Transcripts For CSPAN Newsmakers 20150913

This weeks jim jordan from ohio. Hes the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, a group of about 30 of the houses most conservative members. During the office break, esther jordan was at home in his district and he told his constituents they are to judge congress by how they act in this important month. We will talk to them about what his member policy expectations are, and what his voters expectations are with our two guests today. Cussak zach bob of the hill. Youre up first, bob. Guest there has been a lot of speculation about Speaker Boehners future. A resolution by one of your colleagues to oust this speaker. You voted for the speaker ohio colleague at the beginning of this congress. Do you think john boehner has done a good job as speaker . Guest what i know is this. We have big issues coming up. The country is coming up. We have the iran issue we are debating this week. We have the funding the government issue along with this huge question about planned parenthood and the fact that they should not be getting any taxpayer dollars as we move forward. Shortly after that, we have the highway bill potentially, the xm corporate welfare concept. We have a number of big things coming up. Frankly, i think everyone is watching not just the speakers but congress. Our charges are real simple. This is what the house is about. Do what we said we are going to do. If we do that and focus on that, that is the real task. I think the country is looking at all of us, not just those of us who may be in the official leadership positions. Journalist can i follow that up . I want to get more information on that. If someone offers a privileged resolution to replace, a motion to vacate, would you vote for that . Guest that is not the question. That may be the question at some point down the road. The focus now is on the big issues we have in front of us. Those are huge. That is what the American People want to do is adjust the big concerns, do what we told him we were going to do. Focus on the things that we got elected to do. If we do that, then i think we are actually fulfilling the promise we made to them when us the privilege of serving in the house of representatives of the United States commerce. Journalist how would you rate john boehner as a speaker . I have said this for four and a half years. It is a tough job. He has to deal with barack obama, harry reid, nancy pelosi, and guys like me. It is not an easy thing. It is a very difficult job. I would have done things different. Every member of condors would have done things different. You all know there has been times when the Freedom Caucus took a different position than our leadership. Those are welldocumented. The test is coming up. Lets see how we all do. I represent the same number of people as john boehner. It is we. We have to do what we told the voters we would focus on doing. That has to be our mission. All the time, frankly, but there is a heightened focus on it this fall. Journalist a big issue right now, you mentioned before, planned parenthood federal funding. The speculation is on capitol hill that there will probably be some kind of shortterm continued resolution that will plant a Big Decisions down the road, maybe to christmas. That continued resolution, what does that contain what if that contains funding for planned parenthood . Guest i dont know if it is likely to. It may. I certainly hope it is not. I will be pushing for the position that that organization, after what we now know, what we have now seen on video the old picture is worth a thousand words we have on video where this organization was engaged in the most repulsive activity you can think about, and what may be criminal activity. They should not get another penny of your tax dollars, my tax dollars, and the families i get the privilege of representing in ohio. Argumentt make that that clear. We will take the money that was going to this organization which is engaged in what we now know they were doing, terrible activity, take that money and put it over here. Same level of funding. If the president and harry reid think we can pass that, we insist upon this organization continuing to get your tax dollars, if they say that is more important than funding our troops, funding our veterans, and frankly, funding Womens Health issues, they will have to defend that position with the American People. I think that is such a common sense logical position. We have to make the case in a compelling and repetitive way over and over again so that the American People clearly understand what is at stake. If the is a cr house passes a cr with the provision barring planned parenthood from being funded as you want and the senate strips it out and send it back, what happens at that point . Would you like to see your leadership do at that point . Guest we dont know what happens then because we have several we have 20 more days of debate. Lots of things change in 20 days. You guys saw what changed this week when we decided to go a different way on the Iranian Nuclear resolution issue in the house. Things can change. As i said yesterday to a few checkers, even though does not about the whole bellachik does not get another i hope they dont get another dime of federal money. The sameo do not share position i do, understand that even if they dont have the same position, they dont want tax money going to an organization such as planned parenthood. Journalist would you order a shutdown over the planned parenthood shutdown . Guest nobody wants a shutdown. I have never voted for a shutdown. Two years ago, we