Thing is not going to go away and for donald trump the way out of this is war. Is anyone else worried that hes itching for a war . Good morning and welcome to a. M. Joy coming to you from los angeles. That was bill mahers big question when we joined him on hbos realtime on friday night. For donald trump it seems that the worlds most powerful military isnt powerful enough. Hes looking for less talk and more military action. With a proposal that would slash budgets for the state department and the u. S. Agency for International Development by up to 37 . Meanwhile hes proposing a 54 billion spending spree on the u. S. Military. This week trump, ever the showman, appeared on an Aircraft Carrier while playing the serviceman role he evaded by getting five draft deferments during the vietnam war. We will give the men and women of Americas Armed services the resources you need to keep us safe. We will have the finest equipment in the world, planes, ships and everything else. We will give our military the tools you need to prevent war and, if required, to fight war and only do one thing. You know what that is . Win, win and yesterday we got an indication of what that war might be. The Washington Post is reporting that the pentagon is pushing to expand the u. S. Militarys role in a planned assault on raqqah, isis capital in syria. Joining me now, ted lu, general Barry Mccaffrey, retired u. S. States army colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and Msnbc National Security analyst evelyn farkes. Thank you all for being here. Congressman, i want to start with you on the question of the military budget. The United States already spends more on defense than at any time than we have since world war ii. The u. S. Accounts for onethird of the entire planets military spending and the pentagon gets 11 times more money than the state department or usaid and 69 times more than the epa. Do you, as a member of congress, see a reason for us to ramp up military spending if we if donald trump is not intending to get us into a war . Thank you, joy, for that question. The problem is donald trump has not set forth a coherent strategyor why we need this increased defense spending. More fundamentally i served on the Budget Committee and his proposal is divorced from reality. You cannot increase defense spending, Infrastructure Spending and cut corporate taxes. That blows a hole through our federal deficit and federal debt. Lindsey graham said the two things wont work. John mccain says he thinks there should be more military spending, but lets listen to Lindsey Graham on thursday and hes talking about the proposed cuts to the state department. Lets listen to that. Its dead on arrival, its not going to happen. It would be a disaster. If you take soft power off the table, then youre never going to win the war. Whats most disturbing about the cut in the state departments budget, it shows a lack of understanding what it takes to win the war. I want to go to you on this, general Barry Mccaffrey, because you have not only senator Lindsey Graham opposing the idea of concurrently ramping up the budget but general james mattis, trumps own Defense Department leader, he agrees. Theres a couple of Different Things on the table here. I totally agree with the congressman, it would be insane to cut the state department by that much. Its hard to imagine how the overall Budget Proposal out of the Trump Administration makes sense. But lets keep in mind now that we have a huge defense readiness problem since sequestration took place in 2013. Onethird of the Army Brigades are ready to deploy in 30 days, thats it. 62 of the naval aircraft are grounded for lack of spare parts and maintenance. Weve got a huge readiness problem because of the sequestration. I might add when you start looking at compared defense budgets, theres been a massive decrease in funding for the armed forces since 86. We used to be 6 of gnp, now its 3 . So we need to separate the nutty ideaf cutting state by a third and the larger issues of the overall budget and understand we do have a huge problem in readiness of the armed forces. To stay with you just for one moment general mccaffrey, readiness for what i think is what a lot of americans are concerned about. I mean you did have when he was still there general Michael Flynn say in february that we were putting iran on notice, which raised a lot of eyebrows as to what that actually means. You do have now this plan thats apparently been submitted by general mattis and others that would ramp up u. S. Involvement in syria, so are you talking readiness to have yet another involvement in a land war in the middle east . Well, look, i think another legitimate criticism of this administration is they dont have a strategy on the table, so theyre thrashing about, theyre making announcements. Theres no real analysis behind a lot of this. But again, when you looked at the armed forces, its gigantic, 2. 