Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20151106

He is a freshman senator and he waited a full year before he gave his first speech. And his first speech in the senate was a critique of the institution and a critique of how congress operates. Here is a little. If i can be brutally honest for a moment, i am here every weekend and what i hear is the same thing you hear every weekend, which is some version of this. A pox on both your parties and all of your houses. We dont believe that politicians are even trying to solve the great problems that we face. The generational problems. Those of uslicans, who would claim that the new maturity is leading the way, see if people believe it. To thent sanders grand standards, few believe needs are as important to you as your own ambitions. To the democrats, few believe bareknuckle politics are a substitute for principles governing. And to the thousands on the , salivatinge left for these tactics. Why is that . Because we are not doing our job. We are not doing the primary here that people send us to do. We are not tackling the Great National problems that worry our families at home. Host heres a story about his maiden speech. It is putting the senate on notice, like an obedient child in victorian times. Things he has seen but not heard over the past 10 years. He started staking out the legislative identities. He waited a full year to come to the floor for his customary maiden speech. To a long since eroded tradition for new senators and preferring instead to be known for his quirky tweets on history, politics and cornhusker football. Host this article goes on to say that the premise of his argument is that the senate is unable to come to terms with what he identifies as the nations most pressing issues. Host here is a little bit more. In just a second we will show you more from the speech, but we want to use this maiden talk on the senate floor as the jump off point to talk about your ideas to fix congress. You can see the numbers on the screen. If you are a democrat, you can dial in at 202 7488000, republicans, 202 7488001. If your independent, 202 7488002. You can make a comment on facebook. Com\cspan and you can send an email. Here is a little bit more from him. Why does the senates character matter . Precisely because the senates bill to insulate us from shorttermism. That is the point of the senate. A place to avoid the bickering of 24 hour news sites. The senate is a place to focus on the biggest stuff. The senate was built to be the antidote to soundbites. Ive asked many of you what you think is wrong with the senate, with us. As with most struggling organizations, it is surprising how much agreement there is. There is so much common agreement about what is wrong the incessant fundraising, the ubiquity of cameras, everywhere that we talk. The mobilization of using senate fundraising,cises, the constant traveling, meaning that many families get ripped up. That is one of the things you hear about host. This is not to suggest that there is unit among you in these private conversations. Either versions is perhaps most pronounced in the question of what comes next. Whether permanent institutional decline is available is inevitable. I think the majority view, from my conversations, are pessimistic. Host what are your ideas . Democrats,000 is 202 7488001 is republicans, 202 7488002 for independence. Andre taking the speech using that as a jumpoff point for your ideas to fix congress. , posts that one of the biggest lost opportunities to fix congress is low voter turnout in primary elections. In hundreds of elections, the congressperson is chosen in the primary election with about 10 voter turnout. Most voters dont realize that by october, they are congressperson has already been selected. Skip says vote. And kirk says strip almighty washington of the political power they usurped from the people over the past century and return it to them. Into theshington sleepy backwater of the potomac it was meant to be. Brian post that the real problem is pete is people have are been in senate and congress for decades. These people are the real problem. We need term limits. Donald says burn it down and start over with real leaders, not businessmen looking to gain more wealth at americans expense. Line, what are your ideas . I havent called for quite a while while. I like to call when you are there. I am for young people. Can you hear me . Host we are listening, shirley. Caller this is going to be their future. I am for term limits. They have all of these perks, and most of them, that is what they go for. They want to make a career out of it. Of thet like the speaker house from ohio, i was glad when they sent him home. I vote one way or the other. I used to be a democrat, but i got away from thats when they turned into a socialist club. You cant give everybody everything and these young people know that. Are you calling for term limits . Caller yes. Yes i am. , iause i am 83 years old always call you just before my birthday. [laughter] and it is the young people i am worried about. The grandchildren and my greatgrandchildren. I have raised four children who were all in the military service , they dont treat the military right. And the one we have now i have to tell you, it is and in 2009 after the inauguration, i saw these clips in the newspaper in the back, and it said that it made bob gates mad. He said that he asked all the military for personal loyalty oaths written by each member of the service. You think i can find that clipping . I keep looking for it. But i havent found it. Our young people go over there and they die. That is another thing that makes me angry. All the stations want to tell themany i like oldfashioned. My husband was in world war ii and a lost a brotherinlaw in germany. They said loose lips sink ships. That is why we dont win nothing. Host all right. Ohio, happyely in birthday and thank you for calling in, it is nice to hear from you. Coming in next is bill, from massachusetts. How do you fix congress . Caller good morning and happy birthday shirley. Peter, that young lady is so right. Term limits are the only answer. There are folks out there saying that people will never put themselves out of a job. The way to go is, we need referendums. States, state the referendums,o have a vote on whether or not they can have term limits. We can open up the constitution and have a nationwide vote. Maybe even cspan could have a part in this. Up variouspened it shows for all 50 states, maybe three states at a time and have people from the state on the morning show talking about term would whether people vote for or against it. This is way we can do to open up the constitution and insert term limits. This was not supposed to be a lifetime job. We have too many people who were sold to too many companies. Are itorations who is of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations. Host thank you for calling in. Tweets in, remove the cameras. That will six congress more than any other change. Robert, a democrat . Caller yes, i am eight caller from massachusetts. Said that all politics are local. All you have to do is look at the local city town officials that theyll find out read district, they change things from place to place. These pharmacists if you go to Dunkin Donuts, it is one of the Biggest Companies in new england. If you go into young and donuts, you will never see a black person or american working in a Dunkin Donuts in massachusetts. Why we feel very sad when we see these people coming in this country. My kid cant get a job at Dunkin Donuts or mcdonalds. And i seeo home depot all of these people coming. Host tie that into fixing congress. How are you going to fix congress if you can fix your local city officials . They want to start local get a state job and then move the and then move up to be the president. They work their way up the ladder for one reason and that a salary. That was robert in massachusetts. Onterday there was a form bipartisanship. Leahys senator pat talking about that issue. Not enough leaders to work things out. That you arean always going to agree with the leader of your own party, but there are certain things that may seem formal with you can work it out. You can do a lot of things by consent. People have one or two who can disrupt that and get on the local news by doing it. We dont spend enough time developing personal relationships. When i came, we were in session five days a week. People werent out fundraising all the time. Your children would know each other and your children would know each other and that made a big difference. Everything everyone thinks that it is done on the floor but i the private meetings have a nice office in the capital and we have had meetings there. We just sit down and talk. Without having every single word recorded. You have to go back to those personal relationships. Politico this morning, speaker ryan says he is he says that the house will be so freewheeling under his direction that leaders might ring bills to the floor that will fail. Bills will come up that may not pass. We are not going to bottle up the process. Host don is in greenville, ohio on the independent line. What did you think of the speech . All, i think we havent had a great president or congress for 50 years. And that is a true shame. In that case, i think we need a third party, called we the people of the United States. Think wethat, then i can have term limits and Campaign Finance reform. Term limits and finance Campaign Reform is the only way we going to change this. The last time we voted for president , i think there was probably my different parties running. If we all get together and call the people of the United States, i think we could get this changed. A lot of people dont believe in that but i seriously think that this is the only way were going to get this changed. Host are you a tea party person . Caller not really. I dont really believe in what they are trying to prove that i think we do need a thirdparty now, more than ever. Because these people up there, they want to sit there and become multimillionaires, practically overnight. We have people out there who are facing tax evasion and insider trading. And Everything Else going on up there and they really arent paying any attention to what the people of the United States. Host we will leave it there. Clinton,to pray in pennsylvania. Go ahead. Caller good morning. First off, the way to change the senate is to go back to the simple majority, 51 votes. A 5050 side. We go back to the filibuster rule that you must stand there and talk. We need to shut it down somehow and there is nothing being done. People look at the whole congress and not looking their job. Right now it is the democrats doing what the republicans were doing. This is asked to stop. The republic that we are under, it doesnt work. This government is going down because of the simple process out there. People dont vote. I blame the people mainly. Do their job,ont at least on the republican side republicans being thrown out in the primaries and new ones coming in, they are trying to make changes. But people in the media, they want instant change. It isnt going to happen instantly. It takes decades to do this. When came in, he worked. You dont have that anymore. You have a simple solution is on one side, the democrats and you have the republicans who are controlled by the big money. In the primaries, that is where the real power is. You have to throw the old guys out of office in the primaries. That is happening. It will be fine if the process wasnt in. By the stupid rules of you have to have 60 votes. Who said . Say,hese bills appear and go ahead. Show us what you are male what youre made of. There is something wrong somewhere. If you want to participate, and our phone lines are jammed, you can also thereipate on facebook, is a lot of lively conversation going on there. You can also participate through twitter. Here are some tweaks that we are getting. A lot of different ideas. Jodi says that 140 characters cannot contain the amount of things