voted to fund the government at the same level the democrats wanted. We sibley said delay obamacare we simply said delay obamacare. If you treat them one way, treat all markings the same way. Same issue here. We are saying look. We will agree at the levels the president agreed to. Republicans and democrats have agreed to. We sibley dont want money going to this organization. If the president says, no, we insist we simply dont want money. If the president says we insist that money goes to this organization after what we have seen, that has no logic. Journalist if Republican Leaders on capitol hill, as you say, repeat that message over and over. If the democrats any white house say absolutely we need federal funding to planned parenthood and they veto or threatened to veto bills and the government is shutdown, do you think in a situation the public would back republicans in that fight . They have not fought backed republicans in prior fights. Guest i dont know. I dont know that you know. We can look at history and i get that. Ive seen the polling numbers in the past. I would argue that i dont believe we have made the argument in a compelling and articulate and frankly, not enough. That has to happen. I think there is a simple moral question that every member with a conscience are you going to allow the tax dollars of the families you get the privilege of serving and representing, are you going to continue to allow those dollars to go to an organization now known to have engaged in what they did . I, personally, cannot do that. I think it is a conscience vote for all numbers. Journalist you admitted after the 2013 shutdown that it was a mistake. You are on the record, actually, saying that in november, 2013 why would a shutdown over this issue be different . Guest fighting for what is the right way to do things, a consistent way, and application of the rule of law across the board equally for everyone i dont think that is a mistake. I think some of the strategies used in the showdown and that. Ebate two years ago were wrong i dont think it is a mistake to fight for what would the voters were 54. I think we mishandled how to put out. We took several different positions in the course of the debate i think we should have had the same position. Treat every american the same. If youre going to delay obamacare for your corporate friends, a should apply the same to all americans. Journalist you sit on the Benghazi Committee can you give us an idea of how you think october 22, the to let the day that Hillary Clinton is scheduled to testify, there are reports that it will be a long day. What is the game plan of the committee on that day . Guest the chairman has been clear. She has to answer every question we have. He has talked about several rounds. That is what i anticipate. Will determine all about. I think it will be an important area. The secretary of state one for americans give their lives for their country that night and lots of questions we have to ask her about before. Questions like when you had 200 security incidents in a 13 months prior to the attack on september 11, 2012, ied attacks, assassination attempt on the british ambassador. You had all of that going on. You had repeated requests from the folks on the ground for additional security. Those were denied not only denied, the security presence they had there was reduced why was that down . Why would you do that . 11,icularly on september particularly in the country, at that time a focus of the at ministration. At all that administration. Idea of awhole demonstration spontaneously evolving into an attack motivated by a video turned out not to be accurate, where did that come from, why was i given as a narrative to the American People . There are those questions. There are the questions raised in the last several months about the email and the fact that we dont have access to all of the documents from the state Department First of all, secretary clinton had the documents at her server. She turned them into the state department. Which documents from her server went to the state department. There are two steps there. A Ranking Member on the benghazi Section Committee the criticismed this is only republicans looking to hurt Hillary Clinton. They are looking to separate her 2016 president ial campaign. What is your response to that . How did you feel today when a former clinton staffer took the fifth commitment amendment right before the suction committee . Four americans lost their lives. Our job as the congress is to seek the truth. 40he taxpayers taxpayers for the taxpayers and for the families of the lost individuals. Staffer took the fifth amendment. What i would have liked to ask him is who asked you to set up the server . Who paid you to set up the server . Who used the server . What kind of information did you have access to on the server . Did you participate in wiping the server clean as we have heard about . Those i think are important questions we do not get to ask. The most important western is this. T is the tech guy doing the most important question is this what is the tech guy doing setting up the server . Taking the fifth . What criminality could he have if he is just the tech guy . It makes sense. He took the fifth amendment today. I think it is a fundamental question. Unfortunately, we do not get to ask him because he was not quick answer. Journalist why not give a tech guy full immunity . Guest there is talk of that, but that is a call for someone for someone with a lot more experience like chairman gaudie. I am not a lawyer. Trey is. That will be a part of the discussion, im sure. I