Transcripts For CSPAN Road To The White House 20140616

Earth institute. North carolina chappel hil chapel hill. National geographic. Eyre talking about host let me take his point in the larger issue of Foreign Policy and what yesterday, bobby jindal, who is likely to run for president , speaking at the Iowa Republican Party Convention in des moines, had to say. [video clip] i thought long and hard about what i want to share with you today. I want to share with you my greatest concern, my greatest frustration, my greatest fear of the Obama Administration and his legacy. There is so much that worries me about president obama. I worry about 17 trillion of debt. I worry about an epa that will strangle our economy. I worry about more taxing, spending, borrowing. I worry about a diminished america on the world stage. I worry about Economic Growth of 2 that he calls recovery. Me theng that worries most, not only as the governor of louisiana, but as the father of three Young Children, is this president s attempt to redefine the American Dream. By that . Do i mean if you listen to this president long enough, if you watch his policies, what you hear, what you see is a focus on class envy. What you hear and what you see is a president intent on dividing us by geography, by age, by gender, by success. What you see is a president who talks about redistribution a president who seems to believe that america is about equality of outcomes instead of equality of opportunity. I dont know about you, but that is not the American Dream my parents taught me about. The American Dream is not about growing the federal government, growing its taxes, its spending. The American Dream is not about managing the slow decline of the great economy of this great country. The American Dream is not about making us more and more like europe. Host Domenico Montanaro, that seems to be the theme we are hearing from republicans taking aim at the president and Hillary Clinton, Foreign Policy, the economy. Guest those of the two issues we are dealing with right now. What you dont hear about his health care. It is interesting. That seems to have shifted a bit, especially when we look at this midterm. You have so many issues now as a hotbed on the foreignpolicy front that the president having to do with that is seems to be the avenue where rep opponent where republicans are able to hit the president for being weak. The economy is not gangbusters, but it has been pretty even and down from a high of 10. 8 unemployment to about 6. 3 now. Foreign policy is where republicans think they can hit the president , calling him weak, worse than jimmy carter almost is what they are saying. the cleanout fundingknow cantor was local gop Party Housekeeping to cleanout Tea Party Paul antineocon leadership . Guest before he had his battle over leadership in the local Republican Party he lost that battle. It was one of those things that i think people after the fact have been saying, maybe we should have paid a little bit more attention to that. It was one of those inner party nerparty battles that was kind of on a small scale. There were no polls suggesting he was in trouble. His internal had him up to 34. Up 34 inee how you are your internal and down 11 in the actual. The only neutral pole was up, like, 11 or 12. It was a surprise. That was only if there was a canary in the coal mine. That was probably the only one there. Ive seen it happen in couple of times and it did not translate on the electoral scale. Host your former colleagues d the impact of the poll it did suppress the cantor people. If he is going to win by that margin, no need to show up. Guest we had a reporter at the strawberry fair. Our reporter said, you know, bra t got there in the morning, 10 00 a. M. , when the doors opened, he shook every hand in the place. Eric cantor kind of breezed through five hours later. There werent even strawberries anymore. He thought the race was no big deal. You saw the stats. They spent more on steak than brat spent on his entire campaign. We rely so much on polling. There hasnt been a lot of good polls. You would think the internal poll would be better. That is by anecdotal reporting. Still, pretty underrated. We do need to be out there and talk to people. Big thing with that internal poll is that the internal poll is used not just a leak to the media and go, oh, well, this is a joke race. The point is to see where you are with your own strategy. If you think you are up 34, what you are playing for is margin of victory. Can i getaying to see above 60, can i set myself up for a possible leadership thing later . Cantor was the heir apparent to boehner. If his internals had showed him hes5, up 1, up 10, running a different race. If it is up 34, you run the race that eric cantor ran. You try not to mess up. You try not to give yourself opportunities to take a winnable race and throw it away. Guest they think it was democrats that swayed the race. They say the eric cantors Campaign Manager came out and said, there have to be 15,000 democrats who voted. The problem for the party is if they continue to have this kind of denial attitude that there wasnt something that actually happened, it was just democratic didntg, president obama legitimately win in 2012, it was voter fraud if they continue to have that kind of attitude, you dont fix the problems that do have electoral consequences. Host all the attention on Randolph Macon college. Two candidates from the same college in the seventh congressional district. Our guests, Derek Wallbank of Bloomberg News and Domenico Montanaro of the pbs newshour. We welcome our listeners on cspan radio heard coasttocoast. Good