Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 08022020 20240712

Issue of mailin voting and whether you think it is a safe and trustworthy alternative to in person voting. Cane lines are open, you join in on the conversation. Republicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. If you are an independent, 202 7488001. You can also send us a tweet, cspanwj, or join us on facebook, journal cspan. Org facebook. Reuters, negotiations continuing into the weekend with this from yesterday, secretary of state mnuchin taking up this role. [video clip] wetheres a subset of issues agree on, we are interested in extending enhanced unemployment insurance, schools, jobs, as you mcconnell hasr said several times, Liability Insurance is important to us. Ppp, theres a lot of bipartisan support. We discussed the issues we agree on and the issues that we dont agree on. I would characterize it as their still being a lot of work to do and we agreed that tomorrow the staff will meet and make additional progress. Of specificnch followup items and then monday, chief meadows and i expect to meet again to continue discussions. Its a priority for the president to make sure that we deal with the issue that unemployment has run out in the rental ifs. We understand that the speaker and senator schumer want to have an overall deal, we will be back here working fulltime until we can accomplish something for the benefit of the american people. From that update yesterday the treasury of the secretary, Steve Mnuchin. Thebig question is, what is price tag, what will republicans and democrats agree to . Mitch mcconnell put forth his plan last week totaling over 1 trillion, but according to Lindsey Graham about half of republicans in the Senate Oppose spending more than one trillion dollars. Yesterday the democratic leader in the senate, Chuck Schumer of new york. [video clip] this was the longest meeting we had in it was more productive than the other meetings. Many issues are still very much outstanding, but we had a serious discussion and we went down piece by piece to see where each side was at. The staff will be meeting over the weekend tomorrow to go through some of the things that we went through and we will meet again on monday. We are not close yet. But it was a productive discussion. Now each side knows where they are at and we are going to work very hard to come to an agreement that meets the needs of the moment. We still believe, and we discussed this with them, that this is one of the greatest problems america faces and we need to meet those needs in a very serious way. Halfwaying we will do doesnt work when people need homes and jobs and housing and help. Host that from the Senate Democratic leader on capitol hill yesterday. Lead negotiators, fluting Steve Mnuchin for the white house, and mark meadows. ,his is the headline at reuters Congressional Democrats in the white house still at an impasse over the relief bill and joining us on the phone this morning is jeff mason, who covers the white house for reuters. Is there a sign that this could be resolved by the end of the week . Guest thats a good question, steve. I dont have the answer to that. Seems that both sides are eager to get to a solution, but if you just as you just played in the clip, he said that they are not close. So, its just hard to say. The longer it takes, the higher the political pressure is going to be on both sides to come up with a solution and the more the blame game is going to be employed. We have got, as i dont need to tell you or the viewers, so many people across the country who are suffering from unemployment and from this virus in its economic and health implications. From expiredey, unemployment benefits, is no longer in the pockets of people, they will look for someone to blame and that will increase the political pressure. Not only that, but it seems that one of the biggest dividing lines is aid to states. Republicans reluctant to give it, democrats saying its a musthave. Absolutely. That dividing line is also very definitely a political one. Republicans, particularly the president , and others as well not wanting to give money to states that they believe have been poorly run by democratic governors. Democrats on the other hand seeing this as one of the major problems or one of the major implications of the crisis, that these states are facing really, really Major Economic hardship. About thes talk calendar. As we said at the top of the program, the house was originally scheduled to be off for august. That isnt quite to happen. We are moving into convention season, though they will be virtual conventions. What do you think congress is looking for in the next couple of weeks at what is the white house prepared to do . Everything has been thrown off by the virus. People, not only congress, but the president would be taking time away and they are just not doing that. People are staying in washington, in general staying at work to get these things done. I guess thats as much as i can say for the next couple of weeks, people on capitol hill in the white house are going to get to work on this and not go off and take their vacations. Jeff, thank you for being with us as always. Guest my pleasure, steve. Host we want to turn to the issue of mailin voting. This is the headline from the daily signal. The left calling for mailin voting, heres why its a bad idea, with political figures calling for the election to take by mail, but it could result in daily it could result in fraud. And from market watch, heres this view. Conservative groups are suing voting if itin means intervening in statelevel decisions in the president ial Reelection Campaign is suing to block it while pushing backers to be ready to be vote but ready to vote by mail. The evidence that we found it can in fact inspire Public Confidence in the voting process if done properly and when fraud occurs, Election Administrators identify it and take action, correcting returns and prosecuting those responsible. Thats what happened in 2018 when a republican political activist paid others to collect incomplete absentee ballots so that they could be filled out to vote for the republican candidate. The activist was arrested and charged, convicted, and the election was run again. Rare. L Election Fraud is victor is joining us in silver spring, maryland. Do you trust mailin voting . Caller absolutely not. I was sitting on my front porch listening to Rush Limbaugh talk about the cheating that goes on in baltimore in other places in some woman walks by and tells me i have no business listening to Rush Limbaugh and i asked her if she was the wing of the democratic that controls thought. Host thank you. We will go on to cv, joining us from florence, kentucky. Mailin voting, you trust it . Caller absolutely. I did it when i was in the army. And since 2016. Its no problem. Just like you said, voter fraud that happened in 2016 that theed caustic trump popular vote, hes whining about it again because hes afraid hes going to lose. Trump fraud cooked up by to limit access to voting. Pure and simple. Yall have a good day. Host martin, schenectady, new york. Againsti am completely mailin voting. There was a school primary, which not like a real, actual election between republicans or democrats, but there was a school vote and i had moved and the ballot was forwarded from my old School Address in my name wont be on the ballot. Could have legally voted. Obviously i tossed it, but i dont think unless you are signing like an absentee ballot where you sign the application, unless you do that and cities decide to just flood the entire city with ballots and i didnt ask for one, thats not ok. I have real trouble with that. There needs to be some sort of overall accountability towards how many exactly ballots will be issued. For the call. U des moines, iowa, do you trust the idea . Absolutely. I have a unique perspective. I worked in the Election Office for eight years and, first of all, all mail in or absentee voting, you sign a voter affidavit. And then every county in the a or let meas say every precinct has a ballot that is specific to that precinct. So, its impossible to duplicate the ballot and have a fake ballot out there, as has been claimed by the president. Mail is absolutely safe. Are no instances, hardly any, of voter fraud. Its a fallacy, its completely safe and i think it should be encouraged across the nation. Thanks for the call. This is an editorial from the voting by mail could save lives during the pandemic. Livingston, new jersey, good morning. Caller its ironic what you just said from the times, thats exactly what i was just going to tell you. More and more evidence is coming out that this is not the time to be questioning whether or not our safety and our wellbeing should be a part of voting. Its sad. Its very sad. Vote, by hell or high water im going to be voting. Do i like risking my life . Not really. Im not a hero. Im 76. I want to vote. Its that simple. When i hear a lot of men saying that they are going to steal the boat, dont they understand that when you get the ballot, a duplicate in the mail to show you what your questions are for your area, what the people are for your area, tell me how thats going to be sent all around the nation. Use your head. You are going to see the names of people not in your area on your ballot . Ts not going to happen intellectually challenged. I mean i hear the person say about Rush Limbaugh . Please, give me a great break. The man that failed out of college listening to the all knowledgeable Rush Limbaugh . Really . Listen to people who have been doing this. Five states that have been doing it for years. How come they have no problem . Thank you. Host josephine, thank you for the call. Earlier this summer we had a conversation with tom ridge on this very issue and here is his perspective. [video clip] the states remind people the penalties for fraud, significant financial penalties, imprisonment. The Heritage Foundation several years ago took a look at 200 and 50 million absentee ballots that had been cast over the past i think it was 20 years and they found that there were 200 cases of fraud that had been litigated and people found guilty of improper action. Its a somewhat fraudulent statement to suggest that historically there has been massive fraud in elections because of abuse of the absentee ballot process. Ad i dont claim it to be perfect system, but the infrequency of impropriety, of 250r, 200 cases out million, suggest that the local 10,000, do a00 to pretty good job monitoring absentee ballots. That from the former Homeland Security secretary tom ridge. In case you are interesting, this is the charge from the 70 ofon post, americans can cast ballots by mail in the fall. 77 of americans can cast ballots by mail in the fall. That that they would, but they have the potential of doing so. Bob, kentucky, do you trust mailin voting . Caller thanks for taking my call. No, i dont trust it. A person ought to be patriotic enough to get out of bed and go vote, because you have to show your id and there is so much on that. Runim 84 and i dont scared of this virus. I go where i want and i do what i want and i dont worry about it, im not a coward. Thank you. Joseph has this tweet host next is nick, good morning, walking to the program. Caller thanks for taking my call. Real quick, i dont trust it. I have already received two other mailin voting my mailbox. So, what you received was for the primary . You probably have not received for the general election. No, it was the primary, but if it can happen in the primaries, it can happen in the general, too. For nick, thanks very much the call. Lets go to stuart, joining us this morning from auburn, washington. Ofler the amount misinformation is galling and a real concern. We have been voting by mail in this state for many years and there are safeguards will tend. You receive the ballot, you completed, you put it in an invert inner envelope, outer envelope, sign the envelope, then it is checked and matched with dmv records before they will tally the vote. In one more thing i would like to point out is that if people prefer we use machines, look at what just happened in georgia, where all of these new machines were installed prior to the election and none of them worked on voting day. Thank you. Just tuning ine or listening on cspan radio, mailin voting, do you trust that as more and more states look at doing that because of coronavirus . Good morning, ricardo. Caller good morning, steve. Steve, right . Host yeah, how are you doing . Caller good morning. Im 76 years old. I dont know if i want to be out there like that might holding place, but i want to vote. I want to vote this guy out of this office who has turned this country upside down. Look at it now, its all beginning to be messed up. Sometimes we dont get mail around here for two days. Its a mess. Yes, i believe in voting by mail , its been done in other states, its no problem and i will be voting. I got to get him out of there. Thanks a lot for letting me talk. Host thank you for the call. M, conservatives are growing worried that the president s attack on mailin voting could suppress the gop vote as democrats mobilize to take advantage of expanded opportunities and suspicious republicans gambling on in person turn out during the pandemic. Scores of states have voted to get rid of absentee ballot he voted to embrace absentee ,alloting in a recent trend however the president has resisted the move, saying that democrats have an advantage in high turnout elections and making unsubstantiated claims about widespread fraud in mailin voting. Voting. Paul, good morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. I think that people should go and show their id, its important. People should go in with good open for sevent days, take their own time. If you dont do this, there will be considerable fraud from the democratic party. I dont believe them, this is whats going to happen. The headline from the washington post, preparing for astronaut splashdown. The east coast of florida has been hit hard with a tropical storm, so the alternative is the gulf of mexico, bushel be the first time they have used it as a landing face. We will have more this morning to preview what to expect during the course of the day. Splashdown is expected at 2 42 eastern time this afternoon and you can watch it all unfiltered in its entirety. Jim, fort lauderdale, good morning. Good morning. I am personally shocked that this is even being discussed in a serious way. The other thing, too, is how is it, why is it that just democrats are calling in wanting mail in voting . Dont republicans