Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140406

And the comments. The house begins its debate on budget plans. A busy week in congress. We will focus on the upcoming Midterm Elections. Our phone lines are open you can join in on the conversation on facebook. Send us a tweet at cspanwj. Or send us an email at journal cspan. Org. New york times has the voting in afghanistan front and center. A also the front page of the Washington Post Michael Ohanlon will be joining us later in the program to offer his perspective on the voting that took place in afghanistan and what is next for the u. S. Troops. Politico is reporting on the ap story that is getting a lot of attention over the weekend off of the coast of australia in the south indian ocean. It says the Australian Air chief said yesterday that the agency cannot verify any connection between the signals and Malaysian Airline flight 370. And this from cq weekly, focusing on money team and the appropriators. Congress continues its debate on budget priorities. He writes for the Washington Post, thank you for being with us. Lets walk through last week as we saw the budget detail priorities from the budget chairman and house of representatives and we heard from his counterpart in the house of representatives offering an alternative point of view. Now this moves front and center in the house this week. Guest this is the opel point this week the focal point this week. This is a proposal that would spending that would slash spending over the next decade. It is a lot of the same stuff we have seen and democrats really want to put this front and center. They want to make this into a campaign issue. Democrat leaders said this is something voters will reject this is something they want to make an issue in the fall campaign. Regardless of what happens in the house, it doesnt have a chance of passing in the senate. What we are looking at is a political battle leading up to november. Host let me share how this debate unfolds, beginning first with the comments of congressman paul ryan. Some speculate that in the next congress he will become the chair of the house ways and Means Committee with the retirement of congressman dave camp. There was the Statement Last wednesday before the committee. This Statement Last wednesday before the committee. [video clip] the American People want a balanced responsible budget. By supporting our military it will help keep our country safe. The president cost budget never balances ever. Our budget, on the other hand balances in 10 years. And it puts us on the path of paying off our debts so our children and grandchildren can have a good future. How do we do it . First to stop spending money we dont have. We make muchneeded reforms to say 5. 1 trillion over the next 10 years. Our critics call this look at it this way, on the current path the federal government will spend 48 trillion over the next 10 years. I contrast this budget will spend 43 trillion. On the current path spending will grow an average 5. 2 per year. Under our budget spending will grow 3. 5 per year. Increasing spending by 3. 5 instead of 5. 2 is hardly ciccone and. Hardly draconian. Host already democrats are saying this will be a defining issue in the Midterm Election. Is this a political document or spending plan . Guest i think this is a political document more than anything else. This is something republicans need to do in order to please their base. A want to turn out their base voters in the Midterm Elections. Democrats look at this as an opportunity to have the debate on these issues, have a debate on something other than the president S Health Care law. They want to put these issues front and center. In many ways they are just as happy as the republicans to talk about the budget. The fact this has virtually no chance of ever becoming law, at least under this white house and a democratic senate, basically at the end of the day what we are looking at is a political debate. Host let me ask you about the michigan delegation. Congressman dave camp announcing this week he will step down as chair of the house ways and Means Committee. Mike rogers announced earlier in march he was stepping down as the chair of the house intelligence committee. And joining congress meant john dingell, the longestserving member of the house of representatives, also stepping down. This adds down adds up to a century of legislative. That congress is losing. That is missing to is michigans loss as well. Guest it is remarkable to see these retirements come some speculate it is a sign that being in congress isnt what it used to be. Pretty remarkable chain of events coming out of michigan. What is interesting is that michigan has an open senate seat that will be up this election cycle and we didnt see any of the republicans who are retiring run for senate. Pretty interesting moves out of michigan. Host Sean Sullivan will be with us until the top of the hour as he talk about congress. You can join in on the conversation. Our phone lines are open. I want to share with you what the president said. He was in ann arbor last week responding to the ryan budget. [video clip] [laughter] herees the truth. They are not necessarily coldhearted, they just sincerely believe if we give a few tax breaks to a fortunate few and invest lest in the middle class invest less in the middle class and we cut food stamps and we cut medicaid and insurers only do what is best for their bottom line without the responsibility of the rest of us, then somehow the economy will boom and jobs and prosperity will trickle down to everybody. When i say it that way i know it sounds like i am exaggerating, except i am not. Host john sullivan, you can almost hear the campaign ads coming out from what the president said in ann arbor michigan last wednesday and what republicans are saying. You have an issue between this republican budget plan the democrats are taking aim at and of course the republicans taking aim at the Affordable Care act. Guest we have two competing issues here. From the democratic perspective they want to make this election about the ryan budget. They want to make this about the items in the ryan budget. The republicans are content to make the 2014 Midterm Elections all about obamacare. If you look at the polling what we have seen over the last couple of years is what we are seeing now. Health care law, on the whole is not very popular. And neither is the president. They are content making this election about the Health Care Law. From the democratic perspective that is obviously not a popular issue to talk about right now. They would rather talk about the ryan budget. This gives them a potential opening to shift the conversation to something else. We will see in the coming months if this becomes an issue or if the focus stays on the Health Care Law like it has been pretty much the last few months. Host Sean Sullivan writes politics and covers cant covers congress. Some of your comments on Facebook Erick is joining us on the phone from seattle, washington on the democrats line. Caller good morning. The road to ruin, it is a disgusting document. Another thing i cannot understand about this is these republicans in the south, these white people vote against their own interests time and time again. There are poor people, lower middle class, they are on medicaid medicare, they get all kinds of subsidies. And they get all this government aid. Anytime government grants and things come in they dont want to help the American People. Im going to finish with this, i want to know if republicans want to live under the policies of this ryan budget and all these policies of this ryan budget. Thank you. Host a few more comments on our Facebook Page on the republican line anthony is joining us from garden city new york. Caller good morning. I honestly think the republicans are going to win the senate. The democrats are going to have such a tough voter turnout. The republicans have a huge advantage there. If you look at the races the democrats are going to defend, they are defending states like iowa and New Hampshire. I think they are learning from their mistakes, and learning they cannot nominate people like kristi noem donnell. They are nominating people like christine odonnell. They are nominating people like scott brown. The democrats have to sped have to spread their Campaign Across the country. The only once republicans have to worry about our georgia and kentucky. Host lets go to gail joining us on our independence line from freehold, new jersey. Caller i also believe the republicans are going to win. Obamacare is doing more to hurt the middle class than anything else. Obama is not out for the middle class, he is out for only one portion of society. It is a massive redistribution scam. There are people barely making 50,000 per year and he is hurting a lot of people in that category. I dont think the dems will keep the senate. Host Sean Sullivan what are you hearing from our viewers this morning . Caller one of the colors brought up a great point about Midterm Election voter turnout. Democrats are very concerned about their ability to turn out voters in the fall. We saw in the recent florida special elections the republican turnout was pretty robust. It helped the republican candidate win. We saw huge wave election for republicans in 2010. The challenge for democrats is how to get voters to turn out in these Midterm Elections who may not normally be interested in the campaigns and issues that are front and center the selection. They do a good job turning out voters in the president ial election. The question is can they get enough voters to come out this fall . Host i want to share with our audience the latest from americans for prosperity, the Organization Funded in large part by the Koch Brothers taking aim at senator mark pryor, who is one of those vulnerable democrats. [video clip] running your own trucking business is a lot like farming. You have to make hay with the sunshine greet you put in 60 hours per week. With the sunshine. You put in 60 hours per week. We have yet to receive anything telling us we are going to be extended. It is like living in a haze. We dont know whether we are going to have insurance or afford your insurance. It was taken away from us, or given back to us, we dont know what it has been now. I think the American People are tired of this constant angst. Mark pryor voted for this law reader do you think he will be responsible for years from now or two years from now . Senator mark pryor voted for obama care. Tell senator Pryor Obamacare hurts arkansas families. Host you are writing about Health Care Dan balz writing about health care we are seeing that play out in key senate races. Guest that typifies the Republican Group and republican campaigns. They are running very personal ads, specific things that show voters this is how the law is affecting you. This is how the law is affecting voters like you and other americans like you. They want to keep this issue front and center. Millions of dollars already are being spent running ads all over the country. When you look at polling, attitudes are pretty firm. You have part of the country that is in support of the law and a big chunk of the country that is against the law and not many persuadables on one side or the other. Heading into november it is about who can get its voters to turn out. Host this tweet was sent to us this weekend in the wall street journal, peggy newman writes peggy noonan writes it gets to the narrative where democrats see minimum wage and single women as key to their election vote in november. [video clip] im courtney. Im not very lyrical but i have been doing some reading about tom cotton, who is running for senate. It says he voted to change medicare into a voucher system that would increase outofpocket expenses for every senior in arkansas. Thousands of dollars every year. My grandma and grandpa cant afford that and neither can my parents. Check it out on therealcotto nrecord. Com. Host that is a scene playing out in arkansas. Guest we are going to see a lot more ads just like that one. Democrats just want to talk about the ryan budget and that ad right there, you see somebody talking about medicare and the changes it will make. What this ad shows is that both sides want to run the, both democrats and republicans want to run a negative campaign. Republicans are constantly going to be talking about Health Care Democrats are constantly going to be talking about ryans budget and the issues associated with it. The question really is which issue is going to anger the Opposing Side a possible voters more and get them to come out more and actually vote in november. Host lets go back to the ryan budget do you know the numbers . Guest i do not know offhand. Host it is a 17. 