morning. Caller good morning to you. I just would like to know from your guests what hillarys credentials exactly are, what her accomplishments were when she was secretary of state. Pressing reset buttons with russia didnt seem to work. Putin just laughed at it. We see the middle east blowing up. So, what policy positions does she actually have . Guest i think in a lot of ways she will say she pushed for smart power. That is her philosophy of how you go about foreignpolicy. I think there are a lot of avenues for republicans to try and hit back on Hillary Clinton, as youve already seen, and as your guest just noted. I do think that from secretary of state to senator to having been in the white house, she is somebody who is widely known. I think that name identification is a big issue when it comes to president ial politics. That is why you are sucking her lead in so many polls. You are seeing her lead in so many polls. Caller good morning and happy fathers day. I wanted to say first of all that i think hillary is extremely out of touch. She may have name recognition. However, as a woman who has, her whole life, voted across party lines for any woman, she is one that i would not vote for, especially not for commander in chief. Anybody who is that clueless about her socalled, suppose it safety and security on the anniversary date of 9 11 is not fit to be commanderinchief. I would like to see ben carson run for president. I think he would make a measured, intelligent person who could maybe straighten out our health care system. And i do believe that we need to have border know what kind of security, but something has got to be done. This has just gotten crazy and insane, whats going on down there. It is terrible. Host are you a republican or independent . Caller i was always a lifelong democrat until right after 9 11. That gore was god not in office when that happened. Host can i ask you a question . One of the stories driving the weekend was in the Washington Post and the l. A. Times, about mitt romney who criticizes clinton as a candidate. The record has been extraordinarily lacking and ineffective. It is hard to think of a place in the world where our foreignpolicy interest were enhanced by virtue of her serving as secretary of state. Your thoughts on his comments . Some speculate on a third president ial bid in 2016. Caller actually, i didnt know much about him when he started. As i started watching him as a person, i felt like he was a good, decent human being and would do the best he could for the country. However, i dont think he has a chance, but i do fully agree with everything he has to say about hillary. I also might like to point out that he was correct in everything that he rebutted obama about during the debates. Host thanks for the call. Domenico montanaro, react to the call. Portman, senator rob mike huckabee, senator rand paul, all mingling with romney donors. Guest so is brian schweitzer, the one democrat who could possibly run against Hillary Clinton, which is interesting. What is interesting about the you talk about the 9 11 switch for her from democrat to more hawkish security, she is what the bush people would have identified as a security mom. Thats what they felt were the swing voters in 2000 and 2004. There is that pocket of who they see as a suburban security mom, who they feel like is a group open to a republican message, especially on National Security. Outink as was pointed earlier, polling across the board has shown the world weariness that less lines up with doing more and more lining up with doing less. Host mitt, 2016 . Guest i just think that is a fantasy. It is fun to say, it looks like he is thinking more about running than before, but i think this is about legacy. If you watch the mitt documentary, it got under their skin. They felt like they were made to be a joke. He feels like his family he is a guy who is really successful in business, turned around a lot of companies, and feels like he is a real thought leader. I think thats what he wants to be. Host this is from jan. Eric cantors loss should be a warning a wakeup call to all politicians. Dont get comfortable, work for every vote. Guest true. All,u are in politics at whatever you want to do in washington, whatever committee you want to chair, whatever leadership position you aspire to hold, it all depends on coming back. If you are not here, you cannot win. Host a lot of speculation on the quickness of the vote for House Republican leader. [video clip] i do think the members are going to make this decision. We are going to do it next week. Im sure some will argue it is too soon, some will argue it is too long. But it is important we resolve this issue in a fair amount of time so that we can do the work that we were it left it to do. And so, the members will we were elected to do. And so, the members will make a decision. Do you want Kevin Mccarthy at your side . Otherork with all 434 members of congress before. I can work with whoever gets elected. Host did you want to weigh in on those points . Guest there is no question that holding an election quicker helps mccarthy. When i was talking to Pete Sessions ultimately decided not to run. He was running for a couple of hours. We were talking with him on the floor of the capitol after he came out of lunch with the texas delegation, which endorsed him, the biggest state delegation for republicans. Sessions was asked if he wanted more time. He said, sure, i would have liked more time to be able to run this. Sessions eventually drops out. There is no question that people who are a little bit nervous about having somebody who is seen as being in the leadership