get coronavirus . It shows you how false this argument is. Anyways, theres no way that you can verify that a person who mailed in a ballot actually filled it out. The signature . That can be harvested by telling people to sign the ballot and they will take care of the rest. There is no real way of knowing that the ballot was filled out by the person that sent it in. The other thing, too, is they are not time stamped. So, nobody knows if any of these votes are going to make the deadline that is set. There should be no only assurance, but the appearance of a true vote and the only way you can do that is by going into a voting booth with no one pressuring you, which can happen with mailin voting. Theres no way that an election determined by mailin voting should be accepted by the voters of this country. It just doesnt, doesnt work. Host thank you very much for the call. Lindsay, mount holly, good morning. Caller good morning, thank you for taking my call. Host good morning to you. Againstim totally mailin voting, one because of the service of the post office. We get mail about three days a week in my neighborhood. The post lady, who is a contract worker, and we have been in the city for 40 years, will write down one side of the street putting it in the boxes and completely ignore the other side of the street. We have seen her ride down. Wheretwo recent instances i paid for two day delivery. Information 11 days after the postal date that it should have been received. Thank you for the call there from North Carolina. Pressrom the associated , the vote to nominate President Trump said to be conducted in private later this month without members of the press present, citing coronavirus and while the president called off the public components of the convention in florida last month, citing this like in cases across the country, 300 already six delegates are scheduled to gather in North Carolina to formally vote to make trump the gop standardbearer once more, the spokesperson saying that given the Health Restrictions and limitations in place, we are planning for charlotte activities to be closed to the press from friday through monday and are happy to let you know that if this changes, we will be working within the parameters set before us host zeke miller telling us overnight that they are still working through options that will hopefully give american the. Ccess they deserve the president this past week defending his charge that mailin voting leads to fraud, waste, and abuse. [video clip] i need to ask plaintiff, but it doesnt much explanation. Look at the article about the new york mail vote disaster. Tens of thousands lost out in the primaries. What will happen . Its a mess. Its not fake, its true. This was done by the wall street journal. Vote by mail experiment vote by mail experiment reveals potential problems in the. Vember election you see whats happening in different places, these trial runs are a disaster. So many years have been watching elections. Where they say the projected winner or the winner of the election . I dont want to see that taking place in a week after november frankly, with or, litigation and Everything Else that can happen, years, years . Or you never know who won the election . They are sending out hundreds of millions of universal mailin ballots. Hundreds of millions. Where are they going . Who are they being sent to . You dont have to know anything about politics. The democrats know this. The democrats know this. I want to see, i want an election and a result much more than you. I think were doing well. We have the same fake polls, but we have real polls. We are doing very well. Bobby with this tweet has this news headline, mailin voting faces a slew of issues nationwide, they had obtained a copy of a recent Postal Service memo sent to employees detailing budget related cut backs. The president of the American Postal Workers Union told fox news that changes are significantly slowing down delivery and hes concerned about the impact it will have on ballots in november. Host david is joining us from connecticut. Good morning. Good morning. Relative to the mailin voting, if it is good enough for mr. Trump and miss Kellyanne Conway and miss machen a need to use mailin voting, i think its good enough for the rest of the people of the United States. Particularly since we are involved in a pandemic where people are dying every day from it. Speaking of pandemic, where is your mask . Why arent the people in the media Wearing Masks . If they want people in the United States to wear masks and protect everybody from the pandemic, the people from all the media should be Wearing Masks while on tv. , up until last year i was a registered republican. Based on the information that you just submitted about the nomination of President Trump, to be held in secret, i did the right thing by changing over to an independent. Host thank you for the call. I should point out that i mean here alone, there is no one else in here, we do wear masks at cspan during the course of a normal business day and the reason we dont wear them on camera is because we want to communicate with you in that would muffle the sound, but we are practicing physical and social distancing, practicing all the hygiene protocols put forth by the cdc. Just before i came on the air i had my hassle my mask and when i finished, i will have it back on. Sir, as anetheless, member of the media the people see all the time, there should be an example being set. Even though its unnecessary, you have the responsibility to set an example for everyone else because you are viewed as a reliable source. As far as the muffled sound, im sure that there are other electronic means for you to go ahead and enhance your voice. Host david, thank you for the call from connecticut. John joins us from lake worth, florida. Good morning, john. Caller sorry for the abuse you had to take it, thats why i moved out of the state of connecticut and thats why im a democrat thats why was a democrat for the first 50 years of my life and thats why i left the democratic party, callers like him. I work for the Postal Service for 30 years. I can tell you horror stories. Caller from pennsylvania cannot vote cannot wait to vote out trump but then complains about his mail. Listen, even if it was perfect and even if there was no fraud in mailin voting, the sheer numbers we are talking about . It would take weeks, like trump said, to count them. You have to open the envelopes, you have to verify the signatures. Plus there was recently a state that sent out the ballots with prepaid envelopes and they were not canceled by the post office. They cannot determine when the person voted. An expose where they opened up a po box and they found that 3 of their ballots, their test ballots, they did a little study, 3 did not come back. You are talking about 100 million votes, 3 is 3 million votes and i believe that was like the vote difference in the past election . One more story. When i worked for the Postal Service in the 1990s, 100 and 43 registered cards came in the werefor po box is that from illegal aliens. How do i know that . Back in the 1990s there was a Mexican Consulate ricard, a guatemalan card, and to get a po box you dont have to be a citizen, you just have to provide ada. Thats how i was able to determine that the registration cards were going to people that were not u. S. Citizens. When i brought it to the supervisor of elections attention, she threatened to have me fired. Thats a 25 years ago. It has not gotten any better. Itt john, we will leave there. Thank you for the call. The president tweeting last week perhaps delaying the election because of this pandemic, bringing this response from House Speaker nancy pelosi. [video clip] he said yesterday that he thought should postpone the election. , is this, iwonder would say what does he have on his mind . But im not even sure thats a logical territory to go into. This is very serious. Very serious. So, we need to have it election that does not jeopardize the health and wellbeing of the american people. I was the party chair before i came to congress. Chair of the Largest Party in the country, California Democratic party. Voting by mail was always what the republicans did best. On an election day you could get out the vote, if you saw the absentee ballot, you knew that is where they had their greatest success. That has always been the case. What we are talking about here is not necessarily a political advantage to us. And republicans want it. Some republican secretaries of state want the money. Thats the restriction that the republicans put in the last bill. We have the letter of intent that i can show you from the association of state secretaries of state. Have aht now we situation where going into polling places, having to stand in line for hours, people keeping their distance and all the rest, its a health issue. But its also a health of democracy issue. If people want to go to the polling places, there need to be enough of them open. And this them open isnt just about absentee. The president is making a distinction between absentee and vote by mail. I rest my case. From nancy pelosi this past week and she remains in town this weekend negotiating on Coronavirus Relief bills. The house passed its own relief bill totaling 3 trillion, whereas the Senate Republicans putting forward a plan that is closer to 1 trillion. We will follow it all live here on cspan and the senate is on cspan two. This from alvin host pat, in south to carolina. Good morning. Caller good morning, steve. My issue is i do not trust the post office. We live 30 miles from myrtle beach and from long beach 30 miles from myrtle beach and it takes seven days for the letter to get from long to myrtle beach. My nephew has still not received his cards. My issue is the post office cant handle it. In,of these people calling do you not go to the grocery store, walmart, home depot . Vote, doou do when you the same thing when you go shopping and everything will be all right. But we should be allowed to go to the polls and vote. Thank you, steve. Is next ine baltimore, michigan. Good morning, thank you for take my call. Ais voting issue, theres distinction between absentee ballots and where you request the absentee ballot and mailin votes. Those are, from my understanding , are forms that are sent out really, nilly, by the state to anyone that has an address. And they are not verified if they are registered voters are not. I maybe wrong, but that is my understanding, the difference between an absentee ballot and a mailin ballot. Gentleman at 64 who thinks that everyone should be able to go to the polls and vote, there are many people who are invalids who can still vote and they depend upon absentee ballots. You cant throw the absentee ballots out. That is unfair to those that are not able to get to a polling place. Epidemic,the covid theres plenty of time for people who are afraid to go in vote in person to request an absentee ballot. I dont see where anyones right would be violated. But i am against just blanketlly sending out voter forms to every address. Because you dont know who printed them and there is just , fraud there. Thats my comment and i hope to tell someone. Thank you for your time. Joiningts go to larry, us out west in 29 palms. Do you trust the idea of mailin voting . Caller yes, i do. The gentleman from florida who said they had ballots going to po boxes . Thats a lie. You have to have an id card with your address on it. The amazing thing is that the guy that stole the election with the help of russia is now complaining. Whats wrong . Russia doesnt have mailin ballots . This guy is a fake, we have to get him out. Mailin ballots are good, absentee ballots and mailin ballots are the same thing, people. Get your head out of your butt and vote this fool out. Claimingarus, mercenaries from russia seeking to disrupt the voting there, in this headline. Friedland, good morning. Caller good morning, folks. To put a fine point on it, the difference between male and an absentee, youin, make a request and the state. Ends you a ballot with mailin voting, the election board sends you a ballot to the address of record. There is no difference. This is about donald trump trying to stay out of jail and on this side of legal troubles because if he doesnt win, hes to be extradited from florida back to new york. The man is a disaster. This isnt a vacuum. Study after study, reports of the republican strategies of keeping the voting down and doing everything in their power with trumpspower, only motivation of trying to stay out of jail. Its nuts, hes got ago. Hes got to go. Host portland, ohio, good morning to you. Caller good morning, steve. Good morning, america. Love you all. Out here where i live, you have to request about. They send you a form and its got your last four of your Social Security. This is an application for a ballot. You send it in, match it to the signature, they verify the last four of your Social Security and that your address is correct and they send you a ballot. Then you do the same thing on that ballot, you do your boating, your signature and everything, you mail it back in. I have no problem with that. Or theorder for estate government or anybody to just mail out empty ballots to addresses they dont even know are correct, thats wrong. Right there is where your fraud will come in. I dont have a problem with asking for a ballot and then going through the procedure i just got there going, i dont have a problem with that. All absentee ballots can be done that way and that can be safe and accurate, if the postal carrier doesnt throw yours out somewhere, which we have seen on. V there was a politician and a postmaster that stopped at a dumpster and took all the throat s papers and throwed them in the dumpster. Yall have a great day. Love yall. Host thank you, jerry. Robert draper will be joining us at the top of the hour. Looking at the Bush Administration and the war in. Raq, 8 00 eastern jeff, you are next from merrimack, new hampshire. Go ahead, please. Im absolutely against a mailin voting. Its a fraudulent way of voting. I have a quick question for fake newscasts, and fake what happens when Peaceful Protesters start peacefully post offices and burning these places to the ground . What happens to the mail carriers when people start pulling them out of their vans and burning them down . Host why do you think that would happen . Caller pardon me . Host why do you think that would happen . Caller peaceful protests. Look at the chaos in this country. Why cant other people peacefully protest at these federal buildings. We are not letting you get away