that need to be instituted to make congress fly correctly. Take out the money. Jack says that Congress People cannot sleep in their offices. They need to spend defined duration in washington, d. C. Have terms robert, we limits, it is called the ballot box. Vote them out. To one more, the answer is ban all Political Parties and limit all caps aims to max six months, and of story. Fromt is calling in brooklyn, a democrat. I think the institution has to be changed structurally. That would mean rewriting the first articles of the constitution. To recompromise what needs to be scrapped because the house has become nothing but a monument to gerrymandering. I think it ought to be done away with. Things,eamlining because it goes a lot faster now and when the founders shaped the government. To improve things, we would have to have three senators from each state, instead of two. This way, everyone would understand that during each election cycle, everyone in the country would be voting for senator. Days, you are not voting for senator. Have a single house legislature, we would have to redraw some state lines. Because people deserve representation, real estate does not. Is absurd that wyoming gets as much reclamation representation in the senate. That was robert with some of his ideas on fixing congress. We are basing this discussion on the senators inaugural address in the senate. He is a republican from nebraska and he spoke this week in the first speech, he waited one year to do this. There is an npr story about his speech. Sees the senate as a midcareer challenge. Even in the senate where the average age has been dropping noticeably, his fresh face conveys youthfulness. Andlong with Paul Ryan Marco Rubio and ted cruz, they are part of a new generation suddenly taking over in the grand old party. Say in thiso article that he had an unusual path to the senate. He got a harvard undergraduate degree, also from st. Johns college and from yield college. From yale. He taught history and served as president to midland university, a small Lutheran College in alaska. The next call comes from mark in oregon. Get commerce out of congress. Corporatet have the influence upon the politicians, then you wont get those bills that they have been benefiting from, mostly corporations. Of wont have the debacle 2008 to the regulators would have been more and they would have been funded more. I congress. Ishink a lot of our problem money. I dont think the structure of congress or the legislative legislative branch is all that bad, but lately it has not been giving people a chance because congress is being taught out, just like people say. Money and special Interest Groups that is all i have to say. Thank you. Tweet, the only people watching and listening to these speeches are cspan junkies. It doesnt matter, he asks. Several dozen of his colleagues came down to the floor to watch his speech and as we mentioned earlier, and this video is Available Online of his maiden speech. It has been viewed several thousand times already. Says, how to fix congress, take out the money and term limits. Marie,ther tweet from how about we give power back to the states. Paul is in orlando. He is a republican. Morning peter, thank you for taking my call. If the petersons are watching, i hope the morning finds them well. I agree with shirley about term limits, and i agree with the gentleman who said to do away with the 60 vote rule. Lady, the tweet that you just read, that is really the key. Send more power back to the state. The statesar that are the laboratory of new ideas, well, they are. You thing that i just know, just as a normal, average american guy. That over theme last eight years, nothing gets done. Here he read has been the most corrupt and corrosive Senate Majority leader in my 56 years. Republicans controlling the senate and things still dont seem to move. Ronald reagan and tip oneill were opposites and they were able to wheel and deal. They were total opposites and they were able to wheel and deal. The democrats want 12 weeks paid parental leave, the republicans want to tax reform, i dont understand why Mitch Mcconnell and harry reid and nancy pelosi and paul ryan cant get together and say, what do you want . What are you prepared to give for it . And maybe that would fix things. I dont know. Think all of us can agree that things are a mess in washington, d. C. And i have a technical question im not sure if you know the answer. But i have always waited at least 30 days to call in and when i call, three things happen. I get a busy signal, or the phone rings and you as come in and give my little bit, or it rings and rings and rings and my phone gets dropped. For us wondering, washington journal junkies, if the phone system drops after a tain amount of rings or if doing something you may not approve of . [laughter] you for taking my call, i will be talking to you until after thanksgiving. I hope you have a great thanksgiving. Host youtube. Have a great thanksgiving. Aaron is on the phones this morning, if you get a busy signal, it is because all of the lines are built up. , youu do get picked up on have won the lottery. And the dropping of the phones, and not sure if it is our phone system or the phone company, if it rings 100 times and then they decide to drop it, i dont know. I dont know the answer to that one. Im sure somebody downstairs will help me along the way. Reid andioned senator senator reid spoke this week as well about the functioning of the senate, specifically members attending debates. Watch bobbeen here to dole run for president , i have watched john kerry, barack obama who am i missing . John mccain. Every one of those senators was extremelys every one of those senators was extremely respectful and talks about their enthusiasm for the work they did in the senate. They did not denigrate the senate in any way. Never said the senate is a worthless place to be. Marco rubio started denigrating the senate. I couldnt quite understand that. Im very disappointed in somebody who spent an early part of his life in the senate when he was elected to represent the people of florida. The people of florida are not getting what they voted for. They need a senator. Dan is calling in from exeter, New Hampshire, on our democrat line. What is your solution and is one needed to fix congress . Caller good morning. Two quick suggestions. One is to restore the earmarks and keep it specifically for civic projects. The house is unmanageable because they have nothing to corral their numbers. And two, which is maybe a little more radical, extend the house terms to four years. Nowadays with a twoyear election cycle every other year is an election year. The government one year to actually get legislation through. That is my comment. Thanks. Host since you are calling from New Hampshire, what has been your observation so far on the president ial race . Have you met any of the candidates . Have you gone to any of the events . Caller i went to a couple of rallies here in next are exeter. Host for who . Caller for bernie, a couple of the republicans came through, k kasich and Chris Christie. I am not impressed at all with the republican bench today. They are just like your colors today calling up with term limits and balanced budget amendment, simpleminded solutions that are unworkable. It seems like the whole Republican Party is trapped in this 1950s and 60s. Host that is dan index or, New Hampshire. Mark is in charleston on our independent line. Caller i hope i get as much time as paul because what i have to say is important. First of all, i dont believe that the American People have any idea how corrupt their government is. You simply have to go on any alternative news to find out just how corrupt. I would even go as far to say as the biggest reason nothing gets done in congress is simple. The rich has never had it so good. They dont want anything done. Right now they have the ability to make money hand over fist. Here is a perfect example. I believe it was cspan who had state r secretary of secretary of the interior and he explained how most of these regulations that all of these big corporations complain about, they actually pay or bribe lobbyists to congress to have these regulations put in place for the simple fact that it keeps little guys out. Caller he opposed an open primary. i no longer have the ability to vote in the primary unless i declare myself. It does not cost money and it gets rid of the republicans and the democrats. Haveprimary i would everybody, whoever wants to run for office submit your resume like a resident like a regular job. Behind that, have the fbi do a background check to attest test whether you presented your information as correct. Then put them on the ballot for anybody to vote. No money involved, just allow them to say im interested and this is the job im four. Open primary. Its a shame that i as an individual do not have the ability to go to the ballot box. I am deprived of that privilege simply because republicans and democrats want to keep their nest. It does not cost a dime and it eliminates gerrymandering. It is so simple. Im sorry to say that man wrote the book. It digg army . , he was a republican from texas. Not dick armey caller i dont remember his name. He put his book out but it makes so much sense. It eliminates money and gerrymandering and the parties and all the idea that anybody who wants to run can run. Whatever happened to having somebody competent and put their name and . St was it possibly ron paul . Caller no. I dont remember his name. Host some more tweets here are two more. And finally roberta in san diego, california, whats your take on this conversation . Commend mr. T off, i sack for having that time on the floor. I called his office because i keep a congressional handbook. I think people in this country should invest in one. He has told the truth about Social Security. I have a paper in my hand that i received in the mail 15 years ago from Social Security. It tells me that in the year 2014, we will be paying out more than we take in. At that point, shortly after 2034, people would receive 72 of their benefits. This has been going on for 15 years. What in the world have our people in congress been doing on both sides of the aisle . If i got that, they have to have known that as well. Also i would like to say that we dont have people that represent us. I have two senators in california. Never has bothered to come down and see the title the tunnel that has caused so many so much illegal immigration in this country. For 15 or 20 years, no one did anything about the border in san diego. We have problems in this whole country that california sat and did nothing about from gangs which started in Southern California and now are all over the country and we hear about every day and we see every day in the news. We have the illegal immigration problem which started in california and no one did anything about for years and years and years. Say california has been back to the federal government six different times to be bailed out. We know that word. Yet we dont say anything about it. Dianne feinstein has run for elections many times and refuses to debate someone who runs against her. I think this kind of stuff is disgraceful. I dont think it should be allowed and i think its time the American Public actually starts learning about whats going on all over this country. Kathy from michigan, democrats line. Caller good morning. Think we should have to go in and fix anything. We hired them to work. I think i should learn their jobs and do the job they are hired to do. I go into work down at the hospital down the road and then i substitute teach and no one has to give me any direction area if i dont do the job, i will lose my job. Understand why we have to hold her hand. Their hand. I am appalled at the way this country is. Ist is really getting to me this low minimum wage of 7. 