establishment they would have liked a longer campaign. They would have liked for the club for growth and heritage to be able to play a little bit more, to have people start getting fire under their feet. Mccarthy moved very fast to consolidate his position. He was working on this from pretty much tuesday night, the second they realized eric cantor was going down. They had two outstanding whips going on, one on the agricultural bill and one on the highway funding measure. I dont know what the results of those are. What has been going on since, eric cantor, in absolute shock and mccarthys folks got in gear real fast. By wednesday, you saw a bunch of key people in mccarthys camp ready to go, ready to commit their political will. He moved lightning fast. He had a bunch of support locked up before other people were in or out. Guest it helps to be the whip. You have the private phone number and email. You can organize a campaign much quicker than any opponent could. Host and there is this tweet from james who says, mitt out romneyt turns was right about everything obama is wrong about. There was this influx of the your guests addressed southern border and the influx of children, or has the administration instructed media not to discuss . Guest we will have a piece on the border this week about these unaccompanied children that are coming in. I was on a Conference Call at the white house earlier this week. What they point to is not that there is a magnet because there is some openness from president obama on immigration reform. If you look at the murder rates in countries like honduras, el are the highest in the world because of the increased Drug Trafficking there and what is happening in those countries. People are being flushed out of those countries. Four reasons why people like my father came to this country they come here because they see the United States as somewhere you can be free and there is Economic Opportunity and there might be some family connection. That is why you are seeing this influx. What the white house points to is, they will say, if it was the case that it was the immigration openness from obama, you would see more people from countries like mexico, which are contiguous, and places like nicaragua and costa rica. You are just not seeing that as much as you are from honduras, el salvador. Host dolores is joining us from mcminnville. Caller good morning. Happy fathers day to everyone. The reason im calling is because im very concerned as a tennessee resident about obamacare, which i think is a good thing. I love president obama. I respect him. I wish some of the republicans would start working with him and show a little more respect to our president of the United States. Have republican congressmen, republican governor. Governor haslam. Not exceptingthem obamacare, taking on the medicaid. It is going to cause our hospitals to close down in rural ourties, which 70 of hospitals are in the rural counties, even the ceo of River Park Hospital is concerned that they are not making enough money because they dont have medicaid patients. And i think it is a crying shame that because they dont like obama, they are not going to accept medicaid for the state of tennessee. Host thanks very much for the call. We are seeing that in virginia as well. Guest youre seeing this across the country. Republican states are places where you are not seeing medicaid expanded and where you are seeing it fought. Ive written about this on pbs. I think the only time you are really going to see the Health Care Law become a net positive is when you do have a republican president who decides to say this isnt going anywhere, we are going to try to fix it. Because we are republican, we will show how it is going to be managed better. Make some sort of message that way and you bring people over on the republican side to let the antipathy as long as president obama is president , you will see this split and probably as a net negative. Host we covered a moment online. He traveled to Angel Stadium in to deliverlifornia, the commencement address to uc irvine. This is the headline this morning. He madeery end, reference to something he talked about in 2004 and at the keynote the theme of his campaign, hope and change. [video clip] cynicism has never won a war or started a business or fed a young mind or sent men into space. Cynicism is a choice. Hope is a better choice. Hope is what gave young soldiers the courage to storm a beach and liberate people they had never met. Studentshat gave young the strength to sit in and stand up and march for womens rights and civil rights and Voting Rights and gay rights and immigration rights. Against allbelief evidence to the contrary that there are better days ahead and that together we can build up a middle class and reshape our immigration system and shield our children from gun violence and sheltered future generations from the ravages of climate change. Today thee fact that single Largest Age Group in america is 22yearolds who are all just itching to reshape this country and reshape the world, and i cannot wait to see what you do tomorrow. Host uc irvine yesterday. Guest i think part of the problem for the president in these last couple of years, and what happens to a lot of president s, that hope, that positivity fades. Beendent obama has somebody who has talked about hope and change since 1991. All the way back then, we dug up an old video of him when he was at harvard, on a panel talking about how people in the innercity dont have hope. I think this comes from a little bit of a defensive point of view at this point in his presidency, where he is trying to fire up young voters, get them to understand that, even beyond his presidency, he wants to see his legacy carried out, especially on climate change, some of what they are doing with the executive orders. Host this from one of our viewers, bill saying, hope . Yes, indeed. 