with stealing the selection. Get that out of your head, snowflakes. Tim is next, from michigan. C. Ler good morning, thank you cspan and a journal, in these times of isolation your forum is like therapy. Its so, so nice hearing intelligent people call in with information that i wasnt aware of. And i also get good laughs, like the guy that was just on. Really . I hate to say it, but those, you know, the protest . I cant help but suspect that those are agent provocatuers anding as demonstrators actually, they are these fascist people. But anyway, i just want to express my gratitude. There were two callers that you had that i worried about, because i havent heard from them. And i heard from them last weekend to put my mind at ease. 92yearoldret, the songbird voice wise old owl in texas and that fine Young American patriot, david from new jersey. I heard them both last week. Put my mind at ease. Goes, how dotrump you measure success by the number of bankruptcies you have . Hes doing to the country what he did with his casinos. And just a little fun fact, if you look it up and verify it, nn and bradstreet, business and bond rating firm, they Rate Companies and bonds, whatever, on a scale of one to 100. The Trump Organization scored a whopping 19. When i was in school and just cast, i didnt score that poorly. Come on, folks, is that your idea of a successful businessman . Screw term limits. Would a business fire their best employee because you have been here for eight years, time for you to go, im going to hire someone that doesnt know what they are doing . Thats stupid. The only people that are limited our me, you, and the other voters. Host thank you for the call, and thank you for your concern about our regular viewers. We do keep track of them as well. Caller never mind the 30 day rule for those two. Cap in some slack, they are in their 90s. Cut them some slack, they are in their 90s. [laughter] this analysis piece from peter baker, who writes nothing in the u. S. Constitution gives President Trump the power to delay the november election and even fellow republicans dismissed it out of hand when he broached the subject on thursday. But that wasnt the point, with possible defeat looming, the point was to tell americans that they shouldnt trust their own democracy and he wrote that the idea of putting off the boat was the culmination of months of discrediting the election that polls suggest mr. Trump is losing by a wide margin, the kind of language that resonates with cranks and defeated candidates, not incumbents in the white house. Never before has the sitting president of the United States sought to undermine faith in the election system the way that mr. Trump has. The latest step in the residence effort to discredit the election, risking longterm damage to public trust in the system. Jenny, stow, ohio. Caller good morning, steve. How are you . Host good, how are you . Caller i just want to give you my opinion, ok . It took me three, been going on for a couple of months now, took me three weeks to get the letter was stamped on the paper on the letter on the third of july, but it took me three weeks to get the letter. But what has happened with the post office, they cut down all the overtime. No overtime. And they also replaced a big a job over the post office in place of the one that was there before. I dont know why they did that, but i know that there are big changes in the post office. I think that has got a lot to do with it. My advice to everybody, just make sure, take your time, get it filled out, send it in like the man from ohio said. Its very easy to do. And then they will send your palette back to you and just fill out everything like as your ballot back to you your ballot back to you and fill everything out like you are supposed to. Host thank you, jenny. This from twitter this opinion piece from a regular cspan guest, he writes host lets go to debbie in columbus, ohio. Good morning. Caller good morning. My thing is my husband received an absentee ballot. He did not ask for it. The mail here runs slow. I have gotten letters that were days old. Is, i think that these people that have passed away from the coronavirus, they would be receiving those absentee ballots and people would be voting twice. A scary thing, you know, that they would send a ballot that was sent to someone that passed away. It is kind of scary to think that, you know, people could be double loading and, you know, either way, i wanted to put in my comment. I dont like voting by mail. I want my vote to count. Im going to go in and vote because i feel like with the mail being delayed and stuff, i would rather go in and vote. Debbie, thank you. Lets get to buffalo, new york. Tom, good morning. Caller i get all my utility bills every month, ontime. I get renewal for drivers license on time. All these people that say that they dont get their mail in the mail doesnt get there for weeks, the utility bills seem to come on time. Thats all i have to say. Host new rochelle, converse, rochelle,ost converse, texas. Caller im disappointed in the conversations that are being had on this voting situation. I am sitting in front of an application for an absentee ballot. Application for a ballot by mail from my district, because i am disabled. Intact, physically unable to go to the post office. The reason why people are having difficulties with their mail is that the new post i put this new postmaster general is a trump appointee and wants to set the new rule that requires postal carriers to gather and deliver all of their mail from their route at one time in the morning. They are not able to keep up because of the costs on transportation and overtime, which has decreased as well. But i want to say about the ballot here, people are talking about you have to, blank ballots, but they are not. You have to do an application by to your send it in local and, in my case, bear county elections board and the administrator here in texas. You have to fill out your information, your date of birth, your address, and your reason mail, 60 five years old or older, which we are , or disability. A blankno such thing as ballot being sent. I did my local elections here for runoff by this same method. There are absolutely no blank registration voter cards for applications that come to your house. You are validated to be a legal registered voter in your precinct. Im just overwhelmed by the stupidity of some of these people who are calling in. They dont know what they are talking about and they need to research this and go to their local elections administrator and get the real information before they make these comments on television and spread disinformation. In texas, also kingwood, good morning. Caller good morning. Yes, thank you. The lady before me is obviously describing absentee ballots. Shes not describing the mail in that is being discussed. But what i wanted to mention to you was you read peter baker and the New York Times, which is many of the reasons that many of us continue to be flabbergasted that the times continues to be labeled a credible source. His whole premise where he says it basically causes voters to lose their faith in the electoral system and in our elections. Unbelievable that the New York Times. Times spent three years in trying to get people to lose faith in elections. Thats the hypocrisy perpetuated by the media. Its unbelievable. We will leave it there. Bob, think of for the call. Colorado, whats your view on mailin voting . Do you trust the idea . Are you with us . Mail, mail, male voting, invented by the biggest voting bloc in the United States. Which one is that . Host you tell me. Voting waslin invented by the biggest voting bloc in the United States. Which one is that . Couch potatoes. Host lets go to mark. Caller thanks to cspan for having this conversation. Its great. I have to tell you, ive got a couple of things wrong with it. I lived in washington for a lot of years and the one fellow who said that you cant get a mailin ballot at your po box, we got them for years and years at our po box. I used to be an elections , and, one our county time during a local i asked the ititors, the county auditor, says on the application here are you a u. S. Citizen and i said yeah and i says what kind of proof do they have and she said nothing, we are not allowed to ask. We are not allowed to ask for proof. Illegals are a lot of that are registering. But the worst part is that when we moved to idaho a couple of years ago, we were registered to vote in idaho and we got a couple of ballots, my wife and i did, in the mail that were forwarded to us. From washington. You have to, i mean wonder whats going on here. , youe state of washington can register to vote just over the internet. As long as you have a state id card. You dont even have to have a drivers license. Just a state id card. Any illegal alien could get one of those. As long as you have one of those, you can register to vote. So, the whole mail in the system is just absolutely rife with potential for fraud. We have even had circumstances where people have told us that, whatever you do, dont put your ballot in your mailbox and put the little red flag up your carrier, because we had a particular carrier who was very, very conservative and they told thehat if she doesnt like signs you have in your front deep six thel ballot. I said, what do you mean . They said well, she will hold call from thanks for the post falls, idaho. Where is that located . Caller right next door to spokane. Host this is the editorial from the washington post. My career is over, but i believe in doing what is right. That is from colonel alexander vindman. He says, our citizens are being subjected to the same attacks tyrants launch against their critics and political opponents. Thee who choose loyalty to American Values and allegiance to the constitution over devotion to the nations president and his enablers are punished. The president downplays the threat of the pandemic even as it sweeps through our country. The economic collapse highlighted the growing income disparities in our country. Aliens are grieving the loss of loved ones and more have lost their livelihoods will the president bemoans his Approval Rating. Despite everything that has happened, i believe in the american dream. I believe that, in america, right matters, and i want to ensure right matters for all americans. From now retired Lieutenant Colonel alexander vindman. Coming up, Robert Draper out with a new book on the war in iraq and the Bush Administration. You are watching and listening to cspans washington journal. We are back in a moment. Monday night on the communicators, Ohio Republican congressman on the need for maps Internet Access can be delivered to rural areas. To lookadmitted we have at this. We do have a problem. To helponey out there get these maps correct. We have legislation which i was part of from the getgo. It is import we get it done. Right, its are not will not happen. In some cases, you might be putting money into areas that already have services and not getting dollars into unserved areas. Latta onongressman bob the communicators on cspan two. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events. Publicll of cspans Affairs Programming on television, online, or our free radio app. Be part of the National Conversation through washington journal or our social media feed. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought you today by your television provider. Tonight, fox news anchor Chris Wallace on his book on the creation of the atomic bomb and what led president truman to use it on japan 75 years ago. He agonized over this decision. He complained of sleepless nights. Headachesrible throughout his career whenever he was under what he considered heavy stress. Is one of thehat joys of doing a book about people who are all gone. When i was in the president ial library, i got a hold of his diaries from this whole period. The sole 60 days i talk about, he talked about the choice of using the bomb in apocalyptic terms. He kept saying this is the most terrible weapon ever discovered and he compared it to the fire, disruption, prophecies in the bible. Chris wallace tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. Continues. On journal host the book is titled to start a war how the Bush Administration took america into iraq. Joining us in washington is Robert Draper, writer at large for the New York Times sunday magazine. Let me begin with the fundamental question. Why did president bush send troops into iraq . Guest that is the question i was trying to answer. Going back to when i first did a book on george w. Bush, which was published in 2007, i spent a great deal of time with the president and people in his administration for that book. I was never able to crack that central riddle. He answer is a subtle one it was not to get oil. It was not payback for saddam. It was he felt he had no choice in the matter. The reason he felt he had no choice was that he was presented with facts that were alarming but thin in terms of reality relating to saddam possessing weapons of mass destruction. He was surrounded by aides who believed his mind was made up when it was not. He was certainly leading into the idea of war, but until january of 2003 could considered have been taking another look at it. Aides thought his mind was made up and began to fashion an apparatus from an invasion plan to interagency meetings that talks about even to allergies of theitarian crisis eventuality of a humanitarian crisis without anyone coming to him and saying, maybe we should rethink this. Atmosphere of the Bush White House was about saddam he feltis evildoer and like he had no choice but to invade. Host there are a number of key players in your book. In the book you write, it was Paul Wolfowitz who perhaps more than any other american had spent the past decade crusading for the overthrow of the iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Let lengthy cause intellectual brawn. With him alone in the dark, aably sequestered in an mountain, an early prisoner of a war starving for information. Guest late on the evening of september 11, dechert deputy secretary of defense paul asking thatnt out they provide him with information on yuroks connections iraqs connection to terror groups. Even on the day of 9 11, the deputy secretary of defense has iraq on his mind. It had been on his mind for a decade. He believed saddam had been involved in the First World Trade Center attempted bombing in 1993. I think some people have exaggerated wolfowitzs role in this. It is not as if he told the president , invade iraq and the president did it. It is