know that senator johnson is talking about that. Good mines are looking into it. Well see. Host halfway point. Journalist there will be a debt limit vote at some point, probably this fall. What are your thoughts on that . I know this is an issue you have talked about repeatedly in your time in congress. Guest we have an 18 trillion debt. American people understand we cant spend more than we taken. When you raise the debt ceiling, you should put in place, get certain changes to the law that will put you on the path to fixing the problem. We had a plan a few years back, cap and balance that the American People like. Cut spending in the short term, but more important, cap spending as a percentage of our economy as we move forward. Perhaps more important, start the process towards getting a balanced budget amendment. Those are the things the American People want. If we are going to raise the debt ceiling, we should make sure we are going to get the changes that put us on the path to balance. I think the American People understand that. Any family who has financial problems they know you cannot fix it overnight, but you have to start fixing it. To just raise it as the democrats seem to want to do, that will not fly. There will have to be some reforms in our longterm spending that begin to put us on that path. You have been investigating the irs scandal. I wanted to get an update on that and specifically what is going to happen to lois lerner of the house they held her in contempt. Edc prosecutor who has since step down did not bring charges. Could they vote against her again . Guest we could, maybe we should, but will you what we are mostly looking at is the current commissioner who breached every single duty he had. They allowed 400 and 20 back up cases to be destroyed containing 24,000 emails. It is important for the viewers to understand the timeline. Remember how this started. On may 10, the Inspector General had already told the irs and treasury there was targeting going on. Lerner10, 2013, lois jumped in front of the story so that she can spin it her way. At a stage event, a Bar Association speech in town, a pointed question from one of her. Riends, she lies she says it wasnt me, it was in washington, it was those agents in cincinnati. Right from the getgo she lies. 12 days later, she comes in front of the Oversight Committee and takes the fifth. When you have a central figure lying and taking the fifth, its sort of puts a premium on getting all the document, all of the coming vacation, all of the emails, the entire record. With a preservation order in place and all of the doctrine. We issue a subpoena, give us all the document. With a preservation order and a subpoena in place, the irs destroys 422 backup tapes. Three weeks later, the commissioner at the irs comes in front of our committee, ed if he would give us all of the emails, he repeatedly says yes i will. It is a blatant and total lie because you cannot give us your emails if you have destroyed 24,000. He had the duty to preserve the documents, produce the documents, disclose them to us, andty to testify accurately correctly record if he does so inaccurate. He did not to fill any of those duties. We think he should be impeached. Journalist is at going to happen . Guest we are pushing for that. I think it will. We are having a lot of discussions. This is not been done in a long time where a head of an agency was impeached. We are doing a homer, but we think it should and is going to happen. Tornalist can i stray present a politics for a moment . Donald trump what is your take on him and the rise of trump, dr. Ben carson . It seems like the Republican Party it is hard to figure out where it is heading right now. What are your thoughts on it . What does it mean for your constituency . Guest in a general sense, it underscores what we have started talking about. The American People are frustrated with what they seek not getting done and washington, d. C. You know this. Trumps numbers come a carsons numbers. Zs numbersmr. Cru and you are over 50. Three of them are not in washington and mr. Cruz is antiestablishment. You at all of them together and you are over 50 . That underscores that we better get doing what we told the voters what we are going to do. That is the charge of the Freedom House mission statement. We think we have forgotten them, our job is to remember and fight for them. We had better do that. Good republican field, and it is a good field, weber emerges as our nominee will be the one who demonstrates to the American People he is coming here to fight for them. Not for the corporate interests, not for the big corporations that cozy up to Big Government and get a special deal and corporate welfare he is here to life for regular families, middleclass families. The candidate who can best articulate that will be the nominee. I think that will give us a great chance of beating secretary clinton or mr. Biden or whoever they happen to nominate on their side. Journalist will you endorse anybody in never public and primary . What about john kasich . Guest i am for the republicans. I chief of staff told us a while back that in 1996 there was a guiding more retailer who ran for president. He finished eighth. More r tailor. Today, the person in a is ron paul rand paul, bobby jindal. That shows you the depth of our field. We have a good field. Sometimes, in a semi final match, every match is just as tough as the finals. We will slug it out here in the finals, but whoever here is the winner will be a good candidate and give us a good chance to win the right house. Journalist on your public