Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20131215

Who had the worst year in politics . He revealed to had the worst year in washington. We will broaden that out more across the country. You can join the 10th conversation. The numbers are on your screen. Also, you can join in the conversation via twitter cspanwj. Send us an email if you want to. We will get to your calls momentarily. The political column in the Washington Post it is a weekly column called the worst week in washington. He brought ended out to president obama had the worst year in washington. I will pull this off and show you the inside of the peace. Washington, hein charts the president s year. In 45 minutes or so, we will show you some of them. We are focusing on health care. Here is what he writes. Then there was the Affordable Care act the single biggest achievement of the president s time in office. The rollout of the Health Exchange was a complete failure, even though we did not realize until the republicans reversed course. They reopened the federal government after a 16 day shutdown. The lack of any coherent strategy may have been the only Silver Lining in obamas year. His offer to pledge that you could keep your coverage if you liked it, was not true. He later made a public apology. As the selfinflicted wounds were not enough republicans in washington spent 2013 and a public fight over the direction of their party. Even if the president had been able to extricate himself from the possible onset popped up, it became clear that there was not one republican with whom he could negotiate. On the worstriting year in washington. Were asking you had the worst year in the politics. We will get to your calls in a moment. Morethoughts may turn toward Something Like the nsa and the nsa scandal this year involving Edward Snowden. Mark and Michael Schmidt this morning in the New York Times. Officials now say that they may never know the extent of the leaks. Was snowden stole, the failure to quantify law, indicates a lag in security. Law enforcement investigators have said they may never know the entirety of what Edward Snowden extracted from classified documents. In the darks remain about the extent of the data breach, partly because the facility in hawaii where he facilities,ke other was not equipped with uptodate software that allows a spy agency to monitor the landscape that its employees are navigating. They write that six months since the investigation began, mr. Snowden had further covered his tracks by logging into systems i using passwords of other employees and hacking firewalls. Have spent hundreds and hundreds of manhours trying to reconstruct everything he has gone and they still do not know what he took. Knowior official said, i this seems crazy, but everything with this is crazy. That is from the New York Times this morning. Who had the worst year in politics . Numbers on your screen. Using the numbers on your screen. We will get to your call shortly. You can also tweet us. This morning, the boston globe looks ahead to 2014. An early start to the air war in midterm elections. Theyre looking to 2014 using health care. Republicans take aim at swing states. They are writing that a barrage of tv advertisements sponsored by a wellfunded conservative group featuring women in the kitchen over coffee with a laptop or speaking to this amera each ad has variation on the theme that obamacare does not work. In the beginning of the midterm several states, are already awash in spending by outside groups. Republicans are trying to use the controversy over the Health Care Law to lay the groundwork early and attempt to sway crucial female voters away from incumbent democrats. That is from the boston globe this morning. But go to our first caller in albany, georgia. Are you there . Caller hello . Yes. The republicans shut down the government and cost billions of dollars. That is my comment. Host latrobe, pennsylvania. Who had the worst year in politics . Caller definitely president obama. No one campaigned for him in western pennsylvania. That thet do you think key factor was . Was a health care . Caller i think that one of the it makes me feel like if he was telling the truth, he would not have to posit a much. They causednk that the website to go down on purpose. They did it because they knew they could not cover people. Nobody could be more disappointed. I had so much hope for him. I actually cried. I have a white woman. Host you campaigned for him in 2012 . Caller i did. I am a mormon. I do not care about poor at all. You have to care about the poor. I am part of the poor, unfortunately. Amount that they give us a little on his egregious. Host thank you. Here is cap lane, on the democratic line. Who had the worst year in politics . Caller the American People. The reason i say that is because the American People have left let these republicans leave them desiring nothing. How can you talk about this president when he is trying to get People Health care . He is trying to get people jobs. The American People have been watching us. Every time he says to go and do something, the republicans stand up and stop it. Let me say, the next thing is Affordable Health care. Once it is implemented, a lot of these people who are calling in and crying, they will have to look at themselves and say what a full. The republicans do not have anything. If that was up to them, you would not have any health care. They have obamacare themselves. Are you going to let them sway you . The American People have had the worst politics this year. Host we appreciate your call. The rollout of the Health Care Law is part of the news this morning. This is from the New York Times. Enrollment errors this piece says that the administration had reduced the rates. Even as insurers said that the records were still riddled with mistakes. The quality of the data is important. More than 130 7000 health plans in the marketplace. Officials say that more than 100,000 people signed up at the first week of this month. The New York Times writes that insurers found errors and discrepancies. The government was overstating the improvements and the Health Care Law. Senator from pennsylvania talked about the Health Care Law. He was the republican address yesterday. Lets take a listen. [video clip] that one been reported third of those who were able to complete the online enrollment process might not have coverage at all. Apparently the enrollment information is not always being transmitted to the insurers. Can you imagine going to your doctor in january only to find out that youre not actually in short . The president says the team is working out the kinks in the website. I hope that is true. It seems like there is a long way to go. Lets assume that those problems get fixed. Sadly, that is the tip of the iceberg. Before obamacare became law, the president often told everyone that if you like the Health Insurance you have, you can keep it. Period. Many americans are finding out that that is not true. Obamacare was not designed to cancel plans that people like. The president now admits as much. This is now introducing extra shading choices. I heard from a woman in pennsylvania with multiple sclerosis. Obamacare kicked her off of her Insurance Plan that worked for her for many years. Yes, she can get a plan in the new health care exchange. It turns out that there are two options available to her. One of the options will let her keep her doctor. The other will pay for her medication. Neither plan will do both. These are the kind of painful and unfair choices that millions of people now face. You whod were asking have the worst year in politics. TheWashington Post said worst year goes to president obama. The front page of the outlook section of the Washington Post this morning. Paul is in massachusetts. A previous colors of the American People have the worst year. What about you . Caller hello . Im sorry. I feel that it is the middle class. It has nothing to do with the legislation. It is both ends against the middle. I am 55 years old. When i went to the university, when i took economics and political science, one of the main objectives of those courses was to destroy the middle class. They wanted a two class society, not three. We are supposed to be a classless society. Thank you. Host madison, wisconsin. Michael, hello. I believe that mr. Obama had the worst year this year. Lied and host when you say he lied, and give us an area where he did not tell the truth. Caller it is pretty obvious that he vied when he said that if you like your plan you can keep it. That is not the case. I myself will probably have to selfinsure. Lied to thee American People repeatedly. Host all right. Yesterday marked the oneyear anniversary of the shooting in newtown, connecticut. The president and mrs. Obama they quietly reflect on newtown. The president and mrs. Obama with the 26 candles in honor of the shooting but once i newtown. Howard is in vineland, new jersey. Democratic line. Caller i am in new jersey. I am originally from texas. I want to talk about the article. I read often. They forgot to print the section lies. White remember when george bush said he said hussein there were weapons of mass destruction and we know exactly where they are. Hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of those lies. This is why my opinion is that he should have made a section called the white lie. Mr. Obama said if you like your doctor, you can keep it. If you want your insurance, you can keep it. No one died from those particular lies. Onn this Vice President goes when he says that we know they have weapons of mass destruction and we know where they are, those were out and out lies. There were no outrageous incidents. The former president and Vice President lied in the faces of the American People. Host thank you for your call. Lets hear from new york city on the independent line. The lastm addressing caller. That is absolutely not true. George bush did not lie when we went into iraq. Using bush as a whipping post for obamas inadequacy and dishonesty is not a good comparison. There is no doubt that president obama is the political loser this year. Not just for the multiple times that he told lies, and also included his party and allies, in the lies, he will also go down as the worst president for foreign policy. It will also be on his watch that iran achieves the goal of having a nuclear weapon. That has been successfully thwarted by every president before him. He has broken the constitution in funding obamacare. He contended that continues to tell nontruths and rail against republicans. Looking ahead to 2016, the Des Moines Register. This is the headline. Ryan is viewed favorably in the latest iowa poll. They are wowed by paul ryan of wisconsin. Mitthave found that romneys former running mate is popular here. He is at the