[indiscernible chatter] [applause] this event is wrapping up with president ial candidate Bernie Sanders. The democratic primary is this saturday and we will have live coverage of the results on cspan. The republican primary yesterday was one way donald with 32 of the vote. Marco rubio edged out ted cruz for second place. Speaking of the race and the campaigns moving forward. I was a member of the gop,lishment of the a proudly. I gave 350,000 to the Republican Governors Association before i ran. I gave tremendous amounts of money to people in the republican party. Very establishment. Once iran, i said what is going on, that is not supposed to happen. People,e to control the the senators, the congressman. When they go for military awards, pharmaceutical awards, they make sure they will get it. Right for the is country. I am the only one that is a self funder. In that way it is different. It will ultimately be good for the party. Polls came out recent recently right beat Hillary Clinton. I do not think Bernie Sanders will be the problem. I think i will be competing with hillary. Host this is not an election like others up to this point. We had an unusual circumstance. I was being attacked from all sides. You can only take on so many people at one time. This is not about going after donald trump. This election is about who is best capable to run the republican party. I know that i am. He is a frontrunner when you have an seven people running. We need to remember over 70 of republicans have said we are not voting for donald trump. As long as that 70 is being divided up by five people, of course he is the front runner. Someone whoominate will bring us together in the party that will grow and take the message to people. More importantly, that can win in november. We cannot lose this election. I give our party a chance to nominate someone as conservative in this race. I can unite this party. We won iowa with a big margin. We came in third in new hampshire. The state with a said a conservative could not do well in a moderate newington state. Last night, we tied for second. Int combination has resulted only one strong conservative remaining in this race who can win. Our game plan from day one was do well in the first four states and consolidate conservatives to go forward into super tuesday. We are positioned to do that. More than 70 of the voters were born again. Won them, but trump over. How do you explain that . How do you feel going into super tuesday . To beald trump has given a formidable candidate. One of the things the first three states have shown is that there is only one campaign that has beaten or can beat donald trump. 70 of people across the country, 70 are republicans. They do not believe donald trump is the right candidate to beat Hillary Clinton in november. One of the things were saying coming out of last night people across the country are recognizing, if we want to be trump, ted cruz is the only one that can do it. Publicans had to nevada to campaign in the republican caucuses on tuesday. Senator ted cruz with a rally in las vegas to we will have it live at 3 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Tomorrow evening, donald trump is campaigning in las vegas. He speaks to supporters at 10 00 p. M. Eastern. We will have it live on cspan. Every election cycle we are reminded how important it is for citizens to be informed to way. Think its a great my colleagues are going to say i saw you on cspan. Theres so much more that cspan does to make sure that people outside of the beltway know whats going on inside it. By congressman smith of washington. The top democrat on the House Services committee. He is a member of the select committee on benghazi. Here in the studio with questions. With richard. Good morning, how are you . To start with a question about the defense budget. Your counterparts in the House Armed Services to misty, the republicans are calling for a major increase in a budget of for 2017. Describe the president s budget as underfunded to deal with the threats that the u. S. Is facing around the world. They described as the most Severe Threat since world war ii from north korea, which refuses to stop its Nuclear Program, to Islamic State. I will like to get your thoughts on this increase and whether or not you believe the president s budget is adequate to deal with the threats that u. S. Bases around the world. We face is no question a Severe Threat. North korea, russia, isis. There are no end of challenges. We need to be prepared from it security standpoint. If president s budget, once you count the overseas contingency, as well as the base budget and some other areas with defense or money is spent. Underllion dollars six 9 billion is a significant amount of money. This is the number that the republicans agreed to in a budget deal. The agreement that was made before last years four last years funding and this years funding. Youre going over the top when you are talking about woefully inadequate. The difference between 609 billion they proposed 15 to 20 more. It is not as republicans say the amount of money we spend, it is how we spend it. Whether or not you are spending it wisely on current programs. In a lot of areas, congressional efforts to block the savings that the pentagon has proposed makes it more difficult. How estimates about overcapacity we are and inability to fill the spaces. Six under 9 billion is a solid starting point. Im opening to the idea that maybe we need a little more. This is an over the top election year. We are talking about the difference between six under 9 billion and six and a 20 billion, its more partisan. We need to have a discussion about where we will spend the money and whether that. Follow up on lawbasement is capped by war budget, the overseas contingencies account is not cap. Republicans consider to be a minimum that should be spent. That is not what they agreed to. It was not said that that was the minimum. It was considered in last years budget agreement which included fy 2016. It was part of the agreement. Lets put it this way. If you are going to increase defense spending by any amount, unless you rewrite the budget law regarding to base budget caps the money would have to come in an overseas account. Less thanill spend the number stipulated in a budget agreement for the overseas account. Would you support that . Would you be open to adding to it in that way . Semantics forgely the purposes of republicans clinging to the notion. Personally, if i was in charge, the way i would do it we decided the defense needs another 5 billion or 10 billion and i would raise the budget gap. I would spend accordingly. Impact on thee deficit and the debt long whether you raise the budget caps or play the game. If it was up to me, when we decided there was next are 10 billion, i would raise the gaps. That but norsed to will like to attend it is anything other than gamesmanship. Its not the way i would do it. It is the nature of government to have to compromise. 