inside, the voters are extraordinarily angry. He spoke about this. That is the mission of the freedom caucas is to respond to the public discomfort with washington. It seems like the discomfort of the establishment which you are a part of guest wait, wait, wait journalist respect for the, sir, you are in your fifth term in congress. You are part of the astonishment. Guest the guy who is the head of the Freedom Caucus is part of the establishment. That is a first. Journalist it seems like there has been something unleashed that the establishment has a hard time grasping or putting their arms around or even understanding. They are scratching their heads. They look at jeb bush, son of a president , brother of another president. He is at 3 in some of these polls. It seems like the old republic and hierarchy the whole republican hierarchy is upside down. Do you feel that way . The sameu can say thing on the democrat side. We have a socialist winning New Hampshire or iowa. That is a believable. Alls a frustration from americans that this game is rigged against them. They focus way too much on corporate interest. That is why the xm bank has been such a big fight. I would argue but for the work caucus edom house we are here to months passed before it was posted authorized. The question is it is an entirely in question to restart some thing and resurrect some thing. We are sensitive to that and a big way. We have been pushing on it. I think it is on both sides. They are tired of this game where the politicians and Big Government get close with the gameorporations and the gets rained against Small Business owners and families across the country. That is what our organization, the Freedom Caucus, is all about. Host three minutes. Journalist obamacare, replace and repeal. We have been hearing that from republicans for yeasrs. There have been some proposals they haveut overall, not gone behind one. What has been the delay . Were that is what we frankly told by our leadership we were going to do. Many of usreasons are willing to vote for the isget proposals initially because we are going to get to obamacare and reconciliation. From ourge we hear leadership as we will do that. That is what we should do because that is what we told the voters we were going to do. What is your own longterm plans for your political career . How long do you see yourself in congress . Coming to the city bench and talking with you guys as often as possible. My focus is serving the families of the fourth district. I enjoyed the opportunity and counted as a privileged to represent Small Business owners, taxpayers, moms and dads in ohio. It is a great district. We are the part of ohio the old line about ohio, they make things and grow things. That is what we do in the fourth district. Big manufacturing, the start of Belt Movement across the country. My focus is on representing them. Journalist one more question. We talk to hamas min mark meadows and asked him who should be the next speaker, no matter when that is. He said it could be a Freedom Caucus member, but it could be a member of leadership. Who do you think . Guest i have not focused on a. Im focused on what we had talked about. Making sure the government gets funded at the right level, not increasing spending, making sure that an organization caught on videotape doing what they are doing doesnt get your tax dollars. Making sure we can do the best possible thing on this around deal and carry the day on that. Stopping the corporate welfare we talked about. Those are the things im focused on. Those leadership things they work themselves out. Host we are out of time. For the record, cspan is happy to have you and you come back. Thank you for being here. Ets stay on this leadership what i thought i heard was getting into a replacement of Speaker Boehner right now takes the focus off of all of the big agenda items. It sounds like even know he has numbers pushing for this, he is counseling, but get to this month. Journalist it is a big test for the speaker. That is what a lot of conservatives in the house are looking at. It does not look like anyone will move forward which would be an their thing an embarrassing motion to get rid of the speaker until we see what happens with planned parenthood and government funding. If it is not to their liking, and democrat have the upper hand. Republicans do not have since the vote in the senate and they have a democratic president. We have seen these fiscal fight before. Democrats win them. That could be quite interesting. He is the person who invited the pope to visit, and that is not for a couple of weeks. That would be a major investment. Journalist i do not think they would care, to be honest. I did not hear the same way. I thought it was i think john boehner are ok. I do not think theyre close, but i think that boehner is on a short leash. If boehner forces her hand, you will see a resolution,. They are holding it over boehners had right now. At some point, he will have to slug it out with them or not. What he has to do as speaker drives these guys crazy. Compromise. These guys dont like optimize. Compromise. In the end, that is not where they are. He is caught in a trap right here. I think we will see this resolution again at some point. I think it could come before the end of the month. It could come at any time. I think there will be a vote on boehner remaining speaker. We will see the votes he has, i think there will be a vote on it. Journalist i think there is so much unrest with boehner right now, all it takes is one member to do this. All it takes is one number in the house and then they can