forefront as a candidate in 2016. The popularity is not a striking is the affinity that they have for heller erratum quit and. Clinton. Y rodham that is from the Des Moines Register this morning. Bonnie is in oklahoma city. Who had the worst Political Year . Caller i think that obama had the worst. I feel sorry for these black people. They hold onto every word that he says. He is another jim jones. He fulfills black people. He is fooling these people. They are so pathetic it is so awful. He cannot do anything but talk. When he makes a speech, he holds his finger up. He sees the action of the crowd and then he goes on. He likes to talk, that is all he can do. Host here is beatrice in indianapolis on the democratic line. Caller i would like to make a comment about the young lady that just finished talking. She is so far from the truth. It is just mindboggling. What i wanted to comment about concerned, them American People are the losers. What i is because cannot understand is that there is a congress. No one seems to understand that congress is supposed to make and pass laws. To dore behind groups their interest. I do not understand them. Is there a place in washington where political people do this kind of thing . They should be called up on it. Id do not understand. Host we appreciate your call. A breakthrough, not so much in the picture of the democratic leader in the senate. Going to an article inside, they write about the last week for john boehner. He had criticism for conservative groups in washington. He draws a line in the sand. The relationship between john boehner and conservative groups has been no tea party. Last week, the bitterness between the two camps the gop establishment and the tea Party Conservative wing, reached a boiling point. He unleashes frustration on groups trying to settle the budget feel. They are misleading their followers and pushing members to places they do not want to be. They have lost all credibility. They pushed us into this fight to defund obamacare. As most of you know, my members know that that was not the strategy i had in mind. We spoke without rogers of kentucky. He is chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He is our guest at 10 00. We asked him about his reaction. [video clip] these outside groups are stirring up trouble to raise money. To get people to sign up and pay their dues. It is a money raising scheme. Influence our younger members of congress. To take positions on issues. Intereststirring up across the airwaves. Look, members are voting and that belongs to that member. That is how we go. It goes in the computer machine on the floor of the house. Going to tell me how to vote my card, except my constituents. No outside group will dictate what i do. Hour, hal rogers on what is ahead for the appropriations process and 2014. That is coming up on newsmakers at 10 00 eastern. Were asking you about who had the worst year in politics. The Washington Post says it was president obama. A couple of responses by email. This one is from sue in ohio. She says that we have the worst year in politics. Were the victims of a self serving congress and it is no ones fault but ours, the voters. We must still get out and vote while we have that right. We have a couple more here. Mona and florida says that you cannot be disappointed in president obama. Republicans did everything to thwart the recovery. Who will now vote for republicans . One more from robert in south carolina. Issays lindsey graham, who under verbal assault for straying from the party line. Democratic line in ohio. Caller i think the American People are the great losers. The battle is for the battle of the mind. Thatwe look at the things are put on our minds day in and day out, it is just no good. Everything is good guys and bad guys. Like the American People should work together. It seems like the democrats and republicans should work together. Past job bills and get infrastructure going. Stop letting a few people with money manipulate the government and congress. Theyy language, would do right if they could, but economic happened through secret organization. Host appreciate the call. A couple of comments via twitter. Who had the worst year in politics . Host peter is in florida on the republican line. Caller thank you for taking my call. President obama had the worst year. I also think it is conservatives. The Affordable Health care is a lie. This law should be taken off the books. It should be put in the hands of the people and 2014. Nobody seems to know what theyre doing. If they do, theyre not helping. This law was written to help the people, but it only helps the government to take more money and have more control. Host all right. Buying growth, kentucky. Caller good morning. I would like to wish you and the staff a Merry Christmas and we thank you for being the only Credible News Organization must on tv. I would like to remind everyone out there to vote both democrat and republican. We have thousands of americans without jobs. We have thousands of americans working for minimum wage. We have thousands of americans who have lost their homes and are fighting to keep their homes. We do not have an alternative to Affordable Health care. If you have an alternative, please let us know about it. It is better to have Affordable Health care than none at all. I agree with the lady who called in earlier about that. I know there are other people waiting. We come in the American People, have the worst year in politics. We have been held hostage by a selfserving bought out by the corporate billionaires congress. We have been basically lied to by pretty much outside organizations out for their own agendas. Merry christmas to cspan and god bless you all for the work that you do. Host some international news. The funeral of Nelson Mandela is let wrapping up in south africa. He was buried at his ancestral home. The body has been laid to rest after political and religious leaders paid tribute to his first the first black president. This wraps up 10 days of mourning. Goodland, kansas is on the republican line. This islike you said, ron in goodland, kansas. I am a veteran. I honestly think that it is the democrats. Six years in office. I was there during the reagan era. I had no problems with them. It think that bush think obama has lied to everybody. He needs to be impeached. Having sexd about with monica lewinsky. He was almost impeached. Obama keeps line every day about everything across the nation. Host the question this morning is from an opinion piece. The Washington Post writes the worst week in washington. That was expanded to the worst year in washington. Part of that is the best and the worst of the rest. Andists some of the people events of 2013. He writes about republicans having a bad year, but not the worst. Robert mcdonald, the outgoing governor of for jeanette, a bad year. And the quarterback of the redskins, not such a good year. John kerry, traveling in asia, a good year. And the best year in politics, is chris christie. He won reelection as the new jersey governor. Independent line bruce in virginia. Caller good morning. Peopledleclass working and lower income people have had the worst year. Republicans have told us that we are not important muslim make 250,000 per year. They send out stuff overseas. That is what we had to do. Everybody in the Republican Party has been complaining about obamacare. I agree that it is very flawed. None of them has even offered one hint of a suggestion of a better way that people can choose medicine and food. A lot of people are in debt and they cannot have those. We need to improve the working class peoples opportunities. We have been wrong about utilities and drug people. When youre continuously robbing them for the extra quarter, it is just not right. Thank you for the time. Host philip on the republican line. All, this is af for some of ever called. Im glad i can hear all kinds of opinions. It a great nation. The worst year is going to be for veterans. Im a retired military man. In front of the senate they are going to look at a law that will take away my costofliving allowance. 10 years from now is going to be double that. What i understand is a pay freeze. 10 years from now you will live on 2013 pay. I signed a contract with United States government. Care. Kicked me off tri my last medical visit was 54 . Im an ex paratrooper. Im going to be facing serious medical bills. Host when did you retire for the military . For just our services. Federal employees get to keep the costofliving allowance. Thank todd im not in a wheelchair and have a family to support. I just want American People to know they are throwing us under the bus. Host thanks for your call. We look at the Senate Authorization later in the show. Good morning to robin, democrats line. Caller i agree with the caller before the scholar and part of what some of the last caller talked about. I dont understand how the republicans can not go to work every day and they get paid about 3000 a week. People that are on disability get their little disability checks and they dont get a costofliving raise. The cost of living goes up every day in these United States for certain items, especially the things that we really need. I think that we should get a costofliving every year. Also, i disagree with one of the other callers earlier. I think that the republicans need to understand that people need insurance. The obama Care Insurance may not be the best, it may need to be tweaked but they have insurance. Staff good insurance and they have insurance to take care of their families and everything. Why cant everybody else have insurance as well . Us is whoquestion for had the worst year in politics. Ukraine, senator visit. Paid a mccain took in the antigovernment protesting in kiev Smeaton Square today. He snapped pictures with the cell phone as he met with opposition leaders. He called it an incredible display of patriotism. Rodney is in brooklyn he is on the independence line. What you think, who had the worst year in politics . Caller i feel the Republican Party had the worst year and the people have been suffering under that. Our Republican Leadership has been doing everything in their power to capitulate with the democratic agenda. They are supposed to be some , at of Opposition Force least to give a voice for the people. They have been doing that. These guys have not been leading the way in coming up the solutions are better ideas to counteract democratic ticket. There has to be some kind of balancing. Theyre just helping this whole process along. , everyone from veterans to working people. It is going down. John is on the democrat line. Neither one could decide on anything. You had one caller wanted to say that clinton was no good and nice talking about obama. You have to think about it. Bush got us in all of this