609 take a look at the billion figure. I can make an argument that the department of defense needs more money. I am open to the discussion. Not covertly opposed if the case is made. And i talked about the need for honest budgets when it comes to meeting the countrys defense priorities. What does it mean. If this is an honest budget that the president has put forward . I believe so. We are still in afghanistan. Syriafighting in iraq and. We launched an attack in libya yesterday. We have done a tax in somalia and elsewhere. A legitimate force and of this is overseas Contingency Operation money. Its a legitimate way to do it. I think what the republicans try to do last year where they insisted on keeping the budget 38 million to yoko, we have to put it there because conservatives a lot let us do it any other way. It is a semantical argument. I do not think it is wise. President s the budget, there is stuff that belongs in the base budget. When you are facing rightwing key Party Republicans who refuse to raise the caps, but somehow or are ok with putting money into yoko, when youre facing it happens to be in charge of the United States house of representatives, you have to make compromises. Congressman, one last question on budget. The departments to properly manage the money it gets. A number of sectors of dod are considered high risk areas by the Government Accountability office. You have a 2. 4 billion cost overrun on the florida Aircraft Carrier. This has become routine and we rarely see people held accountable. How do you make a case for giving a department more money when they cannot manage the money they have . Couple of points. You say they cannot manage the money they have. I think there are areas in the department of defense with a spend the money more wisely than people give them credit for. Clearly, the last decade, 15 years, has been not good on the acquisition side in terms of staying within the budget. Ant is why i am leading acquisition reform. One of the biggest problems is the way these programs it changed along the way. The uss ford has been added to and added to. If we were building the same Aircraft Carrier that they told us to build when it was bid, we would be under budget. Astbury five, the they did this thing with a started building it before they fully tested it. They trusted a computer model to test instead of flying it. These are things that need to be. Hanged accountability, you are right. Because the programs are so big and last so long, you pass from one Program Manager to another. When cost overrun happens, they say he was in charge of that. We have got to shrink the number of Program Managers and people in oversight. Put a specific person in charge and hold them accountable. That is part of the acquisition reform we are trying to do. You are right, it needs to be fixed. We have wasted too much money in the last 15 years. 35. Ichard mentioned the f you said they started building it before it was fully tested. You use the past tense. This is the going on. Yes. They will have built an estimated 500 planes, 20 of the total before they start doing a full combat testing in 2018. Do you have any intention of altering the approach to this program, slowing it down or requiring more criteria to be met. The current the pentagon put out scathings report about deficiencies in the report. That is a discussion we will have. The president budget cuts back on the number of planes being bought. One of them is closer to being, ready than the other two. Senator mccain, the is very concerned about this issue. The problem we have had is that because of the way the program was constructed in put in place, it is set to replace 90 of fighter aircraft. Too big to fail. That is what the f 35 program the game. Eplacing outdated aircraft we are very dependent upon it. It has to work. It has put us in a bind. The way the program was put together his acquisition malfeasance at its greatest. We are going to try to fix that. There is no great outcome. We are spending more money than we should have. You mentioned the strike in libya overnight. If we talk about Islamic State for a little bit and how the u. S. And allies in the mideast deal with the threat. You caution against overreacting to isis. No shirleyd there is military solution to the problem. Isis has moved into libya. Slightly. Ers are down how does the u. S. Get its arms around the problem and are we in perpetual war yack . Perpetual fight against isis and other ideological groups. Ending anytimee soon. Think the reason they thinkrinking in iraq i they are shrinking because they are beginning to fail in the sense that they cannot continue to get territory. Our airstrikes have made a difference, push them back. There has been tiny progress in terms of the iraqi military, especially the special forces. As it becomes obvious they will not continue to grow, one of the biggest selling points is building a caliphate. They are not winning anymore, theyre losing territory. There are many stories about how they have had to cut back in paying people. They have begun to struggle because they are completely incompetent, violent and psychopath that it when they take over a place like moles all, they are incapable of running it in a way that does not