vote on this. Jordan is in a tough spot. Boehner is an ohio calling. They have a tough relationship. Basically, a lot of people are saying it may not be in about this vote in particular because boehner can probably survive it. It is about pushing him out the door. Host i want to talk about the funding of government and plan to issue planned parenthood issue. You asked him so many times about whether he would risk a Government Shutdown on it. Iurnalist until this week, do not think there would be a Government Shutdown on this. I did not think that was possible. Watching what happened over the around issue and how quickly over the around issue and how quickly they turned on the leadership. They threw it out the window. The leadership has so little juice. Hows relevant leaders house Republican Leaders i think they can blunder the way into a shutdown. For the first time, i think when the speaker of the house says our goal is not to shut down the government we had a conversation. It was 2013. I think it is out there. Do i think it will happen . No. Will not give on this issue. Will that trigger his removal of speaker . The dynamic right now is interesting. Journalist conservatives like jim jordan said are not going to r that hasany c federal funding. They will make a lot of noise. It is a tough position for house and senate republicans. You had the around vote the iran vote postponed. It has been a fiasco. It will only get worse. Noting, they was didnt windows battles on shutdowns. He was making the case that we can win the argument, we just have to make it this way. Journalist better tactics. Journalist that is right. Journalist an interesting take on 2013. Journalist we will see, but it will be a rough few months. Host what an interesting thing we have to watch. Thank you for being here this week. Journalist thank you having us. He was i not see, he was a concentration camp confidant, he was a nazi. He was responsible for the murder of thousands of jews. Jennifert on q a, thee on her grandfather, butcher of plauzau. He was a tremendous accrual tremendously cruel person. He had two dogs he trained to tear humans apart. There wason who a pleasure that he felt when he killed people. Are normal, if you dont have this aspect and your personality, it is very difficult to grasp. Tonight at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q and a. In this past week congress, there was debate on the around Nuclear Agreement reached in the u. S. And other countries. The senate took up a resolution of disapproval that was blocked by democrats. Here is some of what we saw from the senate floor on thursday when the measure failed to advance. The issue before us is of immense consequence to our country. The American People are entitled to a real voice and to know where their elected senators stand on this important issue. Recently, this was a members oth members of both parties seemed to endorse over women. Mr. President , not a single democrat voted against the iran Nuclear Agreement review act. We all recall it passed 981. They told us this was an issue too important for political games. Heres what one democratic colleague said just last week. As a caucus that was opposed to games and filibusters over the last four years, i would think it would be really regrettable if we didnt ultimately go to the floor and cast our votes for or against this deal. That was last week, apparently. Democratic senators just voted to filibuster and block the American People from even having a real vote on one of the most consequential Foreign Policy issues of our time. Its telling, its telling, that democrats would go to such extreme lengths to prevent president obama from having to consider legislation on this issue. The president so proud of this deal . Then he shouldnt be afraid. Shouldnt be afraid. We all know the amount of time the Administration Spent up here asking all these guys over here to take a bullet for the team. And, of course, the team is team obama. They all wanted the to have a say. And when it came time to have a say, they said it was more important that the president not have to veto the resolution of disapproval. More important to him than to them. This is a deal which is designed to go around congress and the American People from the very start. We all remember the president didnt want to submit it to us at all. This was going to be an executive agreement, is still an executive agreement, didnt want us to have any say at all. Senator corker and senator karen , cardin worked together, an proposal overwhelmingly proposed and supported to give us a chance to weigh in on this important deal. It would empower iran to maintain thousands of centrifuges and become a recognized Nuclear Threshold state forever on the edge of developing a Nuclear Weapon. Thats whats before us. Thats whats before us. It would effectively subsidize hamas and the regime by the way which is now going to include Russian Military base in syria, by showering tens of billions of dollars on their benefactors in tehran. To leave iran with enrichment capability just as the, calls for israels destruction and pray every day for our destruction. This deal is sure to have many consequences that will last well beyond this administration. And yet as things presently stand, it would limp along with little or no input from congress or from the American People. Who, by the way, we know overwhelmingly oppose the deal in spite of the president s best effort to sell it to them. This shouldnt be an acceptable outcome for our friends on the other side, even those who support the deal. I predicted early and predicted