Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20240622

Is crime like in your community. Also send us a tweet or go to facebook. You can also email us. Phone lines are open. Start dialing in. What is crime like in your community . Take a look at some of the most common avenses in this country from offenders in federal prison. Us a take a look at federal offenders in prison. Federal offenders we want to get an idea of what crime is like in your community. U. S. A. Recently had this headline. So we turn to you this morning. Give us your thoughts. Thomas youre in an urban area. Whats crime like in your area . Caller most of the crime that makes the papers involves poor people getting shot. Poor people getting shot in poor neighborhoods and homeless people. Things like that. Drug crimes, typically dont make the paper. Its the crimes that just make you sick. Not that somebody getting robbed at 711 isnt a terrible thing but its poor people shooting each other essentially. Host is this smk that talk about your neighborhoods. Something that your local officials, state representatives are talking about . Do you believe theres enough focus on it . Caller local people dont want to discuss that sort of thing. The orlando area is the same thing. You dont want people coming to orlando to confront. Host how far away from orlando and the disney area . Caller were about maybe 4 miles from the center of downtown orlando. In orlando, about maybe 12 miles from disney. Host do you feel safe . Caller i feel safe. Host do you think this is something that should be on the radar screen of your local officials there . Caller i think so. I think theres a tremendous number of poor people that if theyre not living on the streets, some of them are being provided some housing. But the ones that dont make it are in double trouble in this area. Host what do you think about the role of the federal government here . Is there one . Caller i think theres a huge role to play. I think the federal government has shoved this on to the states to take particularly the lower end of the spectrum financially that gets involved and shoves them into their prison system. Host so what is the role of the federal government . Caller the federal government should get directly involved in providing programs that take the people who cant make it working, lets say day laborer for the minimum wage that still wind up sleeping in the woods. Take those sort of people get them into some sort of housing, some sort of stable environment. Of course, without some of the people they use alcohol and have drugs but not all of them. A substantial number just need a place to work, to find cover. And the lower waged jobs and that sort of work just doesnt provide it. Host the administration announced this past week that in order to break up these poorer cover. And communities and have children thrive better, one idea is housing subsidies. That you give people who receive housing subsidies in poor neighborhoods a higher subsidy, more money. If they will move to a housing subsidized housing in more affluent neighborhoods. What do you think about that . Caller i dont think that touches a large enough segment of the problem. I dont think providing a subsidy to the individual to pay for the housing is going to solve the problem. I think the federal government has to get involved more directly. I think the federal government has to actually get the housing and provide it to the people that are going to still work even if its just day labor and so that they have a cover over their heads, absolutely, and not provide a subsidy that wont cover them if theyre not married and without and so that children. Children certainly suffer. That makes the paper here every once in a while where someone has four children and living in a motel and substandard cover to begin with. And those children are never going to have an opportunity to build america into a country that provides High Tech Services to the world. So i think the federal government has to not just do the subsidy but just provide the housing directly. Host well leave it there and move on to douglas. Tell whause crime is like in your community. Caller crime in our area around, any time you turn the radio on or look at the paper, you see the pictures and eeggets the same gang around there now. And the ones that the head of the crime rate is the local people that the head of it like all this crooked work around here, the federal government give out contracts and water systems, the contractor will get a contract then will take part of the stuff to another town and not put it all in like here in this little town where im at. Host all right. Heres some of the most common offenses of those in prison in federal prison. U alfredo in florida. Caller one thing ive noticed is a rise in murders. Around my area. Violent firearm use, killing off a pair of adults. I dont know if you heard this news or not but leaving five children from the age of 1 through 11 without any parental guidance whatsoever. Also, in an area called south of st. Petersburg in pin lass county it seems like every other day theres a murder there. Is this a lack of firearm control . Has the local government lost control of the people . Or does the federal government need to stand in and do something . Host what do you think . Caller we nead help. Host in what way . Caller i dont know whether its drug related or not but we definitely need help. Host mickey in milwaukee. Caller it is so bad. I live in downtown milwaukee and just since july 3rd weve had 20 shootings. And on july 3, a 14yearold kid was shot. Last night another 14yearold leaving the Basketball Court was shot three times. I think out of the 20 homicides since july 3 alone and e 15 people have died. Host whats going on, do you think . Caller i was thinking about this last night. I live in an area where i hear the sirens i know if i turn on the news theyre going to say there was a shooting. I have never seen a city so segregated. I used to live in mns. There are pockets of this city where there are only black people living. And you go to the suburbs. This areas, and theres all white. And sometimes when im driving in the suburbs in like brookfield it never fails. If you see a black pesh in a car thats not really in well shape, you bet that car is going to get pulled over and its going to be a white Police Officer. The black people are scared to go into the white neighborhoods. Its so segregated and its all the crime is black on black. Host why is that do you think . Caller they are so impoverished. The level of poverty is very high in milwaukee. People dont have jobs. With all this talk about raising minimum wage and the economy is doing well and unemployment is down. I dont see it in this segregated area of milwaukee. I just see people in really bad shape. I dont even know why theyre killing these kids. I think they have to kill at least 20 people under the age of 18 sings the beginning of this year. The mayor is a really good mayor. I really i usually vote republican but im thinking of switching. I see Governor Walker as a very devicive governor. The sheriff who is a black sheriff he is republican pro gun control. He is on fox news every night. So its just a very devicive Political Leadership. Host so is it being discussed though in wisconsin the crime situation there . Do you find it in the newspaper every day . Caller it is every day. You turn on the news, theres no way you turn on the news at night and there isnt report of a homicide. A couple weeks ago they shot a Police Officer, a black person shot a Police Office anywhere a white neighborhood. Car jackings are so high. Two days ago there were three car jackings in one hour. And now theyre moving into the white neighborhoods and in broad daylight they go with a gun to a person and they take their car from them. The lovely of poverty is high. Host do you feel safe . Caller i travel to pakistan for business and i was thinking sometimes i feel safer in la hor than in milwaukee. Host daylight they go with a gun to a person and they take their car from them. The lovely of poverty is youre in the air. Go ahead. Caller we have too much crime down here. It provides drugs for the people. We have to stop this. Put body cameras on the officers. They run this place. If youre black, they stop you. Or they try to pin something on you to put you in jail. Now, they have made allegations against me and just like the guy in minnesota. He surrendered and they shot him. But reports like 911 calls are not in the record. Host all right. Heres some quick facts according to the u. S. Sentencing commission. About offenders in the federal prison. From january 2015. That gives you an idea about the characteristics of those in prisons. Were talking about crime in your community. Mark from New Hampshire. Whats it like . Kimplingtsdz caller the problem we have here is theres a lot of young kids you see the newspaper all the time between the ages of 1421 and theyre breaking into local houses in the area. A lot of times its one because theyre out of work, they have no job. Or two its a drug problem. Believe it or not in the state of the senator from, heroine is on the rise. People get into marijuana then cocaine. Its a really bad problem here with hirn and theres a lot of residents in New Hampshire they die each year due to overdose. Host whats going on there . You believe its from starting off with marijuana and move yourg way up . Caller i do. Because i have a younger son andrew and he watches disney film. There was an actor on there by the name of brad and he died in 2008 around the same time heath ledger died. And i remember seeing videos of him on you tube saying that he started with marijuana then ended up with cocaine and wanted a bigger high with herwin which ended up with him killed. A lot of times the newspaper and local television here some of these people they catch they move from one drug to another. Sad to say a lot of young people up here are dying of overdoses. Host what the Public Officials up there doing . Caller the governor has signed and the legislator up here, theyre trying to pass tougher drug laws. But i dont know. It doesnt seem to have much of an effect. Also, too, were not that far in southern New Hampshire were not that far away from boston or new york. And even like lowell and worcester, massachusetts. In some of those places drug dealers are coming up to southern like lowell and worcester, massachusetts. In some of those places drug dealers are coming up to southern New Hampshire to sell drugs and do business. Thats a real problem. I dont know. They have no direction on how they want to fight it. Host who is buying . Is it people that you wouldnt expect . We saw a headline in the paper the other day that more women and more middle class people are using herwin. Caller i had a friend last year and his daughter died at 33 years old. She was recovering addict. Its really funny because people always think that its only people in the big cities. But believe it or not theres nice middle class families in this area and their kids in their 20s and 30s the ones buying the drugs. I just dont get it because theyre in a middle class family. Theyre not bad off economically. But somehow one way or another theyre just into drugs. Host marvin in louisiana. Caller you just did a stat on the screen that showed crime element comes from is the drugs. The drugs are driving a lot of violence in the community. Im a former city councilman. Former of chicago. I moved back home 30something years ago. I did it to get away from that urban lifestyle. I got married and i had sons. I didnt want them to come up in that lifestyle. The drugs. Host what do you see . Caller were seeing all kinds of drugs. The murders. We just had a recent shooting. The lack of police. I remember president clinton was down here the 100,000 cops opt street program. A lot of these cops need to be recruited from the communities where the crimes are and its not done. Host what do you think local officials can do . Caller ive been raising concerns about our kids having something to do. Summer jobs Something Like that. In louisiana we have a do nothing governor who runs around wanting to be president. The monies that could be used to help louisiana he turned them down. Until we start putting, getting more involved in our kids and employment down. Until we start putting, getting more involved in our kids and employment and recreation and as long as these drugs are coming in, were going to have these problems. Host all right. Were going to keep you in your thoughts this morning on crime in your community. Whats it like for you . Do you feel safe . Whats the role of your local officials and your federal government in fighting crime . The phone lines will be on will be on your screen. Weve divided urban, suburban, rural this morning. This story in the front page of the Washington Post related to crime. Also this. That in the paper this morns on this issue of crime. Also, as many of you know, the Confederate Flag in South Carolina on the State Capitol grounds came down yesterday. Here ts denver post this morning with their story. The banishment of perhaps the most conspicuous of the old south frot the seat of the South Carolina government friday morning was the culmination of decades of racially charged political banishment of perhaps the most squirmishes. Were asking questions. The governor was there along with family of those that died in that Historic Black Church three weeks ago. They stood on the Capitol Steps as they watched the flag come down. Later the pole was taken down. If you want to see it go to our website and you can watch it there. Then this headline. A little background there on how that happened. Then also this. Were get yourg thoughts on crime in your community. Tony in arizona. Good morning to you. You are on the air. Caller thank you for cspan and to those listening around the world. It is important that we make a distinction when we talk about how and to tho we have people within our penitentiary system. That distinction starts, like in our community. We have a major drug problem now. We are 45 miles from the mexico border. Im in a city thats in a very large county that borders the country of mexico. In our city we have proactive Law Enforcement. They stay involved with the community. They understand that they are only part of the solution. The two key parts i want to talk about is incarceration versus imprisonment. Now, you are incarcerated when you commit a crime and you are made to resstute back to the state for your wrongdoing. You are imprisoned when your mind is to when you cant think for yourself. You are therefore imprisoned. And that gets back to dillon roof. His mind was imprisoned. You can be incarcerated in a jail in a prison. But you cant be imprisoned if your mind is free to think, this is only the physical