wolfowitz who got it onto the agenda of president bush early, four days after 9 11. Int nine days after 9 11, 2001, president bush traveled to capitol hill to deliver a speech before a joint session of congress. You write about that in the book. [video clip] i want to speak tonight directly to muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It is practiced freely by many millions of americans and by millions more in countries america counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit people in the name of allah. Laspheme the name of allah [applause] the terrorists are traitors totheir own faith, trying hijack islam itself. The enemy of america is not are many muslim friends. It is not our arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them. Host did that lay the groundwork for the it was obvious Saddam Hussein was not richly involved in the 9 11 attacks. Guest first, it gives me goosebumps to hear that passage today. George w. Bush today has an Approval Rating that is stratospheric compared to when he left office. It is largely because of the decency and humanity he exhibited nine days after 9 11 that puts him in stark contrast to the current president. You are right that saddam had nothing to do with 9 11, but the president believes that, even though factually that may have been so, that he still could. Was ineved saddam evildoer and that evildoers would confederate against the American Homeland because they hated americas freedoms. Wasuch of what i just said factually inaccurate, but that is what the president believed. Of september 20 that he gave that speech, a few hours before hand, some religious leaders met with him in the oval office. The president confessed to them, im having difficulty containing my bloodlust, which is a remarkable admission for a president. He did contain it, but it was clear that, in addition to concern and panic and perhaps even guilt over failing to overt 9 11, there was a great anger and need to lash out. It was mirrored by what a lot of americans felt as well. Host you write the following. President bushs own tough talk was for the benefit of america. Most of this country had never hold heard of osama bin laden. They knew only that america had been attacked, that thousands of americans had been killed. A public wanted bush to inflict payback. They wanted it done the day before yesterday. An early dinner bush had with Prime Minister tony blair, who had flown in in an act of solidarity for the joint sessions speech, when he was explained to blair, who was quite concerned that president bush would haphazardly lash out at any number of countries after 9 11, you have to understand where i am coming from. In this country, people are angry. They want to kill someone. They want someone they want us to retaliate. Bush managed to hold it in, but he also was mindful that the electorate, in addition to being scared out of their minds, were also did have bloodlust themselves. Host we have a line set aside if you are a veteran of the iraq war. That number is 202 7488003. Chris is joining us for massachusetts. Caller good morning. 2004, and you can verify this on a google search, a senator stated the following. Iraq was invaded to secure israel and Everybody Knows it. Are you familiar with the quote . Do you have any comment on it . Guest sure. I am familiar with the quote. I am familiar with the sentiment as well. There were a lot of people who believed we invaded iraq to oppose appease israel. There were some in the Israeli Government who wanted to see us go after saddam, but most of them believed the number one enemy of israel was not iraq, was not saddam. It was iran. The great concern was that attacking iraq and toppling saddam would only embolden the islamic theocracy that was the nextdoor neighbor to iraq. That has proved to be the case today. There is no question but that iran is in a stronger position well iraq is unstable. There Prime Minister was basically backed by iran. In theze there were some Bush Administration who were sympathetic to israel and believed attacking iraq would be beneficial to that country. I do not think it was the driving factor, and i do not think israel ended up being the ultimate been a fishery. Host beneficiary. To the book is titled start a war how the Bush Administration took america into iraq. Andcia director at the time secretary rumsfeld. After the conclusion of the briefing, secretary rumsfeld spoke up, saying if it is a global war on terror, you need to show it is global. He then raised the possibility of military action against iraq. Secretary of state colin powell cautioned against the proposal. He had described an elaborate detail the other countries that prepared to ally themselves with the u. S. Against the 9 11 perpetrators. That coalition would fall apart if america invaded unrelated countries. Coalition it is not a worth having, said secretary rumsfeld. Guest you read a passage of a crucial moment in the iraq narrative that takes place just four days after 9 11. What you have focused on was that cia director george tenant was properly giving the president a briefing on possible al qaeda targets in afghanistan. Secretary of defense rumsfeld speaks up and said, we should expand the war on terror. Secretary of state powell said, oure do that, we risk coalition. Rumsfeld could not stand that notion and sent out one of his famous snowflakes after them, saying the mission should determine the coalition. The coalition should not determine the mission. In theory, rumsfeld was saying, i am fine with coalitions, but they have to be on american terms. ,t was that kind of dynamic that conflict would mean secretary of state powell and secretary rumsfeld, that will lead to all sorts of dysfunction and war. Joe fromwill go to South Carolina come our line for republicans. Caller mr. Draper, i cannot wait to get my hands on this book. This is bush 43s legacy. I want to go back a bit. I know you know this name. I had this discussion with steve several years ago. Brandts go doft he advised bush 41, not go into iraq. Do not occupy. The cause will be incalculable. As bad as Saddam Hussein is, he maintains control. There is a delicate balance. If you go in there and take it over, we will pay a price forever. Heres the problem. Bush 43 arrives. He makes the case for war. Colin powell makes the case east on trumped up evidence. Wcrofts and sco prediction has come true. I wonder about regrets for members of congress, if you have a feel for that. Do not include Lindsey Graham. He loves war. I still we attacked a sovereign country based on trumped up information and we will may be paid the price forever in money and human lives. Host good to hear from you. Guest very astute observations. Wcroft was really saying, do not go into iraq after we have routed saddams army from kuwait because that is not what the coalition was set to do. The charter was to remove him from kuwait, not power. Recall,r thing you will wroteust 2002, scowcroft an oped in the washington journal it was a measure of his frustration that Condoleezza Rice basically was not taking his calls, was not interested in hearing his do not go to war argument. Already the Bush Administration was leaning into it. As to your question regarding remorse and regret from congress, certainly those running from for president have indicated regret. They have been required to make some statement. What lessons have they learned . There has been a circular firing squad, a lotta people pointing fingers, but i do not know the any of them have said in a fulsome way, heres what i have learned about my culpability as regards false intelligence that saddam had weapons. Here is why i now realize that going into a country that pose no threat to us has all sorts of unintended consequences. Those linda knees litanies we are waiting to hear. Host you wrote about a moment covered during the Bush Administration come on board the uss lincoln. Administration, onboard the uss lincoln. President bush had arrived on board the uss lincoln dressed in, it fatigues and a helmet, swaggering to the podium underneath a banner that proclaimed, Mission Accomplished, reflecting the Bush Administrations wishful thinking. Five days after the speech, he garnery announced that will be replaced with bremmer. Concept of an the iraq interim authority, telling his team the u. S. Would not be in any hurry to set up an iraq led administration. Guest what youre pointing to is a lack of synchronicity between the messaging of Bush White House commune occasions. Eam Communications Team what they were fashioning was a narrative and visual that was out of sync with what was happening on the ground. Expected when they invaded was american troops would be greeted as liberators and iraqis would coalesce around democracy and whatever the new form of government would be. By may, they could see that was not the case. First postwar was replaced by jerry bremmer. The timetable had been taught tossed out the window. That theready clear was a lot of postwar disorder that would necessitate us being there for a while. It was not a Mission Accomplished moment. It wasongruent incongruent. Bremmer stated control for about a year. By the time he left, things were out of control. It was clear insurgency had taken hold, that insurgency had all sorts of parts. What rumsfeld was saying was these are just what remains of a still wantand they to saddam in power, the still hate americans, we will kill them off be fine. In fact, they were a lot of people. They were islamic extremists from other countries, disaffected individuals who have been part of the iraqi army that had been disbanded by bremmer, were now out of work and armed and took up arms against the american military. Us. william is joining las cruces, new mexico. Go ahead. I was in the service in 1980. They messed with us first. They kidnapped councilmembers and held them over a year. The whole time, waiting for them to do something. Host waiting for them to do what . Caller what . Host waiting for them to do what . Caller to let our hostages go. They were on the uss ranger. Host that is during the iran hostage crisis. How does that relate to what wiest we are discussing with iraq . Caller they started it. Guest that was iran. Im not quite sure it pertains to what we are talking about now. Host what about the troops who move into iraq . What were their marching orders . Orderstheir marching were to march all the way up. We intend we intended to have two points of attack. Shortcircuited. Overthrow saddam saddam,to overthrow defeat his army, get them to surrender and put down their arms. After that meant there was very and the little very little in the way of a plan for postwar reconstruction. The Bush Administration was eager to find saddams weapons of mass destruction. There were some members of the military assigned to that. Team and the cia were set to do that as well. That was necessary in the eyes of president bush to maintain stability in the country and prove the case for war, to indicate what secretary powell had said to the u. N. About the danger of saddam was accurate. Host did president bush or Vice President cheney cooperate . Guest they did not. They cooperated with my previous book in 2007. President bush was not happy with that book. I think it was more than fair to him, but he seems to disagree. Aware credit, he was well that members of his administration were cooperating with the book. Some of them spoke to him before they decided to cooperate with the book and he gave them his blessing. He certainly did not stop them. Im grateful to him for that. Host we will go to orange park, florida. Up with vietnam hanging over my head. I was too young by one year. In my opinion, vietnam, afghanistan, and the iraqi war were the three biggest con jobs ever polled on the american people. I do not know what any of those words accomplished. Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9 11. It was saudi arabia and guys that perpetrated that. Iraq certainly did not have anything to do with 9 11. There was no reason for it. And your opinion, what was the reason for going into iraq . I will take mild issue with what the caller said regarding afghanistan. Harboredan government al qaeda and refused to give up al qaeda after 9 11, after president bush demented that they do so. The targeted strikes in afghanistan i think to have some merit to them. And is true that saddam had nothing to do with 9 11. The frame of mind of the Bush Administration was a next wave was imminent. Vice president cheney was of the belief that, as bad as 9 11 was, it could have been worse had the 9 11 hijackers possessed chemical or biological weapons. The thinking went, assuming there is a second wave and al qaeda is a part of it, where would they get those weapons of mass destruction from . That question was answered in the minds of the Bush Administration by the men who come on september 12, said, separating himself from every other leader in the world, that america had this coming. That was Saddam Hussein. That was a nasty thing for saddam to say, but it was essentially him playing to his extremist base of politicians, the kind of thing politicians including in america do all the time. Did not mean he had intended to attack the u. S. Host in the years that followed, it would be almost universally stated or overstated that Paul Wolfowitz was the architect of this expansion. In first,belie this the decision to invade iraq was the president of the United States. Bush made his decision without the benefit of an architects blueprint into the extent that there was such a document, it was not one will for which would have grown wolfowitzhich would have drawn up. Guest for those who think bush was this lazy guy conned into war by cheney and others, bush did make this decision. Think his mind was made up by january of 2003. It was certainly on the verge of being made up as early as july or august of 2002. Wolfowitz was important insofar 2001ying in september 15, september 15, 2001, saddam could have had some lead to do h this though i do believe to do with this. Contrary to people who think bush came into office intending to go to war, bush had a domestic agenda. He wanted to pass tax cuts. He wanted to pass education reform. He did not want to spend his first term in war. After september 11, something for which he was illprepared, he began to look for the next threat and wolfowitz obliged him by putting saddam on the map. Host did he cooperate with the book . Guest he did. I found wolfowitz to be an interesting character and somewhat tragic idealist. Wolfowitz was not a warmonger. Really was of the belief that the middle east