5 trillion debt we are facing now. Republicans say it has doubled under the president s six years in office. Does that that bring voters to the polls echo guest to the polls . Guest it still has a resonance. We saw this in the 2012 campaign. You see this stuff come up over and over again when we have these constant debates over the debt ceiling. In this election it is probably a secondary issue just because of the way the Health Care Law has dominated Media Coverage and has dominated the debates in the various senate and house campaigns. I definitely think you will hear republicans make that argument. Youll see them run ads talking about what this ministration has done on that or hasnt done. We have seen those arguments play out before, it hasnt always worked. I would expect the republicans are content to talk about obama care more than anything else. Host a question for you about swing voters guest independent voters always have a significant impact. A lot of times in the discussion about in defendants independence they conflate independents and even if they are not official Party Affiliations a 10 to vote pretty consistently one side or the other. Voters that are in the middle with liberals on one hand and conservatives on the other, it is a shift in the climate we saw 2010. They were certainly with republicans heavily. Both sides, i think, are looking at the middle of the electorate to try to win them over. To reiterate in president ial elections you see higher turnout, more voters. These off your elections you dont. Off year elections, you dont. Host some of our Facebook Comments you can join in on the conversation at facebook. C om cspan. You write about somebody who might be a potential 2016 candidate, governor Chris Christie. The story Available Online at washingtonpost. Com. Break down these numbers, what does it mean . Guest this is very impressive for the republican governors association. Republicans are playing a lot of defense in the governors races create a lot of that is the result of how well they did in 2010. The biggest take away here is good news for christie. He is showing the larger Republican Community that under his watch this group can raise money. He has been under a lot of scrutiny with the traffic scandal in new jersey. This is a message to the Republican Community, the republican donor immunity, that republican Donor Community that Chris Christie is still a force to be reckoned with. Host Samantha Power is the subject of the Washington Post sunday magazine. She is the representative to the united nations. Sean sullivan is joining us in washington. From tennessee on the democrats line, thank you for waiting. Caller i have a few quick points i want to make. The republicans shut down the government. They are against women. They are against older people. They are sitting up there arguing. They havent done anything to help the people. Therey are against veterans rights. They are against unemployment. They lied and said they were going to get jobs here in america. We put these rich people up on tv to laugh. People listen. Go and vote. It is up to the American People to set our lives straight. Caller the caller brought up the government shut down last fall guest the caller brought up the government shut down last fall. It was quickly overshadowed by the problems of the rollout with obama care. As the month has gone by and we get to close to november, this is something republicans are trying to remind voters about. They are trying to make this about gop obstructionism, that republicans are obstructionists and they are not committed to getting anything done. What will remain to be seen is whether voters it was not that long ago this Government Shutdown happened. In many ways it seems like a distant memory right now. Republicans are still talking about it, they are still going to talk about it, and we will see if that is something that can turn voters outcome of this idea of republican obstructionism. Host matt is on the phone from North Carolina on the republican line. Good morning. Caller i would like to make a comment on the clip you played of president obama from earlier. He said that republicans somehow believe lowering taxes for the rich can help for the poor and will somehow make the economy better. I am a believer that if we lower taxes for the rich they are going to spend their money. I trust them to spend it better, or invested better than i do the government. Host did you want to respond to that . I also want to ask you about where tax reform could be after the Midterm Elections . Guest this year it is nothing huge nothing substantive is going to happen. I think potentially after the Midterm Elections it might be able to get done. If republicans take over the senate he might have a fullfledged effort from House Republicans and Senate Republicans to get something done. And to get back to the callers point, i think this issue of income inequality is something that is going to be a big issue potentially in the Midterm Elections. We are starting to see republicans talk about upward mobility, talk about the economy, the middle class. Clearly they recognize the need to talk about these topics. This could be a focal point in the elections and they are not content to just let democrats have their say on this issue totally. Host our next call is anthony joining us from maryland on the independent line. Go ahead, please. Caller yes. Strange that your person there was able to analyze me correctly. I do vote. I have voted republican in the past when it came to certain issues, such as the military and national defense. Im going to talk in terms of the ryan budget plan. I went online to take a look at what his proposal outlines. I am a little amazed that a lot of the points he is raising are basically coming from a tea Party Perspective and this new wave of Republican Leadership of obstructionism i would like there to be a review of both the democratic and republican budget plans so that we as independents, be they democratic or republican can see the pros and cons of each sides of these budget plans and make a better choice, rather than listening to the rhetoric of each party discussing its perspective over the American Peoples needs. Host i should point out that if you log on to the House Budget Committee website, the ryan budget has been posted. Him he are going to hear from House Democratic leaders tomorrow, including nancy pelosi on more details from the democratic alternative. Him a full debate is available on our website. The markup from the committee that took place last week is also posted. Much of the information is out there, but your thoughts . Guest it is interesting when you look at the ryan budget, as we talked about earlier, it is pretty much a political debate. It doesnt stand any real chance of becoming law. In a president ial election republicans may be risk that may be at risk of alienating republicans may be at risk of alienating centrist voters. There is a lot of stuff that conservative voters are going to like, a lot of stuff moderate voters are not going to like, and a lot of stuff democrats are going to point to to get their base voters turn out base voters to turn out. There is less risk your for republicans and a bigger challenge for democrats to make the ryan budget a central issue in november. It is a heavier lift for them that it would be in a president ial election. Host we are talking with Sean Sullivan from the Washington Post. We welcome our viewers on cspan television and our listeners on cspan radio. We want to get your reaction to the Supreme Court decision last week him a that 54 decision last week, that 54 decision. In this point from and this point from nationaljournal. Com experts see the possibility of a future battle over a more consequential subject, that is the decades old cap a donor can give to a campaign. Heres what senator Chuck Schumer said last week. [video clip] a few things are clear, the clock has been turned back on our democracy by eliminating the cap on donations to our Political Parties and tax. This is a small step that it is another step on the road to a nation of our political system that the Supreme Court has clearly headed down. They wished to dismantle all limits on giving piece by piece, until we are back to the days of the robber barons, where anyone and anything can give unlimited money, undisclosed and make our political system seems so rigged that everyone will lose interest in our democracy. So the implications of this decision are huge, even though the individual questions before the court were small. The Koch Brothers and other wealthy donors have already wreaked havoc on our political system created this political system. This decision will make the Koch Brotherss lives Koch Brothers lives easier and american lives harder. Host that was senator Chuck Schumer. How significant was this ruling . Guest it was pretty significant. To be clear it deals with the aggregate limits that donors can give to candidates and Political Parties. What it does is give another avenue to big donors, donors who donate a lot of money. It gives them another avenue to have more of an influence in the Political Campaign world. What is interesting about this is it restores some of the power of Political Parties, things like the dnc and rnc. We have seen over the past few years these parties have lost power because of the rise of pacs and nonprofits and these vehicles that can take huge sums of money. What it does is it probably allows for these parties to get more money and therefore have a bigger influence in the political debate. We are seeing the Political Party reassert itself. No question, this allows big donors to have another avenue intos spending more money. If host eight host a look at the week ahead. Him john john in North Carolina has this point, he says this goes to the other issue Sean Sullivan. What, if anything, will hair he greeted be doing with the budget plan will harry reid be doing with the budget plan . Guest i think the way democrats view this debate is the way republicans view the debate over obama care. They want to focus on what the opposition is proposing, so they are content to talk about the ryan budget, the ryan plan, what it specifically does, changes it makes to medicare. You have seen that in the past in the democratic campaigns. It will be interesting to see what democrats will be talking about. No question they will be talking about paul ryan and the ryan budget over and over again over the next few months. Host going back to the issue of Campaign Finance, this is from the hill newspaper one of our viewers saying jake from atlanta, georgia, democrats line. Good morning. Caller i just want to say republicans dont want to talk about if you are eligible, go to ww w. Bigbirdbarrackhusseinobama. Com. Host i want to ask you about two former residence former president s, there is a events commemorating the 20th anniversary of george h to be bushs inauguration in 1989. The front page of the wall street journal, its getting a lot of attention. Guest we are seeing a bush renaissance. Obviously when george w. Bush left office he was very unpopular. He stayed out of the public eye for a pretty significant amount of time. He has resurfaced more now and the president ial library is up and running. His paintings have gotten a lot of attention. People are looking at this with great interest. You mentioned the reunion that George H W Bush is gathering. The takeaway is you have jeb bush, george w. Bushs brother considering a president ial run. The big question has been what about the bush brand . What about the potential drag it could have on jeb bushs president ial campaign . There is indication it is not as bad as it was. We see the bush image has certainly been better received than it was at the end of george w. Bushs administration in 2009. Host one of the looming questions is where the Barack Obama Library will go. Talking about the development that could impact if the Obama White House decides to have his white house his library in chicago. Up speculation is it could potentially go to hawaii, where he grew up. Guest there is a big behindthescenes battle unraveling right now, playing out behind the scenes. Certainly president obama spent a lot of his early life in hawaii. Obviously chicago was a place where he built his political career, where his early years in politics were formed. There is no sense of oneness will come to a conclusion. Who knows at this point . Chicago has probably a leg up right now, given how much time obama spends there. It is home for the obama family right now. Host speaking of president ial libraries, for president s will be in texas on thursday at the lbj library to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act. A ceremony we will be covering for the cspan networks, including American History tv, which is part of cspan3s programming. We go to the next caller in carolina. Good morning. Caller if we had good reporters out there we would know that obama used 83 of the government that was in shut down to put barricades up and purposefully hurt veterans. In 50 years we had 92 federal programs to help the poor and not one has brought posterity out of poverty. Brought prosperity out of poverty. We dont know what it takes over 400 to buy one gallon of heating oil. We would know that our military can use the soul that get 65 miles per gallon use diesel that gets 65 miles per gallon. Our country is going to. Host lets go to mike joining us on the democrats line from ohio. Good morning. Caller how are you doing . Thanks for taking my call. I wanted to comment on the providers for health care. Who are actually the providers . Who collect some money collects money who collect the money . What happened to all his Social Security . Where does it go you go who is the provider where does it go . Who is the provider that gives the money . Is it jamie dimon . Host Sean Sullivan, any thoughts . Guest we are hearing a lot about health care, which was the point that the Midterm Elections will see this as a focal point. This is something people care about and clearly have strong opinions about. Host in the Weekly Standard he points out that without the tax credit the obama care policies will be expensive for so many people. He also makes the point that congress cannot let the choices of the irs cannibalize the rule of law. You can weed more online can read more online. Our next caller is from jacksonville, florida. Caller thanks for taking my call. Im an independent. I love to see what these republicans and democrats are doing. I live in a republican neighborhood and most of the people i live around could not vote for republican last time. We have mothers and fathers and kids in college. These people lost their jobs. I am really glad they are doing this. The American People, we really need to open up and watch what is going on around us. We are providing trillions of dollars all over the world and we have people starting at home. It aint right. Everybody has to wake up. Thank you and have a great day. Host one of our regular readers says let me segue into starbucks which sounds good any morning. This question the map is depicted online. Sean sullivan, explain. Guest it is interesting this underscores the larger point the political strategists are looking at in politics right now, which is how the Consumer Habits how they vote, when they vote, where they are eating , how they are spending their money. I think we are getting more and more of a sense, as the data becomes more sophisticated and analytics become more sophisticated, getting a snapshot of voters and consumers in the economy. I think they are trying to make sense of how they can use that to their advantage and identify topics that matter. Host another 15 minutes with our guest, Sean Sullivan, who writes and covers politics for the Washington Post. This is from the l. A. Times and inside the Washington Post one of the points of this piece is the severe shortage of Mental Health experts to deal with the growing demand. Of net next call is joining us from riverton, wyoming. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am a senior. I keep hearing that im the guy that is taking all the money and why health care is high. I pay 2500 out of my measly 2500 per year out of my measly 1100 per month. I think im paying my share. I dont understand what is going on. Everyone thinks that because you areo n on Social Security or medicare youre making a million dollars. Host think you for the call. Edwin says we go to new york city democrats line. Caller thank you for cspan, as always. I have a short idea for both parties and the strategy for the next two elections. You can see it in that clip you saw earlier with Chuck Schumer this glee that the ineffectiveness of congress will reach such a high Critical Mass that the electors will fix congress in 2014 so things will be better for a possible hillary run in 2016. And the republican strategy is to win the senate and gain control of both houses of congress hi and pass legislation over the next two years passing two years, painting obama as the obstructionist. The logic is giving congress to both parties host thank you for the call. Guest in 2014 we have people looking for a 2016 looking at 316 for a president ial run by hillary clinton. When you look at democratic strategists, we are looking at senate and house races. I think there are some brewing concerned that potentially some democratic donors and powerbrokers are too heavily focused on the 2016 election. I think they want to drive that point home for their supporters in the next few months. We have an election with a lot of stake right now. The senate is a lot the senate is up for grabs. You have some pretty important swing seats up for grabs. I think republicans are going to reinforce that idea to their own Community Donors and important people like that. Dont overlook this election. We have a lot going on, even though 2016 is something democrats are already looking at. Host that is what alex is writing about at nation aljournal. Com. Here is one part of what he says its here the clintons can complement each other. Hillary happens to be in the same state for a fundraiser or getting a policy speech, but not trying to be overtly political in 2014. Guest this is a really interesting thing to watch in the Midterm Elections. When you look at potential candidates for president , right before the election they are it is a good chance for them to make inroads with voters and inroads with other candidates in the other parties. It will be interesting to see where the Clintons Campaign bill clinton is obviously popular in the south. In places like louisiana and arkansas, he could be a good surrogate for Senate Democrats there. Hillary clinton could be a valuable surrogate for campaigns trying to do that. It will be interesting to see which candidates the Clintons Campaign for and how big of a presence they want to have. Do they want to be there a lot, did they want to do multiple defense multiple events, or do they want to have a quieter role . I think the answer to that question will speak about what the clinton strategy is leading up to a potential 2016 election. Host james follows up on your point about swing states the republican congressman guest absolutely. This is a pretty even district. The republican turnout was certainly better and that is something democrats want. They believe in the fall they can contest it again. They think they have a more favorable electorate, potentially, in the fall. When you look at this campaign you have two candidates on health care who were night and day. Has adopted the position that most democrats have adopted this election cycle, the Health Care Law is not perfect but we should keep it and fix it. He the jolly has said david jolly has said we need to repeal this law. People thought he was going to lose as a result of that, but he didnt. I think democrats have to walk away from that race, sort of looking at what went wrong and why the repeal message didnts succinct the chances of david jolly. Host which goes back to the issue of Midterm Elections outside money, and the Koch Brothers. This is congress and jerry moran from the senate floor. Lets watch. [video clip] i happen to be reading the wall street journal this morning and i noticed a column, an opinion piece written by charles d cokkoch. It seems the things outlined in his opinion piece, while not everyone will agree with, they are certainly within the why the mainstream of american thought and certainly reflect opinions that are worthy of debate and discussion in our country and here on the senate floor. We all bring diversity, a different set of values, opinions, beliefs, political philosophy to the debate and senate floor. I wanted to share one of the owners of Coke Industries believes koch industrys beliefs. Mr. Koch says this, i have devoted most of my life it is those principles, the principles of a free society that have shaped my life my family, our company, and america itself. Unfortunately the fundamental concepts of dignity respect equality before law, and personal freedom are under attack by our nations own government. That is why if we want to restore a free society and create greater wellbeing and opportunities for all americans we have no choice but to fight for those principles. Host Sean Sullivan, the democrats are trying to put a face to the Koch Brothers. They will have an influence in the Midterm Elections. Now the republicans directly responding. Guest a really fascinating battle that is starting to get more and more attention right now. Democrats are trying to make the Koch Brothers into an electoral issue. You have harry reid talking about them constantly, a lot of democrats in the campaign talking about americans for prosperity, which is a group backed by the Koch Brothers. The challenge for democrats right now is that most people dont know who the Koch Brothers are. There was a whole brother a pull out recently a opoll out recently. There is a challenge in making them the electoral bogeyman. Nobody knows who these guys are. A lot of americans dont know who these guys are. That may change in the coming months and we are seeing ads that mention the Koch Brothers names. Of the democratic i think the democratic hope is if they can raise the profile of the Koch Brothers it will help them in this election. The poll was among people who do know the poll among people who do know who they are, they are pretty unpopular. How do you get to people who are not necessarily wellknown figures to be bigtime figures in a Political Campaign . It remains to be seen if democrats can do that. Host jim from New Hampshire on our line for independence. For independents. Caller i think it is time we institutionalize harry reid. Up here in New Hampshire we have one company that offers the individual market. If you didnt sign up on march 31 you are out in the cold for the rest of the year until november 15. There is nothing as an individual we can buy, which really confuses me. I thought obama care was supposed to open health care to everybody all the time. Now we cant even buy a policy, even though we only have one company that will offer it. They dont even offer it until november 15. If you could comment on that, i would like to know why they are shutting the market down until november 15 and. Guest the caller mentioned morans comments about the Koch Brothers. Republicans understand democrats are trying to make this an issue and they have to push back to a certain extent, even though a lot of the public doesnt know who these brothers are. Republicans arent you going to sit back and let harry reid has his say about the Koch Brothers harry reid have his say about the Koch Brothers. It could potentially be more of an issue than any of us had anticipated at the beginning of this cycle. Host on twitter let me use this to segue into another race you are focusing on, the one in kentucky. Mark Begich Matt Kevin is challenging Mitch Mcconnell matt bevin is challenging Mitch Mcconnell. [video clip] all Mitch Mcconnell can do is run attack ads. Him i want you to hear straight from me. I will never compromise our conservative principles. Kentucky needs a fighter in washington with the courage to stand up and take on obama. 30 years is enough. Too liberal, too long. Host matt bevin takes aim at Mitch Mcconnell. According to the polls it is a close race. Guest Mitch Mcconnell was somebody that conservative activists, tea party guest he is known as a strong campaigner. Bevin has a few weeks to make up some ground. It he is running against a very wellknown republican. He has not caught on. A lot of Senate Republicans are facing tea party challenges. Most of them have not caught on either. As a move toward november keep in mind that all of these Senate Republicans who are facing primaries will survive. When we saw senator lugar in the cycle before and senator bennett lose before, the field is wider than it is deep right now. Host the 10 candidates you might not know but should include two former senators. The complete list is Available Online. Here is the latest from the Mcconnell Campaign in kentucky. You see the ads attacking my husband. Special interests are attacking my ethnicity. That is how low some people would stoop. Mitch works his heart out to protect kentucky from washingtons bad ideas. Mitch loves kentucky. We love kentucky. I am Mitch Mcconnell and i approve this message. Host a final point on the Kentucky Senate race. How nasty will get . Guest thisll be the nastiest race out there. Even if he wins, oconnell has a tough general election campaign. Democrats are eager to defeat mcconnell. They dont have a lot of pickup opportunities. This is one of them. There is symbolic value in defeating the highestranking republican in the senate. He is not going to go quietly. If youre looking for a Nasty Campaign or a competitive race, go to kentucky. Host what are you looking at for the week ahead of . Guest was like republicans will vote on the budget. Which ones do or dont, there is value in turning out the base. There are House Republicans in swing districts were the ryan budget could be used against them. Host thank you for joining us in our first hour. We appreciated. Guest thank you for having me. Host we will turn our attention to two issues. Roben farzad will join us and talk about highfrequency stock trading. Later, michael e. Ohanlon will be joining us to talk about the elections in afghanistan. What does it mean for the future United States role in that country . This is one of the issues on the sunday morning programs. It can hear all of those shows on cspan radio. Good morning, nancy. Some the topics include paul ryans budget, the shooting at fort hood this week, the Supreme Court decision on Campaign Finance. You can hear rebroadcast of the program on cspan radio. This begins at noon eastern with meet the press. Guests are Sean Mccutchen who had his case decided by the Supreme Court. Robert weissman and Michael Mullen o will be there. This week will have Claire Mccaskill and john carter of texas. At 2 00 p. M. Fox news sunday will have mike mccall of the Homeland Security committee. Also, Michael Hayden of the cia and the nsa. Cnns state of the union follows. At 4 00 p. M. , we have faced the nation from cbs. We will have another appearance by mike mccall. The talk shows are on cspan radio and they are brought to you by the networks as a Public Service. 1 00 p. M. , abcs this week. 3 00 p. M. , cnns a state of the union. 4 00 p. M. Eastern rom a face the nation from cbs. Across the country you can hear it on Xm Satellite Radio on station at 120. You can download our free app for your smart phone or listen online at www. Cspan. Org. Host we roben farzad want to welcome back roben farzad we want to welcome back roben farzad. We want to talk about this new book by Michael Lewis that has been getting a lot of attention. This is what he said on a book tv yesterday. Explain what this phenomenon is. Guest it is exploiting millions of trades, hundreds of thousands of trades in milliseconds to exploit minute movements. If you throw enough money and volume at it, you can make it sunny of a ton of money in theory. Mark woods markets a become so big and liquid. Markets have become a so big and liquid. Hedge funds and traders make money. Michael lewis is saying it destabilizes the market. It is a rigged system. It lets a wealthy select few benefit at the expense of the majority of the investing public. Host heres what Michael Lewis said yesterday on cspans book tv. Great question. One of the questions i asked as i was writing this story was what you always ask. Why is this available . Why should there be more outrage about the subject . It wasnt that nobody had noticed that Something Weird was happening in the stock market. The insiders really noticed. Every now and then somebody did not cry out about it. There were some lies in the industry. There were critics in the industry. People were numbed. The public generally was numbed. People in the markets were numbed by two things. One, in the course of the story the market was booming. What ever graft there is isnt noticeable in the context of the market. Everybody is making money. They arent thinking very much about is the sound. The second point is between the lines, when it is done by the computer, it is not just deny ability. People have a sense that there is no willful human action behind. The computer is doing it. They also have a level of complexity that is hard to parse. To do prove the front running you need to parse the algorithms. It creates a smokescreen. It creates an internal world offense and a funny way. You are directing a computer to do something. A human being will direct a computer to do something they would never do themselves if they had to physically do it. Host he tries to explain what this phenomenon is, how prevalent is it . Guest it is massive. Markets have had a tumultuous decade. Coming from the. Com crash to these scandals, investors are tuning out. There was the culmination with the financial crisis. As people were checking out and wall street was finding itself in this. He time of scandal how do we keep the most valued Institutional Investors engaged so that they pay us commissions . But in them avail themselves of preferred technology and split section second access to big mutual funds that serve investors, that is a way of offering an edge. The question on the line is the legality. That is a great altra tradition going back to the 1920s. If you can go right to the edge of what is wrong until regulators catch up a, then you are fine. Host i want to get your reaction to this. He watched what he called the 60 minutes segment. The narrative is interesting enough. So far i havent seen