Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140831

This all comes as we see the results of a new poll where is more dangers loom more people think that the u. S. Is doing too little to solve these problems. What do you think . Ofwant to get your sense u. S. Role in solving problems. Are we doing too much . Too little . All these numbers. The new pollere is that we have been reading about. It says that as new dangers him the u. S. Ink does too little to solve these problems. A large majority of americans think that the world is a more dangerous place than it was several years ago. A terrorist group that was not even on the radar of the public ranks ago, isis or isil to the top of the list of u. S. Security threats. Is the new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center and usa today. We will tell you more about it as the segment is on. We will get your reaction to it and what the u. S. Is or is not doing right now. First, we want to get an update from shane harris by phone. The Senior Writer for Foreign Policy magazine. Good morning. What can you tell us about the latest action inside of a rack inside of iraq . Caller about 110 miles north of baghdad there is a town where a number of shiites have been. Nder besieged 15,000 men, women, and children in this town were teenagers. This is really reminiscent of the season that we saw on the area amounts in jar, where they were driven up the mountain by the isis fighters. We first started conducting airstrikes and dropping supplies to them. The latest news out of a rack us morning is that Security Forces were or they have broken through the siege of isis in that town where the people are stranded and have barricaded themselves. We dont have word on how many forces have gotten through and what the conflict is. I think that it shows you the conflict in iraq, far from ratcheting down it is widening out to other places and going around but airstrikes in coordination with round forces trying to repel isis in these various towns they are now trying to take over. Some of the big headlines today, the saudi king is warning attackere could be an within months, making lots of headlines everywhere. Why is he coming out and saying youre seeinger a desire for the saudis to ratchet up pressure on isis. Last week in a related kind of incident we sought forces from the united arab amaretto striking not at isis but a mom islamist terrorist groups in libya. Very, very worried, seeing the rise of these fundamentalist troops like isis and the threats that they believed they would pose if they came to saudi arabia. What they are trying to do there is say look, this could affect you domestically, although experts do debate that question, and president obama needs to do something. That pressure growing domestically now for him to ratchet up the response. Threat the terrorist level go up to its secondhighest in england over the weekend. World leaders sort of raising the alarm about this. The question is is barack obama going to follow suit . Host we are seeing this headline about Dianne Feinstein in the senate, saying that the president is being too cautious on isis right now and that congress is back in a week and here are some of the voices. What do you make of it . He is trying to give some encouragement to the president in syria. We saw this question come up in a press conference obviously late last week. When the president came out to say that there were no immediate plans to do an airstrike against isis in syria, senior members of his own National Security team have publicly said that if we were going to stop their advance they could not do it by attacking a rack, you had to do it by attacking their base across the border in syria. Does this president need the approval of congress to conduct those strikes . Of course, the government there has not invited us into do them. I think that senator feinstein, in addition to her appreciation of the threat, is probably trying to get some political cover to the president should he decide that he wants to do this to let him know that in his own party the flank will support him on that should he decide to expand the airstrikes. What are you looking at in the next couple of days on this story . Forces do gethose through to this town, if they did, where is isis going to go next . It is a bit of whack a mole. They have the siege, then they moved over to the dam where they are still constructing conducting airstrikes and moving around to these areas rockets. The second question is will we hear more from the administration . Possibility of airstrikes in syria . The president really tamp down this idea last week. He didnt rule it out, but of course the question remains. I think that in the next week you should look or members of congress coming out and saying whether they would support a strike on syria or whether they think the president needs to come to them to get their permission. He doesnt seem to think they need to, but that is the signal they will be watching to see if that lyrical fight moves to the hill as well. Harris, thank you for getting up early with us on the sunday morning. Caller my pleasure. Host is the u. S. Involved too little, too much . Just enough . My biggest comment right now is i think the president is doing it great job. I am a democrat. But there are some democrats i wouldnt vote for right now. But i want to tell you something. You cant tell an enemy like isis that this is where i get the news media. You cant tell them what you are going to do. What are you going to do if you say i am bombing you on monday . You cant let everyone know what you are going to do. The president says he does not, but i would not tell the news media. You think isis isnt listening . Host lets hear from edward, georgia. Justr that man that called, he obviously doesnt know that president obama told the media what he was doing. Look, he is not doing enough. Those people over there are taking over the middle east. If you look at an actual map of the middle east you will see that iran is over to the right. F a rack they are coming down to syria. Anybody thats got a gun with them, that is to the enemy is. It doesnt take a Rocket Scientist to figure out what to do. Obama doesnt have a plan . Doesnt have a strategy . Cantsly, the military make a strategy because obama tells them, not the military. Host more of the details from the pole that we started with they are all more likely to say the u. S. Does too little, but the shift among republicans has been striking. Host this is a new National Survey by pew and usa today. 1500 adults included, finding that 65 said that the world is more dangerous than several years ago and only 7 say that it has gotten safer. 27 say it has not changed much. Line frome philadelphia. Too much, too little, or just enough . I think we are doing just enough. One thing i want to comment on, this thing i keep hearing about attacking the homeland in the u. S. , and in europe. But my answer to that is why are we spending 1. 5 trillion the fbi,when the nsa, these intelligence agencies that are supposed to keep us safe are tapping every phone call in the world and we are worried about 50 guys from isis coming here and wrecking havoc . Maybe it is the members of congress who are afraid, but the people that they give money to like booze out and, maybe they are afraid they are not up to the job of keeping us they. Thank you. Clark homophone cross, wisconsin. Thank you for joining us. From cross, wisconsin. Thank you for joining us. Strikinge was already syria after the republicans in congress that he was doing too little. So, isis spread. Strike if he does try to without congress, what do you think theyre going to do . Get him overreaching again . Have a good day, now. The more of your calls in moment. First, twitter. Host looking forward to more of your comments on social media, we have just a bit more from this Dianne Feinstein story. She will be on meet the press later to talk about this. She was asked by Andrea Mitchell if the statement that the u. S. Does not get have a strategy to deal with isis projected weakness. She said senator feinstein will be on meet the press close to later this morning. Meet the press later this morning. Joe, good morning. Caller representative feinstein ought to look up the butcher of baghdad if she wants to see something brutal. Big problem is that isis are the American People so ignorant that it cant be them what this means . This nonsense of calling them isis i think it is propaganda. Driven false flag operations. , not isis, and anyone who refers to it as isis, i refuse to take it seriously. Listen to what people say and you will find out the folks who know what they are talking about. Thank you so much and have a fine sabbath. You. Thank celeste, good morning to you. Caller good morning. I think he is doing just about the right amount. As long as he doesnt have any approval from congress. I think we need to wait on approval from congress. Think long and hard before we get into another war in the middle east. Host congressional approval on what specifically . Caller going to war again. Tiny steps lead to big steps. Only in the air, or on the ground as well . Caller we have to wait. I am not sure. I think that something is necessary but i dont exactly know how much is necessary. I think it is the thing where you just have to wait and see, you know, what the results are. I do not think that isis, by the way, is a threat to the United States. I thank you. Hear from janet in west hollywood, california. Good morning. Caller how are you . I started writing congress, government, senators, all for one reason. Is a threat tol the world. I feel that the number one first and foremost thing we should do is strengthen our borders, our security, country, soil. I think that our government maked watch every day and a decision based on what is happening in the world. Not necessarily economic interests, but u. S. Security. I think we have overextended in policing the world and we are faced with the other side of is that sincech obama has been a little weak on Foreign Policy, the world is clearing up. But that might not either president s fault. It might be something out of our control. I cannot stress enough that our government and intelligence military should absolutely focus on strengthening and protecting our soil. That is my concern. Host here is a tweet host heres a bit more from the pew poll. 2013 and 2014. You can see that islamic extremist groups like al qaeda topped the list of security threats, but in this particular new version they talked specifically about isis. That isis is a top russia is onat and this list, they were not here last year. 53 are concerned about it in your top security threat. Infectious disease makes this poll from country to country. More on that poll from from pew and usa today. Kenneth, athens, georgia, thank you for waiting. We have have caller got to look at the bigger picture, man. That isismebody say was upfront. Is that saying that . Where do they get their information from . How are they so sure . You know what im saying now . Says Something Like that, they know something. We need to ask them more questions. What you think . What herbertear thinks. Good morning, herbert. Caller good morning, i am a United States army veteran. This president doesnt have a strategy. The problem is the secretary of defense. He has military followers. Thats all i have to say. He has to go on with one of his followers and then make a decision. Thank you. Weekly standard editorial this morning, we dont have a strategy yet. The president doesnt have a war strategy because he does not want to accept that we are at war. Host also the sum in morning in theWashington Post, approach is a deliberate. Proach the president will continue to move at his own speed to respond to these crises, regardless of criticism. It will meet the speed of the cable news cycle. It is not tenable. We would much rather do this right then do this quickly. We tried the opposite ring the bush years and it worked out airy poorly. The president will be on his way to europe this week for a nato summit, where the secretary of state will travel to the see if the and president s capacity to clear, decisive courses are open to. Rection bonnie, missouri, good morning. Are you there . Lets try chuck, saint augustine, florida. Are you there . Caller we have are the republicans say strategy like strategy. They had bin laden trapped three times and could not decide whether to give or not, so they let him go. As i recall, the original 9 11 terrorists were tried in the United States, in central florida. It is time that we took care of the home front and the rest of the world. We cant even tell you who are friends are. Thats all. Host antonio is waiting to check in. Hello, antonio. Caller hello, good morning, everybody. I think we go too far, like the gentleman said before me. I think this country is a beautiful country, the best in the world, but my grandmother never went to the school in italy years ago. She used to tell me that you can take a picture with one hand. Youve got to stop going around the world. We have so many enemies around the world. I think that this country is at 51 years. I did my duty. I love this country. I love this country. God bless america. The people of the United States are sure to wake up to what is happening in this beautiful country. God bless america. Have a good day. Wake up, america. Wake up. Wake up. On a that is antonio sunday morning, up in boston. On twitter this morning host we are asking you this morning what you think the role of the u. S. Should be in solving problems around the world. In, here calls coming is lewis on facebook, talking about the poll itself that we are quoting from. He says host diane, cleveland, good morning. Caller i have voted for both republicans and democrats over the years. When obama got into office, what he did bite what the republicans did by not working with this president he has the right to make executive decisions. The point of the matter is he needs nato countries to back us up. Number two, he was giving out pink slips to 2000 Navy Officers and employees. To reduce ourploy employment any more than it is that we cant afford to close the bases we have closed over the last 10 years. I think were at risk and that lady is right, nato countries need to back us up. If he doesnt listen now, we will have another 9 11. He has got to listen to saudi arabia. They are trying to warn us. If we dont do something now, they will come across the Mexican Border right now. Host sandy, lexington, kentucky. Caller thank you for the call taking my call. It is not a matter of too much or too low too much or too little. It appears the country is week under president obama. It is not about peace. We are dealing with isis and it is barbaric. The worlds problems are our problems. Obama should never have admitted that he doesnt have a strategy. It is his responsibility to have a strategy. That is the responsibility of the president of the United States and we are in big trouble if he doesnt step up and show us to be the strongest nation in the world and attack the problems and be done with it. Cannot negotiate with terrorists. The Prime Minister of israel said the same thing. You can have a conference with them. They want to kill us. They want to cut our heads off, like they did with the journalist. Are we