deserves democracy, deserved religious tolerance, and someone like Saddam Hussain stood in the way here and he had been brutal to the toppling of saddam could augur a democracy which would flower across the middle east and be beneficial to israel. Straw that was the stirred wolfowitzs drink more than any desire to reject force in the middle east. Host if you had the chance to ask president bush or Vice President cheney one question, what would be . Guest for president bush, it youd be when precisely did decide to go to war . Was there a very specific moment in time . Bush does not in his memoir address that question. Believe hisu to mind was made up at the last think therei do not is truth to that. I would like to know if there was a particular Tipping Point and if it was driven by intelligence or inpatients or a slowness in the weapon inspection progress s process. For cheney, when you gave a speech before the veterans perform core in nashville and said there can be no doubt saddam has weapons of mass destruction, what intelligence were you looking at that made you believe there was absolutely no doubt . The greater Intelligence Community of the United States did have doubts. They were expressing with a certain amount of confidence that saddam was trying to obtain Nuclear Weapons and probably already had chemical and biological weapons. They had no evidence to say that. Host Robert Draper is a contributing writer to the New York Times sunday magazine. In his latest book, to start a war how the Bush Administration anderica into iraq his latest book, to start a war how the Bush Administration took america into iraq. Were living in new jersey at the time, and we knew there were no legitimate reasons to go to war with iraq simply by reading the north star ledger. They syndicated two reporters. Everything from the aluminum tubes weapons of mass reasonsion, the entire list of reasons for going to war, they documented it. They did woodward and bernstein type articles and they were syndicated in the new york starledger. We would read them and watch tv with these reporters and this firehose of false information coming out, watching cheney say there was a photograph of an on a intelligence agent plane. It was incredible. They never got on meet the press. It never got on cspan. They never got anywhere. It was incredible. You look back at this series of articles they wrote, and it was exactly what was really happening, not the story we were being sold. Upst i am glad you brought i spent a fair amount of time on my book talking about that plucky reporting team. You are right. They were far more rights than they were wrong and far more right than the rest of the press. Part of that was because, after 9 11, they began to receive calls from people outside the administration pushing this idea that saddam was involved in 9 11. Thats clear to the team someone was pushing this message. It was not necessarily driven by fact. It was driven by some wouldve a. Ofy proceeded with a degree skepticism. They said, anything that comes that is saddamrelated, we should consider the possibility there is an ulterior agenda. The kunfortunate that didr ridder did not have the megaphone. And i hadam an author three books published. My first came out right when the war began in iraq. Beforego back a year oil and cheney got elected, was 20 a barrel, maybe five dollars a share. Share. 10 a sale the media, which was run out of texas, created these lies to go to war. Lies to war based on the and stocks goes from five dollars to 150 a share. They had to split the stock because it was so obvious that this was war profiteering. 150. Went from 10 to media, you people keep talking about there is no media. Ande is the state of texas at t and time warner and cnn. You have the east coast media and west coast media. Although states profited from this war. Host we will leave it there and get a response. Guest there definitely were people in the oil industry who profited from the war. If the hypothesis there is that we went to war for the sake of oil, to get iraqi oil, i do not think there is any foundation on that. , president of russia, expressed to bush a great concern that, if war did happen, it would rupture the oil market. There were reasonable minds reasonable minds can disagree about what people hypothesized butd happen regarding oil, the notion that bush went into wanted to pade the pockets of oil donors or something seems unhinged from reality. Host from illinois, john, republican line. Caller i have a couple things. There was a fellow by the name cia analyst. He sent the relatives of 30 scientistsf saddams , who were supposed to be making this, and they all came back to hadcia and reported saddam gotten rid of all the nuclear and poison and all that stuff 10 years previous to this war. That was buried. Wolfowitz, a 30 year cia analyst worked with these dark operations and he pressed wolfowitz and said, how come you guys took down that that happened . The attack on the twin towers . Wolfowitz did not deny it. He just said, roosevelt did that at pearl harbor. I thought that was interesting host are you familiar with this . Guest on the second point, im not familiar with that. Bush anduation that wolfowitz that 9 11 was happening and that they believed somehow this would be a benefit to their overall policy is nuts. The other point relating to the wmd scientists, i interviewed Charlie Allen for my book. Ano not think that is accurate rendition of what charlie was saying, that they got all of these military scientists and brought them to the cia. , postinvasion, we interviewed some military scientists and essentially they were saying they gave a plausible exultation for what we thought was dark behavior on the part of iraq when weapons inspectors were going through iraq in the 1990s. They were saying, yeah, we were a bit dodgy toward you guys because we did not trust you guys. You are going into federal buildings claiming you wanted to find weapons and we believed some of you were spies. That was true. With theere embedded weapons inspectors. It was also the case that saddam had completely abandoned his Weapons Program by 1992 or 1993. The notion that he had something to hide proved not to be true. Is the legacy of the war in iraq . Guest the legacy is what we heard before i got on the air with people talking about their conspiracy theories related to mailin ballots and there has been a war on truth made possible by the recognition that the u. S. Government was not on the level with us after iraq. It became possible then for a Reality Tv Show star with zero political experience to say during the republican primaries, look at you guys with all your experience. What did that get us . You guys have done nothing and lead us into this phony war based on phony facts. Now President Trump has been do noty that believe the Mainstream Media who got it wrong. Do not believe the Intelligence Community. Believe me. Believe my alternative facts. That is one legacy. On the international front, the middle east is still has still been destabilized. And allianceica with america, which was at an alltime high after 9 11, has completely plummeted as a result. When we look at iraq itself, it is a country that is in turmoil. A country where we still have 5200 troops who have been under attack from isis. Is not the iraq we had hoped we invaded 13 17 years ago. Host Robert Draper of the New York Times. His new book, to start a war how the Bush Administration took america into iraq. Thank you for being with us. Are making our way to meet the press, one of the programs we reair every sunday on cspan radio. We have about 20 minutes. We want to get your reaction to the president announcing he is withdrawing 11,000 u. S. Troops from germany. Our phone lines are open. We will get to your calls in a moment. At the top of the hour, we will turn attention to the nasa space x dragon spacecraft. Live coverage throughout the morning into the afternoon as we continue on this sunday morning. We are back in a moment. Monday night on the communicators, Ohio Republican congressman bob latta on the need for utter maps so better maps so Internet Access can be delivered underserved rural areas. What happened was they admitted we have to look at this. We do have a problem. To helponey out there get maps correct. I was part oftion from the getgo. It done. Ortant we get if the maps are not right when we are going out there to get the dollars into the areas where you need to have them, it will not happen. You might be putting money into areas that already have services and not giving dollars into unserved areas. Ohio republican congressman bob latta on the communicators on cspan2. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events. You can watch all of cspans public Affairs Programming on television, online, or the free radio app. The part of the National Conversation through cspans Washington Journal Program or through our social media feed. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought you today by your television provider. Tonight, fox news news anchor Chris Wallace on his book on the creation of the atomic bomb and what led president truman to use it on japan 75 years ago. He agonized over this decision. He complained of sleepless nights. He had terrible headaches which he had throughout his career whenever he was under what he considered heavy stress. His diary that is one of the joys of doing a book about people who are all gone. When i was in the president ial library, i got a hold of his diaries during this whole period, the 116 days i talk about. He talked about the choice of using the bomb in apocalyptic terms. He kept saying this was the most terrible weapon ever discovered, and he compared it to the fire in the bible. Fox news anchor Chris Wallace tonight on cspans q a. Washington journal continues. Host we learned this past week from the president that between 11000 and 12,000 troops will be pulled out of germany over the next couple years, a key base for american forces. Thousands of troops are coming home, but some could go right back. This is what the president said last wednesday. [video clip] they have not paid their nato fees. They have been off for years and they have no intention United States has been taken advantage of. Military and on Everything Else for many years. Owes millions of dollars to nato. Why would we keep all those troops there . Truman germans are saying it is bad for their economy. It is good for our economy. Host the president talking to reporters, shouting because of the noise levels. This from a senior german official, who is close to german chancellor Angela Merkel. Instead of strengthening nato, the troop withdrawal will weaken the alliance. The effectiveness of the u. S. Military is not increased but reduced, especially with a view to russia and ongoing military conflicts in the middle east. Maria is joining us from key west, florida. Your view on us pulling troops out of germany . Caller i think this is the most dangerous president in the history of the United States. Every decision he makes, he weekends this country. Every single decision. Pulling troops out of germany is only going to weaken our security around the world. Everything he has done so far is horrible, absolutely horrible. Recently, he wants to the election. ,e is complain about ballots opposed tolots as absentee ballots. They are identical. Dangerous. He is totalitarian. Not to be trusted. He is very dangerous. I worry. He wants to extend the election. He wants to delay the election. Not going to happen, not since 1845. I do not know why or how he is still standing. I am shocked he has not been pushed out of office. Host we will go to oklahoma. Caller i am for pulling troops out of germany because i feel like, in the condition the United States is in right now, ar president knows, and we as military person myself, i fought in the vietnam war. My dad was in world war ii. We could have an invasion in the United States. Are we prepared for that . That was my question. Guest host lets go to jennifer in new mexico. Your view of troops leaving germany . Caller hello . I am glad the president is moving our troops out. Has not been for us in years. They have been using us, and they need to move them out. Trying to gets through on mailin voting, they vote in my name for obama and i did not vote for that. They are doing everything they should do. Democrats cannot get the president , so they are doing illegal things, tried to keep the people from even getting any money. They spent all that money. They never done anything in years. Host jennifer, thank you. We will go next to alabama. Caller good morning to america. Hope everybodys having a great day. I oppose pulling these troops out of germany because i feel like it basically second guess is our obligation to nato and the rest of the nations nations with us. Host welcome to the program. First, i am a veteran. Host thank you for your service. ,aller when i became a veteran inor to the call up, terms of serving the country. I was apprehensive. It turned out it was a good thing. I survived it. Living up to your word is important. ,o the situation about germany every action, intentional or andtentional, supporters the knot supporters of trump, twoy action he has done has benefits. One, it benefits russia. Intentionally or unintentionally. Two, it has an impact on his financial wealth. I am aint in time conservative democrat. , theme point in time religious right would have to stop their support of his actions eroding the constitution. Host on the senate floor last week, this reaction from dick durbin of illinois. Caller what has been conspicuously absent from public whetherate briefings is our commitment to our real allies in europe, in nato, is designed to address the frontline of potential russian aggression and provocation. I know what that frontline is, and most people do as well. The baltics and poland, lithuania. Here are four countries who have the most to lose if putin chooses a path to war each of the meets and exceeds the spending goals for nato, but this plan for the reallocation and reassignment of u. S. Troops does not help these four countries. I went through the briefing. Why are these countries being overlooked if we are moving troops to make europe safer . Oftead, the apartment defense yesterday through in as an aside a vague assurance, maybe just a possibility that sometime in the future american troops might rotate through those countries. Part of the plan i saw and was released yesterday actually moved american troops and nato allies further away from russia. Theimir putin is getting last laugh again when it