch pad? >> we need everybody not named

"marco" to fizzle. that's the plan. we need everybody to slowly kind of fizzle out and we think they will. it's no disrespect to them or their candidacy or campaigns it's just that we're building this for the long haul. we have a candidate we believe is designed for the long haul in that he is not going to make headlines everyday. he's not going to be the guy at any debate that comes up with the best one liner at the debate. just not going to be him. but he'll be the guy over the course of the debates you'll say "i'm kind of comfortable." i believe that voters want to elect a president -- someone for president that they can drink a beer with but they know is responsible enough to not drink too much so they can drive them home afterwards. you know? it's really what it comes down to. >> and he's paying you a cut rate for this stuff? this is great. [ laughter ] >> i know, i know. he just pays me a beer.

no it's -- but just the sense that, look, you want something more responsible and, frankly, feel like they have a command and control of the situation but that -- but you can identify with them still. and that where's marco is at. you feel like you watch him up there on stage and, you know, just from a personal -- this is a guy who can talk east coast versus west coast rap and makes joke about "the chappelle show" but is amazing on foreign policy and schools the best foreign policy experts. so to have someone like that i think is a unique candidate. >> so to simplify and sum up, you're kind of making a bet on his talent. >> yeah. >> and you think it's a good bet for the long term? >> i think every -- this sounds a little bit like spin or bs but

every campaign has -- successful campaign has to best on their candidate. now every candidate has strengths and weaknesses. but you've got to. if you're trying to make your candidate somebody they're not, voters, you can say what you want about voters -- and sometimes i do -- but they have this unique ability to sniff out bs. and if you're trying to tell them, look, no, no, this is not what our candidate is, look over here instead of saying "this is exactly what our candidate is, and you may disagree with him on some stuff but at the end of the day this is who our candidate is and here's why that's a good thing." our job is only to say why it's a good thing, not it is this or isn't that: in my belief in a successful campaign. and when you try to make voters believe someone is something they're not, it doesn't work. >> speaking of having a dim view of voters. one of my favorite statements of that is the late great mo udall who lost badly in the new

hampshire primary and came out at the podium and said "the voters have spoken, the bastards." [ laughter ] so you're making a bet on this talent. the criticism you will hear of the strategy is it's much riskier that a candidate who has a clear ideological base the way ted cruz does, the way john kasich and the other wing of the party does or a clear geographical base the way i think cruz would in the south. >> so you're saying like john mccain, mitt romney, george w. bush, bob dole? i mean, look, none of our nominees have had either of those two things for quite a while. so it e's -- which of the leg o three-legged stool are you going to be? which is your line? you read reporters say this. you know what? three-legged stool for a reason

and republicans do best when they embrace all three legs and when you're a one-legged candidate you can't stand up. so to that extent, look, we're not a niche candidate where we have one lane and we'll double down on that lane. but we also don't scare anybody. yes you have to become the first choice of enough people but the pathway to do that is to not be scary to any part of the party. there are die hard ted cruz supporters who think, yeah, i like marco rubio. and there are die hard jeb bush supporters, like, i like marco rubio, that's important. marco said to me, once, a long time ago -- i probably get in trouble when i repeat conversations i had -- but this morning he said, you know, i would never want to be the nominee of the wig part yhig pa.

so if you don't have a sustainable party and you're not a sustainable candidate for a general election, what's the point? so you shouldn't just be about general election, you shouldn't abandon your principles or be about a general election viability only but you should absolutely not sacrifice. we've seen our candidates in the past get hurt by that, by trying to overcompensate, say things they probably really don't believe in order to win a primary and then have to try to backtrack them in a general. >> was there ever a moment where you guys sat down, saw trump's rise and considered what to do about it or did trump's rise fall in the category of everything you would just consider noise and -- in your long range plan? >> the -- no, because -- a couple things, number one, last week i had our research team -- you know, let's look at historically speaking who has been in first place at this

point. so in the second week of september based on public polling what was available recently it's been the real clear politics, before that gallup and things like that. in four years ago last week the front-runner was rick perry by 11 points. eight years ago it was hillary clinton by 16 points and rudy giuliani by 11. and you can kind of goo back fm there. i've said a lot, early polls don't mean anything. turns out i was wrong. if you are in first place in the second week of september, you are guaranteed to not be the nominee of your party. [ laughter ] so i wouldn't -- there would be nothing worse in my mind than being in first place. it's terrible. that was the time we were most concerned because the "new york times" writes stories about how big the windows are on your house. i mean, literally. how well manicured your yard is.

so we are very happy with your -- ideally i only want to be first place on one day, if i have to be a few more than that i'm okay with it. >> comprehensive immigration reform. as i understand it senator rubio supports every element of that to this day but just wants to do with it on a different timetable and at a different order, is that correct? >> well, here's why it's called meet the campaign managers and not meet the policy directors. no one has ever paid me for my policy advice so we won't start today. i'm not a policy guy. i can speak to marco's plan. he tried to do something about it. this is what i go back to about not trying to make your candidate something they're not. marco if nothing is about getting stuff done. he's a bundle of energy and wants to accomplish things. and he very much did on immigration reform. he felt like look, this has to

happen. people came to him and said we need you for the party. he took the ball and ran with it. it failed. he's the first add-to-admit they did it the wrong way. so i don't want to put words in his mouth he now believes in politics in business or in anything else if something doesn't work and you can't to do it you're an idiot. in politics if something doesn't work everyone expects you to continue doing it and you're a sellout. he believes the only way we'll get anything done because the real all right of it is no one believed we were going to secure the border. probably rightfully so. the obama administration was not going to secure the border. >> so completely shamelessly superficial question, do you ever worry he looks to young?

>> no, bill clinton's campaign or john f. kennedy's campaign -- and i realize i'm talking about democrats. >> republicans never nominate the new exciting guy. >> and we get our asss kicked when we don't. when we do the retread -- no disrespect to some of the nominees. but when we do the person whose turn it is, we get trounced and there's a reason for it. dwo we have to stop being charlie brown to the democrats' lucy. let's not kick that football again. >> we're out of time but let me hit you with a couple quick questions. was there a moment when jeb was getting in that you thought "no, marco isn't getting in.

>> never, i mean -- look -- never. >> so the chatter out there, oh, jeb will cut off fund-raising, take his base in florida hiss friends with him. >> that's worked swimmingly, hasn't it? that's the point that he was going to clear the entire field and no one would consider getting in. >> that hasn't worked out so we're -- steady wins the race. >> the -- we were never intimidated. we were unintimidated by the prospect of a jeb candidacy. >> personal question. please be honest about this. have you ever had had a ride on marco rubio's luxury speedboat? [ laughter ] >> i have not. i tried to convince him we needed to do it for a fund-raising gimmick like enter online. he's like "absolutely not, man, that's my boat, man." he's not going to let somebody enter and win a contest online, he won't invite me. >> so best moment for someone

else and most endearing quality. >> the best moment for anybody else is i think ted cruz who i think has run a smart campaign for the candidate he is. they've -- >> they've what? >> they've been ted cruz. they are their candidate. inviting donald trump to the that press conference is brilliant. >> the iran event? >> no one would have covered it but instead they carried ted cruz live on all the networks. he never would have gotten that coverage but he got it because he invited trump. that was smart. ballsy and smart. most endearing quality? it's intriguing to have a candidate who you can talk about music with. first time you talked with bono,

i met him, i happened to be there. they started talking about music and marco explains to bono how that he really believes that. he believes bono was the first christian rock band and i thought you're embarrassing me. this is bono and bono is like "you're right. we try to have a message -- and i'm like -- so he's just someone of our generation and that's cool. >> thank you so much. good luck. [ applause ] is. >> not unexpectedly we have a little change in -- [ laughter ] -- programming that i'm alerted by in this post it note. rick wily from the walker campaign won't be joining us and instead we are going to go straight to tim my teeple of th bobby jindal campaign.