25 per hour which grosses 290 per week. You cannot begin to live on that. Yet they are making what are they making . They are probably making 12 times what a minimumwage worker would make and they want people to what . That theyd tell them are not doing the right thing . If they dont know that, then they should not be holding office. Ire intelligent level dont know how they can do the job. That is a simple mathematical problem. Im very displeased. From finally, well hear kermit in round hill, virginia, independent. Caller i am more optimistic than most. I think most of the calls seem to because medic. Seem to be cosmetic. The gerrymandering has caused the problems in the house. That will make obama look good in that part of the problem. I think it will return to normalcy once he is out of the white house. Rug may sweep it under the but it is the racial part of this problem. Functionongress will later on. The problem is the house. The gerrymandering created a problem there. They will not pass anything. I think that is not a total disaster. Congress will return sooner or later. Host i thank everybody for calling in. Unfortunately, we are out of time but i appreciate the interesting conversation. We based our entire conversation senators maiden speech in the senate, the republican from nebraska. The speech is available at c span. Org. You will probably get several different videos. Maiden speech and that will narrow it down. He gave that speech this week. There is a lot of ink this morning on your local news about the new book out on george h w bush. This is the Washington Post article this book androte hes the of the executive Vice President random house has written several biographies on president s including jackson and jefferson and now this new one. Ut on a 41 or george h. W. Bush there is a lot of ink about the disagreements between potentially the father, the son, and how this may affect the brother in his president ial run. On sunday, book tv which is our companion network, is taping an interview with john meacham, the author of this new book area he will be interviewed by george w. Bush down at the bush center in dallas. That is being taped on sunday and we will hear that next weekend on book tv. This weekend, you will be able to see senator sharon brown, democrat of ohio, interviewing ben bernanke you, the former fed reserve chair. That is something that coming up. Book tv is every weekend with 48 hours of Nonfiction Authors and books on cspan to enter other companion network is American History tv. That is cspan three every weekend. 48 hours of American History on cspan three every weekend. We are on cspan and we still have a couple of hours to go on the washington journal. Coming up, we will talk about the transportation bill that has been passed by the house and the one thats been passed by the senate and the future of transportation and federal funds. After that, we will bring on gary kasparov, former world chess champion who has written a book about russia and Vladimir Putin. Then we will talk about the october employment figures later on in the show. Thats whats coming up. All persons having business before the Honorable Supreme Court of the United States should give their attention. Koramatsu opposed forced internment of japanese americans during world war ii. After convict that you after being convicted, he took his case all the way to the screen court. This week on landmark cases, we will discuss the historic Supreme Court case. The attack on pearl harbor, president Franklin Roosevelt issued an Evacuation Order sending 120,000 people of japanese origin who lived close to military installations to internment camps throughout the u. S. Of the is a recreation barracks. They were 20 feet wide and 120 feet long and divided into six different rooms. Ceilings or have the masonite on the floor. It was freezing even in the daytime. The only heating they would have had would have been a potbelly stove. Able told not have been heat the entire room in a comfortable way. Challenging the evacuation su divide theoremat order and was arrested in this case wanted Supreme Court. Find out how the court ruled in view of the war powers of congress with our guest, peter atns, author of justice war. , executiveormatsu and daughter of the plaintiff. We will discuss the u. S. Policies during world war ii when we will follow his life before, during, and after the court decision. Thats coming up on the next atdmark cases, live monday 9 00 eastern on cspan, cspan three, and cspan radio. For background on each case, order your copy of the landmark cases companion work for 8. 95 plus shipping at cspan. Org landmark cases. Washington journal continues. joining us now is joan lowy who is a transportation reporter for the associated press. There has been activity in congress with regard to transportation funding. When we stand now . the house yesterday passed a bill that would fund would authorize spending for transportation for another six years. It only funds it for about three years. Host why did they do it that way . They cannot find the money and even some of the money they have to pay for it is questionable. So right now, the house is passed a transportation bill. For six years. Funding for three years. What has the senate done . Guest the senate has done essentially the same thing. The house and the senate are working fairly close together on this. They are in communication and the republican staff in both bodies. The bills are very similar. Bills whichbig cover a lot of transportation policy. There would be a lot of details to work out between the two as they go to conference. Is a great deal of similarity between the bills. Host how much money are we talking about . Guest the house bill authorizes 325 billion over three years. Aboutnate bill is roughly 350 billion. For six years. It sounds like so much but really, its just the amount of money we are already spending adjusted for inflation in the house bill. It is kind of a status quote. Bill, it does the same thing and adds maybe a little bit more money each year. Its a small increase each year. In the meantime, the secretary of transportation, anthony foxx, has told us to deal with their aging roads, bridges, highways we have to spend at least 400 billion over that amount of time just to prevent things from getting worse. Host we will put the phone numbers of you want to participate in our conversation about the u. S. Transportation needs. The numbers are at the bottom of your screen. With regard to the house bill and the senate bill, where does the bulk of that 320 billion go . Guest most of that money goes to states and transit agencies. Thats in the form of their annual aid payments. To do all kinds of construction projects. And work. Host how much are the states contributing to their own roads . Guest well, the states contribute a lot. The amounts they get from the federal government, it depends on the state. The share that the federal government provides is less than half, sometimes fairly small, but they put in a lot of their own money. In other states, it can be up to 80 . In terms ofmoney the overall money they spend. Have aates like wyoming lot of roads. They are a big state in terms of length but they dont have a lot of people to spread the cost of those roads over. They really rely on federal aid. Host lets take your home state of new jersey as an example. What is the breakdown . Guest i dont know new jersey. I handle all 50 states but i think new jersey is one of the ones that puts in a little bit more. The 320 5 does billion in the house bill and 350 billion in the senate bill come from . Guest the highway trust on the supported by federal gas and diesel tax. Its 18. 4 cents per gallon. Cents for diesel tax and they had been providing the bulk of the money for decades for transportation. Spending. But they are not keeping up because they have not been increased and more than 20 years. Between thea gap revenues that can into the Highway Trust Fund and what we are annually spending on transportation. The debate in the house is pretty freewheeling with many amendments . Speaker ryans first foray into how he will handle things in the house. He has promised his rankandfile that things will be a lot more open. They allowed a lot of amendments to it was not a totally open process. There were more than 100 amendments debated. On. Of those were voted but certain more controversial amendments were not permitted. Host such as . Guest like raising the gas tax. There is a proposal to index the gas tax to inflation. Changeas a proposal to the way we tax corporations that park their profits overseas and use that money for transportation. The leadership clearly did not want to deal with those issues. When does the highway funding run out . Guest things are ok right now. I shouldnt say that. The authority to spend transportation money runs out on november 20. The actual money in the trust fund looks like it is good through fixed through next year in. States that are working on projects, do they have to stop on over 20 if the bill doesnt get to be president and get signed . No. T its more that the Department Transportation will no longer be able to process aid payments because congress has given them authority to do that beyond that point. It is complicated. But i dont think it is any question that congress will do something by then. In order to prevent shutdown in aid. Nobody wants to see that. And they always have the votes for that. But the question is, can they resolve their differences in congress and get a final bill to the president then . That is the goal. Lets start with kathy in ohio. Hi. Caller thanks for taking my call. Can your guests tell me if there is any anything in the bill right now to build land bridges for wildlife to safely cross highways . And if there isnt, does she know how regular people can try to push to happen . Host are there is the types of things that are funded in the transportation bill . Guest i know that it has been funded in the past, but i dont know if it is still funded. Usually that is through the federal highway administration, it is a strahl amount it is a small amount of money overall. There is some funding in a bill for transportation alternatives and maybe that might fall under there. That is something that has been criticized by a number of republicans in congress who feel it is not a true transportation and therefore shouldnt be in the bill. Of course, a lot of other people do support that. Host when you look at the thread to 25 from the house and the three into 50 million three into 50 million from the senate, how much of that goes towards fixing roads, as opposed to landscaping . I know there was a debate in the house about that, and maybe mass transit issues . Guest in terms of highways versus mass transit, there has for a rough division of 80 surface roadways and 20 on the transit. So that is that. The money for what you call decorative stuff is fairly small and it sounds like landscaping. What that is,of it is when you build a highway and you have over the dirt on the side of the roads, it is just to plants that so you dont mode washing down on the highway. That is most of what that is. Host the next call comes from margin in wisconsin, a republican. Caller good morning cspan. Two quick questions. Thefirst one in terms of percentage, this is a lot of money we are talking about. Tot percentage goes administration and overhead and the second question is, during the actual construction projects, are these all jobs . Guest i can answer the second question, all of these are prevailing wage jobs in terms of projects that are funded by the government. Terms of whether they are i forget the first part of the question. Cost isw much of the administrative . Guest i dont know the answer to that question. I havent heard anybody explain that. I dont know how much is administrative cost. All familiarwe are with, this is from breeze would, pennsylvania. Everyone going to the west goes through here. Caller yes, they do. Bye again i am calling imocratic congressman follow my congressmans bills tentatively and unfortunately i havent in able to read through and in previous bills, almost a third of the funding went to mass transit and there 12 another a percentile