anything that would qualify as lighting in a bottle as promised. Guest the guy has to sells book and he is a darn good author. He is a veteran of wall street. He is been there through several areas. He is covered the bond trading scandal and the subprime crisis. This idea is a great time to invoke Something Like wall street is rigged. Even though markets are at an alltime high, if you could go out on 60 minutes you will a ton of media appearances. And sell books. The onus is on him. They have to prove that investors are being hurt. We have not seen it yet. Host what does it mean for the individual investor . Guest not much. It is not like it was decades ago and you would pay a commission for buying shares of ibm or cocacola. A lot of people are involved. There are 401 k s and roth iras. They are paying lower costs. There are huge shifts. People are not calling their broker insane i mean this or some this. And a saying by me this. If you are talking about transactions being a fraction of a penny, we are talking about billions of transactions. This is a tiny, victimless fractional crime. But multiplied endless amounts it is a big amount of money. It is like a parasitic thing. You take a little bit from every individual investor and it benefits a handful of nefarious traders. In practice, we have not seen that. Host politico was writing about this. They point out that Michael Lewis has another hit on his hands. Before the was time for anybody to finish reading his book, the uproar was flooding in from all corners. This includes the attorney general testified before a subcommittee. In the financial sector, concerns are raised about a practice called High Frequency trading. This practice consists of Financial Brokers and firms using advanced computer algorithms and highspeed Data Networks to execute trades has received scrutiny from regulators. We at the United States department of justice are investigating this practice. We are determining if it breaks Insider Trading laws. We want to ensure the integrity of our markets. We will follow this wherever the facts and the law may lead. Host over the weekend, usa today confirmed that the Justice Department is looking into figuring out where the investigation will lead them. Guest it is a great tradition. Regulators are slamming the barn door shut when the horse is dead. This has been going on for years. Lawmakers are now trying to get their arms around. They are dealing with the aftereffects of the last crisis. There was not a lot of anticipation. There were few people that stood before the steps of capitol hill in the last decade and said we must follow subprime. We must look at what wall street is doing. Now, you have some of the protagonist in the book saying we have to be out there. This could be sold as a kind of victimless climb crime. They could be destabilizing the entire market for all of us. There was the crash of 2010 and we dont know what happened. Youre going to see immediately congress issued a ton of subpoenas. What is going on with flash traders . Explain this. There is the idea right now while the economy seems to be improving to get ahead of the problem and especially if it poses a risk. It is a great read. I love how Michael Lewis can demystify very boring things. I would not want to read a book about highfrequency trading. He is always a stranger in a strange land. He meets these people. If it were not for the protagonist of the book saying they were creating a firm to counter the bad effects of what these guys are doing you would not have much more than an article. It is a great page turner. I dont know if there is a bona fide scandal in the making. Host roben farzad has written for bloomberg and the washington times. He is a graduate of Harvard Business school. We will get to your calls in a moment. Host we have jim on our twitter page. Can you explain what this means to the average viewer . Guest you find out that a massive firm Like Fidelity is about to put in a sell order. You can get ahead of that. You can find out that information. You can preback on that trade and sell your position for more than a giant liquidation order would do to move the price down. If you have a big firm is going to buy a ton of stock that is going to move the stock higher if you can get in a split second earlier, used and to benefit. Charles schwab put out a great statement this week calling highfrequency trading a spreading cancer. He thinks it is a serious problem. We are talking about stabilizing destabilizing the and higher system. Host good morning. Caller good morning. I was listening to what you are saying. Highfrequency trading was supposed to stop all of these different crashes. At 3 00 in the evening, i listen to public radio. I see the stock market was up 300 points one day and then all of a sudden it dropped 200 points. Somebody lost a lot of money. Host we saw that on friday with a significant drop on both the dow and the nasdaq. Guest this happens. It happens in lockstep over time. Generally, markets tend to go up. Our markets so distorted and overrun by people looking to put in these meaningless trades to exploit splitsecond opportunities that they no longer represent corporate americas profits . I dont see that being the case. I think the market is still tracking corporate profits. Corporate profits are still near an alltime high. Even Michael Lewis said he still invests and doesnt think the market is broken. He is arguing that some people are benefiting at the expense of others. Host a key player, what does this mean for her . Guest they have a lot to answer for after missing the bernie made off problem. Ponzi scheme, ponzi scheme. The sec wants to get ahead of these things. It is been very vigilant. If you look at the attorney general in new york the idea is almost investigate first and ask questions later. It is an esoteric thing. It is not exactly transparent. If you read the book, it is almost like a robber baron asked thing to do. If you can build a line that is a splitsecond faster, you have an advantage and it is worth your while to build that. You have to arm up. The sec has to pay for talent to check these crimes and understand the nature. Well, lets not call it a crime yet. We need to understand the architecture of what is going on out there. Host of course the stock market is fixed. In the report from last sunday, there was an observation. When we see the scenes from lower manhattan, what is happening there is just a very small piece of where the trading is taking place. Guest what the wall street is a psychographic term. It used to mean much more than it does now. These things are happening all over. Buyers and sellers are being matched with computers. There are exchanges done electronically. The founder of the Vanguard Group is saying highfrequency trading has helped the individual investor by pushing down costs. Commissions used to be prohibitive. Now a lot of firms arent even charging for certain etfs or two dollar commissions if you want to buy stock with them. This is been helped. Some will pay for millions of trades at a time. Host if i frick as he trading does add volume, you have if highfrequency trading as volume, it does add liquidity. Guest let us go back. People forget the crash that 1987 was an electronics failure. There were stocks in the system and volume was a fraction of what we see today. What happens when all of these lines get crossed. It get a y2k type moment. We have to think about it. Something did go wrong with the flash crash of 2010. The drought dow dropped a thousand points. A lot of people got hurt when they sold stocks based on false information. When Something Like that happens where there is massive change, there is a huge echo chamber. We talk about how much more sophisticated and massive institutions are. Paul you ms. So large and millions of trades are done in milliseconds, there is potential for calamity. Host our guest is roben farzad. He covers finance issues. Guest i was with businessweek. I will be launching a radio show soon. It is called full disclosure. It will have the website up soon. Host lets go to andy joining us from new jersey. Caller good morning, guys. I want to see a transaction tax. Would that add up quickly . Anybody who claims to care about the deficit should get behind it. Host thank you for listing on cspan radio. Guest it is a great idea being floated around. Markets are liquid. People can buy and sell. You cant bar computers from doing these things. If people are just following an algorithm, that should be taxed. That could be bad for the rest of us. It increases fragility in the system and he stabilizes. There should be a taxed that dissuades that kind of behavior. It should generate revenue in the meantime. Host we are talking about highfrequency trading. Eric holder said an investigation is underway. Michael lewis and his new book was featured on book tv over the weekend. The book is called flash boys. The next financial Mushroom Cloud erupting from wall street. Let us go to new york. He is on the independent line. Caller you answered my question while i was on hold. Who are the highfrequency traders . Guest it is a bunch of technology people, mathematicians, spinoffs from brokerage firms. These are people who used to employ floor traders of the stock exchange. They have seen commissions compressed over time. It is being relentlessly pushed down. You are under enormous pressure to offer an edge. If that is technology and information, even if it is a splitsecond edge before it is declared illegal, it is a great loophole to exploit. Host it happens instantaneously. Guest faster than a blink of an eye. Host are we seeing this in europe and asian markets . Guest we see it in italy. This idea that you have people speeding. If you look at market liquidity and the trades that happen on all exchanges, that is a superhighway in the United States. People are whizzing on it in these 100 20 mile per hour lamborghinis. The rest of the sarin subarus. That should be dissuaded and made illegal. They should pay a cost to their is a special lena. There is a risk that affects everybody else. Iran of metaphors to explain it. If it is happening with nefarious. It is other one of these perfect crimes. In this. Of penance and regression, trades are multiplying in volume. If you look back on this in three or four years, i will be amazed. Host joe makes this point a transaction tax would cripple the market. This is from the New York Times. What Michael Lewis is writing about is an issue. Michael lewis is making this far bigger. Guest markets are near an alltime high. The s p 500 was up 30 . The economy has recovered. The banks are capitalized. If they become so distorted like the Chinese Market which is poorly regulated and has not created growth very well, it is not a good proxy for corporate growth there. I would be worried. Having said this, it is a time to cry something of the effect of the market is rigged. People are coming off with a. With a market where they have gotten bitten. This is a great time to write a book like this. The idea of taxing these trades is getting interest from our viewers. Host hft should be taxed. These guys think make it no other positive contribution to their country. Guest it is hard to find any unanimity about how that tax increase would be implement it. You would see other prohibitions put in. After so many different test the would have to go through that makes it prohibitive, you are going to see another situation like the flash crash of 2010. It is bound to happen. People are still leery of coming back to a market. Even if Michael Lewis did not put up this book, private profits and risk and securities have people sitting outside and remaining on the sidelines. Host debbie is calling from scranton and selena. Caller i worked in manhattan and did some auditing at the financial institutions. Every time i hear Something Like this i think that it continues to undermine the trust the citizens of this country have for our government. I really like the term Mushroom Cloud. I am looking that at that and i am thinking it is a threat to National Security. We are not making any friends. Some he to reel these guys in. If it was fair, they would not be doing it. Host thank you for the call. Inform that these earnings are taxed as regular income. They do contribute. Guest that is true. This is an enormous regular income. These are shortterm profit games. They are levied. The profits are taxed at enormous levels. There should be a check alone on this happening. It is not. If you put in another tax it may dissuade the more reckless trades. Caller good morning. My question is i know this trading is new for everybody to hear about. What about the people in the house of representatives who have insider information. They leave congress billionaires. Guest that was reigned in recently. There was a 60 minutes investigation. It speaks to a bigger issue. This is asymmetrical warfare between regulators and wall street. Wall street investing firms and trading firms are always going to be able to pay multiples for talent. In order to stay up on these scams, you have to have counted regulators. The side that can arm up more with the brains is going to win. When these regulators are done, they work in the private sector and advise some of these financial institutions. It is difficult to regulate these things in real time. Without somebody like Michael Lewis raising the flag and going on 60 minutes and using colorful language and metaphors, it is hard for wall street and congress and the sec to give this stuff the time of day and there are so many other pressing issues. Host i pay taxes, can i rub pensions . Guest this is the idea that it is a victimless crime. You are not flooding the market with orders. You take the consequences of a loss. It is a splitsecond thing. It is murky and dark. It is not as clearcut as robbing the bank. That is what makes it beautiful. The idea of the perfect, victimless crime. You cover your fingerprints. You blame the machine. You blame the technology. Why is this a crime . If we are there, we should be rewarded for building a better mousetrap. Host we are focusing on highfrequency trading. Michael lewis has written a new book about it. You can check out the interview with him on our website. John is joining us from New Hampshire. Guest host we are going to have to move on. This is elizabeth. Guest hello. Good morning. This is not a victimless crime. It has made other trading second, third, and fourth tier. It is not based on value. It