[ applause ] >> so i've asked everyone and i'll ask you to react to the news about governor walker. >> it surprised me. >> why? >> well, you saw he did get an early rise in the polls. he came out really strong in january and it's always hard once you take the dip down to come back. but i still didn't expect him to drop out this quickly. >> now as you've been lurking back there, i've been asking hostile questions based on conventional wisdom so fair warning. the criticism you'll often hear of governor jindal in his campaign is here's a guy who is running the state's health care system, i don't know, what, age 26 or something, who's a wonk's wonk who -- and almost every

room he's in is the smartest guy in the room but he seems to be running a bomb throwing campaign that's necessarily true to who he is. >> the most visited page on our web site and he's laid out policies on repealing obamacare, replacing it. he'll be having a plan to replace obamacare, he has an energication position, he's got a position on national defense and and you still have to break through the clutter. you have 17, 20, 40 candidates in this race you still have to blake through this clutter. doesn't allow you to break through the clutter. the press is not interested in covering that. and so if you break through the clutter you're going to make

your point you have to do it in a way that is going to be reported. it's not reported, it's not set. >> and where are the moments you think he's broken through the clutter? >> i would say that, you know, he came up here to lay out his case for why he thought trump would be the wrong nominee for the wrong candidate for america, the wrong candidate for conservatism that we shouldn't put our trust in somebody who's unproven who doesn't share our conservative values. i thought that was a week where he was able to cut through the cluter. >> and talk about strategic decision, if there was one, to go after trump that hard. >> i think the decision was more of a -- you know, if we go ahead

and invest the presidency in a man like trump who cares about himself who doesn't care about conservative values, we'll make a big mistake as a country. he doesn't have a problem with big government. his problem is that he's not in charge of it. he's not going to reduce the size of government. he's not going to get rid of the burden of taxation and get the economy going. he's not going to get the federal government out of education.

we need to bring back freedom. he's not interested in that. so somebody needs to stand up and say "hey, this isn't the right guy for the republican party, he doesn't represent our principles." >> was there any worry that that kind of attack on trump so far hasn't seemed to work for anyone -- rick perry -- >> sure. >> it seemed to hurt him if anything. it seemings to have gotten rand paul nowhere. how much of a concern is that? >> absolutely. definitely a risk involved because, you know, he's able to use a megaphone when he respo s responds. at this moment in the campaign, at the time he was the issue of the campaign and it was the wrong direction for a party to go, the wrong direction for our country to go. so regardless of the risk it was important to say. >> so plot out for us what you guys see as what jindal's

breakout would be. how is it going to happen? where is it going to happen? when is it going to happen? >> our strategy of an early state strategy, it's iowa. he's on a 99-county tour. he's halfway through it. he's been sending a lot of time in iowa and he is -- the great thing about america's presidential elections is it's not a national primary it's an early state primary and this gives people in iowa and new hampshire a chance to get to know the candidates on a one on one basis. not just from what they see on tv, not just from they see in the muse but to visit with them and they will -- these voters are serious. they'll go to every event, every candidate, they'll meet them, ask them questions, they'll make their own decisions and so that's key to our strategy for success is spending time in iowa, getting to know voters one on one and allowing them to get a sense of who governor jindal is and his experience and his

vision. >> yeah. i've sometimes told people if governor jindal could just campaign in rooms of 12 people at a time he would win the presidency. that's a little bit like your strategy in iowa. >> well, you need a little more than 12 in a room. and louisiana is a state that's very retail heavy. it's a state that they expect when you're running for governor you'll visit with them, get a chance to get to know you. he was an unlikely candidate for governor when he ran. but he spent time, voters got to know him and they elected him twice by historic margins. is. >> so are there any harbingers? anything you guys look at as early indications of jindal catching or or potentially catching on in iowa? >> sure, in the polls you'll see the faves go up and traditionally your image

questions leading indicators. so 662 volunteers signed up in iowa so building out the organization so that's what we're looking at, number of volunteers and our faves and that moves into ballot and hopefully it does it right before the election. >> what does he say or do out there that gets the most reaction? it seems to me not having been on the trail with him but just hearing what others say and reading reports that it's the immigration without assimilation is invasion. is that the thing that gets people going the most? >> that has. i tell you, religious liberty is an issue that has a lot of people worried this idea that we're losing something as a

country if as a christian businessman you can't operate a business according to your believes and conscience. if we're going to force people to attend religious ceremonies against their conscience, that's something that strikes a chord. most rekrent cently it's been ha frank conversation about what's going on in d.c., that republicans have control of the house and senate yet it seems like on the big issues we continually surrender. when the democrats are in charge they have no problem going balls to the wall to get done what they want to get done. you look at socialized medicine, ted kennedy pushed it, hillary clinton pushed it then obama rammed it through. in a lame duck session they never gave up on it. republicans tend to surrender

even before we get a chance to fight on it. you look at the corker framework. we went ahead and unilaterally said okay, we'll let you do this. so anyway, there's a lot of anger about republicans and our inability to fight and accomplish what we campaign on. >> so is the governor really and truly more angry at mitch mcdonnel than barack obama? you might think mcconnell hasn't been aggressive enough, is too much of a tactician but he's basically this inoffensive guy running the senate whereas president obama is trampling on our laws and disgracing our country overseas and going as far as he can towards socializing things. >> i think the anger comes in from the fact that fopresident obama and the democrats are honest about what they want to accomplish. and they go very hard at

accomplishing what they want to accomplish. and we are told by republicans this is what we hope to accomplish, this is what we're going to accomplish. and then we're then we're told oh, sorry, we really can't do that. >> you think mitch mcconnell and john boehner are dishonest, that they're just pretending to oppose these things and don't really want to stop them? >> i just wish that we had the same level of fight on our side that democrats have on their side. >> so, shawn speightser has said there's not going to be an undercard debate next time, and they want to shove the candidates down in the polls to interviews rather than to a debate stage, even early debate stage. how will that affect you guys and how can you push back against it? >> well, i mean, the rnc has a lot of important roles, but i

wouldn't think the important role of the rnc is to limit the field, limit the number of candidates that you have on the debate stage prior to anyone actually voting. and i know that a lot of smart people got in a room after the 2012 elections, and decided that the reason why republicans lost that election was we had too many debates. and we allowed the frontrunner to get asked too many questions and to be criticized too much and too much conflict. when as a party did we become afraid of ideas? when did we become afraid of having robust debates about ideas? that is a great thing to have in a democracy. where you want it to be. the idea that folks say we need to limit the number of debates and lump the number of people who are participating in these

debates because we've decided that that's the best thing for you voters to have, i think it's silly. >> so you think the rnc is trying to shut down the debate and shut down candidates and get them out of the race? >> well, i think that they said they wanted to have fewer debates, because they felt like mitt romney got the up too much. i just don't think that's healthy. i think as a party, we shouldn't be afraid of debates or ideas. let's have these debates. >> one criticism you will hear of governor jindal, especially from the left, is how is this guy run for president and a plausible presidential candidate when he's so unpopular at home? is he unpopular at home and if so, why? >> i think he, right now from what i can tell, from the polls i've seen, he's got about a 40% approval rating. i think the reason is he told

people that he was going to shrink government and grow the economy. and in louisiana, we had a very top heavy government for a long time. he created a government that was outsized and we couldn't afford it anymore. it was crushing our economy. governor jindal came in, and over the course of eight years, he cut the budget by $11 billion. that's a lot of money. he fired 30,000 state employees. so in a state where you have two million adults, everybody knows somebody who got laid off, state employees who are laid off. so is it popular -- if you want to be popular, what you do is you give money away, right? you expand medicaid so that everyone gets health care. you give free stuff to people.