comes to this president. Putin Vladimir Putin fears a united nato. President trump has done everything he can to divide and diminish that alliance. That from dick durbin. Gary is on the phone in kentucky. He opposed the idea of moving quote 12,000 troops out of germany. Caller i do not get it. Democrats want to defund police. They want to defund the military, yet they support keeping troops in germany. I do not want know what is going on there. President trump has his reasons with nato, and he is expressed those four years ago or three or four years ago when he was elected. Buts kind of confusing, whatever trump does, you can guarantee a democrat is going to oppose it. Host u. S. To withdraw nearly 12,000 troops from germany. That will cost billions and take years. Next is david from texas. Caller i am behind the removal of troops from germany or at least a reduction in reallocation. One of thebout things that flabbergasted me about the lies and hoaxes about trump, the russian hoax and trump, has been the idea that he is weakening nato. When you have only four countries, some of them small, in nato meeting their minimal 2 requirement for decades, it is now up to eight meeting that requirement. It has been ignored for all these years. Even with the amount of troops we have on the ground in europe, if russia wanted to attack any particular point, there is not going to be enough resistance to stop it. That is because of the socalled nato allies. Allies, will new they make their deals take germany. One of the things trump has brought attention to that is exs the x chancellor chancellor being official in this russian oil and gas company that russia has made a deal with to supply gas to germany. At the same time, they want us to station troops to protect them against russia. It is only through measures like this and tough talk about the europeans having to pay their minimum amount with their own defense that we are going to have a stronger nato. Them to chipotten in several hundred billions of dollars, it will never be enough to make up for what they have not paid over the decades and what the u. S. People have had to pay over the decades. At least it is a start. As far as the comment about durbin, this is just part of the russia hoax. The guy called earlier about the gas deals in the iraq war. He thought the iraq war was being fought to increase the price of oil. The idea would be owed free iraq to produce more oil, which would reduce the price of act gas. Time the9, the only price of oil has gone up is with the u. S. Has tried to pressure countries terrorist countries like iran or take actions in the area that the iranians in particular or even the russians and at. At your do was reduceo the amount of oil by not that much and the price of oil will spike. Thank you for making your points. In our remaining minute or so, our question is the president announcing pulling u. S. Troops out of germany. The secretary of state, mike pompeo, defending that decision. [video clip] the nato commander was very much in the process of helping us think this through. I saw comets out of russia that are different than you describe, that viewed the actions we took is threatening because we will have soldiers deployed closer to the russian border. This was a thoughtful process. The military piece is run out of the pentagon largely. I am confident that our mission are stillussia, we fully capable of executing. Was 100ise number something thousand when i was there. Conditions have changed around the world, and our forces need to be repositioned. I would read from a report in ,loomberg that Dmitry Peskov who was the press secretary for says fewer american soldiers on the american continent, the calm or in er ite, he said calm is in europe. That does not sound to me like they think this increases the threat to russia. Host that is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to secretary of state mike pompeo the full hearing is available on our website. The headline from the New York Times, the u. S. Will cut 12,000 from forces in germany. Good morning. Your view on this . Caller i am for keeping the troops in germany for two reasons. One is because trump wants to pull them out and i do not trust him at all. Secondly, he has a history of stabbing allies in the back. Just ask the kurds. My ballot in yesterday. I can track it online. You folks were so worried about fraud in mailin ballots, you are all wet. Host gabriel from durham, North Carolina. Caller good morning. Sticky situation, but i believe multiple people have put their finger on it in terms of the relationships between russia and germany. What is the relationship between america and germany . In large part, there is no refuting the fact that russia is a disruptive force. That is the kind of power they are. They cannot do many other things except disrupt. What is the relationship like at this stage between Angela Merkel and donald trump . On a level of professionalism. How do they . See each other how do they see each other . Host we will go to carol. If you can turn the volume down, otherwise we are going to get feedback. Go ahead with your comment. We are going to have to move onto jay in indiana. Caller good morning. This is jay from indiana. Civiliangermany as a when a gang mounted a terrorist attack. I was glad the americans were there. I was also in germany at the time of the 1972 olympics with the attack of the israeli team. I was glad the americans were there. I was in check was walk you czechoslovakia not long after it was taken over, what they used to call a satellite country. I am sorry the americans were not there to do more. I oppose the withdrawal of troops from germany. Thanks for taking my call. For all your calls and comments, we thank you and you can continue the conversation on , on twitter. For the next couple hours on cspan, we will have live coverage from nasa and the splashdown of the dragon spacex takes place in the gulf of mexico. With background on how this came together, we are joined via zoom with the news editor of spaceflight now. At the moment, he is in orlando, florida. Caller guest good. Host lets talk about the tropical storm, how that impacted the initial splashdown in the atlantic and what we can expect. Nasa spacex has seven areas they can bring the dragon back to earth. Three of them off the east coast. Storm is theopical isaias are churning. Nasa is focusing on the gulf of mexico. Theres a backup site near panama city, florida. The splashdown is scheduled for 48 eastern time. The crew just woke up. They are going through their landing preps. Breaking go through a burn on the dragon spacecraft about an hour before they come to earth. Host as the rocket approaches earth, there will be about a sixminute window where the dutch were nasa will not have any can engage with the astronauts. Reminiscent of the apollo 13 mission. Of course, made famous by the movie. Explain why. It is going around the earth, and as soon as they start to set back into the atmosphere, the heat shield on the outside of the crew dragon spacecraft 58,000 degreeso fahrenheit. There is basically a plasma she th that will shea surround the capsule. That will be the moment of truth, when they get the call from the crew, after six minutes. They will start getting data from these spacecraft. They will splashdown a couple minutes after that. About thes talk launch that took place on may 27. By all accounts, it was a pictureperfect launch and almost seamless transition for the astronauts to make it to the International Space station. Guest right, they launched on top of the falcon nine rocket. The launch was perfect, as you said. This was the First Americans is flight inpace shuttle 2011. The following day, may 31, they were able to dock with the space station pretty much perfectly. Are by andronauts large along for the ride. They can manually control certain phases if they need to. But the flight, so far, has been perfect. Doug hurley, the spacecraft commander, said even though they have been up for two months, its only two thirds complete because the third major objective is coming up. Course, the docking overnight. Walk us through what had to happen. Aest yes, they had to do whether assessment. First, they had to make sure the weather was go for a return. Therhey had to do a wea assessment. Yesterday, the crew put on their suits. They closed the hatch to the space station. There is a fully autonomous command to undock. The spacecraft fired the backing awaystart from the space station. They did a few more maneuvers with their thrusters last night to get a safe distance from the space station. That is where they are at now. As visitors return to washington, d. C. , when the smithsonian air and space museum reopens, out as this rocket compare in size to the ones we saw in the 1960s and 1970s . Guest its comparable, maybe a touch smaller to the apollo capsule. It is similar in size. If you remember the mercury and gemini capsules before apollo, the crew dragon is much larger. It can carry a can actually carry for people. Only 2 it can actually carry 4 people. Only to get on this like. Host the two astronauts, bob behnken, doug hurley, what are their background . Guest doug hurley is retired marine corps test pilot. Bob behnken is a colonel in the air force. They were both selected in the ine astronaut class by nasa 2000 and have flown two previous flights on the Space Shuttle. This is the third flight for both of them. They were selected back in 2015. Nasa selected a group of 4 astronauts. Ony were to start training these capsules being built by spacex and boeing. A couple years ago, hurley and behnken, both test pilots, were assigned to this particular light. This is really a shakedown cruise for the crew dragon spacecraft. Later this year, the crew dragon will be declared operational, if everything goes well today, and spacex and nasa will start flying a couple times a year at crew dragon. He this is making sure that everything is shipshape and solid before they start viewing using it for crew missions. Host how important was elon musk to this question mark to this . Elon musk was behind spacex in 2002. Without his vision, without his money, this would not have happened. The 2000sted in with a small rocket. They launched the workhorse vehicle in 2010. Sentmusks vision is people to mars. This is a big steppingstone along that mission, a big step to show that spacex can be trusted and capable of putting people into space. Obviously, they have to do this to get people to mars. Host i want to return to this country because the parachutes are going to be vital, critical in terms of their safe landing in the gulf of mexico. Welcome through what the parachutes are made out of. Obviously we know what they will be able to do, but how can they withstand the return to earths atmosphere and survive . The material is a very strong material, similar to the material from the apollo parachutes. The parachutes were key focus for spacex and nasa as they led up to this mission. The last several years they have failures over drop tests over the desert to test the performance of the parachute. They found when the parachutes deployed, these risers, similar to what risers, stronger versions of what risers might be used on sky divers, had a lot of force, when they came out of the thester when they fired mortar to the parachute, so they had to modify part of the parachute design last year and performed more than 10 successful drop tests, these stronger parachute design. Nasa and spacex our confidence. Apollo spacecraft only had three parachutes. Safely. Land the parachutes does not unfurl. They have done numerous testing tests on the parachutes and are confident they work. With the landing in the gulf of mexico, which, by the way, is the first time nasa has the the gulf it has used atlantic and the pacific how does that affect the mission of the two astronauts and the timeline . Guest really is kind of negligible because the way the orbit works, they fly over the Florida Region a couple times per day. So all of these landing sites in the gulf and atlantic kind of fewtered together within a hundred miles of each other. Mission control of just the timing of the final orbits burn orbit burn. They can adjust the timing of that by a few minutes and target specifically one of these sites. Host it is about 10 minutes past 9 00 in the morning on the east coast. What is happening now and what will be the key moments as our viewers watch this process unfold over the next few hours . The astronauts woke up about an hour ago, i guess, a little over an hour ago now. They are doing their morning routine and the next couple hours they will start reviewing their timelines, procedures as they start coming back to earth. And later on, may be around midday eastern time, they will start doing what nasa calls fluid loading. They start ingesting large amounts of water to rid i think they take salt tablets as well. They start ingesting large amounts of water. I think they take salt tablets as well. That helps them adjust to its gravity to earths gravity. It has been a long time since nasa astronauts have gone through this process. There is concern that once they get into the ocean after being in zero ravi in two months, maybe they will have extra time zero gravity for two months, maybe they will the extra time readjusting to gravity. They are just to the fluids to help with that process. Surely before 2 p. M. Eastern time, the dragon spacecraft shortly before 2 p. M. Eastern time, the dragon spacecraft will thermal radiators for control. They will jettison that. The spacecraft will be on autopilot. They will flip the spacecraft around and fire thrusters for about 11 minutes and that will slow the spacecraft enough to allow the earths gravity to sort of recapture it. A little after 2 30 p. M. Eastern spacecraft will start reentering the atmosphere. That is when the temperature builds up to 3500 degrees and they lose communications for six minutes. 