92 million now out of the workforce and actually 19 million unemployed. Caller good morning. Happy fathers day to all of the fathers. Yall are supposed to be newscasters. I want you to answer a question. This is the best we got. The world cup started thursday. And all them people are running around on that field spelling brazil wrong. It is with a z, not an s. Why yall dont catch it . Yall dont catch nothing. Guest to your point, they spell it with an s in brazil. In american english, we spell it with a z. That, i think, is the reason. Let me say in a moment of mourning, domenicos team beat my team yesterday morning. Speaking to the point the president made in that commencement address, the whole thing it has been his message for a while. The audience that he is speaking to is dealing with a new challenge. The new challenge that audience is dealing with is 1. 2 trillion worth of student loan debt. This is one thing the Democratic Party has had a struggle to try and figure out how to fully solve. Were Younger Voters instrumental in the president getting in, but youre not seeing that necessarily continue on to the people who are in that 18yearold to 25yearold range right now. I think part of that is because they are saddled with debt. He is talking into people who are coming out some time with their equivalent with the equivalent of a mortgage in student loan debt. Host we have just a few minutes left. I want to put a couple of other issues on the table. Looking at the past 25 years. Take clintondents as the most admired president decades,last 2 1 2 followed by president obama, president George Bush George w. Bush, and his father, George Herbert walker bush. Guest it becomes a difficult situation. In the second term, we always see numbers drop. When you look at the midterms, that could have real potential problems for democrats, when you look at those coattails and the lack of the coattail. Especially because of where these races are being run. Apublicans, however, you have couple of potential problems, in two names in particular, mark pryor and they ditch and beg ich. They are both winning their races, with a lot of time to go. Host this hope thing is such old news. Did you want to weigh in . Guest this is one of the difficulties the administration has. How do you continue to try and run a campaignstyle inspirational thing for six years, seven years . When you take years at some point, there is a policy thing that goes on. I think the legacy that this president is going to have is how well his signature Health Care Law works. It was in the Health Care Law that he wanted originally, but it is the one he wound up getting. It in popular talk. It has his name on it in popular talk. I think he hopes this Health Care Law works as well as he hopes it will. Host from chula vista, california, charles is on the line. Good sunday morning to you. Caller happy fathers day to everyone out there. Im calling because my major concern, like your color with the comment your caller with the comment about brazil and folks nominating president clinton as their favorite president our country needs to get educated. I think if people were to bring themselves up to date on what is really happening in washington and look at the problems that have been exasperated by our current president , then it wouldnt take much to convince them that what is happening right now is not working. Our country is the greatest country in the world. Right now, we are the but of jokes from the international community. We need to educate our voters, have them get their stuff together, and then go vote intelligently, instead of voting for somebody because they are a woman or because they are black. We are talking about the most powerful man in the free world, and we are voting for them for all the free the wrong reasons. I think we need to take that seriously. And see whatolls happens. Host do you have an early favorite so far . Caller i like ben carson. And it is not because he is black or not black, because i think he is best qualified. He is pretty sound. It is just my opinion, just my feelings about the way this country needs to go and the direction we are not going right now. Host thanks for the call. Let me put another potential candidate on the table. Rick santorum, the former pennsylvania senator, who spoke at the Iowa Republican party state convention. It is on our website at cspan. Org. He brought up the issue of marriage and morality. Here is Rick Santorum. [video clip] yet, where are we as republicans . Im not talking about going out and fighting the battle of redefining marriage. Im talking about the battle of reclaiming marriage as an institution that we should be promoting in america. [applause] we have lost the marriage debate in america for one reason the cause, during our watch, marriage has been redefined. Marriage is now, by most simply acalibration, romantic relationship between two people that the government of firms. Ladies and gentlemen, if that is all marriage is, then, as far as im concerned, everybody should be able to get married. Thats not what marriage is. At least thats not what it used to be. Marriage used to be the union of a man and woman for the purpose of coming together to have children, to raise the next generation, and give every child in america their birthright am a to be raised by their natural mother and natural father. Play how does that message