going to sit back and let them do that . Or are we going to step up and get out of that place . It is just frightening. I have never been so afraid as i am under this president. He is so weak that he would rather play golf and go to fundraisers than do business. How many days has he been in the white house since he has been president . On your screen, a photo from the New York Times this morning. A still image of an isis video toing to cut trying recruit canadians. It is attached to a piece that , in theout how isis viewpoint of some people, is displaying a deft command of media to draw in westerners, writing that extremists in large parts of syria and iraq have riveted the attention of the world. Host billy, spokane, washington, good morning. Caller with our economy being what it is, the downsizing of that wetary, i think should not be helping other countries, we should be over here. I am a veteran and i think the money needs to be put into the v. A. Instead of other countries. We need to look at ourselves and the economy. I think that one of the things that the v. A. Could do, we should have the same medical care is the rest of the country. President should not have said that we dont have a plan. We need to be over there until he does do something. Host you are saying that we are doing too much overseas. What do you make of a headline like this . Arabia sayingudi that jihadist could attack the u. S. Or europe within months . Caller once again, that money could be used here to shore up our security. We have enough money to spend overseas that we could literally improve the late the rate of speed that people could be checked out at the airports. We could shore up the borders. That one lady just said that these border disputes we are having, it evil think that harassed arent coming through those borders . They are not in reality. That money could be spent there to shore up the borders. Program note, 10 a. M. Eastern time is newsmakers. Doug elmendorf, the cbo director, will be our guest. They put out a new report on the deficit and the debt. A short piece of that interview, now. [video clip] has been a disappointingly slow economic recovery. We do think that growth will pick up over the next few years and the market will strengthen, more people will find jobs. Pick up and the improvement that will bring to the budget, because of underlying trends the federal budget is still on an unsustainable path. As the deficits came down over the last few years, a few years from now they will start increasing in size again. The outstanding debt of the federal government is high relative to the fact of the economy in our history. Newsmakers, today at 10 a. M. With doug elmendorf, replaying at 6 p. M. Here on cspan. We are talking about the u. S. Role in solving world problems. Too much, too little, or just about right . The current role of the u. S. Robbie has been waiting from fort pierce, florida. Caller good morning, how are you doing . Host doing fine, sir. Caller right. I think obama has been doing too little. He isnt establishing a balance. E have to humiliate isil they are using faith as an image for their true reality. So, america has the most powerful military country in the world. We can defeat them easily. Said, they are a jv team. As the jar as the varsity team we need to clean you milley ate them away from thinking they could ever do this again, go into the middle east and pour as much support as we can into the middle east to show to ourselves that america still has the ability to be the most powerful and loving with wise strategy. That is what america has been great at throughout its birth until now. This piece this morning and one of the california newspapers, the Orange County register. . Says has isis reached here host pamela, harvey, illinois, welcome. To commentust wanted this president is so smart. Has everyone forgotten he is the man who got bin laden . You wont hesitate to pull the trigger. He is thoughtful, caring, and considerate. He is not just going to point his power. Lets wake up and realize what is really going on. Host michael, new kensington, pennsylvania, hello. Caller thank you for taking my call. If anyone thinks that barack obama will not exploit his power , i think he has done more than enough of that in the past. We are doing think too much all over the world. I think that we have to take heed of general eisenhowers remark, where he said to be where the militaryindustrial complex. I think we need to be wary of who is telling us to get into these involvements. There are always people who will benefit. In america we have to watch out. I think that the one thing that we should obviously do a couple of people have referenced this seal the borders and make sure that we dont have a border for these terrorist to come through. It will also strengthen our country. We need time to assimilate in this country is americans. We have to start teaching history, what it means to be an american, things like that. But this galloping all over the world trying to put out fires . It is not a good thing. It is not supposed to be just a response to little incidences. Not that isis is a little incident. It deserves our attention. But we might be able to do more just by supporting they have a lot of opponents in the middle east. By doing that rather than putting boots on the ground we might be able to do more good. Ok. dominic is on the line from panama city. Hello, dominic. Caller how are you . Host make sure the sound on your tv is down, we will be able to hear you better. Caller ok, i will do that right now. Dominic from panama city, florida. Go ahead. I think that obama is doing too much. He is a loving guy, willing to help, but the country has to help themselves. They need to find democracy themselves amongst the people. Of the country is one thing, the people are another. We have got our own economy to be concerned for. This country that hates us . Sure, i believe that they will attack. Obama has a strategy. I would also like to say this, you guys do a lot of research in there, but obama is doing too much. Coming away with democracy amongst themselves . We going to do . We are creating war amongst us. Im going to give time for the next people to talk. God bless us all. But there is a right way to do everything and we have our own problems right now. All right, dominic. Back to the usa today poll, they keep breaking things down here and in this particular chart of 10 teahat nine out Party Republicans describe isis as a major threat. Just below that, the majority thinks that militant forces of islam are gaining influence in the middle east. That this is part of a larger bowl and the headline suggests that 54 of americans right now think that the president s approach to Foreign Policy is not tough enough. Lets hear what bill has to say from mount vernon, ohio. How areward caller you doing . Host doing well. Much isi think that too being done overseas. I think we are involved in too much over there. That is a reason i believe that most of the countries are against american citizens. We are basically dipsticks. We have got to insert ourselves into every little situation, for no real apparent reason. It seems like the reasons dont come out in general. Then when we find out what the reason was, they write an executive order to supposedly counteract or help the American People by writing these executive orders when it has been well planned out, these oruations that are causing allowing use of the media to that they wantes to get across to the people, like isis and this and that under threat. I know for a fact that they are down at the texas border right now. I have some people down there. I am part of a Patriotic Group assembled down there on the texas border on private property where Border Patrol agents have a serious problem. They are either going road or they are just simply not following the constitution. Our guys were approached, got fired at, wearing fatigues, wearing camouflage. Just like they were actually mistaken for some special ops from texas, the safety department. That is where they were originally. Out thing that the ap put that they were militia . They are just concerned citizens. Host going to let you go in get some other concerned citizens. This is from john mccain stop dithering, confront isis part of what the president is trying to do at the nato summit hard work, but the best way to tackle a common enemy. Ohare eight, good morning. Caller good morning to you. Host what would you like to say about the u. S. Role in solving the in Dash International problems . Caller first of all, he is going to play to the base because he and he is in the race for his seat. I would take what he says with a grain of salt. To starts been trying a war for the longest, also. As far as the president saying he doesnt have a strategy . I dont believe that. Like one of the other colors, why would you tell people you have a strategy to do something and tip them off . S long as he has the plan with a plan you have multiple strategies. Once you decide on the strategy you want to use, you used tactics. A lot of people dont understand how it goes when you are dealing with stuff like this. Mostly the republicans are playing a political game against , it like they stated before was a couple of years ago. They were saying he was doing too much. Now they come out to say he is doing too little. Basically, he is dammed if you dont and dammed if you do. His doing the right thing by doing what he thinks is right. More stories this morning, this one is about the European Union as the conflict in ukraine worsens. European leaders agreed to impose tougher sanctions, possibly targeting energy and finance. Leaders have given them a week to deliver proposals for these penalties, leaving open a precise trigger, contrasting with a four point ultimatum from june. More sanctions might be coming up. This caught our attention in. He New York Times it has to do with socalled endoflife talks. Medicare may soon decide to allow and pay for these endoflife talks. A story out of dundee, new york, five years after it exploded into a political conflagration over death panels, the issue of paying doctors to talk to patients about endoflife care is making a comeback and such sessions may be covered for the americans on medicare as early as next year, so folks will be watching out for a decision, talking about the fact that a couple of states are already paying for these kinds of discussions under the medicaid programs. We are sure that there will be some more conversation as time goes on. Melvin, richmond, florida, go ahead. Caller thats richmond, virginia. Host go ahead. Cspan, fork you, taking my call. As several people have said, the president is very smart. He went to one of the finest schools in the United States. He basically, in my opinion, is just stalling so that he can get congress back in there and make them decide whether or not we should go to war. Of, you only have a couple war hawks out there, like mccain and jackson, in south carolina, screaming lets go to war. The majority of republicans dont want to vote on going into another war. I basically see this thing as a stalemate. When Congress Gets back, they are not going to vote on it. Especially the house. I think he is taking the right strategy and, basically what he knowsng, if anybody boxing, it is called the rope a dope. You basically fool your opponent. He is pretending like he doesnt have a strategy when he knows what his strategy is, waiting for congress to come back and letting them decide so that they can take the blame. Congress, by the way, comes back on the eighth, they will be back for couple of weeks in september. They will basically have two or three weeks of action before they have to adjourn for the election, for the home stretch in the election. Alicia, columbia, maryland. Host good morning. Nice to have you back alicia, maryland. Caller good morning, nice to have you back. I think we get too much involved with everyones business. Lets take care of our own business. Those of us who pay quite a bit of income tax, we want our money to be used here for our own people. Know, theyawks, you wanted to go to war because they. An fill their war wears the oil people, they want to get involved so that they can get more oil or sell more oil, however they work it. Why dont we just send mccain, Lindsey Graham, and the others they can take care of business. They seem to want to always be in front, you know, trying to be the leader instead of our president. I think that our president has some wisdom and that is what we need now. We need wisdom and we need heart. Troops, blessing to our wherever they are. Thank you very much. It for the time for your calls the sunday morning. Coming up in a couple of minutes, our guest, philip klein , here to talk about the handling of the president s foreign and domestic issues. Later, adam green, cofounder of the Progressive Change Committee with more on how they are preparing for the midterm elections and beyond. Stick around, we hope you will. Call, send us your questions and comments. We will take a moment to go to nancy callow for look at what is happening this morning on the sunday morning shows. Worlda today says that conflict will dominate the sunday morning talk shows, and you can hear the rebroadcast beginning at noon on meet the. Ess that includes Dianne Feinstein from california. , with, here this week former governor bill richardson, democrat of new mexico. At 2 p. M. , fox news sunday. Mike rogers, the chair of the Homeland Security committee. State of the union follows at 3 p. M. , with a Ranking Member on the house intelligence committee. Also, adam kinzinger, a member of the House Foreign Affairs committee, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, bob menendez. At 4 00, face the nation, with john mccain. Also, democratic representative adam smith and congressman peter. Ing, cspan radio, brought to as a Public Service. Rebroadcast begins at noon eastern and the lineup is meet the press at noon, 3 00 state of the union, face the nation at 4 00. Listen to the mall on cspan radio here in the washington dc area, across the country on Xm Satellite Radio, channel 120. You can download our free app for your smart phone. Or you can listen online at cspan. Org. [video clip] this labor day on the cspan that works, at 5 30, the Education Department summit on. Ullying in schools at 8 00, bill nye the science guy and Creation Museum founder, ken and, debate info debate evolution. A discussion on life in the gym crow south. At eight 30, silvia dukes morris, on her book, price of luce about claire booth and the author of flash boys discusses the hidden world of highfrequency stock trading. At 7 15 p. M. , american artifacts close outlook set declassified documents related to the gulf of tonkin incident that led to the escalation of. He vietnam war at 8 p. M. , president hardings newly released love letters. And then the life of milton friedman. Find our Television Schedule online and let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. Call us. Host morning,the table this philip klein, what do you make of the handling of by the president of these twin foreignpolicy crises . Guest i think he has had a difficult time handling them. Think that isis has grown in influence in both syria and in russia and the ukraine Vladimir Putin has exploited his time to try to