hold of me. Not the mental control of me. Host all right. Tom in connecticut. Whats crime like . Caller not much. Stolen bicycles. Maybe. But you can go across and its a whole different story a whole different Socio Economic divide. Theres driveby shootings. And then theres the State Capitol and government. There are crimes there, too. Simple things like if someone gets an Economic Development grant based on lying on their application to the state. Or they get the loan and they take the loan for unstated use. Theres different kinds of crimes. You dont hear about people getting big jail sentences. Ive known hundreds of people who have smoked marijuana and none of them ever used heroin. These things are simply not related. And heroin, weve got to remember that weve seen time and time again u. S. Military personnel standing watching people in afghanistan growing the popies. We have the movie recently about contras fighting in nicaragua bringing heroin up the. Go to vietnam. The politics of hirn in southeast asia. The c. I. A. Was in the heroin business bringing heroin into the United States. My brother was in the air force. They told him to go into loose to fix the engine on in the on a helicopter that was loaded with heroin. So the United States government is deeply entrenched in this business. I think we have to look at that and try to solve things from the top. As far as Violent Crime goes our society is criminal in general. Its violent in general. We see it on tv, on the movies constantly. Violence is drummed into kids starting at age one. Host claire in philadelphia. Caller a lot of people dont realize, most of the city that is have the biggest crime all run by ds. And the city of philadelphia we havent had a republican in 650 years. They dont talk about it because they dont want to have people not coming in to visit. But we have different kinds of crime. I live in a nonsegregated. I live in south philadelphia. We have latinos, black asian, white. They come in, you hear about a white person being robbed or killed by a minority. You dont hear anything about it. If its the ops sit, its all over the news. Ive lived here all my life. I said no one talks about if you get the car robbed or your bicycle robbed or they try to break in your house. Its not even reported. As far as the police, they dont why would you want to arrest someone because youre afraid youre going to go to jail yourself . Its the opposite. Mostly every major city has a d. They dont care. They just want throw money into the mix and everything is going to be all right. It isnt. Host lee in memphis tennessee. Share what its like in your community. Caller its ridiculous here. Some little girl a week ago i think like 7 years old got killed by some gang member going after another guy. That done him wrong. So he shot her to get back at him. And then some other stuff. A lot of car jackings, a lot of robberies, a lot of murders. The same ole same ole. What do you think the role of the local community is . Sorry. They dont theyre not much they dont help. We should be banding together having some kind of Neighborhood Watch or something. Seeing any suspicious activity going on, call the police. Or even have be armed or something. Just to take care of ourselves. We dont have anybody here that want to help each other out. Host st. Louis, missouri. Go ahead. Caller hi. Whats crime like in your community . Caller i live in the north side of st. Louis, which is known as north of del mar. Del mar is the infamous Mason Dixon Line that separates whites from blacks, poor from the very affluent. And were talking about 50 feet of asphalt. The crime is so overwhelming that you cant you cant even its not even on the raid a. But what i would like to say is that the crime is the result of a deeper and greater problem. Segregation is very much alive in america. St. Louis is probably one of the most segregated cities in this country. If its not, its definitely in the top five. Probably three. Its institutional and structural racism. Its just i havent heard anyone talk about the impact of racism on crime. And this is something that has gone on for generations. The war on drugs needs to come to a halt. We have to take this back to the Clinton Administration when the Clinton Administration passed the crime bill and the crime act. It just exploded. It exploded. So now we have the problem of all of these people who were incarcerated, if combprizznd, whatever the term that we want to use years ago. Now, those people are coming back out and coming back into our communities. There are no resources here. And we also have to understand how the systems work. And when the systems like someone mentioned earlier the Community Development block grant money, those are funds that were designated and intend bid congress in 1975 in order to bring some leverage to low wealth and communities of color so that those communities could come up. Well, the Community Development block grant money literally became a cash cow for politicians. So the resources and the lady that says that throwing money at it. Let me tell you something. There has been no money thrown in urban communities for the last 30 years. So that is a total misnomer. The next thing is that this developer mentality that has been created in america, that all things urban have to be done through bigtime developers. So what the that has been created in america, that all things urban have to be done through bigtime developers. So what the cities do, they allow our communities to they allow our communities to become basically just i mean its unbelievable what has happened in america. It really has. Host are you seeing a lot of those Public Private partnerships with developers and local caller look up paul mckee. Research paul mckee. The city of st. Louis is doing something that is its probably bordering on crime, on criminal activity for this one man who is a developer here that has fought everyone bought everyone from judges down to host well leave it there. I think we got your point. Some other quick herbs for you this morning. Headlines for you this morning. There she is on your screen, beth, who will be taking over temporarily. New york times. In politics, president ial pom ticks, the road to the white house for 2016 billionaires push makes rick perry of texas super pac flush. And then this also. Also, we told you earlier this week that Hillary Clinton plans to go to capitol hill this week. She will be there on tuesday. Politico reporting that Hillary Clinton will be meeting with all democrats when she goes up to the hill. That in the papers today. Hillary clinton on monday will be at a school in new york. The new school in new york city. Well have coverage of that event. She will be talking about economics there. Then also on monday were expected to hear from Governor Scott walker. He will make it official. Well have coverage of that at 6 15 p. M. Eastern time. All part of our road to the white house coverage. Also, this morning the hill reporting this story. Wear going to get in one last phone call here about crime in your community. Jim in chicago. Caller good morning. Since the beginning of the year theres been over 1100 shootings and most of the crime is black on black. 90 . I dont think its a lack of poverty or anything like that. I think the fact is that nothing but evilness in this city. People are lacking more or less spirituality, and most important thing theres no leadership. The mayor doesnt care. The politicians dont care. Its like the new norm now. The crime is happening all over the city not just in black communities or hispanic communities. It happens downtown. It happens in middle class communities. Its all over. This is the new norm. Let people do whatever they want to do as far as crime. If they get caught well put them in jail. If they dont, let it go. Host all right. Jim in chicago. That does it for our discussion on crime in your community. Former governor of virginia Bob Mcdonnell has lost his conviction appeal. He may have to report to prison. Coming up next, allen gomez of u. S. A. Today covering the immigration debate for years well talk to him about the socalled sanctuary cities and immigration policy. Later, discussion about the best way to deal with iran. Cofounder of the Truman National security project. But first, this weekend on nake knack newsmakers we sat down with steve israel. We asked about how House Republicans have handled the Confederate Flag issue and how democratless proceed legislatively and politically. Take a look. What we can do is exactly what we did this past week. Imagine that almost as they are lowering the Confederate Flag in South Carolina House Republicans decide late at night to make a backdoor attempt to raise the Confederate Flag over our national parks. And why did they do that . Not only because its their ideology but because its the only way they could attract enough tea party votes to pass an appropriations bill. They didnt have the votes to fund the parks. The only way they could do that is to buy the votes of Tea Party Republicans by trying to insert at the last minute an amendment that would allow for the raising of confederal flags. What did we do . We stotched it. We went to the floor. We fought them on it. At the end of the day we forced them not just to withdraw the amendment. They had to withdraw the entire bill. This is another example of the fact that these House Republicans cannot govern, they cannot manage. Their ideology gets in the way. As a result we dont have an interior appropriations bill, we dont have a trust fund bill. Were headed towards another just to withdraw the cliff. Were going to keep doing what democrats do. Were going to fight them when their ideology becomes excessive. Shutdown, another fiscal host do you imagine this issue will play in 2016 also democrats have set a very lofty goal of trying to win a couple seats in the house during 2016 . Is this going to be an issue that you think democrats will fund raise . How big of an issue will this be . Guest this issue is too profound. It is too important to use as a fund raiser. This issue reflects basic principles and basic values. And if republicans including the ones in the house are going to insist on raising the Confederate Flag, wherever they can, whenever they can, were going to correspondent to insist on raising objections to that with all the tools we have. Host congressman steve israel. Our guest this week on newsmakers. You can watch that on sunday. Now as we turn to a discussion on immigration in this country. Joining us this morning from miami is alan gomez to talk about sanctuary cities. Lets begin there. What are they and where are they . Guest what they are is a city thats basically ordered its city employees, includes their Police Officers and sheriffs deputies, to not turn over people that theyve arrested over to immigration agents. So basically a basically ordered its city employees, includes their Police Officers and sheriffs deputies, to not turn over people that theyve arrested over to immigration agents. So basically a lot of cops around the country will arrest people, the fingerprints get passed around. And these cities have said unless that person has an extensive criminal history, that you cant then hold on to them you get a lot of the major cities in the United States that have these historicically large immigrant populations like chicago, new york, miami. Pockets in the northeast. Some throughout the midwest. Theyre pretty scattered throughout the country. Host how is the federal government responded to these sanctuary cities . Guest its been an interesting thing to see this play out. Basically, for several years now these local communities have fought back against have become the sampingetri cities and fought back against the Law Enforcement program. At first the administration was very upset with this. Last year the department of Homeland Security secretary jay johnson in november actually eliminated a program called secure communities, which is the core of this partnership between local authorities and the federal government to enforce immigration, actually and has replaced it with a new program that isnt as astringent or overbearing. But now as we saw in the wake of the shooting in San Francisco, a couple weeks ache theyre fighting back and saying these local communities need to start cooperating with them when it comes to some undocumented immigrants and pose a threat to their communities. Host how do these laws work in these cities that constituents get to vote on them . Whats the incentive . Guest these cities cite several different factors. First, i dont know of any sort of voter referendum or anything like that that has been introduced. Usually its city council, in the case of california they pass add state law. But in essence what these communities are saying is that by using their officers to help enforce immigration laws, first it erhodes the trust with their local communities. If people think that by going to their local police they might run into immigration agents at some poim people arent going to report as many crimes. The other factor is money. What happens is the immigration Officials Say once youre done with that suspect, hold on to them for us for a couple of days so we can figure out whether we want to pick them up. Those one or two days add up over time. In miami david found that the county spent over 1 million. In Los Angeles County it was Something Like 26 million that they had to spend for those extra days. I know in some places like denver, they say that their jail was booked solid. They were overfilled and did not have the space to hold those folks. Finally whats going on, theres been some Court Rulings that find that these temporary holds called immigration detainers, basically the local cops will hold on for a couple of days based solely on a request from ice and a into immigration couple of Court Rulings have found thats unconstitutional that violates Fourth Amendment rights. So when you rulings have found thats unconstitutional that violates Fourth Amendment rights. So when you put all that together youve seen this growing number of communities around the country who have adopted these policies and now woor close to 300 communities around the country that have embraced this idea. Host so of the offense, does the government keep track or the local officials, of what type of offenses undocumented workers are commiting and ending up in the local jails . Guest i dont know if the federal government has kept track of this but ive studied this over the years in very different ways. And every Statistical Analysis has found that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a far lower rate than sort of the native population here in the United States. Basically it comes down to this idea that if youre an undocumented immigrant living in this country your