is not based on product or performance of the ceo. It puts everyone else edited then to. It is truly not through performance but jesters speed. It is skimming the cream of the cream of the cream. Host that is right. Guest if we could do this before regulators catch up and tie our hands down, there are billions to be made. This cat and mouse game has been going on the entirety of the modern era of wall street. Markets were cornered in the 1920s. Insider trading was done in the 1980s. Insider trading was talked about as an insider the most crime. Victimless crime. When you talk about liquidity you have traders with hundreds of millions of trades representing a pool of that ocean. Whatever we do is a disrupting isnt disrupting in the end. It is just a wash. Wall street and trading firms are paid to exploit. If volumes are following, if managers are not doing well against index funds what other advantage can we avail ourselves of . There is still a timing advantage and an information advantage that is a splitsecond advantage that has not yet been called illegal. They are dancing in the gray area. Host this goes back to a question from a viewer. How does a regular guy get into the racket . Guest it is not easy for a regular guy to get into the racket. Phd programs are paid quite a bit to develop these models. This is a Rube Goldberg type situation. If we can have something that goes in and rapidly buys or sells, there is a riskfree advantage. It is so esoteric that not even their own bosses can understand it let alone the head of the Justice Department or your congressman from middle america. Host our guest is moving from a bloomberg to a radio show called full disclosure. It will debut at the end of the month. This is from sacramento. How does this affect the price of the transaction . Guest it really doesnt. This has helped individual investors. People used to think it was a great deal to pay a 30 commission. They are now paying three dollar commissions in large part because of the firms that come in. They are having to push down their costs. Caller good morning. I am very interested in the subject. I am an mba student. This is extremely dangerous. It has outsourced the role of the floor trader. There are massive orders coming in on a computer line. Wall street has outsourced another sector of employees. They have replaced them by computerized trading. The ramifications of what this could mean if there is another crash, this is all gone. There are few brokers that are executing trades. They are all computerized trades. I would like to hear what the speaker has to say about this. I look forward to seeing your radio show. I like to hear your comments about elimination of employees for the sake of increasing profit like Everything Else in this country. Thank you so much. Guest i think it is tempting to cause and effect these situations. The extinction of the floor trader and the takeover of these on a medtronic robots, there is an inevitability. It is more efficient to match an ocean of orders with computers. This is the same way that people rely on internet communication much more than they do the u. S. Postal service right now or telegrams. A lot of the stuff was going to go away he for we had highfrequency trading. Having said that, there is Something Like a flash crash. It puts in sharp relief how important it is to have human eyes and ears there. When the system is down, you need to have human beings be able to go out and exercise judgment and put a halt on the orders. We should use our eyes and ears to sense what is going wrong and disable that and get trading done in an efficient way. That is why youre never going to see the full end of the floor trader. You are going to see computerization of trading happened. It has happened the world over. It made it possible for us to sell and buy shares afterhours on overseas exchanges. There is always going to be a need for a human touch. They will never fully put those guys out of business. Host the real scandal is the use of intelligence to trade in markets. This is from peter in england just wondering if highfrequency trading could be turned into a benefit for a country by transforming it into a weapon of Economic Warfare . Guest the extent that the systems are being computerized you talk about the system overall becoming a lot more fragile. If that is attacked by cyber terrorists or an external force to figures out how to throw the big Monkey Wrench into it, that could cause an economic panic. Host our topic is wall street and the new book by Michael Lewis. Caller my question is to the reporter. Do you think this is a problem of National Security . There is a gap between a quality and daily lives of citizens that dont have jobs and put their pensions into these wall street firms. We are the people who get hurt. We lose our pensions. We lose our 401 k s. While you and the rest of you guys get all the benefits and inside and you wont do justice to report on it. You should not be butting up to the wall street people. You cant even be able to tell us. Guest if i worked for those guys i would not be wearing a blazer like this. I understand the indignation. We are coming off a. Of record job loss. We have uneven results coming out. The rich have benefited disproportionally. The wealthier people have this proportionally been involved in these things more. I disagree with the idea that this is a buddy up, cozy up situation. I think markets still work. I think i am and in and ask fund. By professors are in index funds. My professors are in and next funds. We dont flash trade or day trade. We dont get too euphoric when everybody is excited. We dont get despondent when everybody is throwing babies out with the bathwater. I think you are going to do well over time. With dividends and everything you can double your money every 10 years. That is a long time. If people were diversified they would have done well. They would have stuck with it. Dont let your indignation and the conspiracy theorizing yet so much of the best of you that you forget that in the end this is a steady wins the race game. Host i want to encourage our viewers to conduct watch the interview we conducted with Michael Lewis yesterday. It is on cspan. Com. What kind of impact do you think this book will have . Guest and well get people interested in wall street again. We are in an information economy. Capital markets the fiveyear anniversary of the crash of 2008 has come and gone. If regular disk and get ahead of the next scam if regulators can get ahead of the next scam, that might be irresistible to some lawmakers. Host roben farzad has written for bloomberg businessweek. He is now moving to radio. The program is titled full disclosure. Figure for being with us. We are going to take a thank you for being with us. We are going to take a break. Imichael e. Ohanlon will be joining us. He is from the brookings institute. This weekend on book tv, we will travel to bend, oregon. We will look at the work of a local photographer. Here is a preview. A few hours ride we came upon upstream in the middle of the forest. This proved to be the fall river. It was 200 feet wide. The water was clear and frequently deep. We went along the river. Its banks were lined with rock. Whenever traveled through a river that was so abounding. Every place we came in the neighborhood of the river we could hear the roaring of the falls. As you look at this, you can see that down below what he is talking about. Lets see how it feels. I do really think it is changed any since he was here. This is the first big picture. It is cold. We can be at the place that he was a hundred and 70 years ago. Host we hope you tune into cspan 24 book tv and American History tv. We are traveling around the country. This week we look at the history and literary life of band, oregon. All the programs can be seen online at cspan. Org. Michael e. Ohanlon is a seniors senior fellow at the brookings institute. Us talk about the voting in afghanistan. It is gone smoothly. Guest it looks good. There is a long way to go. As you are aware you have to get 50 of the vote in afghanistan to win. There will be a runoff almost for sure. The rate candidates who ran. Chances are nobody got more than 35 or 40 . There will have to be a runoff. Whoever does not make the runoff will have to decide how they want to react to that. Do they blame fraud . Do they protest . There is a long way to go in the process. It appears to have been a very good day. The Security Forces protected the polling sites very well. The people show their bravery and defied the taliban. You have to celebrate the moment. Host this is an opinion piece the yuko wrote about the elections. It summarizes what happened yesterday and how things will happen moving forward. You say each of the three candidates would be a plausible president or plausible firstround loser. Each would be more comfortable with the west van karzai van karzai. Than karzai. Guest he had been the king of afghanistans personal physician. The third is wellknown here. Hes to work in washington for the world bank. He was the finance minister and moved back after the fall of the taliban. They are all familiar with the west. Even visitors like myself have had the chance to get to know all three of them. That part is promising. They all want American Forces to stay. They know they need help. They are less caught up in some of the backandforth that president karzai has had with the Obama White House. Theyre going to have their challenges. On balance, it is a promising top three. Host cnn is reporting a very heavy security presence. Despite the threat by the taliban, that did not deter people from voting. The fingers were dipped in purple ink. We did see some of the violence with the death of the photographer that was killed on friday. Guest there have been some highprofile assassinations in the weeks. They figured out that al qaeda did not get support when they bombed schools. Of the taliban has gone after high profile legal targets. That is who they have wanted to strike at. They hope that would create a climate of fear. It is oldfashioned terrorism. Find one or two things to get attention and create the sense of gloom and doom and despair. Drive people out of the country and try to convince the International Community that the project will not work. They had some limited success along the way. The Afghan People said we are not buying that strategy. We are going to vote. Host this is the cover story of Time Magazine. These women want to vote and the taliban wants to stop them. What america leaves behind. Guest i dont agree with the title. The taliban has not returned. They are despised by most of the people. They are not in control of any of the population centers. The title is wrong. There are fears of their return. There are pockets of the country where they are present. The notion that they are on the way back is demonstrably wrong and not good journalism. It suggests a climate of fear that we dont want to falsely contribute to. That is a kind of headline that is tempting to put on a magazine. I dont see a basis for it. Host this is also a photograph from inside the article. The u. S. Military has taken a step back. The Afghan Military has taken the lead in the election security. Guest that is right. The last time around, there were a lot of attacks on election day. With the american and nato forces in the lead. This year there seems to be 150 attacks and they were very unsuccessful. Violence was prevented and deterred. There was enough checkpoint manning and searching that they could not get in position to carry out what they wanted to. This is a violent country. I am not trying to sound overly optimistic. Yesterday was a good day and an impressive day and the Afghan People deserve to hear our complements for what they pulled off. Host what does this mean for 30,000 troops in afghanistan . All three president s have said that they would sign this agreement that would keep u. S. Troops in afghanistan beyond 2014. Guest the afghans are doing 95 of the patrolling and checkpoint manning and fighting. That is why our casualties are lower. We need 10,000 and during troops. Air support, they dont have an air force. We are behind on that. Certain kinds of intelligence support and longrange reconnaissance and striking with f16s or drones on targets that are farther away. They cant quite fully do this on their own yet. It will take two or three years. We are talking about an exciting president ial election. It is also creating anxiety. This is a big year of transition. Karzai has to step down. You dont want the anxiety compounded by pulling all of our forces out. They are counting on us to stay. We can do a lot less than we have been and we already are. Are forces are down by two thirds. I think we will have to stay there for a few more years. Host have we mishandled a relationship with president karzai . Guest that is the next one question. I think we have mishandled a fair amount of it. The Obama Administration has gotten most of the decisions right. They have been resolute and forthright. They were willing to stay. President obama talked about ending the war but he has done it responsibly and slowly. I want to give them a lot of credit on the policy front. The personal backs and forth with president karzai have been counterproductive. Karzai deserves two thirds of the blame. He was challenged in public that would produce reactions that we would make things worse. That has been a big mistake. Host the bbc is reporting that out of 12 million registered voters, 7 million him cap 7 million cast ballots. Guest we expected a heavy turnout. I wouldve been happy with a moderate turnout. There was such a climate of uncertainty and fear. That is why i pushed back hard against the Time Magazine article. So far the government is doing a nice job of holding onto the big cities. There might be enough for a where the war is most intense. Turnout might not greatly exceed 2010. Im happy to be wrong. Host you say that a peaceful transition to a new president looked on as legitimate is essential for several reasons. It secures the future of stability. It maintains support for afghanistan and in the congress. It does not again become a base of terrorism against the United States like we saw in the 1980s. Guest a successful election does not make a successful country. We still need to see them have a runoff. They need to come around a new president. The new needs to form a team that will be inclusive and then he needs to do a good job improving