Accuracy. ] visit ncicap. Org][br] visit ncicap. Org][br] visit ncicap. Org][br] visit ncicap. Org][br] visit ncicap. Org][br] visit ncicap. Org][br] visit ncicap. Org][br] general dempsey yes. I think it increases risk but some of the decisions, and youre talking about the army in this case, but some of the choices that the Service Troops have to make in terms of resources, you know, the army is tasked going from 490,000 active where they are today to 450,000 in the next two years. They got to come from someplace. Senator sullivan its inviting a the Congress Says dont do it in the ndaa. But secondly, thats going undermine our ability in the asia pacific. Those are paid comm forces. General dempsey it sounds like you may have insight. Senator sullivan no, i dont. I hope the army wont make strategic blunder. General dempsey we are familiar with the congress telling us no on the reforms we were trying to make. Because we have 1 trillion thats a t, not a b. But atrillion dollars less in Budget Authority over 10 years. Weve said from the beginning its a disaster. Senator sullivan thank you, mr. Chairman. I just do want to mention that. If were looking at b. C. T. s going to the area where Congress Said we need to increase forces, having those having our only asia Pacific Arctic capability which as you know, general, you cant develop overnight and our own airborne capability in the entire air asia pacific, to me that would be a strategic blunder and i think Congress Sometimes comes in has broader Strategic Insights that the military has on occasion, not always, but sometimes and this is one of them. On behalf of chairman mccain, thank you for your testimony. Senator reed i want to thank you for your service to the nation and you, general demptiony as you conclude your uniform service. At chairman mccains direction ill adjourn the hearing. Thank you. Cable satellite corp. 2015] national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. ] visit ncicap. Org][br] the center for American Progress is hosting a meeting tomorrow on u. S. China relations and the middle east. The defense secretary thats live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan three. Later in the day, a look at fixed income markets with regulators and the Financial Experts at a roundtable discussion hosted by the chair of the house subcommittee. That is live at 2 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan three. Next weekend on cspans road to the white house, two Major Political events from iowa, and we are the only place you can watch them in their entirety. We will be live in cedar rapids for the Iowa Democratic party hall of fame dinner, the first time that all five democratic president ial candidates share the same stage. All day saturday, beginning at 11 00 a. M. Eastern, the family leadership summit, where nine the republican candidates are scheduled to speak. On cspan, cspan radio, and cspan. Org. Cspans road to the white house 2016, we take you there. Here on cspan, newsmakers is next with steve israel of new york. Then a town hall event with Carly Fiorina in new hampshire. At 8 00, our conversation with Christian Anderson on q a. Our guest on newsmakers is steve israel. One of the most romantic things that happened in the house was the kerfuffle over the Confederate Flag. What can democrats do . Are there more procedural maneuvers . What can democrats do for the general election to use as an issue to excite africanamerican voters . Thanks for the question. Imagine that almost as they are lowering the Confederate Flag in south carolina, republicans decide late at night to make a backdoor attempt to raise the Confederate Flag over our national parks. Why did they do that . Not because its their ideology because it was the only way they could attract and enough votes to pass an interior appropriations bill. The only way they could do that is to buy the votes of republicans by trying to insert at the last minute an amendment that would allow for the raising of the Confederate Flags in national parks. We stopped it. We went to the floor. We fought them on it. At the end of the day, we force them to withdraw the entire bill. This is an example of the fact that these House Republicans cannot govern or manage. Their ideology gets in the way of everything they do. As a result, we dont have an appreciations bill. Appropriations bill. And we are headed towards another shutdown and fiscal cliff. We will fight them when their ideology becomes excessive. We will fight them until they learn how to govern efficiently and properly. Can you imagine the Confederate Flag issue will play with democrats who have a lofty goal of trying to get back the 10 seats in the house . This is going to be an issue democrats can run ads on . How big of an issue will this be . Guest i dont think we should fundraise off this issue. It is too important. This issue reflects basic principles and values. Republicans in the house are going to insist on raising the Confederate Flag wherever they can, whenever they can. We are going to continue to insist on raising objections to that with all the tools we have. Piggybacking off of that, i remember the Government Shutdown in october. Democrats were excited and thought this was their silver bullet. How do you make sure only one person ended up losing their seat over the Government Shutdown. How do you keep this in the hearts and minds of your voters . Guest we have to continue to remind base voters and independent voters they have something in common. That is, do you want a congress that will fight to increase your paychecks and reduce college debt, that will fight for you every day for your security and stability in an economy changing . Or do you want a Republican Congress devoting all their time and effort to putting Confederate Flags up in national parks, devoting all their time and effort to more showdowns that cannot pass a basic infrastructure bill . What is a better deal for the American People . Democrats will fight every day for the middle class and working families. Republicans who will will continue to fight ideological battles on every piece of legislation we are considering. That was a message you tried to use in 2014. And still, you lost 13 seats. What did you learn and how do you make that not happen this time . Guest thank you for reminding me about the 13seat loss, as if i needed a reminder. Was an anomaly. 