and of the previous bill that went into canals. And that went into funding for dredging for harbors. Have youis, we want to spend our highly money. Moreve more cars driving miles and spending a percentage of our hardearned income on the gas tax. Some of our major cities, people dont even own cars. The third of the people who live in manhattan dont own a car but we pay our tax dollars to fund the buses, dollars and the mass transit. Trucks a huge amount of that rolled through the middle of the country which take federal funding to keep the interstates open. We should increase the tax on the trucking industry. It would alleviate the stress on on the canals, roads and bridges. If you look into the highway bill, you will find that we operate we pay to operate canals. Thingss a huge amount of that are the funds are being diverted into pet projects. Diverted into individual things. Amtrak out offor the transportation bill, that is used from philadelphia to boston, that is 30 population, it is only used by a small amount of people and it is taking gas. Host since you seem knowledgeable about this, what do you do . Do you work in the tradition industry . Actually, i ran against bill once. I supported to other candidates that i do Opposition Research a little bit. Host why do you have to get off the highway to get onto another od . Hway in breeze wo caller as i said before, that was a creation of father. He was the highway transportation before him. And to our three local representatives of the turnpike corporation who own businesses here. They were able to use their influence on the turnpike commission. The 2002f you look at transportation bill, they drop a big map of the interstates and the highways. Are 200 19 that was supposed to be completed years ago and it will not let the connected because of another highway connecting the i81 corridor down they want everything to funnel through there. Host all right, that is john. He has run against bill shuster. He was talking about the world the ruralurban mix. Is some truth to that. Is a incorrect that there third of the money going to transit, it has never been that high. But it is 20 and i think in the itt transportation bill might have gotten a little bit above 20 . In the metropolitan area like washington, there are a lot of highwayso drive on the and subsidize transit, but they because if you had all of those people on transit getting off transit onto the highways, it would be a real mess. Ruralant speak for drivers. Host so bill shuster and peter defazio, what is there in direction . This is a bipartisan vote. Guest yes, it was unusual. When this bill passed in the committee, it passed on the vote, and to have a major bill , there are a lot of controversial issues and to have , itassed on a voice vote was very unusual. There was a lot of praising the republicans by democrats saying that, we are so glad that you opened up the process and let us have some say in this bill. Of course, they knowledge that it would be the bill they would have written. Host philip, we are talking about transportation funding and issues. Yes, i would like to know what percentage of the money that is collected is spent bridges andplacing roads. The number i come up with is 27 . The rest of it goes to the small landscapingcts like and they only copy a few million extra dollars. Guest i dont have a specific number but i dont believe that is correct. I think the share of the funding related but these not actually highway projects is fairly small. 80 that goes the to the transportation. And some Service Transportation can be related. I dont think it is dredging it is fixing roads that come out of the ports. They theyre that can be used for alternative projects and i dont think it is a large amount. The figureyou say that you came up with is 27 , how did you come up with that figure . Caller you go sit in front of as a goodter, reporter would do, and take the figures out of the numbers that are published in the government register. System, ise highway the national highway system finished . Adding moree always highways to the national highway system. But every year, a few more highways get designated. Now are rebuilding the national highway system . No. It has been built for a long time. Every year, there is some part where they want to take a state thatthat is getting a part is getting more traffic and added to the national highway system. That increases the number of miles that are designated. We are not out there with a campaign. Has beenthe money that authorized by the house of the senate, does it go towards maintenance . Does he go towards new asphalt and concrete . Guest well, it is up to the state to decide. They get the money and they can decide whether they want to use it on maintenance or new products. There are parts of money that are dedicated to new projects. Example, the bill that just passed in the house, we dedicate 4. 5 million a year to projects interstates and large highways that are critical to moving goods. And that was one of the key features of this bill. Be this money would not maintenance so much as expanding capacity and getting rid of bottlenecks, that sort of thing. There are current programs that Fund Projects of national significance. Projects that would alleviate or make a big difference with the way people travel. Exporthat does the import bank have to do with trepidation . Guest it is in it. That is all it has to do with transportation. It is a vehicle that lawmakers decided to use to get the renewal of the exportimport bank, but he doesnt have anything to do with the rest of the bill. Congress split on tapping fed or banks. The Banking Industry scored a surprise victory on thursday with the house voting to pay for part of a new highway bill by trading a Rainy Day Fund rather rather than cutting. Guest there was a proposal in the senate bill that was also in the house to cut the dividend rates and the Banking Industry really didnt want to do it. So there was an amendment to voted in the wee hours of the of the morning that would eliminate that asset. Anotheras replaced with , it would drain the magic pot of money that nobody ever had gone before. There are a lot of people who think that maybe this magic pot of money isnt a real pot of money, so that remains to be seen. Host calling in from franklin, new jersey. Hello. Caller good morning. It seems to me that some of these bridges are privately by the Port Authority. There is a lot of money that seems to be going missing from the Port Authority that has nothing to do with the gas tax but they are still taking it from the gas tax to support this losing thing. They have to do something about that, dont you think that would be smart . Authority isrt of a public agency. It is run by the state of new york and new jersey. All of the facilities are public facilities. That they can use federal funds in some way through their state. Ridge, illinois of the republican line, good morning. Caller good morning. Two quick points. Service transportation is vital to this country. I like to see the shift towards service. It is the trains and the trucks that are keeping our country glued together. We congratulate our countries railroads for hiring these veterans. I think it is important and vital that the hub and spoke system from a crosscountry, we need to shift and focus. One heavy rail train removes one enter 50 trucks off the nations highways. But i dont see the emphasis on heavy rail, i would like to see that. Thank you for taking my call. Well, i dont know that there is not an emphasis on heavy rail. More freightilding rail. Did he mean like subway systems . It is very expensive. In terms of the overall bill, there was a provision the night 100 thatst, more than were debated on the floor, that veteranssomething with and make more jobs available. I believe it was accepted to the bill. From john is calling in indiana. Go ahead. Caller thank you for answering your call. More and more electric cars on the highway and they dont have to pay gas rate taxes and i dont feel like that is there. At howbody ever looked they are going to tax the people who owned electric cars, so they pay their fair share . Guest more and more states are looking at that and that is one of the questions that congress and the ministration are trying to grapple with. They are not doing it in this bill. But they are trying to look longterm and see if there is an alternative and Sustainable Way other than fuel taxes, partly because of what you just said. The nation is moving more and more to words fuelefficient some of which dont use gasoline at all. So there is a growing discrepancy between what some users pay and what other users pay. One would be to play a travel tax versus a gasoline tax. None of these things are simple. Solution,ry to find a the solution often has a problem too. And people object to a miles traveled tax, they worry it will interact with privacy and they worry about the ways will be administered. Some of those views may be unfounded but there is no consensus on that. What happens if november 20 passes, the current authorization for transportation funding, and no new bill has been assigned . Guest i think before then or at the last minute, congress will pass another extension. They will say here is a little more time. They have passed short extensions this last time, for the authority to spend the trust fund. Because they wanted to keep the pressure on. To gets it is hard them to do anything until they absolutely have to. They are trying to put the pressure on and get the bill through congress and their dealing with this issue. The last bill ran out in 2009 and they were struggling to find an ford even before that struggling to find a new half forward. It is really hard to find the money. So no rewrites for the transportation issues . We have two more segments coming up. Gary will be out here, the former world chess champion. He is a native of russia and the author of this book, winter is coming. It is a book about Vladimir Putin. Thesome of the issues that nation is spending. Look at the employment picture in the u. S. We will be right back. Every weekend, the cspan Network Features programs on politics. Nonfiction books. And American History. As we commemorate veterans day, saturday starting at 11 00, American History will be live from the National World War Ii Museum in new orleans. We will go back 70 years to the worlds to the wars end. Starting this week and every sunday morning at 10 00, our new program, wrote to the white house, rewind. It takes a look at asked president ial campaigns. This sunday, we will feature Ronald Reagans announcement and on cspan, saturday night at of0, the legalization marijuana debate in colorado and other states around the country. On saturday night at 6 30, our road to the white house coverage continues with Martin Omalley who will speak at a rally in New Hampshire. Starting atn two, 4 00, it is the boston book festival, featuring author presentations, including jennifer stern. And james woods and his book, the near thing to life, on the connection between fictional look writing and nonfiction. And then a discussion with the former first lady on her book, in this together. About her journey with multiple sclerosis. Get our complete schedule on cspan. Org. Washington journal continues. Is then your screen former world chess champion and the author of the book, winter is coming. What is your history . Your history with Vladimir Putin . Guest i have never met putin. This man has been destroying the who is, he is a dictator quite desperate to stay in power. Searchinge has been for enemies outside of russia as well as enemies inside the country. Inevitable, history wishes to recycle. But i have been saying that Vladimir Putin was a russian problem for a long time and he will eventually be everyones problem. The plans now that are spreading way beyond our borders. He has been elected and democratic elections and the other high Approval Rating . Guest lets look at these things. Lets go back to the year 2000. In 20002004,tion they had thousands of real