Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 11232017 20171123

And we will be talking politics. Will you be doing it during this thanksgiving holiday . All coming up on washington journal. You can send us a tweet. Good morning. We begin with afghanistan. American troops on the ground in what has become americas longest war. Joining us live is brig. Gen. William graham. Thank you for being with us on this holiday. Thanks for having us. Happy thanksgiving to you and all your viewers. Host he is joining us via skype. So there is a little bit of a delay. Lets begin with what is americas longest war. From your standpoint what are some of the Biggest Challenges on the ground . Guest in just a minute and we will get that out of the way. This is my second tour in afghanistan and what i will noisywith you as another helicopter flies past is that there is optimism here with the Afghan People. The new u. S. Policy and its our nato allies is playing well with afghanistan. There is true optimism here. By someed here today amazing american patriots. You guys have to give me your motto. As well as some amazing department of Army Civilians from the u. S. Army corps of engineers afghan district. We want to wish everyone of you a happy thanksgiving. Happy thanksgiving. Lets talk about this thanksgiving holiday. How are you and your troops spending it . How was your luncheon when will dinner be served . Lunch and when will dinner be served . Its an american tradition. Its one of my favorite parts that ive enjoyed. Thats where the senior noncommissioned officers and the Senior Officers all serve thanksgiving dinner to the soldiers. Thankfully here today we got the ortunity to do that rights twice. At Bagram Air Force base we put on a fantastic we have been able to serve a lot of soldiers and civilians that support. Think were going to do a second one as we finish this up. Host was the biggest challenge for you and the troops spending the holidays in afghanistan. Tell us about your background born and raised in winter western pennsylvania. Obviously being away from family is one of our greatest challenges. This is my sixth thanksgiving in a deployed environment. What the army has done an amazing job of it is building resilient families. They put a lot of programs in back to make sure that home type communities have great support. In the internet age where everybody can skype home its wonderful to be able to stay connected. The amazing department of Army Civilians behind me, we couldnt be here in afghanistan assisting assisting theple Afghan Forces trying to get what all of us want, to live a peaceful life free from somebody trying to force an ideology on them that they dont believe in that they dont support. Our conversation with brig. Gen. William graham parody instructor of the task force in the security zone joining us live from afghanistan via skype. Policies you the indicated. What is different under this administration and is there an exit strategy at some point for u. S. Troops in afghanistan . Instead of having a timebased exit strategy are support here is condition based. We are here to serve sidebyside with the Afghan Security forces and i would just like to remind viewers that the Afghan Security forces are doing almost all of the fighting. They truly are taking the fight to the enemies of afghanistan and the enemies of all free people everywhere. What is different about the new administrations policy is that the enemy cant just wait us out. Host can you give us a sense of where you are at . Clearly a lot of movement on the ground and in the air. We are a few miles north of kabul at Bagram Air Force base. Theres about 17,000 folks here. It is a very busy place. Host earlier this year the president said we are losing the war in afghanistan. Clearly that refers to the changing strategy by the pentagon. Monthse last couple of have you seen a significant difference in u. S. Efforts in that country . In my time here, i arrived in the early summer and i was last in afghanistan in 2014. What i would share with your viewers is there is a possible sense of optimism about the new strategy. Host our phone lines are open. 202 7488000 democrats. 202 7488001 republicans. We have a line set aside for those of you who have served in afghanistan. We would love to hear from you as well and you can also send us a tweet. You about the government of afghanistan. What has changed in the last year or the last couple of years from your standpoint they have seen firsthand . The administration has when ien absolutely was asked to come in in the early summer to work on improving security handinhand with the Afghan Security forces i was able to meet with the president and he has a true vision. For where this country can go. And hes working very hard through the government of afghanistan as well as general nicholson and the nato allies to achieve that vision. Some have called fighting terrorism the waccamaw strategy whackamole strategy. How do you address that . Its wise for us to front confront terrorism and evil wherever it rears its head whether that is in subsaharan africa, here in afghanistan or back at home. We have to confront evil and we are dedicated to that and the afghans we are serving shoulder to shoulder with dedicated to that. I had lunch yesterday with the Kabul City Police chief. He has been fighting this fight and he has paid a pretty steep price. A sont an eye, he lost and daughter. They are still optimistic that a Bright Future for the use of afghanistan. Host give us a sense of your own background. How long you have been in the army and why you decided to serve. Have been in the army almost 38 years. I came in on a rotc scholarship at the university of pittsburg. My first assignment was in western germany. I was fortunate to be there andng the fall of the wall to see the east germans flooding into west germany. I was able to go to checkpoint charlie and walk around oldies old east berlin see a banker i think theres a saying that goes if you are fortunate in can get rewarding work and the career i have had the honor to serve within the army has been truly that. Host where is your wife and Family Spending the holidays . My wife and family are in pittsburgh. There celebrating with my parents back there. Host we want to wish them a happy thanksgiving before we get to phone calls. Guest thank you very much for that. Host go to robert joining us from california on the line for independents. Brig. Gen. William graham joining us live via skype from afghanistan. Caller good morning. Thank you general, thank you troops. I was drafted. I was unhappy being drafted but once i was drafted i loved the army. I love all of them and to this day i want to say thank you, troops. Thank you general. And god bless you, your family and all. I love all of you in my heart. My flag on thanksgiving and you guys make me so proud. Thank you and god bless everyone i see on screen. Robert, thank you for your service. Had the privilege of working with many veterans from the vietnam era and talk about coming home in the country was greeted them with less than open arms. I know when i travel throughout the United States in uniform im. Lways thanked for my service we dont take that for granted. Here today on this thanksgiving i want to thank you for all you have done and thank you for staying army strong. Host gene is joining us from arizona. Good morning. Good morning general. How are you this morning . Guest im doing great. Happy thanksgiving sir carte. Caller ima disabled veteran. Served from 1957 to 1961. My son just retired to an a half years ago. People dont appreciate what the military does for us americans and thank you for all the troops and god bless you try to have a happy thanksgiving and god bless. Adios. Guest thank you for making your service to your country and family tradition. It must be awfully early this time. Thank you for joining us this morning. It means an awful lot to the soldiers behind me. We dont take for granted and we absolutely want to thank your family for your service. Host this program is carried live on cspan radio. Viaral graham is joining us skype which explains the occasional delay. Sometimes the breakup. We can hear him well. Lets go to sterling in orange, new jersey. Independent line. Good morning. Caller happy holidays to everybody. Smelly buckley says war is a racket. I am amazed it is been 18 years since we went into afghanistan and we are still there. People say that Bernie Sanders is a fool for thinking americans can have socialized health care. What are we really doing out here . Host we will get a response. Thank you, sir. My understanding is what are we doing in afghanistan. Hope to theding people of afghanistan. I see it every day. Right nearchool where my base is and its funded by the german government. I see the Young Children at school every day. They wouldnt have that hope without the aid of the International Community. The taliban probably wouldnt let that stay in operation. School stay in operation. I think its incumbent upon free people to fight tyranny wherever it shows up. 202 7488000 for democrats and 202 7488001 for republicans. Of the missions you have there is rebuilding infrastructure across the country at great expense to u. S. Taxpayers. What are we seeing and how much is it costing . That a lot of the work the have been doing is providing basis that the Afghan Security horse can operate off of. Ar goal is to provide professional Afghan Security force that is both the army, the police, the special Operations Force. We are currently in the process as part of this new strategy to of the afghane special Operations Forces and triple the size of the Afghan Air Force and you cant do that without good facilities to operate from. The wonderful engineers behind have been out lately key absolutely he to providing those absolutely key to providing those. Truly stay offense event keep the taliban and isis on their heels. Coming out of this winter they will have a much improved and theof capability strategy is to make sure we dont give the enemy any safe havens in the country. For afghan veterans, the number to call is 202 7488003. Bobby is joining us from georgia. Caller good morning. I just want to say thank you for being over there in the Holiday Season. Myself24 year veteran and i was in the air force and the army and consequently i cant say enough good things for the veterans. We do all we can do and we do more. Could get out of afghanistan. I think we have been there too long, general. Can you tell us what the future might bring . Guest thank you for joining us. Happy thanksgiving to you. I absolutely want to thank you for your service. I have heard comments that the you can see byd the soldiers behind me and i will tell you all of those soldiers that idea with is that certainly is not tired. These wars have been going on for an extended period of time that we have seen progress. When we first came into Afghanistan Coalition forces, we were doing the preponderance of the fighting. We are in a primarily trained, advise and assist role. The afghan army and special Operations Forces and the nascent afghan truly are taking on the fight and theres great sense of hope and optimism in afghanistan. Iny truly have confidence their government to provide them a brighter future. Happy thanksgiving. The black stains involving the u. S. Military and cia operations earlier this week , the International Criminal court looking into allegations of rape and abuse by u. S. Troops and the cia. Can you address that issue . Theres an aircraft taking off. I didnt hear the end of that question but im not familiar with the specifics behind that and i dont think i have much offer. Much to offer. Host john is joining us from illinois. Caller good morning, general. Vietnam vet. I was fortunate enough to talk three of my Grammar School in the to join me marines. All you have to do is watch the tv screen and you will know that these guys are doing the americanjob that any can do for us. This is a tougher job than washing the toilet bowl or leading a nation. For those who fight for it freedom has a meaning that the protected will never know. General, thank you. Fellas behind the general, thank you. God bless you. He. Stand. Week greatly appreciate you being with us. You are absolutely right. The soldiers behind me are part of a route clearance company. Its kind of an unnatural act. Most folks try to avoid finding explosives on the side of the roads these unbelievably brave americans behind me are the ones that go out looking for those explosives. They do it tremendously well and keep the rest of us safe. The civilians behind me on of the most difficult things it is to keep a construction project on time on schedule with good quality in a combat zone. They are just truly remarkable of what they do and it takes a complete team. It takes the soldiers to support all of this and i am absolutely delighted to be here with them today on thanksgiving. Host if you are walking the streets of kabul in civilian clothes would you feel safe . Is it a safer city today . I think kabul is safer today but we can never rest. The enemy on the battlefield, they can hold in afghanistan, they are going to lash out. There most likely to lash out in the capital city. One i got here this summer of my tasks was to work handinhand with the Afghan Police and the senior minister officials to see what efforts we can take to better secure kabul. It is initially designed around the heart of the city or the Diplomatic Quarter is. The plan must always continue to expand that security not just in the heart of the city but to expand it out throughout kabul and to use that as an example for the other large metropolitan areas as well. Host brig. Gen. William graham is director of the task force in the enhanced security zone in afghanistan. To frank in tulsa, oklahoma. Good morning. Caller general, i want to thank you for your service. I was a vietnam vet. Combat. They wouldnt waste two officers on our missions. John kerry