before obama got there. Im sorry that all this has happened. It shouldnt be like that. The democrats and republicans working house and try to help United States and get everything together. But they dont agree on anything together. Have a nice day and a Merry Christmas. Host more of your calls a moment. This is from cq weekly. The agreement does not alleviate in any way to fundamental disagreements that have all but crippled the theress in recent years. Deep policy differences between democrats who control the senate and Senate Republicans and republicans make up a majority of the house on such issues such as immigration, tax issues, taxes and agriculture remain as intractable as ever. The house last week passed the agreement. We spoke with hal rogers, the house chairman of the House Appropriations committee. He is a guest this week on news makers coming up this morning on 10 eastern. He talked about the process Going Forward as a look at a january 15 deadline ahead. The first chance weve had since ive been chairman and long before that even. For the committee to be able to operate the way it is supposed to operate, regular order, if you will. Two thirds of the house of never been through regular order on appropriations bills. Over half the house has been there less than three years. Most people in the house have never seen what you and i called regular order, but im determined to restore that, which in consequence will restore the statue of our committee. Host all the program again, newsmakers as morning at 10 a. M. Checking twitter, this is from ed t who says that ted cruz from drawing of the right to skip code of the shutdown, a disaster into dizzy weeks. One might hear from arnold who tweets the worst year yet go for soldiers in afghanistan. Gail is on the independent line. Go ahead. Caller my thought is that we the people of the ones that are suffering. You can see all the undercutting that has been done to take away our rights. Our veterans are suffering. Doctor butept her the racer rates because she was and sheutskirts definitely lives on a very limited income, but yes they raised it because of the county she is in. They take like prescriptions at she has to pay for now and the less expensive ones are covered. It is just hurting people like us. When you put the federal government into our income taxes, it me crazy. Why should they have that right. I think this president is a selfserving person who is having the best time he can while he is there. We the people and the farmers are suffering for this. How were going to get away from what he has done. We have had a few people mentioned that the American People have had the worst year in politics. Says because the politicians didnt do anything to fix america. Hammett, oklahoma. Lets go to cambridge, maryland. Democrat line. That lady was right about obama. He lied to americans. He is a talker. Nd a lawyer on top of it you cant just lawyers. We americans are suffering. The farmers. Ago a lutheran governor came here from maryland, from cambridge. He walked around. Miling he walked round the poor youhborhood in cambridge. He would talk to other people at the going through. Here are notts good. He democrats [indiscernible] come together because we americans are voting to put them in office. But get other countries. Host a couple more calls coming up. Angelesge of the los times this morning. Critics are wary of fraud as credible fear filings from Central Americans jump. Halifax, pennsylvania, jim, democratic line. How are you . Caller it is a little cool here in pennsylvania. I think the whole country had the worst year ever. The republicans went along with this health care in the isinning, am i correct . After one of their politicians plans. But when it came to be funded, the republicans fought tooth and nail for something to help the American People. I think the republicans should have the worst year in history for not looking out for the American People but the rich and prominent. , thisthats good to main is dave on the independence line. I hear everybody else saying what i wanted to say. We are all the big losers here. It is so difficult to weed out the facts between the innuendo and speculation out there. Are justpaigns dishonest with us. This is the result. If americans had the worst year in politics come out of a turnaround next year . I think we need to Start Holding our Public Servants accountable. It is just ridiculous. And understand why we are not using this statute to address this. When we do go and exercise i vote we are doing it in an educated manner. Host dave, we appreciate your call. This is from the front page of the Washington Post who had the worst year in politics, trooper . Caller definitely the republicans. That all theing is republicans can do is squawk. Was keeping as i theyre keeping an kicking sand. The Affordable Care act is going to iron itself out, were going to have Health Insurance just like we are required to have Auto Insurance and everything is going to be just fine and the farmers that called in a little earlier need to know it is the republicans trying to cut the budget for the health. It is not obama. Come on, people. Trooper thanks for your call. Were going to speaker sidney freberg talking about breaking the fence and a look at the budget deal. How it impacts the pentagons budget. Well be talking about the Defense Authorization bill as well. Later on we will look at a recent poll by harvards institute of politics looking at millennials views of politics and Public Service. First, a look at what is coming up on the sunday shows the c span radio. 514 budgetcs include deals, Health Care Loss and gun violence. Eastern begin at noon time with nbcs meet the press. Guess of the program include House Budget Committee chairman paul ryan and the chair of the senate Budget Committee, democrat murray. At 1 p. M. Eastern, a replay of abc this week. The guest today secretary of state john kerry. Sunday. Is fox news followsate of the union at 3 p. M. Candy crowley talks at the Arizona Republican senator john mccain, former Obama White House chief peter ortzag. At four eastern is facing nation from cbs. Assists and martin majority leader dick durbin. Again, the rebroadcast of the shows begin at noon eastern with nbcs meet the press. At 2 abcs this week and p. M. Fox news sunday. At 3 p. M. State of the union and at four eastern, face the nation. You can listen to them all as c span radio. On sirius country number 120. Sergei lavrov was part of austro hungary. It was a very bad day for him to come because it was a big Serbian National holiday which they celebrate every year. Serbia, was furious that rohungary had taken over. It was very Sloppy Police work. There had been warnings that something was afoot. One of the conspirators shot the archduke and his wife and they died. The events leading up to world war i. Margaret macmillan on the war that ended peace. Are a middle or high school student, cspan student cam video competition once you do say what is the most important issue for congress. The grand prize is 5,000 and the deadline is january 20. Get more information at student cam. Org. Washington journal continues. Sidney freberg is a Deputy Editor. As 2013 winds down, you have a couple parallel tracks going on, the budget agreement between the house and senate and also getting that Defense Authorization bill, that programs and policy bill for the pentagon done. Where does it stand . Guest the whole process is served together like an accordion. Seen of you who have saving private ryan will remember how the young guy, the translator spent the whole time trying to figure out what the word foobar means what the word fubar means. It is very appropriate because it is beyond all recognition. The one process that number doesnt matter and is working nobody cares seems to be the part that is riding to the rescue. Host which is . Guest which is the Budget Committees. Regular order which we have had for years at which is in the law and what is supposed to happen is the Budget Committee makes a budget which is telling all the committees how much they have to spend. The authorizes passer authorization acts which sets all caps sorts of things like , but on military assault they also say how much each program is authorized to spend. Then there is the Appropriations Committee that actually appropriates the money. That is within the constitution. You have to appropriate the funds. Sayheory, the authorizes only spandex. Past in tightget sequence. Until this year, there hasnt been a budget agreed upon between the house and senate for who knows how long. The fed hasnt even bothered to pass a budget let alone come over to the house and make an agreement. Andonsidering the agreement counting on the senate to pass this, what is i mean for the pentagon in terms of the money, strictly the money. . Guest is a big deal for the whole government because we are heading for a shutdown any. , which is 1 trillion over 10 years. Sequesters not really a technical term but we will all it that. After that falls on the pentagon. That theytagon agrees need to come down, that it is but the way the budget control act and sequestration works is that they with the bill does is round that out. You still get at the end of the tenure. Dollars cut billion in defense, but the pentagon gets back 20 billion this year. Host you mean that wouldve been cut under the sequester guest . Yes. First, they dont like the full 500 billion dollar cut. The president s request is for smaller cut. Im sure there are generals and als that dont want to be cut at all. The head of the army was a first that i heard was doing this. But all the other top brass picked this up. We slowed us down, give us time to implement. You slam it all and is so fast, were going to have to find things like cutting trading. Trading is important for troops. The numbers for fiscal 2014, the budget for that pentagon cap the to 520 billion. For 2015 they capped at 521 billion. It has been 512 under the sequester. Policy, the Defense Authorization bill is the one that sets programs and policies. One of those is the military Sexual Assault policy. There was a lot of heated debate on that in the senate. What happened with that in terms of an issue . Is likely to be included in this authorization . Yes. It is a compromise. To give the brand in the senate and others who have been pushing hard for a radical overhaul are not happy and they will bring up legislation again this year. Sickly, the commander of the military unit has authority to decide whether to bring in any case, whether someone was absent without leave or punched their sergeant in the and raped someone then there was a courtmartial process which was very rigorous. It is actually very well structured system, but then the commander can say i overrule the of the criminal does is