2014 it was one of the most brutal turnout years we have faced in a midterm election. The wind was in our face from the getgo because it was a midterm election, very low turnout. 2016, the wind is at our backs. It will be hard for us to take the majority, but we will pick up seats. We are going to pick up seats for several reasons. Number one because we do have the electoral wind at our back. Number two because republicans are being defined by House Republicans trying to raise the Confederate Flag. Donald trump is the base of the republican party. Number three because we will have a president ial candidate that fights everyday for middleclass families. Number four because in president ial elections, turnout benefits democrats. You put those things together, you are looking at all the ingredients you need to pick up seats. And we will. A big part of the criticism after 2014 was House Democrats and their message after the election said there was too much focus on minimum wage, pay equity. All things that are important to Democratic Base of voters, base voters. But they are not important to suburban males. The voters that democrats need to pull in democrats favor if they are going to take back the senate or house. You are in charge of the messaging for the house. What concrete steps have you taken with that task force, that committee, to change how democrats message to independent voters, swing voters, suburban voters versus the voters that will always be a Democratic Base . Guest that is a wonderful question. On the day of the election in november of 2014, i woke up to two sets of data. One told me on every single Major Economic priority whether , minimum wage, reducing college debt, overtime, democrats were winning considerably over republicans. But the second piece of data told me on the general question of who do you trust to manage the economy, we were down by nine points. That is a message problem. When people agree with you on substance but you lose on the question, that is a message problem. The problem is not that democrats dont have a message. The problem is democrats have too many messages. Republicans have created an art form of lathering up two things, taxes and spending. What do we democrats often do . We lather down to our 92point plan on everything. Weve got to be more disciplined and focused to address that. Leader pelosi asked me to create to address that a policy committee. Our job is to make sure we are messaging to the broad electorate, to voters we need, and to reflect the values and priorities of House Democrats. What happened in this past midterm election, 1 3 of eligible voters supported a democrat or republican. 2 3 stayed home because they did not believe either party understood what they were going through. We have conducted extensive and deep research into why 2 3 of voters stayed home. We have learned there is intense anxiety many voters have about the changing economy. The economy is changing quickly. Many feel they are running in place. They want a Political Party that will give them the tools to stay ahead, that has Pragmatic Solutions to reduce college debt, to build infrastructure, to secure retirement. That is what we will be focusing on over the next several months and years. We will let republicans continue to fight their ideological battles over Confederate Flags vilification, and rewarding special interests. Host how will you explain or come to grips with the interparty disagreements over trade policy . Guest we are democrats. We are diverse by our nature. You look at us on cspan, and we look different because of our diversity. You look at the republicans they all look the same way and think the same way, except that their civil war makes our occasional disagreement look like nothing. Speaker boehner wakes up every morning to the threat of another coup. Many of the headlines over the past week were about new ruptures and new civil war, this constant fighting and infighting and struggles of the republican party. They are in a daily war over who they are, what they are about. We have differences on the trade bill because democrats represent different districts. We have different ideologies. At the end of the day on the issue of who has got your back who is fighting for bigger paychecks and secure retirement, who is fighting to reduce college debt, that is what democrats are about. On the issue of who is fighting amongst themselves on every single issue, including the Confederate Flag, that defines republicans. You brought up before the president ial candidate at the top of your ticket. Im sure youre referring to Hillary Clinton. I know you are a supporter of her and are always talking about how great she will be for your party. We have seen Bernie Sanders draw big crowds. There has been debate about how she should handle his candidacy. Im curious if you were to give Hillary Clinton advice, how would you tell her to deal with Bernie Sanders . Guest if i were presumptuous enough to give her advice it would be not to take anything for granted, to do what she is doing. This is a stiff competition. No question about it. She has said from the getgo in conversations with House Democrats and folks we know, she has said she is not going to take a