under obama i believe helped to stall your work out and iin afghanistan believe obama was just barking time. He wasnt trying to win anything over there. He was just trying to keep us embroiled and make us look bad just like john kerry did to us veterans in vietnam when he turned coded on us after receiving his three trumped up purple hearts so he could escape service. I was just wondering how you think things have changed under President Trump. I pray for him and our congress and senate and our troops almost daily. And god less you guys. God bless you guys. Let me know what the changes since President Trump has come in. Thank you. Thank you so much for your service. We are doing our best to carry on your legacy. Allies the afghans, nato have absolutely the new strategy in afghanistan of making this conditions based. With the growth of the Afghan Special Operations Forces, the Afghan Air Forces we are going to put continuous offense of pressure on the enemy. We also want to make sure there is diplomatic pressure. You see the president of the administration had put great pressure on pakistan so there is no safe haven for terrorists. Theres also societal pressure that is being applied to the enemies and that will be executed through elections. If the taliban think they have a better idea, if they think theyve got the support of the vast majority of the Afghan People which we know isnt true then put that to the test. Dont put that to the test at the end of a gun barrel. Put that to the test at the valley box ballot box. If you got a better idea we can see if that will win. Host how many u. S. Troops are currently on the ground in afghanistan . I dont think we are counting soldiers right now. The soldiers are up to the task we are asking them to do. More importantly in the early spring you will see the first troops come in is part of the Security Force Assistance Brigade. What that is is the army is going to replum itself. We are asking them to do. More importantly in the early we had been taking brigades and leadership to train and assist the afghans. Seasonse going to leadership te noncommissioned officers and being is as they finish commanders or platoon sergeants they are going to be part of the Security Force Assistance Brigade if they volunteer. This is going to be a very elite and picked and the first one should start this spring. Us to train and assist the afghans down to the battalion level in about half of the forces. What that will enable the afghans to do is stay on continuous offense of up rations against the enemies of afghanistan. In olympia, washington. With brig. Gen. William graham joining us live from afghanistan. Good morning. Good morning. Happy thanksgiving crit i just want to thank all of you for serving our country. Killed in 1953. I was six years old. So i know what you are all giving up and i know what your families are giving up. God bless you all and keep on going. Thank you. Amsurg sorry for your loss. Particularly during this holiday just truly makes it hard. We are sorry for your loss. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for getting up early. He mentioned 1953 and the korean war. When i was here my last tour in 2014 i had a young engineer on my team. When that south korean engineer was leaving he was an officer and he was heading back to south korea. What he told me during his farewell is he was here serving in afghanistan as payback because six years ago many nato u. S. International Coalition Partners stood shoulder to shoulder with south korean soldiers and he knew that if the International Community had been there supporting him that amazing country today known as south korea would be like the i would call it the basket case that we see up in north korea. The tyranny that going on out there was stopped by a bunch of tremendous patriots who were just doing what was right to fight evil. You can see in the Korean Peninsula the result of these good soldiers from your fathers generation standing soldier to shoulder to shoulder with the south koreans. Im absolutely certain that in battlefields there are going to be well trained Afghan Soldiers Standing Shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the International Community paying us back for the blood and treasure that we are investing here in the future of afghanistan. William graham is former chief of staff to the u. S. Army corps of engineers. He has also served as engineer director for nato and six combat deployments. Part of operation desert shield, desert storm, Operation Iraqi freedom and operation freedom sentinel. Tom fromcaller is green bay, wisconsin. You are on the air with general graham. Good morning and happy thanksgiving to all of our soldiers, airmen and marines including the auxiliaries. Question is as a veteran 67 and 68 my Service Number started with romeo alpha. Which means i was in the army. Enlisted. My question is, we were indistinguishable from each other. Army and marines except maybe. Re soft lids how is the camaraderie today, andinterservice camaraderie how you can identify that and communicate how good the interservice camaraderie is . Host thank you. We will get a response. Thank you for that tremendous question. Down and headquarters of Resolute Support we have all of the various the wonderfulness of our armed is we draw from each other strengths. They serve shoulder to shoulder with a lot of marines, a lot of air force professionals and i have never seen the camaraderie better. Up. Army navy comes a few weeks there might be some healthy competition. Over weas that game is fight as one. In particular i will speak to the engineering side of the house. When i come in one of the first things i look for is i look for the seabees. Theres a young Lieutenant Commander that serves the Resolute Support staff. With thekey interface work we are doing with the Afghan Police and i have never met a finer officer. The genius that is america is that we continue to produce amazing warriors. Sons and daughters. I dont care which service. They all are incredibly disciplined, incredibly proficient and they are the standard of the world. So to thank you for your service and happy thanksgiving to you. Host you mentioned the army navy game. Do you want to make a prediction this year . I think army is on a roll. Its doing great so far. My prediction is for the great army victory. Im sorry to disappoint the caller but ive got to go with the steelers and army in the next few weeks. One final question regarding the recruitment of soldiers by the Afghan Military. Trouble to record some of its own. Recruit some of its own. Is that an issue . The Afghan Security forces are working to professionalize their force and thats an ongoing effort. Having the right facilities to be able to do that and place behind these wonderful me are making sure theyve cut the schools that can provide the at thesenal training young pilots and soldiers, the fact that they are part of the brotherhood. I understand the other thing standing in the way of your thanksgiving feast is this broadcast so we will let you go. We want to wish you and all of those serving in afghanistan a happy thanksgiving and we thank you for your service. Guest thank you very much. Happy thanksgiving to everyone in the United States. Host are those all handmade signs . Guest they are. Host thank you very much for spending part of your day with us. Thank you. Host we turn our attention to u. S. Troops elsewhere around the world. Is Linda Robinson of the Rand Corporation. And later, our thursday roundtable looking at the u. S. Economy. Our final hour, will you be talking politics this thanksgiving day . You are watching and listening to washington journal on this thursday morning november the 23rd. We are back in a moment. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979 cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Cspan studentcam video documentary competition is underway and students across the country are busy at work and sharing their experience with us through twitter. Its not too late to enter. Is january 18, 2018. We are students to choose a the u. S. Of constitution and create a video illustrating why its important to you. Our competition is open to all middle school and High School Students grades six through 12. 100,000 in cash prizes will be awarded. The grand prize of 5,000 will go to the student or team with the best overall entry. For more information go to our website. Washington journal continues. Seniorinda robinson is a international and defense researcher for the Rand Corporation. Which is what . Nonprofit nonpartisan Research Institution and we do research both for the u. S. Government as well as for frankly any entities. Countries, private firms for international institutions. Talking with general graham earlier about u. S. Troops in afghanistan. We have a heavy presence along the dmz and in south korea. Is that a deterrent to kim jongun and the north korean leadership . Guest it has functioned for many years as a deterrent along with the general regional presence it is generally considered to be a deterrent. Koreanse the north regime has taken a lot of aggressive actions particularly with the missiles recently. That is something that i think and i think the increased focus on exercises that we have seen over the recent weeks and months as an effort to try to boost the effect of deterrent along with the diplomatic overtures that secretary of state tillerson has undertaken. Afghanistan, the same goal but different strategies under president s bush, obama and trump. As the current strategy working from your standpoint . Guest we have 4000 plus troops and i think we will see if that many surge many more were added in the obama administration. We will see that many surge has the desired effect. There is an effort to double the Afghan Special Operations Forces which i have observed over many and also to double or triple their air capacity and thats a very difficult thing, the air capacity. Because you have to have englishspeaking pilots. All of this is really longterm andlopmental efforts happening at the same time to the taliban of course has madeased its attacks and some major gains around the countryside. It is fair with all of this discussion to say numbers matter but how troops are used matters just as much if not more. Need toink there is a really examine the way in which the u. S. Has been involved in this training and developing a mightforces because there be better methods to be used and we shouldnt neglect. We talking about u. S. Troops and thats terrific but they are almost always deployed with other coalition members. Nato is a heavy contributor out there in afghanistan. And they are also working to boost their numbers. I think its really important to look at lees as longterm efforts to build up other forces. We were just talking about asia. We have had the truth presence 45,000 in japan. For many years since world war ii. And south korea deployments and guam. These troops have been there for many years and i think there has to be some patients to let these efforts bear fruit. That is not to say we cant improve the training methods. There are small numbers of troops doing the counterterrorism mission. Host we have special ops troops africa dealing with insurgents. Are about 6000 u. S. Troops in africa right now and , there areumber about 4700 and djibouti and they are really focused on east trying to do Civil Affairs type operations and Training Operations for the east african countries but also a counterterrorism portion focused in somalia where the alshabab wagingst group has been some very major attacks and that has been a Mission Going on for a number of years. The other number, there are 8000. Roops in niger that has been the focus of a lot andedia attention recently those troops have been there primarily to help the countrys of this Lake Chad Basin fight off isis in west africa and the boko haram subgroup from nigeria. The department of defense has promised a full accounting of how the loss of these soldiers occurred out there. Experience that this special Operations Force operates in very small numbers in these remote areas and in the theyof nature niger were authorized to do these overnightd stay out but they are supposed to go in areas where there is a minimum chance of enemy contact and they make those assessments. Obviously in that case that didnt happen. Toare waiting for the dod give us the full accounting of what happened. Thats really the footprint in africa. Small training advise and assist missions trying to support the growth of these local counterterrorism units and theres a proposal. France is actually a very big player as well. They have 4000 troops primarily in west africa. They are the former colonies and they have very good insight into the various tribal fishers and. O forth in these countries there are others working alongside us as well. Are talking with Linda Robinson of the Rand Corporation. Phone lines are open. We have a lines that aside if you are active military. That number is 202 7488003. From lowell,g us massachusetts. Good morning. Caller can you hear me . I dont like the way our military is being treated. Johnsonia and the david. He was tied up a mile away from his unit. His body parts were just found. They dont even know whats in his casket. Afghanistan, youre talking about training troops, funding troops. They kill our troops. And you are talking about funding and air force. We funded the air force, right . We bought them planes and they didnt even have any pilots to fly them. We built a gas station and the gas station is useless. Host we will get a response. Guest i agree there are very disturbing reports about what actually occurred in niger and everyone is eagerly awaiting the full story. Focal point of a question of why we are there in africa and i will just step back and say this as i have been very closely doing research in iraq and syria. The isis group has migrated out to africa and there are a lot of groups that have been resident