that's how you're popular as governor. he didn't run to be popular. he ran because our state needed generational change. that's what he did. he trumped government. we had a government-run hospital system in louisiana. a government-run hospital system that had been there since the 1920s. now it's all privatized. people said you can't privatize the charity hospital system. it's just too ingrained into the culture of our state. well, he privatized it. you look at education. statewide school choice. he got rid of tenure for teachers. it's not a popular thing to get rid of tenure for teachers, but he got rid of tenure for teachers. he gave the largest tax cut -- income tax cut in louisiana history. and of course, that resulted in fewer revenues. people say we've got these budget problems. it's not budget problems. we did it on purpose. we cut revenue so we could cut government. and he cut government. if you look at when he ran, he

won by a historic margin the first time. the ever non-incumbent governor to win in the primary and got a record re-elect rate. he went in there and accomplished what he needed to accomplish. >> i can hear some journalist tweeting jindal's campaign manager, republican agenda unpopular. [ laughter ] you see others. mitch daniels took a swoon when he came in and changed things. scott walker did it in wisconsin initially. chris christie has kind of backed down a little bit now, but initially swoon and came back up when people saw results. so what's different in louisiana? >> well, we've had to continue to reduce the size of the government. and it's not always popular to cut the size of government. i think, though, at the point we're in in america, there's too much government spending. i think our debt is too large, and the spending is too much,

and it does take somebody with backbone to go in and cut spending. i think that the spending is going to threaten our economic security. when you have president obama say that he didn't have the leverage he needed with iran vis-a-vis china and negotiating that deal because we owe china a bunch of money. when you've got the president saying that, it denounced any amount of debt is affecting our country, our security, and our strength as a country. so cutting government is important. >> so the final two questions i ask everyone. what is the best moment for another campaign or candidate where you thought gosh, that was really smart? and two, what's the most endearing quality about bobby jindal that the rest of us don't know? >> definitely the best moment was trump's hat. that hat is fantastic. i wish i had thought of that. >> the usual rule in politics is never wear a hat.

here's a guy who wears a hat everywhere. >> it's counterintuitive, but it's great. the most endearing quality i think about governor jindal is he's a very kind man. and i think that doesn't always come across because he's got so much intellectual horsepower that you don't get to see it. >> can you give us an example of something that sticks out to you? >> you know, there are times where he'll call me on my phone, and one of my kids will answer. and he'll just talk to the kids. he just takes time with people. he just makes people feel at home and welcome. you go to these iowa town hall meetings, and he won't leave until everyone's had a chance to talk to him. he will sit and talk to every single person. it's because he's a kind person. >> timmy, thanks so much. >> thank you, rich. >> thanks a lot. appreciate it. [ applause ] >> and joining us next will be

christian ferry of the lindsey graham campaign. thanks so much for coming. so, your reaction to the big scott walker news? >> well, i think like everyone else has said, it was kind of a surprise to see that news this early in the race. the one thing i would say is that it tells everyone that whatever you're reading today in the polls, whatever you're seeing in terms of conventional wisdom, who the frontrunner is, it's all nonsense. it's all nonsense today, trying to determine what's going to happen next january, next february based on where you see things today. scott walker, a good governor, a good man, done a good job in wisconsin, he's done really good for our party. he was at one point the frontrunner in this race. today he's gone. things change quickly. >> so i don't mean this to be an insulting question, but i've

really been personally curious because senator graham is so lively. he loves the game. and in that first debate, was he sick? was he under the weather? because it was just night and day, that first debate. the second debate is the typical peppery, funny, lively lindsey graham. >> look, that was his first debate as a presidential candidate. it's a big stage. bright lights. but it was also a very strange debate. they put those candidates in an arena with no people in it. you could hear a pin drop. it was bizarre. it was a very difficult situation to expect that, especially someone like senator graham, who feeds off of people, who loves interaction, who has this great sense of humor, to perform in such a stale environment.

i think that that was a really unfortunate way to introduce those candidates in that sort of setting. >> were you guys aware beforehand that there'd be not a soul basically in the arena except for i guess a few family and friends? >> i don't want to get too far into what we heard, what we weren't told -- >> that's what we're here for. we're here to get in the weeds. >> we were told a number of different things beforehand, afterwards. things changed. we knew there wasn't going to be much of an audience. that was not a surprise. >> how did you think he did in the second debate? >> i would say that he was by far the winner of that first forum at the reagan library, and i would say -- and i'm a little biassed, i guess, but i would say he was the only one of anyone on either stage who was ready to be commander in chief on day one, who laid out a plan how we're going to defeat radical islam and is prepared for that task. >> so, i've been asking all the campaign managers negative questions based on the conventional wisdom, because i

am a journalist. so the knock on senator graham is this is a one-issue candidate. and maybe even more than a one-issue candidate. kind of a one-policy candidate, because what he comes back to again, again, and again -- and both of those debates, you could almost ask him anything and he would say 10,000 troops in syria. >> it's called message discipline. i'm going to try to do the same thing. turn the question back to you maybe. what's more important than getting this right? these people are trying to destroy our entire way of life. they're wreaking havoc around the world. it doesn't matter what our social security policy is if our citizens aren't safe. and if we don't get this war against radical islam right, nothing else truly matters. our country is at threat. our citizens are at threat. we have to get this right. and that's going to continue to

be the major focus of his campaign. >> so i know that you're not a military expert, at least i assume you're not a military expert. >> no, i'm not. far from it. >> so where does that number 10,000 come from, except for being in a nice round memorable number? because my limited understanding of military affairs, if you have 10,000 guys in the country, when you take logistics, when you take force protection, when you take search and rescue, you probably have about 50 guys who are actually going to be fighting. >> look, i'm not running for president of the united states and senator graham has been work on the arena for this for a decade. he's been on the ground 30, 35 times. he talks to military commanders. he talks to foreign policy, national security experts. these are numbers that i think he has become comfortable with based on those conversations and based on his experience. i couldn't tell you based on my

own experience, because that's not where i become a political consultant. you don't want me giving military advice. >> so when does he get his bump? do you expect any bump from the undercard debate? >> i do expect a little bit of a bump from that debate. this campaign is a long, grinding process. if the facts were determined today, we wouldn't bother to run a campaign. our job, my job as a campaign manager is to have gradual, incremental progress and peak in january before people vote. not trying to win a race in september or the year before. trying to win it next year when folks start going to the polls, when the caucuses start happening. and we'll have a slow, gradual climb to do that and that's been our strategy all along. >> and how does he match up in your mind in iowa? the conventional wisdom would be iowa tends to reward these very

conservative, very socially conservative candidates and senator graham has a reputation as a more center-right guy. >> yeah, i think that's a fair point. i also think that we have to see how this race is going to shape out in iowa. a few weeks ago, we were talking about scott walker being the frontrunner tonight. well, he's not in the race today. i don't know how many candidates are going to be in the race come the caucus next year. and i don't know how the ideological puzzle breaks up in terms of who's dividing up what segment of the vote. but senator graham, i think if you look at his schedule, where he's been spending his time, a big focus has been new hampshire and will continue to be new hampshire. >> so i've asked some of the other guys this question. shawn said there's not going to be an undercard debate next time and that's a policy that seems to be designed to relegate candidates like yours to some sort of interview format and not let them on any stage whatsoever. >> i think it's really interesting to hear the rnc say