general principle in life is trying to avoid detection, avoid the spotlight of police, immigration officials. So the idea that a lot of them are going to start going on crime sprees are commiting crimes and exposing themselves to the possibility of being discovered by local police just doesnt fly. For example, a couple of years ago we did a study looking at crime along the southwest border back at the time there was a lot of talk about Mexican Cartel violence spilling into the u. S. All these drug runners. And so we crunched a lot of data from local communities along that border and found that actually the closer you get to that southwest border the safer that the less crime that there is. The safer that you are. And several journal studies over the last couple of years have crunched the data. Every single one has found that they do commit crimes than the native population. Host what about theres also a lot of discussion about drug, human trafficking. Whats going on there . Is that something that is largely in the hands of the feds . Guest that is absolutely in the hands of the feds. And thats going to be a very difficult thing. That border is nearly 2,000 miles long. For example, last summer if you remember we had that crisis of tens of thousands of Young Children who were single one coming by themselves or coming without their parents crossing over into the United States. So in that case, customs and border protection, all the federal Government Resources were focused on dealing with that crisis. We have a limited number of resources. So that meant that the border there are many places that these drug dealers and folks bringing stuff in like that can enter the border. So we always see this sort of shifting response from the federal government trying to kind of put out the fires along the border trying to stop the flows of immigration that are coming in for a while it was western yeas, the feds cracked down there. Now its the main source of illegal immigration is through the eastern texas border. So thats always shifting. But that drug flow thats something that has always remained pretty constant. Show our viewers some numbers. Take a look at the population in this country. Immigrant population. Here are the top five states for immigrants in 2013. Why those states . Guest look at california. That one is pretty selfexplanatory. For the longest time was the easiest place to get through the border over there. Look at places like new york. Historicically immigrant city. And because of its basically economy, its always drawn people over there. Texas obviously has a lot of folks right there on the border as well so easy to come across and settle. A state like florida even though its far from that border a lot of people end up there. Illinois. These places that just have these historicically immigrant populations. And theyre used to these waves of people coming in. So if youre coming from mexico and youre looking for work, youre not necessarily going to first look at somewhere in the midwest, somewhere in the southeast. Youre going to look at these Major Population Centers where its easier to blend into society and not be the one undocumented immigrant roaming through town but thats where the Job Opportunities is. And thats what drives illegal immigration into this country. Host all right. Eric. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Let me explain. Im an African American. Democrat. We are not for illegal immigration or immigration reform. This is in direct competition with African Americans. And the black politicians dont seem to realize that two thirts of all hispanic that live in the United States live in two states. California and illegal immigration or immigration texas. Texas is solidly red. They do not help. They do not vote in these other states. Blacks, we make the difference in these states. But you are talking about illegal immigration. Also 1. 2 million are change their race to white in the last three years so basically what the democrats are fighting for, theyre fighting for these people who are illegal. They put them above African Americans. And Ronald Reagan said it was not 3 million. It was at least 10 million. And now at least 30 million illegals. How can you count people illegal . These people talking heads on tv, this is why the democrats are going to lose. Host lets talk about this tension between the black population and hispanic population in this country and its idea that with immigration legal or not jobs are being taken away. Guest what you see in a lot of corners in this country is basically the higher the Unemployment Rate, the more upset they are with illegal immigration. Historically youve got ive give an example of senator jeff sessions. Hes been fighting this fight for a long time arguing that his state has a high Unemployment Rate and a lot of these undocumented immigrants are coming to work in the farms and ranches throughout alabama and competing directly with those unemployed americans. African americans have a higher Unemployment Rate. So theres that direct competition for those kind of jobs. And what happens is if you try to hire an american, a lot of cases youve got to pay them the prevailing wage at least the minimum wage. But with least the minimum wage, but with the undocumented immigrant yes, you absolutely can pay them in cash, you can pay them a lower salary, so a lot of times they end up getting these jobs. A lot of american businesses will tell you that they are turning to these undocumented immigrants not because of the salary, not because of things like that, but because they cannot find americans to do the work. I talk to ranchers throughout the country, and they say look, we put out the job offers to American Workers they just do not want to do that kind of work anymore. We saw throughout the southeast and southwest a couple of years ago in places like georgia alabama were cracking down on undocumented immigrants. A lot of undocumented have fled those states, and then what you were left with word literally fruits rotting on the vine because they could not find the workers to do the job. They are taking jobs from people who would otherwise want to do it, but there is definitely the aspect where American Workers are not used to the migrant farmworker life and are not doing as much as they used to any past in the past. Host madison, nebraska, steve, a republican. You are on the air. Caller hi. I was wondering, on 9 11 when he terrorists brought down the twin towers, the United States government ended up paying the victims of the towers all this money, and i believe that it was because the United States did not keep them safe or something. I cannot remember host steve, we are talking about immigration. How is this related . Caller an illegal immigrant take for example the lady in San Francisco who was shot by the illegal alien, how is that any different, how is she, being the victim, not any different from not being kept safe from the government the same way we paid out all this money to the people from the victims of 9 11 . Host all right, we move on to tom in harrisburg, pennsylvania, a democrat. Caller i am a liberal democrat. You cannot get more liberal than me. I would like an open border system, but that is another story. This has to be a tenant of any immigration reform, and i need this question answered, yes or no, if you are an Illegal Immigrants, and you commit a felony, you should serve your time and then be deported, never, ever, ever to be seen in the United States again. Host alan gomez, lets take that. Is that what happens . Guest that is one of the positions of the federal government right now. What they are trying to do and what president obama has tried to do since he came into office is to change the way that the immigration system pursued undocumented immigrants. Before, it was sort of varied. You had as much chance of being deported if you were a threetime convicted felon as you were with a traffic violation. The administration is trying to refocus their enforcement dollars on convicted felons, on protecting National Security on people who are members of criminal gangs. Over the years in the administration, they have increased the percentage of undocumented immigrants that they deport that have a criminal conviction on them. Last year, they got up to 85 of the people who were deported from this country, had some sort of criminal record. So they have definitely been trying to focus on that, but what you are seeing in some cases with these century cities they are not handing some of those folks over to the feds. That is why we are seeing that debate raging throughout the country on these policies. Host reaction from our audience on twitter, carol what part of illegal is hard to understand . Sanctuary cities are wrong. Try getting into mexico, a wrong turn can land you in jail. Edwards says yes, illegal immigration offers corrupt employers a way out from the responsibility to the american spirits to pay american. Alan gomez, i want you to react to this headline, julia in the New York Times says obamas plan for immigration action gets a cold reception at appeals court. What happened yesterday . Guest well, what they are dealing with right now is this program that the president try to answer to protect 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. A few years ago, he created a program called the deferred action for childhood arrivals program, and what that did was protect undocumented immigrants who are brought to this country as children from deportation. They were able to register with the federal government, provider information, and exchange if they had a clean criminal record, they were granted a twoyear stay legally in the country and a work permit. What the president did back in november was try to expand the program to a much broader population of people. That included a lot of undocumented immigrants who had children in his country in an effort to keep these families together, meaning they have a child, u. S. Citizens, were trying to keep those families together. It was a broad program to try to protect about 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. Their argument is they are trying to forget about that brought class of folks, if they have clean committal clean criminal records but they want to be able to do that so they can then focus their Immigration Enforcement dollars on those undocumented immigrants with criminal records. What is going on now is that program has been halted by a federal judge, first in texas so now it is going through that legal process. It is on hold as they challenge the president s authority to do that. Yesterday in new orleans, the oral arguments in the fifth Circuit Court of appeals, and they are excited to render a judgment over whether it will proceed, but this is a case that is expected to reach the Supreme Court is some point. Host this case a larger discussion about immigration policy on the washington journal and immigration, this debate sparked recently about the immigration population in crime by gop nominee donald trump, who is running for president. This is the front page of the dredger word drudge report this morning thousands are excited to attend his immigration speech. Donald trump will be in phoenix today talking about immigration. Andrew in ohio, democrat. Hi, andrew. Caller how are you doing . Host good morning. Go ahead. Caller i have a question. Immigrants you have been coming here, and it has been a big issue for some time about the immigrants coming to america. Now we have immigrants coming from various countries. Ifand nothing has been said about those things. Now, if they come with a visa, that is good, but if they come illegal, then in my estimation, they should be probably sent back. Not making a scene of them sent back to their country if they come illegal. If those that come here had committed crimes, then those people should be sent back to their country. Host alan gomez. Guest yeah, and i think that is a little bit of what we were talking about before, the idea of trying to focus on those undocumented immigrants that have a criminal history. If i remember correctly, when the Obama Administration came in Something Like 28 of the people who had been deported had a criminal history. They tried to refocus that priority, so now it is up to Something Like 85 of the people who are deported from this country who have some sort of criminal record. I can tell you there are all sorts of if you start digging into different communities, a lot of people say of the criminal record theyre talking about might include something was eventually something the person was eventually found not guilty of, so they think it is not really fair that they then end up being deported because of that process. But yes, the focus has shifted more toward getting the undocumented immigrants have the criminal history, that pose an active a security threat. Host florida rick is next. Go ahead with your question or comment. Caller yes maam. I really do not think we will be able to have a fair conversation about this until people actually come to the table with real facts. Now you have donald trump who is out there actually out steve kinging steve king. You have people that scream that the immigrants are taking black jobs, and i am down here in florida where there is a very big migrant population. I just dont see that. When i see people out in the hot sun digging a ditch, they are usually hispanic. When i see people out in the field taking the fruit, they are usually hispanic. And their jobs of the white folks and the black folks simply do not want. Host all right, rick. Dan, what do you think . Dan, good morning, you are on the air. Dan in arizona. Go ahead with your question or comment. Caller yeah, the caller before said we had an immigration plan it is just the problem that most people have is with the illegal part. For 200 years, we have allowed people in legally, and it is just overrunning the border. About the jobs they are taking away, they do take it really costs us i am a construction worker. I lost a lot of jobs because people are willing to do it for less. I hear people saying it is jobs americans do not want wont do. It is not that we wont do we just will not do it for that price. Host all right, lets take that point. Guest you talk about the idea of an immigration we have an immigration system. One of the reasons that you see such high numbers of undocumented immigrants in here is the fact that the immigration system is incredibly flawed in several areas. Yes, to some degree, absolutely, some american businesses have taken advantage of undocumented immigrants and used them to pay them lower rates and to not have to pay those rates that an American Worker would demand with the health care and other benefits, but at the same time there is a reason we have many undocumented immigrants here. Let me