there. And local insurgent groups for a number of years. It is a u. S. Effort to try to help those countries address their problems. I would say overall thats the u. S. Approach rather than going and fighting wars itself. While we do have numbers and we are talking about the worldwide deployment picture now its worth putting it in context. We had 170,000 at the peak in iraq a number of years ago. 100,000 in afghanistan and we are really talking about much smaller footprints now including as i mentioned africa is very small. There are hazards with operating this way. Having spent a lot of my Research Time with the special Operations Forces they are generally trained and equipped to operate in these hostile areas. Also mentioned may be of our investments have not paid off or the troops that we are training have not come along as quickly as we would like. And the saddest case is where turns that we are training and fire on the u. S. Trainers. That is obviously very tragic and it requires counterintelligence efforts to see people who have infiltrated the ranks of the forces that we are training. Host our guest is a graduate of swarthmore college. Also studied at harvard. Jared is joining us from minnesota. Caller good morning. Do you say is why you are a defensive person when america has always been on the offense since they first came to this land and took it from the native americans by force . And by the mexicans by force and the hawaiians by force . Bases all over the world. Whens the last time someone had that . The nazis . Im not sure if i said the u. S. Military is entirely defensive we certainly do have organizations like nato in toope that is designed defend europe and defend the nato alliance. I think its important to note there are really critical defensive functions the u. S. Military place and the more robust the defense is the theory is the less likely we have to go on the offense. Certainly the u. S. Military has been on the offense and i think , the footprintle is so much smaller than it was 10 years ago. Even five years ago. It is very important to note they have achieved great six success. Dislodged the isis caliphate. The numbers are somewhat in dispute because numbers come in on top of the roughly 10,000 that are there. The training equipping and advising its important to note the effectiveness comes when you are willing to put u. S. Advisors those locald with forces in the air support that we provide. I think what we are seeing is a new model for the u. S. Through these partners. Its a different model from what we are fighting in iraq and the previous surge. We are getting a little bit more forward leaning in afghanistan now because the taliban has been on the march and the Afghan Military has not come of as quickly as needed. Make itr point i might is this defense posture and deterrence posture around the world is made up of three different parts. We have a persistent presence around the world. I think your number is probably overshooting the mark a bit. 12 example in japan we have bases and 45,000 troops. We have a very robust presence to deter not only north korea but its presence in the region to deter actions china might take to intimidate its neighbors. Presence. Persistent there is a rotational presence and thats what we are doing in europe now. We are rotating a brigade in and out of poland to be part of the European Deterrence Initiative and thats a very important armored brigade that is basically there is a signal to russia. Were it to have designs on coming across into europe and then there is a constant stream of exercises. Important. Y certainly in the pacific and indian ocean. There is a huge naval presence out there. We also have exercises around the world and that was what i dissipated observing in last week in nato that was geared towards a scenario of a major combat scenario as well as some infiltration and asymmetric tactics in the baltics. Its very important that these exercises occur so the troops are ready if they have to launch into action. The signal would be to show adversaries that the u. S. And allies are ready to fight back. Host the dod website have a breakdown of where u. S. Troops are. And the u. S. Troops support staff necessary to keep these troops in operation are there around the world and what is your biggest concern . Concern isiggest there is perhaps a lack of general understanding. There is a wide support for our troops. Especially on thanksgiving day. People want to support the men and women in uniform. Understanding the actual policies and what we are doing in different places is an important part of the peace and the reason for supporting troops overseas is that they perform that deterrence function and they are also familiar with the environment in case they have to fight and frankly its less expensive than if you have to deploy them overseas and i mentioned the model of fighting is much less expensive if you are leveraging your local partners rather than sending large numbers of u. S. Troops. The breakdown is, we have large really world war ii legacy installations. 36,000 in germany and that is supplemented by a number of other bases in italy, spain, turkey and the u. K. Host 36,000 troops. In italy, 4000 in spain, 2200 in turkey and 8500 in the u. K. And 1500 at nato headquarters. That is kind of our standing footprint in europe that helps exercise everyone together and deter wouldbe adversaries. In this case the concern is russia. The same posture in asia with regard to north korea but also china frankly is the other concern. We have the large footprint in japan. 45,000. In korea we have 24000 and in qualm 6400. There for dual purposes. The real costs come when we go large wars. Ight we know 2 trillion is roughly the bill from the big wars in iraq and afghanistan. Its frankly much cheaper to keep troops abroad ready in deterrence mode ready to fight. As we are doing right now in africa, iraq and syria. Trying to work through local partners to help them be prepared to address those threats. Linda robinson, we will go to dean in hot springs, arkansas. Caller im a veteran. I was in the cold war along the border. And the balkan war in yugoslavia. Comment is to the person running this. I dont see afghanistan is the longest war. I see korea as the longest war because we are still at war with them. To your guest i applaud her for what shes trying to do is bring the common person knowledge because i have been in nato. I have been in all of these places. We have to tell the public the good things that the military does because if it wasnt for those troops on south korea that freedom korean that came across the border wouldnt be free. You got troops in kuwait helping those kuwaitis when you stabilized their country. Some of these people who are calling in saying we dont need this presence, your speaker is correct. If you dont have people staged in certain places you dont have the response time, you dont have the coalition with the locals. That needs to be brought out more to let the public know how relevant the military is and why we need these helpers throughout the world. Host thank you. I have discussed the importance of Ground Troops being out there exercising. We should also point out that you cant base in the United States all your air and naval assets and expect them to be out there want to be out there one crisis occurs so by definition those assets need to be out there. A fleet thathrain is based there that provides very important presence in the middle east in the fleet based in japan and certainly covering its a huge single deployment of the u. S. Navy. Its very important. Theres also air bases. Basey provided a critical for the u. S. To do the isis by moving up from our bases in the gulf it shortens time of travel and it allowed our air platforms to stay over iraq and syria for triple or more the amount of time. Having these bases and having the platforms there makes all the difference in the world. Host andre is joining us from chicago. Caller good morning. I have to tell you respectfully i disagree with the last caller and the reasons behind the answer. My question is how does the Rand Corporation a private think tank with donors get to write and comment on Foreign Policy and inform hegemony for corporations . Im just like i am offended by that. There is not naivete on my part about complexities about the world. I think this is part of the problem. Thats all i would like to say. Of manyrand is one Research Institutions. Washington is full of them. I would invite you to go on to the rand website and we have our research standards, quality and its atandards wellknown think tank that does with objective data in all other methods and withinformation sources are ind by necessity in our reports all of which are published on that for freend available downloads. Its part of our mandate as a nonprofit organization. I think its very important that the American Public be as informed as possible and i would say that is the community that we are part of. Doing research that has to meet these independent standards of quality, objectivity and rigor. Host i want to ask you about the uss john mccain. 17 soldiers in both of those this year. And then you have this cargo airplane carrying 11. Three remain missing. Were rescued off the coast of japan. What is going on . Journal cspan. Org this is not an area that i have done Indepth Research in, but i have followed the official pronouncements, including the string of accidents. I understand the chief of Naval Operations has said that there is some question about whether the strain on the seventh fleet from all of this demand for exercises and the cyclist ration hasnd the sequestration affected its ability to be fully trained and ready. That is a great concern. Many people are looking into this. The navy has been asked to provide recommendations about how it can avoid it. People were dismissed and so forth. There was accountability. The key question, especially the north korea crisis will not be solved soon. And you have this longterm issue with china about how to ensure the peaceful rise of china and be the touring aggression from china but also looking for partnership. This is a longterm military mission along with the diplomatic part. That fleet needs to be funded and ready to do its job. It comes down to the budget issue. Doug ofts go to brookline, massachusetts. Good morning. Caller in 1988, gorbachev was baker. P by james in exchange for the demise of natoarsaw pact would not expand eastwards. Nato is knocking on ukraines door and is trying to make advances in the georgia area. If there is any aggressor in this scenario is the united , and theato corporations that they work for. Have a nice day and a good thanksgiving. Thanks a lot. Guest i would say that the way that i would put and i do been very russia has concerned about the expansion of nato. I think that is a big part if you want to look at the context of how europe, the u. S. , and russia have come into some of the conflicts and heightened tension. Do remember in your litany the recent aggressor was russia that went into the ukraine and is heavilymea and involved in eastern ukraine. Going back to i think you are alluding to a number of nato tomits in which promises expand nato to the countries on the perimeter of russia set russias spidey sense. Very concerned. They have accused the u. S. Of backing revolutions, movements for more democracy and of peoples that have been caused by these movements. I think there is a complex story here, but i would not call the u. S. Or nato the aggressor. I do not believe there is any chance or remove for the ukraine or georgia to join nato. Or move for the ukraine or georgia to join nato. We are trying to make the russia involvement in ukraine to back out. I dont see a big movement for anyone to push russia out of the crimea. My personal assessment is that that annexation has been more or less accepted by the International Community. Host tar heel, north carolina. Click question for you quick question for you . Caller about crimea. Ukraine, what they tell is false. The wrong people in the syria outflow. Russia came in and looked like they cleaned the place up. Theyre having a meeting right now in russia with all of the other countries involved such as turkey, russia, syria, and iran. Host what about russia and its disruptive role in all of this . Guest certainly, as we were saying, the ukraine crisis is something that requires attention. There are sanctions on russia for its incursion into ukraine. There is an envoy, the u. S. Envoy, who is working quietly. There is the potential to work on a deal for the ukraine. This has been costly for russia. They have had casualties. They have not publicized the russian public is not happy when their soldiers are not declared to be in a place and come home in body bags. In syria, there is a fascinating situation where russia appears to be taking the lead in working out a diplomatic settlement. Russia is in support of the assad regime, but is willing to broker a deal in which elections will be held. That doesnt necessarily mean syria, thatder of is very much credibly accused of major war crimes against his own people in the civil war there, doesnt mean assad will be leaving power. Nevertheless, russia is taking the lead with turkey and iran and support to look for an endgame in syria. The u. S. Is trying to find a way to support the syriankurdish fighters that have been the major part of our counter isis effort. That helped to clear isis out of a lot of arabdominant areas. What you want to have is a local governance that is acceptable to the local people. View, and not what i would prefer, but he seems to be firmly in the saddle with robust support that russia and iran has given him. The tide has turned in that war. To nato. Regards candidate trump questioned the nato alliance. President trump has reaffirmed our alliance to nato. How do they view the u. S. Partnership with the alliance that was formed in 19461947 . Nato the response of countries has been to address specific critiques that the administration made. There is an agreement they are supposed to all devote two percent at the least of their gdp to their Defense Budget and only a few countries meet that. Also, the administration called on them to develop more counterterrorism capabilities. Of theve seen the some terrorist attacks in europe they have a challenge to share information and have a more coordinated response. They are responding to the substance about that. The administration has turned around and become very supportive of nato. As i saw in the exercises, all of the countries they are together working to make nato function. Host thank you for being with us. Happy thanksgiving. Please, come back again. Speaking of thanksgiving, will you be talking politics over your thanksgiving turkey . That conversation in our next hour. Next, the thursday roundtable looking at the u. S. Economy. The washington journal continues on this thursday morning. Announcer thanksgiving on cspan, at 11 30 a. M. Eastern the Liberty Medal ceremony honoring john mccain in p. M. Johnia at 1 00 kerry receiving a Lifetime Achievement award at the edward in Kennedy Institute in boston. 