2 million men and women globally deployed, a tremendous real defense responsibilities countering china and the pacific rim, north Korean Nuclear threats, iran threats to the persian gulf and the sea transit zones. When you look at that, there is an immediate ongoing disaster in military readiness, much of it caused by sequestration which comes out of the training and maintenance budgets disproportionately. So i think we need to talk about the trump problems but not lose site of the fact weve got a readiness problem. Other organizations have poibtd out sequestration is hitting the services to military members. Colonel wilkersowilkerson, just in the terms general mccaffrey put in, you have two problems, sequestration that is hurting readiness but also this idea of taking the money out of state to put more money into defense. You had 120 retired generals submit a letter opposing cuts to the state department. Your former boss, general colin powell, has also opposed this idea. And in news day he opposed the idea of cutting the state department budget. You cant fix the budget by cutting the state department and have an effective state of diplomacy. A lot of us feel like weve seen this movie before, with the bush administration. Who had to idea to win two simultaneous wars in afghanistan and iraq while not having any plan of winning the peace. Do you worry that we are ramping up this movie again that the Trump Administration may be planning a war without having any plan to the peace . Joy, i do indeed worry about that. I dont see, as general mccaffrey said, any strategy from this administration at all. Instead what i see is a president whos looking at the institution besides churches has the highest institutional rating in poll after poll in america and is trying to hug them close and make them his friends. Lets get to two other issues. Were spending a trillion dollars a year on National Security. Well spending over a trillion to secure a Nuclear Weapons complex. Thats something we havent examined thoroughly and we need to. And as far as general mccaffreys point goes, lets just look at what readiness is all about these days. It isnt about legacy systems. Im sorry, general. You and i have been surpassed by technology. Its about systems like 3d printing and Artificial Intelligence and robotics, which are, incidentally, cheaper than what weve got now. Were fielding these legacy systems. A 21, 22yearold girl in a basement on moscow with a dr. Pepper on the left and glazed doughnut on the right and a keyboard in between is going to take those systems out. Chief of staff of the air force talked about the f35 being a system of systems and how it is going to defeat any enemy it comes up against. That f35 and its systems are going to fall out of the air because of that pimplefaced dude in moscow whos got that keyboard taking care of all of our systems. Were putting our money in the wrong place because we have no strategy. I want to go around the table and first let general Barry Mccaffrey to respond and then get evelyn on that same question. Is donald trump proposing a big rampup in military spending in the wrong places . Well, joy, im not sure if you directed that to me. Yes. Larry makes valid points. The whole notion of cyber warfare is a gamechanger in many ways. But look, we cant get cute about this. The chinese are building a global naval and air power capacity. The crimea and ukraine got invaded with people not just in little green suits but selfpropelled artillery. When you talk to the baltic nations and poland, theyre not worried about getting hacked as much as they are about getting invaded, so lets not get cute with the notions that legacy systems are gone. If it wasnt for those naval carrier battle groups, wed be in serious trouble all along the pacific rim. So youve got to have a balanced strategy. The criticism of the Trump Administration are on track. The budgetary concerns are on track. The state department obviously is a major tool of u. S. National security, but dont misunderand this i a serious immediate readiness problem in the u. S. Armed forces. Evelyn, i want to go to you if included in that is an administration that doesnt see russia as a threat and would prefer to sight as an ally. If those baltic nations are worried about getting invaded, theyre worried about getting invaded by russia. Right. A lot of really good points have been made. You cant just throw money at the Defense Department and expect them to spend it wisely without giving them guidance. The guidance starts with the National Security strategy. The president needs to come up with a very clearly articulated prioritized list of what our u. S. National Security Priorities are. He failed to do that actually the other night when he addressed the joint congress. That would have been the Perfect Place to say the immediate threat right now that we face in the United States is, frankly speaking, a russia thats countering us on the international front, breaking International Law and hacking into our democracy. Second, we face a china thats trying to reduce our freedom of movement for us and our allies in the South China Sea and the east china sea. Then we have terrorism, et cetera, et cetera. And then after you list those priorities, then you look at the Defense Department and you say, okay, how do we address those priorities. We need a ready army because were deploying these new forces into europe. Were deploying them on a rotational basis. Maybe they need to be put there permanently. We dont even have a secretary of the army in there to advocate for the army. So i think the questions need to actually stem from a clearly articulated overall policy with regard to our National Security interests and on the issue of state department funding, general mattis himself said it so well when he said if you dont fund the state department fully, i need to ultimately buy ammuniti ammunition. You cant conduct Foreign Policy or National Security policy without the state department involved. Evelyn farkas brought up the tuesday speech in which donald trump got many plaudits from pundit world for point out the widow of the navy s. E. A. L. Killed in the operation that he ordered in yemen, ryan owens, but i want you to hear what he said