give you an example the h2a Immigration Program that is to bring people in from other countries to tend fields and harvest crops. I spent a lot of time looking into this program, and it is incredibly difficult i mean to get one worker in here requires reams of paperwork, months of work. You have to be able to predict six months to one year ahead of time what exactly you are going to need that person. You ask any farmer, they will tell you their crop will come in, it will not be exactly in 30 days. You need to have some level of flexibility to be able to bring in workers, move them along to other places when the work is done there. Formers across the country have told me how incredible the difficult and pretty much useless that program is for a lot of them. In that case, a lot of farm work in this country, that part i can tell you is true that American Workers do not like doing that work, as much as they did in the countrys history. That is one example where the system i think a lot of people on all sides feel like it needs to be reformed. When you look at hightech visas, other workloads, the other kinds of workers from around the world that need to come in, there are parts within each of those immigration streams that need to be reformed. The problem is congress has been unable to get anything done, has been unable to get together and really address all of these very basic issues that they need to do, so that is why we are left with this incredibly broken immigration system that is propping a lot of this illegal immigration. Host here is a tweet from one of our viewers what would authorization of all on document it immigrants due to our economy . Guest [laughs] oh man, we could be on our for quite a while. On the one hand, people think if theres a widespread legalization of undocumented immigrants, that letter a, they wouldthat a, they would pay taxes, they would get more education, they would get college scholarships, so the contribution they make to this country would be more than just working as a lead of the jobs that we usually associate with undocumented immigrants, you know working as nannies, house cleaners, things like that. If they think by legalizing that entire population, somewhat similar to what the president is proposing for at least 4 million or 5 Million People in a population, that it will improve our economy dramatically. On the other side of the equation, there are a lot of people that say no, it needs to be they need to be taken out of the country because they are already a drain on our social services. They are using our hospitals our public schools, and not contributing in a large or to those local communities. This is a debate that we could be here for a while going over the fine points of it, but generally speaking it all depends on your general view of undocumented immigrants, and i have found that a lot of times that is what is influencing how people perceived the effect of undocumented immigrants on our country. Guest we will hear from dan host we will hear from dan in ohio. Good morning, then. Dan. Caller i can remember when the Mexican Government released criminals near the border knowing full well they were coming into the united stat. Tes. So to act as though donald trump just made this up out of thin air is a lot of baloney. You know for a fact criminals have been released by mexico near the border so that they can cross into the United States. It saves them the trouble of housing them, it saves in the trouble them the trouble of the crime host dan i want to take that point because given what donald trump says, what are the statistics . Alan gomez . Guest yeah, i guess we lost him. I was mentioning earlier, every Statistical Analysis ive seen of criminality amongst the undocumented population find that they are far less likely to commit crimes than people who were born in this country, than legal residence,ts, than legal immigrants. What got so many people upset about Donald Trumps comments, nobody is denying that yes, absolutely, some undocumented immigrants commit crimes in this country, but the rate at which they do it are dramatically low so to characterize an entire population like that as rapists as criminals, as drug dealers as he did, that is just incredibly offensive to so many people. And from every thing seen, completely devoid of fact. Host twitter republicans want illegal immigration for the cheap labor. Eddie in los angeles, an independent. What do you think . Caller i am listening to this, and it is really appalling to think that the black man is not even mentioned, and if he is, it is mentioned negative, such as the jobs nobody wants to do. I wish you could possibly tell me those jobs. I am a contractor here in los angeles. I deal with this every day. You guys are big europeanamerican guys. They have books of illegals. Black men, contractors, they have to have all of their insurance is paid. As far as formwork, do you know about the agriculture bill . The lawsuit the black farmers had to bring in . Its over 20 years, 30 years to get the settlement. It is not that it is something we do not want to do it is a racist program dude, and you know it like i know it. Did not become illegal until after we started doing our rights and asking for different things. Than it became a problem that the black man had to be neutralized. To say it is jobs we do not want to do is disingenuous. Host all right, alan gomez. Guest we gave the example earlier of formwork. I use that of farm work. I used that as an example because some states try to rid their state of undocumented immigrants and they found that they could not get the workers to do the work, but the caller brings up one area of the American Economy that has absolutely been impacted them radically by been impacted dramatically by undocumented labor, and that is construction. As the Housing Labor has slowed down, through that process, it is difficult to compete in a lot of cases. If you come in, a lot of americans, as you mentioned being paid, fulltime salary, then you have immigrants who come in to do the work, that is hard to compete with. They will be able to be paid less, so it is going to be more lucrative. That is one of the examples, that is one of the reasons that shows why the immigration system needs to be reformed so much, to avoid those kind of situations. Host dave in denver, colorado on our line for democrats. Hi dave. Caller yes, hello, greta. This is dave in denver. There are a few things about how hispanics all hispanics are grouped with mexican, latinos. I am an american indian, i am not latino. I call before about that. The first caller group to us. The problem is in denver, there are so many latinos, they ran me out of business. I will agree with your guest they are just everywhere. As far as crime, just traffic tickets . Go up on the internet. The 10 most wanted people on in colorado, see where they are from. Host alan gomez, you talked on this earlier. Go ahead and repeat what you said. Guest um, which point . [laughter] look, i cannot say it enough every statistical announces i look at find that undocumented immigrants do not commit crime. Think about it, if you are an undocumented immigrant living in this country, you try to stay away from Police Coming try to hide, you try to keep your profile as low as humanly possible, so the idea of going out and committing a lot of crimes to draw the attention of police, which will then in turn draw the attention of immigration authorities, a it does not make sense on its face, and b, the numbers do not reflect it. Host minnesota, carol is watching from up there republican. Welcome to the conversation. Caller good morning. I am sorry, but i have to quote my husband. This man is full of dung. It is not true. Donald is going to be our next president because everyone i talked to is going to vote for him because his comments are right. What this guy is saying is not true. We lived in washington. We were around. Most of the time when we had to have our lawns done and our trimming done and everything done in our area it was not black gentleman who are doing it and white men from the mountains would come down a peg me for jobs, and i would spread it out to each person who can to the door down and beg me for jobs, and i would spread it around to each person who came to the door. Host carol, how do you know . Alan gomez is talking about statistics and research. Why do you think it is wrong based on what you have seen . Caller i do not believe your research. Like every thing else, who and where and who does the researching . This is not true. And he is a hypocrite because when we just that is if you make these legal, they can take the jobs host carol, i want to keep the conversation civil, so lets not accuse people of things. Alan gomez, where is this research coming from but you are looking at . Guest i apologize, i am not going to happen up the top of my head, but the Pew Research Center has looked at this in the past. They are a pretty reliable source of information on this. And there have been a couple of University Research papers that have looked at it. I apologize, i do not have them in front of me. But lets get back to this idea of donald trump. She mentioned that he is going to be the next resident. I think next president s. I think the interesting thing about his comments, what he did for this race is it forth a lot of of republican candidates to weigh in on his views. Jeb bush the other day was like all right, look, i am done with these donald trump questions because it has been so overwhelming, but has been instructive to see their reactions area on one extreme you have folks like texas senator ted cruz saying i salute donald trump for raising this issue and making it a priority, so obviously people like him are going to appeal to folks like the last caller we just had. On the other end of the spectrum, we have former florida senator jeb bush, former florida senator marco rubio trying to distance themselves as far as they could from Donald Trumps comments. Rick perry of texas saying what donald trump represents is not what the Republican Party represents. What we are seeing as most of the people in the republican race trying to stay away from what donald trump said because and this is a really important point, the hispanic population continues to grow dramatically. And i am talking about be completely legal u. S. Citizen, voting hispanic population in the United States. They continue increasing, and after the 2012 election, mitt romney got 20 of the hispanic vote. After that the Republican Party cannot is that it has to improve its standing dramatically with the hispanic population. Instead, what we are seeing is folks like Donald Trump Bashing the entire immigrant community and driving away a lot of those hispanic voters. Host alan gomez, i want you to react to what the speaker of the house had to say recently. He was asked about a shooting in San Francisco and what this means about the shooting debate. [video clip] Speaker John Boehner is has become the biggest political football i have ever seen in my career. This issue but immigration what to do about it. As i said last week, it is not want to get resolved by congress sticking their heads in the sand. If we want to resolve issues like what weve seen develop in San Francisco and elsewhere, we need to get serious about enforcing the laws we have. If we do not like the laws we have, then we need as a congress to sit down and resolve this issue, and i would like to get results sooner rather than later. Host alan gomez, what do you make about what the speaker had to say . Guest a kind of follows what he has been tried to do for the last couple of years. The Senate Passed a broad immigration bill that affected almost every area of our immigration laws. It dealth with the 11 million undocumented citizens, dealt with order security, and dealt with Immigration Enforcement in the entire country the house of representatives did not take up the bill. It did not debate it, Speaker Boehner do not allow it to come to the house floor. What they have been pushing for instead of the idea of first securing the border, refocusing our country even more on order security and Immigration Enforcement before we deal with those 11 million undocumented immigrants that are living in this country. So what he would like to do, and what you have seen from House Republicans for quite some time, is this intense focus on sending more Border Agents down to the southwest border. In some cases, they are proposing asked ending the wall that we have down there to make that border less porous. That is really their driving focus. The San Francisco shooting is for them another reminder that we need to focus on border security. The problem is, the reason they cannot reach any resolution in d. C. Is up the house has been very, very focused on border security. The senate and a lot of democrats have been taking a broad look and fixing the whole immigration system at once, so we have this constant stalemate where nothing can get done. Host in a Washington Post editorial, they think it is a political freeze. The gop paralysis as what they write. Gop lawmakers have thrown in their lot with an overwhelmingly white, aging constituency. The United States, ever more diverse, is changing faster House Republicans, fearful of that change, prefer scapegoats to solutions. Joey in wyoming an independent caller. Caller hi, good morning. I wanted to comment, mr. Gomez i feel like your research is pretty right on. I used to work for a company that did billing and Customer Service for some utility companies, georgia natural gas tmg, things like that. I found the Illegal Immigrants were actually the people who were most timely paying their bills, and if they do fall behind or something happened they attempted to rectify the situation immediately. They are trying to fly under the radar. They do not want attention, they do not want anything unnecessarily drawn to them to get them out of this country. I also wanted to add my own comment i feel like as americans, too often we blame the people here that are simply looking for a better life like their forefathers did however we try and fill in villainize these people and make them into demons when they are just looking for a better life. If we really wanted to fix the problem, we would go after the people employing the Illegal Immigrants, not the Illegal Immigrants themselves. Host joey, i want to talk about that last point, alan gomez, and talk about the employers. A tweet immigration is not broken, big business is happy with the current program. Guest i mean, yeah, that has been a really interesting evolution, if you will, the Immigration Enforcement system in this country. Back under president bush, we had what they would do our these big site raids. They would go to these big factories, these big chicken processing plant, and go in and kind of sweep the workers and blankets go over all of them and see who was there a legally there illegally and who is supposed to be there. Not much attention was put on the employers. When obama came in, they started putting a lot more audits on these companies to see who was willingly and knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants. We saw a bit of that any first few years. I do not think the numbers have remained steady, but when we look at this sort of comprehensive look at immigration reform, that absolutely has to be big part of it. You cannot just blame the workers for doing this, you also have to blame the employers for providing that work. Depending on what side of the debate you are on indicates who you are blaming in this, but there could be a way of addressing both sides of it if both sides could just get together and figure this thing out. Host appreciate the conversation. Guest thanks. Host well take a short break. After that turn our attention to iran and what is the best way to deal with the country. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] washington journal continues. And we are back for a discussion on whats the best way to deal with iran as those Nuclear Talks continue in vienna we are joined by cliff may the president and founder for defense of democracies along with matt spence cofounder of the Truman National security project. I want to were going to turn our attention and get your thoughts on this. But first carol is joining us on the phone with the Washington Post their diplomatic correspondent. I want to get the latest from her on what happened yesterday. So carol what happened yesterday . Well, the short answer is that they had not reached a final agreement. They still have five or six sticking points and difficult issues. Theyre having trouble resolving. They say they have been pushing the most difficult issues towards the end, kicking the can down the road. So these are the most this is the most intense time during negotiations. Now, they have resumed meeting this morning. Been a round of backtoback meetings with the europeans and the United States and iran. And French Foreign minister who left the talks yesterday has already returned. The British Foreign secretary is expected to return this afternoon. There are who left the indications that perhaps the russian and Chinese Foreign ministers may be coming back to. So this certainly has the potential to be a decisive weekend. They have pushed the deadline back. It will expire at the end of monday. But its entirely possible that they will extend it again if they just have one or two minor points to go. Its a little difficult to predict. Host kick off the sticking points. You said about five. Guest these are the numbers they keep saying well were getting close to resolving them. There really are essentially two main sticking points. One is an embargo on conventional arms. The u. N. Embargo. Iran wants it lifted. And it has the support of russia in that despite the fact that russia kind of access will inspectors from the international aut middle class Energy Agency have . Will they have access to military sites . Iran is very suspicious that this is essentially a ruiz or a cover to spy on its military sites. Those are really the two main ones. As they continue to talk today and over the weekend, how are the folks there, the officials, doing the negotiating . Whats their reaction to the articles that weve seen here in the United States that say the talks could just continue indefinitely . The work under this 2013 i want rim agreement that they have, the talks will remain open . Guest well, that certainly is a possibility. There are three scenarios. They come up with a deal, they decide to extend the talks further and come back another time, or they completely collapse. I dont think anyone really wants them to collapse. I think they would much prefer to be able to come up with a deal now. In the past, every time they have had a break when they resume again theyre a little bit further back than they were when they left it. So it takes them several days or in this case it could even be longer to get back to where they are right now. So i think nobody wants that. They keep saying as long as they have reason to believe that at least some progress is is possibly about to be made, they will stay here. Host so carol as we wrap up with you what are we watching for today and tover the weekend . Guest all the foreign ministers. And some indication that they, if they all show up here. Thats a suggestion that they have a deal thats imminent. Host all right. We appreciate your time as you continue to cover this story from vienna. Appreciate it. Guest thank you. Host we return to you. Guest i dont think these are minor disagreements were talking about. Inspections are vital. If you dont have go anywhere any time inspections, if you have whats called managed access, say we have a suspicion that Nuclear Weapons related activity is taking place in this facility and the irans say, well, fivene, in about three weeks when we finish the paint job we can let you in. That is very, very serious. Also what continues to happen here and i think its significant is that even as secretary kerry and others really work very hard and creatively to try not to cross the red lines of Supreme Leader ayatollah, new red lines are added. So when the iranians, say ok so far but we want other sanctions not related to the Nuclear Portfolio relieved, too. We want to be able to import conventional arms. We do want no restrictions. And there are none under the proposed agreement, on intercontinental ballistic milssles which have only one purpose deliver nuclear war head. Very distant target. Not for putting monk eas into space. Theyre for one thing. So its a very difficult time and the issues that divide them are still very serious. One other point. Yesterday was a day of great celebration in iran. They were burning american flags, calling for death to america. Death to israel. Death to saudi arabia. In the midst of these negotiations they didnt even then restrain themselves from saying, our goal, the goal of the iranian revolution is death to america. I think that needs to be taken seriously by our side. Host matt. Guest i think several important things. Any time first we need to agree that we shouldnt trust iran. I dont trust iran. And a common principle ranging back from president reagan with the soviet union is distrust and verify. Thats why we need to understand that iran will have bad behavior. I think we agree that we need to be focused on a very intrusive inspection regime to make sure we have the inspection regime that will cut off all pathways. The other key part of this that i think this brings out, particularly whats been going on is a Nuclear Agreement is just one part of how the United States needs to deal with iran. Even if there were to be a Nuclear Agreement and even if that were to work, iran continues to do a host of terrible things in the region. It has supported terrorist attacks, cyber attacks. Theres a large conventional military. All those things will become worse if iran has a nuke deleer weapon. Thats why its important to move forward with this agreement. But we need to be very clear that even if we reach an agreement we need to intercontinental ballistic milssles which have focus on the larger behavior. I think we need to be very cleareyed about that. Thats a key part why the administration is focused on the Nuclear Agreement as one part of the strategy. Host lets get to calls. We continue this conversation. Gary democrat. Caller gentlemen, i want to ask you something here. Why even think about trusting iran . We know who they are and why. And personally, i wouldnt trust iran with Nuclear Weapons any more than i would trust a ped file in an elementary we do not have a deal. And particularly we dont have a deal which gives the iranians the goodies up front among those goodies we are talking about are 140 billion that iran now some say well im sure iran will use that domestically because the economy has been bad and we are talking about are 140 billion that iran now some say well im sure iran will use that domestically because the economy has been bad and they want to show the iranians that things can get better. Maybe. Maybe some of it. But they also bl use that i guarantee you having back on after this happens to support hamas, to support hezbollah, to support the hutesdzie reblets. Iran has the ambition of being the nation that controls the middle east. And it has very bad ambitions insofar as saudi arabia is concerned, uenited air rab emirates and israel. Host do they see this deal as verification of that being the super power if you will of the region . Guest i think they will like the u. S. To give its approval to that status. I think they would like that. They mainlt that they have no Nuclear Programs, never have, dont want one, dont need one. But they wont so far they are not giving the our side the ability to verify the case. Thats a probable. We certainly dont want to give them what they want before we have verification that the program they deny they have has been halted reel lay halted right now this im afraid that this agreement paves the way for iran two different ways. They have Nuclear Weapons. One within a little more than ten years if they abide by the agreement they will be welcomed into the nuclear club. You have to cross your fingers it will be a different regime. The other is they cheat as they way for iran two always have and have Nuclear Weapons before ten years. I think right now were on very thin ice. Guest i think the cloor goal needs to prevent iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon. Thats what we share. The question is how to best do that. When iran is hidden and is not opening itself to any type of more information . Or by allowing International Inspectors in that iran has committed to the International Community that they do not have a Nuclear Weapons program . I think we will do better if we have more information about whats going on. An important part to recognize is that even if there is an agreement the United States still has all options on the table. When iffs at the pentagon what kept me up at night was thinking about making sure that the United States is fully resourced and prepared for any military contingency in the region. Even if there is an agreement and if iran cheats the United States will still have that military option. If an agreement fails the United States will have that military option. But if along the time that theres an agreement, whether its five years, ten years, 15 years, during that time the International Community has learned more about irans Nuclear Weapons program and the United States is only advanced its military preparations should it need to use them. Guest i am totally convinced that irans Nuclear Weapons program to the iranians our Nuclear Option is not on the table, is not credible at this moment. The ayatollah khomeni during the hostage crisis of 1979 watched what happened under president carter and said oh america cant do a damned thing. There has been a rallying cry ever since. The newer supreme our Nuclear Option is not on the table, indicated he leaders has believes the u. S. Cant do a thing. Theres no way president obama is going to utilize military force. So its not credible right now. I think its unfortunate. Host lets get to another call here. Bob, republican. Caller good morning cspan. Play ground. I think we discussed this that no one should be trusting iran. I think its president obama is such a poor negotiator, im afraid he is going to release the sanctions theyre going to take the 140 billion, buy a nuke from putin or north korea, and attack israel. Thats what keeps me up at night. Im so afraid. Everybodys laughing at america were so weak. We cant see it in the news, we dont know that theyre pulling our chains . Host take it up. Guest i think thats just dead wrong. Right now i think the United States is incredibly strong in the region. An agreement is structured to make sure putin or north korea, and attack israel. Thats what keeps me up at night. Im so afraid. Everybodys laughing at america that doesnt happen. I think we should look at the facts. Agreement or no agreement the United States currently has over 34,000 forces in the happen. I think we should look at the facts. Agreement or no agreement the United States currently has over 34,000 forces in the region, over 10,000 ground forces. Some advanced aircraft, radar ballistic milssles and with respect to israel the Obama Administration has given israel over 20 billion in military assistance since in office. I remember going to israel and negotiating with senior israeli officials. And what i heard repeatedly is that the u. S. Israel defense and intelligence relationship has never been stronger. Host ken, independent. Caller good morning. I would like to recount some of the history here, if i may. The supposed moderate his calculus was that if he attacked israel and killed 5 million israelis he would destroy israel. And if they would retaliate and killed 10 to 20 iranian, we have more muslims and ergo we win. Of course, ahmadinejad not only threatnd israel, he threatened the United States wiping us off the map. And row manie, which im assuming the gentlemen have read his book raps diesed about how he pulled the wool over the european ubeion representatives in negotiations on their Nuclear Program. Now we have in the wikileaks we have saudi arabia and some of the emirates were absolutely hoping, praying for israel or the United States to take iran out. And saudi arabia recently said that they would give the israelis clearance on their air space if the israelis wanted to take the iranians out. Quite frankly they just discovered yet another Nuclear Facility that has been clan destinely built in the iranian desert or what have you. Im just wondering, what do we need to see before we see that these people are i mean, the population, the demographics in iran, they have a young population. What are we doing to help that young population overthrow the iranian bureaucracy . They dont want it. Cant we do something to help the iranian youth . Host got your point. Quick minute. Guest there may have been a possibility to do that in 2009 and we didnt take that. Right now i think the opposition is very much under the thumbs of this particular regime. Host during the arab spring . Guest in 2009 is probably not quite the with the spring but in the general time period when there were uprisings in the streets of tehran when people were shouting down with the dictators. Obama are you with us or against us . President obama at they dont want it. Cant we do something to help the iranian that point thought he made the decision, not a crazy strategic decision that he was not going to alienate those who rule or lead