limit the commanders when to stop prosecutions they are being recommended by a military prosecutor. To certain other protections the victim or alleged victim. It doesnt get rid of that power , butercharge the backend that is what caleb brand and company are not worried about. Why should the units commander throw out a court verdict. The traditional military answer. S that the guy is responsible men can sometimes be victims also but they are generally the initiator. That person or that commander has final authority and final responsibility for the lifeand death issue of his unit in ready to form an combat. Therefore he has to be able to put a Court Martial verdict in the context of the whole units performance. An authority cannot be undermined by people from tying upoming in and the commanders hands. Host our guest is sidney freberg. Now with breaking defense and a Deputy Editor with raking defense area were talking about Defense Department funding. You can join us by phone. What is breaking defense . Were aol defense until the spring. Aol spun us off and sold us to a Different Company called raking media of new york. It only does trade publications. Aol has a huge content media empire. Asnow renamed and rebranded breaking defense. Contributors. E it is a website that is all about defense, obviously. It is very focused on the not hence within the beltway around washington dc and a little beyond. People in congress, people in the think tanks and lobbying groups. People in the defense industry. Levelsin the policy of the military. , the one of the Headlines National Defense Authorization act . What does it mean . Guest 451 years, the congress is managed to pass the Defense Authorization bill. It was a threestep budget. It hasnt happened until three years until now. The authorization bill and then the appropriators who actually signed the checks. Most committees completely failed to pass an authorization bill it year after year. Basically him authorized a program. Authorizes. This year the process is broken down, so dysfunctional that there has been real doubt that will pass. The senate has not asked its version. Normally what happens is each chamber passes its version, goes to conference and gets compromise. As a this year, the senate has not gotten to it. And chairman mckeon, republicans in the house and democrats in the senate, even though the senate actually has a bill that is flowing on but has not been voted on by the full senate, they actually came up with a compromise version with the unpassed senate bill and the house passed. The house has passed it. It is back to the senate, and the senate will probably pass it next week but a lot of people, especially republicans in the minority, say, wait a minute, we ill not vote on amendments . The answer from the democrats is, no, this is the deal we made in the house. There is no time to amend its amend it. We have calls waiting for you. Tom is in connecticut. Democrats line. Caller i think we have to cut down that budget way down. In connecticut, we have three major programs. Building engines for the new f 35, and we have helicopters. They want to build a new helicopter. The class of the world and absolutely the best. Class built 15 years ago. Plus, they were built by soviets who do not exist anymore. Why are we spending billions upon billions for new tax subs when we already passed the best in the world . One of the spent greatest appropriations for new jet fighters. We already have the best in the world practically. Why do we need one that is better . Not have anything like it and North Koreans do not have anything like it. Iranians, nobody has it. Why do we have this . Pace. The problem is the ironically, the hardest thing to cut and get savings from is weapons programs. Get are contracts that locked in. Long lead times. With a gunct you willon this year, probably not Start Construction next year. You may not get the money until a couple years from now. That stuff moves slowly. , theiry personnel , you cannot just kick people out of the military. You cannot have a layoff. That is a trail of trust. That has been banned. Youre not allowed under the sequester. Are having to find money in a hurry, you have got not get and pilots do to fly, troop do not get to do major wargames they need to prepare them for combat, ships do not get to sail, etc. The weapons programs in the nearterm are the safest thing. In the longterm, after this lag is dealt with, you can cut them a lot. Then, of course, the effect is happening not now what we are technologically way ahead of people. It is happening 10 years from now. Is that the typical timeframe for Development Implementation of any Weapon System . It could take multiple decades. The joint Strike Fighter he is referring to was originally conceived in the early 90s early 1990s. Even things being built right , the f 35 and the summary and and the helicopters, we do not have a new helicopter yet. That is very tentative. We are building once in some cases from the 70 the 1970s and the 1980s still. Do not keep building those today and next are and next year, by the end of 10 years, you are hurting. Meantime, people like china are investing massively, especially in submarines. They are worried about the western pacific, so they can invest in cheaper summaries and do not need the range to get there. That is why we go for nuclear summaries. Host summaries. Submarines. Host lets go to our caller. Caller how do we justify this . Trying toguest is explain this longterm. Infrastructure that we need an contracts and all that stuff. At the end of the day, in this recent age, for technology and things like that, i think some of the equipment we build now is actually not necessary. I do not know why we tax as much as we do. Antiquated helicopters, we are already the best in the world. We have more than enough equipment. A lot of the equipment old, just a jobs program . Lets call it what it is. On the one hand, a complaint about welfare or about unemployment benefits, but no one ever talks about defense and that is where our money goes. Some of these programs are clearly important to individual members of congress. Yes. , the and oneanks tank is no doubt the best tank for conventional warfare ever, except that it except that it burns too much gas. And the army has said, we do not need anymore, but Congress Keeps ,aying, if you stop reduction the tank plant goes out of business. They say they have a plan to keep it alive. It is the only tank plant in the country. Congress, the people from ohio, putting money back in. There is political engineering in defense programs and they make sure they have subcontractors in as many districts as possible. The case of tanks, i love tanks. I had all sorts of cool tanks. I am not entirely unbiased. The vehicles we have billed were built to fight the soviets. A lot of armor on the front and not so much on the side or rear. Certainly not underneath. Soviets were coming from the front. There were land mines, but they were our landmines and we knew where they were and we were behind them. Iraq and afghanistan, it is the bad guys using the landmines. They are blowing us up from underneath all the time. These roadside bombs. There are some that have flipped a 71 ton main battle tank. That is the heaviest thing they have got. Ride around in, humvees, basically no longer combat worthy, the heavy trucks. The heaviest thing looks like a tank but is not technically a tank. A big target. Troops inips the back of that. I talked to military commanders who said, i could not send these ifngs down the road because the big and sophisticated bombs went off, they would kill everybody. What is the biggest lesson we learned Going Forward from iraq and afghanistan in terms of what equipment we will use in future engagements . It is easy to you have guerrilla warfare, what you need is a lot of foot troops and not much else. We made that mistake in the early years of vietnam. Tanks turned out to be useful. Canadians actually sent heavy tanks to afghanistan of all places. Theto the mountains, but deserts in the south, where the taliban has their stronghold. Itself bomber has in afghanistan, we have had supersonic bombers, which have long range, penetrating the soviet union, they have a lot of gas, they do lazy circles over afghanistan and when somebody on the ground called them up using all the new Digital Communications we have, they say ok, we have a guidance system, we plug in the coordinates, and gloom. We just dropped a bomb on these guys we did not even see. A bomb designed to carry nukes in the soviet union. Of the High Technology actually applies to even guerrilla warfare. We are not sure that is the only thing we will face in the future. Lets all pray to god we will never have a war with china. It is not likely. Chinese have more of a chip on their shoulder about the usual evil western powers. We did horrible things to them in the 19th century. The japanese did horrible things to them in the 20th century. They do not like the japanese. Things overng scary the disputed islands with the japanese. Around the world, there are groups that are not countries or , like hisuntries paula and lebanon. They have gotten pretty sophisticated weapons. In the case of has block, from iran. I had a guided missile that hit an israeli ship. Thathad antitank missiles were blowing up israeli tanks. We have callers waiting again in hamilton, montana. Good morning. Independent line. Caller good morning. With these wars over and everything, you watch Multinational Companies come in and divide up the spoils. Get down to the meat of the bone. As american taxpayers, we pay for gas in the hospital. You want to go see something really sad how mcgough the veterans hospitals. Class i have been. Yes. Guest i have been. It is all over, you watch these Multinational Corporations divide up spoils. Those people making 40 billion a quarter and still taking subsidies and they can barely payingp, they should be for the care of our veterans. Guest let me talk about the company. It was going to be iraq and we were going to take it up quickly and the oil industry would come bek to life and they will able to fund their own reconstruction. That has been very slow to happen because people kept blowing it up. Also, American Companies are not winning those oil contracts. European companies, russians and chinese, are get not the bids. Oil execs are not making money off of the iraqi war. Nobody is making any money except the heroin dealers. There is nothing else they have to sell. 40 years ago before the soviets invaded and all the civil wars they had, they were pretty good at exporting dates. There is no Multinational Corporation interested in invading a country for dates. That makecompanies money off for. Absolutely. Most businesses are like, please do not invade anybody this