that, because supposedly the rnc has nothing to do with the debate criteria. so i would ask the rnc, how is it that you know what cnbc is going to do if you have no role in what cnbc is planning to do? i think we need to let cnbc determine their criteria. and i think the rnc, as any republican should want, we have a lot of great candidates running for president. let's find a way to feature as many of them as we can. it's good for our party. we should be embracing this as a good thing about conservatism, rather than having the party play the role of -- the role that the voters are supposed to play. >> so if you don't convince the rnc, would you be open to participating in some alternate debate sponsored by some other organization? >> oh, yeah. i think you had one of the best ideas. take all the people who are still in the race, divide them in half, and have two forums. that way you can really see in a

smaller setting all these candidates show off their talents and make their case. i would hope that the rnc -- i hope that cnbc and i hope that others -- i don't know how many candidates are going to be left by the time we get to october 28th either, so this may be a moot point. >> so how would you characterize the senator's thinking on where the party is on immigration? because he's been out there and very forthright about his position for a very long time, and hammering away at it. some would say banging his head against a wall over it. and it seems as though the party is only sliding further right. >> look, i think that the key thing from senator graham's perspective is immigration is a problem. we're not doing anything about it right now. we've got to find a way to fix the problem, or by doing nothing, we're continuing to grant amnesty. that's the one thing i think all republicans agree on is that we got to do something to solve this problem. people have different ideas

about how to do it. but i think senator graham, as he thinks about most issues, looks at it in a pragmatic way. what's actually doable? and i'm going to be honest, whether it helps me politically or not, i'm going to be honest with the american people and give them what i think is the straight story. >> would you characterize his personal view of donald trump as appalled? >> well, i don't think he liked it when donald trump gave out his cell phone number. >> that was an interesting day. >> we couldn't figure out -- why is your phone ringing? >> you thought it was a booker for a sunday show. >> something has happened. hope they're donors. it was not. it was very angry donald trump supporters. i think that his personal views about donald trump are probably that donald trump's not ready to be commander in chief of the greatest fighting force in the world. and we should be focusing on candidates who are. >> so back on the phone, were you secretly relieved that donald trump forced the issue

and forced the senator to get a more modern phone? >> well, it's a mixed bag. because now he knows how to use apps and read polls and read your news articles. and so he's getting a lot of information on his own. but yes. i think it's great that he has joined all of us in using a smart phone. and as i said to him when it all happened, i said -- you know, i had only been his campaign manager for four or five months. i said donald trump just did something i've been trying to do for five months. i am a total failure. he's pretty good at it, so it worked out well. >> so as i read, no one else besides him is fit to be commander in chief because no one else is necessarily onboard with the 10,000 troops in syria? >> i think that we're waiting to see how this race shapes up and how people feel about that particular issue. from his point of view, there is

no debating it anymore. what we need to do in syria, what we need to do in iraq, and the mistakes that we made before, that he's been very vocal fighting against during the obama administration. i think that he feels that this is the right path forward. he's going to make his case. he thinks he is best prepared, otherwise he wouldn't be running for president. >> so as you plot out your path to a breakout, does it require a number of these other candidates, including jeb bush, to fizzle out? >> i'm not sure it means anyone fizzle out. look, any time in politics, you need to have a little bit of luck. to sit here as a political consultant and tell you that it's all the genius in our heads, that's b.s. you need to have a little bit of luck. but you need to put your campaign in a position to take advantage of that luck. i think probably many of you six months ago would have said lindsey graham's campaign manager isn't goingúñú to be one stage when google and national review have their forum, but

we're still here, because we're lea running a small, disciplined, mobile, flexible campaign that we can afford. and in order to remain in a race and take advantage of the opportunities when they come, you've got to still be sitting there. that's the campaign we've had from day one, and it's the campaign we're going to continue to execute. >> can you quantify -- i asked this question of terry as well. can you quantify for us, give us some indication of exactly how small, what corners yourself cutting, and what it means to be lean and mean in the lindsey graham world? >> we have an extremely small national team. a dozen people. we sit in one giant room about this size and we all yell at each other all day long. it's a great deal of fun. a fun place to work. i think that actually reflects a lot of our candidate's personality. i think a good campaign should reflect who your candidate is and where he came from. our campaign, it's kind of like that. we are all a small team.

there for the right reasons. there because we believe in lindsey graham. and if we were doing this for the money, if we were doing it because he was a frontrunner, if we were doing it because of polls, we would all be there for the wrong reasons and we're not. >> and do you buy -- i've asked some of the other candidates who are former senators. do you worry that just the mood is so much in fvor of outsiders and people that have no political experience, the single worst case you can make as a candidate is i've been in the senate a long time, i know things, i've tried to do things. give me this job. >> it's a tough case to make right now, isn't it? but i think at the end of the day, when you get closer to election time, people start thinking about different things. they're going to think about who's ready to take this fight to radical islam. they're going to think about who's ready to be commander in chief. for military families out there, they're going to say, who do i want commanding my son or daughter as they go off to do their job? who do i trust to make sure that

our troops have the capacity and weapons, the support they need to do their job? and i think that when we get down to it and we get down to crunch time and the importance of who our commander and chief is going to be is going to be more relevant in people's minds and that's when lindsey graham is truly going to shine. >> can you talk to us a little bit about the history of lindsey graham as a vote getter in south carolina? my understanding is he's the best vote-getter in south carolina history, eclipsing i think strom thurmond? >> he has never lost a race in south carolina. he won his last primary against six opponents with an overwhelming majority. he's never -- until recently, not necessarily been seen as the frontrunner in those races. but he's a great grass roots politician. what you see is what you get with lindsey graham. he can interact with people as good as anyone i've ever worked with. and i think that sort of talent that helps him so much in south

carolina is perfectly tailored to iowa and new hampshire as well. >> would you expect him along the line to begin to pick up endorsements from his fellow senators? >> i don't know if endorsements are really the name of the game. i think the key is how you're doing in iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina. and that's going to be more of our focus than worrying about what washington, d.c. thinks. >> do you have a secret weapon in iowa and the large number of people there in the national guard? >> i think that that certainly helps out. senator graham is the only candidate in the race today aside from jim gilmore, who has served in the military, so he was in the national guard. he's been a reservist. i think that there's a large population of national guard and reservists in iowa that's going to be good for him. there's a strong veterans population in new hampshire and in south carolina as well. >> does he have a particular strategy or tactic for reaching out to those people? >> well, i think that talking about his national security credentials is important, and also talking about how we make

sure that our veterans are cared for and taken care of, it's something that's important to that community, and serving on the senate on those issues and working on them for a long time, he has a good breadth of experience. >> last two questions i've asked everyone. what is the moment that another candidate or campaign has had that you've been most impressed with that you wish you guys had thought of first, or something like that. and what is the most endearing quality of lindsey graham that you see on the inside working with him closely that the rest of us might not be aware of? >> you know, i think one of the things that i find most fascinating about this campaign, and hopefully in the long run it's a good thing, is donald trump has truly turned political consulting conventional wisdom on its head. he's done everything that people like me would tell a candidate not to do. so maybe that's a good thing for my profession. maybe we have too many political

consultants who are operating out of the same playbook. i think it's a good thing that we have people who are challenging the way things have always been done. i'm not saying donald trump is necessarily doing it the right way. but i think it's good for folks like me to have to think differently and i hope that the whole consulting class is looking at the trump race and going, you know, are we really -- how else can we look at what we do? in terms of lindsey graham, i think the one word i would use to describe him is sincere. with a you see with lindsey graham is exactly what you get. he's as approachable as anyone i've ever worked with in politics. he is as sincere and caring a person as i've ever been around and he's also just funny. he is a really funny person to be around. it's not so much that he has the same kind of jokes that you hear over and over and over again. i worked with john mccain. i can tell you john mccain's six jokes front and back. if you ask me today what the funniest thing lindsey graham has ever said, i'm not sure i

could come up with it because every day is something new. so that creates an environment that's a great deal of fun to work in and i'm thankful for that opportunity. >> christian, thanks so much. >> good to see you. [ applause ] >> so, up next is barry bennett with the ben carson campaign. [ applause ] thanks for coming. so, we have this breaking news, maybe in about ten minutes that scott walker is out of the race. what do you make of that? how do you analyze that? what does it mean? >> well, you know, i'm surprised. i knew things weren't going well. that was obvious. but i'm surprised. i think that the lesson a lot of folks learned from the pawlenty getting out too early last time was, you know, don't give up. you're going to hit rough spots.