out in iowa specifically for Rick Santorum if he runs for president in 2016 and among the party base generally . Guest pretty good. He won it last time, iowa. Hot speech,nd of he is still thinking about running. I think we will see a lot of those same folks who ran last time and some other people thinking about testing the waters these time around. You could have another long, protracted republican primary where you have lived the have the d c following them around, listening for those one or two the dnc following them around, listening for those one or two bites. Hillary clinton doesnt have to worry about her base as much. Host this hope message getting a lot of attention on our twitter page. One of our viewers saying we reform, immigration higher minimum wage, voter rights legislation, etc. Caller i have the same hope. You guys do a great job. Host and Bloomberg News. We appreciate the them as well. Theer i do want to applaud young lady from tennessee that. Alled the real reason i was calling was in response to mr. Romneys challenge to name anyplace where our relationship has been enhanced by the term of halfld think point to of the world population. Women and young girls. Also, i would have to name places where disasters have taken place. Usaid has been in the forefront of recovery haiti, indonesia, sri lanka. Even beyond that, in the political sense, i think the relationship has been well enhanced, well beyond what we faced with mr. Bush, in places like asia, latin america, and africa. Host ok. Who would like to take back . Take that . Guest i think that is one of the key things that Hillary Clinton tried to do. When she was secretary of state, she tried to go to as many places as she possibly could. She broke records for her amount of travel. Her Big Initiative was to try and elevate women and the poor around the world. And i think that is where she wanted her legacy to wind up. I think you will wind up seeing her talk a lot about that as she goes forward. Host back to your earlier point, this is from cq weekly, thrones is the headline. Cantor as eric majority leader this week is a short term price. Prize. On kmployed as lobbyists street on k street. The question is how wealthy does eric cantor want to be. Guest we went through the Financial Disclosure forms. He is the wealthiest member republican member of the house leadership. By not a small margin. And he is the sort of person who is very wellconnected on wall street. For wall intro point street folks who are looking to make gains with republicans. He is going to go away. Job, wants a wall street if he wants to do consulting for that sort of thing, he can set up a printer in his house and just start printing off the 100 bills, because thats whats going to happen. Or he could keep his political options and he could be the first person mentioned in the commonwealth of virginia for governor, senator, anything like that. This is the sort of world that eric cantor has to navigate. If he wants to take the money now, those future options might close themselves. It is a question for him and then open one, and an open one still. Host conversely, Kevin Mccarthy. Does he still sleep in his office . Guest he does. Kevin mccarthy has some fairly welloff friends. He is buddies with elon musk of tesla. He is not nearly as well off as cantor is. Most of his money in sort of broad funds. He is not looking to move up. Why . Guest because she couldnt. She initially said she was keeping her options open for majority leader and with. Whip. Both of those closed fairly quickly. Republicans continue to have a woman in their top four, which is something boehner felt was very important. Mcmorris rodgers i think the other thing you have to look at is, like jeb hensarling, who said he wasnt going to run, Mcmorris Rodgers has very Young Children as well. The additional job that you have, the additional responsibility is actually quite a lot. I think in both of those cases, hence are laying and Mcmorris Rodgers hensarling and Mcmorris Rodgers, that might have played as well. Guest i think you need to keep someone like Mcmorris Rodgers in service. When you look at the 2016 field, women are not something to be overlooked in this next election. They have made up 53 of the electorate. Hillary will make that appeal very clear. Just as one caller mentioned that africanamericans voted overwhelmingly for president obama, and they normally do for democrats anyway, with the first woman running, and you have a lot of women who have come through the feminist movement they are going to be as fired up to get to those polls. Host good morning. Thanks for waiting. Caller good morning. The American People got what they deserved by voting for who they have over the years. Doggone wars. Im going to go for Elizabeth Warren or bernie sanders, because im tired of my jobs being outsourced overseas. We have to get jobs to. We have to protect everybody. I just dont understand it. I heard germany is threatening to undo trade with america because of the workers rights we have. We have no workers rights. We are an oligarchy. We are rich people. Host how does the president thread the needle . Knowing that if iraq does fall into enemy hands and mala key is forced out in some way, then he will be blamed for the and maliki is forced out in some way, then he will be blamed for the situation in iraq. He was an early critic of the war in iraq. Guest absolutely, calling it a dumb war. He has tried to stick to the message he had in the rose garden the other day. Essentially, this is this wasnt a war that he wanted to wage in the first place. It has been wound down. Fromneed to stop isis getting