actions. It was not fair at all. In 2012, when he returned to power, but of course, he never left power. It was just a charade. And i have always said that in russia, we are not trying to win elections, were just trying to have elections because it is putins russia. Register at Political Party without his debates, you can have and the elections were rigged. And he has never participated in a single debate. And everybody understands now in russia and outside of russia, elections in russia are not going to change anything. Propaganda it is a democratic institution. Book, you write that his russia is the biggest and most dangerous threat facing the world today. Guest absolutely. Host so mitt romney got it right in 2012 . Right but it is something you have to understand you should look at the true nature of his regime. Obama hasy president attacked this conflict and romney defended. Putin controls, that is a very important fact. And of course he is a militant throw tot russia can the global stage and putin is a dictator in the final stage of his role, which means that he needs conflict. He is quite good at creating conflict. Requires energy. The economy doesnt offer an excuse. No one expects the russian economy to get better or worse, that is why putin has present andpublic with this concept this is his great, invincible and a manof russia who can defy the free world. Host we are going to put the numbers up on the screen. His book is about the soviet union and Vladimir Putin. Up onl put the numbers the screen. If you are a democrat, 202 7488000. If you are a republican, 202 7488001. And if you are an independent, 202 7488002. Guest you just said soviet union. [laughter] host i apologize. Guest it is freudian. Putin has been trying to resurrect that. His action in 2000 was to restore the soviet union. Host lets go back to your book, the soviet union existed in 2001 in 1991. What was Vladimir Putin like in that time . When the wall came down . He appeared in moscow as the head of the kgb in 1998, before, he was the right hand and i was in st. Petersburg in 1996, a few months before the election. Recall seeing putin there. He probably waited for his moment. When quite surprised brought him in and gave him power. Tourat he did in his first doe realized that he could things inside russia and also use russian resources. Jumped and putin had a lot of money in his hands. Host the soviet system did a benefit you growing up, becoming the chess champion . Absolutely. As someone who grew up in the soviet union and was a chess prodigy, i enjoyed the privilege of support and opportunity to work with my great predecessors. Talent, youstrated could enjoy this process. Chess was a very important ideological tool to demonstrate stability of the regime. Like what was your life growing up in the system . Did you have a privileged life . I got tos, because travel the globe. My first trip aboard was in 1976. It had a big impact on me because they could start to see the difference, but my privileges were connected to my successes. So as long as i could werestrate that my skills better than other players, i. Ecame the challenger but when i prompted to the world champion, i was taken. Because as much as the soviet system like its players to and protect the lori, the soviet officials didnt like that this small outpost was at this stage, challenging. So i did have plenty of problems of my own. There were several moments where i divide in 1985, i gave an interview for a magazine that i did give a playboy interview. I talked about america and the free world. Was the first soviet athlete to the soviet flag. I have the russian flag next to me at the table. Host you ran for president. Guest you are misleading or audience. Youing for audience think you have a super pac, you campaign, all you did in russia, it was me and a friend, a colleague, you demonstrate that the political system under Vladimir Putin did not allow anybody outside of the system to participate in the democratic process. Want to get your reaction to this video we are going to show from 2001. You will recognize what it is. Will ask a question, i will look the man in the. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul, the man committed to his country, who has the best interests of his country at his heart. And i appreciate that. There was no diplomatic chitchat , trying to throw each other off balance. It was just straightforward dialogue. It is the beginning of a constructive relationship. I wouldnt have invited him to my ranch if i didnt trust him. Huge time for the kgb. My Immediate Reaction was for george w. Bush, not to look him in his eyes. Once kgb, always kgb. This remark see from the u. S. President , it demonstrated that Vladimir Putin created thed and foundation for a political corporation. And his propaganda has been using i have to give him credit, they did it well, presenting the confession and also with the democratic leaders, the peak was 2006 where Vladimir Putin was a chair of a meeting with all of the readers of the free world. Which you could dismiss claims from people like me, claiming he was a dictator. For the russians it was, there was no choice but to believe. You have all of the leaders who just excepted him as a member of this most procedures democratic club. Picture putin had the to his credential and that was andhe solidified his power deflected the criticism and attempts to bring russia back to the democratic royal. Has it become a personality . You will see the pictures. Guest absolutely. Because that is what a dictator needs. Debates, it is about the strength. The strength that he radiates to the public. The Propaganda Machine knows this. And they have created the image. F a strong man every appearance is well prepared and well measured. So the russian public has a understandingty how strong is or how weak he is. As vladimirted putin, the great. I can remind viewers about his recent trip to the General Assembly of the united nations, he met with barack obama and the reluctant handshake. I bet he had been practicing for hours in front of the mirror for that image of the television. Beast in the belly of the and the next day, a russian plane bombed the american that is a show of power. How can you challenge a dictator who is not afraid to show how influential. Someone tries to shake his hand and show corporation. Host this article is from this morning, public support for prudent drowns out critics. It mentions the crash in egypt. Others began to insinuate that the government could never be trusted to tell the truth. If the bomb theory was proved, Vladimir Putin would have to the state authority to explain that this had nothing to andith the Syrian Campaign yet the critics appear to be far outnumbered by those who back him. Know whatin, we dont the russians really think you because thely think propaganda control the airwaves and very few russians are listening to alternative sources of information. Believe that when we talk about the tragedy in egyptian skies, it is called stockholm syndrome. For many russians, i can share you want toon, connect the tragedy, if it was a bomb it is a long investigation ahead of us and im not sure i know the but iions of the plane could believe that it was a technical problem. But now it looks more like it was a bomb. It basically recognizes that everybody is now defenseless against the threat which is not terrorismn, but it is which can go anywhere. I think the public is quite scared but also, for many years they have believed and they were told by the Propaganda Machine, that putin could solve all the problems. Yes, maybe we were in trouble, but they have been so skillful in that. Host stephen, you are on. Caller thank you for taking my call. I want to express my condolences to the people of st. Petersburg, apparently they were flying back from the Sinai Peninsula in this terrible accident. Surprised that vladimir react. Idnt ,is lack of real human sympathy this is shocking. What is your take on this . How do you think this will play out politically . Vladimir putin has proved toimes before that begin with, war and the bombings and the crisis, with hostages 2002. In the terrible tragedies. 330situation with the People Killed after Russian Troops stormed the building. And what we know is that after every crisis and tragedy, he always took his time to prepare the measure of response. I think this was unexpected. To put outhe managed a statement that could reflect his policies. Right now, i dont think that russian government is clear that it is a bomb. But if you read the russian there you can see that were any connections to the attack, the egyptian authorities and they have the interest of deflecting this. A terrorist attack could 8 could be a massive blow to Vladimir Putin. It could also be a blow to the egyptian authorities because it will be a blow to them. What about the plane crash over the ukraine . It was shot down . Guest it was a russian missile. The only question is if it was in the hands of russian terrorists. Most likely, it was done by a russian crew. It is a very complicated system. It isnt something you can use from your shoulder. It is a system that is used with professionals to handle with experience and from my information that ive gathered, it seems that it was a russian crew and why they made this mistake, that remains to be seen. But im doubtful. Im doubtful the crime was committed by russian terrorists. Host bill is calling in on the republican line. Go ahead, bill. Caller good morning gentlemen. Rt a lot. Can learn a lot about russia, a lot more than you are learning from listening to this guy. Putin is adimir strong leader. I think most of the world thinks he is a strong leader. He appears to have solved the problem in syria. Negotiating and using diplomacy. At the last hour when they had chemical weapons and they were going to use them on their own people. And that did turn out to be false. Why yoully dont see keep calling him a dictator. It is troubling to me. Host a response . Guest we can start with the definition of a dictatorship. It is someone who shows no intention of sharing power and cooling absolutely. Here because of the rt poisoning. Host russian today . Guest yes, it is the best financed television in the world. Russia has and expose problems with cash. It keeps spending more money on military and on propaganda. With the system, they are great beneficiaries. It will deftly not give you a good picture of the world because you will become a hostage of putins views of what is happening in russia and outside of russia. Thatue against the claims ssad has not used chemical weapons against his people, im sure he has. Of putins engagement, russia plays a steady Islamic State with american backed rebels and killing hundreds of innocent civilians and at least 100,000 more refugees now leaving syria, creating more problems in turkey and in europe , thus helping him in the situation. He has a way to insert his powers. Host we will play another piece of video. This is president obama talking about Vladimir Putin. If you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops there in ally to prop up your only then we have a different definition of leadership. My definition would be leaving , mobilizinghange the entire community to make sure that iran doesnt get a nuclear weapon. And with respect to the middle east, we have a coalition. That russia arguing strategy will not work. My point is not that he is leading, but that he is challenging your leadership. He has involved himself in that situation. Can you imagine anything significant happening in syria without his involvement . That was true before. Keep in mind that for the last five years, they have provided arms and financing, as of the iranians. And they havent had troops on the ground . And that wasnt an indication of strength. Is thathat i can see putin is sending his jets and ,ow military personnel to syria and obama keeps sending john kerry, he is calling the shots. Vision now is ablaze. And that is what putin needs because he has to try to do everything he can to