but apparently he's getting out. >> so, tell us. explain to us ben carson, if you will. because what you'll hear over and over again from the pundit class is i just don't get it. i don't get the man's appeal. i don't get why he's lighting a fire out there. he's so soft spoken. he's not a bomb-thrower in this media and political environment that awards people for saying outrageous things and never apologizing. he took the slightest possible implicit swipe at donald trump's faith, and then apologized for it. which is completely the opposite of what donald would do. so what is the appeal of ben carson? >> it's just his character. he really is certainly the smartest guy i've ever met for sure. but he's also probably one of the nicest people i've ever met. and he's got -- he started off as a physician with a pediatric specialty.

that's quite endearing. then you add world renowned brain surgeon, 67 honorary ph.d.s, living legend. he's smart. >> played by cuba gooding jr. in a made-for-tv movie? >> yeah, that helps. so he's caring and he's smart. he's got a tvq likeness ability. >> i'm sorry, what's that? >> a tvq -- people just love him. and then you've got this life story that is astonishingly inspiring. a guy whom he literally saw his cousins whom he lived with in boston die on the street, never thought he would live to be an adult. let alone get inspired, start reading. he applied to one school. because he only had enough money for one application. never visited yale's campus until he showed up on the first day. but applied at yale and not

harvard because they beat them in quiz bowl that year. it's an amazing story. >> s how did you get to know him and become part of the operation? >> a friend of mine called me and said hey, would you be interested in doing a presidential -- i said no. no. i'm way past that. >> tell us a little bit about your career prior to that. >> you know, we're business partners, we have a corporate political consulting shop, which is going very well. or was. i'm not there. and i've always wanted to do this, of course, when i was younger and didn't have kids. but so i said, i'll go talk to him. so i went down to florida. i spent the day with he and candy. i called my friend and i said, i'm in, let's do it. he's just an overwhelmingly nice, likable, smart. >> and you have no doubt that as someone who has all these

amazing accomplishments and attributes that you mentioned, i think most people wouldn't dispute, that never having run for office before, never having any significant executive experience, he will win this nomination and be elected president of the united states? >> am i telling you 100% that he's going to win the nomination? of course not. that would be ridiculous. but i am telling you that he has a lot to offer. >> see, that's endearing honesty right there. >> he has a lot to teach and he has a lot to help the republican party. and that's why i really became interested. he can make the party bigger, bolder, and better. and through this, i think he probably will be our nominee. but even if he isn't, i think that it's a mission that is good for everyone. >> so what are those lessons, to put it in your terms, that he's out teaching the republican party? >> well, you know, like so far this month, we've campaigned -- or last month, we campaigned at

harlem, ferguson, detroit, inner city chicago. we're going to places where, you know, we didn't see the romney-ryan team make a stop. baltimore. and these talks about lifting yourself up and ending the cycle of dependency in a way that frankly none of our other candidates can do that. so i think he can be very helpful. you don't have to -- you don't have to -- it's not just the african-american vote that we're going after. we're going after those suburban soccer moms that got barack obama elected. he speaks in a compassionate way that is very inspiring. people want their kids to have the same opportunities that he had. >> so stupid question. when he's going those kind of places, is he talking to african-american audiences, and he is resonating with them? >> yeah. i sat in a room with him in ferguson, around the same table,

we had african-american business owners, whose businesses were obliterated with protesters and ministers and policemen. and he said something that most politicians never say. i'm here to listen. tell me your stories. and it was great. >> so how important is it that he is soft spoken? because if there is any quality you would naturally associate with political success, that would be very far down on the list. >> yeah. i agree. but in a field of 15, maybe 14 candidates, looking, sounding, talking, and behaving different is very important. it distinguishes him from the rest of them. so at the debate -- i always hear, oh, i wish he were yelling and throwing bombs like the rest of them. well, that's not him. but guess what, i'll take two hours of national tv time of him sitting next to donald trump any day.

anybody that wants to give it to me. >> so a lot of people missed his standout performance in the first debate. or going back to my initial question. didn't get it. did you know, especially those last couple of questions, one about race, and the closing statement, did you think in ben carson terms, he is killing it, and he's going to have a big bounce because of this? >> well, we were watching. nowadays, everything is dashboard. i've got ten dashboards in my office i watch. i can tell you how everything is playing. so i knew through social media that what he was saying was really resonating with people. the shares and the posts were going through the roof. i think that first debate may have gotten 300,000 new facebook fans during the debate. >> 300,000? in two hours? >> nothing like what's happening in the last few days. >> so how many facebook fans does he have? >> at that point, i think we had about 1.6 and went up to almost

two million. yesterday alone, we gained 109,000. since the debate, we've gained almost 900,000. so we're at 3.7, 3.8 million right now. >> do you know how that compares to other candidates? >> well, it's three times more than hillary. 15 times more than jeb. and we will be above donald trump, who accumulated his after three years on "the apprentice." we'll go past him this week. >> wow. so how do you take advantage of that? >> well, i think that one way you take advantage of it, with 14 candidates on the republican side, how many on the democrat side is not clear yet, plus all their super pacs, plus all the outside money. if you're counting on winning the election from television advertising in des moines in january, you're probably not going to do that. so we have built a lot of these networks around to talk to the voters, the 70,000 people in iowa that i want to talk to

throw social media. and, you know, through google and search optimization and all these tools, because content is king. and if you can talk to them effectively in a way that they want to be talked to throw social media, you can do it and push a button. he blew out his candles on his birthday cake on friday. and he said what his wish was. and i wish i could tell you what it was, but i don't know off the top of my head. but i do know that 19 million people got the post, and five and a half million of them watched the entire thing. on television, that would have cost a lot of money. >> so i hear you saying that if you happen to be a candidate who's really good in corporate boardrooms and has raised $125 million for your super pac, you won't name anyone, that that is an asset that may not be as powerful as it was in the past. >> well, we know already that issue advertising rates are ten times more than campaign rates right now in iowa and new

hampshire. so 100 million instantly turns into ten. we've already raised almost $30 million. we're going to do fine. we're going to have a super pac that's pretty well funded as well, but television is not going to be the breakthrough medium with 15 candidates in the race, or 14 candidates in the race that you could count on previously. >> and are you raising that money through phones, direct mail, e-mail? >> yes. car washes, bake sales. >> overwhelmingly small donors? >> $50 is the average donation. we've had 530,000 donations as of this morning. >> and these are donors that can come back again and again and again because they're not going to tap out? >> i love sending out e-mails and sitting there watching the dashboard. >> talk to us a little bit about the actual organization of the campaign, because i don't know