invade ukraine. So, he is dealing with these both at the same time. This is sort of interspersed with optics of him being on vacation, even though that is a bit of an unfair political attack, it sort of goes back to eisenhower, reagan, bush, every president is attacked by their political opponents were going on vacation, but the fact that it sort of coincided with these twin crises has reinforced the view that he has kind of checked out of the presidency. That he can really get his agenda passed congress. The republicans have criticized him when he tries to take executive action. There is an election coming up that his party is expected to lose a number of senate seats in , perhaps control of the senate. Of these things coming at the same time have created the impression that he is sort of done. That he is looking past the presidency and not really fully engaged. I think that that has been a big problem for him. With usr guest will be for about 40 more minutes. He is here to talk about foreign and domestic issues. We have the phone numbers on the bottom of the screen. We will take your comments by social media as well. I guess just one week ago or more, he did not have his current job, he was Senior Writer Senior Writer, now editor. What is the difference between the old job and the new one . Guest more editing, more overseeing of staff and editorials, opeds, and so forth. Host what are your big goals for the job . Produce would like to intelligent, conservative commentary on the issues of the day. Host the president said that whatever action the u. S. Takes against isis will be limited in scope. First, take us to what is happening right now in iraq. What would you like to see happen . Interact in iraq, he is in a difficult position. In 2008 is fundamental Campaign Point was that bush got us into a war with iraq with no plan to leave, that it was a dumb war and he was going to get us out. In 2012 he ran for reelection on the idea that he got us out. Limitedas been sort of in what he feels he can do in terms of going back in and getting too involved. More than anything this was the focal point of his presidency, the main contrast that he had with Hillary Clinton in the democratic primary. Certainly with john mccain in the general election. On the oneacing that hand, yet on the other hand he is facing the road of this Islamic Movement that is spanning across iraq and syria that is making major gains and has movement and has threatened american lives. Again, we have seen this in recent polling, the American People dont think he is doing enough, saying he is not really doing anything, but this is sort of where does he find the gray line . That is where you had him coming out and saying that he didnt have a strategy at. This was sort of looked at as him trying to be more thoughtful and not jump to action, but the difficulty is that when you are president , a lot of problems arise and you have to make decisions quickly and intelligently. Made,er decisions he has it has not helped the rise of isis. His exit strategy was to just not leave a did u. S. Troop presence, not leaving a vacuum leaving a vacuum that isis exploited. Host the future take on a couple of headlines this morning, but first this from greg. Hello, greg. Sir, i would like you to make your answers and your points more sustained. By that, let me give an example. I see that we are spending all of this money on military warfare. What is the big result . Militaryindustrial power. Warriors, i dont know what we are going to do. Is that in my opinion america is stuck between iraq and a hard place where we or we sharpen our weapons dont sharpen our weapons. You know, i dont know. China is also like copying all of our technology. So, i dont know. To be america is going the leader of weapons and manufacturing industries, or china will eventually take over. What i would like to let the audience know is that i am working towards the future. Politicalhe nitpicking going on, lets look towards the future. That you touch on, in your question, you touched on an answer, which is that what are americans doing spending money on military hardware . The reality is that it is a dangerous world. America pulling back from the world, suddenly there wont be any threat. Other countries, like china, like russia, will exploit american weakness and americas pulling back from foreign affairs. That is one of the issues, when america is the leader, we get , onership on advocacy liberty, on expanding freedoms. In china or russia you get an expansion of authoritarian ideologies. This morning Dianne Feinstein said that the president as being too cautious on isis right now. She is of course a democrat. How significant are these comments . Guest i think that they are significant. It shows that even democrats are starting to at least go on in the National Security stage. That clearly there is starting to be some frustration that obama is just not doing anything. That he is just out to lunch on this issue, americans are getting beheaded and he is sort of lets not make a big deal out of this area there are the comments that he made a while back about isis being just the jv team. This is part of a pattern of obama not taking a threat seriously. Host in your view does the president need to go to syria go to congress to get authorization . Last year he made a big deal about going to congress for airstrikes. So, i guess the difficulty is that if he doesnt, then it is sort of a reversal from what he said last year. Arereality is that people going to be questioning why is this different and this does not necessitate going to congress but last year did . What is the red line on this . Host before working at the washington examiner, our guest was a financial reporter for reuters in new york city, educated at George Washington university and the Columbia School of journalism. He wrote the conservative survival in the romney era. Klein is taking your calls. Good morning, gentlemen. In my opinion, i think we have lost some credibility in the region for a number of reasons. Number one, i think they ought to make sure that the kurds are fully armed. They ought to send a message to all the surrounding areas in the region and say look, we are going to send this message and we are going to back it up, and the message is this let i. S. I. S. Know you have 24 hours or 48 hours, and im not talking my days come im talking about hours, and i am talking about down to the minute. You let all of your captives go unharmed whether they be american or german or whomever they have over there. Let them go, and if you do not, we will bring hell down on you. If the kurds are fully armed you know they got the targets. You know where they are. Hell out of them like we did in world war ii. Host phil klein. Guest the difficulty obama is facing is the question of what sort of comes after, and so the thesem was that we remove troops from iraq and we had this hasty withdrawal, and that created this vacuum for i. S. I. S. , so the question is that even if we deal this blow to i. S. I. S. Through steppedup military action, what sort of comes after, what are we going to build there, how much of a presence do we have to be there, do we have to be there . Japan were there for decades. I think that is sort of what obama is contemplating right now. Thomas in new jersey for folk line of the washington examiner. Hey, tom. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Under the eisenhower administration, denon president eisenhower have the eisenhower doctrine, which proclaimed the United States right to be in the middle east because of the area of strategic importance for our country . That is correct, right . I do not want to comment on the nuances of the eisenhower doctrine. The 1950s. Is from we are puzzling to myth here that you are here to perpetrate that this is some kind of organic terrorist group that is the enemy of ours. Doesnt the cia have influence over this group . Where did the funding for this group, . Did it come from saudi arabia and qatar . The funding would not have come from those countries without at least the tacit approval of our intelligence agencies. Isnt that all correct . Guest thank you for the call, but i think that sounds like an absurd conspiracy, so i do not want to address that. Host interestingly enough, the they street journal roads fill their coffers from the economy in syria and iraq. They extract tribute from locals making it among the worlds richest in terror. Surges of Islamic State funding, according to the wall street journal recently, and they are sourcing western and arab officials. Extortion and crime networks, donations,il, and perhaps that is what the caller was speaking to, receiving donations from private citizens and Islamic Charity and perhaps others, according to that caller. Our guest is phil klein of the washington examiner. He is commentary editor. Here is a tweet for you how would john mccain deal with this . What would his strategy be, and how much would it cost to implement it . What are you hearing . T i have not spoken token john mccain on this issue, but it is clear that he was against troops without troops staying in there and re the the area, security gai gains that america had made in the iraq war. I. S. I. S. A few years ago was not anywhere that it is now. And the vacuum sort of created the problem that we have in terms of i. S. I. S. Being able to tot of enjoy this freedom sort of rise and recruit and to make gains, so i think the first thing if mccain were president , he probably would have capped some sort of u. S. Troops presence there, and he would probably be taking more aggressive action now. Up randwanted to bring paul, the senator as well as a view flagged an op ed that he recently wrote, one of the other big names out there obviously. Here is what senator rand paul wrote about all of this. More realistic foreignpolicy would recognize that there are evil people and to radical regimes in this world, but also that america cannot police or solve every problem across the globe. Only after recognizing the pride its of our foreignpolicy can we pursue policies that are in the best interest of the u. S. The Islamic State representative threat that should be taken serious it, but we should also recall how recent foreignpolicy decisions have helped these extremists so we do not make the same mistake a potentially aiding our enemies again. Following up on that, you wrote in the examiner that that is not a foreignpolicy. Explain. Guest rand paul comes from this libertarianmore thought, which tends to be noninterventionist on Foreign Policy. This was pronounced when his father, ron paul, ran for president. The issue is that basically the overall critique is that a lot of our problems in the world are created by excessive intervention. Backif we wanted to get and sort of try to explain well, if america did not get involved there, then maybe we would not have the feeling, even if we wanted to get into that argument, just putting that aside for the moment, what rand paul is expected to run for president , and if he is president , he will have to deal with the problems as they exist, a timehe does not have machine where he can go back in time and change american policy. He would have to deal with the problems as they exist. In that op ed, he sort of went back in time at that oh, well, if we did not get involved too much, if we do not listen to these war hawks, than we would not be in this shape with regards to i. S. I. S. But again right now, what does he want to do with i. S. I. S. . He says that well, it does not mean that we cannot treat them seriously, but he sort of tags that onto the end, and he has articulated no idea of what he would actually do. What is a noninterventionist response . I think the broader problem politically for rand paul is that he wants to run for president in a party that is increasingly frustrated with what they see as president obamas apathy, and action, and weakness on foreign affairs, so it is very awed that they would choose someone as their standard to sayhose response is well, the problem is we should have been even more hands off than what obama is doing. I think that is going to be a very difficult needle to thread for rand paul. Calls,et back to the mike in chicago, welcome, mike. Caller hi. I am calling about ukraine. I am ukrainian myself. I been to ukraine six times. I have relatives there. It is a twopart thing. I will say it as quickly as possible. And thing, obama there are people around me that obama has handled i call tler wrong from the beginning of the administration. He sent hillary over there with her reset button, giving up the radar system in the Czech Republic to try to get his help with issues like iran, and of course he has done nothing, and he was showing weakness from the beginning. Obama was showing weakness from the beginning. Us never would have happened if reagan were president. Reagan becamer, president s, he called the soviet union what it was, an evil empire. Understande only strength. Reagan stood there with his fist in the soviet unions face. He developed the star wars. That sent the soviet union scared, and it was one of the reasons why the soviet union fell apart. Er, all obama did was show his weakness. The whole time. I was telling people around me that this was going to end up badly. And now, ok, he has done this, and ukraine will fight, but what ukraine needs now is arms. They dont want anyones boots on the ground. They have their own boots on the ground. They want arms and they will fight putler until the russian people realize it is time to give up this fight. Host phil klein. Isst yeah, well, i think it true that Vladimir Putin is an exkgb guy who has expressed regret for the collapse of the soviet union, and he sees being a poweras broker, and there is no doubt that he has exploited president obamas showing of weakness throughout the world, and this goes back to the decisions that in the early days of obamas presidency, for instance on missile defense, this whole was not russia alsotive, and putin can look to obamas handling of other issues such as i. S. I. S. And see weakness and feel like obama is not actually going to do anything. The sanctions that have been just sortrussia are of more symbolic. They do not have they are not really damaging putin the way that in a way that he could not really with stand, so i feel like they basically and ever invadedtin effectively ukraine month ago, the response of the administration was sort of oh, well, this is just sort whatth century thinking is kerry said, but even if an adversary is thinking in another framework, it does not mean it does not pose a geopolitical threat to the United States. Host rebecca in greensboro, North Carolina for phil klein. Caller yes, good morning. I would just like to say i have really lost my faith in the arerning entities that supposedly care of america. I think we have spent so much time fingerpointing and namecalling that we have lost the serious way that our country was actually built on. I sat there and watched them criticize obama about his suit him coming in, cleaning up a big mess that was made from bush and Ronald Reagan eras and all these other eras, and the gentleman who just called and said if reagan was in office, this would not happen, that would not happen. We always say if, what, may become a mighty we need to stabilize our own country. Rebecca, if