34 they will deploy parachutes and at 2 48, they should be in the gulf of mexico. Host what is your biggest concern . And if i i had to do won or two, i would say maybe the parachutes. , nasa and spacex have been trying to modify the perfect parachute design to make sure it would work. They did have failures during testing last year. They dropped the mockup of the capsule over the desert and had issues with the parachutes. But last summer, last fall, they redesigned the parachutes, and they did more than 10 successful costs. Be the first time this particular parachute will perform after coming back to space. It will be interesting to see how it works. Stephen clark is the news editor for spaceflight now. We appreciate him joining us via the zoom. Guest thank you. down ae will have the News Conference will follow. Live today on the cspan networks and streamed live on the web at cspan. Org. As the astronauts make their return to earth, last week from the space station they spoke, and they were joined by crew about is for cassidy, what they expect and how they will prepare for the return to earth. [video clip] as we get closer, i think we focus more and more on our preparations for splashdown activities. We spent today working on the training that will refamiliarize us with these splashdown activities, whatever responsibilities will be, the things we will monitor. I know the spacex team, the chief engineer, the nasa team are looking closely at all of the things they wish they had more information on where they feel the most uncertain about, and they share those with us on a routine basis. We got a flight readiness review. I know the chief engineers job thingsake that list of that are our concern and balance that risk with what they currently no going forward. That information has been shared with us. Splashdown is closer than it was the last time we were asked questions about it, but i still dont feel nervous about it. Really, we are focused on the things we need to do to be as safe as possible. It does take a little bit of time, so i will answer for dog and say we will both have the appropriate hardware ready, should we start feeling sick on board. Team will get us pulled up and onboard the ship relatively quickly. So we are expecting to be as prepared as we can be and have a really good feeling about being under control as we get through all of that. All right, of next we have andrea line filter from the houston chronicle. Hi, guys. Looking for to having you back in houston. My question is about splashdown. The vehicle pretty much lands itself. Im curious what you will be doing, what that experience will be, will you be monitoring things, looking up the windows, just holding on . Thanks. Yeah, for the preflight portion of the flight, in other , we willen we undock spend a good share of that sleeping and then monitoring these systems prior to and after we wake up. Then once we wake up, we will load, go through, suit up, and work our way into reentry. We will be fairly busy when we are awake throughout the whole process and those last, probably to and a half to three hours will be very busy as we get suited up, probably two and a half to three hours will be very busy as we get suited up, monitor the vehicle and ensure it is doing what it is supposed to be doing as we work our way back toward florida. It carries all the way through splashdown. Milestonesery key that have to happen in sequence and an order and on time in order for everything to go the way it is supposed to. We and Mission Control in hawthorne, california, the spacex Mission Control, will be there to assist or intervene as well. It will be very busy. There will not be a lot of looking at the window certainly at that point. The vehicle we can see through the forward window somewhat, but mostly we will be focused on the displays and the systems of dragon. Journalngton continues. Host joining us now, Tommy Sanford the executive director of the commercial spaceflight federation. Having me. Eciate you about the next couple hours and the significance of the return of the dragon speak about the next couple hours and the significance of the return of the dragon . Guest they will be keeping an eye on the data coming back from the spacecraft, ensuring they safely return, ensuring their infrastructure is in place to take up thesafely astronauts in the capsule and bring them back to shore. That is what i expect over the next couple hours. Go ahead. The mission of the two astronauts and the Publicprivate Partnership between spacex, nasa, and others interested in the space station walk us through that. Guest it has been a progressive sort of program. First, it started out as a cargo 2006. M back in two administrations ago. Than the Previous Administration decided that was a success and extended it to accrue program and the Current Administration has seen it as a success, a andessful model as well extended it to the human landing. Ystem it has been a Wonderful Program on many levels. And it has been a costly schedule over previous models. Developed over 69 months. That was 36 months faster than the Space Shuttle program and 24 minutes months faster than the Apollo Program. It was significantly more costly to develop. It cost 6 billion to develop through independent transportation systems. This was cheaper than the effort. Ly proposed so, the station and it was 30 billionplus cheaper than the shuttle and cheaper than the apollo version. A significant increase in cost and in scheduling capability. Technology,ms of what is different today versus the Apollo Program . Guest there is a significant amount of increase in safety, in end and see, in software redundancy, in in software improvements, in materials to make it cheaper, more costeffective to go to space. On all fronts, there has been significant improvement in technology currently used during the apollo era. If you could explain, boeing, Lockheed Martin, spacex, whether these are large or small companies, in this mission, but also in future missions . Guest we have had a renaissance over the last two decades and we have significantly increased the private Companies Involved in americas space enterprise. And you have named some of the noticeable ones like Lockheed Martin and boeing, the grumman, spacex, blue origin, Virgin Galactic northrop grumman. There are Smaller Companies getting involved as well. That is the access to space and the decrease in cost. For example, one company that a lot of people probably do not know about is space tango and they have been working on a capability to utilize the microgravity environment to manufacture a sort of contact lens that would provide site for folks who have gone blind and you can only manufacture that capability in space. Of thein example of one companies that a lot of people do not know about, but are utilizing the space environment. And the teat of astronauts the two leaving astronauts leaving the mission, what can you tell us about that ingthe two astronauts lead the mission, what can you tell us about that . Have been working really hard to get to this point. It was super exciting to see they are doing so well, going to flying ton, regularly space to come through. When you can see people who have worked really hard for the professional goal, its great to see that payoff. Host have covid19 had any impact on what they are able to do certainly they are in very small proximity in a small capsule question how can they tect themselves from that a small capsule . How can they protect themselves from that . Guest i think nasa and spacex have worked really hard over the last governments to ensure they were focused on the details and while there were some impacts, to minimize those impacts and ensure the operation was as safe as it would nominally be if covid was not going on. I think weve seen that come out. Host were talking with Tommy Sanford. The phone lines are open on the eastern half of the country. The organization commercial spaceflight federation, which is what . Thats a great question. I appreciate you asking it. 85 companiese then and organizations across the country. We are focused on laying the democratizing access to space. Our sponsors our members are responsible for the creation of thousands of hightech jobs and our companies range from spaceport on the ground to companies doing these little flights, two companies doing orbital flights, two companies that are interested in creating commercial space stations to Companies Using satellites for communications data, as well as activities on the moon and going to mars. It is a possibility to make money across the solar system and our companies are involved. With regard to mars, is it feasible, even possible, for a manned spaceflight to mars within the next four or five years . Guest if i could tell the would be aertainly much wealthier man. Not know if i would give that information for free on television. I cant predict the future, but , with the say is advances in technology, the advances in operationally affordable spaceflight capabilities, which is something we havent trying to do since before we went to the moon with apollo, i think now we have a better chance than ever to successfully go to mars safely. Host the website is commercialspaceflight. Org. Our guest is Tommy Sanford. 202 one lines are 7488000 for the eastern half of the country and 202 7488001 for the pacific and Mountain Time zones. What is the profit for these Companies Involved in space . Guest thats good question. A lot of these companies are still in the investment mode where they are creating their capabilities. A few of these companies have moved to Revenue Generation and are starting to make a profit. E do not quite know the potential is there. But it is certainly looking like a bright future. And doug Behnken Hurley are the teat of astronauts bringing the spacex crew dragon, which is a nasa partnership, back to earth the two astronauts bringing the spacex crew dragon, which is a nasa partnership, back to month. Tommy sanford, as you look at this, what are your thoughts . Know, its what a lot of folks in the space industry changes effect that peoples perspective. When they leave earth, and they are used to the conflict, competition between humans and a lot of our human problems when people go up to space, the overview effect provides a sort aha moment of we are actually all in this together and theres not much between us that keeps us safe from the gers of outer space, so its a wonderful view that provides optimism and hope for a lot of people and then there is stunning beauty, watching a or starrysunset nights, a story, clear night. Host lets get to viewer calls. Richard in oak ella california. Thank you for waiting. A, california. Caller just one thing. The administrations changed and the things suffered by it its going and its not going under the situation we have today, should the people change again and do you have the ability to keep going now without the fact that the government has to be involved in this . Host thank you, richard. Guest thank you, richard. I think that there has been a continuity. Theres been a lot of operational affordability and developmental affordability. We have not had that before. Know, the commercial crew program is a Wonderful Partnership with government and i think it will continue to be a partnership moving forward. It will combine the best of the private sector capability and innovation and know how and capital along with the government. I think we will continue to go together as partners. Host lately get your reaction to the comments of the democratic chair of the house senate committee. She said the multiyear delays and difficulties experienced by the companies of nasa bus guest program, anded program with the far less ambitious goal of just getting nasa astronauts back to low or lowearth orbit make clear to me that we should not be joined to privatize americas moonmarsram program, especially when it into the day, and american taxpayers, not the private companies, are going to wind up paying the lions share of the cost. Can you address that . Guest sure. Said that she was to work on a sustainable, affordable, but robust exploration program. I think commercial is key to that. Again, specifically related to the crew systems, the commercial crew, i disagree with those respectfully. Commercial crew cost tens of develop than to the previous capabilities like the Space Shuttle. It is much faster in Development Times from the contract signature to the first flight in 2020, which is 36 months faster than the shuttle and 24 months faster than the saturn command service module. This is the lowest cost and fastest development of human nasaflight capability for at significantly safer levels of operation. So, i think commercial is going to be a key aspect to how we safely go beyond lowearth orbit. Host again, the splashdown 2 48 easternr time. Eberle is joining us from casper, wyoming. Go ahead, beverly. Beverly is joining us from casper, wyoming. Caller hello. Was muted. Its not showing anything. Out all the money for the Space Program and they are not putting any attention to the people in need of food and assistance, you know, on earth . What is wrong with these people . Are we a cop show or what . , yourTommy Sanford response . , i think its worth a question. It is a question that citizens have raised for a long time. All this time spent on the Space Program is a drop in the pocket compared to other Government Programs and we have other resources to help those who are in need for our country. I also would like to add that being someone who started life out in poverty and had a dad who ran a homeless shelters for decades, resource programs are critical to making sure that people can improve their lives, but so was hope. When i was a poor kid in the mountains of appalachia growing up, the thing that provided optimism and hope for me was the starry night sky. To me, it was the oldest book in time. I think the Space Program provides the other aspect of improving peoples lives, which togiving them something drive for, to achieve in their lives. I think the Space Program is , absolutelyey important to just providing an aspect of improving peoples lives. What about Space Tourism . Virgin galactic is promoting on its website when potentially could we see that . I would not predict a specific month or year, but they have made significant progress, along with blue origin, when it comes to launching humans or astronauts to space. Folks onunched several their team last year. And we continue to see progress. Space. Ple able to access not only for tourism. And theexperiments classrooms of space. We are taking those to space and i think they will be expanded as well, as well as being able to take student payloads to space. We are talking about nasa, spacex, and the return of the dragon. For the first time in history, it will be in the gulf of mexico. Brian from springhill. Good morning. Caller good morning. My question is, with all of the space junk floating around there, do they have plans of going and retrieving any of it . Host thank you. Guest thats a great question. Theres certainly a lot of debris up in space currently. Theres a number of Companies Looking at ways to create technology to bring some of that back down. Companiesother improving capabilities to understand and