earlier today well have a raft of new bashiran proposals introduced by friends on the other side. Who are going to be born again iran bashers. So let me make it clear to all my colleagues, we have voted, were going to vet again but we are voting on this iran Nuclear Agreement review act. Were not going to be taking up bills that have fewer than a cosponsors to override a president ial veto. If you want to make a law, like we did with the corkercardin, show us enough cosponsors to make a law. But were not interested in using floor time forget well efforts over on the other side to try to fool the constituents into thinking, oh, i really, really was serious about iran in spite of the fact that i voted for the deal that you hate. Weve only got so much floor time here in the senate. Were going to try to use it on serious proposals that have a chance 0 of becoming law. Now my assumption is the president is not going to want to revisit this issue. He got what he wanted. Hes not going to want to revisit this issue. So if we want to do anything further about this iranian regime, bring me a bill with enough cosponsors to override a president ial veto and well take a look at it. Otherwise, the American People will give us their judgment about the appropriateness of this measure a year from november. Because this is not an ordinary issue. This is an issue with a real shelf life. This is a regime thats still going to be there a year and a half from now. And, of course, we know its an executive order only. So if perchance there is a president of a different party, i would say to my iranian observers of the debate that it will be looked at anew baseed upon iranian behavior between now and then. As others have said, the Iranian Parliament apparently is going to get to weigh in. I heard the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee Say that. I guess theyre going to get a vote. But our friends here on the other side want to employ a procedural device which is the Democratic Leaders pointed out is commonly used around here but the question is on 0 not what kind of measure is it used. This is no ordinary measure. This is different. This is different. So well have another opportunity to see whether we want to move past this procedural device. The president s proud of the deal. I dont know why he would be reluctant to veto a resolution of disapproval thats put on his desk. Hes having press conferences about it. Hes bragging about it. He thinks its great. I dont know what theyre protecting him from. I think hed have a veto ceremony and invite all you guys down there to join him and celebrate. What are you protecting him from . Well have a chance next week, one more chance to allow him to say how he feels about the resolution of disapproval. We know how he feels about it already. For the life of me, i cant get why he is reluctant to veto this resolution of disapproval, in effect underscoring again what a great deal he thinks it is for america. So well revisit the issue next week and see if maybe any folks want to change their minds and give us a chance to remove the procedural roadblock and give the president what hes been asking for. Give him what hes been asking for. I yield the floor. Mr. Reid mr. President . The presiding officer the democratic leader. Mr. Reid i want to be as respectful of my friend as i need to be. But lets speak reality. We are in a congress that is dominated by the republicans. They control the house by a large margin, they control the senate by a large margin. The legislation that is before this body was proposed and legislated and brought to us by a Republican Leadership. Its their legislation, not ours. Ive ive didnt spend all my time in my office visiting people. I watched the speeches. And it was stunning the nonreality thats facing my republican friends. They dwelled a number of them on whats going on in the middle east. Not once, not once did anyone ever mention the worst Foreign Policy decision ever made by our great country, the invasion of iraq. Invasion of iraq. It destabilized that part of the world for a long, long time to come, for what . So my friends can blame all the problems in the middle east on the president but theyre blaming the wrong person. We cant take what we have because they want to rewrite history. History isnt people write history as it is. Part of the history that is theyre trying to rewrite is the history thats taken place in this body. We offered on two separate occasions publicly before the American People and in this body, you want a vote, well let you have a vote. It was both times objected to because in the convoluteed reasoning i guess of my friend, he thinks that people were watching this have no common sense, cant understand the english language. We offered to have a vote on this on two separate occasions. It was objected to both times. Now this is the inane response is youre filibustering us. I know a lot about filibusters because weve had to file cloture more than 600 times because of filibusters by the republicans. Never in the history of the country has there been anything close to that. Now, what were most of those on . On motions to proceed. On this legislation that came behalf this body we said we dont need a vote on a motion to proceed. Go to the bill. Go to it. We also said as part of the agreement, let the leader offer the first amendment. And he did that. Now, 60vote threshold. My friend talks as if, oh, wow, where in the world did this come from . Why would they ever consider 60 votes on this . Well, mr. President , first of all, i know its late in the day, i didnt bring the subject