week. It creates uncertainty. We cannot plan. The price of oil goes up and that means the cost of Oil Companies make money, but every other Major Company takes a hit. A headline says the budget to the pentagon, so why would veterans not be happy happy . Two commented bill. The Veterans Administration, now called the department of veterans affairs, is a completely separate department and bill and budget from the pentagon and the department of defense. Benefits have been pretty well protected from all these cuts. People do not want to cut veterans. Although, they have had problems because more people were signing up than they had money to take care of. They say, if you are Pretty Healthy and you have health care from your employer, we cannot let you win and we have to get this guy with no legs first or this guy who has been on the street first. The military primarily takes and itsits troops families. But you serve 20 years in the military, you get to retire after 20 years. And you get a significant pension. Congress has overtime increased the Health Care Benefits for those people. Health care has gotten really expensive. This is a Good Health Care deal. Inmiums have not gone up over a decade. Are those the tricare benefits . Yes. Exactly. Army, near air force, and navy marine corps. It is basically the militarys hmo and ppo. Has kept expanding those benefits. There is good reason. But, Health Care Costs are going up fast for all employers and not just the Defense Department. Are a hugebilities deal for all employers, not just the Defense Department. Because of the politics, when the pentagon says, please allow us to raise the monthly fee on our insurance program, or, to reduceow Us Retirement benefits for people now coming in, there are very powerful lobbies and it has to store we hit a brick wall. Juste budget deal that passed, behind closed doors, away from these lobbying groups, actually is some flexibility for the military to go after the Health Care Costs and retiree benefits. Some. In thehe budget deal Defense Authorization bill just passed this past week and debated on the house floor, the chairman of the Armed Services committee actually said in that debate that the full sequestration process was the biggest threat to national defense. Here is some of what he had to say. I spoke with the chief of our Army Last Week and he said, in 2008, the budget for the u. S. Army was 250 billion. This year, it is 150 billion. For people to say we are really not cutting, we are just slowing the growth rate, we are cutting. The thing that has been most effective is our readiness. Is what causes lives to be lost. Our troops are not getting sufficiently trained before they go to afghanistan, before they go into harms way. Will help, as i talked to general dempsey yesterday, this will help them get back on our feet in readiness. Was readiness a real issue . 75 of what the chairman just said was true. The troops actually in in line to goext to afghanistan, have been getting all the money they need for training. With less money for training, that means everyone else takes a deeper hit to make those guys hold. The chief of staff of the u. S. Two said there are only brigades after 40 plus in the ready forare fully any contingency and crisis outside of afghanistan. The guys going to afghanistan are ok. The guys not on that treadmill and more have gotten off the treadmill as the war has gotten underfunded and they are basically brigades trained not going to afghanistan. The Global Response force, airdrop anywhere in the world, the brigade in the south korea, which is always supposed to be ready to fight tonight, and then two other per gates they will not identify for security reasons, that are basically ,ully ready to go anywhere which is not a lot. What is the size of a typical brigade . 30004000. You are usually talking about 5000. Daschle fighting troops are 3000 to 4000. People arenumber of in tanks and fire at artillery, foot soldiers, riflemen, only a fraction of that. Our caller in baltimore, nat is on our democrat line. The proposed spending for 2014 with the military budget being 17 of the president posses proposed budget. Good morning. Go ahead. Thanks for cspan. A pleasure to listen to somebody who actually has studied what is going on. I am a former director of science and technology for navy development. I would like to make a couple of comments. As far as what were spending of money on, we have systems no value in our era. The v 22 is worthless. So that it was not used for and forosama bin laden, a president ial helicopter, he turned it down. He delegated it to the press corps. Developing a new helicopter for him. Ship is combat literally useless. Itsannot work if iran uses boats. Programs could be cut seriously except for the item you mentioned, namely which, ifemployment, you take the 22, they have a contract in every state of the union, and puerto rico and anyplace else, they get a lot of congressional support. Several programs there. Aircraft and the combat ship are both really controversial. The marine corps is absolutely and has pushed ahead through decades of criticism. Quite a few deaths in testing. There was one crash that killed 19 people because it was full of young koreans. Ship, the navy is pretty committed to, and they are pushing it through. Frankly, there is language in this authorization bill that is ,retty harsh on the combat ship but it is too late. The navy has already contacted a bunch of things and is committed to it and they say, look, this is a smaller and cheaper and more flexible ship. It is one half to one third of the cost of the mainstay of the fleet. The carrier is 5 billion and up. They are getting the price down to 400, which, for a ship, that is kind of decent. Onhad huge problems early but the cost is down. Be navy says, this will not a thing that stings in two wars in china and goes toe to toe subsall their missiles and and ships. But, it is a great support ship. It has plugandplay modules. The mineclearing module, it clears mines. The plot the antisubmarine module, still in development, and, you can actually hunt submarines, and drop death charges on them, and you plug in and i Surface Warfare module, and it is supposed to be able to deal with the swarms you mentioned and we had extra guns on it and rockets and things. It supposedly shows them all down. They have a version of that out there and the shares are now sailing around. It is not the full version. Does not have a longer range missiles they were going to have. They are still working on that. Currently, and this is a ship very new and had huge problems, the navy is saying, if you want us to be able to concentrate our big combat ships in the pacific, and still hand or debt handle our lesser missions, you have got to have these things. Lots of little ships. Tennessee, joe, good morning, independent line. Caller hello. I would like to talk about how good try carrier is. I have it for life. I want to know what part your guest is from. Host so you are not happy with it . Caller no. They need preapproval for supply drugs. Host some of the proposed changes for tricare . ,uest the fees are very low but most is an hmo structure, so you will need preauthorizations like any hmo. It will be a huge pain. They will sometimes deny you things you need because they think they know better. Caller good morning. It is great to hear somebody who knows what theyre talking about when it comes to defense. It is hard to find anyone. Military, tri care for life, needless to say. I was a vietnam veteran. God bless you. I was an especially hard time to serve. Caller i am just one in many. Life, folkscare for like me, and many more, we are going to go on the raw and wrong end of the stick. The Veterans Administration, they are trying. They really are. They are just so overloaded. I do not think they will ever get on top of it. What worries me the most is these kids come on out of the desert, as i referred to them, they are 25 and 26 years old and are coming out of the desert and they are in bad shape here they will come home, and they will find unemployment. The next thing you know, we are mixed up in alcohol and drugs and all of that. They have nowhere to go. They will be able to take some of them. Life guys arer staying out of the Veterans Administration. We should as much as we can. That will free up a lot of spaces for these kids to come home and be taking care of so we do not lose them. The park in washington dc, i will never forget that. I went by there and there were where steaming comes up, there must be some type of heating system or something. They were staying warm. I do not want to see my veterans lay around like that era class i appreciate your comments, thanks. That. I appreciate your comments, thanks. Budgets andate separate bills. If you are a young guy who goes to iraq and afghanistan and does a year or six months there, and you get out after four years, or eight years, or 12 years, were 16 or 19 years and 364 days, you are not eligible for military retirement. You are eligible for v. A. Care. The Veterans Administration the department of veterans is not ant entitlement program, unlike medicare and medicaid and social security. That is not an automatic check that goes to you based on the formula. They only get so much money her year that Congress Votes on every year. They actually run out of space. They run out of doctors time. They do prions. Is re for life, that thee is only so much money, pentagon gets to run that one. What they are trying to do, they are trying to raise the fees, which have not increased since the 1990s, but the target is really, because you can retire from the military at 40 or 50, which was set up back when, and it is hard. Physically, after 20 years of jumping out of airplanes, your knees may not be up to that anymore. , if youu should retire have been a clerk for 20 years, maybe you could go longer. Most of those guys go on and get another job. They have another career and other healthcare coverage. Saying, understand the guys who do not have other healthcare coverage, we have got them. We will not screw them over. On toome of the guys go be defense executives who make a couple hundred grand a year, really Good Health Care, we will increase your fees, really. Not people like our callers, but the focus is on those retirees who have come out and done really well. To have sympathy for the homeless vets and the guys who came out with real psychological problems, most and they areout capable members of society, psychologically, they had a bad experience, but they are ok and they can get jobs and they can do well. , all of that myth is messed up and cannot function, that is not true of 90 . Host the headline here says senator graham threatens to block that defense bill. What is he looking for . Guest republicans like mr. Graham, who i have Great Respect for, are really unhappy about it. Because it did not go through the normal process in the senate, they are basically being presented with the skill, saying, take it or leave it. The house has passed it. There is no time for you guys to make amendments. Take it or leave it because there is no time to renegotiate with the house. A lot of republicans are saying, wait a minute, people have hundreds of amendments cued up. One that is particularly sensitive is more sanctions on iran, which is probably trying to build a nuclear bomb. They deny it but come on. Nucleard they need a program and enrich stuff beyond what Nuclear Reactors need anyway. The administration is saying, hold on, we are negotiating with these guys right now. Our carrot is easing up on the sanctions. From 10 tol it back do not keepif they the deal, we turn it back to 10. A lot of say, lock it at 10 or turn it up to 11. , thankydney freedberg you for being with us this morning. Continue here on cspan. Coming up next, our guest joins about a brandnew poll. He is at the Harvard Institute of politics. A poll looking at Young Americans and decreasing support for the president and the Affordable Care act. Later on, a lot perfector professor at the American University. More coming up as we continue. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] i wish you both a very happy christmas and a bright and prosperous new year. It is a pleasure to meet you, mr. Santa claus. Would you mind autographing some of the christmas seals as a special favor for santa claus . I should be delighted. It is one of the things i do best. [laughter] must have performed like this before. My father santa claus gave it to me. Oh, my peer that has got some of the dog hair in it. First ladies season two. Edith, eat is roosevelt to grace coolidge. It is a rare constant in american political life. If you look at say congress in 1901, less than two percent of members came from workingclass backgrounds, got into politics, and eventually wound up in congress. Flash forward to the present day. The average member of congress spent less than two percent of their career doing manual labor jobs and Service Industry jobs. So this is one thing that really has not changed, a lot of different aspects of the political process process have changed. News, big money in politics, the decline of unions, and while all of this is happening, one of the constants during that, during the last hundred years or so, is that workingclass people are not getting elected to political office. Does it matter there is a socioeconomic disparity between most elected officials and mrs. And they represent . A whitecollar government tonight at 9 00. In january, in depth with radio talk show host mark levine. He will take your questions for all part of booktv weekends on cspan2. Booktvfor decembers bookclub, we want to know what your favorite books were in 2013. Join other readers to discuss the notable books published this year. Go and click on book club to enter the chat room. Washington journal continues. Host joining us from boston is john della volpe, the polling director of the Art Institute of politics. He is joining us to talk about the new poll looking at millennials and the support of president obama in particular, focusing on the healthcare law for the Affordable Care act, and also to more broadly look at the andennial view of politics Public Service. Thank you for being with us this morning. Thanks for having me. Good to be with you. We have the overall numbers in terms of your poll for the Harvard Institute of politics. The Approval Rating for president obama, where does it stand for november, 2013 . Thanks again for having me. Where it stands now is overall, among all 1829yearolds in america, the president posses Approval Rating is down to 41 . Survey was conducted between october 30 and november 11. Andas been a few weeks now we talked to a couple thousand Young Americans and have been doing it every semester for our undergraduates since 2000. Questioned poll shows in particular some disapproval of the way the Affordable Care act is being handled by the president. What in particular do you hear . Hear is overall Approval Ratings of the Affordable Care act are essentially the same level where the president posses approval level is generally, slightly less than 47 . 38 and 39 of young people currently approved of the Affordable Care act. What our students were interested in studying this semester was the messaging and the words. We actually asked half of our sample questions related to the Affordable Care act and the other half, we asked questions related to obamacare more generally. Used that term. We found no significant differences when you look overall at the level of approval for the law, regardless of which name you put on it, currently. We spend the next 40 minutes looking at the pole and in particular, more broadly, millennials and their view of politics and public policy. If you are between the ages of 18 and 29, a millennial, the number for you to use for all others outside the u. S. , you can join us at you can join us at twitter. Will read some tweets if we get some of those, as well. It, their about Approval Rating for republicans and democrats in congress is nothing to write home about. Not at all. That is something that may have gotten lost in the last couple of weeks. People were focused on relatively low Approval Ratings of the president , but we saw republicans in congress, the approval among young people was down to 19 and democrats, it was ms. 30s. We have seen a pretty slow and steady decline of Approval Ratings, frankly for both republicans and democrats in congress and obama since we began tracking opinions related to his administration in 2009. Viewers, 35 ur Approval Rating for Congressional Democrats and 19 for congressional republicans. A number that fairly tracks closely to what the polls like the Associated Press or the gallup pole will show. In particular, in terms of the recent poll you have done, was there fallout from the Government Shutdown . Did you hear some of that in the responses . We did not hear necessarily about the openended response in the government fallout, but we did find in the survey it actually motivated young people to participate to a greater extent than perhaps they would have in midterm elections when we asked them if the current mood made it more likely or less likely for them to participate during the midterms. We think it might have a motivated motivated them more to vote next year. It will not be good news for many incumbents across america. A National Journal story looking at your poll, the is ine is millennium why is important millennials support law . Guest a couple reasons. I would argue if it were not for millennials, we would not have had barack obama as president today. Very well likely would have been hillary clinton. It was in iowa caucus that three times as many moneyless showed up as before. By a margin of fiveone, they supported barack obama over hillary clinton. They had a significant role throughout the general election of 2008, as well as 2012. Millennials have been one of the two or three most important political Groups Associated with the president over the last four or five years, number one. Number two, when it comes to the healthcare law, certainly a lot of economics would indicate it is important that younger and healthier people sign up for the law. For oldero compensate and sicker people, in order to bring the risk pool down and the cost down for everybody. That is the exact message moneyless have been hearing for the last few months. From a Young Persons perspective, it is not the most attractive benefit of the law, currently. I think the president and his administration have tried to reset the stage and reset the messaging. We will see how effective it is over the next couple of weeks and months. We go to denise. Good morning. Our millennial line. Caller thank you. My opinion is the fact that i believe the aca did not go far enough. I have lived in three countries ,here we had National Health and the false statements made by republican about National Health is ridiculous. President , his support would be a lot higher if he did not have this congress to deal with. They are blocking everything he tried to do. They continue to block him. If he could do half of what he wants, i think things would be a lot better. Lot better in the United States. They are just not supporting him. That is my opinion. Thank you. Thank you. John. Is a lot ofnk there truth to what denise is talking about. When you look at followup questions we asked, young people think by a margin of 21, the quality of their care would the crease under implementation of the law. By a margin of 51, they indicate to us they think the cost will rise. The republican message is, and those groups law, their oppose a messages have resonated to a greater extent in favor of young people signing up through an exchange. I want to ask you about the methodology. Do you believe the amount you pay will increase, decrease, or say about the same . Under that tommy you have two different areas, two different pie tarts. One was on obamacare and the other, the Affordable Care act. You asked the same question using a different term. Exactly. That is the benefit of the work we do with our students. Every semester, we talk to 2000 or 3000 young people. The ages ofs 201029. It lines up with the significant findings we have found around approval of the president. A coupleples are only hundred young people. That can be significant when the differences exist. For us, we talked to 2000. It allows us to ask 1000 people one question and another 1000 people another wetjen. That is what we did. We asked 1000 people the overall opinion of the Affordable Care act. 39 approved and 56 disapprove. When we asked the second sample the same question about obamacare, 38 approved and 57 disapprove. It does not matter how you talk about the law, opinions are the same. There could be differences when you look at subgroups, democrats and republicans, but big picture, it is about the law and not the name. Here is mary in wisconsin. Good morning. If the president could determine what we need for our health care, it is going to be very soon, people are going to see what will happen when they are making decisions about our health care, what medications we can get, and if those are not effective, we move onto the next set of drugs. People will not be happy with that. Without your health, you have nothing. It is not the issue of how expensive the health care is. It is who will make the decisions. The doctor will no longer be making those decisions. People be some group of on a panel saying, ok, she can get this because she is 20 and he cannot have this because he is 50. We have already seen it happening. People will be really concerned and health is the only thing we need in life. Health and happiness. Obama passing this law and being dishonest, how dishonest will they be once they start making decisions e lets hear from our millennials line and go to dylan and lex thin, l carolina. , south carolina. Caller i wanted to say, you know, as far as millennials, a little support for obama, you know, that demographic, they. End to be more liberal they get kind of trapped in the moment, especially for the telling that the Approval Ratings for obama care is nearly identical to his overall Approval Rating. I think sometimes, maybe, with millennials, idealism, maybe they lose a little bit of perspective, you know, in the larger scheme of things. Obama tried to end dont ask dont tell, challenge checkyou know, you know, up the mantle of the health care in the first place. There was a lot of progressive change he did try to take up. Guess i think, just speaking as a millennial, maybe my generation just kind of got blindsided by reality a little bit. Go, if youe let you had to define your politics, what would you say . I am more liberal. Again, that is part of my generation. Thanks for your call. John, we talked a little bit about being blindsided by some of this. The millennial generation, it is interesting. In the largest generation in the history of america, almost 25 of people in the country today fit within the definition of the millennial generation. Not only people between 18 and 29, but typically people between 1980 and 2000. 