tuesday earlier in the day and whaegsd about that same raid. I want to talk about that on the other side. Well, this was a mission that was started before i got here. They came to see me, they explained what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected. My generals are the most respected that weve had in many decades, i believe. And they lost ryan. Well, i have to turn to my general here on this panel, general Barry Mccaffrey. What did you think of that passing of the buck by donald trump. Oh, you know, its just completely outrageous shirking responsibilities. Its mum bbo jumbo. But lets also talk about the larger issue here. The white house cant run, should not run the tactics of special operations raids in the middle east. They have got to outline the political objectives they want to achieve, maintain political oversight of this process. Over the last 15 years weve moved a lot of these tactic aal decisions into the white house. Its nonsense. They dont know what theyre doing. Its possibly going to make more sense now that weve got jim mattis in defense. But that raid where this chief was killed in action, this is dangerous business night after night theyre doing this. Theyre the best people on the face of the earth. Theres no way the so com and se centcom generals conducted that operation unless they thought it was worth it and would work. Those navy s. E. A. L. S. Know their lives are at work so weve got to get the white house out of minutia out of defense ongoing operations. I want to really quickly turn, and im going to turn to you first on this, congressman, we did have this morning a statement out of the white house, speaking of strategy, their strategy to apparently change the subject from a lot of this stuff is the president is no looking for and requesting, this is the statement from sean spicer this morning, requesting that as part of their investigation into russian activity the congressional intelligence committees exercise their Oversight Authority to determine whether executive branch, executive powers were abused in 2016, wanting congress to investigate the Obama Administration for perhaps getting a fisa Court Warrant on Donald Trumps trump tower. Your thoughts. Bring it on. I want to know what are the connections between trump and his associates and russia. For there to have been a wire tap at trump tower, that would mean an independent fisa court judge sat there, reviewed the evidence and concluded there was probable cause that there were one or more foreign agents in trump tower. That means the president of the United States right now is in deep dodo. Bring it on, investigate, lets show the American People what was in those wire taps. Colonel wilkerson, if there is indeed a farranging investigation into potentially the Trump Administration or somebody in the Trump Campaign getting a fisa warrant issued on them, do you worry that the distraction, this sort of obvious distraction would be to launch a military exercise somewhere around the world . Joy, i think the congressmans point is a valid one and im really concerned about whats happening right now within the 17 entities of our Intelligence Community and thats the dni all the way down to the National Geospatial agency. Were talking about people in the bowels of these intelligence agencies leaking things. Leaking even classified data. And were talking about people at the midlevel and people at the top using that data, even perhaps in the white house using that data. And a fight going on between all those echelons of the bureaucracy. This is a dangerous thing to be happening. We need the Intelligence Community to remain entirely what it should be, providing information for the president and other decisionmakers and advisers to make the best decisions. We dont need this kind of leaking all over the place in order to embarrass people and maybe get special prosecutors appointed and so forth. This is a very dangerous thing were doing. And one of the people who may have leaked the existence of that fisa warrant might actually be the president of the United States through his twitter account. And, joy, i have a lot of experience with that because the administration i worked for leaked a lot. Absolutely. Well, in some ways we feel like were having partially a replay of some of that, but we will definitely have you back. Thank you very much congressman ted lieu, colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, general Barry Mccaffrey and evelyn farkas. This marks the 52nd anniversary of the selma march. What is the future of civil rights under attorney general sessions . Well discuss next. Im so frustrated. I just want to find a used car without getting ripped off. You could start your search at the allnew carfax. Com that might help. Show me the carfax. Now the car you want and the history you need are easy to find. Show me used trucks with one owner. Pretty cool. [laughs] ah. Ahem. Show me the carfax. Start your used car search and get free carfax reports at the allnew carfax. Com. Whfight back fastts, with tums smoothies. It starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. And neutralizes stomach acid at the source. Tum tum tum tum smoothies only from tums chooarmy versus army. Ion. Nation versus nation. The battle has begun. Evony the kings return. Download now. The White House Press secretary and the president himself both said today that they think you should not recuse yourself from these investigations. I did share with white House Counsel, or my staff has, that i intend to recuse myself this afternoon. But i feel like of cour