up, but my friend, the republican leader is talking about a world that doesnt exist anymore. And who created this world that doesnt exist anymore . My republican friends. July 30, 2011, from senator mcconnell, now look, we know controversial matters in the senate has been for quite some time requires 60 votes. So id say again to my friend thats me pretty hard to make a credible case anything other than a filibuster. A while later, quote i wish to make clear to the American People that the republicans are willing to vote on a proposal within 30 minutes, an hour, as soon as we can get our colleagues to floor. Require 60 votes on a matter of enormous importance, its not at all unusual, its the way the senate operates close quote. Another one, a few months later, mr. President , i can only quote my good friend thats me who repeatedly said in 2011 the senate has always been in need for 60 votes. This is my good friend the majority leader when he was the leader in july of 2007 and said repeatedly when he was the minority as leader and the majority as leader that requires 60 votes for matters that are controversial. There is no question, the measure before this body using the words of my friend the republican leader is something that is important. Something important. And there is no question this measure has been controversial. It is also, as he i am using his word words is this legisn of enormous importance . I think so. At least in my mind. A little while later so who gets to decide, my friend says . Whos wasting time . None of us. None of us have had authority to decide whos wasting time. If you get 60 votes at some point and you move the matter, the best way is to have an open amendment process. Thats the way it place used to operate. Thats an editorial comment. Two or three months later madam president , reserving the right to object, what were talking about is a perpetual grant proceeding. Id ask my friend, the majority leader, if he would modify his unanimous consent request, set the threshold for the vote at 60. As we all know, it takes 60 votes to do everything except the budget process, we anticipate having a vote to proceed to the bill sometime before the end of the year as well. That was just early part of august this year. So, mr. President , my friend is in dire straits. And i understand that. The house is in a terrible state of disaray. They dont know what theyre going to do. They on the one hand, what they say they are are going to, the president cant send the papers to them, so they voants have a vote on that. En this they turn around and have a vote on the resolution of disapproval. I guess they dont need the papers for that. Then theyre going to vote on more sanctions. And then they dont know what theyre going to do. It is very unusual when the when one Party Controls both branches of the Bicameral Legislature if they dont kind of Work Together. But obviously theres no working together here. So i understand my friends frustration. This is the situation where hes lost the vote. And its a situation, mr. President , where he is simply not in touch with reality as it exists. So i want to say to everyone within the sound of my voice, the senate has spoken and has spoken with a clarion voice. Thats what this agreement is all about. It is about whether or not iran should have a Nuclear Weapon and the countries that you wouldnt think would be involved in appellate courting Something Like this, but they know the importance of it themselves. They agreed to go alopping with this agreement. They helped us negotiate it. China, russia, they agreed to t the senate has spoken with a clarion voice and declared that this historic agreement to prevent iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon will stand. So, i say to my fellow americans and i say that with all respect for everybody thats out there listening or reading about this our allies, negotiating partners should know that todays outcome is clear, decisive and final. Theres now no doubt whatsoever that the United States congress will allow this historic agreement to proceed. Efforts by opponents to derail this agreement were soundly rejected by a margin much larger than anyone thought achievable even a few days ago. Any future attempts, as my friend is talking about, to relitigate this issue, as i guess were going to be in a position with the Affordable Care act, going to try to repeal it 60 times . Going to try to break that record . Any future attempts to relitigate that issue is in the senate will meet the same outcome. It will be nothing more than wasteful time, time we cant afford to waste. A shutdown looming in a matter of weeks. More disaray from my friends, the republicans. Government was closed two years ago for almost three weeks. So we take those threats seriously. And i would hope that we could get around doing something about that rather than having wasted cloture motion on something that we agreed to have a vote. Cloture is an effort to a filibuster is an effort to stop debate. We have said when i came in here tuesday tuesday, wednesday, thursday, you want more time than that to debate, go ahead and do it. Were not in any way stopping debate, as was done by my republican colleagues hundreds of times in years past. So this can be relitigated. Lets do it over 60 times to try to break the Affordable Care act record, if you choose. But this matter is over with. Its something of so much importance that we should move on to something else. We have so much to do in this body, so much to do. We have our highway situation that is deteriorating. We have hundreds of thousands of