i could, lets shift gears over to immigration. One of the many headlines is an politico, the white house, strife over there, according to this headline, there is a stall on obamas immigration plans. The main point of this is executive action and whether it should happen before the election or after the election. I want to get your take on things, phil klein, but i want to hear from the president first a little bit from thursdays statement on immigration. [video clip] it would have been helped along is congress had voted for the supplemental that i asked for. They did not. That means we have got to make some administrative choices and executive choices about for example getting more Immigration Judges down there, so that has capped us busy, that it has not stopped the process of looking get broadly about how do we a smarter immigration system in place while we are waiting for congress to act. It continues to be my belief that if i cannot see congressional action that i need to do at least what i can in order to make the system work these thingsome of do affect timelines, and we will just be working through as systematically as possible to get this done, but have no doubt in the absence of congressional action, i am going to do what i can to make sure the system works better. Host phil klein, your take on immigration and timing. Guest i think first of there is a sort of legal and policy element, which is essentially obamaight now president and his lawyers have to figure out what could he do on immigration within the boundaries of the law, and then on the other hand, he has people that want as broad action as possible, so he has two from a policy perspective way those things. Also the question of how it is going to be timed politically, which is that heading into the election, one theory is if obama takes executive action, that will mobilize a lot of liberal supporters and energize them. Energize hispanic voters. And by contrast if republicans a sort of reactionary angrily to that, then that is Something Else that he exploited to try to reinforce this attack of republicans as being antihispanic. Now, the flipside of that is that we are talking about not a National Campaign right now, but individual races at the congressional level and at the state level. Democrats are in the fight of for maintaining control of the senate, and there are a number of senate races in states such as louisiana, such as arkansas, such as North Carolina where obama taking executive action on immigration could be used to attack democratic candidates, and so that is the sort of consideration that they have to do. Larry now in from mississippi. Good morning, larry. Caller two things. The president try to lead forces no, taked maliki said your troops and go home. Weapons,eft and they walked off and left the weapons, so i. S. I. S. Took them and started killing with the weapons that we gave them. So we have armed them, and look what happened. You keep doing the same things and getting the same result. It is crazy. And matthewght, from pineville, louisiana. Good morning, matthew. Matthew, we are here. Go ahead, sir. Caller yes, sir. Hi there. I heard something about being a noninterventionist, and i dont see the point in the continuing of these wars. I am a disabled veteran. I have had my knee blown off and whatnot. I believe that we have to stay out of it. We can back our allies, but all of this foreign aid, were just giving the money to buy weapons. This is ridiculous. We are broke. We have to fix our home. I mean, if we dont fix what we have going on here, we are going to be in a big mess. Host all right, matthew. Phil klein, one of your colleagues at the examiner writes this while obama is distracted by i. S. I. S. , russia and china pounds. We talked about russia a little bit. Explain the thinking behind the headline. Guest i think that basically like we said, russia and china they read the tea leaves and they try to read when obama and when america is weak or distracted, they try to take advantage of it. Particularly and so that is sort of a problem that obama is facing right now, and again this image worldwide is not this american image, but this worldwide image that he sort of checks out, that he is looking to writing his memoir right now and not really engaged in the job being president. Host this is an email here. What do you think can be done to stop european ransom payments from funding i. S. I. S. . I think that part of this is dealing with and building stronger alliances with the some of these European Countries, and i think that that is something that has to be handled diplomatically. But i think that over the years in a lot of european governments, they have come to reliable, soless that has become a barrier. Host on twitter, dede asks if i. S. I. S. Were to be eliminated, would some other groups urge into the vacuum . Guest that is you never know but you have to anticipate. Clearly right now i. S. I. S. Is a very significant threat. We have another call. Caller good morning. Can use plain to me what his weakness . Can you explain to me what is weakness . Host wide to you ask that question, and what do you think weakness is . Caller it does not seem like we should be bombing these right after the other. It is not going to help. This is not the way of the world. Need to get together and talk things out. Bombing does not help. Guest thank you for the call, grace, and i understand your concern, but to be clear, and russia, no one is talking about putting u. S. Troops on the to bombnd starting russia. What people are talking about our provisions such as putting together a plan of sanctions teeth and canhas actually cause pain to put in so that he can rethink his costbenefit analysis of invading ukraine. People have talked about antitank ukraine with missiles so that they could destroy russian soviet tanks, russian tanks from coming across into ukraine. So those are the types of things that people have talked about. No one is talking about launching a war in ukraine against russia. Host lets go to raymond in waco, texas. Hey, raymond. Caller hey, good morning, gentlemen. I think america and the European Countries need to stop giving out these passports to these arab countries for a certain amount time, just like cuba, and isolate them because that is how the 9 11 attackers came in, with american passports. Thesad thing is that republicans blame it on immigrants. When it was not even the immigrants coming you know, latin america, that even bombed. S in the first place how can you think of Something Like that . And there is too much corporate influence from republicans and corporate america. That is why they always drag us into wars. These arab countries should have their own civil war, their own bloodshed just like we here in america did in the past. That is why we think before we react. Host lets hear from our guest. Guest there is a lot in theirre. On the immigration issue, republicans, arent really the arguments they have on immigration arent really the Latin Americans are terrorists and that is why we cant let them in. On the point of letting, giving, letting arabs in, i think that clearly immigration system has vet thoroughly people coming into the country to make sure that they do not have terror ties, but i do not think they can as a blanket policy block out anyone who is trying to immigrate from an arab country. Host back to russia, there is some news out of the ap. Luton to ukraine begin putin to ukraine begin immediate talks on the east. He said tv network one, the talks have the goal of safeguarding the legitimate interests of those who live there. Putin has previously called for talks between the Central Government and the separatists in the eastwest the Ukraine Forces have been fighting since april. They point out that putins use of the word statehood indicated russia could be taking full influence of the region, which he referred to as new russia. Right now, ukraines government is kind of squeezed because on the one hand, their economy is suffering and it is not doing well. On the other hand, they are dealing with these russianbacked separatist groups, so i would read that as putin trying to exploit this moment when the Ukrainian Government is weak to try to squeeze them into having to in terms make a tangible concessions to the separatists when theyre down, which is one of the reasons why some people have argued that the u. S. And allies need to try to figure out a way to prop up the ukrainian economy to take inssure off on that end addition with try to supply ukraine with certain weapons such as, like i said, and titank missiles. Host we have joe on the line from damascus, maryland. Caller the gentleman from the examiner did not much and that the examiner is a right wing paper. By thei did mention i, way. Im not sure if you missed that part. Caller i must have missed it. Tookdly, we say that obama all of the troops out of iraq and john mccain wanted us to stay in. First of all, i am sorry, but i am nervous. Contract written up, the Iraqi Government said no, they did no one any troops, the maliki government said no, they wanted all americans out. So you cannot go stay in a country that does not want you. They said leave, we left. So this idea that somehow obama just took all of our troops out you did not tell the truth on that. Thirdly, john mccain never met a war he did not like, and that is the truth of it, and when somebody asks you what would he do, you went back and told an pulling ourt obama troops out. You did not mention the fact that the Iraqi Government said no and to get all of your troops out, and secondly, you did not say what he would do, you just said he would be more aggressive now, so maybe you need to answer the question what what he exactly do . What is your answer to the question . Host all right, joe, phil klein, what are the answers . Guest a few things on a point. First of all, i am not here to say john mccain has all the right answers. I was asked what john mccain would do differently, and i explained what he would do differently. If you go back to the debate over the forces agreement, there was not a genuine effort among the Obama Administration to try becauseain troops there obama heading into Election Year wanted to really be able to say we pull all troops out of iraq. So that was not really something that he pushed hard on in negotiations. What i was thing is what john mccain would have done differently, and ive certainly disagreed with john mccain on Foreign Policy come on a number of occasions. I think that he is oftentimes too eager to get involved Foreign Policy was, but the bottom line is that right now whatever obamas strategy is is not working, and he has been president now for almost six years, so it is harder to just blame it on bush because when you are elected president , something i mentioned with regard to rent paul, you are dealing with all of the problems after nearly, and six years, it is hard to just blame everything on bush. Host it is time for a couple more calls. Quincy, illinois, john, thank you for waiting. What would you like to say . Yes, i remember eisenhower, and i heard him say one time he just did not believe in what he called brush wars, these small wars, because they always expand and get larger. Document,back to the and i watched the people on the American Enterprise institute, they talked about the american army, so in the cold war was over, they took it to the middle push that, and clinton would not buy that thing, but finally after 9 11, bush could not get in there quick enough, and you can just see how that thing has expanded now, and now we are worried about i. S. I. S. Over there. I read here a little while back that we were training in helping arm the people over there in jordan and syria to try to overthrow assad. We had the cia in syria over trying to overthrow him there. It just keeps growing and growing and growing, and eisenhower i think went through eight years there and hardly lost a soldier because he kept his nose out of these things. Guest first of all, bringing up israel into this and suggesting that people wanted to go to war with israel not only has an underlying with love antisemitism to try to suggest that somehow people are putting israels interest in front of the United States, but it also lacks an understanding of what israels interests were at the time of the iraq invasion, which is that a lot of his release of not agree with the iraq war and thought that actually it was it would increase irans strength in the region, so i think it is an ignorant question with a conspirac conspiratoriald antisomatic tench. Take issueant to with mr. Klein. If he says the word week again about president obama, he really needs to stop it. This president is not weak. He is intelligent, he thinks. We are not used to that, so we really need to just quit with the weak and realize he is doing the best he can for this country, and that is all i really need to say. He just needs to quit using the word weak. Host all right, from claire on to bruce now in jacksonville, florida. Good morning. Caller good morning. To all thelistening comments. If we want to play the blame game, we can go to the back of world war i and blame the british and the french for the problems going on in the middle east, but anyway. [laughter] as far as mr. Klein, you can use the word inapt would be better than weak because the president has proved everything he has done so far he has been ept and Foreign Policy. He threw the line in the sand. We had the opportunity to go with the red line in syria, and we did nothing. Now one person is killed, so were going to go to war with i. S. I. S. Because they are taking over. We did not seem to be overly excited when our ambassador was killed in benghazi. We did not do anything about that and till 18 months later. I just, you know, it is thingesting, every everybody comes up to blame somebody. It is a very difficult situation. I think if we follow the money that is going on where i. S. I. S. Is pumping oil to sell it to some people, we found out where the money is coming from, and then we go after those people, the same thing as mr. Klein said earlier about russia. If we go after putins money and actually do some sanctions that will hurt them, i think we will have less problems. Host all right, bruce, thank you for weighing in. Sorry if i cut you off, but we did get the point. Phil klein, do you want to respond to that call or the one before . Aest we can get into semantical argument over what obama is doing or how you can categorize it, but whatever he is doing or not doing is not working. The bottom line is that i. S. I. S. Has gained in strength, russias territorial ambitions have expanded, so it is not working, whatever his Foreign Policy is, however you want to describe it. Host congress is coming back in about a week. We talked about potential airstrikes in syria, the potential for executive action on immigration. What else are you looking for when the house and Senate Return next week ec . Guest right now, there is no much that will get done. One of the main issues is trying mechanismfunding for the government because the fiscal year in on september 30, anothervert government shutdown, there has to be another agreement to expand the current budget, and a lot of democrats are trying to create this idea that republicans are trying to force another government shutdown, but the reality is that is not true. Republicans widely have said that they have no interest in that. If you go back to last year, there was no sort of secret cloak and dagger approach to the shutdown. Everyone is quite vocal in the fact that they were going to try to defund obamacare through the budget process. A shooed theerday idea that there would be a government shutdown. Theher issue coming up is reauthorization of the exportimport bank, and this is essentially a corporate welfare taxpayerbacked ns to try to encourage extensively to try to help the economy, but it really goes to Companies Like boeing. Has been philt klein, the newly minted commentary editor at the washington examiner, thank you for your time and site this morning. We will take another timeout. We have just o under an hour and a half left on washington journal. Coming up next, adam green on his Progressive Change Campaign committee. We will talk about how the Democratic Party is prepping for the midterm elections and beyond. And later, our guest will be Gordon Lubold of Foreign Policy magazine. Be right back. Day on the cspan networks, on cspan at 530 , an Education Summit on bullying in schools. At 8 00, bill nye the science founderCreation Museum debate evolution. 