1333 years old. We only focus on 1829 youth vote. One of the more interesting we have picked up, we are beginning to see a cleavage andeen the older element the younger. An example, among young people between 18 and 24, only 31 consider themselves to be democrats today. Was the president inaugurated in 2009, the number was 43 . There was a 12 decrease in the number who consider themselves democrats. The 25 and 29yearold category, we set we have seen the numbers they study. The older millennials who came of age with the Obama Campaign and the movement in 2008 have been more loyal to him than the younger millennials who came of age at a very different time on and they of recession have a very different relationship with obama, those people who voted for him for the first time in that election in 2012. John, a question on the methodology from twitter. Rick asks, great question. No. We surveyed all 1829year olds,. Students,gh School Community college, college students, grad student, people who never extended their level of education beyond high school, and folks who graduated, etc. All 1820 represents nineyearolds regardless of the education. What of the findings in terms of breakdown by race . They say from november 2009 2013, 36 say they will vote in the next generation. 37 of black when you overcome a job from 49 , and hispanics are about the same. Any reasoning why African American millennials say they will not be voting in the next midterm elections . That has been a significant series of findings over several questions in the survey. We have really seen the support soften for the president , generally, among actually young africanamerican black one yields. The percentage of young people who overall approval of the president posses rating is down nine points. Over 70 still. It is close to 74 . We saw a nine point decrease in the last six or seven months. A significant decrease in the percent of young African Americans who think the country is headed in the right direction. Disapproval ofl the way things are happening in washington dc. So much of the way young black people think about politics is through the prism of the white house. Law ist that health care having a difficult time being marketed and overall levels of trust are decreasing in washington dc, indicates young blacks do not feel as connected with the government as they might have in 2009 headed towards a 2010 midterm. They are less likely to participate. Inon these Approval Ratings general, ac a tweet about that. Is that something you can really determine in the poll you do . That is a difficult question. The press has always played a role. Are not good for the president. Nobody wants to be below 50 . But he has been there before. The recently, heading in to 2012 campaign. When you have a campaign, you are able to focus your position and compare it to a political opponent. Saw his Approval Ratings increase. Followalso say, when we a question regarding obamacare and the Affordable Care act, we ask, where are you getting most of your information . The number one answer was, mainstream press. Press is important. They are driving what currently is not a positive narrative regarding health care. But i question whether they are just relaying information that they find from congress as well as the white house and administration. Our guest with us is the director of polling for the Harvard Institute of politics. The new poll is, five trends and five key findings, surveys of Young American attitudes toward politics and Public Service. We look at some of the other areas as well that you found that the poll. Lets hear from pennsylvania, good morning to tom. Caller good morning. The primary question i have is, did you ask about the education and the income level of the people you were pulling echo polling . People are so profoundly influenced by their own prejudices. This man who sits in the white , and i am anow ri republican, this man is the smartest to sit in the white house since john kennedy. The republicans have been hell bent to drive him out of the picture. You also talked about black participation in the upcoming votes and such. People, they have to be profoundly disappointed by the treatment this black president has gotten. I think the primary mistake the manmade is that he thought he could compromise with bullies. You cannot do that. The only thing they understand is that your fist is bigger than theirs and you will knock them down and keep hitting them until they cannot fight back. That is the mistake he made. He was going to compromise with these jackasses. Host we will get a response. Guest yes, the survey is very detailed. We sample individuals based on where they live and then they conduct a survey via the internet. We ask detailed questions about education level, education and income, whether they own or rent or live with their parents, a variety of other questions, to make sure the opinions expressed in the survey are reflective not just of one segment of millennials, but of all people in the country between 18 and 29 years old. This is a poll you have done since the beginning of the Obama Administration . Guest the number in the trends we are talking about are reflective of the polls we have the obamafrom administration 2009. This is a 24th edition of the survey that we began working with since 2000. We are talking about the first survey, in 2009 emma nine months, 10 months after the nomination of the president. Jim in south carolina. Caller good morning. The president made it real clear. He said, am i my brothers himer . Many of us voted for in saying, yes, we are. When it came down to a bill crafted by the president , and it only required them to pay 300 more a year or whatever, health care him a depending on the plan im a they say no. We are the ones who voted him in, and yet we are not willing to pay up or pony up a little bit even 300 a month and we complain. I do not understand it. If you vote for a socialist and someone who has socialistic pay the, you ought to cost and share the wealth. I am beleaguered at my generation that we cannot see that. Fellow whoow why the just called, it is not about race, it is about money. It is about them not paying for a plan that they in essence voted for. I think the jury is out. Currently, when we spoke and interviewed Young Americans, one of the pieces of data we pulled out were, among the people who do not currently have Health Insurance, we asked them what your opinions are and how likely would be to enroll. Third 29 , less than one of folks who do not have Health Insurance indicated they are likely to enroll deftly or probably will enroll. Another 41 are on the fence. It is still early. If anyone knows anything about millennials, they typically take every single moment to make up their decision, whether it is writing a paper or other parts. They typically work to the very end. Because we see less than one third indicated they will sign up today, there is still seven months left while they have that opportunity. I think they are open to a dialogue and a conversation about the pros and cons associated with its exchange. They need to be treated like adults. They need to have a conversation and understand how this fits into the other issues they are dealing with, coming from an economic point of view, as well role ofrust and government providing such a solution. We are talking about the budget and other segments, the Harvard Institute poll not only talked about the Affordable Care act, and how millennials view it, and also in terms of cutting the budget. The headline in one of the charts was in particular, on foreign aid, you write the fold the poll found 71 of the time, 1829 yearolds and a majority in each party that sort of view is resonating with people like senator rand paul of kentucky, calling to reduce some foreign aid to countries like egypt. What our students were interested in is not just understanding what priorities were but understanding what priorities would be in a difficult budget cycle. What we did, in this exercise within the survey, we had six theosals that would reduce deficit by about 200 billion over the next several years. We had another six proposals that would reduce the deficit by slightly less than 100 billion. We took each of those six proposals and did a comparison. Ould you favor a or b . When we did that, we found, as you indicated, a majority of democrats and republicans and independents supported the buffett rule. , to see asan time significant level of support across the three big political categories, indicates there is a lot of support for that from rand paul, from the right, or could be the democratic candidate. On the right on the other side, we saw similar levels of support for cutting and reducing foreign aid. Generally, but also when it is compared to things like cutting entitlements, they prefer to cut foreign aid first in reducing the Nuclear Warhead arsenal before cutting in to entitlement programs. What sort of stories did you get in terms of how connected millennials are to foreign aid or the buffett rule and other politicalguest overae between 20 and 25 of young people consider themselves speak politically active, following politics for a closely. We conducted in this round of research some Qualitative Research from some focus