whether it was a couple months ago or several weeks ago this story -- >> complete disarray! yeah. this all happened because the campaign chairman, terry giles, one of the people who hired me, who ben announced at the announcement, was leaving to go do other things, left. and, like, three weeks later, it was a new story. we have 80-some people on staff today. we have regional people, regional finance people. we've got our campaign bus. >> the what? >> healer hauler. social media named it. >> i'm not on facebook enough, clearly. >> yeah, we're doing great. >> so talk a little bit about iowa specifically and ask the typical question, do you have to win there, one. and two, checking around in iowa

a couple weeks ago and one thing i was surprised to learn, hearing from multiple people, ben carson has a real organization here. he has i believe an organized or chairman in all 99 counties. how are you in terms of infrastructure in iowa and how important is this date? >> we think this date is very important. there are typically three tickets out of iowa. i want one of those tickets and we're going to get one. in a data driven campaign that we live in, there were 13,000 people in the month of august that attended one of our events. surprising thing was 29% of them were not republicans. they were independents or democrats. so i think the caucus will be expanding this year. or at least that's what we're going to try to do. typically, maybe 25,000 votes would win the caucus. we've targeted 70,000 people and i hope to get at least half of them out.

>> so when those people come to an event, how are you establishing the connection with them that you'll maintain over time? are you getting phone numbers, e-mails? >> e-mails, phone numbers, text numbers. text numbers are so much better than e-mails. we start talking to them. the computer starts talking to them. we warm them up. we find out what motivates them. little things. like to lease a campaign bus, we leased maya angelou's old bus. good karma. >> maya angelou had a bus? >> she did. apparently afraid to fly. not afraid of anything else, but afraid to fly. we lease the bus. it costs $130,000 to lease the bus for ten months. so i said, well, what if we let people put their kids' names on the bus, so that when dr. carson got on every day, he can see the reason he's running, these kids' names. 8,000 people, $50 a day.

we paid for the bus in about three hours. graphically, we created pictures of children on the bottom of the bus. south carolina filing fee. i'm like, why should i pay for that out of our general account? let's ask the people of south carolina to pay $40 to pay for that. raised 120 grand. there's real grass roots out there. >> so i would be rejected if we didn't talk about muslims up here today. >> why today? >> so does dr. carson really believe that it's just not theoretically possible to have any muslim who is capable of believing enough in the american creed to be president of the united states? >> no. what he said was that they asked him if he would -- if islam and the constitution could be put together. he said if a muslim ran for president, he couldn't advocate for them until he knew whether

or not they supported the central tenets of islam or not. do they support religious freedom. do they support all these things that are not in the central tenets of islam as we know them. if they're willing to, you know, not support all those kind of silly things, that would be fine. >> so the doctor's plan -- or the way he's addressed the 11 million illegal immigrants who are already here is to say perhaps many of them can become guest workers. in my mind, that's just another version of amnesty, am i wrong? >> i believe so. because he's no path to citizenship. the problem with deporting everybody, as donald trump supports, first we probably should start with deporting congress, right? for 30 years, they haven't fixed the border. maybe we should start there. but if you're going to deport them, one, you've got to find

them. then you've got to i guess waterboard them to find out where they're from. and then we're going to have to waterboard the nation that they're from to get them to accept them. and then we've got to fly them -- i mean, it's incredibly impractical and incredibly expensive. if they will come out of the dark, pay their taxes, agree to pay their taxes moving forward, then we can give them some kind of worker visa and they can go about their lives, but they don't get to vote and they don't get to become citizens. >> so, do you care whether trump inflates, deflates? does it not matter to you, because you guys are just on your own path? you have your unique appeal with this candidate? >> well, you know, i think that there certainly are some commonalities in our supporters. but i think donald trump is our best contrast. we'll just let him continue to contrast. >> so i've asked everyone this and i'll ask you as well. what is the moment during this campaign that any other campaign has had or any candidate has had

where you thought that was really shrewd, that was really smart? and what is the most endearing quality of this endearing man, ben carson, that we might not be aware of as outsiders? >> i think that -- i'll take the latter first. dr. carson is -- he's incredibly humble. i've not seen him raise his voice. get angry, or anything else. if i call him and say hey, maybe we can talk about this in a slightly different way, he's like oh, that's a good point. that's a good point. >> and that's unusual for a politician? >> yeah. i'm not overly proud of everybody i've ever worked for. but i'm very proud to be associated with him. and as far as what other campaigns have done that i thought was brilliant. >> come on, you can think of something.

>> i thought cruz's announcement at liberty was a pretty good idea. we're going to speak there next month. but i thought it was -- it was certainly a lot cheaper than what i paid to put together, something that's already put together. >> all right, barry, thanks so much. appreciate you taking the time. >> no problem, thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, rich. i want to, like any good campaign manager who's listened to two hours of strategy, we probably need a cocktail, right? so please join us outside for cocktails. thanks, everyone. thank you, rich. all campaign long, c-span takes you on the road to the white house. unfiltered access to the candidates at town hall meetings, news conferences, rallies and speeches.

we're taking your comments on twitter, facebook, and by phone. and always, every campaign event we cover is available on our website at c-span.org. and on capitol hill today, the senate is in. earlier today they blocked the bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks. they needed 60 votes, they only got 54. that final vote was 54 to 42. they also failed to move forward on the defense authorization bill, one of 12 funding bills needed by the end of the fiscal year, which ends this month. on the house side, they're in recess ahead of pope francis's address on thursday. here's a closer look at c-span's coverage of pope francis's visit. >> the pope's visit to the u.s. c-span has live coverage from washington, d.c., the first stop on the pope's tour. today beginning at 3:45 on c-span, we're live with the president and mrs. obama to greet the pontiff on his arrival at joint base andrews.

wednesday morning on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org, the welcoming ceremony for the pope as the obamas officially welcome him to the white house. live coverage begins at 8:45 eastern. later that afternoon starting at 4:00, the mass and canonization at the basilica of the national shrine of the immaculate conception, thursday morning at 8:30, c-span's live coverage begins from capitol hill as pope francis makes history, becoming the first pontiff to address a joint meeting of congress. friday morning at 10:00, live coverage from new york as the pope speaks to the united nations general assembly on c-span 3, c-span radio and c-span.org. later at 11:30, the pontiff will hold a multi-religious service at the 9/11 memorial and museum world trade center. follow c-span's coverage of the pope's historic trip to the u.s., live on tv or online at c-span.org. this morning on "washington journal," we heard from the

author of "pope francis: the struggle for the soul of catholicism." he talked about the papacy and its impact on the church. >> joining us now is the authors of "pope francis: the struggle for the soul of catholicism." thank you for coming to c-spanne >> it's a pleasure to be here. >> when you talk about a f struggle for the soul of p catholicism, what would you define it and what's pope francis's role in that?that? >> the pope has been trying to do work against a whole raft of things. the roman bureaucracy. the sex abuse scandal. the role of women in the church. the way the church makes its decisions. and on all of those, he's encountering resistance from different factions who think that he's pushing too far. a n that sense, it is a so struggle for the soul of me catholici catholicism. some of it is behind-the-scenes resistance. some of it is up front opposition.