closer and maybe work some back channels, figure out what the nonmilitary options are. It is very difficult, i think the white house believes, to bomb or do any airstrikes as maliki has wanted in the western part of the country and as some republicans have advocated for, because you see that mixing of the sunni population, who are on trusting of the maliki government. Host chuck hagel had some harsh questions from house leaders now that Sergeant Bowe bergdahl is back in the u. S. Where does this story go next . Guest i think this story will continue. It will continue mainly because you have five people, at least four of whom had very senior taliban ties, who are now back in qatar. What they do next is going to determine a lot of what this story does. If you see any of those folks at all back in afghanistan doing anything that could be inciting or combatrelated, this is going to get brought up again and again and again. Sergeant birdsall sergeant bergdahl, getting him back has a competition. People say we dont negotiate with terrorists. What that means is we dont have a grand tradition of negotiating with nonstate actors. It is a different world because we are fighting nonstate actors in many ways. We went to afghanistan to fight the taliban government and get continued and then we fighting the taliban. We were fighting a nonstate actor and waging a conventional war against a nonstate actor. Negotiating with people we dont like long, storied history of that. Negotiating with nonstate actors . Thats the issue. Tose folks being able possibly go back on the battlefield, thats where this story stays alive for years to come. Host patrick is joining us. Brooklyn, new york. Good morning. Caller good morning and then god for cspan and thank go l for cspan. Happy fathers day. This is to both gentlemen. This is america and immigrants come from all countries, looking for peace, prosperity, and trying to make a better life. It is not that they all cant live here, but we want to give everybody a right to be peaceful and have a right to have freedom. All we need is a little hope. Hope is and always today or tomorrow. It takes time. If the gentleman that are the reporters the gentlemen that are the reporters report the news honestly, people can make a decision who to vote for. Host thanks for the call. If you get through, turn the volume down. That in the many the echo we were hearing that eliminates the echo we were hearing a moment ago. Guest we look at what is happening. Despite that winds up happening over immigration this fight that winds up happening over immigration. Everybody acknowledges there is a problem with immigration, but nothing weapons of getting done because of pallet can become thrown into the nothing winds up getting done because of how it can become thrown into the political machine. It suddenly gets turned into a political issue. The messaging war kicks in. You figure out what the political capitalizations are and nothing winds up happening. Immigration we saw in 2005, 2006, 2007, when a republican president tried to put it forward. The problem is this is the third rail. Weve talked about Social Security being the third rail. Immigration is a third rail for republicans, and it is something they are going down to deal with in 2016. Host let me conclude with a look at the week ahead. The houses back this week, as is the senate the house is back this week, as is the senate, but all eyes are on thursday. Guest the key for cspan watchers to note. You have one election for majority leader. If Kevin Mccarthy wins, you have another one for whip immediately. Mccarthy being the favorite, that opens up the whips job and that is going to be a very contested race. Three people running, all of are credible candidates. It is wide open. Nobody has majority support right now. It is going to be really exciting to see where it goes and fairly consequential. Host where does this put congressman steve king . He sent out this tweet, looking for a good republican leader. Those who support amnesty need not apply. Guest steve king has the difficulty that there is probably an ideal candidate out there for him and that person isnt running. Im not sure who that ideal candidate is, frankly, if it is came more Michele Bachmann or somebody like that if it is king or Michele Bachmann or somebody like that, but they are not running. There is some discontentment that somebody of their ilk isnt running. There are not many people to the right of raw labrador of raul labrador. He is one of 12 people who did not vote for john boehner for speaker in 2013. And if you had boehner and his top lieutenant was someone who didnt vote for him as speaker, that would be interesting. Host what are you looking for this week . Guest this leadership race is going to be kind of fascinating to watch. We will see how that goes. You have the faith and Freedom Coalition forum. A lot of the 2016 hopefuls will come in. Mccarthy will also speak. Do we see some of the sting steve king cost discussion type ofe king discussion . Host we will follow your work on the pbs website. Thank you for being with us. Who follows the house leadership or bloomberg washington journal on the , 2014. A former state department and National Security Council Member will discuss u. S. Military options in iraq, and the Associated Press reporter will examine the resources devoted to watching u. S. Borders, and we will take your calls, and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. Atshington journal, live 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] next, a meeting on the security of radiological materials that can make socalled dirty bombs. After