push up oil prices. At 50, even keeping it there, that will avoid a budget collapse, until two years time. Why he will look for every opportunity to involve other countries in the region, and he is not attacking the Islamic State now because he hopes that he will eventually start conversation with the saudis. They hope to blow up saudi arabia and Push Oil Prices up. And lets not forget, there is another state nearby. Israel could be neutral in this they are there and they need the competition again to justify their existence. And if putin doesnt do this he will be in the region in iran to do the job. The next call comes from george in for genia. Good morning. Thank you for cspan. A great tool for democracy. A question, what do you see as soviet intentions in the caribbean . We see that with a ship called the cuba. They have reactivated the listening posts. We see them extending the influence and cooperation in venezuela and bolivia. What do you think . What is he up to in this part of the world . I dont know that you can say he has specific plans. But putin has the looking for every opportunity to extend his , he has working relations with cuba because he has written the debt. Cuba as a strong russian ally. There are other countries in the continent who live left his government that putin could allies eventually in a new coalition to defy the United States. Remember,important to this is important for domestic purposes. It has been demonstrated that he wasibility powerful enough to challenge the free world and he could keep up his image of a strong man in russia. Wonderful tweets into you, have the russian people learned that a free society is not easy to sustain . Are they willing to abandon it for return to old ways . Guest it takes time. Unfortunately, in the 1990s, when there was power from the dictatorship in the democracy, russians could only see the benefit of the free society, because the economy was in a terrible shape. And there were those who thought the democracy had a dramatic rise. That was a shock. So that is why when Vladimir Putin took over, suddenly, things looked much better. It was a way of restoring the balance. And even though the elections were not free and fair, they happen. We could see a steady improvement of our conditions. That it will take Major Political defeat of Vladimir Putin for the russian people to understand that the result of him running the country for over 50 years was disastrous. When opportunist rebuilds the researcher of trillions of dollars not in our country. In my first year of an activist, i often said that lujan that putin was a russian problem for russia to solve but he would soon be a regional problem and then a global problem if his ambitions were toward. This regrettable transformation has come to pass and lives are being lost because of it. It is cold comfort to be told, you were right. It is even less comforting when so little is being done to halt putins aggression now. What is the point of saying you should have listened and acted, when you still arent listening or acting . Guest i think were still dealing with the last 45 years in this town in washington, d. C. Russia, after the cold war and the collapse of berlin, it was no longer a substantial threat. , itsomehow, with relations has been built into an ally. You know, itd start in the 1990s when america was in a powerful position and it could help russia to avoid many problems. There were problems on the international stage. Few people remember when the in 1995. President the United States congress wanted to impose sanctions and cut Financial Aid to russia. Is sweptunately it away. And we have a reaction to putin. What bothers me and what i am asking for a response when you read my book is a debate. A bipartisan debate about it. It is not about russia, it is about the world. The end of the cold war, if up until the beginning of the 1990s, all american administrations across, democrats and republicans, they could have differences. But there was an understanding. Then after 1991, you could see one site to another. Them doma has let nothing and i think that is a problem. And i hope it ends with this president ial election. Hopefully it will go back to the way it was. Times, ithe new york was said about winter is coming is that the real problem is whether it is presumption that the United States is somehow responsible for what russia has become. Or for what it should become. Guest without saying the fact and was an economist anyone can google them and see what he has to say. You could see this as a there is political left and political right in this country. We need more Global Security and the United States, whether they they are thet, most powerful country that could be in a leading position or could stay away and walk away. Away in todays globalized world, it is not going to work. Everything that is global. Trade, finances unfortunately, terrorism. Because all of the beautiful tools we are using, they are [indiscernible] and pretending that with this world, it in this case, the United States could stay away to rely on to giant oceans protect america against terrorists, it is ignorant to the realities of the world. And unfortunately in the case of , there were many moments when the United States could to preventis power the deterioration. The republicafter of georgia, we know it was part of putins plan, the United States grounded russia. [indiscernible] clear symbol that he could do whatever you wanted and [indiscernible] next step ins ukraine was the calculation that nobody would argue that he was a master of the universe. Host the next question comes from j in north carolina. Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Russian investigators have made atputins personal wealth 40 billion. Criminal, if he was a he answered, no doubt on that. To answer howim putin acquired this huge wealth. I will take my answer off the air. Guest i think you are operating with very old news. I believe it is now way above 40 billion. Today, we are regulating anyone in then human race and it is all connected to him staying in power. At 1 trillion if you look the russian budget and the only got fortunes. Most of them are connected to him and oh him everything they have made. To evade taxes in russia. So part of this money is absolutely a case of a dictatorship. He is allpowerful and megarich. He is staying in power. Is inwalking away and it the case of him, it is [indiscernible] you write about the corporate entities and you are and they are essentially apologists for the putin regime. Guest the fact is that corporations are above human domestic repressions in dictatorships . It is not news. These days, im reading a book called collaborations. So for years, there were titles and censorship. Are propaganda to support them. Unfortunately, it is the reality. It is a red line, written by the government, so what can be done and what should be done. And those economic tools or weapons, they have been used against russia, and they are not helping the the way they could and the United States could impose resanctions on russia. So, we will send a message. Stop trying to engage him. Do you recognize that following putins policies, they are jeopardizing their own interests. Again, i would like to see the strategy. I would like people to understand that the problem is he always takes delays and concessions and weaknesses as imitations. ,m a member at his inaugural john kennedy said that we do not dare tempt our force with weakness. Morning,tunately, this that is very actual these days. Host john is calling in from pennsylvania. Good morning. Caller good morning. Pleasure speaking to you, i have been aware of your existence, you have been on the world stage for quite some time. Andinitially, it was chess then it was politics. And i think you have a misperception about the united , there was an amorphous amount of hostility that our elites have four putin and russia. Treating him contemptuously and and areng his strength now doing the opposite. Fearful that he is going to invade nato, but if i could, i have a couple of comments and a question. If i could, you have to go back the era, he was an alcoholic and a disaster. That is when they grabbed the assets of the country and the ethnic russian grandmothers were begging in the streets. And they had their billions. Appointed putin and he came he change the situation. Obviously, it took time. But in the United States, it with our foreign policy, we would include the middle east. Quite frankly, those are the only associations i have seen of you, as being affiliated with the neoconservatives with the United States. Neoconservatives promoted and encouraged and got involved. Ofhave lost trillions dollars, host anything you want to respond to . Guest you can look at the list today and see that there are and dozens of billionaires almost all of them are connected to putin. Information, you can go back and check the year 2000 when he left office, there wasnt a single on the list. You can look at the emails of the economy and you can read my book. About thelling you , it is highlycy political. But yes, there is a feeble foundation for the future change. Corruption was a problem. Corruption is the system. Amhout the United States, i you need to read more about your own history. Nixon, kennedy, the first televised debates. The of defending democracy and opposing communism, it was rightly served to the great man of harry truman , who was a democrat and did a tremendous job of saving hundreds of millions of people from soviet expansionism. It is not an agenda of one thing or another, it is from far left to far right. To bring america back home ignoring the most important comfort zone in planning and at the same time making this tremendous profit and dont understand the laws of physics which apply to geopolitical as well. Easte case of the middle he retired in 2005 to lead the pro democracy opposition. He ran for president of russia in 2008, and 20,012, he was chairman of the human rights foundation. Books written a couple of , how life imitates chess. Chess has been published in 26 hisages and his news book winter is coming greg is calling in, high greg. Guest i dont know if you can read russian or not, but you get questionable pleasure reading what the leadership has been saying over the years. Basically, they put the interests instead of promoting true interest. Host last call from damascus, maryland. [indiscernible] a couple of years ago on frontline they put on a which said heutin brutalized his way to power. Also, they talked about his accumulation of his great wealth. I am under if you can talk about that. And what do c as the future for russia at this point . Guest i took the i talked about his wealth. He has an enormous amount of money, more than any other person. It is all connected to staying in power. Ofhas hundreds of billions dollars. He controls the russian budget and directly the fortunes of many. We dont expect putin to just walk away at this point. Unfortunately, i dont have a good Weather Forecast for you. Russia will experience great turbulence. Im not excluding the possibility that eventually the country could be cap side capsized. From china, radical inns radical islam in the south. The country is under a dictatorship. The moment he goes and it will happen eventually if it , assuming itre happens, the better the chances that russia will not collapse. Power and succeeded he has created a political desert. What kind of creatures can survive in this very dry desert. Scorpions, putin has been destroying the country for so many years. I hope the class will happen soon enough. Victor tweets, what if russia implodes if putin over extends . It is inevitable. Its not the soviet union. Demographics,t russia cannot afford the same expansionist policies. Russia this is a big threat. The problem is, putin does not care. He stays in power and that is all that matters for him. He wants to buy more time for staying in power. That is not a definition of dictatorship. Question. Have you challenged ibm watson to a match question mark if not, do you plan to . Guest watson doesnt play chess. Accomplishment and unlike big blue it is a software project. With 256 power processors, 1. 