this pope encourages debate and says speak boldly. listen with humility, but speak boldly. when people resist him, he saysu that's healthy, let's get it ou in the open. a different style of pope. >> what do you think is a source of that openness and debate about issues? when he was the leader of theoa jesuits, he was a very autocratic figure. very authoritarian, strict disciplinari disciplinarian. there was a big division in the jesuits. at the end,rs they sent him int exile and he had two years living in penance in wilderness years. in that time, he changed his leadership style entirely. whether he had a spiritual or ou political conversion is not ercu quite clear, but at the end of it, he's come out as this gentler, more merciful, softer l inclusive pope. >> one of thes hi issues that pa talk about is his ability to talk on issues of economics, on the environment, which go beyond the typical role of faith and morals within the church.ious pp

where does that stem from with this pope? >> well, two things.capita previous popes have talked about capitalism, communism. for 100 years, the catholic church has tried to find a middle way between capitalism and thmmunism, which is a responsible, kinder capitalism. this pope has that tradition, but he's also for 20 years, he u was the bishopms of the slums i argentina.gr he's lived the experience of the poor. he's from an immigrant family himself. and as a latin american, he's he gospt an ambivalent relationshi to the united states. both respect and resentment at the power of the bigger neighbor down there in i latin america. so all of that combines to gives this pope a vehemence, a passion. >> what do you think is the goal of this visit of the pope? >> well, two things. the world meeting on families ia the immediateus cause. he wants to talk to the u.n.

about climate change, because that was a big thing. and he's got the whole raft of i issues like the refugee crisis he wants to get to. social inequality. that's just the one side of that. he wants to balance it with the third graders in harlem. and he wants to kind of have two messages, one for the leaders, one for the people. >> the idea that he's addressini politicians such as the address he'll make in congress. he'll meet with theti capreside. how does that compare to previous popes, as far as their political visits and role as heads of state? >> he's more overtly political. previous popes would have theirp conversations behind the scenes. behind the scenes, this pope isk very, very frank. when he met president obama in the vatican, he said to him, ca, look, i'm speaking to you not aa pope, but a latin american. c we've got to sort out something about cuba. engag that's the way heed talks

privately. he's more politically engaged.sl pope benedict was a theologian who put ideas forward in a scholarly way and hoped that people would read his books. but this pope ispo out there in the political marketplace, you know, doing battle to get his te ideas engaged. >> you brought up cuba.? does the pope have a role in the current warming of relation nas the united states and cuba are currently engaging on? >> absolutely.wrot he wrote a secret letter to obama and to the cuban ward president, urging them to take a step forward and begin these negotiations. and he put vatican diplomats in the heart of that. eight secret meetings in canadaf and when the negotiations stalled, the pope said to both the men, come on, you know, you can trust me to get you to trust one another. and he wrote another letter. so he's been a really big figure in this. he's tried to play it down, but no, he's been a big wheel.

>> "pope francis: the struggle f for the soul of catholicism." pp if youe want to ask questions about it, as pope francis arrives in washington today, 202-748-8000 our line for democrats. 202-748-8001 for our line for republicans. and 202-748-8002, our line for independents. you can tweet thoughts as well. how would you characterize the church as far as the devotion to the church from other catholics before this pope when it was under benedict and john paul, g: and now? is there more devotion from thk those who e would follow the church's teachings more closely because of this pope particularly? >> well, i think that every pope has his ownes strengths, and people -- different people draw different things from different popes. this pope has got the common touch. john paul was a mphilosopher. benedict was the theologian.ars.

this man has been in the slums for 20 years. across he knows people. he comes across like everybody's favorite uncle.mon he's warm. and he's got that common touch. and so i think he does actually engij wi engage with people in a different way. >> our first call is from michael. michael is fromg indiana. fmocrats line. michael, good morning. >> caller: good morning. i'm calling from cocomo, indiana. we're talking about the impact of special interests on host: politics. >> i think we lost the connection with him.endents. sorry about that. talk about his educational background.his from? where does the pope come from educationally? what kind of things is he engaged in as far as his ical sh studies? >> he's from a lower middle class background. he went to a technical school. he trained as a chemist, so it'e

a bit ironic when people say he should leave science to the ve i scientists. he is actually a scientist. then he went into thetist jesui which is a 15-year training in philosophy, theology. but also in outreach.e the jesuits have this speciality. they call themselves ink, m contemptlatives in action. alsoa they're both sides of the action, people who sit and meditate and pray, but also want to be engaged in the world. so that really has formed him. and that together with his experience in the slums is what has actually made him the figurm that he is today. >> paula from washington, d.c., go ahead, please.ing >> caller: yes. his holiness is arriving on the eve of the holiest day of the jewish year, yom kippur, and i have the greatest respect for a lot that the pope represents.nd but tonight and tomorrow, he's making it difficult, if not

impossible for some jewish e oft people not tora get -- not to b able to get to their places of worship because of traffic. why wasn't that figured in the planning? i don't understand. >> caller: well, that's a good question.d is and i think it's also the musli. eid.val of very unusual for the day of atonement and the festival of eid to be at the same time. the pope has been very conscious -- when he was in buenos aries, he had special hoa relationships with the jewish us and muslim community. in his cathedral, he has a holocaust memorial, very unusual for a catholic to do that. so he's been very inclusive of other faiths and other faiths have by and large been very, la very positivebe about him. as positive, if not more than s: than the catholic faithful. so i think you're right. it's an unfortunate bit of

timing. >> you write in your book this. you say, it is difficult business being normal if you are the leader of the world's can be biggest religious adenominatio: and also a head of state. you also say it can be a complex business being simple.icon can you o expand on those? >> he comes across as an icon of simplicity. but some of his big gestures arb planned. like if you look back at his time in buenos aries, he did some things. he didn't have a chauffeur-driven car.en he he used to live in two rooms. he didn't use the bishop's palace. so when he came to rome, he doesn't go in the papal palace. he lives in the guest house with 300 other visiting priests and b gets the bus with other cardinals. those kind of simplicity gestures are both intuitive, buy also he knows the impact of them. so i tell a story in the book about how he wants to carry his briefcase on to the plane and somebody else has already taken

it on. he says no, go get it, i want te carry it on. the press say look, the pope, p he's carrying his own bag. no pope has ever carried his o'' bag before. the pope says well, i'm just a normal guy, just an ordinary joe. he's extraordinarily rdordinary. but it's that kind of complexity. it's not fake or insincere, but it is thought through. >> from sam in maryland, you're next. hi.ion ha >> caller: hi. earlier, in response to a caller, you said that religion r has been on both sides of the equation, where it's been, you know, people have done good things as well as bad things. but some of the things -- some e of the examples you gave, where, religion was on both sides simultaneously depending on whoh you asked.ll for example, thein abolition of slavery. there were just as many people calling to maintain, how it was christian duty to maintain that

institution at the time. >> well, i think what you've got to take into consideration is that religion, like politics, like nationalism, is often a badge of identity that people have. it's not actually the cause, it's just the external. and the problem when you look at wars and other human problems is that's the keyword, human. it's just human nature. and people put a religious badge on it. but in fact, it's more based in our characters and natures, which is what religion actually tries to counter. it tries to lift us to a highera place. >> what's the pope's day like ay the vatican? >> he gets up in the morning ys very early. he prays for two hours on his wr own in front of the tabernacle and that's where he does his thinking and hisin decision making, puts them all before god. then in the wmorning, he goes s work in the papal palace with kn the officials. he gets through huge amounts of paperwork. in the afternoon, he works in a

his own room where he makes his own calls, makes his own now wh appointments, sees atpeople. and the officials don't know what he's doing half the time. he keeps people on their toes by having his own -- he's got his own diary and makes his own he calls. he's quite an independent spirit. his own calls. he fold makes his own arrangements for travel? the >> well, he phones people who have written to him and gives them pastoral counselling like an ordinary priest would. but there's a very funny story in the book about the italian te airline saying we've had this e, guy on the phone says he's the 0 pope. wants to book a flight. is this real? >> 202-748-8000 for democrats.is 202-748-8000 fors, republicans.t 202-748-8002 for independents. p why do youop devote so much tim writing about the pope? >> because he's really interesting and he's exciting.