2s,span representative james clyburn. At 8 30, author silvia jukes morris on her book price of fame. At 10 00 p. 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Find our tv schedule one week in advance at cspan. Org and let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. Call us at 2026263400 or email us at comments cspan. Org. Join the conversation like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Washington journal continues. Host politics now and related issues, our guest for now is adam green, cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign committee. Remind us of what the pccc is about. Guest first of all, thank you forgetting all three cs in there. We are a grassroots organization, have about one million members, and we generally fight for economic populism issues, like expanding ,enefits, reducing student debt holding wall street economy, and democracy issues Like Campaign finance reform as well as overturning citizens united. Those are some issues we care about. We do about 50 elect oral work. Electoral work. We are happy to support candidates all across the country. Host the front page of the pccc website, they raised 1 million so far for Elizabeth Warrens allies. Who are those allies and where are they, how are they doing, what other kind of support are you giving them . Guest we formed with the express goal that when people donate to campaigns through us, they know they are supporting actual progressive candidates, people like al franken in the who just wonschatz a primary victory in hawaii. Carol sheaporter in New Hampshire. There are also challengers. Over 1 million in donations, over 100,000 little guy donations pulling together to make a big difference for campaigns. We are really proud of the people power we are infusing. Host here are some of the numbers that we have found. Out franken raised this cycle 30,330 four dollars. A grassroots donation, these are the number of donations from grassroots. Senator merkley is on the list t 62,000 raised from 6200 plus donations. Brian schatz. Guest i would also point to several great primaries we have had. Bonnie watson coleman. She will be the new member of congress, first africanamerican woman from new jersey, first woman to represent new jersey in years, and she won a big victory. Had murphy, former speaker of the house in iowa is favored to win in the general. And then recently this week, brian schatz won for senate. We are thrilled to be supporting so many candidates going into november. Host what do you make of the president s current posture and going into iraq, syria, we heard a pew poll that 54 says the s Foreign Policy is not tough enough. What do you think . More toward not holding wall street economy on things like that. Ngs like Foreign Policy think goodness we have him making decisions about war and peace and not john mccain or mitt romney. He is keeping us out of war, and that is important as we try to grow our economy, spending trillions of dollars on wars of choice is not the right way to go. Can quibble about is there enough toughness there or here, but i think he has done a pretty good thing. Lot onou focus a domestic issues, but are you afraid that foreign policies will it clips the will it clipse the to message issues . Guest that is a good question. If we are fighting on republican terms, talking about more tax cuts, more budget cuts, the democrats will lose. If we are talking about economic population issues, what can we do to make college more for put people back to work, make sure everyday working people have higher paychecks, that is in the to get people to the fold and our message to democrats this year, which has proven in the primaries, and our people ended up winning by big margins. It is a way to excite voters. It is a campaign on big, bold, populous ideas and hopefully Many Democrats will learn that lesson. Host how concerned are you that republicans might take over the seats . Guest it should be a big concern to everybody. To extendually trying that visit. There are a few races i would put my finger on. Running and made against susan collins. Another is rick weiland running in south dakota. Campaignands central theme is that our system is rigged for big money donors. We need to take it back. A poll had him at 6. 8. And the third is montana. John walsh had a plagiarism scandal, ended up taking his name off the ballot. Now there is a vibrant 34yearold amanda curtis. If democrats pick up even one of these, we extend that could be game changing. Calls coming in. Before we get to them come i want to show an ad out of the state of oregon, a candidate that you folks, the pccc, are backing. Lets take a look at the addin then we will get your calls. [video clip] quite the task is at hand. It is time to go change the world. Lets go do it together. Thank you, very, very much. Of the world has changed since jeff merkley was elected. Our debt has grown to 17 trillion. Our government has run record deficits, and the debt held by each taxpaying american is now over 150,000. The senators solution . It is no solution at all. Jeff merkley voted against balancing our budget. He voted to give taxpayer bailouts. He has done one thing for oregonians bankrupt us. Host adam green, your reaction. Guest first of all, jeff merkley is a progressive hero, an american hero. He is working as we can finally have the constitutional majority ruled that the framers envisioned. I hope the democrats take ads like that and just beat them back hard because there was one budget in the office, and it is the progressive caucus budget, which finally asks millionaires in wall street to pay their fair share, finding and closing tax loopholes, like the billions of dollars given away to the Oil Companies come and actually make investment in jobs, yet balance the budget. So hopefully jeff merkley and others learn the right lesson of what is happening in the political environment, which is that there is an economic populist side. People are not buying that argument. Elizabeth warren is really leading the way on that front. Host our first call, battle creek, iowa for adam were in with the Progressive Change Campaign committee. Caller it is battle creek, michigan. I wanted to ask about the outside spending on this , in particular the Koch Brothers spending. I had read somewhere, i think it was in the Washington Post, the Koch Brothers want to buy the senate. They will spend 200 million or something or more. I am in michigan. The Koch Brothers and americans for prosperity are running ads, oh, six months ago, against the democratic candidate for senate, and neither of the Koch Brothers, david and charles, is it . Neither of them live in michigan, so i dont like the idea of them buying the senate seat here in michigan. Maybe you can talk about their spending and how extravagant it is and what are the chances of them in flowing influencing the senate . Host the Koch Brothers network with the excitations were president ial primaries. We will read a little bit, but lets hear from our guest first. Guest these are the Oil Billionaire Koch Brothers. Year in 4 billion a corporate welfare to big oil. Is it worth it to you to spend 100 million dollars, 200 million to get a return on your investment . That includes calculations their making. This is not just an aisle geological this is not just an ideological question for them. This is why the system is so messed up. It allows corporations to treat government as one line item in their budgets, how to get a return. It is really muddying our democracy and it is horrible people who really should be winning by many, many points of now under by millions dollars. That is what is important that people like ours, people like you stand up because you are paying attention to these issues. You need to call out the vote, get every voter to the poll for election day. When he to chip in, three dollars, five dollars, 10 at a time. Host by the way, the tim es says the network overseen by the Koch Brothers, one of the biggest fundraising operations in politics. S gathered in dallas for a preelection Conference Held by the networks political organization, americans for prosperity, the s lets go to charles in colorado. Trolls, thank you for wat chalees, thank you for watching. Caller what i see they complete systemic breakdown of our system. We have what, 42 of people getting out of the congress companies,rk for the regulating after a oneyear period. Stock act,ched the repeal, signed by the democrats and the republicans, probably one of the quickest things that ive seen down in this whole administration and obama signed it. If you look at the districting, what is up with that . These districts are hand cherry picked for candidates. We have a system, and these guys are just making millions and millions of dollars. The Koch Brothers are poisoning it. I do not see where anywhere in the system the way it is set up that a Single Person like myself is ever going to get a fair shake. It does not seem fair. Host adam green. Guest you are speaking for so many people out there. A really great speaker has the mayday super pac, the super pac to end all super pacs. Pretty much a matter what your first issue is, Campaign Financial reporting some of these issues need to be your second issue because we do not have as much of a fighting shot to win on whatever our issue is whether it is wall street or environmental into we clean up this systemic problem that you are talking about. Were5000 pccc members in over chip 200,000, and we are happy to make systemic reforms in this election. He has already endorsed stacey 50 50 race. Others are about to be announced soon. Holding across the country shows that people whether in a red state or a blue state or a purple stay completely agree with what you are saying, charles. Thank you for recognizing that. He on the thing i would say yond that is do not get dispirited. We have two months to do it, and we need to make sure we do not take ourselves out of the fight and let the cup others be the only one dominating. And let the Koch Brothers be the only ones dominating. [inaudible] we did not rally up the votes, november 8, 2014. Knowing the tea party, what they as a, we are damned country in 2015. Period. That is what they want, there is no secret about it. As democrats, we have to get up and vote, period. You have to have a state id, i have got my state id. I am on disability. [indiscernible] but i got my state id. Like many people in society, i am rejected, but i have smart enough to get my state idea. State id. Host that was james from newark. Lets get gary from nashua on. Hey, gary. Caller i would like to ask adam, other colors want to pick up on the coax brothers, but george soros has just as much influence in the democratic and progressive agendas as the coax kochs do. Host lets get a reaction. Guest this is the whole idea false equivalence that we hear, as i said before, there are some folks that go beyond ideological giving and actually expect a return on their investment. George soros is not really one of those people. He gives money and he has not paid that much and domestic politics recently. Out of some sense of benevolence, the extent that , thehe cares about issues last time was in 2004 to try to defeat president bushs reelection. But the Koch Brothers have incentive to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to make back billions next year. They do it at the state level and the federal level. I do not think it is actually equal. Because it is not equal, it means that the burden is more on us to fight Corporate Power with people power. And to the gentleman from new works, it is great that you are voting. I would say that cspan viewers are probably among the most high information folks out there. The fact that you would listen to Quality Programming like this for hours at a time is a testament to that. But i think you have to go one step further and say how do we get others out to vote . National caller program called call out the vote. We have volunteers to spend about two hours in their living room calling voters asking them to vote, educating them about issues, and we will be making about 4 million vocals and 4014, so i would invite you to go to boldprogressives. Org and sign up and opportunities like that make it real difference. Host Washington Post here is a recent here is a recent Washington Post ha headline talking about a disconnected needs to change conversation to help party and midterm. What would be the idea of a disconnected president. Our previous guess this might said the same thing, that people perceive the president as having checked out. Guest yeah, i heard that. I would not say checked out. I would say he is not standing up on some of the issues that democrats would benefit if he stepped up on. Case in point being wall street reform accountability or Elizabeth Warrens plan to reduce student debt. This year, this week, right now, millions of students are going back to college, people who will be saddled with student debt. That will impact the job they can take, it will trap people who go into Public Service, and sometimes people take big, corporate positions to pay off their debt. It is a really brain drain for the economy and president obama has not spoken about the issue in months. There is a Rising Economic populist guide in america, and president obama has the biggest voice in america, and if he chooses to make economic populism a centerpiece in his campaign, that will educate the public in a great way. Host moving to toy safety, the family globe kennedy unsure of whom to support for president , Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren. What do you think of Hillary Clinton . The abilityas shown to evolve over time and progressives are basically looking at her and other democratic candidates, and we have a commitment that we will be organizing states like New Hampshire and iowa, asking Hillary Clinton and others whether they agree with Elizabeth Warren on key populism issues, like that she support expanding Social Security, will she support making college more affordable, and if the answer is yes, we would have a very unified party. But if the answer is no or if she leaves those questions unanswered, she would be honestly making a decision to leave a huge amount of political space for somebody, and we will see what happens. Host you mentioned several domestic issues, but we are reading more and more in just two short years Foreign Policy will dominate the next election. Who is the best democrat to handle Foreign Policy do you think . Guest we will find out. Host lets go to mario in bridgeport, connecticut. Caller good morning. I does have a comment and a question. A black man took the stand. Congress at a standstill. Citizens united, united republican some of the last two years were aid is role. Watch the baloney pile up like a landfill. Error. On terror was an providence and earth recycled products, watch the rich scuttle leaving you befuddled. Host caller, question for our guest . You can hear more as cspanpoetry. Com. John, you are on next. Hi, john. Caller i just have a comment. Politicians get corrupt and the more and more people are not heard any system, one day there will be an uprising here because the people are no longer being heard and we are not going to stand for it forever, and probably not in your time, but eventually, we are going to be looking at Something Like this. Can you comment on that . Thet actually, i think revolution is starting now. It is not people in the street, it is people who are deciding to fight back. Let me say one more thing about our friends at mayday super pac who we are helping. Again, the super pac to end all super pacs. The internet guru decided six ears ago he would turn the next 10 years of his brainpower to the issue of money and politics, to fix bad government for everyday people, and on may first he announced made a super pac with a wild come ambitious goal. In one month, i want to raise 1 million in small dollar donations. If i do that, i will get a matching fund or to match it. If i do not reach that 1 million, i will give it all back. Another 5aise million by july 4 amendments day. If i do not raise that full 5 million, i will give it all back. If i do raise it, i will put the matching fund about people who care about our democracy. He raised the first 13 million by small donors like yourself as of about a week away from july 4, he was only at 2. 