single vote, a single precinct, a single state, a single media market, for granted. I would do exactly what she is doing. Bernie sanders makes an invaluable contribution to our debate and discourse as democrats. We ought to embrace the values he represents. I will continue to support Hillary Clinton. She was my senator in new york. Because she has the backs of middleclass families more than anybody i know. And i believe she is on the path to become the next president. I think she will be a phenomenal president. Guest you are not dccc chairman anymore, but i am sure you are integrally involved in the ways of the committee. I wondered how recruitment is going and if there is a place we should be looking for top recruits on your side of the aisle. Guest the new chairman is congressman lujan from new mexico. I worked closely with him when i was the chair for four years. This guy is one of the most operational people i know, but also has such good relationships with the caucus, with our stakeholders, with our supporters. He is the real deal and more dedicated than anybody i have ever seen. He is also methodical. The first thing we did after the election, on Election Night i picked up the phone and started recruiting for the next cycle. Ben ray became the chair. He picked up. We have a very good, strong map of recruits. We have had recent developments. There was a court case in florida that just broke last week. Under the Supreme Court ruling districts in florida will have to be redrawn. I think any objective analysis of that map suggests we pick up a net of several seats in florida. Recruiting has been going strongly in other areas of the country. We have brad schneider, former member, running against bob dole. We have emily cain in maine who lost in an anomalous situation. We did not have to recruit her. She stepped up to the plate. She is running. When you look at the recruits and president ial performance, i believe not only will we pick up seats, but i think the dccc can expect to pick up at least eight to 10 seats, maybe more with a strong wind behind us. We are halfway through. Bringing it back to washington, you mentioned republicans are the party of the shutdown. Senate republicans are blocking almost all bills on sequestration. In the house, they have done a handful of appropriations bills. They are in no way on track to get through with that before the august recess. If you had to put a guess on it now, how likely is it the government does shut down at the end of september . Are you expecting a shutdown will occur . Guest im hoping, praying, down on my knees, standing up doing everything i can to responsibly avoid the kind of shutdown the republicans have given us consistently and repeatedly. This is not that hard. Everybody knows. When i talked to my republican colleagues behind the scenes in quiet moments they know what i , know, what every american knows. When you have debt, you have to do several things. Youve got to reform spending. I am for it and i have done it. Youve got to reduce spending. I am for it. Ive done it. I am willing to do more. You also need revenues. The problem with the republican ideology and mindset is they are perfectly willing in the guise of entitlement reform, which sounds nice, to gut Social Security and medicare. They are perfectly willing to in the guise of reducing spending to continue to dismantle some of the most important protections for the middle class, for college students, for others. But when you say to them is it fair for an American Corporation to be able to park Assets Overseas and not pay taxes on them . Maybe we should ask them to pay their fair share on it. Is it fair for an American Corporation to go through an inversion and declare themselves canadian or go offshore to avoid paying their fair share of taxes . Is it fair to deny the American People revenues from corporations creating massive tax loopholes . Maybe we ought to close those loopholes. When you talk about revenues, in order to balance the budget and avoid a shutdown, republicans run away from that. That is irresponsible. We need a big, bold settlement. We need republicans and democrats to come together on three things. We need to look at our socalled entitlement programs, which are really social Insurance Programs people pay into. We have to make sure you do not pay into it and get ripped off. We got to continue to reduce spending. But we need those revenues. You give us those three things on the table, we wont have a shutdown. Republicans need to be at the table and be willing to discuss revenues. Raising taxes is something republicans will not be willing to do. You are saying democrats need those things. If Congress Needs those things to avoid shutdown, is it fair to say we should be expecting a shutdown . House and Senate Republicans are not willing to raise taxes whatsoever. Guest it is not about raising taxes. It is about raising taxes on the right people. Under their budgets, they raise taxes on the middle class, on working families. Under their budgets, they let the wealthiest, the biggest corporations, go scotfree. They let them leave the country and invert their identities so they can avoid paying taxes at home. That is fundamentally wrong. If republicans continue to insist on protecting big corporations at the expense of the middle class, you can expect there to be a shutdown. We hope that there will be some compromise and common sense that gets us to those three things. Fair revenues. Continued reform of entitlement programs. And continued reductions in spending where we are not , cutting into the bone of the middle class. Host six minutes left. Guest we were talking about how democrats will likely pick up seats. I know you have two numbers members who are representing seats republicans win in the president ial year. You have