iran, as you will. He was going to reach out to them and show that he was interested in a new relationship with them. So he did not in any way support the uprising thousands and thousands in the streets who saw the election at that time of ahmadinejad as a stolen election, which i think it was. The votes were counted by people who knew how it was going to come out. So were not doing that at this moment. Election at that time of ahmadinejad we agree is the goal should be to stop iran look, i think where which has as its rallying cry and has for 6 years since the revolution i was there for the revolution death to america, letting them get Nuclear Weapons to threaten or do worse to saudi arabia and israel and others in the region. Who knows what happens. We also have to worry and i know matt worries about this what is called a prolive rigs cascade. We give iran a route to for the revolution Nuclear Weapons. Maybe others too. The for example. Pretty soon you have a lot of unstable regimes with Nuclear Weapons. How long before they spill into the hands of even less responsible actors . Hamas, hezbollah, maybe isis others . This is exreamly danger for the remainder of this century. Actors . Hamas, hezbollah, maybe isis others . This is exreamly danger for the remainder of this century. We need to get this right. One other thing. Weve had similar other negotiations a few years ago with the north koreans. We were told they wouldnt get Nuclear Weapons. They have Nuclear Weapons. They have missiles and are Getting Better missiles. We should not make the same mistake again. Host victorville, california. Democrat. Go ahead. Caller i was wondering, when we talk about iran and we talk about what to do with iran, we continue to say america is weak when it comes to president obama and hes not fulfilling whatever needs need to come to fruition to stop iran from turks becoming nuclear. But other than war democrat. Go ahead. Caller from the republican side what are the others . I hear them saying were weak. Obama has a weak view on the from the republican side what middle east. Host so you want to know what the options are. Guest i think america is strong. America is strong in the middle east and america is approaching this from the position of strength. Thats why iran has lost 160 billion in oil revenue and their economy is 1015 smaller since 2012. The United States has a significant force presence in the region. Which is a signal to iran and other bad actors about what the consequence of doing bad behavior is. So that is a position so you want to know what the of strength the americans are coming from. If you dont have an Intrusive Inspections agreement, verfibble agreement, what are the options . And the options are iran is left without international monitoring. Or the option is a military option is our only option. And that is something also that does not have indefinite success in wiping away the knowledge and drive of the Nuclear Program. Thats the only option were driving toward without anything else. That becomes more difficult and probably increases irans interest in getting a Nuclear Weapon as quickly as possible. Guest can i disagree that its that binary. Heres why. We utilized sanctions to get iran to the table. That was very good. At that point and i understand the logic behind it we relieved a 2k3w50d deal of the sanctions pressure. Deal of the pressure. It is now clearly modest recovery. It has growth. Since we relieved that was very good. At that point and i understand the logic that intense sanctions pressure we have not gotten a single serious concession in iran in all that time. There are a number of things you can do. Although i think the credible threat of military force is important though i dont think we have it right now. But one you can reimpose sanctions. You can say, look, understand these negotiations are meant to prevent you from having a Nuclear Weapons capability. And im sorry to insult you but that is what this is about. Were going to do very difficult things to your economy and we are going to make it clear to you that military force is a credible option. Its the last option we want. So we need you to be reasonable about this. You say you dont have a program. You say you dont want or need one. You need to prove to us. Host but will the countries abide by the tougher sanctions . Guest multilateral sanctions. The power what we have against iran this is iran standing up against the International Community. The reality is diplomacy and negotiations are a form of pressure. Helping to keep the sanctions together. And sanctions cannot be our only strategy going forward. They are one part of pressure. But unless theres movement that weve given a way for iran to do something about this it will not be possible to sustain the sanctions regime. Host more calls. Brian. Caller good morning. What i would like to point out is a strike at the iranians is not as easy as the hawkish people like to make it sound. It will not be like bombing iraq. I think the russians have sold the iranians their most sophisticated avepblet Aircraft Missile system that they have. I know i read articles where the pentagon is war gamed it out. That the iranians can hit back. They could rain down conventional missiles on saudi is a credible option. Oil facilities. They can harass shipping in the persian gulf maybe close down the strait of hormuzz. The iranians have a lot of capability. They cannot defeat the United States obviously but they can make it very painful to us and the western economies by say knocking these saudi oilt fields off line for six months. Imagine what that would do to the world economy. And just as a quick aside. We always hear a lot of talk about not following the constitution. Why dont we have a movement in congress to just declare war on iran instead of doing the cowardly thing like most congressmen do and just defer to the president and let the president decide to take military action . Host congress has been weighing in on sanctions. That is something that Congress Still has in their tool belt. They could say these negotiations are they just keep going on and on. Were going to bring back the sanctions. The president could veto it. Guest the caller is right that nothing is easy. But if nothing is easy now imagine what it will be like if and when the iranians have Nuclear Weapons and the means to deliver it. As difficult as it is now it will be more difficult if we let them go down that road. We should not be more afraid of iran than iran is afraid of us. And we should not be giving off that signal that were so war weary that we cant even credibly threaten the use of say bunker busters to destroy a program theyve invest add huge amount of time and money in. The regime wants most of all i think we know this from history to preserve itself. If it feels threatened economically, militarily, in any other way, thats when you may get concessions because the regime does i think want to survive. Host take a look at this piece written in the wall street journal opinion piece. What do you make of this dynamic . Guest as we think about what it means for iran to reintegrate, thats a key point. Related to the goal that were trying to stop iran from getting a nuclear weap weapon, any sanctions can snap back. They could be rapidly imposed both by our congress and theres a better ability for us to get the international means to do it. Second, on the oil revenues, and what iran could produce, iran has lost out on a huge amount of oil revenues late lifment its not just putting out barrels of oil from the country. Its also the oil infrastructure, all their full access to market. Those things dont happen overnight. The types of revenues that iran could get back cant be isnt that part of our intervention . And also you say about war being an option. It seems to me that youre saying that first option is negotiations. Negotiations should go on as long as they can and instead of sending more of our troops over to be maimedirans army is quite strong. It is not iraq. Guest diplomacy is not separate from economic coercion. When all three are put together you have a really strong stance you can maintain and you should be using economic coercion and the credible threat of military force and diplomacy. As far as 2009, im not say we should send in marines. You have young people in this region who want democracy. You can see a few words in support of that. Say that they deserve to have elections that are free and fair. Maybe it would have made a difference and maybe women. We will never know for sure. What we do know for sure, this region is regime right now we are not going to be able to snap back sanctions. Once you get Companies Going in and investing billions of dollars, they will become lobbyists for the regime. Once you get that regime 140 billion up front, they will use that in very bad ways. I dont believe they will use it that money is i reading money that has been frozen iranian money that has been frozen. Some on our site are saying we should release very little on the first day. We should release when the International Inspectors say iran is complying with its obligations. Right now, the agreement is frontloaded to give the benefits to iran. Once that happens, they will have little reason to comply. Guest right now as the agreement is contemplated sanctions relief will be phased in exchange for behavior. Its not an immediate windfall. The second important thing given the state of iraqs economy, there is happy trillion dollars of domestic investment that iran has. These are infrastructure issues, the types of things that motivated the election of president ronnie. Rouhani. If iran has a large amount of sanctions, many domestic things they need to do, those are the types of things that continue to put pressure on iran. Host what does their population look like . Guest they are young, their energetic. When you think about it, there is in a norm is population that america can tap into. Thats why its important for us to not think of iran completely in the Nuclear Issue. Iran has some hugely destabilizing behavior bites government. That is outside the norms of the international system. But the iranian people are a huge resource that can be integrated into the World Community and the middle east. We need a strategy to reach out to them. By dealing with the Nuclear Issue entering to readdress it that will allow them to have more robust discussion. We disagree about many things but there are opportunities there. Host george appeared independent. Caller thank you for taking my call. The only way we are going to deal with this issue as we must deal with it with a stick and the stick only. They have a younger, more populated, more progressive youth. They will have to change the mental state of the leaders there. When we are talking about the negotiations, we have to deal with it by the stick and the stick only. Thats the only way we are going to bring this thing down. I see all these reports about what theyre negotiating on, i want to see the final result of what happens before we pass judgment on whats going on there. Host congress will get to review it. 60 days if the deal were to come to fruition. Guest its important that congress does review it and look at it with a jaundiced eye. There will be pressure on democrats to go along with the president on this. I hope they will look at their legacy and say i will look at the agreement and decide, does this block irans path to a Nuclear Weapon or does it pay the the path. Whatever congress decides does not stop the agreement because i think this agreement should be a treaty. This is such an important agreement and its about Nuclear Weapons. He should have been samiti to congress for approval as a treaty. The president decided not to do that. Should have been submitted to congress for approval as a treaty. Its not a binding agreement right now. It can become a binding agreement if the president decides to take the agreement he signed and go to the when and have the Un Security Council embrace it under chapter seven. Host if they reject the deal it could make it very difficult for the president to withdraw the sanctions. Guest there needs to be a robust debate by the american people. None of us know what the outlines are. There are a few important questions you need to ask. Does it set back Irans Nuclear program . If they decided to get a Nuclear Weapon how will we know if iran is treating . How do we make sure we really understand what their behavior is . What can we do to make sure that we understand the different parts of the nuclear fuel cycle. You mine uranium, package it get centrifuges. We should take a look at those questions. Thats high you evaluate a deal on arms control agreements. Thats what weve always done. Im talking real tough and courageous diplomacy like Ronald Reagan had. The soviet union was an enemy. No one thought the soviets were someone we wanted to gloss over with. Thats why you have diplomacy in negotiating. You have tough negotiations with your enemies and those you disagree with. Thats the same tough mindedness we need to bring when we are approaching iran. Host dan is next in bridgewater, new jersey. Republican. Caller the u. S. Army the project, the israelis have Nuclear Missiles aimed at every single arab and middle eastern population center. We are forgetting this aspect of the equation. The saudis are involved with sunni terrorism all over the world. We are trying to regulate a relationship that existed in the middle east for a long time and we are coming in right now and thinking we can negotiate somehow. You have been committing us republicans to sign this position that is frightening because if we do anything military, if we do anything more than try to bring peace between the parties over there, we will get into a much more much worse situation. Our country has gotten into combat operations it cannot afford. I dont see where you guys are going. Israel can defend itself. I dont see why we have to get involved threatening their radiance. Iranians. Guest you are taking the position that we should pull out of the middle east. Its not so hard to understand the basics of this. You have a regime, the rainy and regime which is terrible and human rights. Its supporting terrorists still the major terrorist sponsor in the world. That regime to get Nuclear Weapons puts us not just israel. It is being threatened with genocide as recently as yesterday by the iranian regime. Israel is very concerned. The saudis are concerned, too. Death to saudi arabia is a popular rallying cry. To allow this regime to get Nuclear Weapons does not in short that the rest of this century will be peaceful for the unites states. Anymore than saying if the nazis take checklist macchia, we will have peace. Czechoslovakia, we will have peace. Iran with Nuclear Weapons is worse. What can we do about it . Lets do