that, q a. Cable in the 1990s, we did have over 90 of the market. Today, the cable industry as a little more than 50 , so the business has matured, and either lower cost to keep your margins good, or you have to find alternative sources of revenue. I think they are attacking both of those things. Vocus singh on the revenue, i think, one, looking for new ways to delight old consumers, so if you look at comcast and its investment in the platform, if you can make video on demand more attractive and easier to use, number one, you can innovate to keep what you have. You also see them taking advantage of broadband, right . Source of newsed Business Opportunities for our industry. It is growing much faster. Good market has a and good economics. The rapid change in Telecommunications Technology advances and the future of the cable industry with the National Communication and telecommunications president monday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the communicators on cspan2. The senate recently examined the security of radiological materials that can be used by terrorists to construct what are commonly known as dirty bombs. At the hearing include representatives of the Nuclear Commission and the National Security ministration. The hearing is one hour and 25 minutes. It will come to order. Little over one year ago, the city of boston, as you will recall, was struck by tragedy by the running of the 117th Boston Marathon. Two terrorists detonated Pressure Cooker bombs near the finish line. They injured nearly 300 more. This attack, which reviewed again and again on television and again on the First Anniversary of the attack will never be forgotten, and neither will the heroism that unfolded immediately following those attacks. Police, medical personnel, National Guardsmen and women, volunteers, runners and spectators all ran towards the blast to provide immediate aid to the injured. Acts of courage and selflessness saved countless lives. Of the 117th running of the Boston Marathon remind us that we must constantly seek to counter the threats, to anticipate threats from homegrown terrorists and to improve our nations ability to it anticipate and prevent the next attack. We strive to improve our counterterrorism efforts, we have the opportunity to look back at the Boston Marathon bombing and ask ourselves this question. What if the attack had occurred differently . What if it was even more . What if the Pressure Cooker bombs simply were not bombs but dirty bombs . The last question is what were going to focus on today in this hearing. Kind ofbomb is any crude explosive device that when detonated disperses radiation around the blast. To successfully go off, those who survived the blast would be exposed to harmful radiation that could cause sickness or even death. Dirty bomb could render an area uninhabitable for not just days or weeks or months but for years. Making that particular weapon a highly disruptive weapon. The Boston Marathon terrorist had turned the Pressure Cooker bombs into dirty bombs, the consequences of that tragic day could have been multiplied by an order of magnitude create i want you to just think about that for a minute. Those police when and medical personnel, volunteers, runners, and spectators all ran towards the blast to help the injured, they wouldve been unknowingly exposed to harmful amounts of radiological material. This cheerio, cannot be seen, as we know, cannot be smelled or felt or tasted. In this hypothetical, what wouldve been a baroque display of selflessness could have crippled and been a more deadly and disruptive situation. Todays hearing will focus on how we can assure this hypothetical situation does not come to pass. We are focused on the threat of a dirty bomb and specifically examine the security of radiological material in communities across our country that could be used to create a dirty bomb. Three years ago at the request a senator who was a good friend to us all, the General Accountability Office issued a report examining the government efforts to secure radiological material at u. S. Medical facilities. It was found in many cases this radiological material was often vulnerable to threats or sabotage. Shortly thereafter, i join senator cocker and senator casey in the gao audit of securing the radiological material used at construction and industrial sites. Unlike the radiological devices in hospitals that are stationary and large, industrial radiological sources are often found in small, highly portable devices, routinely used in open, we have anreas, and example of the kind of highly portable radiological device that we are talking about. This is a radiography camera. Commonlyamera that is used in construction sites to and foundations for cracks and imperfections. These contain radiological material that is seized by the wrong hands could be used to create a dirty bomb. This is clearly a type of device that a terrorist could walk away with. The message from the audit is clear. Vulnerable to theft or sabotage by terrorists or by others wishing to do us harm. Found four cases where potentially dirty bomb 2006ial was toland between they012, and moreover, found cases with individuals with extensive criminal history were given unsupervised access to potential dirty bomb material. One of those individuals had previously been convicted of making terrorist threats. And i think maybe some comments from our friends at gao, but let me say this. We have got to do better than this, and given the consequences of a dirty bomb, there really is thingsse for the identified by the General Accountability Office, so i will say it again, we just have to do better. To