2 45 p. M. , david brooks and ronald white discuss character and the presidency. On book tv on cspan the books infestival of nashville. Jonathan ives on the former heavyweight champion of the world, muhammad ali. At three 10, authors discuss the middle class and politics. t 4 50 p. M. , before you wake wife lessons from a father to his children. A father toons from his children. The life and times of teddy roosevelt. 11 00 a. M. , native americans and trade in 19thcentury california. Two 55 p. M. Eastern from the national archives, the first Motion Picture units world war ii film thanksgiving day. Sunday on cspans qs day robert mary q a robert mary. He was a very consequential and effective president. You cant quite figure out how or why he was able to accomplish what he accomplished. He was in direct. He was an incrementalist. He was a manager. He was not a man of force. It turns out without that force he had an amazing capacity to manipulate people. Manipulate them into doing the things that he wanted them to do well they thought it was their idea while they thought it was their idea. Host on q a on cspan. Washington journal continues. Host joining us for another economistsg are 2 spear the Senior Vice President and director of research for the committee of economic ofelopment, and peter morici the university of maryland. Let me begin with this piece in the New York Times. As many prepare for the and thes Holiday Season macys thanksgiving day parade, grand buildings keep macys afloat. What macys has going for it is 600 Stores Across the country. Macys real estate, 15 billion, worth more than the company itself, estimated at 6. 4 billion. Peter morici . I dont know that macys has a future. It is squeezed between target, which is very effective. They have the lowest prices on toys this christmas, even lower amazon. And nordstroms which is for men and women in households over 100,000 a year. What is between those . Jcpenneys and macys. Is there room for both of them . I dont think so. Macys has a network of large stores. If you go to the one near my home in pentagon city, it is disorganized and hard to get help. Of the comprehensive Department Store is over. Some plays where you can buy pipe tobacco and a smoking jacket is gone. The second is that when a lot of the companies when they get in trouble, Sears Roebuck is the classic case, the ceos pay themselves handsomely well. As they go through one Turnaround Program to another. Hey sell off the assets that is what macys is going to do. Theyre going to sell off the assets to keep the salaries going. In the end, the shareholders will have very little. They will have ups and downs, good news and bad news, but things dont look promising. The next candidate is general electric. Jetnt know what engines and m. R. I. s have to do with each other rather than facilitating high salaries in boston. Host we hear that ge is getting ready to sell off a lot of its guest and where will that money go . They sell off the locomotive business. Who gets that money . We are going to be using this for restructuring efforts. No, they will be using this to fill their bellies in boston. The company that has sponsored the annual parade for nearly a century is being tested like the spongebob balloon and a strong wind. Guest a very clever article. We are looking at, as peter suggested come unique issues. The generic issue is that the entire Business Model of shipping large volumes of goods not working ass efficiently as shipping individual items to the end customer. Criterion for the success of individual businesses toe that is an item you need touch to decide if you want it and you need in a hurry. We are almost to the point where the second criterion will be gone because we will be shipping goods via drone from the store to the door. Even sameday access is not the key criterion. A lot of change in Business Models coming. Host when was the last time you went to a mall to go shopping . The last has been in few weeks simply because we did christmas shopping. We went to a jewelry store. I am not buying my wife jewelry on the net. I do not think that is an advisable thing to do. There are circumstances, and that is an example, of what you are talking about. Mallse has to drag me to because it is so easy to click. Im a road cyclist. I know what i need. I buy those things online. What about you . Downtown. Ive local the last time i went there Shopping List to a jewelry store. There is a certain pattern. Malls are not, in these days, often attractive places to go unless there is a particular store you need to see and the closest store to you is a mall. I will be buying hiking boots. I have to go to a mall because i have to try them out. Host when you first are jewelry out you go to stores and by hiking boots and things like that. Then you have the kids. And it is target. We are past that point so we are back to jewelry stores, biking stores, and hiking boots. [laughter] host our guests will be with us for the next hour. Mike warner said in an event sponsored earlier this month, as the senate prepares to take up the debate over a tax plan. [video clip] america is ranked 31st out of 35 in terms of taxation state and federal. We, relative to all of our relatively, are a low taxing nation. Most of them have a consumption tax that allows them to bring corporate rates down. I think, has enormous faults. It starts with a bogey of 1. 5 trillion of Additional Debt when we are 20 trillion in debt. Scenario. T a good summar Alan Greenspan said when you do tax cuts at relatives for employment, which we are, with get aed money you may quick sugar high, but the projections coming forward i think are grossly overoptimistic. Host comments of senator mark warner. Debateminarik, as the gets underway, what is going to happen . Guest that is a good question. We are in uncharted waters. The senate is where the decision will be made. There is a fragmentation of interests on the republican side in the senate. It is really going to get down to member by member and dealing with issues in which each has concerned. Local provisions of a bill having to do with the ability to , questions with respect to access to health care , some members with concerns about the public debt. Which, i agree with senator warner, is a consuming issue right now. It should be. For that reason, it is going to be handtohand combat. Where it comes down is hard to judge. Host by all accounts, lets talk about the debt. Org itng to debtclock ns in excess of 20 trillio dollars. The speaker of the houses as it will grow the economy which will offset the debt. Taken we just had a poll by a group of economists organized by the booth school of business at the university of chicago. They had more than 40 economists who are widely recognized around the country. Ideally, you could look at it is pretty random with respect to political orientations. Of of those economists out was willing to say the tax bill on the table would increase Economic Growth. None would be willing to say expand theould not debt significantly over the next 10 years. It is very there is a very the economics profession that this legislation is on target in that respect. Guest i essentially agree. I do not want to seem to be aligning myself with the position of senator warner. Anything that this president proposes is illegitimate, so that discounts a great deal of what they say. They are making up righteous claims. For example, the notion that we dont have the highest Corporate Taxes in the world, or among industrialized countries. The European Union and the world bank did studies of these. They are hardly the rightwing ponds of the gop on the hill. They come out with high effective tax rates in the United States, essentially the highest. We do have a competitiveness problem with the tax rate. The second thing is if you lower the cost of capital you get more investment. You will get more Economic Growth. It will take the form of higher productivity growth, which has been well in the last 2 recoveries. That said, the estimates coming out of the white house, like the economics of the mad hatter. It is ridiculous the kinds of stuff the chief economist is publishing and printing. It has been reviewed by conservative economists. My personal calculation, the peter morici of the university of maryland study of how much boost we should get out of this. The most generous number that i could come up with is we would increase growth that we would not have had. We will be growing more rapidly no matter what happens is my feeling. I can discuss that if you would like. The marginal impact on Economic Growth is the most we can squeeze out in additional revenue would be half of its cost. It would still increase the debt. Y 750 billion both sides do little for their credibility when they aimlessly oppose, basically out of stubborn reluctance to accept the outcome of an election. Ive seen the president called illegitimate and a demagogue. I find that repulsive. Election and it is time for the Clinton Administration in mourning to get over it. And frequently they are thin on economists. Secretarybe treasury by being the finance chairman of bondampaign, four by doing sales that take advantage of old people in florida. My feeling is that we are not in a good point in having intelligent discussion on this. You will get growth and some of the tax revenue back, but not all of it. Host the white house chair of economic advisers, here is what he said about the tax plan republicans are pushing in the house and senate. [video clip] will repair a badly broken Corporate Tax system. Told us we needed to have corporate reform in the u. S. Because we are chasing all of the capital offshore. If we fix that we will get a surge in Capital Spending driving gdp growth in the short term. I dont know what the feds assumptions are the tax reform passes, but my guess is if you reduce capital by 15 , our estimate of what it does, that 15 reduction should increase Capital Spending and gdp growth in the short term. Host peter morici do you want to respond . Guest nothing he said was unreasonable. If we look at his own published Research Prior to becoming counsel of the chairman of economic advisers, we find an elasticity in regard to the price of capital and the level of taxation and investment spending that would indicate a 15 decrease in the tax rate would give us a 10 to 15 increase in investment. I worked with his original number of 20 . I assumed a 20 increase in investment spending. , could still only come up with under the most generous assumptions i could make on my spreadsheet thomas 750 billion. , 750 billion. Guest i want to note one thing. Thepoint that i believe administration is refusing to recognize and advocates of the bill in congress, it is the user cost of capital that is the issue. The user cost of capital is more sensitive to Interest Rates than to tax rates. That isook the package being discussed in the congress, and on a deficit neutral basis made the changes being advocated with respect to taxes, you would reduce the user cost of capital. The addition to the debt in the first round is likely to increase Interest Rates to the extent that the user cost of capital does not decline and will likely increase. We may get less investment rather than more out of this package. Host we are talking the economy. Oseph minarik and peter morici a thanksgiving tradition. With us last year and back this year. We will get to your calls. New york city, democrats line. Caller happy thanksgiving, gentlemen. I took a trip to botswana two years ago. Colleague was doing the shopping. I could not believe my eyes. Lots,of cars, parking indoors. African mallin the that i saw. Malls are not going away completely. The United States is overbuilt. This location and africa might not be. We have too many brick and mortar stores. Even if the internet had not there would be a readjustment. There are places reason build a mall and be successful. Caller i would like to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving. The republicans keep talking about if you cut Corporate Taxes and taxes on the wealthy they will take all of this money and create Economic Growth and a lot of jobs. If you look at history, the 1980s when president reagan cut taxes, george w. Bush cut taxes, it didnt work. If anything, we went into a recession. It took democrats like clinton and president obama to straighten out the economic mess. Host we are hearing that from democrats in the current debate. Guest part of the issue is the question of whether the tax cuts in a lower cost of capital. E do need Corporate Tax reform we have Serious International issues. We are making the United States a less attractive place to locate businesses. That said, the Business Community in general, the corporate sector in the United States, over a period where