brad ashford in nebraska and the district that may get redrawn to make it problematic for her to keep that seat. For those kinds of democrats in your caucus, how do they run their reelections . How do you advise them to hold onto their seats . Guest brad ashford and gwen graham perfectly represent the values and priorities of their districts. They are doing everything right. They are able to go home and people say you are doing what i voted for you to do. Their politics are exactly aligned to their districts. Secondly, when you look at democratic districts that may be tough to defend, there are far more republican districts going through this cycle that are much harder to defend. That is the inverse of 2014 where we had many more tough to , defend seats than republicans. That has flipped. Republicans will have to defend dozens of competitive seats in the president ial. We will have some tough seats. We will see what happens with florida. Brads seat will be tough. There will be others. On balance, i believe the map favors democrats in 2016 particularly in a president ial cycle. Host lauren, you had questions on iran. Guest the iran negotiations are still ongoing. Secretary kerry said the deadline would not be met. That pushes it to a 60day approval for congress after the august recess. What do you predict will happen with how congress approaches them . Are you seeing a situation where republicans will be bucking the president and democrats will have to provide the majority . Guest anybody who tells you what will happen on this deal is the last person you should be listening to. Nobody knows because we dont , have a deal. I am deeply skeptical. I will not vote as a democrat for a deal unless it satisfies me on several basic precepts. Number one, anywhere and anytime verification. Number two, sanctions relief that can be snapped back where there are violations. And number three, i want to know exactly what the iranians have been doing on their Nuclear Program because we cannot figure , out where theyre going unless we know what they have been doing. If the president and secretary kerry can satisfy those issues i would consider voting for the deal. So far, i see no indication that those three concerns will be satisfied. But we will see. You see iranian officials who are very active on social media and getting their message out to western countries. They are saying there is no agreement on verification. That they would not agree to that. Does it concern you that you have the iranian officials targeting western members of congress who will be voting for this, but also the western media , saying this deal is nowhere near done and the concerns you presented are likely not going to happen . Guest what concerns me is every time we believe we have agreement, the ayatollah goes to his own media markets the next day and says we dont. That is what concerns me. I understand a lot of this is for domestic consumption. They are negotiating postures. I am going to make my decisions based on the terms of the agreement when it is submitted to congress and not the theater and optics going into the agreement beforehand. Host that is it for our time. Thank you for joining us this week. We appreciate your time. We covered a lot of different questions. It was interesting to have him critique the g. O. P. For being essentially not able to manage, describing chaos in the house and getting their agenda done. At the same time, he said they managed to roll up all of their themes into two messages. Taxes and the economy and spending. Are they organized with their messaging, not organized in running the house . Can those things live together equally . I think that is what House Republicans are facing. They have issues like the Confederate Flag. The fact they are unable to pass appropriations bills, but they are still winning elections. That is a messaging issue. He is right. Republicans are able to say i want to lower taxes and cut spending and reduce the deficit. Very easy, tangible thing for voters to understand. Democrats go out and talk about college affordability. That is easy and understandable. Most people can get behind it. But they dilute that message into minimum wage. Independent and swing voters are not enthused by the talk of minimum wage, mostly because they are not earning minimum wage. They are not enthused by gender equality. They are not enthused by paycheck equality because that is not an issue that will thrust them to the polls. They want to talk about middleclass economics in a tangible way. But saying im going to cut taxes is better than saying im going to get through a minimum wage increase. That is what democrats saw after the 2014 election. They might have policies voters back on issues, but they are not selling it in a way that excites the suburban male voters, which will be a linchpin for winning back the house and senate. Host representative israel said he was praying in every direction there would not be a Government Shutdown after september 30. Would that not be beneficial to the democrats . It did not play well with the public. It did play well in october of 2013. Then ebola happened, isis happened, and it fell to the back of peoples minds. From the polling we saw, the Government Shutdown blame fell on republicans. If you asked republicans in october of 2013, they would have said they were nervous about their electoral chances. Democrats have to be better at staying on message and staying the course if it does shutdown. They have to make sure that is still in voters minds. They have to find a way to sell that come november 2016. Host what is the speakers view of Government Shutdowns . John boehner is doing everything he can to avoid it. John boehner has an interesting situation where he has a conservative caucus that will hold the line on a lot of issues