5 million at the next five dollar luck it. In that final week, the internet tokaid, even george tweeted about it and got people to write about it. More money for education i want to give you a statistic. As of 2010, anyway, it was 13,000 per kid to do k through 12 education on average across the country. 18,000 in new jersey, 23,000 in newark. Why not just put that money each year in a trust fund at the beginning of each school year, let it come to 3 a year. When the kid turns 18, i did that calculation on a simple excel spreadsheet t comes to over 225,000. Why not just do that and let the kids roam the street . That would seem to be a more beneficial and enjoyable way to get them started in life. I encourage republican candidates on that message, basically, education for children and trust funds. Sounds like a republican myth actually. I think there is an alternative approach which is heritage is better. Increased quality of education on the country. Make college way more affordable so people can both do it and leave College Without debt and line people up to be very educated and successful in our workforce. Thats more of an Elizabeth Warren division. Those kids need jobs. Whats the prescription for job creation that is talked about about so much here . Town . Economic stimulus this coz back to keynes and supported by conservative and progressive it is where republicans larded up in hundreds of billions dollars of tax cuts mostly for rich people, giving money to the states, to rebuild crumbling highways, rebuild crumbling schools. W wire rural committees with, i know vestments that we need. Thats part of the solution. Its also kind of hightraining, but none of this stuff has chance on washington right now under a Tea Party Tea party house. Even a little piece of spending on immigration, only spending for the National Guard to give more more troops. They are so against any investment in our people that its ridiculous. Thats why americans deserve this debate. Thats why we need a president using the bully pulpit getting this message out to voters. From austa georgia, for adam green. Good morning, tommy. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my call. Host host sure caller i just have a comment. People need to get out of the streets and vote. Thank you. Host linda from stanley new york. What part of the state is sandy in . Caller in the finger lakes region. This guy, i am telling you, frankton won because he had prisoners voting for him. You guys keep saying Voter Suppression and all of this crap. In North Carolina, they had seven 37,000 double votes and 80 dead people voting and in exxon mobile paid 35 billion in taxes. I just wish you guys would stop lying and cheating. And Elizabeth Warren lives in a 5 million home. How do you explain that . Host adam green. Guest i wouuest guest i would interested to hear your thoughts on the voter id laws, people with college who dont have a drivers license. Are you outraged by that. Very curious. Host i think i heard her hang up. No case, it will be a rhetorical question. Guest i think pointing to al franken and stuff like that, a lot of these are red hairings. We have and false equivalents people draw that impact sometimes millions of people and the small that tend to emnaanat on white ring blogs arent real. People who have been outraged in these 45 minute blocks, who say we need our system back, we need the revelation, the way to do that is to make sure people are registered to rote, are educated and come out to vote. We can do that in the next two months. We can choose our own destiny. 10 00 oclock eastern time this morning, we will have a news makers interview with the head of the cbo. To air at 10 00 oclock today and 6 00 p. M. On cspan. Raising his projections for this years deficit to 506,000,000,000. How returned are you about cuts or freezes and entitlements moving forward . Very concerned. . Progressive champaign committees have been leading the fact to expand not cut Social Security benefits. By the age of 75, a senior will have about 400 more from Social Security. By the age of 85, like 100 more. For people getting by check to check, month to month, that makes a huge difference. Social security has nothing to do with the deficit. Its a separate set of books. But numbers like that are used as an excuse by peek lime the Koch Brothers to cut domestic programs to fund tax breaks for millionaires and big courses. The only budget in the entire congress that actually ba answers is the written by rails and supported. The paul ryan budget increases the bucket. Why . Massive corporate welfare, billions and billions of dollars. The Oil Companies, insurance companies, special interest. I think its a concern, but there is a right way and wrong way to approach it. Your calls in just a moment. I wanted to get back to Foreign Policy. Isis comes back next week. The house and Senate Returns. There is a lot of talk aboperhaa vote regarding airstrikes in syria against isis. The headline in the hill says Senate Democrats are frustrated by one of their colleagues plans for a vote on isis. Its from senator tim keyne. He has been out spoken for a push for a vote to approve strikes in iraq and syria but he is cranking up tensions with fellow democrats who worry it could hurt them on election day. The connection between isis, airstrikes and the election. Whats your take . Its an interesting political dynamic. Honestly, as an organization, we yield to folks who are very engaged with this stuff. I dont think people should make decisions on Foreign Policy based upon election day. I think thats the easiest thing to say but on the ends of each question, i think our bottom line is it is great the president helps with the questions to keep us out of the weeds. Thought we had you earlier john. I think we have you now. So go ahead, sir. Caller talking about isil and the pro pa began a from the fascist government is extreme. Isil is only about 30,000 people. Thats about a football stadium and iraq is a little bigger than texas. So imagine 30,000 spread out through the size of texas and we mostly know where they are. Iraq has throu38 Million People their population. They have attack helicopters. They have heavy artillery, and they have tanks. Am i painting a picture here . We sold iraq 52 what was it . F16 fighter iq jets, attack jets in 2011 and then we reneg. Ed. We cant trust them but we are welling them weapons. Host anything else . Caller i would like to here host lets hear if our guest has anything to respond there. Guest there hyou say a lot of things. The Bush Administration has sewed the seeds of what we are seeing today both by iraq in the first place. We are not heari now hearing oul journalrists being water board. Its tough to have moral outrage when we did the same thing. In terms of arming, in many cases, clandestinely our future enemies. Thats a problem. Thats why we need annette lightened foreign. You can quickly around the edges with what president obama is doing but the fact that his default is to keep this country out of regard and to be very prudent at picking a side in the s syrian situation probably will have important ripple effects. Adam green is with the Progressive Change Campaign caller the progressive part was the communist party. And after the nixon deal, they decided that they Better Change because people didnt trust the communist party. So they became the progressive party. Hillary clinton was a part of it. I am 72 years old and i remember it very well. She said the people dont trust the communist party so we have to name Something Else and hijack one of the two parties. Thats what they did. This guy is a communist. Host lets hear from adam green. Caller every time i am on a showy get one question about communist. You can see my answer on cspan website. What we see across america right now is a very, very popular economic populist agenda. We have poll tested Elizabeth Warrens ideas on holding wall street accountable, social dead in state after state. An example, in the red state of texas, expanding Social Security benefits is popular by 3 to 1. In kentucky, 2 to 1. The first president ial state in the national, expanding Social Security benefits 2 to 1. Colorado, 3 to 1. So you can pick your terms. Thats fine. The fundamental ideas that progressives are talking about and encouraging candidates to talk about, supporting candidates who do talk about, economic poplism. This is what is popular with voters and what will keep voter turnout low this year would be a failure by democrats to not talk about these issues. So, again, our message to democrats is there is a right populist side and a way to truly exciting voters is to talk about big goals, economic populous. If there are carps from the sideline, we are okay with that host james from blooming to, indian. Caller thank you for taking my call first time in 20s years. My question for adam if the democrats can talk more about the infrastructure. If we put a half a trillion dollars in the infrastructure, we would create 17. 5 million jobs. This would destroy the republican party. We talk about clooim change. We need to do like australia. We need to put in desalination plants across the country. Australia is putting in a 4,000,000,000 desalination plant. We need several around our country and we can pump that water into the sea water into the thank you for taking my call after 25 years trying to get through. Takes care guest you are talking about big bold ideas. I was inspired just listening to what you were saying. We need more ideas like that. Key 100 Training Program when creates candidates and staffers. 600 trained this year we talk about some of the messaging points and we are teaching candidates that the way to win states is to talk about big, bold ideas and hopefully candidates get your message. Well cover 100 influences debates in the governors and senate races primarily but really all over some of the house ones as well. See them on the see span networks basically right after labor day. We have been reading a lot about a consistent republican message among candidates of tying the democrats to the president and his policies is there. A unified democratic message out there that you can identify . Conductor, no. Should there be . Yes. And that goes down to economic poplism, the singular message should be i will stand up for every day regular people and take on the big court interests who are trying to buy our demmopocracy. If every democrat takes that and applies it, they will win. When republicans want to cut medicare, its usually there are special interests to benefit that would hurt regular people. When republicans vote to give tax cuts, its usually because those Big Companies are donating to that i see their campaigns. The more they say i am on the side of regular people, thats the way to win. Republicans will be in a disadvance ageous position if all they can do is spout communism and have no ideas. Progressive change Campaign Committee chair, adam green, thank you. Good to be here. One more segment left in this sunday edition of the washington journal, lou boeltdbold, senior staff writer. Talk about iraq, syria, isis and ukraine and we will have a little bit more from cspan radio. In case on the sunday shows. Hi, paul. U. S. A. Today reports that world conflicts are dominating the sunday talk shows today and you can hear rebroadcasts of the programs here on cspan radio beginning at noon eastern with nbcs meet the press. Guests include Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein. At 1 00 oclock, abcs this week with tom cole of oklahoma and former governor bill richardson, democratic you, new m come. Fox news sunday with Mike Rogers Cho chairs the Homeland Security committee. At 3, the program today is ruppersberger, the ranking democrat. Illinoisvan Adam Kinsinger and Senate Foreign Relations Committee bob men endez. And face the nation with john mccain. I sits on the Armed Services Homeland Security and Foreign Relations committees. Also, adam smith, a member of the Armed Services committee and peter king, congress maniac of new york, he sits on the Homeland Security and intelligence committees. The sunday network t. V. Talk shows reairing on cspan radio are brought to you as a Public Service by the network and cspan. The rebroadcasts of the show begin at noon eastern time with n nbcs meet the press. 1 00 oclock abc news at 3, cnn state of the union and finally, 4 00 p. M. Eastern face the nation from cbs. Listen on cspan radio on 90. 1 f. M. 4 here in the washington area. Across the country on Xm Satellite Radio channel 120. Download the free app for your south phone or go online to cspan. Org. This month, cspan presents debates on what makes america great. Evolution and genetically modified foods. Issue spotlight with in depth looks at vet transhealthcare, irs new perspectives on issues inclusion global warming, voting rights. Food safety and our history tore showing sites and sounds from americas historic places. Finds our tv schedule 1 week in advance at cspan. Org and let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. 