profits have been strong and Interest Rates have been low, an ideal situation for additional investment, did not take advantage of that opportunity. Circumstance at the exit of the financial crisis where there is a lack of confidence. It is important. I think that peter made an essential point. It is important the United States government project confidence, confidence, calm with respect to making financial policy. An openpoint, that is question if we have an environment where households and businesses will have the confidence to make longterm commitments. Host good morning. Caller good morning. Both the president and Vice President are calling this tax cut the largest tax cut ever. I dont believe that is true, but lets remember when reagan took office we have less that 1 trillion worth of national debt. Today we have 20 trillion. That is until the whole story. If you remember the election of ckbox. The keyword was lo 19981999, 20002001, the 0nly four years in the last 4 when we had surplus. When we have surplus we dont borrow from Social Security. The problem is they would not steal the money from Social Security. Not only are the young people inheriting the debt, but everything they paid into Social Security has been borrowed. Point and about that generation that will be retiring in 30 or 40 years . Will it be there when they retire . Guest i think it will be because of the way it was originally structured. It is an intergenerational transfer. We will think of gdp as a pie. Work are people that cant it because they are very young or very old. Parents take care of the very young and the very old are taken care of by the government. How big of a slice do we give the old people . Sosa security from its inception had a problem. Instead of issuing checks shortly after it opened up so there wasnt much of a chance to build up an account. The notion of the Social Security trust fund overlooks the fact that happy and of the day all you can do is reallocate what you are producing today. Sosa security in the context of thedebt is greatly abused. For example, people will compute the total benefits that have been promised and add that to the total debt overall. There are issues that would be more constructive for us to focus on as a society. Our overall external debt. Not what we owe to ourselves that we are shuffling around, but when we make payments and interest that we owe to the world that is starting to get into the zone. It will exceed the threshold gote countries like greece into trouble. That has been the finding of a think tank in town. It was founded by democrats but it is fair to say they are fairly centrist in what they write about on these issues. We produce the worlds reserve currency. We have that advantage. At some point, other nations will look to alternatives to backup their currencies because they will get nervous about the size of our debt. I would point out that not only has it been observed that within 10 years at the current pace will exceed this threshold, but in the bond market u. S. Treasury security on the long end of the curve will no longer demand the premium they once did. That we could sell them for lower Interest Rates than other countries given expected inflation. Now they are seen as just as risky as japanese bonds or german bonds or british bonds. The bond market is starting to send the signal to the white one ofhat the next time the bond Rating Companies inided to go from aaa to aa their assessment of u. S. Debt they know what theyre talking about. The reality is u. S. Debt is no longer bulletproof because there is too much of it. We need to take the debt very seriously. In order to do that we have to think about not just Social Security, but all entitlement. 60 of the budget is entitlement spending. Over the next 10 years it will become one of percent of the revenue the United States government collects, which means they will have to borrow money to keep the lights on in the dome behind your shoulder. Diesel, or whatever they put in the navy, and pay the soldiers to do the ordinary functions of government. Every last nickel will be bor rowed. At that point the world should not have confidence you can manage your finances or your currency. Mr. Warner was so pious about that in his recent comments, yet the democrats were talking about increasing the deficit and spending more money. The republicans are talking about cutting taxes and increasing the deficit. The only difference seems to be what they want to increase the deficit for. We are talking with peter morici the professor of economics at the university of maryland and Joseph Minarik with the committee for Economic Development and cochair of the Bipartisan Policy Centers Debt Reduction task force and on the staff of the house budget committee. 2 tweets. Bill clinton raised taxes and had a great economy. Why was that . Wars ind tweet, no the 1990s. It was wars for the last 50 years and 20 trillion, its that simple. Is it that simple . Guest i dont think so if you take the cost of the defense spending over the last 15 years. That is an element of where we are. If you look at the projections of the budget Going Forward with anticipations of with reducing our of involvement overseas, you will find the dominant cost of government Going Forward is health care. To a lesser extent, Social Security. We simply have to find a way to deliver health care more. Fficiently, or we are sunk we can eliminate the risk of the and not avoidment a longterm debt problem. Peters point is important. We are starting from a debt load that is critical. It is projected to rise. We cant have it is like the sinking of the titanic. We cannot have a waterneutral policy. We have to get the water out of the boat to make it stay on the surface. In terms of the 1990s, there were a number of positive developments in the economy. The most important was at the beginning of the Clinton Administration i was the chief ofnomist are all eight years the Clinton Administration. Factor that into your interpretation of what i have to say. The most important signal that was sent in the first days of the Clinton Administration was the rising debt load of the United States was a concern of the federal government. The federal government, the administration, was willing to address Political Capital to turn that situation around. Host mississippi, independent line. Caller good morning, happy thanksgiving. 35 countries, we have the most powerful military. Tax . Ot have the highest for thewe going to pay best military in the world . We have bases everywhere. Host why not have higher taxes based on our commitments . To be taxes have competitive. The u. S. Tax structure is uncompetitive in 2 ways. The information we have indicates the structure of the United States is more progressive than other countries. Is tax structure generally more progressive. If you ask a schoolteacher in holland she would tell you she gets inexpensive or Free Health Care and can send their kids in college for virtually nothing. She may take half of her income in taxes. A schoolteacher the United States doesnt do that. We tax people on the highend very aggressively. That has consequences for entrepreneurship, Small Business creation, and things of that nature. Is not quite as gilded age as critics like warner with have you believe what have you believe. The Corporate Tax does make us uncompetitive. It does. We have a higher cost of taxes. If we lower the Corporate Tax we would get more investment. It is not just the level, it is how you compared to other countries. Other countries have been cutting Corporate Taxes. That makes situations different today than when george bush cut taxes. He cut personal taxes. We have had tax cuts be successful. The reagan tax cuts. Pillsare difficult for politicians to get their arms around. The democrat cannot fathom the system where they do not ask the lower half of the population to pay nothing for the services they get. They should. Likewise, republicans will not come to grips with how the europeans managed to have the kind of Public Services they do. One of those things is they have taxes that are not so much Corporate Tax. If you try to sell a republican on a value edit text, which is very efficient, they have an allergic reaction. It is metabolic. Health care. The germans spend 12 on health care. Competitive disadvantage. It is largely carried by the business sector in america. Their system looks like ours. Mandatory private insurance. You have to buy in unless you are very wealthy. They regulate drug prices. Here, if you invent a drug you can charge whatever you please. They do, because medicare will pay whatever you please. Republicans suffer from a terrible fantasy that somehow interstate competition through the offering of health plans will somehow solve that. California is a market, the 10th largest economy in the world. If more competition would solve the Health Care Problem alone, and we need some regulatory solution, california would be demonstrating it. Or new york. But it is not. Host a response . I would characterize the comparison between the u. S. Tax system and other countries differently. Elsewhere in other developed countries tend to be generally higher. Not necessarily less progressive. Otherfference is in receive moreple services through government and they pay more taxes. The use of a value edit tax is an important element. The other point i would make is in my experience when i was working in the white house and spent a lot of time talking to representatives of finance ministries from other countries, it is the case that the United States spends more of its collective income, a higher percentage of gdp, for health care. However, the percentage of gdp around the world being devoted to health care is rising. The other thing i learned, you talk to other people from Different Countries about what they think of their health care systems, no one is happy. It is a very difficult moral this is like in the army. It is always bad. No one is happy about health care. When do you use the system . When you are not feeling well. Host alaska, independent line. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Since we went off of the gold standard, what are we using to back our currency . Guest we back our currency with the full faith and credit of the United States of america. If we are willing to make good on that trust, we will be with every other country around the world where money is created by central bank. Ist we havent done recently managing our National Finances very well. Guest if i might boil it down like i would in a classroom with 18yearolds, what they accept the money is the stuff of america can make and sell to the world. Same as the chinese or french currency. There isnt too much, too much money chasing too little stuff. If we manage our currency well, we are ok. Currency is not just the dollar bills in your wallet, the electronic money in your are asok, but u. S. Bonds good as currency because they useconvertible and people them like they do currency. Central banks dont hold u. S. Currency they hold treasury security. If you print too many of those your currency. Had thee, when they credit crisis and no one would buy their bonds, they could not print euros. The United States can always print more dollars. The question is will they be able to buy enough stuff, or will inflation fly out of control because we have printed too many bonds and too many dollars . It is easy to forget that when inflation is so low for reasons that have nothing to do with money. It is the big round of globalization and so forth, but that will pass. At the end of the dave you keep printing so much bloody much money, you will have problems because you wont have the stuff to back it up. Host thank you for waiting. Caller happy turkey day to everyone. One of the concerns i have is i think we have the wrong person at the helm in terms of donald trump. I do not think he is serious about the job. He does not seem to be serious about deficits or controlling the budget. Comment onu guys, that, . Please guest i disagreed with a lot that peter has said. One thing i do agree is that no one wants to talk about our fiscal and balance, the deficit, the accumulating debt. The reason is every potential , every possible idea to deal with the problem is painful. You have to raise taxes or cut spending. For some cutting spending is easy. Every dollar of spending in the federal government was approved by congress and signed by the president. Could it be both . Raising taxes and cutting spending . Guest we have answered that question. We have allowed the problem to become so large there is no way we can solve the problem by only doing one of the two. Host good morning. Caller good morning. Happy thanksgiving. Trump should that do a line by line on the budget, get rid of the millions of dollars obama gave the hollywood, and get rid of the programs that do not work. Guest that is a prescription you can give congress, the president , or what have you. The framers created a government where there would be no one with that kind of power. To war take the country and do all kinds of things with absolute power, but no one has that kind of power in the United States. There is a lack of sophistication in this white house on spending and tax issues. The became apparent in early stages with things mnuchin was saying he would accomplish. Taxill have a middleclass cut. No one at the upper end will pay lower taxes. We will boost the economy. Originally 4 growth, not 3 growth. We will pay for all of it with growth. It was like he was getting his economics from the most optimistic commentators. Theye last white house, had economists saying raising the minimum wage would increase the demand for labor. That is like saying i can drop a cannonball off the Leaning Tower of pisa by galileo. One big one small. Instead of having them hit the ground at the same time they will go up. Thats crazy. How can you raise the price of something and not have less demand . There are a few things that might be that way, but not basic labor or services. I find it absolutely canosterous to think we continue to have a much higher Corporate Tax and not have investment lean. Taxes align our corporate with the rest of the world we would have a growth rate otherwise than we usually would have had. We have a higher growth rate. That doesnt mean i just figured out how to turn lead into gold, that is based economics. Jobs,we are talking about the debt, the deficits, and the u. S. Economy. Peter morici and Joseph Minarik. Baltimore, good morning. On Social Security, you said the government would be of the Social Security. I know for fact you said eventually we would be taking 60 of the budget. Host he was talking about Social Security and entitlement programs. Guest entitlement programs board. He medicaid, Social Security, section housing8 across the board. Medicaid, Social Security, section eight housing. Benefits people are entitled to if they meet certain requirements. That is 60 of the budget and on track to be 100 . I have written it repeatedly in my columns for the washington times. Securityhey say social is going broke and so forth. Everybody pays into Social Security that works legally. 