characterize that safelyso we can more operate around it. Companiescouple looking at that debris, but also being able to operate more effectively around it. Host this program is live on bbc a posse of parliament channel. Our caller is calling us from great britain. Good afternoon to you. Caller when will spacex be doing any special flights, do you think . Spacex . Host Tommy Sanford . Guest can your people question . Host hes talking about the next space flights. Is that right, coal . Cole . Guest i believe that they are tentatively looking at this fall for the next march, i believe sometime in september, for the next crew launch from the station. Host you gave numbers earlier, but ballpark estimate of what this mission cost and what percent was paid for by nasa and taxpayer dollars and what percent was paid by spacex . What im not exactly sure the cost was for the specific mission to launch. I believe it was under the development contract. It wascan say is significantly less than what the previous capabilities provided. Over 3 billion a year. Whether it launched zero times or on its average, six times a year, i guarantee you this light cost significantly less than that. What i can provide is an example of one of spacex of Cargo Missions to the station, forared to the shuttle cost these shuttle to take cargo to the station. Decreasingignificant cost and a significant benefit for the taxpayer and thats a great thing. Host how did the astronauts train for this . And basic functions like eating and sleeping . Guest they have wonderful facilities around the country, but at Johnson Space center in texas, as well as other inabilities in florida kennedy, and between the private provider spacex and nasa, they extensive program, ensuring the astronauts are wellprepared to go on these missions to the station. To lois, joining us from indianapolis. Good morning. Good morning. I was wondering what is the role of the astronauts was they land in the final certification process . Is there a committee, a deep grief process, or what is that certification a deep brief ief process, what does that certification look like . Guest thats a great question. The process was finalized, i believe, in january 2015. That was also in place for the contract. But the astronauts provide an Important Role in providing verbal feedback, but also significant amounts of data that they have been collecting back to nasa as well. And i am sure they will go through that extensively to figure out what works well, what could be improved, and what they look for to doing next. Host do you know who is left behind in the International Space station right now . Guest i know there are specific individuals i dont know the specific individuals there now. Threesually to death or u. S. Astronauts, two or three u. S. Astronauts, a couple of our allies and two or three russians. Host good morning. Caller im glad our government has started to invest in our Space Program. We get so Much Technology over the years. To the lady who called up who money why we spend the and do not help the people, but we help people. I wanted to express my appreciation for spacex for the grant him not relying on the russians. Thats all i have to say. Thank you. Host thank you. Tommy sanford . Guest thank you. I agree. It is an important thing the nation doesnt is wonderful the government is partnering with commercial to lower the cost and increase the access. Host and one of the big differences is in a 1970s we did not have these phones and i have been told is more technology in a signal smartphone than we had in the Apollo Program in the 1970s . Correct. S, that is the computer processing capability has increased significantly. To it hasable enabled the Space Program to more efficiently and effectively provide access to space. Coveragewill have live until splashdown. 48 is the latest time and we will adjust quarterly. There will be a News Conference with nasa and elon musk. That is scheduled for 5 00 eastern time. We hope that you will tune in throughout the day. David is on the phone from albuquerque, new mexico. Good morning. Caller hello. Host good morning. Caller my name is david. Im calling in and i am watching your cspan. Space program is well worth the money. The greatest invention in the world is the diode. The second greatest invention is the internet. Host thank you, david. We are getting some feedback. Do you want to respond to his comments . Guest i agree that it is important that the government invest in technology and its absolutely critical to partner with commercial, as i mentioned. Arlier lewis is next from jacksonville, florida. How is the weather in jacksonville now . Caller the hurricane is on its way right now. It is calm and peaceful. It will probably be later on today. The tides are coming in pretty strong right now. Host go ahead with your comment. Tommy sanford is on the air. Yes, come many blacks or minorities are in the space yes, how many blacks or minorities are in the Space Program . Guest thats a great question. I dont know specifically. The commercial programs, the whole goal is to increase the Operational Capability so that additional folks can go to space beyond what is traditionally middleaged white men. Its not just commercial crews blue originbut also and Virgin Galactic, there are wonderful stories i love to tell about these secondgrader from adiana that wanted to see firefly light up in space. A younger a. She wanted to know whether a firefly would light up in space. Rather than just theorize about teacher contacted a professor, stephen kallick, and they treated a payload to test out whether a firefly would light up in space. Theok the payload payload cost 8,000, which was just a couple bake sales for a afford, andnds to they flew that mission. Indeed,fighters do, light up in space. The classroom turned that science project into a Political Science project because afterward, they petitioned their state and local government to insectthe official state to view firefly. So the legislature put together the official state insect to the firefly. So the legislature put together all flown ont was the blue origin nickel. They are significantly increasing the access to a lot just beyonds and the traditional, the Traditional Group of middleaged white men that have normally been involved in the Space Program. Tommy sanford, how do they view what is going on in the u. S. And what is happening with this Public Private partnership with elon musk and nasa . It is taking business away from them, because for the last 10 years prior to this we have been reliant on them to take our astronauts to the space perion at about 80 million fee, which has cost a significant amount of money. At the same time, Companies Like spacex are utilizing their rockets to also compete in the International Launch market. 2000s the1990s and russians dominated. On two fronts and even more than americans is allowing to lead in space again. It has been good for america and probably is not looked on to well in russia. Nasa, spacex, the return of astronauts. Stephanie is next, in st. Louis, missouri. Good morning. Good morning, gentlemen. My question is, what experiments for medical and if its have they performed in space and how will that help us on earth . Thank you. Host thank you, stephanie. Thats a greate, question. They have done a number of experiments for increasing our medical knowledge related to humans in outer space, whether it is the effects of the micro gravity environments on humans in space and what that does to our bone structure, which has allowed for Better Technology and solutions for osteoporosis as thingsas well related to radiation to astronauts, but in addition, they have been doing experiments related to therapeutics that can be manufactured in microgravity and they are looking at a number of things that can be done there. Drugs to seeing at if they can manufacture a more costeffective and less infrastructure intensive version of the drug. Theres a number of things they are doing their. With the commercial crew up and for ag, that will allow 50 increase in the number of things that will be happening. As the dragon spacecraft is making its way back into the earths atmosphere, how fast will it be traveling and how does it deal with the friction it will be feeling . That is a great question. You have to be going at 17,000, 8000 miles an hour. They will be going back to zero. Miles part of that is various rockets they use to allow themselves to come into the atmosphere at the right angle. Another part of it is the heat shield that allows the heat and deal with up these significant amount of friction as it comes back into the atmosphere. Then the parachutes will open up and that will allow it to slowly get back to earth before it splashes down and nasa and spacex pick the astronauts back up. Host we are talking with Tommy Sanford, the executive director of the commercial spaceflight federation. This is reggie joining us from virginia. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to make a statement that there is another area a group of people, the chinese, who are also interested in space, and i think from our tv coverage we have in this area they may be sending a spaceshiptwo the moon and they have plans to occupy the moon the moon and they have plans to occupy the moon. We never hear anything from nasa on this. Is there anything you can say about that . Host thank you, reggie. Tommy sanford, are you familiar with this . Guest youre absolutely correct. The chinese have made significant progress and theres a slight program. They launched a probe and a rover to mars and that is a significant sign of a level of maturity for a spaceflight program. Spaceflight program has successfully mated rovers on mars. They significantly landed a rover on the opposite side of the moon, which again, was a significant sign of progress they have made in this program. They have human spaceflight capability. They have tested space station prototype. Put up alooking to permanent space station in the next couple years, which will be meant to compete with ours, as well as providing access for a. Ot of folks around the world they are also interested in theing a human presence on moon. The chinese are very much competitors for us. That is why we are so focused on what we are doing now. Is theng i would add administrator, i think, has done highlightingob of the white house, nasa, and the highlighting the white house, nasa, and the congress, i think are very aware of this and that is why there involved with the partnerships makeare with commercial to sure we maintain our presence and lowearth orbit and move on to the moon or mars. Otherlet me take the point of view. Is there any concern in washington that we are basically ing thisthis to ced to private business . Guest well, no. Them to develop multiple capabilities at the same time. It enables the operational cost to be low so they can reinvest money in additional capability, expandallows them to their activities beyond low earth orbit. So really theres just a time that of benefits of working with and any concerns of it to the private sector, i think, are misplaced. California. Park, go ahead. Caller whether gulf of mexico instead of the atlantic why of gulf of mexico instead the atlantic . Does the hurricane affect the landing times . Host go ahead. Guest thats a great question. I believe they are looking at six different landing sites, some inthe atlantic, the gulf of mexico. They look at the weather data. Many other aspects, characteristics, to decide what at. He safest place to down i believe they will play a significant role in where it decided to down at. Splashdown at. Navy how is nasa and the looking at picking up these astronauts . They will be closely working together with the coast guard to be looking for the splashdown so they can quickly pick up a capsule and the astronauts and get them back on board safely. Host we will go to richard in terre haute, indiana. Good morning. Richard, do me a favor. Get someing to feedback. Turn on the volume on your set and we will get your question. Caller ok. Ok, i wanted to tell you how nice it is you have been doing this and for them to be doing this and, im 78 years old. Come around and seen you go to the moon and back to mars. Host richard, thank you. What is thed, benefit of returning to the moon . There arehink numerous benefits of returning to the moon. One is the excitement, the adventurism, the optimism that provides. A lot of folks we have been stuck in low earth orbit after we have been to the moon. It is the initiative. There are economic benefits. If you put Power Systems on the that for, you can turn into a gas station where you can al in a much more cheaper and effective way. There are benefits, economic and exploration wise for going to the moon. We have the development of the earth, so going back to the moon increase ours to understanding of our own home planet. Capsule in the gulf of mexico, can it be reused . Guest yes. It can be reused. Spacex is proven that with their has proventy that with her cognitive ability. That is the plan, to reuse the capsule. That helps bring down the cost as well to increase the access to more quickly get back to space. Moment we will bring our viewers nasa tv from 10 00 until 5 00 eastern time. They will wrap up with a News Conference. Ast will we be looking for we move into early afternoon . Be a loteres gone to of discussion between nasa, the nasa astronauts, and spacex. There is going to be a lot of discussion. When it comes to nasa news and what is going on, i always keep a close eye on administrator ridensteinss b twitter feed. Host when the astronauts come back to earth, what do they have to reacclimate with . Reactivation, their bodies have been in microgravity for several months. Reacclamation, their bodies have been in microgravity for several months. There bones have atrophied have atrophied a little bit. They need to stand up, to go to the vehicle, to be checked out. A big part will be their muscles and there bones in their bodies just getting used to the Gravitational Force of the earth again. Host your thoughts on this mission . Guest i think it is incredibly exciting. Even before we went to the moon, 11 months before we went to the , nasa realized we need an operationally costeffective way to carry cargo and humans. We have not had that until now. What we have been trying to achieve, we finally have that capability online. That will finally allow us to more fully utilize the capabilities and the environment of space for the benefits of mankind. I am very excited because i think this is an Inflection Point for the future. Host tommy