bridges that are in a state of disrepair that need refurbishing, some of them need to be replaced. Our highway system we met today with the regional highway transportation system, someone that represents 80 of the population in our state, and were in desperate shape all over nevada for doing something about highways. But were not doing anything about highways. Were fiddling around on that, patching stuff, we got something done i was happy to get that done. We have cybersecurity. As were here talking right now in this body, we have groups, individuals, and countries that are trying to hack us and not trying, theyre doing it. We have not had the ability to get cybersecurity legislation before this body. Something we did, it was brought up it is an afterthought. We have senator burr, senator feinstein the bill that they produced is not nigh faimplets i think we could do better than that. But i support their legislation. Weve got to do something. Lets start someplace, doing something thats important for the American People. So i say to everyone here, it is time we move on to something else. This matter is over. You can continue to relitigate it, but its going to have the same result. Mr. Mcconnell mr. President . The presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell as the democratic leader frequently reminded me when he was the majority leader, the majority leader always gets the last word. I enjoyed hearing the Democratic Leaders History Lesson going back, as i recount im sure ill leave some out the iraq war resolution, which he voted for, as did Hillary Clinton, the resuscitation of past debates from obamacare to you name it, including complaining about highways, a bill that senator boxer and i worked on and actually passed that he voted against, which hopefully will soon be in conference. But none of that has anything to do with whats before us today. The issue before us today is the iran Nuclear Agreement. We know how the American People feel about it. Theyre over whelmingly opposed to it. We know how the realiz israelist it. Theyre overwhelmingly opposed to it. We know that our sunniarab allies are now visiting the russians to talk about arms purchases because they dont trust us anymore. We know the president wanted to transform the middle east, and by golly, he has. Our friends dont trust us and our enemies were emboldened. So the issue is not over. The democratic leader is saying the issue is over. Doesnt make it over. This agreement and the Foreign Policy of this administration, best summed up by jimmy koart a couple of months ago. He was asked to sum up the Obama Administration Foreign Policy. This is almost a direct quote. He said he couldnt think of a single place in the world where we were in better shape now than we were when the president came to office. Jimmy carter. So Foreign Policy will be a big issue going into 2016, and this agreement is a metaphor for all of the mistakes that this president has made you name the area of the world and youll see the results. So no a saying the issue is over so no amount of saying the issue is over makes it over. Well have an opportunity again next week to move past this procedural snag, to give all members of the senate an opportunity to vote up or down on a resolution of disapproval, which we know is supported on a bipartisan basis, and i end with this theres bipartisan opposition to this deal, bipartisan opposition to this deal. Only democrat support. And so if the president is so proud of it, i cant figure out what these folks over here are protecting him from. You guys would all be invited down to the veto signing. Break out the champagne. Celebrate. Take credit for it. You own it. I yield the floor. Mr. Reid [inaudible] im going to be fairly short here. The presiding officer the democratic leader. Mr. Reid im glad my friend brought up my vote on iraq. Ive stated on national tv, ive stated every chance i get, my biggest mistake ive ever made in my Public Service is voting for that bill. I said i learned it quickly. It was just a matter of a few short months after i voted that i realized i had been misled in voting for that. Doesnt mavment matter. I voted for it. And some say in some of circles, ive repented publicly for having done that. And so my feeling about the iraq war has not changed. The mere fact that i voted for that. I would also say this in closing, i hope the one thing that we can agree on here, as democrats and republicans, is the ability of iran for the next 15 years to build Nuclear Weapons is pretty well taken care of. But the one thun thing i hope wn agree on is i would hope we could Work Together to make sure we continue, as indicated in the letter that senator kerry wrote to everybody, all of us, and the cardin legislation i hope everyone will take a look at that because, as said in a statement i gave on tuesday morning, i looked at what was suggested in the kerry letter, more safe, more secure, and some of the suggestions that senator cardin had in his utline. These are things i hope we can Work Together on. Put this to one side, for the time being. But lets hope in the future we can Work Together to make sure the only true democracy in that part of the world is an ally of ours. Well continue everything we can to make sure that, i repeat, theyre safe and secure. Mr. Mcconnell mr. President . The presiding officer the Senate Majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell theres no question the israelis need a lot of reinforcement. No question they need to know for sure that were on their side. Because this administration has just entered into an agreement