and when i go to give lectures j at universitiesoi or in churche around the world, there's this b infectious spirit of joy and optimism. the church has been ca reinvigorated by this man.tcman. and it's catching, you know? the pope's joy is catching. >> again, our guest with us to talk about the pope's visit to washington, d.c., today. if you want to give him a call, so we also know that the pope texts or at least tweets as far as using twitter.out? he's not adverse to technology as far as getting a message outs >> he's not very good with the t technology himself.f. he doesn't actually send the e-mails himself.imself, he doesn't send the tweets it himself but other people do it for him. but, you know, he approves them all. they distill a tweet message out of his sermon that day and they send it to him and he says, yeah, that's fine, put it out.

i've had friends who have had e-mails from him and he's the s selfie pope. people are always taking y at photographs with him and he's l cool with that. he's not -- he's not stuffy at all, you know, he'll do the posi for the selfie. >> actually the story in "the t washington post" this morning ha says the vatican sketched out basic rules when it comes to tweeting and said promote jesus and not francis and trickier than it looks when smartphones show him hugging people. and speaking of facebook no facebook, facebook is too social of a social medium for the leader of the world's largest st church. >> the congress have been told not to take selfies of him because it takes up too much time and looks too self-regarding. when he speaks in st. peters square and they shout francesco he says don't shout that shout u jesus. but when the pope goes up to a

man whose skin is covered with boils and he hugs and kisses him, people see jesus in that.r. >> bill, you are next for our guest, hello. >> caller: good morning. john paul ii wrote an incylical and his opinion was the death e. penalty shouldn't have been used and i was a prosecutor a long a time and prosecuted death cases but i've read that pope franciss not only odoesn't like the deate penalty but he's also written that he doesn't like life without parole which john paul u ii said should be used because g we don't use the death penalty anymore. so, i think this pope is creating a lot of confusion and for him to just come out and say, you know, life without noh parole iels like a death senten. i tell you he's not helping the church at all and i'm very franl confused about what to believe.s but frankly, since cardinal inge

ratzinger even said whenr he wa cardinal that i can disagree with the pope on the death the o penalty and in this case i choose to. thank you. i >> well, the pope's attitude -- previous popes have had the same attitude to the death penalty it's not necessary anymore in a modern society where we can incarcerate people the death isp penalty is absolutely note needed. this pope has gone further as you indicate and he's said that he doesn't like solitary fr confinement or life imprisonmeno and, yeah, you're free to disagree with the pope on that. but his teaching on the sanctity of life extends to the other ndb end. it's not just about the unborn, it's also about the death penalty. and i'm. afraid when people usec the word confused, i'm confused about this pope, what they faif actually mean is they disagree with him so just be frank. >> republican line, good morning. >> caller: yes, y hi, good morning. thank you very much for c-span. i want to voice one opinion regarding this pope's visit. i do have a lot of respect for

the pope and what he representss but i feel that there's a ionate political [ inaudible ]d aroun his visit. he does have very -- he's an opinionated guy. he has his own views on a wide array of issues as he should. but in the first place as the pope coming to visit the unitedm states for the first time i need to see more spiritual message coming from out of his visit. i need to see him speaking st po against atheism and the lack ofa belief that most people have now in religion and christ he's an ambassador of christ as the catholic church holds him.with and he should have his masters or his -- christ's views coming with him, not just the political people. thank you very much. >>, i think when he arrives al you'll find that you do get a very spiritual message and he'so very rooted inut o getting the gospel out onto the streets. he said the church has been tooi long into the church and needs h

to get thein message out onto t streets. if that's a deeply spiritual message. i think you'll see that if you watch the masses that he'll do k here. but he won't be looking at tackling atheism. that's not the way he approaches things. he reaches out to atheists and says things like if you behave well you can get to heaven. now, that's not something that a lot of people are comfortable were from popes. but he says look at the message of jesus., the message of jesus which is about mercy and compassion, t about love and embracing people, about including people, not about rules, not about excludeing people, and if you ri focus on the message of jesus, then the world will listen, and. that's the message i think he'll be bringing when he gets off th. plane today. >> here is sadie from silver spring maryland. independent line.go ahead hi. >> caller: hi, howcall are you? >> fine, thanks. go ahead. >> caller: i'm a descendent of portuguese jews that came into v

georgetown and charleston before the american revolution. tha it wanted to know what the archives there in rome have on o that misubject. h also i know that the pope is coming into east harlem, new york, and i'm a native new th yorker, and actually that was a bastion for the catholic church when i was growing up. >> the vatican has had secret archives on a whole range of things for a very long time and one of the things this pope has said he's going to open the archives on the question of the role of the vatican and the nti hierarchy in argentina in the dirty war there when the war military dictatorship killed a lot of people and there have been requests for him to open the archives on the vatican and the nazis and housing about that as well. so, he's a man who is open to the secrecy, the veil of the secrecy being lifted, but he's not talking about it as a

universal thing, the particular thing you askedbe about i've no heard any reference to that being lifted as we speak.tions >> has he made changes to the day-to-day operation of the vatican? >> very much so, yes. he's replaced a lot of people pe who he thought were obstructive. he's kept a lot of people who he doesn't agree with but he's kepa them in place. but he's moved people around. he's shifted the emphasis in the departments so that the -- the r congregation for the doctrine that's regarded as one among equals. otherzed cardinals criticize w the cardinal, the head of that says, the cardinal who is in charge of -- who is like the deputy pope the secretary of state he's had all his finance powers stripped away because thn pope thought we need a balance of powers. he's created a new finance department. he's done don lots of administre things which will try to put some checks and balances in to s the way the vatican work. >> does he make the vatican live

simply as far as his expenses and cutting those? >> yes.si i mean, he's put a recruitment freeze on. and he's cut the -- the main thing is his example. the vatican is in lots of ways like a court, you know, the way the court is and everybody copies the king.put away the king dresses simply and walks and they dress simply and walk. they put away all their finery and the lace-trimmed vestments and they're apeering in -- who knows what will happen with the next pope. but one of the things that he's done is he's appointed 39 car cardinals not one an american. hardly any from europe.merica they're all from what we used to call the third world. really poor nations like burma o and burkino-faso and pretty sooe there will be a lot ofss people from the developing world so we may find a different kind of cal

styles a his successor.ood mo >> from hollywood, florida, here's julius on the republican line. >> caller: yes, good morning. >> morning. >> caller: i would like to ask a question concerning the pope's decision on the ten commandments and the day of worship.wh tunderstand that the catholic church is responsible for changing the sabbath to sunday and what would be the pope's recognition as far as everybody coming back to obey the ten commandments as far as the true sabbath day? >> i don't see any talk from the pope at all about changing that. sunday has traditionally been the day of worship for nearly i 2,000 years in the catholic church and that is something i don't think you'll see movement on. >> chris from illinois, good morning, you're next up. go ahead.ed to se >> caller: yes. good morning.give i just wanted to see if you could give some discussion on

the pope's view from different parts of the world. so, especially in, you know, europe and other developing countries. so, he is in america a lot of people are criticizing him, somi of them are saying the pope is ? marxist. other people around the world, what do they say?th >> well, the media love a bit of controversy and they focus on the extreme views of a minoritys of people on both left and right. most catholics around the worldc think this popeou is wonderful d they're very lifted and encouraged by him. the idea that these marxist is something that he smiles at. he's not a markist, he's not a determinist, he's not part of that philosophy at all but he said some marxist have done some good things so i don't mind if people want to call me a marxise but he says it in an ironic way.