5 million positions per second. I have succeeded and maximize algorithmimizing the for the power process or project. Far as i know, it doesnt play chess and i also dont play chess. I am offering my advice to young players. I am working to promote chess through the foundation in this country and other continents. My active role as a chess player and did 12 years ago. Host in february 2013. It is a very painful experience. That was not my first choice. I did it after receiving an invitation from Russian Investigative Committee to show about someell them of the political activities, rallies. They were about to launch this massive investigation that ended with political trials. Colleague, he advised me not to come back. Handle itould is very painful i left the country and my mother, who is still there. The former deputy prime minister, at one point the successor. And to proud to leave and to follow his own advice. He was gunned down in front of of themlin last february issue. It was tragic. Russia, you are former deputy prime minister, you will payger the ultimate price. Host jobs added in october, 270 1000. This is done by the bureau of labor statistics every month. In just a minute, we will have a commissioner here along with a reporter from the wall street journal to talk about employment and get a big will at some of the numbers. I have learned that you can do anything you want to. They asked me if the first lady should get paid, i have to do what a first lady is supposed to do. You can do anything you want to, and it is such a great soap box. It is a great opportunity. Lady toadvise any first do what she wanted to do. Another thing i learned is you will be criticized, no matter what you do. I had receptions, i would have been criticized. About what i did. And i got a lot of criticism. You learn to live with it. You expect it and you live with it. Dont let it influence you. She was her husbands political partner of their campaign. She attended her husbands cabinet meetings are to Champion Mental Health issues. Their partnership on health and peacekeeping missions issues has spanned four decades. Rosalynn carter, this sunday night at 8 00 eastern on first , examiningt ladies the public and private lives of the women who fill the position of first lady, and their influence on the presidency, from Martha Washington to michelle obama. American history tv on cspan3 at 8 00 p. M. Whom will you next right . About whom i would write if i were to write a second biography. On offer. I did read that book. To beght im going standing next to the president speaking to 3500 of the most who knows howle im feeling a moment . I had the idea that i might do that. I thought maybe i will give him the books later. The that spot the moment to be able to pull off the goofiness ill do it. This sunday night author and radio host on his writing career. I think its important for everybody to be serious. We never to make what christians would call an idol of politics. Their people have done that in their sort of worshiping that idle rather than the god who calls them to care for the poor and justice. Think the fine line. That something is about fairly often. Washington journal continues. Here are the employment numbers for october for the United States. In october the Unemployment Rate is 5 . 271,000. D this is the commissioner of the bureau of labor statistics. How are these numbers put together and what do they mean . Numbers come from two separate surveys. And then a very separate survey of almost 590,000 worksites across the country who voluntarily report to us whether payrolls are so we can keep track of what employment is. Often when these numbers bye out they are preceded predictions are ask and ask. Do you make this predictions . We do not. Anyone is entitled to make predictions and many people do. Host what do these numbers it to you . Showese numbers seem to the labor market moving in the right direction. I think this latest number will give us some comfort to some policymakers. So the number of jobs added that was positive . We survey economists to find our they think theyll be. Certainly no one did number about 200,000. It might say that we got a little bit of bounce back for the retirement. When you look at the past the pastthey fit into year . Was it then link the past year . Its deftly a strong number and at the pays more like we were seeing in what weve been seeing so far in 2015. This one is very healthy in a number of ways. It is the highest number that we have so far. So it particularly is strong that we haveows the sectors. We were seeing a lot of job growth in the past. Its very service center. Do you cover Government Employment as well . Guest yes its in here. E can turn to a chart were going to throw a lot of numbers at you. We will put the phone numbers on the screen because we want your participation. You will see a lot of words and a lot of numbers on the screen. We have broken the phone lines down a little bit differently because its an effective way of getting different voices on. Select the phone numbers up. Let me read through those. 2202 is very good for all of them. If you are unemployed and want to hear you from you at 2027488000 if youve recently been hired 2027488001. For those of002 you. Looking for work and then finally all others 2027488003. Lets go through chart number one employment in total. Guest its difficult to count employment on farms because theyre scattered around and they have so many household the National Agricultural Statistical Service tracks that. We do not track that. Host so this is employment october 2015. 31,000 jobs were added in construction. Write the blue bar show you the jobs added in the gray bar next to them shows you the 12 month average prior to that to give you an idea of how typical this is. Host so this is where the gray bar ends in construction but will guest thats right. We got a real verse host this is just october. Is just october. And this is concentrated in nonresidential, specialty trades. Commercial hvac Office Buildings and things like that. There was a big burst of 31,000 jobs in construction. 78,000 jobs added. Guest this again is a big burst. These are people like architectural and Engineering Services computing systems. Also temporary halt. All of these have significant increases. Host education and health. Healthdriven mostly by which is given us a lot of growth in the past years. The one is more similar to pattern we have been seeing. A growth in both ambulatory Health Care Services in the hospitals. These are in hospitality also growing. Guest very strongly. General Merchandise Stores at a real bump up. In hospitality this was almost all Food Services and drinking places. Numbers, wasthese your analysis . A few different things. I think the construction number jumps out to me as a very strong positive. It suggests that there might be some more energy or momentum behind it. Mining and logging is pretty easy to explain. That incorporates the energy industry. He see gas prices down in oil prices down this lesson videos and in that area. Leisure hospitality and retail is a mixed bag. , atne hand its positive the same time this tend to be lower wage jobs. This people are not better we have to got back to reinventing the economy. Health care certainly continues to be a real driver employment in this country. I will show you these charts. Civilian Unemployment Rate. Here we are in the recession 2008 at nine workers out. If you look at this chart and looks like really good news. Guest it is. 5. 0 isone this month half the Unemployment Rate that we saw in october 2000 and nine which was the peak right after the end of the session. Is the official recession. Set by the bureau of economic research. Host if we take that money so. Ared to this one 6 or laborlook at civilian participation. If you notice this Participation Rate for october 2015 was 62 point 4 . Was this number . Isst the Participation Rate the working age population. Theyre either working or looking for work. This is a very different pattern Unemployment Rate. It has a pattern all its own and thats largely because very strongly influenced by demographic trends. Trends inong downward the Participation Rate ever hase we baby boomers started to retire. We see less of an influence from the Business Cycle and more of an influence from demographics. Host this is the lowest Participation Rate in the labor septembere guest 1977. I think theyll be part of the story. But i also suggest that it shows the number of folks outside the labor force for different reasons. One might be of their students. Some people may retire early. I am also if you look at the number one reason folks are not in the labor force, one of the top reasons disability. That may suggest that they are receiving Social Security disability benefits. It may be an impediment. They may say i will set aside those benefits and go back to the workforce. But for minimumwage job it may not make sense. When you see that 5 unemployment figure as a reporter for the wall street journal, what do you also see. 5 is a very solid figure. To zero. R never gets i think when you look at things like registration rate. Employers at 5 s with seen wages increasing and worker shortages. Thats not happening across all industry. Guest this one is marginally attached. [applause] [laughter] host people not in the labor force the indicator. Marginally attached is jargon for a group of people who have looked for work within the past 12 months and say they want to job but have not looked within the past month. Who were the people think will be most likely to be pulled back into the labor Market Conditions were better. These are people who are not in the 5 . They are not employed. Webe counted as unemployed want some evidence that they are really serious about looking for they must have done something actively in the past month. If they havent done anything ively then they are in the they are not in the labor force category we still want to know if anybody job. When you can see is that there was a big increase in fees marginally attached folks during the recession. Since 2011 and it has really been trending down. The source of gotten for back into the labor force. They have not gotten all the way to where they were before the recession. Discouraged . Guest they are a subset of marginally attached and they say the reason theyre not looking for work is that they are discouraged. They dont think there is a job out there for them. Host and these numbers around six or 700,000. Guest both of these were unchanged over the month but theyve been trending down. Is thing to realize there that any decline in Labor Force Participation can be driven by an increase of these numbers. Theyre coming down. When i would look at is how the marginally attached number to the recession before this light blue bar. You see a halfmillion people in this category do this especially thinking of some of you might be in retail or restaurant saint unemployment is 5 do i need to theres a halfmillion people up there that say they want to job but maybe have looked maybe i can tap into that the new be willing to take the 10 and our job as opposed to me having to go to 11 i can get the worker from the restaurant next door. Steve is calling from texas. I steve. I started working in 72. I worked for over 20 years before i ever had to file for unemployment. That was a nearly 90s. I will work probably another 10 years after that before i had to get into unemployment again. Why calling in and out or anything but when these construction on the boilermaker. The Union Boilermaker that. Is a war on ial think the war on anyone that does work for a living and these numbers i think they need out of four of five and that five. So many people are so discouraged. Hearing crockett theres a pipeline. The come in in great jobs. Thats 600 employees of their own. Its a small town theres no industry oil pipelines. Theyre bringing workers from out of state from around the state and i will say this, most of them i will say are illegal immigrants. Host we will leave it there steve. His point that there should be up for a five in front of 5 number. Are there ways of measuring employment that come up with different statistics . Absolutely. When we put out the Employment Situation every month we have the full press release with thousands of numbers and it. We find it helpful to have my number and that seems to show Unemployment Rate which is the most common. However, for different questions you might prefer different measures. We publish six of them every month and the most inclusive is the one we call you six. It includes all of the discouraged workers and everybody who has a parttime job would prefer to have a is measured in the unemployed or underutilized category. That number is higher and this month it came down to 9. 