government. They have a huge corruption problem, we have a lot of undevelopment in afghanistan so this is just a good election day. Good election days in places like iraq in 2005, or egypt ended up not being the harbingers of happy days ahead. So there is a long way still to go for this to be legitimate. They will be a enough fraud in this, even if this is done in much less time and this is largely identified and corrected by independent afghan commissions, there will be enough fraud that there will be some uncertainty about who should have been elected president once we get into the second round. That means that whoever loses is going to have a big choice about what he does at that moment. Does he cry foul and decide that he has a reason to call his followers into mass protest what is he except this result as imperfect but perhaps this is as good as we are going to get and then hopefully the winner will try to include the loser in some way in government, there is talk of strengthening the role of the Prime Minister position and maybe the loser could take that role or have some other position in the government. There will be a long way to go to create legitimacy. It will not just come from the good election day. Host when is the second round and will president karzai step down . Guest he will step down when there is new president. We will get preliminary results this month and early second round month early second round results next may and then they will take them out to the remote villages, and the Afghan Forces will take and the take them to the cities and so forth with a second round in june and then another good month, month and a half to certify that and maybe you get a declared winner of the election sometime during the summer in late july or early august and then you set up the transition process by the end of august sometime in september is the most likely inauguration. Host Michael Ohanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution here in washington dc. Our phone lines are open and we will get to your calls in just a moment. You can send us your tweets or an email at journal cspan. Org. Joining us from New Hampshire caller good morning. One question, are women allowed to vote during the voting process . And is there fear for the people that voted, with the taliban possibly, for creating richer fusion for those who voted . Guest great questions. First, women voted. And going back to the last elections, they voted then. With what percentage of the total vote was women, this is 2030 , similar to the numbers of the student population. We are seeing Movement Towards equality. This is certainly going in the right direction and women certainly voted. In terms of fear, yes, there was fear, but 7 Million People voted anyway, and they voted knowing full well they would have to dip their fingers into different kinds of ink, one of which in two different kinds of ink, one of which would allow the taliban to see who voted, but people are still willing to take the risk of their own personal safety being put at risk because they believed so much in the democratic process. However this turns out and recognizing the imperfections, i would give a big complement to the Afghan People for their bravery and commitment to democracy. This tweet from john kerry, who said the upcoming election in afghanistan is afghan owned and afghan led, a proud moment for the people and their history. That is well said by the secretary and he has been admirable, very effective in afghanistan even as a senator. Building a kind of relationship with president karzai that we have too little of, maintaining the ability to have respectful but still amicable disagreements at times. But still be able to work through a lot of tough issues. Secretary kerry has been helpful on this issue. Host we want to thank kim gamel from joining us, from the associated press. Joining us from kabul. We appreciate you being with us. Guest thank you. Host give us a sense of how things unfolded yesterday. What would you see around the streets of kabul and the rest of afghanistan . Guest the excitement was palpable and there was a clear difference from 2009. People actually wanted to vote and they were standing in line and it was raining outside. They were standing in the mud. Of men and women. Not just at polling stations but some of them were. There were hundreds of people wanting to have their say, and the difference is that people were actually choosing the president. That made a big difference on the streets of kabul and other cities. I will say in some areas especially, obviously areas controlled by the taliban, i would say the majority of the areas, turnout was high. Host as you talked afghan residents, how significantly do they view this vote yesterday . Guest they felt it was significant, they really felt like this was a historic vote. They were knowledgeable of the threat of the violence. There have been highprofile attacks in recent weeks particularly in kabul there was a rise in violence but still we saw the record turnout. We dont have figures show that we know that more than 7 Million People voted. Afghanistan we only have enough to make a census since 2001, so we think that there are only 13 million eligible voters but the turnout was high. Host i have Michael Ohanlon who will weigh in as well. He may be earlier point that the fact that this vote even happened made it significant. Guest thats right. A lot of people give president karzai credit for that. He has earned their faith in recent months. He is voluntarily stepping down, which is a huge achievement and afghanistan. There is a history of installed leaders, with taliban rule at monarchy. Host guest i agree. Resident karzai, we put him on a pedestal in 2002 and decided he would be the man in afghanistan. We did not help them build a strong army but we gave them a lot of money. We gave him more lords to make the country we get the money to buy off warlords to keep the Country Stable but then we call this corruption. The american views on karzai have changed more than karzai himself. He is a leader whose time has come and gone, he has had some accomplishments but it is good he is stepping down. He has done some good things and one more thing with letting the election process unfold, he has also cap and ethnic cohesion in the country, he has had a mixed ticket of Vice President and cabinet officials and governors representing not just the group where he comes from, but also hazara and uzbek, but this is one nation, for all of the stresses. I am not here to lionize him too much, but remember for all of his flaws he has done some good things and he has some strengths. Host let me ask you about the voting itself. How was this done, did they use paper ballots and when will the final vote tally be available . Guest this is interesting, they use paper ballots. One ballot for president , and one for the proconsuls. The voters came in and showed their id cards, they had to have Voter Registration cards. They get their finger in the ink, which the International Officials have described as almost dangerous. They also dipped their finger in other ink so it would be visible with ultraviolet rays. They went to the voting booth which was mostly cardboard. They marked their ballots and then they came out and put their ballots in a box. Everyone was excited, everyone who voted was excited, waving their inkstained fingers. The results are questionable, we thought that there would be partial results today, but now the Officials Say this is not the case because these are being transported and then the result tallies these are being taken in kabul. Some candidates are giving estimates. Abdullah is claiming a High Percentage of the vote, based on the result tallies at individual stations. But for full results of this will be at least one week or so. Host final question for you the Washington Post and others say the u. S. Military is invisible with voting today on that front what is the military able to do and what have they done . Guest they are staying in the background but they were involved. Many were involved in this is a big weakness with the iraqis. They are involved with the arab power. Somewhere at the boxes and some of the central headquarters in kabul and some in the more remote provinces. The remote countries and the provinces, but you did not see u. S. Troops out there yesterday. The u. S. Was on standby. I talked to a couple of generals, and they said that the afghans have them and the airpower was also on standby attack helicopters and warplanes. I have not heard if they had to use them, that i have had no reports that they did. Host kim gamel is the Afghan Bureau chief or the associate press. Nike for being with us. She joins us from kabul. We continue our conversation with Michael Ohanlon from the Brookings Institution. We go to larry joining us on the republican line. Caller mr. Hanlon, with all due respect, personal outrage does not trump physics nor does it knowledge and the evidence that they tore down Building Seven on 9 11. Host this is a different topic and we move on to jesse in michigan. Caller good morning. Good morning. I have heard of different characters in afghanistan in afghanistan, i want to ask what is what is so special about afghanistan, all these wars going on. Host thank you, jesse, we will get a response. Why afghanistan . Guest there have been a lot of conflicts in afghanistan and in the 19th century, we talked about the great game with the british and russian empires colliding in afghanistan and standing up for their own country and pushing out these foreign powers. But in terms of the modern era it does begin with the soviet invasion. The soviets tried to install a true communist government, in the late 1970s, so the outside world again intervened in afghanistan. We decided we had to oppose that hartley for the good of the Afghan People, but also for our own interests. We wanted to stop the soviets before they moved farther south into iran. We gave a lot of arms to the Afghan Resistance fighters, and once the soviets were driven out, we said, we are done. We left afghanistan to our own to their own devices. There is no government in power, and we did not care. This was the end of the cold war, the First Bush Administration and we kept our hands off. This was a bit of a mistake on our part, as well as in strategic terms because the minute we they compost something that we wanted, we left them to their own devices. Later on, the chickens came home to roost. That was the front in which the 9 11 attacks were planned. At this point you can say this is becoming ancient history and al qaeda has bigger sanctuaries in pakistan or iraq or syria today, so why do we even care. That is the simple answer and i would like to keep it that way that afghanistan no longer has al qaeda sanctuaries still to be true. I would like to preserve that a combo spent by giving the afghans enough strength so that they can hold together their own country. The good news is we are just about their and they show that yesterday, doing 95 of the work yet again. They are doing 95 of the work and taking 95 of the casualties of all Coalition Forces and yesterday, they were the ones securing the polling places. We are well on our way to an exit strategy. Host the Defense Department reported in march, no casualties in afghanistan. Guest no american for tallies and that is the first time in six or seven years. That really proves that things are Getting Better for us but the war remains intense between the taliban and the afghans. Let me not be confusing, but im so optimistic i want to poohpoh oh the threat. The police are taking casualties at 400 per month based on the latest data. They are fighting hard and losing a lot of people. But they can recruit offering jobs people need and afghans are willing to fight for their country. Host how is the afghan economy and what is being done to improve it . Guest the main concern is not to slide into recession. What we have to worry about as we have been pumping in a lot of money to prop up proper Property Values and building roads and schools and Health Clinics and this has led to a higher standard of living for the Afghan People over the last decade. But now we are reducing and the hard thing now is how to avoid the afghan economy slipping into recession in the short or medium term, as the amount of external stimulus declines. This is inevitable and also has a positive silver lining, which is less corruption. There will be less of our money flowing into a country they cant really absorb it. I am willing to see this experiment, but it will lead to a shortterm, flat economy within afghanistan for a couple of years. Host this is online and distributed through the l. A. Times, what to expect when results come in. You say that, when results are given when complaints about fraud are voiced by the camps of liver fails in the first round we should not jump to conclusions or declare the afghan project a failure. We should see if we can go to them let me say one moral one more word about them. They have members who are appointed by the president people are worried about how resident karzai has tried to influence the membership or their approach. But the last time around they took their jobs seriously. I was an election observer in 2009 and 2010. We are not the ones that threw out one million ballots that were deemed ultimately to be fraudulent. It was the afghans themselves who found that fraud, and took remedy. And they will do it again, i am fairly optimistic. We have to see how that plays out. We fully worry about how much fraud that there was, or how this should be addressed, we have to give these independent electoral commissions in afghanistan time to do things like check and see if every single vote in a given place was made with the same kind of handwritten mark, that is the indicator that there was cheating. They have the power to throw away all of those ballots, and that is what they did last time, and that is what i think they will be trying to do in the coming weeks as necessary. Host kevin denver said, how will the afghans continue their support without dollars from the u. S. . Guest they will need some dollars. We have been spending 100 million 100 billion in afghanistan, both on ourselves and the afghan Security Forces, we will continue to spend need to continue to spend 2 billion or 3 billion per year to help support the afghan police. This is less than 100 billion but this is a lot and will make them one of the top recipients