it. If we cannot get a deal to dramatically, lets use economic coercion to try. We should never forget that we are the stronger of the two nations and theres a lot of damage we can do to their Nuclear Program without setting a single boot on the ground. They know that. If they believe we have the will to do that kind of damage, then they may make some concessions. Guest i agree with that about our goal. The other parts that iran is doing. In the 30 times i went to the middle east, i heard again and again about Iran Destabilizing activities. I heard from our gulf allies. In any event, we are remaining clear about how to resist that. We must resist it. The United States must retain a military force their. There. Those are strong steps we can take right now and we must continue to take. They all become worse and irans behavior becomes worse if they can do it with Nuclear Weapons. Host we are talking with the president for the foundation of defense of democracy. He has had a long distant wished career in journalism. Also joining us, matt spence, assistant secretary of defense at the middle east part of our discussion about what to do about iran, how to deal with this country. The Nuclear Talks continue through monday. The caller talked about saudi arabia. Here is jean on twitter that is a segue to irans role in iraq and helping to fight isis. Guest i think there is a Strong Coalition against isil in the middle east. 60 nations stand with the United States. This is not seen as americas fight versus isis. You have saudi pilots, emmeric jordanian pilots flying combat missions against these targets. Thats a very significant thing. We can always ask our allies to do more. If you look at whats happening on the ground, we have strong participation with our arab allies against isis. Host why do you think iran is motivated to be part of this . Guest its important to understand a couple things. What isis is. It came out of al qaeda in mesopotamia, in iraq. That was beaten by the u. S. During the search. We withdrew our troops prematurely. Iran came into baghdad and said we are the big player here now and iran and the baghdad government again began to alienate the sunnis, which changed al qaeda and gave it a chance to grow and prosper. We do have a problem now with saudi arabia in the following way. Saudi arabia believes iran is an extension of threat. This existential threat. If they see nobody defending them but a group like the islamic state, they will not be wanting to fight isis because that will help iran. They will be wanting to support isis because they are less worried about isis then iran. A Nuclear Armed iran, that could be the end of their regime. We are putting the saudis in a difficult situation and they see a real threat and the u. S. As possibly not the reliable ally the u. S. Have been to saudi arabia. Guest i spent a lot of time talking with these gulf states. I think the United States has been a strong ally and partner to these countries. They included the largest weapon sale, to saudi arabia. To sell f15s to the region. The United States has worked in partnership and planning cooperations isis is a threat to our allies. We are trying to equip our allies to deal with these threats. Host anthony in st. Paul minnesota. Democrat. Caller what i would like to say is, i noticed its a lot of i consider this, when they took over their embassy what ive heard from programs is iran signed a nonproliferation agreement that israel and saudi arabia did not sign. If you have a young, vibrant people, you give them the opportunity to grow. You open up the gates, you get other peoples minds coming in. I was under the impression that we had something in our constitution saying we are not we have been bad in overthrowing governments. I really believe sometimes we over analyze things. Everybody has their own hates and dislikes. What we have to do is let people get nuclear power. Host i will have matt spence jump in. Guest one thing this caller raised is we need more than a military strategy. Which we have. We need to resist aggression. A big thing that also kept me up at night with the economic and political division. If you have a rising population highly unemployed, looking for opportunities, thats a firecracker recipe for disaster going forward. Those are key parts we need to think about. The second part is the political aspect. One of the key reasons isis is able to grow was poor Political Leadership uncovered spaces and alienation of key minorities. If that continues, no amount of troops can occupy all the space to stop assault that alienation. We need to think about a larger strategy about how do we address the conditions that allowed this group to grow in the first place. Host robert in harrisburg, pennsylvania. Independent. Caller hi, everybody. Im just thinking this is not a party issue. Its all americans who have to decide. We never thought removing the regime in iraq that has not been on the table. Why not check them closely . We have tried sanctions, we cannot go to war with them, or we can, but it would be costly. Why dont we get close to them and check them closely . Guest let me answer a few things that have been raised. The first caller mentioned the hostage crisis of 1979. Our embassy was taken over and diplomats were held hostage for a long time. There are still american hostages being held by iran. A former u. S. Marine, one is a journalist for the Washington Post. He never wrote anything that you and i could find that is even insulting and he is being accused of all kinds of strange crimes like espionage. The Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty, iran has signed it, it has violated every agreement that it has ever signed over the last 20 years. Thats why we need good verification because they cannot be trusted. As for the young population, i totally agree. I suspect its hard to be pulling. I suspect a majority would love not to be ruled by this selfdeclared jihadist islamic government, this radical government that wants to be the colossus of the region. I dont think they have the ability to express themselves under the current circumstances. Host is it largely young, male unemployed . It is young and under a lot of a large portion is under 25. It is stressed economically. The regime continues to support hezbollah in lebanon and syria hamas, tried to blow up a restaurant in georgetown. Host kansas city, missouri appeared republican. Caller i have a question about china. The chinese economy. The chinese economy has bought oil from iran. How do we make sure the chinese will stick to those contracts. Guest i think the important point is we need to focus on how to maintain this international sentience regime. Without taking action and having what the rest of the community sees as a reasonable deal, it will be hard to do that. You say we should just continue sanctions is not really realistic. We look at what the chinese would do and russians would do and thats one of the reasons we need to look about us look at ways to move past sanctions. Host jackson, tennessee. Independent. Caller my question is, when i listen to these guys, i hear them not really give iran credit for being intelligent. These guys act like they are the superior people and iran has no place at the table. They disrespected the people. The first thing you have to do is respect people. Guest we have enormous respect for the irani people come up for the people who want a Better Future for themselves and for the american leadership. Secretary kerry speaks with the foreign minister of iran regularly. Americans are spending weeks of their lives negotiating with iran. Iran is a serious country with serious politics. We come at the disagreement with the principle of mutual respect. Guest i have a lot of respect for the people of iran. I do think they would be our friend if they had that opportunity. I respect irans rulers come i dont like the people who say death to america. Thats not on my christmas list coming second. People like the foreign minister is incredibly clever. Thats not on my christmas list necessarily. They are winning this diplomatic battle and thats how they see it. Here is where matt and i disagree. Matt has said president obama has said its better to have no agreement than to have a bad agreement. I think matt probably Still Believes that. Not entirely sure president obama believes that. I fear this is going to be and we dont know for sure. This will end up as a bad agreement because every time we find some creative way to meet the demand that iran has come a new demands, and its the mans that make it possible to have a verifiable agreement that doesnt give us a big signing bonus and tens of billions of dollars to iran at a time when it is still a terrorist nation threatening genocide of our allies, preaching death to america and abusing human rights at home hanging gay people, pressing religious minorities, doing terrible things at home right now. We have to recognize the reality of this regime. This is a regime that is ruled that has ruled more than it has led. Host under what circumstances does the United States and other countries negotiating in these talks walk away . Guest i think the United States needs to be able to walk away. A bad agreement should result in no agreement. Host what would be the guest if there are not sufficient ways to verify and inspect irans behavior. That would be hugely important. If there are ways we do not feel like we have appropriate insight into this nuclear fuel cycle. Third, if we are not appropriately stopping irans ability and timeline to get to a Nuclear Weapon. Two thirds of irans centrifuges were limited. Have to plutonium have to get a Nuclear Weapon. Those are important things to get there. If we believe iran is cheating, the United States should be witty ready to pack and go home. If iran walks away, that is much easier for us to keep the international cohesive pressure together versus the unite states walking away. Host peter in illinois. Democrat. Caller i was wondering, why do you always we always blame other countries for doing the exact same thing america and israel is guilty of. We bombed japan. In 1946, we bombed over 30 countries, try to overthrow 50 governments. Tried to assassinate over 50 leaders. In other words, we are the same threat we complain other people have and as far as israel goes host i want to go to ralph. Republican. Caller good morning. I have a couple of comments. Your guests represent the Obama Administration he is so wrong , except for extraordinary circumstances in 2009 when the green revolution happened, it was a historic in 2010, maliki did not win the election and the Obama Administration insisted on cobbling together a government that installed malki. Devastating consequences for the region in this leader gets away with it. You allow this individual to sell the iranian Nuclear Program . Its astonishing. Guest the United States does not pick leaders of other countries. We deal with the leaders we have. We want to deal with the most appropriate partners. Take iraq. Malikki was a divisive politician who took steps that alienated large parts of the iraqi population. The Prime Minister body is a better partner than malki. The United States did not come in with military support while the government was taking its sectarian issues path. It needs Political Partners who are willing to take the steps necessary to address the root causes of these issues. Thats what we need to do with the humility that these are countries picking their leaders. Guest i think as a rule of thumb, its important that americas enemies due respect and fear it and americas allies trust it. I fear that we are going towards the end where the israelis, the saudis, kurds and others see us not given them support that they need against enemies trying to wipe them out. We are going to far in terms of trying to make iran into a partner, tried to establish a tie. I suspect that president obama sees himself as nixon did to china. China had been our enemy we said we can have a partnership we can do business and he went to china and established that analogy does not hold. Even if a deal is concluded, the ayatollah will not say to obama come visit me, lets drink pomegranate juice e and shake hands and talk because he sees himself as a revolutionary. That was not just against the shop, its against america. One caller things we were wrong to go into world war ii. I dont think president obama is among them, but there are such people but our allies have ultimate interests. This legitimate interests. Giving People Choice of what governments they have. Its better than what our at this race adversaries want to do. Host raymond in utah. Independent. Caller i agree with both gentlemen. One common he just brought up was next and going into china nixon going into china. China invited us into invited nixon into china. That was a big mistake. My question is, china has a longterm planning process. Where do you think china thinks iran should have Nuclear Weapons are not . Guest china has to do with us as part of these negotiations. I do want to return to one thing i think the United States is and must be very strong in defense of its allies. I think the United States has been. If you take israel, the United States provided more military assistance than it has ever provided in a year. We sell our most advanced weaponry to israel. We have provided the iron dome Missile Defense system. As we have seen, they again talk about the most important details of keeping our country safe. Those who say we are not standing by israel come on the things that matter, on the defense relationship, on those israeli planes, they know and they have said that the military relationship is strong and it must be strong and it will continue to be strong. Host your final thoughts. Guest i mostly agree with matt, except for the capabilities of israel those could be supplied to israel and it would be in our interest to do so. We have not done so yet. Host we appreciate it. Thank you both for an interesting conversation. We will take a short break. We will open up the phone lines. You can call in on any Public Policy issue. Immigration, economics etc. We will get to that right after this break. Book tv is television for serious readers. Join us next saturday starting at 11 00 a. M. Eastern for our allday live coverage of the harlem book fair. The flagship African American literary event featuring pamela author and cofounder medea benjamin. We are live from our Nations Capital for the National Book festival, celebrating its 15th year. Followed on sunday with our life, indepth program with lynne cheney. A few of the upcoming live programs on cspan2s book tv. This week on first ladies, influence and image, we learn about garfield and mary arthur she was an educated woman and a believer in womens rights when her husband, James Garfield was assassinated, she returned to ohio and ensured his legacy. Chester arthur becomes president and his sister fills the role of first lady. Establishes white house social etiquette used by future first ladies for decades. Garfield and arthur, sunday night and it 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans original series, first ladies come influence and image. Examining the women who filled the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency. From our washington to Michelle Obama Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. On cspan3. Washington journal continues. Host we are back in open phones, getting your thoughts on any Public Policy issue. The phone lines are open. We begin with 2016 news from the wall street journal. Iowa kicks off the nomination caucus also in the papers is this story, billionaires make rick perry three which texas donors help a group of super pacs raised 17 million dollars. It also notes here that the two groups supporting john kasich have collected 11. 