8 . If thats the number you would prefer to follow you can do that in the statistics we provide. Has about the same pattern over time as the official Unemployment Rate but because its mark loses it is higher. Its another way of measuring distress and labor market. Beinghe talks about unemployed and taking unemployment. The traffic came out with. Guest every month when we people ple, with determined by their prescriptions to unemployed we asked them how long theyve been searching for work so we can divide up our pool of Unemployed People by the duration of unemployment. This chart shows you those buckets. Recession caused a tremendous spike in longterm unemployment shown in bowls. Bikets on the mend this has down. Its not back down to where was the more that it has come down hugely. There is still a disproportionate number of longterm unemployed but we made a tremendous amount of progress. It has been declining for four years. Caller 5 when i was in college back in the late 60s was almost unemployment but i would hardly consider todays economy to be anywhere near the second the parttime employees . When you spoke earlier about them like restaurants and retail are rising thats probably because beginning of the christmas and all that. Is that parttime in 5 or so different chart as well . You first. Another centheres number that includes parttime that would like to have fulltime work. 5 if you have a parttime job you are employed. I hear you saying from some of the other thegs were talking about lower level of labor force suggests that you have a 5 number today. Look to the number of links that have been longterm there been a lot of folks that run employed for more than 27 weeks. Some of them left the labor force and taken different have. Thats the amount of people that could potentially be workers. Your answer . Guest hes absolutely right that people who are working parttime but would prefer time jobs are considered to be employed but when we go to the other number i was talking about then they are counted as underutilized. We do have measures of host im going to take this chart will show in voluntary parttime workers. 500 5,000,700 67000 and is the figure you have listed here. This is the total number of people a parttime jobs who would prefer to have a fulltime job. This number spiked dramatically during a recession and has been coming down ever since. It is still elevated everywhere was before, only have here is two kinds of ways you may be involuntarily parttime employed. One is that its normally a fulltime job at your employer is cut your hours. The other is all you found was a parttime job. And you could have fulltime one. Right someone who are he has a job is going to be considered a better worker than someone wh has been out of work for six months or more. All of these numbers i think retailtant business early spike around the holidays. These numbers are comparable from monthtomonth. In voluntary, you added an actual figure. Unemployment, only people does that translate into . Guest i do have that figure. Host we will take a call from texas. Mark twain said there lies dam lies and statistics. Your program is underscoring. Ways i couldnt even explain to someone who doesnt understand statistics. Host the question . Caller first of all the way statistics are measured, sometimes gives you the result that you want and the 5 Unemployment Rate is a false positive. As the civilian labor he goes down and employment rates go marginally you will have a lower Unemployment Rate. Rate is a narrow section of what is really going on in this country. Eric . The civilian labor force expanded so that wasnt the case. I will say in general that the Statistic Bureau is considered the Gold Standard across the certainly people use the numbers i will dispute that. Inill say you can have a that these monitors are what they say they are. Its been measured that way for decades. Are you a political point to your civilian . I am a president ial appointee, but i can i have a term appointment. I dont service pleasure of the president. The number. How many people in a 5 s are what does that translate to . Guest 7. 9 million unemployed. 7. 9 unemployed 5. 8 or so who are parttime or underemployed. These are the headlines in here once more as the chart from this month. 207 1000 jobs. Thank you both for being here. That will conclude our washington journal for today. Thanks for being with us. Enjoy your weekend. Our cspan road to the right house bus stopped in jackson mississippi this week. The mayor speaks with students from the boys and girls club. In another photo, one of the Jackson State University Cheerleading Squad poses for a photo during the best visit. If you want to attract the travels of a bus, hollows on twitter and or like programming today includes Veterans Affairs secretary at the National Press club for an update on his effort to reform the v. A. Also answer questions you have live coverage at 1 p. M. Eastern. Every week in the cspan Network Features programs on politics nonfiction books and American History. As a nation commemorates veterans day, saturday starting at 11 a. M. Eastern American History will be live from the National World War Ii Museum in new orleans. Exhibittour the museum and take your calls and tweets. Starting this weekend every sunday morning, our new Program Takes a look at past president ial campaigns through archival footage. This weekend will feature Ronald Reagan 1979 announcement. The scene that Freedom Conference debate legalize marijuana in colorado and other states. Our roast the white house coverage continues with Martin Omalley who will speak at a town hall meeting at the university of New Hampshire and durham. Saturday afternoon on cspan twos book tv starting at four eastern, its the boston book testable featuring Nonfiction Author presentations. James wanted in his book the nursing to life on a connection between fictional writing and my. 11 00, of a at discussion with the former first lady of massachusetts ann romney on her book in this together about her journey with multiple sclerosis. In our complete we can schedule at cspan. Org. Fox Business Network announced which candidates will be part of their debate next week. They are divided candidates into two debates with the primetime debate featuring donald trump and ben carson senator rubio senator Cruz Jeb Bush Carly Fiorina governor kasich and senator paul. Two candidates have been part of each of the debate so far Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee have been shifted to the earlier debates. Senator Lindsey Graham was not included in either debate. Marco rubio responded to questions this week in a Town Hall Forum held at saint of the column in manchester New Hampshire. How he would involve envision his ultimate houseparty with political figures. I am the president and ceo stan works. This is our first event of the lake of the party series. We are thrilled you could join us. The idea behind the series is about the partnership between us to bring a different aspect of the discussion to political conversation. We want to give you a chance to know senator rubio, what he is like as a person and his political policies. We really want to have you engaged throughout the course of the morning. We all want to thank bank of america. We would not be here today without them. Thank you for your sponsorship. If we are on social media, we have a hash tagged. Lifeofthepartynh, be sure to use that. Hash tag. Without further do, we would like to invite senator rubio to join us. [applause] sen. Rubio thank you. Thank you very much. Senator, thank you so much for being here. What we thought we would quickly do is have a moderator go around and introduced themselves. You met kate, ceo. Drew i am true cline, i was the head of the millennial for twice as long as any millennial would keep a job. Jessica many ms. Jessica and i am a mom who raises money at New Hampshire humanities. I serve on a variety of boards and i just finished my term as chair of the professional network. Mike im mike skelton, ceo of the Greater Manchester chamber of commerce, now board member of stay work play and a proud alumni of the college we are pleased to welcome you to. As you can tell, we have got a full row of young professionals, students, community leaders. We have prepared a number of questions we want to talk to you about that are different than what you have been asked, i think, at other events and programs. This is going to be very different at all of those debates you have been doing lately. By the way, our goal as moderators is to surpass the performance of some of those debate moderators that have been getting so much attention lately. Hopefully we can pull that off. I want to ask, those crazy debates you are part of, how do you recover from those . What is your process . Family time, the gym . I cannot imagine after one of those debate what you are feeling like and what its like as a candidate. Sen. Rubio to keep perspective, you are in an airconditioned room and talking to the world on a microphone. Its an adrenaline rush coming off the stage, coming down for a couple of hours. Having it in another time zone gives us a couple of hours. I dont really do anything special. I usually have dinner in my room, try to get to sleep and wake up the next day. Usually we wake up early for television hits. Thats the downside of being out in those timeslots. Thats really it. You just kind of got to get up and get going. I dont really have a routine for recovery. It is in that damaging. The cnn debate was long, that was three hours. I almost needed a whirlpool after that. But i was fine. Mike i dont know how you guys do it, so congratulations. Sen. Rubio its fun, especially the first one, when we got on stage i have been watching these for years and now i was actually in one. The first one really struck me that way. The other two were fine, but that first one impacted me the most, having watched these debates for all these years and now im actually in one . Kate fitting into with todays theme, we found your spotify playlist. Sen. Rubio thats an old one. When was the list from . Kate im not sure, there was some u2 in there. Sen. Rubio i like them. Kate if you were to host a party of 40 of the top young professional leaders around the country, what would that look like . Where would you eat . Where would you have it . Sen. Rubio hopefully in the white house. [laughter] obviously, im a fan of the early 90s west coast hiphop stuff. But you can listen to that with kids, etc. The familyfriendly. Kind of a genre you are familiar with, electronic dance music, the good thing about it is that i can listen to it with my kids because there is no words. A lot of them dont have words. They use samples of other songs. I would like to have some of that. Maybe some of those guys or gals come in like tso, any of the other performers going on around the world. Calvin harris, Something Like that. I like that music. Kate what kind of food would you serve . Sen. Rubio thats a great question. I like texmex. Ive always liked texmex. Drew when you are planning to write and doing your party thing, one of the questions we had was you have got