161090. Care if you are. Ou will 16 to 90 you will pay the rest of your life whether you receive it or not. That is why we have close to a 3 trillion in surplus, whatever was stolen. Forget about that part. You said tax cuts. They have billions. Tothey have enough money hire the full country full time . Lot of money in the bank right now because i am an older person. Half of my savings are fixed value assets. Lot in my Checking Account because Interest Rates are so low it doesnt pay to be bothered with investing. Corporations are going to invest to the extent they can get a return on their capital, whether they have to borrow the money or it comes out of cash on hand. What matters is the cost of investment. Part of the cost of investment is the tax pay. The tax rate in the united oftes is pulling 18 corporate profits. A broad it might be Something Like 12 . You cannot get around the fact companies are paying little because they specialize in getting tax breaks. General electric, the reason scheme inthe ponzi boston is because of being on k street. When Companies Get that way they get ahead to make a profit. There are other companies where they are paying 33 or 34 of profits in taxes. They dont have a strong incentive to invest here as in some other place. We have specific examples. Drug companies. It tends to be easier for them relocating their corporate to avoid oureland taxes. Taxes do matter. Just like the price of a mcdonalds hamburger. If it costs three dollars rather than 1. 50 you will buy less of them. In ge. T own any stock i am quite bearish. I think they will be the latest example. The highest rated daytime business program, give a plug to my good friend stew. He said, ge has been around since i was a little boy. Roebuck. Ears and a lot of companies were around when i was a little boy the assets of their stockholders. It is happening at procter gamble. One problem we have in america is when companies no longer have a purpose they dont know how to disassemble themselves and give cash to shareholders the way many small as this is due. A lot of restaurants make money for 10 to 15 years, the owner looks at circumstances saying my rent is going up, people dont like my type of food anymore, im closing the restaurant, taking the capital, and getting Something Else. That doesnt happen. Ceos pay themselves grandly to shrink the company. It happened at yahoo . They paid Marissa Mayer a great deal of money. She made herself wealthy to accomplish very little other than downsides yahoo and sell it. Host good morning. Inler when bill clinton was before you got a credit card you had to have good credit. After he was elected there was a flood coming through the mail for anybody. Soft credit. Years later people were filing bankruptcy because they maxed out their card and could not afford to pay them. Host i think we heard the essence. Easy credit leading to bankruptcy in the postclinton years . Governmentfederal during the clinton years was buying back bonds rather than selling them. Part of the result of that policy, along with the Federal Reserve that look at the looke atd the workings of the Financial Markets came to that there were Interest Rates that were lower. Low Interest Rates do provide individuals with the opportunity to invest, individuals and corporations. To create value. They also allow some people to excess for consumption or unwise investments. At any given time, if someone is transaction with a Financial Institution you are looking for the individual to behave responsibly, the Financial Institution to look after its money. Tinancial institutions that len large amounts of money to individuals to buy houses they couldnt afford at higher Interest Rates were part of the problem in the financial crisis in the late 2000s, as were the individuals who took out those loans. Host good morning, republican line. Aller happy thanksgiving i wanted to ask both of your would start with a clean sheet of paper as far as taxing america is concerned, how would they do that . How would you go about raising the amount of money necessary to support the federal government starting with a clean sheet of paper. Host interesting question. Guest the closest model would be the 1986 tax reform act, which i think was highly responsive to the need to raise revenue, but at the same time in way. Y neutral the important distinction , is in the and now act all income was created the same. Now you discover all different categories of income kerry interest, carried capital gains, dividends, active the income three investor, passive investor, passive income through a manufacturing firm, three service firm, and oldfashioned wages which are hit with the highest tax rates of actionable. That says someone in the congress thinks that he knows how to manage the economy and indirect capital to a guest i agree with that. If you are a psychiatrist these days you are crazy to take on an economist who studies taxes. If i were starting with a clean sheet of paper and i took the question seriously, i have advocated in columns ive we basically could get rid of the Corporate Tax, get rid of the personal income tax. It is simple and elegant. People wouldnt file personal tax returns anymore and would be returns simple and i would give every person in the United States a certain allowance so as to make this reasonably progressive. Every adult, 10,000 in the mail. Personal exemptions with deductions if this passes. Car, foryou bought a example, what with the taxi on a 20,000 car . Guest 12 . I computed that off the top of my head. I would have to recompute for 2018 but remember, although you 2400, you wouldnt have taxes taken out of your paycheck. So this is a neutral tax system. Create classes of people. I would really make it uniform. Everybody pays it. We dont have differential rates. And i woulds it make it progressive by creating an allowance for each person. Attorney whois an has thought along similar lines. He has come to the conclusion that a valueadded tax would be sufficient for much of the population. We need a sophisticated system to give relief to lowincome people. And he came to the conclusion that we would need an income tax superstructure that applies to people with considerable incomes. Minimum of six figures or so. If we come close to the tax burdens that we have today. Host lets go to james in georgia. Caller this is so difficult. My thinking is that the government is too big and is trying to do too many things. And it might not happen in my lifetime. That it is going to happen when the whole thing is going to fall. Tend to agree with what the administration is trying to do with the Corporate Taxes. Everybody had if a job, everybody could buy their own health care. Everybody would be paying into Social Security. Everybody would be paying into everybody would be paying for stuff. When i was growing up, i retired in 2008. And i have always believed that if you worked, you could get the things that you want. But right now, it seems like the government there is no responsibility for a lot of folks. Caller we would be better off if everybody had a job. One of the wonderful things about Social Security is the fact that it is a contributory system. People make their own contributions over the course of a lifetime and we call it social insurance. Which says that it does provide relief for people whose life outcomes are bad. It is less generous for people whose life outcomes are good. Health care is more complicated. Particular, the degree to which Health Care Expenses are concentrated at the end of life makes life it makes having health care by the individual difficult. Itt medicare does is that evens out the responsibilities for health care for the elderly by having them prepay, if you will, with a payroll tax earlier on so there are some structures in government today which i believe make a lot of sense. We are under pressure from demographic change and the aging of the population. And slowing birthrates. Making things a bit more complicated. We need to make significant changes but a lot of the systems we have to date to make sense and can be improved and can be made sound for the longhaul. Host a followup for you from a viewer saying, how would that affect those of us who are are receiving Social Security and Retirement Income . Guest you wouldnt pay taxes on your Retirement Income or Social Security but we have a basic problem with putting that in place. I want to be up front. Savings,e leaving off the money you put aside in the bank, you have very paid income tax on that. So we have an intergenerational hit on taxation and something needs to be done for that. There needs to be a special allowance for older people of a transitional nature that would not last forever. Demographice challenges that you mentioned, the kind of work that we do today, i see no reason that people should not work longer. Im still working. Andill work 40 hours a week i make money from them. And i will be 69 in a few weeks. Host happy birthday. Guest thank you. Most of us can continue to work longer than we have had in the past. There are systems that need to be reformed but people could be in the military more than 20 years. Years but itbe 50 could be 25 years. To our last call on the democrats line. Caller good morning. I recently took a look at the dollar in comparison to canada and mexico and the Australian Dollar and it seems like they are slowly gaining on our dollar. Theow we have always been stronger of the currencies but when will that change . Caller if you look at a longer time of history, you do find ebbs and flows. There was a time a decade ago when you paid 1. 60 to get a euro. In the last couple of years we have gotten within shouting distance of one dollar to one. Uro we have been upanddown and that will always be the case. There was an observation and economist made some time ago for two a lot of the things we have been talking about. The United States is the best looking horse in the glue factory. Right now, the u. S. Currency for looking broadly over the last couple of years, the dollar has been relatively strong. That may or may not continue. Agor made a point a moment that is important to understand to the extent that the United States is fiscally irresponsible , to the extent that we borrow too much money because we are running large budget deficits and we have been doing that for the last decade or so, that is going to weigh on the value of our currency. When our currency value goes down, the price of imports goes up so that is inflation and it makes life more difficult for americans. We need to behave responsibly if we want our currency to be strong on a consistent, longterm basis. Host the fed will have a new chair. Janet phelan is out in february. To the Federal Reserve policy . Guest i happen to know both of them. They do think similarly with respect to the question of Monetary Policy and my understanding is that jay powell is somewhat more cautious in terms of the extent and pressure of regulation. Janet yellen was more aggressive. Guest we can expect Monetary Policy to continue if janet yellen was reappointed. But the real question that , jay powell is a selfstudy in economics. , you needd a crisis more than an understanding of the microeconomics of the Financial Markets. You need grounding in economics to understand the systemic differences that emerge in particular crises. I am quite concerned. I am as much concerned about jay powell in a crisis as a lawyer as opposed to an economist as i serving on the Supreme Court because he knows something about business. As soon as they send me up to the Supreme Court, i can endorse. Ici andmor Joseph Minarik. Happy thanksgiving. Will you be talking politics that your thanksgiving table . No. T i doubt it. Guest i want to enjoy thanksgiving. Nextcode that is our question. Will you talk politics. We get your calls and comments in just a moment. The maltreatment of women employees by leadership in the congress, ibers of think it deserves the airing that it is getting. And more importantly, any sexual toassment, the use of power inflict demands and unseemly requests and other such on women are wrong and i really think on this issue that as agonizing as it may be for all of us, the Ranking Member needs to step nancy pelosiinimum is asked for an ethics investigation. I would agree that is a necessary step. Were past the tipping point. Whether it is in the board room or ina shop or a business , theess or government thetionship of power and attempt to exploit that power, sexually, and to demean and to grade and demand with sexual connotations from employees, i think that seat change isnt only needed but it is happening. People have reached the tipping point. Washington journal continues. Host on this thanksgiving, will you be talking politics at your thanksgiving dinner table . Our phone lines are open. 202 7488000, democrats. 