2026263400 or email us at comments cspan. Org. Join the conversation, like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. Warrant journal continues. Foreign policy, gordon lou boldly for Foreign Policy. We talked here most of about isis. There is one headline that is evolving in the last couple of hours. This is a Washington Post version. U. S. Air strikes we heard about have helped iraqi fraingsz break the Islamic State siege in a place called amirili. How significant is this development . This is the hope of the Obama Administration and others to make sure that the iraqi forces kind of take the fight to the isil fighters. So the pentagon had been kind of waiting to see what would happen here. You know, the initial kind of humanitarian crisis on mounts sinjar is kind of what motivated the administration to go in with the airstrikes and humanitarian drops. Crisis either subsided or wasnt as bad as they first thought. This was kind of the next stage in what would be potentially a bad problem. It was a bad problem or is a bad problem. But u. S. Officials, i think, really wanted the iraqis to take care of this they have been doing that, but with a little help overnight with some airstrikes and humanitarian drops a in that region. The phone number is on the screen for the guest. We8 add a number to this segm t segment. The same numbers we have been using for the program so far. But a fourth line for international viewers, 20 20255853883. We ask your inputs for our guest, Gordon Lubold for Foreign Policy. So much has been made of the comment we dont have a strategy three days later, what is happening inside the white house . I think there is a real internal struggle to figure out what it is that we should do. On some levels, the president was buying himself some time. On another level, you know, i think the military, their whole job is to have a plan and to have, you know, continue to do plans and have an idea of what to do. Despite what they have said publicly, i think that they have a sense of what they could do in iraq and syria that focuses kind of on the syrian airstrikes which have not you know, have not gun they are starting to try to collect instellgention using drones and other aircraft. But its really whats the strategy for the theatre, what the pentagon would call a theatre, iraq and syria. I think there is, you know, legitimate struggle in terms of how does it do what it feels like increasingly it needs to do. At the same time, its really important i think for the president to get some Real International backing and support for whatever it does. It does not want to go unilaterally. The rub is that i think a lot of international or potential all eyes are waiting for the u. S. To kind of stand up and take the lead and then they will fall in. Speak to that more before we get to calls because we know the president is headed after this nato summit and the secretary of state headed to the middle east. Ukraine aside, speak about syria, coalition building. Realistically, what could happen . Well, i think there is an eagerness to do something, the uk raised their own level in the country to severe which more than where the u. S. Is. I think feels like this is a real i am comments threat and needs to do something, but other countries are certainly a lot more circum spec about what they want to do and how deeply they want to get involved, even in terms of providing Legal Assistance to the iraqi or the kurdib forces who are fighting in the north against against the islamic militants. From what you have read and heard, what is icess ultimate goal . Does it have one . Its unclear. They want to establish a c caliphate, in syria, but more broadly and they have. They have taken over, i think 30, 35 of syrian. They are like a militant upstart. They have a lot of momentum right now, a lot of ability to recruit fighters from places we might expect them to recruit from and other western plagues including the u. S. And u. K. And canada where you might not expect so then a lot of momentum in the fact that they are building this area and gaining ground. They have money. They have money from oil, from other oil piracy energy kidnappings. They are kind of on their way. So they are a form ittidable enemy. Its not just there. Its here according to the king of saudi arabia. I wanted to get your take. The saudi king is warning the jihadists could attack the u. S. Or u. K. Within months. Its imports to hear from that part of the world because i think u. S. Certainly thinks that this coalition, whatever, if there is going to be a coalition of the willing, it needs to be very broad based. You know, the threat i think to the u. K. And u. S. And other western countries, including the u. S. Where there is thought to be as many as 100, you know, u. S. Passport holding citizens fighting or at least of those 100, there may be many who have been fighting in syria and potentially now iraq and that bliz the threat home to american officials and other countries that will an mate. I think it is an mating the thinking about what to do, but i think with obama who clearly is a reluctant war president , you know, he is not sure how far he wants to take it and what the strategy and the scope of that strategy would be. David cameron will speak to the house tomorrow, we understand in london of course. You can look for that event here on cspan tomorrow at some point. We will let you know once we know more about tiling. Chad is our first call from houston, texas. He is on with Gordon Lubold of foreign povment thank you, chad. Mrchcha caller thank you for taking me call. I just wanted to ask mr. Lubold what his thoughts were. I know he is a Foreign Policy writer but domestically, the American People no longer put up with the police state and if there is a false flag on isis, if anything, we dont want to surrender our liberties to the terrorists. We want this to be a free country. Do you have any thoughts on that domestic agenda . Well, i think that its a question of just kind of balancing the threat that is deployed by people who may want to do the u. S. Harm with liberty. Has always been kind of the balance they have to walk. The u. S. American officials have to walk in this case, its becoming increasingly clear that this militant group has its kind of fingers in a lot of Different Countries in terms of the fighters and their ability to recruit, so i think this administration is clearly sensitive to that issue on one hand but on the other, we will be very careful to make sure that it doesnt it wants to make sure that it fights fights the militants and if it needs to, tread more on some, i think a lot of people say it probably would do that because it would rather do that than go in to intervention. Bob is with us from duluth, minnesota. Good morning to you . Thank you for taking my call. I think the president is right to be slow and carefully about this. And i think the criticism that he has gotten kind of proves that the republicans are willing to compromise National Security for political reasons. They did the same thing when they when karl rove outed valerie mraim and the congress did the same thing when they were willing to hold the economy hostage. They are willing to compromise the Homeland Security of the country for political reasons and i think they need to let obama just do what he is going to do and not to throw a bunch of hurryupand get this done into the next and going with guns blazing. Thank you. Sure. I would just say, you know, again there is kind of a balance here i think there are interventions to those who feel obama has waited three years in syria to do anything in any substantive way and that this has given the mrart the military talt group the opportunity to spread and have an impact even in iraq which, you know, American Forces left in 2007. His comments the other day that you mentioned about strate and the lack of strated gee, we dont have a strategy yet, i think, again, has bought himself some time. I think they are creating a strategy but it may not be what a lot of interventionists who think this is an imminent threat will take care of. But so its a walk because i think a lot of intelligence officials and military officials believe that had the administration been more escrow bust in its policy toward syria, even a year or two ago, we might not be in the situation that we are in now. One of the recent headlines taubldz about lawmakers here in washington demanding some kind of vote for u. S. Military action against isislks about lawmakers washington demanding some kind of vote for u. S. Military action against isis. One earlier call said its what the president is doc, he wants congress to decide so he doesnt have to thats what the caller suggested. Take us to the hill. Do you see a vote and what might they be voting on . I think it will be tough because no articulated policy as we have been talking about for the hill to even kind of take. There is what we saw last year with the discovery of chemical weapons in syria and then right at this kind of red line and we have talked about for now the past year the administration said obama said, lets take it to the hill. I think the hill is going to need a real kind of specific, as i say policy to vote on. Its not very clear how far the administration wants to go. As i have written about and others, there is clearly, you know, a tiered approach you could take in iraq but more so in syria. But in the end, they are going to want to know whats the end state and whats the plan . Mike is on the line. Mike is from germantown, maryland. Caller thank you for catakingy call. So many times people call up and make statements or accusations and sometimes dont follow up on troop. I hope you give me a minute to preface my question. I want to ask your guest a question if i may. Host go ahead. Call call this could be is found for sale easily from volume tearnet. Org. Called the International Meeting for isil in france. It was a tended by 80,000 people. The attendees included general shelton, former chairman of the joints chief of staffs, William Casey former planning and newt gingrich, lieberman and guiliani, a big isil meeting france come, a coming out party, if you will, attended by the former defense minister of france and socialist leader in france. So the u. S. And western powers holding the party for isil or france, how does your guest feel about washington, d. C. Supporting isil and the isis terrorists in iraq and syria, you know, getting support from washington . Host lets hear from our guest, mr. Lubold. Guest i dont know about that particular meeting. I dont know currently the u. S. Is any way supporting isis or any of those individuals there. I think, you know, past policy the decision has made has resulted in, you know, kind of putting isis on the in where they are now. Host at the whitehouse whereas the last bringing, josh earnest said there was colonel no evidence that isis forces were plotting against the u. S. Lets hear more of what he had to say. The most detailed assessment i can offer from here is that there is no evidence or indication right now that isib is actively plotting to attack the u. S. Home land. Thats true right now. Said, it is important that we take steps that are necessary and as a part of the president s comprehensive strategy to deny them a safe haven that would give them the kind of comfort they would need to consider those attacks. We need to be vigilant about the threat that isposed by foreign fighters, individuals with western passports who have ben filing alongside isil who may consider returning to the west to carry out acts of violence. We are vig lengths about those things. And that is work that often takes place behind the scenes, that as we calibrate our Security Posture and have the kinds of discussions about intelligence and National Security matters that are imports to the safety of the United States of america, those things arent often evidence to the American People but people can have some confidence that the administration and our National Security professionals and Law Enforcement professions are vigilant. He said to have confidence. What you do you think . Guest this is a really fine line that the administration is having to walk here because chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, john dempsey said the other day, you know, yes, this is still a regional threat and then, you know, americans and your viewers, like, see these headlines about these foreign fighters some of whom have american passports. How do you square those two things . I think the success the group is having currently across iraq and Northern Iraq is likely keeping it focused but again, it has the resources and the desire to do something spectacular, and, you know, i cant speak to the specific ways that the u. S. Is countering the threat here but we know that Homeland Security and other agent seeds are doing what they do to track such people, but i think for now they do believe its a regional threat, and thats where they need to focus. Thats where u. S. Officials feel like they need to focus the any efforts they put forward. What are other people thinking . There is a new poll from pew and u. S. A. Today thats making news. The headline says, amid these foreign crises, more americans are supporting a stronger u. S. , basically say that 54 of americans say the president s policy, the u. S. Policy, is not tough enough right now. Does that number surprise you . It doesnt, you know, i think the white house is torn, but also americans are torn on many levels because they clearly come out of all of these years of war and most americans want to stay out of war. But they are seeing these kind of really awful things. Its not a coincidence that isil produced this video of the american journalist. Jim foley being beheaded. It was a british, they believe suspect strongly its a british citizen speaking in english before this awful thing happened. Thats part of, you know, a really effective pr strategy on the by the militants to kind of resonate with westerners and i think americans torn but they are seeing what is potentially a real threat to, you know, their way of life and the homeland and thats pushing those numbers up. I think that people see that there has been a lot of kind of deliberation about policy in syria over the last few years. Now, its kind of reached kind of a particular point . 