5 million. On friday, rand pauls Campaign Said it raised 7 million. Mostly from small donations of 50 or less. 2016 news this morning mark in florida. Democrat. Good morning. Whats on your mind . Caller i just watched the last segment and i think its an important topic concerning iran and the americans negotiating over the Nuclear Issues that exist there. I would like to thank on behalf of myself, i would like to thank senator kerry and the United States state department for negotiating for peaceful resolution. Any people who seem to be real quick to pull the trigger consider themselves patriotic by doing so, many of them did not serve or served in a way that they did not see people put in harms way. Having served 11 years in the marine corps, im more of a proponent for negotiated settlements. The results of those negotiations not working out the body count for americans would be tremendously higher than the war in iraq. I support our current administration. Host doug in evansville, indiana. Republican. Caller i may go independent because i truly believe that we have to start drug testing our politicians and get an iq test. People who dont believe in the constitution, they should leave this country because a lot of people died for the freedoms they have been expressing their views. When a country says they are going to kill you while you are in negotiations, i would listen to them. Host clyde in minnesota. Independent. Caller thank you for taking my call. I like to look at things from a different perspective. In our comparatively short 240 years of growth from our revolutionary war and independence, while we have done a lot of good across the world and mean well in a lot of respects, are we not viewed by other countries, other regimes we think are not healthy for the people of these countries as being hypocritical . Isnt that the biggest monkey on our back . Dont do as i do, do as i say. I served in vietnam, so im patriotic. I did not dodge the draft or anything like that. I support the troops when they go somewhere. When these governments make these decisions to involve our people, the ripple effects in the constructs of our social involvement in the world, can we not at least just learn from history . Doesnt history is in history its own teacher and how we approach problems that seem to be bigger than life . Host another Foreign Policy news front page of the wall street journal. Greece awaits europe verdict. That story and this crisis falls short of going global. Financial contagion appears to have been contained for several reasons. The rest of the worlds banks have limited exposure to debt in greece, puerto rico and china. Also, this related to the story in the Washington Post this morning. The fed chief yesterday still expects a rate increase in 2015. Janet yellen warning they could delay a move. Expecting a rate hike in 2015 but when that comes is still uncertain. Stephen in west virginia. Independent. You are on the air. Caller i want to say thank you for cspan. I really wanted to echo the caller from florida and minnesota. I believe countries across the world, nationstates have a right to selfdetermination. It seems to me as if we are seeking to impose our will in all these other countries in the name of national interest. I think back, looking back at history, the presenters you spoke with had considered history beyond 1979 would have come to iran, we helped the british overthrow a democratically elected government in iran and we helped to install a shah who had a repressive government which led to the ayatollah and iranian revolution. We were responsible for that revolution. Now, we want to go back and kill more iranians. It makes no sense. Host Fort Lauderdale court appeared republican. Sarah, whats on your mind . Caller i agree with that color 100 . It was one of the biggest cheerleaders for the iraqi war. We would not have isis if that war had not happened. As bad as Saddam Hussein was, he kept all those people from fighting each other and spreading out across the world fighting. The whole point is, we need to talk to people instead of always threatening war. People are armed to the teeth. Theres no reason in the world for israel to be afraid of iran. They are so loaded with weaponry and everything. As protecting them with that dont we dont have a dome around america, but we protect them. They should say yes, lets have peace talks instead of saying, no, you are not supposed to, we dont like it. Its our decision, nobody elses. Its our boys dying, no one elses. Im tired of people trying to promote war for the United States and killing our boys for no reason honor. It has become worse over there. Host ken in chicago. Democrat. Caller im not concerned about the antiamerican rhetoric death to america chance. Tip oneill once said politics is local. The antiamerican rhetoric is a means by which variable they are able to keep the populations attention away from economic problems. Irans adversaries, we are far down on the list. We underestimate the sunnishia tension. Isis is a much bigger problem for them than for us. The successful strategies we pursued in the last 100 years if we are able to keep them from acquiring Nuclear Weapons long enough for a regime change, i think that is our best strategy. Host ithaca, new york. Democrat. Caller good morning. I was calling in response to what the last speaker said. The population in iran i wonder if he had access to the data that shows the population would not support an islamic revolution. This kind of rhetoric being used they dont like their government. Its a wrong assumption. That is my comment. Host harry in pennsylvania. Independent. Caller ive listened to your commentators, people calling in, all want peace in america. There is no chance that we are not going to go to war with iran. The people we are not represented by our legislature. We will be in a war obama is the only guy in washington who does not want to go to war. We will be at work, mark my words, within three years. They will defeat this country because we cannot afford the debt. Iran has a very formal army formidable army. Caller we will keep open phones. Getting your thoughts on things youve seen in the news. I want to share with you before we get to more of your calls our cspan cities tour, looking at a picture of the colorado junction. Events like this one on the rooftop of the avalon theater. Exploring the history and literary culture of the city on the western slope of the rockies. We travel to places like this to learn about different areas of our country. Be sure to tune into book to be an American History tv on the weekend of september at and six 56. Lynchburg, virginia. Independent. Good morning. Go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. What i want to point out is that in 1948, the Geneva Convention was held, israel was proclaimed as a state the infant child of imperialism was born. The reason we have the problems we have in the middle east is because of our alliance to israel. Within the last 68 months, congress could not pass a bill for employment, but they were able to give israel 40 million 40 billion. Host why do you believe the alliance with israel is problematic . Caller because u. S. Imperialism, british imperialism wants to protect israel. Israel is in a legal, racist state according to the united nations. When israel proclaimed itself a state, it took over palestine. Giving israel european imperialism host in 2016 news, we told you that Hillary Clinton will be on capitol hill on tuesday meeting with democrats in the house and senate. She will meet with the black caucus in spanish caucus. In monday, she will be in new york giving a speech on the economy. We will have coverage of that on cspan at 10 00 a. M. Eastern time. Also monday, scott walker will be throwing his hat in the ring for a president. Coverage on cspan3, cspan radio and cspan. Org. Tune into that. You can go to www. Cspan. Org to find out more. This from the New York Times this morning, another story for all of you to consider. Torture efforts protected by psychologists. Bob in michigan. Good morning. Caller i would like to comment on the iran situation. Try as he might with his smile is not going to resurrect the cheneybush era neocon philosophy. It just has not worked in the middle east. We have to look historically at iran they continue to have the mantra of death to america and have added multiple other countries. Lets look at the reality of the situation. When those teenagers took over the u. S. Embassy in tehran in 1979, when it was all over, how Many Americans were executed publicly by the skids those kids . Zero. How many diplomats were supposedly hikers have been a gated by iran relative to the number of heads cut off by i sil . I dont think anybody believes the death to america entre. Im not saying they are not a bad actor. Death to america mantra. Host robert in arizona. Republican. Caller good morning. I would like to suggest i think the president should move back into iraq immediately and that would help our negotiating position. We need to keep mr. Putin involved in all this because he has guaranteed their security. Thats all the comment i have. Host robert in pennsylvania. Independent. Caller i was calleing when i started rehab why dont we get close to them and watch them closer . If we get in war with iran, it will not be the best choice. They love americans. The people of iran love americans. Host lisa in kentucky. Republican. What do you think . Caller i was concerned about our people calling in hating on israel. Im all for israel. We better defend them. God is going to have the last say. Host lisa in kentucky. Republican. Bill is an independent in scottsdale, arizona. Caller can you hear me . Host we can. Go ahead. Caller i just wanted to address comments made by the previous panelist about irans to mystic politics factored into our willingness to work with them. Domestic politics. Its an absurd organizing principle for u. S. Policy in the middle east to not deal with people who dont treat their citizens nicely. If you look at saudi arabia our closest ally in the region other than israel, there are even more oppressive purist authoritarian regimes in irans. Then irans. Iran has a democratic system. If you look at egypt who has executed i dont think it makes any sense at all for that to be a consideration for the United States. Host in this country yesterday, the Confederate Flag came down from the South Carolina Capitol Grounds yesterday. Take a look at the headline in the denver post. After 54 years, a swift removal. There were cheers and chants of usa. Take a look. [applause] [applause] [applause] host an honor guard from the South Carolina Highway Patrol yesterday removed the Confederate Flag from the Capitol Grounds and columbia, ending its 54 year presence there. The governor of that state in attendance along with the families of those shot at that Historic Black Church in charleston, South Carolina. The flag being folded their by the honor guard from South Carolina Highway Patrol. Fuld adopted later in the day the flag pole also coming down. That flag and the bullheaded to a museum in that state. That poll headed to a museum in that state. Allen in misery. Missouri. Independent. Go ahead. Caller i really dont think we ought to be in the middle east. Thats a civil war. Even if we went to one side, the rest would be mad at us. The only way you can get your way is to negotiate. How do you negotiate with people who have been fighting from the beginning of time over there . Host jerry in north carolina. Democrat. Caller a lot of politicians i would like for them to get on board and come together and have a little piece. Host mark in ohio. Independent. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. The best show on tv. This is the news. My comment basically is our military is not working. Its a failure. These guys are coming back committing suicide at record numbers. We need to start the draft up again. For all these republicans who call in and say we ought to go back into iraq, send your kids. Dick cheney started this mess with lies and walked away with treason. Host one last call from lois in baton rouge, louisiana. Republican. Caller i wanted to comment on the fact that im hearing that people dont have to show identification when they go to vote. I cannot believe that we are using we are not using common sense on that subject. Iran threatens to kill get rid of israel. If they do, people believe they are going to use the atomic bomb on them. Look at all the palestinians in the area. Host coming up tomorrow, we begin with Patrick Tucker talking about Cyber Threats and u. S. Technological vulnerability. Following that come a roundtable discussion with the president and ceo of the National Alliance for public charter schools. And the Vice President for the alliance of excellent education. The debate that happened in washington this week on education and relighting of the no child left behind law. We will end with michael reagan, editor at large and columnist with bloomberg news, looking at instability in Global Financial markets, greece and china and what the impact is here. That comes your way tomorrow morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern time. Thank you for watching today. Enjoy your weekend. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] this morning, we continue our look at commencement speeches from around the country. First, megan smith speaking at m. I. T. In massachusetts. Followed by Michael Bennet at the university of denver. Later, virginia rometty addresses the graduating class at northwestern university. U. S. Chief Technology Officer megan smith delivered this years commencement address at m. I. T. She was appointed by president obama in 2014 after serving as Vice President of Business Development at google for nearly one decades. Her speech is 30 minutes