completely terrorize the local population. It does not succeed in anything. As people see the failure, they are not willing to follow along. That is the good news. The bad news is that the ideology, the violent extremists, the perverted interpretation of their religion is not going away. Iraq in syria,in it is in many places. It is just like al qaeda, we knocked them out of afghanistan and pakistan. Then they wind up in yemen. We are seeing the same thing from isis. We may be able to keep them down in one place but the ideology has metastasized. It is not just a military solution but the military has to be a part of it. These guys are coming after us and our allies. Need is allies in the sunni world who are willing to lead the fight against these extremists are at a western force will not be able to do this. It feeds into their ideology. Theyre all in esther ideology is that they are the ones defending islam against western aggression. Too many countries in arab sunni world have not been willing to step up and take on isis with the consistency necessary. It will be a longterm fight. I do not like the phrase perpetual war, but it is an ideological struggle not unlike the cold war. This is civilization against the violent extremists. They are not going away anytime soon. We have a little under 10 minutes left with you this morning. On the question of u. S. Allies, this u. S. Need to get turkey and kurdish by search kurdish fighters to win this fight against isis . It is a problem for which i do not have an answer. We need sunni allies. Right now, the most reliable sunni ally we had are the kurds. They have had an infective fighting force. They have primarily been responsible for taking back territory from isis in syria and iraq. There are a few problems. Turkey being the biggest. Turkey and the kurds are still fighting. There are terrorist attacks in turkey there are different kurdish groups. Turkey sees it as the same group. To get to someay sort of pause and hostilities between turkey and the kurds would be critical. Because we need them both. Arab states like saudi arabia are fighting against isis as well. It is a twisted mix over there in terms of trying to find the right coalition to take on isis. I will him flat i will him flat ill emphasize it has to be locally driven. , the sunnieda moderates need to reject this violent extremism and fight. If theould be great sunni moderates would step up but they have not heard they have not. Do you think we need to do anything new militarily given the absence of a local Combatant Force in iraq in syria . Even though they have retreated and lost territory, they still control major population centers. You have them growing in libya. Should anything be changed in the current approach . We need to keep pushing forward with the current approach. There are many challenges to it. It may be that adding more special forces people in iraqi syria, some number of them could be helpful. It depends if we find the right people to train. We could add some forces. The more forces we add, the more it looks like a western fight. We could wind up in the situation where the extremists will argue that the west is attacking islam. One of the biggest things that needs to happen is the Iraqi Government needs to stop shoving the sunnis out of the government. It is a major problem. Iran needs to understand that if they feel threatened by crisis, and they do, then they need to stop forcing the iraqi. Overnment to push sunnis aside if the sunnis felt vested in the government than we would be more likely to have a partner there. The reason that the sunni military in iraq has joined isis are refused to fight them is because the baghdad government it is still keep up sectarian, to shia and not inclusive enough. We need to maintain vigilance to see where various branches of isis pop up. They are popping up in afghanistan as well. Strategy doesnt need to change but we need to keep moving on it. An alternative is drop 100,000 u. S. Troops into the middle of this mess, it would make it worse, not better. Stayingentative the current course in trying to improve upon it seems to make more sense. I have not heard a viable alternative that would not make things worse. Your committee will be hearing from the commander in chief in the pacific. Army commander in terms in charge of the armed forces there. I imagine the conversation will be about north korea, which tested a Fourth Nuclear test in january. They launched a satellite into used as a can be Delivery System for a nuclear weapon. Could you assess north korea for us. How much is provocation, how much is serious threat . We have a large number of troops in south korea. What do you make of north korea and its refusal to stop its Nuclear Program . I do not have a sophisticated analysis, nor do i think one exists. Isolated,a is crazy, and in possession of nuclear weapons. Hey are unpredictable it makes for a dangerous situation to which there is no easy answer. Have millions of people that are starving to death in north korea and they do not care. They do not care how isolated they are. Living outside of the rest of the world and thinking in a way that makes no sense. To predict how they will act, react, how to contain them is difficult to do. The sanctions make sense. We have to maintain them, contain them, we have to make it clear we are supporting south korea. Militaryt to make a attack on south korea would be suicide. We have to try as much as possible to work with china. They have the best relationship with north korea. Will be honest about that chinas greatest fear is that north korea collapses and they are facing millions of refugees coming across the border. They do not have a great incentive to crack the regime. It is a terrible and dangerous situation that we need to work to contain. I do not think anyone has an answer that will solve it. Going back to iraq for a second, i want to get your take on the debate happening in the republican president ial primary anddecision to invade iraq 2003. What are you thought of about that debate as it plays out on National Television . I have watched the republ