20 or 25 minutes left. Woodstock illinois is left. Hi, lydia caller good morning. I talk to a political player that needs to be mentioned is prince bander. If you want to know whats going on, wall street journal, august 26, 20s 13, wall street journal, front page article, went in to the meetings that he held and he is a top players for the sawedies, not only the head of intelligence, but, also, up until recently the top five cheers. I dont know which one he left. But at this point, Dianne Feinstein was present. Mccain needs to admit that he had, along with Lindsey Graham a in a top, top hotel a meeting with prince bander. Prince bander was really a big part of all of this and that is referenced in an excellent book, the house of bush, the house of saad, clay unger, ungngeun it goes into the whole thing, play by play. And we need to understand this since in 016, we could be looking at a third bush for the presidency so thank you for your time and i appreciate to a little bit more of this outside information that is presented to the American People only through journalists who risk a lot. Host lets hear from our guest. Guest that goes to some other countries engaging hear. One of thing that can be said about the about isil is that they have created, you know, enemies everywhere. There is a lot of criticism that some have helped to feed the financing in particular of the group, which is now so well financed but whats interesting is everybody is kind of concerned about this and so if you are isil, at some point, if a policy does come in to play, potentially, its coming at you from all directions, including from places like saudi arabia. Host norma from haste offings, virginia. Welcome, norma. Norma, are you there . I think we lost her. Anthon knee in glen oak mvp maryland. Are you there, anthony . Cannot hear anthony. Lets try brandon in rhode island. Are you there, brandon . We will try to fix whatever is wrong. In the meantime, Gordon Lubold, here is a tweet from michael. How does whats happening in the ukraine affect the white house thinking on a strategy for iraq . I am curious. Connecticut the two . There is a band width issue inside at a Time White House thor these crises. Great story today imposed about all of the different hot spots and shiny objects, you know, the u. S. And russia has the ability to kind of see eye to eye on not see eye to eye on a lot of things but see eye to eye on the threat thats posed by ices. Right now, i dont know that thats the front of their thinking because of what puentein is doing in ukraine and this kind of all but invasion of ukraine from russia. So, i dont know that well, whats interesting is i dont know that there is necessarily thinking on the grand level inside the white house of an overall kind of world strategy. Thats certainly the critics have articulated that in the last couple of few years in terms of obamas Foreign Policy. Right now, i think the focus with puttoon is to get this crisis settled down. Another question by twitter. Interesting twist here why does china feel like they do not have to intervene and Global Police in the middle east. China is focused on becoming as mean stream, i guess as it can in terms of being a world player but is focus its focus and has a lot of influence but wants to i think its trying to build itself ridglea in terms of the asia pacific. Its billing itself there. I dont know that its going to i dont know that we are going to see right away any real impact on policy in the middle east from china. Lets try the phones again. Susan from springfield, misso i missouri. Sorry you had to wait. Go ahead. Thats okay. Yall are worth waiting for. I have a comments first and then a question. It seems like in history, the muslims have destroyed christian artifacts and done whatever they want to do sometimes without any punishment up to a point and then now, its forgive me. I am a peace keeper. I dont mean to say this out of turn but is there a reason why we cant use semi Nuclear Weapons against some of these people because of things like it seems like the example we set as the United States to the rest of the world as well as ourselves, we cant just not do anything because it proves to some of these people that they can get away with murder. Thank you. Mr. Lubold . Guest thats the recurring stream in the administration, the current conflict we are seeing in iraq and syria has n really laid down the law, these airstrikes in iraq coupled with the humanitarian air drops are not i think a lot in the International Community and those who believe the administration should be doing more is not sending a Strong Enough signal that, you know, the u. S. Is going to take the lead and really kind of send the snail that focus want to see sent. I dont know about kind of semi Nuclear Weapons but i think the administration is going to be careful about what it does do, but part of the reason we are seeing this deliberation right now is because its that it needs to develop a broad enough strategy to figure out how far it wants to go and what that looks like and what form it takes. Host culpepper, virginia. Bill is on the line. Caller my comment is involving leadership in all of this issue of Foreign Policy. [morning. Good morning. Go ahead, bill. . My comment is related to poor leadership demonstrated, not just the white house but congress and all involved hello. Are you there . Host we are, bill. Make your point please. My point is that we are demonstrating an awful leadership style right now for the world. We need to get together as a nation and come up with a policy and keep looking. I hear the isolationists on the left. Iraq. I hear no one saying what we should really do. Thanks, bill. Lets hear from jerry from el myra, new york. Caller i would like to make a comments that nobody seems to be bringing up the fact that iran is actually playing the puppet master of all of these terrorist groups and they are not getting in to the fact that nobody is paying attention to whats going on with this Nuclear Plants over there and taking care of the problem creating all of this in the middle east. I will wait for your answer. Thank you. What is the role of iran in all of this Current Situation . I think that where it comes in to play country is, you know, the support that iran has given to the Iraqi Government which is now kind of in transition, as you know. But the administrations kind of narrative about this is because the Iraqi Government understand malkey was so biased against certain groups including sunnis and, in part, driven by the support from iran that this is partly why the situation is what it is right now. Almalaki is out. The Coalition Government is kind of being formed. The u. S. At the same time has been kind of walking in two different lines because its very kind of proud of the fact that its been is able to begin to negotiate with the iranians over nuclear issues. Whether that goes anywhere or not, obviously is a huge question, but certainly, the influence iran is having in baghdad will need to change, i think, if there is u. S. If the white house sees success politically in baghdad. One of the iran headlines comes from the Washington Post. The president is calling sanctions imposed by the u. S. An invasion. This is the president rhouhani. He is calling these western sanctions the newest version, the newest round, an invasion. This is after washington imposed new penalties. He did promise negotiations with world powers would go on. We have barbara from las gatos. Good morning, barbara caller thank you for taking my call. I would like to focus in on saudi arabia and syria starting with syria. In terms of the people citing, based upon the knowledge we have, how many people are fighting . How many groups are there that are fighting . And of the groups that are fighting, who do we define as being our allies . Number 2. Weapons of mass destruction were removed. Has that process been completed completed . What was removed . How much and where did it go . Finally, saudi arabia. In magazines, it has been reported that saudi arabia is funding isil. So, i am confused. They are funding isil. How is it that they are now coming to the u. S. Asking the u. S. To fight isil . Host before we get a response, that last point about the saudis, where did you read that caller i forget which of the newspapers it was reported in. I dont know if i heard that on cspan or not. But in that this is Foreign Policy, i am sure that the gentleman can comment on that from a factual standpoint. Host she laid a lot out there. You could take any or all of that. I mean, the number of fighters inside of isil, i think, is the numbers range and the fact that america and other western intelligence agencies dont have a clear picture as they would like certainly lends to this kind of wide range of 10,000 to, you know, 10 and 20 thousand fighters. And also, how do you define a fighter . So thats the group of isil. Then inside syria, there are the moderate forces fighting these assad regime in damascus. The initial front who are also fighting and so, i mean there is many groups inside syria i would be, you you know, ill prepared to go into the different groups. But you have several kind of larger pieces of fighters inside syria. The isil fighters who have bled into iraq. The funding of isil, its a huge concern the u. S. Keeps saying there is no military solution to fighting this group clearly, you know, have in mind, you know, some kind of diplomatic effort but, also, going after the funding and cutting them off that way. Is the Pentagon Press secretary, rear admiral john kirby who held a meeting friday talked about the current u. S. Military strategy against isis and iraq and in syria. Talk more. I think the way i would think about this, tom, is that the president said this pretty well yesterday that this is really abo degrading isils capability to operate and to continue to conduct the sort of brutal violence that they have been doing inside iraq and the threat that they pose to the region. So, if you take it from that perspective, that thats kind of where you are going, there are many ways to do that. Not all of them are military. I cant speak for those. So lets just talk about the military ways you can do that. Some of the military ways you can do that is the way we are doing it inside iraq right now which is through the use of airstrikes. You can hit them. We have been. I would, you know, at their i would tell you we are hitting what we are aiming at inside iraq. And we know that inside iraq, we are having an affect on their ability to operate. We are being disruptive to their own operations, to their command and control, to their abilitity to move around. So you can have an effect in that way and the pentagon, its called, you know, kinetics, which is a fancy work but basically means you have a targeted precise effect. And we can do that. About strategy. Anything you want to respond to . I mean they have been, as as he says, had this kind of tactical impact. You know, americans, what does that exactly mean . They are having an effect on kind of a small level in terms of shooting down or eliminating, you know, humvees and small convoys of trucks. The problem part of the problem is that this enemy has now scattered and is not you know, they are not in clean formation marching across the border because that would be a much easier target obviously for western officials. This strategy since august 6th or early august, anyway, when u. S. Started kind of doing these humanitarian air drops coupled with the airstrikes which have now, with the exception of last night, with the new humanitarian air drop has basically focused on trying to sends a message but a small message to the isil fighters that, you know, as they try to go toward the mosul dam, they had taken over the dam and then Kurdish Forces took it back, but if you notice that u. S. Has continued to conduct strikes around the dam even though its held by friendlies because i think that there is not a confidhe knew that the kurdib forces or iraqi forces generally have a longterm ability to hold some of these places what problem ri . Watching i am enjoying the question. To understand what is going on, we had to go back to 2003 when the United States invades iraq to destroy the system there. What is happening today is as a normal result for Foreign Policy of United States. This is one. No. 2, when i see what is happening in libya and how many innocent People Killed every day. I dont see any, those groups, they are using United States democracy cause and aver that, they are killing people in the name of democracy. How come. Host thank you your thoughts. Brandon in north rhode island. I am actually calling about the ukraine issue, not the isil issue. My question is in your opinion, is there something that we are not get can from the government . I know that the narrative they are pursuing makes sense. Is there something there, some financial interest that is kind of getting us involved over there to kind of get involved in that conflict . The other part is should we be involved at all i dont think we are going to have ground troops. Thanks brandon. I think there is just a real fear that putin is not a trustworthy kind of world actor. I dont know about the kind of backchannel concerns about finances in particular you refer to, but i think i dont know if the u. S. Should be concerned or not. Its fairly significant that hes done what he appears to be doing what he is doing on the ground taking over more territory or sending fighters in to support these rebel forces inside ukraine and what his kind of longterm ambitions are host one more call from mamoud in arlington, virginia. Hi, there. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Host good morning. Caller what are the Lessons Learned from our experience in iraq . We were cajoling and helping saddam while he was using chemical weapons. We supported them. And now, the sunni muslim all over, not just in syria. All over the world. They feel just like the jews in the second world war, genocide by the government and the whole world is quiet when over 100,000 people get killed in syria. Nobody did anything about it. Host final thought from our guests. Guest all of the factors are in play inside the white houses thinking inside what to do. The less options learned from iraq were more recently from 2011 and the war there. And how to what degree, again, i keep saying but its true that the u. S. And the Obama Administration in particular are very concerned about the lessons it learned or didnt learn. But that it doesnt want to go back to where it was, and a huge ground troop occupation of a country or more is gives the president a lot of concern. Thats why we are seeing this current kind of contemplation sta stage. Host we thank you to Gordon Lubold talking about isis, ukraine and other issues. Thank you. Thank you for all of your calls and tweets emails, facebook postings. We will be back for a labor day edition. Our guest, victoria stilwell, state of the labor market, the topic there. We will talk about unions and wages with David Madeline with center f centre for American Progress and right to work laws mark nix of the national right to work Legal Defense foundation. So we will see you tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your sunday and labor day weekend. One of the ways in which we try to meet that responsibility is to provide regular projections of the economy and the budget under current law. Yesterday, we released our summer update, the projections we released earlier this year. What we found in reviewing the evidence about the economy and the budget is that it is not much different than projections earlier in the year. The economy, we think, is on a path of recovery, but it has been of disappointingly slow recovery. We do think now it will pick up over the next few years. Market will strengthen where people find jobs, but even with that pick up any improvement to the budget that will bring because of underlying the federal budget is still on an unsustainable path because deficits have come down in the last few years, but a few years from now they will start increasing in size again, and the outstanding debt of the federal government is very high relative to the size of the economy in our history. And by the end of the coming decade and beyond, it will increase even more relative to the size of the economy. And that high rising debt has