202 7488001, republicans. 202 7488002, independent collars. The front page, a centuryold tradition is the macys day parade. There preparing for the parade to get underway at this hour and the atlantic magazine has this piece. Politics atalk thanksgiving. Of all of the thanksgiving tragedies, traffic, overcooking and under cooking and increasingly intoxication, nothing rivals getting sucked into a political conversation. A poll said people to read at theing politics dinner table. So go ahead and take on your grandmas outdated views. Explain to your cousin who read an online explainer that the issue is more complicated than it appears. Our countrys fate depends on it. At the very least, it should create some excitement which is more than we can say for some of the Football Games that they are offering. With that, thanksgiving politics. On the menu . Caller i would not. What i have to say would offend. That what iseve wrong with the federal government, State Government and the American Household is that unlike previous generations, we dont talk about what rings cost. We talk about what they cost per month. Paying thet about deficit off, it is not how to make the interest payment. Cost . Ch does this car it doesnt matter. What does it cost per month . And that is what is dragging the American Economy and the American Standard of living down. Sound cynical here on thanksgiving day but it is going to implode. We cannot continue on this path of financing everything. The first time i was in a Grocery Store years ago when i saw they were going to start taking credit cards, i thought, my god. It is this bad . Foodcans are going to buy with a credit card . A credit cardg with an Interest Rate of 20 , you are paying for your groceries, it cannot sustain itself. Host thank you for the call. Danny on the republican line. Caller i wouldnt talk about politics but i will talk about things i am thankful for and want behind think before is the founding of this nation and how the pilgrims landed at plymouth there was the concorde compact. And the founding of our nation. People came here to escape tyranny and religious the pilgrimsnd were christians, of course. They used to govern other use the biblehey should govern as well. Host we go now to michael in republicana on the line. Will you talk Politics Today . Yes, sir. I dont talk politics with the family or anything like that. 20 years ago we had a big picnic. Everybody was having a good time. A couple of guys were saying this and that and the other. And a couple of inlaws got into it and we all ended up going to the hospital. And my dad a fight and mom were there and they were politics so dont talk. Talking about the ballgames or whatever. Hat is homely way people can stir you up. Isnt worth the hassle. Host michael from pennsylvania. This is from a recent poll, looking at the issue of what will be acceptable and what is not at holiday gatherings. Will be intentionally avoiding political conversations with family and friends. In to not typically engage conversations during the gatherings and 21 will engage in political conversations with others even if we disagree on others. He least favorite topic 51 say politics. Already 7 , religion. 25 , family gossip. With theprogram woodhouse brothers and i want to show you this tweet from dallas woodhouse. I am looking forward to seeing despite him being so so politically wrong. I am thankful for him. Fromu are right that i am down south and i am your mother and i disagree that all families are like ours. I dont know many families that fight at thanksgiving. I was very glad that this thanksgiving was a year when year to were suppose to go to your inlaws. And im hoping you will have some of this out of your system when you come here for christmas. I would really like a peaceful christmas. And i love you both. This was not planned. She called in on the line. But since you didnt call in, what is it like to raise these two boys . Caller it hasnt been easy. No truer words have ever been said. Caller i love politics. Their dad and i love politics. We have to take responsibility for them. They are both very passionate about what they believe in. Them. Love that about but i hope they get this out of their system today on your program. Host are you democrat or republican . Caller i am a registered democrat from years ago but i voted i am more concerned i am concerned for the party. Expanding medicaid . I have an autistic grandson who is going to expand health care. Guess i am more of a one issue person right now in my life. As i have such concern for my autistic grandson. Host thank you for the call. Again, this was not planned but we are glad to hear from you. Home we will see you back this weekend. Host this tweet from wild and i feel sorry for the long suffering mama woodhouse. This is for this is from trump. Happy thanksgiving. Your country is starting to do really well. Highest stock market ever. Military getting really strong. We will build a wall. Taking care of veterans. Great Supreme Court justice. Charlie from dover, good morning. Kolko good morning. Very interesting. Will discuss it. We discuss everything. We dont get big fights. We just discuss it. I havent called you in years. That i have been wanting to call in and say that when our goes and gets trillions of dollars every year, i think they need to share that with the people. I dont think this idea of cutting medicaid will go. Host thank you. Pass the turkey but hold the politics. Of sexualnow reports and itions of misconduct could keep tensions high at the holiday table. More than one third of americans dread the prospect of politics over thanksgiving. The debate over whether to talk politics at inks giving is about as american as the traditional feast itself. 39 of u. S. Adults said their families avoid conversations involving politics. Lets go to jim from arlington, ohio. Caller high. I probably will discuss politics at dinner although my wife told me that it might not be a good idea. There are people who agree with me but people who dont agree with me. But i think it is important to hear other peoples opinions. And i think its important that they hear your opinion. You can learn a lot from people who dont agree with you. If you only talk to people who agree with you then you wont learn anything. All these politicians being accused of Sexual Harassment, i think it is important that we talk to each other and we understand what is going on in politics and why it is important that we have tax cuts for the corporations and why it is our countryat doesnt borrow money from china and other countries. It is important that we dont have continuous wars or 20 or 30 year wars. The country cant exist if it is in continual warfare. Host thank you for the call. We go to mark from pennsylvania. Good morning. Caller good morning, greetings. How are you doing . Host how are you . ,aller as far as the topics part of my family is not together anymore because of politics. Oh, yes. I will be bringing up things at dinner. ,nd my main point will be everybody is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts. One of the biggest problems right now in this extremely strange time were going through nothe fact that people are sure of what is real and what is not real. We go back to the scientific method. Sourcesngs from trusted because they are peerreviewed. Electricians judge other electricians. Chemistry is judged by other people who are experts in that. Arerts in economics studying with economic experts. That is how you know what is true and what is not true. If you listen to the National Enquirer and all you hear is that there was an alien baby spotted outside of an arizona motel, its no use having a conversation with that person who watches fox news all the time and believes that obama wasnt born in the United States. I want to go back to getting what is factual. There would be much luster could disagreement. A couple of tweets from jim. Avoid politics is the overwhelming hatred from the left. No worries, we will discuss politics. Finally, we named the turkey trump. This is Available Online at salon. Com how to talk politics at the thanksgiving table. Considering that they have always been intensely polarizing, it makes sense that he did political disagreements will arise among impassioned family members when they gather. Is there anyway to keep the conversation civil . If they are going to happen, no matter what, and that is becoming the case, it helps to establish ground rules that prevent either side from feeling stereotyped and helping to make sure that no one feels that they are attacked. We go to randy from texas. Your thoughts . Caller no, we will not talk politics this year. Year,onically, last barack obama came out and encouraged people for thanksgiving to have politics with their thanksgiving discussion because he was trying to talk about the health care. So now that donald trump is the president , well want to talk politics now. That is my comment. Host this is from the Washington Post. A republican from texas apologize yesterday for a lewd photo of him that circulated on the internet, telling a woman photos to hehe would report her to the police because she could expose the photo. She did share a secretly recorded phone conversation she had in 2015 in which he warned her against using the photos in in a negative way affecting my career. He didnt issue an apology saying that he is sorry he went to his constituents down. The picture is circulating on the web. Congressman joe barton as he sent a photo and later apologized. From patterson, louisiana. Caller we try to avoid politics nowadays. Talk to family members that he used real to have conversations with about politics but they watch a lot of fox news and theres propaganda going on where they bring up a subject about it and they ask you about roy moore and then they point out what about l clinton . They immediately change the focus is something that happened with somebody else that you cant even talk about what is going on right now because of the propaganda. They are steered to look at Something Else and set of talking about the here and now. So we try to avoid politics. Host thank you for the call. Two more women have come forward saying they were attention appropriately by senator al franklin senator al franken. In a statement to huffington post, he said it is difficult to respond to anonymous accusers and i dont remember the campaign events. Said he groped her when she posed for a photo. The second said he cupped her butt. Frank is joining us. Good morning. Caller my family is a traditional and patriotic family. We have always discussed religion and politics. And i think there is something in that. You cant discuss politics unless you have both. A certain amount of civility religious the basic principles. So maybe that is a message for the country that we could be more civil if we had politics and god. Host thank you for the call. From the New York Times oped t is thanksgiving, come home. We are discussing whether you will talk Politics Around the table later today. Send us a tweet. Wayne joins us from michigan. On the democrats line. Good morning. Caller how are you doing today . We will be talking and having conversation. I have my brothers and sisters and dad and mom there and we will have a conversation and it will be based on we are half and half, half republican, half. Emocrat i wanted to bring up points about the tax cut for the rich. It boils down to that the tax cut is going to give a tax cut to the rich but it is going to enable them to take incentives to outsource jobs overseas. So this president that we currently have got, he is lying to the public. He said he was going to create jobs but this bill will give them 20 incentives to go overseas. Taxes for create more the middle class, including most of my family. Ive never appreciated this president. I think he is a godless, lying communist. He has been compromised. He sure cans with vladimir putin. He put his hand down and was submissive. I think he has been compromised. And i hope the investigations take care of that and put him in his place. If it means impeachment, so be it. Host this advice how to survive thanksgiving when large. Looms among the recommendations . Dont talk politics, dont do it. Bait. Dont take the when possible, use humor to deflect. In florida. Ilyn will you be talking politics . Caller it isnt just dinner. Talk to myfe when i sister. She has 15 years younger and she doesnt remember things that i remember because i am older. I am 85 and she just hit 70. And we have different points of view. And we cant just talk because of her dislike of the person who was the candidate, hillary clinton. She would rather have a person as was a known sex offender a president. He has no right as a sex offender to pass judgment on any sex offenders. I dont know why he is being theted differently than republicans are being treated differently than the democrats. And when i point this out to she which i normally do, tries to tell me, well, democrats got away with it. But that doesnt make what is happening today right. Host we go to joe, next from connecticut. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . We are not afraid to talk politics. I come from a large family of Seven Brothers and seven sisters. My wife has five. We discuss politics and what we discuss is that some of the troops that have served us so well well come back to the country and get rid of the political hacks who have done nothing. That is how we agree to disagree. Host thank you for joining us. Mike pence tweeted on this thanksgiving holiday writing the following, we are honored to bring thanksgiving greetings to the brave members of the armed forces and their families at bethesda earlier today. Reed navallter hospital. Every american is thankful for the service and courage of true american heroes. Herndon, virginia. Good morning. Caller i just want to say first thatl that it is a shame in our country we are talking about Sexual Harassment and the things i tell every american, please, when you invite your family, please go out there and invite one of the Homeless People to your house. Let them eat near you. Because we have to do that. There are a lot of people out there who cannot afford food today. Good that family gathers together but what are we doing today . Well go out there and we will invite to Homeless People to our house so they can eat with us and get help and just help them with something. Please dont just worry about politics. Out there. People a lot of americans are struggling. Bring them home and invite them and let them eat next to you. Host we go to serena and maryland. Good morning. Caller happy thanksgiving. Cant avoid politics. It started with the lewinsky scandal and fox news. At the past Family Gathering wasnt even a holiday and there e people crying over have over how people are affected by obamacare and the most interesting thing is my grandfather, who is a navy officer veteran, of well over 20 years. Vietnam war and could cold war. And hes the one who taught me to not craziness about trust the kgb and now it is going on and they refuse to talk about it. I know this wouldnt have been ignored if the crime is flipped. It is an interesting debacle. Where there is a willingness to talk but scaling back and seeing everyone is with high emotions. We can all avoid politics given the uncertainty and divisiveness created by this president. , happyfrom deborah thanksgiving to the washington journal crew. Thank you. Caller i want to talk about the sex scandals. A lot of this is driven by blood in the water. In other words, it is a cumulative. I am surprised that everyone is shocked about it. Been a coin of the realm for quite a while. It should be exposed but to be shocked about it is shocking. The other thing we are about is Family Gatherings. That our news media has created tremendous divisiveness in our country. Aere is no ability to find point of real facts, like one of your people had presented before. This is very important. The truth is gone. Everything is subjective and emotional. And that is really all i want to talk about. And i dont see how this can be corrected unless we understand and we get ethical infrastructure based in this country again. Host this is from the Washington Post politics is ruining thanksgiving, according to data from cell phones. You can read the full essay today. And the news, involving roy candidate senate saying that there is a special election set for december 12. A recent fox news poll gave the democrat in a point lead over to replace the seat previously held by jeff sessions. Arry is joining us on the independent line. Caller i just wanted to see if it was possible for somebody to by not asking how you are doing. I heard you were well an hour ago. By the way things are going. I have been on this planet for 70 years and i wanted to quickly share with you where i have ran. I came home from vietnam and i was drafted. I would like to see somebody comment and tell me to oh, drivet time for you to your son for being inducted. But imrove me there not going to. I endeda simple guy and i said in married and a house with loving people and we sit around and what i heard mentioned on your show is to watch football. So here we are in this living into thee we are tuned Football Game and here is my precious 5yearold nephew who i barely know and he said doesnt that hurt when they banged their heads like that on the football field and all of the old white guys sat around and said no, they dont have brains in their heads. This goes on, minute by minute. I dont get to talk to my family because they dont want to hear about how their not superior. Anyway. Im probably not even still on the air. Peace be with you. I sat there in that room and i didnt speak up. That is whats wrong with the country is that nobody will speak up. Thishese people to pass on totally on cheer us to five hatred of our brothers . Thank you very much. Peace be with you. Host thank you. Will you and your family talk politics over thanksgiving dinner . I want to share this with you from Bloomberg View. Saying yes, there are political things to be thankful for and it would be remiss if i didnt point out one area here as i scroll down as one viewer is thankful for cspan. Lets go to tim from california. Good morning. Caller happy thanksgiving to everybody out there. Have 1520 family members and we are all conservative republicans. Understand a lot of and where the other people are coming from. We will talk about politics but we have a tendency to agree with what is being done. We could not be more ecstatic about what this president is doing and the accomplishments of what he is doing and how he is making us look. We are asked. Thank you. On this day last year, obama was handing out dinners to the homeless. Contrast that with trump. Going back to the Bloomberg View peace. Stoking of the ambient noise. Ca or calls. Ruth on the republican line. Will you talk politics over dinner . Caller no, there wont be politics over dinner and i can tell you why. My mother raised seven children and my father was a coal miner. I was taught to work from when i will was carrying newspapers in a little town. We got oldwhen enough to understand, she said we never talk politics or religion in this home. If you do, youre off to the side. She would never have done that. She would have been hard on us. And i wanted to say that we havent talked politics and lome code a family dinner, every year we all get together all seven of us and we go to a special place have three ord i four doctors and they come there to and all of my brothers and all of the children and the childrens children and we have a wonderful time on this vacation and we wear shirts that reunionas family because that is my last name. One has a problem. Everyone just listens and says ok, whatever. And you walk around and let peace be there for everyone. Not just the republicans and not just the democrats. But share with each other. Host thank you very much. Have a nice thanksgiving. Cnn tweeting a photo of the president who is on the phone earlier speaking to members of the troops and thanking them for their service. We go to steve and ohio. Good morning. We probably wont talk politics but a lot of people around the world will talk politics. What i cant understand is this that they have proposed. I worked the same company for years and i have been nickeled and dimes the whole time i worked there and i dont understand how they think that if they give a big tax break than it will result in me getting a raise. Million dollar6 company to a 20 Million Company and i have seen nothing but my insurance going up. Really, we dont have insurance, we just have Major Medical because we pay for everything else. And i dont know where they get the reasoning. As far as that fellow who says that we have never would better on the world stage, i sure dont see where he sees that. That i hope you all have a good thanksgiving and i hope everybody does talk politics. Realize whats going on. Host we go to randy from new york. Good morning. Caller good morning. I wanted to call everybody to remind note i wanted to abouto remind everybody how the Democratic People are wont hug people. The Girl Scout Organization is reminding people not to hug. So to my republican friends, he careful this thanksgiving. Host thank you. Olaf is a float at the macys day parade. This is them getting underway yesterday. Times, we talked about this yesterday. Buildings helps to keep macys approach macys of float. Bob is joining us. Will you talk politics . Caller i hope we talk about Something Else. My question is, what can we agree on that we agree on . Host how do you answer your own question . Caller if we talk about issues, that incites division. If we talk about principles and history and our founding documents and the documents that preceded our founding and if we can agree on some of that, we can go from there. So i always want to get back to the constitution. There that alles men are created equal which is something we should be to agree on that we are helped by our creator. We should all be able to agree on that. From a lack of knowledge of history and our founding and creation and i yes i will leave it there. Issues orconvert politicians, it will be chaos. From notare suffering being educated enough and not and the Public Square on those that we elect. If we want to get into a divisive thing then we are not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. Topic. Tart with that host thank you for the call. A story about how for former seniorouse staffers and White House Administration officials and advisers failed to file Financial Reports required by law. Those is reince priebus, gorka. Annon and among those who failed to file the forms within the 30 day deadlines. Reince priebus did file his this week. Four months after leaving the ministry and full details are available at the hill. Com. From new york city, good morning. Will you talk about politics . Caller i dont think there is a better time to do it than over the meal with the kids around the table. Because we can talk about Sexual Harassment. Host don is next. Good morning. Caller happy thanksgiving to our troops. It is aggravating. You remind me of cnn. Host how so . Are always trashing the president. Host how are we trashing the president . What have we done today . Caller you never say anything good about him. You interviewed hillary clinton. Brutallysk her why she attacked women . Host i did interview her and ive also interviewed trump. Caller did you ask her why her husband was a rapist . Host you cross the line when you swear like that. We go to california to the republican line. Caller i will cut it short. It isnt so much about thanksgiving. The ones who dont want to talk about politics dont want to hear anybody elses opinion. If they were guarantee that the people who they were talked to they agree with them, would talk. Im surprised you dont have a for the mental institutions. Some people call in and ramble on. Your moderator was nice enough to not cut that man off. The other thing i will say right now is that i noticed 20 of the people calling and cant put a sentence together so im not sure who is deciding to call. That is all i have to say. Ome of these people are wacko host i want to go back to the many want toing avoid political talk of this thanksgiving. Pass the turkey but hold the politics. The already fraught topic now includes allegations of Sexual Misconduct against politicians of various political stripes. From gop donald trump to al franken more than a third of americans dread the prospect of political of politics coming up over thanksgiving. 39 of u. S. Adults said their families avoided discussions about politics according to a huge Research Center poll. We go to roland joining us from detroit, michigan. Caller it will be 40 degrees here in detroit. The parade is going on. I think talking politics at dinnertime is the thing to do. Ofecially during these times total conflict. Country needs a truth and reconciliation conference. Similar to what happened in south africa years ago. Bringing up a lot of the wounds and remedies about what we need to do to move forward. There are still a lot of problems in south africa but a specialry is really piece of reality in the world. We have a great opportunity to really get to the core of what is doing this. If we dont, we lose such a great opportunity. I think we should talk politics. Get it all out. And the food will help ease the of what politics will be discussed today. Discussion about how thanksgiving even came out and that crazy history . Have a great day. Host we only have a few minutes left but that could be next year. Will you talk politics . I know iseryone discussing shopping. It is black friday. Shopping is all the rage. To see more civics in schools. I dont think children are taught about politics. Have aspan does classroom program. Check it out online. We encourage you to use it. It is a great resource. You can engage with your students and teach them how Government Works by using a lesson plan. Thank you for that. On the democrats line, go ahead. I am a first time caller. Yes, my family will be talking politics however, i am appalled by donald making a speech today about veterans and appreciating their service but today is thanksgiving i think we should focus on family and giving. We appreciate our veterans but it is just about veterans today. Listening to my comment. Host we go to garfield next in new york. Good morning. Host will you talk politics over thanksgiving dinner table . Aller no, i will love going back to basics. It is a time for the family to get together and given the climate in this country given politics, go back a sick family. Especially the females in our family. Down and think about our grandmother and our daughters. People who raised us. The family. How about having a discussion around the table with the women in the family . A lot of people think the women is just the person who is cooking the meal. Starting from there, a delicious meal, i give thanks to the women in our family and reflect how these people impact our lives. And moving forward, maybe some voters will think democrat or republican will think about the basic principle which is the foundation of the family and the women in your family. The true heroes. As far as im concerned. Everybody should sit down and while they go around and talk about politics, republican and democrat and independent and whatever it republican, democrat, independent, whatever it is. Shouldan in the family be the discussion today and every day. Thats whats going on in this country. Thank you for the call. Before we let you go, we will let you listen into what the president said as he thanked those troops overseas to keep safe. Afe area [video clip] fellows, me than you, believe me. For the heroes that really have this tremendous courage that you have to defend us, to defend freedom