in the world for the next few years. I think the price will pay because they have shown they are willing to fight and die for their country but they dont have money yet. And if we want to keep doing that we will have to allow other International Donors to provide much of the money for for that effort. Host congressman ed royce issued a statement over the weekend saying that the elections percent a fresh start for the Afghan People, and he also says, the karzai government was a case study in how not to Win International support. Guest again we talked about how this was partly a u. S. Problem as well. He said, for example, in 2009 the elections, president karzai, everyone in afghanistan knew that he was going to win or was extremely likely to win a second term. Richard holbrook, working on behalf of the Obama Administration tried to get other people to run against president karzai. There was a reason for that because they wanted to see a vigorous afghan democracy, but there was the position that we really wanted to see president karzai defeated. Robert gates, in his book, basically said as much. They wanted to send somebody to defeat karzai because they did not want him. But those kinds of disagreements, when they are aired in public, such as in esther gates and his otherwise fine book, are memorable in afghanistan. They read our press. We have public disagreements with the afghan president , it is something that contributes to a negative relationship. I will not put all of this on mr. Karzai. He has made some big mistakes and failed to rein in the corruption including from his own family, but we contributed as well and we need a fresh start. Host we have this tweet, from the pottery barn theory, we broke it so we have to pay to fix it. Guest we broke it and we broke it in the 1980s for strategic reasons. The soviets broke it, they invaded afghanistan. The outside world came in and messed with afghan politics in a big way. And then we defeated the soviets working with the mujahedin to essentially bleed them out. It turned afghanistan into their vietnam. And then we washed our hands of the whole thing and we did not care. Between the superpowers have their confrontation during the cold war, and what followed, the country was ripped apart. The larger extent the outside world owes the afghans, even on moral grounds. This was also done on strategic grounds. Al qaeda had a sanctuary in this country from which they planned the 9 11 attacks and from which they would continue to operate. And they could come back if the Afghan Government is not able to hold onto power. Host our guest is a graduate of new york and princeton university, and the author of bending history. Neither is our wars or sanctuary on the Crimean Peninsula guest close enough. I had the great honor of doing one of these with an afghan woman, i have been about one dozen books but on this i did one of them. She was one of the great reformers who moved back to afghanistan after 9 11. She started to go back before. And those pockets of the country that were not held by the taliban since she has moved back. That is a case study and there are a lot of afghans like that. This is an admirable people and an inspiring group. I am proud of what they did yesterday. Host our guest is a senior fellow at brookings, you can get his readings online, and his twitter handle is michaelbo hanlon. Don joines us from mccann, illinois. Thank you. Caller how big of a factor is opium production in this election . Guest i dont think it is a factor in the election but it is a factor in afghanistan. In general. Afghanistan, despite our efforts is still the biggest poppy seed producer in the world, taking over two thirds of poppy production and in the parts of the south and in parts of the south that is a major fund for the taliban and other criminal networks. It is a big part of the economy, especially in south afghanistan and that is why the taliban has maintained sources of revenue and kept themselves going. It is in that sense that it factors into afghanistans future. I do not think it was an issue yesterday, i dont know of any suspicions that the major candidates were on a drug cartel payroll, but i think it is still fueling the sense of lawlessness in the country and contributing to the resources that the taliban can employ to attack the government. As hopeful as i am for their future, the taliban will probably wish they were in these rural areas and in the south opium helps them maintain the coffers to carry out their attacks. Host before his work in academia and brookings, he was an analyst for the congressional budget office. Ryan joins us from ohio, the republican line. Caller i am definitely happy with the way that things went yesterday in afghanistan to walk around with that purple stain on your finger is a big deal. They show that anyway. What i am curious about is what we have been doing in iraq is kind of the same thing breaking something and leaving it and i have heard stories about how things are not going quite as well, there is a report on this now. I want to know how they are doing over there by your opinion. There are elections and everything. That is on the other side of this coin, i think. Anyway i want to know your opinion on that. Guest there was more violence over the weekend in iraq. This is a related question and i had a chance to talk to president karzai about this and he was persuaded that because we pulled out in a rack and things began to go downhill, this is all the more reason that we are desperate to stay in afghanistan, so he has leverage over us because as a superpower we must we must want a base in his country. I think he is mistaken to see that we are desperate for bases in afghanistan to help afghanistan stabilize their own government and into occasionally do an attack over the border into pakistan if we see an al qaeda target. But with a rack going downhill iraq going downhill, and with us being partially successful in afghanistan, and also al qaeda has the way to move from one place to another. When you talk about the al qaeda sanctuary, it is pakistan, afghanistan, airaq and yemen. I am glad that president obama slow down our departure from iraq and at the parliament had give most legal means to stay longer that i think we probably made them safe in being out of there. The iraqis made the decision on their own and we have to think about iraq syria, pakistan afghanistan and yemen. Al qaeda will look for opportunities to have new sanctuaries to carry out attacks and this is an ongoing struggle against this movement. Host our next caller is from grove city, democrats line, bill. Caller i have a couple of questions for mr. Ohanlon. First i would like to make a brief statement. We have been there for many years, and it has done and been involved in tremendous destruction, lets give the people at chance to decide for themselves. The government wants us out, a sizable proportion of the population wants us out it has become absurd that we continue year after year after year, it is time that we leave afghanistan and let them find their own solution. Which they will. It may not be the solution that we want, it will be there solution. Guest with respect, we saw what we happened when we pulled out fast in the 1980s and the 1990s and the country fell apart. The afghans dont want that again. The overwhelming portion of afghans want us to stay. This was seen during the big National Meeting with all eight president ial candidates yesterday, they favor an ongoing american and International Presence because they know that they need the help. But i agree with the broader point, we can have our disagreements in the United States, but ultimately we should give the afghans a little bit of time to figure out what they want and we should not put too much pressure on them in the meantime to race to a decision this month or this week because they are still involved in a political transition. We need to continue this quietly, and have conversations quietly with the candidates so they can move fast when they are ready to make a decision. We have to have some base to stay beyond december or we will have to leave and if we leave there is a higher risk of the country collapsing. It would be nice to see a more rapid decision, but ultimately we have to make the let the afghans make the request. This country is important to both peoples, both the afghans and americans and they still need some modest amount of ongoing american help. Host Michael Ohanlon, you have written about the Crimean Peninsula. I want to talk about another topic. This is from the New York Times , chuck hagel is in japan. This ties in the crimean situation with new concerns in japan, americas long promised to support japan from hostile nations has suddenly come under the microscope, the american response to the russian takeover of crimea, which the president condemned while ruling out American Military action, has caused deep concerns among the already skittish japanese officials. Guest you know, i think i will give the Obama Administration some good credit. They had to strike a balance and you had to be firm in dealing with putin and what he has done but you also did not want to so overdo it that you created a complete rift between moscow and washington. You needed to show americans and asian allies and european allies, if he does this in a place we dont have an alliance with, like the ukraine and even if the russians think they have claim to this area, at some level, this kind of forcible annexation is not tolerable. But there is no point in disrupting our agreements with russia on other issues, trying to stop iran it was a very bad thing that he did, but it was not genocide, it was not a mass invasion. There were certain historical claims he could make even if he invented certain of the other ones. My point is, we have got to find a balance on how you respond in the case of crimea. It cannot be too much or too little peer they have done a nice job sanctioning some of the key putin cronies, making sure they pay the price. I think you explain that to our asian allies and they will understand we have been firm but we have also been balanced. We have been restrained. This is not world war iii and we should not treat it as such. The same principle should apply to their disputes where if the chinese were to carry out aggression as they sometimes have done, we need a firmer response, but we do not want general were over that either. The stakes are not worth it. We need to set we need to find that the stakes. Host from arkansas, good morning. Caller with all the money the u. S. Has pumped into afghanistan, will it request for afghan Natural Resources to pay their debt . I appreciate your time. Thank you. Guest good question. The afghans do have a lot of minerals. The question is, who was willing to develop them, who is willing to put their own Mining Companies into what is still a moderately dangerous lace and develop those resources over time. I would welcome any Major Mining Company from any Major Company doing this. The chinese have done a little but have been slow about it. Most countries do not see this as a great investment. Afghanistan needs some companies to want to come in and do joint Development Projects because there is not another basis of revenue besides produce. I hope american and canadian and russian and chinese Mining Companies move and because afghans themselves need it. Host any speculation what president karzai does next . Guest a lot of it will depend. Lets say the most likely outcome will be either dr. Winning. It depends a lot which one wins. He worked for karzai recently and they have an ok relationship. Pretty good. They both say good things about each other in private. They have been strong adversaries over the years although they also Work Together for a while. They try to maintain a workable relationship. I do not think we will see a situation where abdullah would kick karzai out of the country as some leaders do in that part of the world when their predecessor is no longer in office and cannot protect himself with the trappings of power. That will be a more complicated relationship. In that case it is not as obvious to me karzai will have a big future role. One thing he might do, maybe president karzai at that point could be the leader of the process, a traditional mechanism by which afghans come together to come up with ideas for the future, and then interject those into the political process with karzai helping to shepherd the ideas from the annual meeting into the parliament into the president ial office. It is one more idea. He has got international stature. A lot of countries still have respect for him. He could be some type of u. N. Ambassador rice. It is an important question. Part of why he is willing to step down and not try to orchestrate a change to the constitution that would allow him to remain is because he has some hope of playing future role and i have to give him credit. A very flawed presidency in many ways but on the election process itself so far i am modestly encouraged. We will conclude on that note. Look at the elections in afghanistan and what is next for the United States. Research director at the Brookings Institution and author or coauthor on a number of books focused on foreign policy. We appreciate you being with us. When we come back, we will turn to your comments about the Senate Voting tomorrow on job benefits. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] host if you are currently out of work or a discouraged worker, you can dialin we will check in with nancy. On todays sunday tv talk shows, some of the topics include congress and the 2015 budget, the shooting at fort hood, the Supreme Courts decision on Campaign Finance and foreign affairs. You can hear rebroadcast on cspan radio. Todays guest includes robert weissman, president of the public citizen, and mike mullen. At 1 00, it is this week with the democratic senator on the recall and representative john carter a texas republican. At 2 00 p. M. , Fox News Sunday with the chairman of the house Homeland Security Committee Virginia senator, and Michael Hayden, former director of the cia. The cnn state of the union follows at 3 00 p. M. Eastern with nancy pelosi, mike rogers, and that committees ranking democrat. Another appearance by the republican congressman. The talk shows are on cspan radio and brought to you as a Public Service by the rebroadcast again at noon eastern, meet the press at 1 00 2 00 p. M. , Fox News Sunday. Cnn state of the unit 4 00 eastern, face the nation from cvs. Into them all on cspan radio. Across the country channel 120 download our free at app. It gets to me because i get to know these young men and women when i get out there. I want out of there as fast as anybody else and let the afghan death afghans fight their own fight. We cant get too hung up on the defense of the afghan politics. We have to keep a larger perspective that those who died did not die in vain and i said to anybody in 2001 that 10 years later, there would have been another attack on the nice eight, most of you would say you are wrong. It is because we didnt we did take towards al qaeda. If you stand back from the particulars, we are safer today than in 2001 and well on our way for crushing al qaeda and the jihadist. Overall, we have done a successful job with our military. As a vietnam it a vietnam vet will take your questions in depth live for three hours beginning at noon eastern today on booktv. Cspan, 435 years bringing Public Affairs events from washington directly to you putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and and conferences. Offering complete gaveltogavel coverage of the u. S. House. We are created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to you as a Public Service by your local cable or satellite provider. Watch us in hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. Washington journal continues. Host the Labor Department releasing jobless figures on friday. 6. 7 the number of americans currently out of work. An editorial this morning from the wall street journal. The decline of work, looking up at appointment ratio, stagnant even for americans of rhyme working age. Coming up at the top of the hour the chair of the president s council of economic advisers to take a look at the jobless numbers and also the economy. We want to get to your calls and comments as well about the Senate Taking up the jobless benefits tomorrow. 202 is the area code. The senate is expected to vote tomorrow to pass a bipartisan bill that will restore longterm Unemployment Benefits that were allowed to expire in december. All the attention is turned to the house where early indicators say the deal may be dead on arrival. What will House Republican still . Do . Both say the senate bill does not do enough to create new jobs. Heres is more from our conversation on the issue. Let me tell you why i think extending uninsured on employment insurance is a job creator. It is not just about providing a release, but people working very hard, but you have two real economic benefits. In the labor force, keeping people connected as the economy continues to recover, they will be there to get the job and that is good for the economy overall. Itself will boost the economy. Our own estimates have all said they add to growth and create jobs. I do not want to speculate. Two lease ago, most people would have told you this would not pass the senate. It now looks set to pass the senate with a real bipartisan vote. Knowing these new unemployment numbers, longterm unemployed is coming down. If you look at the numbers, is this because of the benefits in december . I have been looking at the numbers. I have not personally seen it there. We have generally seen pretty small moves in the survey in the last couple of months. What that tells you is that there are bigger forces going on in the economy, lowering the unemployment rate. The Participation Rate has stabilized over the past year. We are creating about 200,000 jobs. A month. Our conversation can be seen in its entirety at the top of the hour at 10 00 eastern time. Also on cspan radio. He is the chair of the White House Council of economic advisors. We go back to this Washington Post story, which indicates the Republican House is politically opportunistic. We have a line set aside for you if you are out of work as well. From new york, good morning. Caller good morning. I hope i can be as articulate as possible to express what i want to express. I am disheartened about practically everything taking place in the United States. In reference to the jobs and corporations to create the jobs, one thing i realized, years back, corporate welfare. Tax dollars by corporations through the government gargantuan in nature. Taking their jobs and their corporations out of the country. Those dollars that made that gargantuan from the taxpayers away from them. Host thank you for the call. For those of you currently out of work, one of our viewers says socialism equals stagnation. Low growth, high unemployment. Joining us out of work on and on the phone. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to comment on a couple of things. With the article tried to Janet Yellens statement that was in the wall street journal. Do you remember the article . And the fact the numbers were skewed and the fact the hours worked per hour and a number of jobs over time have been lost, and the whole scenario, where we have gone down where the numbers from seven percent to 6. 9, 6. 7 2. 5 million jobs, and the hours per week have gone down and the quality of the jobs has diminished with more Service Sector jobs. The amount earned per week has declined. Are you aware of that . Will you put it into the presentation today . Host we wanted to hear from you which is why we appreciate you phoned in. We go to the Washington Post, which you referred to. It says those longterm out of work has grown to 72,000 a week and they cut to payments of about one Million People in december and this potentially could impact approaching 3 million longterm out of work employees. This is tackling tapping into regular order. The role of Key Committee chairs you can read the story online. A joining us from virginia, how long have you been on out of work . Caller eight months. Host what is the job process what are the job prospects like at the moment . Caller very low. Everywhere i go, nothing at all. They keep telling me to call back and come back. Very low. Host what are your thoughts about the Senate Voting on it this week and its future in the house . Caller i have heard very little. I just called and to see what i can help with. I just heard the last moment of the conversation. Host before you were laid off what did you do . Caller an elevator mechanic. Host thank you for the call. Where the next president ial library will be located the chicago tribune, the obama library, hope for change speculation that potentially it could go to the university of chicago. President obama was once professor barack obama. Joining us from the independent line, good morning. Caller yes i was calling and i basically want to make some comments. I feel Like Congress is out of touch with working class people. Almost 25 of the people i know are out of work. I have been out of work since march of last year. I am on the verge of homelessness. I am a veteran and i fought for this country. It upsets me when people extend economic aid to anybody, any country in the world that has a problem. When our own people here, i am starving. They cut my food stamps and i do have a family. Host what is your message to congress and House Republicans . Caller to House Republicans, get in touch with the people. Stop the making this a political debate. Host thank you for your call. Let me go back to this over the weekend. Joining us from connecticut, republican line, good morning. Caller i wanted to make a couple of comments on the joblessness in this country. I think it has everything to do with part of it is the immigration. Illegal immigration. They should not be here. They should be deported. They are taking over jobs. If you need a job, citizenship should come first in america. I believe the trajectory of the country is socialism. There is no doubt. It is almost like the administration wanted to get to the point where people need no jobs. No climbing the ladder of mobility. Your leveled off. Everybodys equal. I am very much in the home and and opponents of president obama and the democratic administration. Host we have a tweet from one of our viewers saying how did immigration policy relate to longterm unemployed . Caller the more jobs taken away by immigration, and there are no skills in this country, people have to be trained for skills so they can work, not everybody is collegebound and immigration as far as i am concerned is a big debt on our economy, which takes away a big word in helping people who are citizens here. Whether it be through Unemployment Benefits, welfare whatever. As far as im concerned, immigration, the way they do it is very bad. Thank you so much. Host thank you for the call. The u. S. Reaches a milestone on lost jobs. Private employment hits a new high. Government hiring is lagging behind. Turning us on the phone, how long have you been out of work . Caller 45 weeks. Last week, my job search, i was unable to do so. They shut that down. My concern is with the voting for the election coming up in november, that we are going to get a whole bunch of figures that are incorrect because a lot of people are no longer being marked as being unemployed or employed. It is unsettling. I have a College Degree and i climbed trees and cut mistletoe out of them because im 63 years old and i can go climb a ladder. That is the only ladder i am given. Thank you for the call. The front page of the New York Times, something we focused on earlier this morning, the voting in afghanistan and the scene outside one polling place, below that is a piece about small advances in medical devices which could mean a big jump in bills. What that means for medical providers and insurance providers, including diabetes and new drugs. It helps to do with diabetes but also the cost of all of that. You could read the story online. Dave joins us from middletown, new jersey, independent line. Caller good morning cspan, the best channel on television. Good morning steve. It is a pleasure to talk to you again. I am a world war ii veteran and my generation created the largest middle class in the history of the world. The reason for that was because the American People, the corporations, the financial institutions, insurance companies, and elected representatives represent the American People. They did what was best for the American People. In my viewpoint, 90 of our elected representatives do not represent the people. They represent the special interests, their party, and themselves. In order for us to get out of our recession, which is almost a depression, what we have to do is get rid of the incumbents. What is happening in our country, and i heard the lady talking about immigrants and that is what is causing problems in our country, do you think any of the immigrants have good paying jobs that pay decently . Most of them work as laborers and construction. Theyre not getting paid the salary they deserve. If we could get the people to get back to work and raise the money they receive my youngest daughter has been out of work now for over a year. She is a very intelligent young lady, just like a lot of americans are. But she cannot find a job. The way it is set up today by the corporations, etc. , they give them the least they possibly can in order for them to go to work. It is unbelievable how many Young College graduates who low thousands of dollars upon graduation, and cannot find a decent job. Host what is your degree and . In . Caller social services. She was working for a long time until she was laid off but now she cannot find a job. She goes and goes. Host thank you very much. Were running short on time but we always appreciate hearing from you. One says hungry people would settle for a lower paying job an earthquake overnight in oklahoma and this morning, the front page of the Orange County register with renewed speculation about the possibility of an Even Stronger earthquake out west. The warning stuck on silent, anticipating an earthquake in southern california. The daily times has the situation in fort hood, a grim test of resilience. Also, a look at health care in hawaii, calling it a trailblazing system, underscoring the disparities in health care coverage. That story in the l. A. Times. That front page of the pittsburgh post, despite threats according to the l. A. Times about 7 million out of a registered 12 mina which voters cast their ballots yesterday in afghanistan. Joining us from maryland, good morning. Caller good morning. I am a democrat. These people keep dividing and spewing all of this claptrap about the immigrants are causing problems and average americans are causing problems. We keep on allowing them to get themselves a 16 raise and then they want to give workers raise the minimum wage to 10, but it will not take effect until 2017. In the meantime, gas and electric is going up. Gas is going up. By the time that takes effect it will not make a difference. Host thank you for the call. The Senate Taking up the vote tomorrow on extending benefits. The house debate on the budget here on cspan. One point from our interview with jason furman, you may not know he is also a semi professional juggler. We asked him about that. I can tell you it is difficult. It is showing up at your sons birthday party, deciding you will impress the children by juggling flaming torches, and not having practice with flaming torches in five years. The end result was a certain fraction of my lawn going up in flames. Host coming up next at 10 00 eastern time. Tomorrow morning, 7 00 a. M. Eastern time, 4 00 for those of you on the west coast. Charles wheelan will talk about the start of the centrist party in american politics. With the look at the debate over mortgage relief with a reporter from the wall street journal. That is all tomorrow morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern time here on cspan. Thank you for joining us for the sunday edition. I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great week ahead. Newsmakers with jason furman. They were involved with affected initiatives which is. Later, it the Ceo Mary Barra holding her own News Conference after her testimony. Joining us as jason furman. Thank you for being with us here on newsmakers. Joining me is Damian Paletta and james tankersley. Let me begin with the senate debate. John boehner says the senate bill does not do enough to create jobs and it is a dealbreaker for House Republican. Do think you a compromise . Let me tell you why i think extending Unemployment Insurance is a job creator. It is not just about providing relief for millions of people who are working really hard to find a job. It has two real