protect against the next Oklahoma City bombing, the next 9 11, or the next Boston Marathon bombing, we need to stay several steps ahead of the terrorists. We must anticipate and neutralize their ability to carry out terrorist plots before they are ever conceived and executed. Today, we will also hear from three agencies that play a Critical Role in securing radiological materials in the u. S. And preventing dirty bomb attacks from occurring. And with that, were going to and i amur panel, going to make some brief introductions of each of you, and then we will let you present will askimony, and we some questions, and some colleagues will drift in and out and asked some questions also, and by that time, it will be time for dinner, and hopefully we will be done sooner than that, but i want to welcome you. Thank you for coming, and thank you for your preparation for this hearing and for your willingness to respond to our questions. The dippy administrator for defense, nonproliferation for the National Nuclear security ministration, anne harrington. That is a lot. A position you have held, i understand, since, what, 2010 . 2010. Thank you. Director of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on interNational Security and arms as the, also positions Deputy Director of the office of proliferation, welcome. Panel, we have dr. I want you to pronounce it for me. Gowadia. Directorgowadia. That is a great name. At the department of Homeland Security. Wadia was appointed in 2013 after being active director in 2012. I understand you have served in multiple positions with the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office since 2005 and also worked at the department , theand security transportation security ministration and the federal aviation administration. Our next witness on this panel satorius, the executive director for operations at the Nuclear Regulatory commission, and he serves as a chief operating officer overseeing the daily operations of the agency. He was a licensed examiner 25 years ago and then as a reactor inspector and senior project engineer. Atorius, a u. S. Naval academy graduate, served in the Nuclear Power program and is a nuclear trained submarine officer. Thank you for that service to. Our final witness this morning who servesd trimble, as a director of the Natural Resources and Environmental Group at the Government Accountability office. Been underlining the threat that has been posed by the industrial radiological sources, and he provides leadership and oversight on Nuclear Security and cleanup issues. Read easily, he has focused on causes, including controlling toxic substances, clean water and air issues, and epa management. Prior to joining gao in 2009, he was at the Political Affairs bureau where he was responsible for export compliance and export issues. Those are the introductions. I am sure i do not do justice to each of you, but we are delighted that youre here and that you are willing to better informed this committee and hopefully the senate with potential threats that face us and what we might do. Please proceed. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thethank you for giving me opportunity to testify on the department of energy National Nuclear security ministration efforts to enhance the security of vulnerable, highrisk, radioactive sources in the United States. I would like to thank you for your continued interests and your leadership on this important issue. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the department of Homeland Security and the Nuclear Regulatory commission for being instructive and indispensable partners in the effort to reduce the risk of radiological incidents. The office of nuclear nonproliferation, which i leave, in conjunction with our federal, local, and industry partners, radioactiveance the materials in the United States and internationally. I had provided details on our program in my written testimony. We do appreciate the comments and recommendations from the General Accountability Office, and we are actively implementing their recommendations to extend outreach, to increase the number of program volunteers, and enhance coordination with other world federal agencies. I want to use the time allotted for my oral remarks to look forward and at the strategic approach we are developing to address the challenges of securing the materials that could be used in a dirty bomb. The importance of securing highrisk radiological sources was highlighted at the 2014 Nuclear Security summit, when the United States and 22 other countries signed on to a socalled gift basket, committing to secure all International Atomic Energy Agency classified category one radioactive materials at a level that meets war, where possible, exceed the guidelines of the agencys code of conduct on the safety and security of radioactive sources. The goal was to accomplish this by the 2016 Nuclear Security summit. The recent theft in mexico of a truck carrying large cobalt sources commitments like the ones aplemented contribute in meaningful way not just to the security of individual countries, but to our joint security. While he continued to proceed with implementation of security enhancements, several factors have led us to consider a new strategic approach to addressing a dirty bomb threat. Factors that we considered oflude the large number radioactive sources worldwide, the fact that we secure or retire existing sources, even as new sources and new devices are being introduced, the longterm cost for sustaining security forems, the limited options disposal of these sources, and the general constraints within the federal budgets