groups. All text is important to young people, but it is important to understand that they are struggling every single day to deal with the issues within their own personal households are a lot of young people we talked to have not just one job but sometimes to jobs, the they that they two jobs, have to save money to get a house or apartment. There is a lot of things that young people are dealing with your day have to take politics seriously, but it is just one part of their lives. For young people who have been engaged, they need to be empowered and challenged to do so from both republicans as well as democrats. They will do it, but i think what young people are saying is there are a lot of things imported in their lives, and you want to have a conversation about obamacare, Affordable Care act, or anything else, lets have it on their terms as well. That is why we asked questions about not just traditional media but social media as well. Host on social media, part of the poll revealed that facebook users showed a slight decline across the board. What are we to glean from that . Been onoung people have facebook for several years now, and we see a number of other social platforms increase. That important to know still well over 80 or so of this generation are engaged in facebook in some way or another but it is not the only pathway to connect with young people. My advice is we can see through your program here, a number of young people on twitter. That platform is growing, especially as a way to have conversations and dialogue and interactions with folks that they can respect and want to have conversations with. We also see increases in other social platforms such as instagram and pinterest and a snapchat and others. It is important young people let others know that they are available through conversation three a lot of social platforms, not just telephones or polls. Our lets go back to phones. Make sure you mute your television or your radio. I am calling because i had a question, and i have a comment. I would like to ask the gentleman what statistics or how many people does he call to get these polls to get these numbers . Also, i am 70 years old, i have been all over the u. S. And i have traveled halfway around the world, and i have never encountered one person, black or has nevers said been polled or be asked a question to take it all. Where does he get his numbers from and how does the poll because there is so much information misinformation out there. Host quickly, john della volpe, if you want to recap for laura. Guest 2000 young people part is big in the survey, so every question, the margin of error is less than 3 . Most to not have landline throughes, so we worked the Knowledge Panel and essentially what that means is we identify people based on where they live, based on their address, and after we indicate a ondom sample based address, we provide access to internet if they do not have it to conduct the survey online. They do have the internet, we send them an email invitation to all of our polling is done randomly, but connected through the internet because so many young people do not have landline telephones and do not really want to talk to us at the clock it might perhaps. Host at 6 00 at night perhaps. Host john della volpe has experienced polling with president ial and congregational polling as well. Fort lauderdale, good morning to melvin. Caller how many kids responded to the fact that they stay on their parents policy through pony six . 26 . Also, when he talked with the number of people who would not be voting in the 2014 elections that is typical of young people. They very seldom vote in congressional, off year elections. With respect of the second caller indicating that the government was going to control their health plan that is the type of information that you all need to correct. It is strictly a private gramrance row graham pro that the obamacare or Affordable Care act is promoting. It has nothing to do with the government. That is something that is not even in existence now and do something to do with conducting procedures that they should not do, and the problems we stopped a face on that. So there is a lot of misinformation. People need to actually read up and find out exactly how the Program Works because another thing, you have information, people giving out that information. Host we appreciate you calling about that information, melvin. John della volpe on his other comments, the poll methodology. Guest one question was related to opinions of young people on their parents system. We did not delve too deeply and that question, but young people, do they have Health Insurance and were they have a from, we found out that overall 70 of young people indicate that they had some sort of parents of coverage. 22 said they had not. By the way, anyone can go to our to look at all the questions in detail, and through that we will indicate the number who have it through their parents, versus the employer, the on the one entered on other hand, he is right, unfortunately we have far fewer young people but is big in the midterm elections than the general elections. Of young about 34 people say they will participate in the midterm elections. We ask one year in advance. Discountingably be a number based on turnout models. Thewill see that in president ial election, you had a decrease in anticipation between 2008 and 2012 overall. Participation was high in the state that were targeted by the romney and Obama Campaigns, but for the other states, we sell participation among all young people decrease across the board, some states below 50 . For dissipation is not very high regardless of which way you look at it. Anticipation is not very high regardless of which way you look at it. Host the l. A. Times talking about getting young invincible to sign up being the key to success for obamacare, so california starting them with an education effort. They write host as a pollster yourself, how much do you think the white house polled this group are found out from this group nationwide what the likelihood of them signing up for health care was before even passing the law, before even introducing the law . Question i do a not know. Im not privy to the extent to which the white house polled on issues related to this. I know there was a lot of Public Opinion data that over the course of the last several years indicated that young people were the heart and soul of the obama movement. Again come into thousand 8, 56 in voted for him again, 2008, 56 had voted for him. It is fair to assume that democrats and generally probably assume that young people would always be with this white house, and what we saw was two very different generations. Within the older generation, not pleased with sticking with them to a larger extent than young age of 25. R the it is not a national set of data that we can look at. In the virginia governors race a few weeks ago, the republican, ken cuccinelli, actually one out vote againstto 24 terri mccullough. One of the reasons with the relatively High Percentage of votes of the libertarian candidate got. Anyink it is a mistake for party to take any set for granted, specifically democrats. Host a tweet our millennial cannot afford an apartment or a car how can he afford Health Insurance . Debbie is on the line from albuquerque. Go ahead. Caller im listening to you and a lot of people locally to not understand stats. I do. Are you a mathematician . Guest im sorry . Caller are you a mathematician . Guest i am a a look opinion researcher. I work with caller but you are not a mathematician. Margin of error, that is a large number and you know it. If you look at the gsf, which is a larger sampling base, the sampling base you are using is too small. You are not skewing the questions enough to get an accurate picture and you are not taking account the hypothesis. So the idea that your polling 2000 people, changing the question twice, that is it, and if you understand stats, you isw what the gsf it 50,000 people. It is a more accurate reading on is that we what is going on. So your polling is not accurate. You know it is not accurate. 2000 people that is a pure 316 million live in a country. Did you take 40 out of every 50 states . Host all right, debbie, we will give john della volpe a chance to response. Thank you for your call. Guest thank you, and i do not think we need to get into the debate about the accuracy of our polling, but we already i believe the Largest Survey on the longestrunning survey on this generation, just young people, 18 to 29yearolds, every fall, 3000 in the spring, this is the 24th time we have done is good im not familiar we have done this. Im not familiar with any other organization that calls this group of people. Between 8001000 people which of the much larger margin of ever. Certainly of error. Certainly our poll is accurate. You can see that and the other research polls as well. Host the next question you should ask is if you do not like the Affordable Care act, what kind of Health Care System should we have . Did you consider asking that . Guest i think we will. It is difficult because we only have a certain number of questions to ask every single semester. This semester working with 40 or so students, we wanted to touch about health care but obviously privacy and budget issues and no sort of things. Im sure our students will work over the next couple of months, develop another series of healthcarerelated questions to understand a little bit more deeply some of the underlying concerns with the kind of program and whether the negative responses based on communication, marketing, or some of the underlying factors within the law itself. Auburn, new york, david, good morning. Caller good morning. I have a question for john. How are you doing today, john . Guest i am fine, how are you . Caller good, thank you. I have one question that ive not heard anybody ask yet, and im going to leave it quick question and take it off the air. When the president said numerous times that if you like your doctor, you can keep it, and a few like your health care, you thiseep it, period, isnt one of the biggest cases of Consumer Fraud this country has ever seen . I will take my answer off the air. Thank you. In terms of the time of your poll, john, did you ask about that question, but that comment from the president . Guest no, we do not have the opportunity to do that. I have an email from larry in kentucky who says young people pay more for Auto Insurance because they are sick er drivers. Why do we need to pay more for Health Insurance, too . It should be that the old people pay and pay their share. Larry says he is 60 years old. To bill in athens, ohio. Goahead for john della volpe. Caller i am a registered republican, but i voted for the president emphasize he is the president because of the ,hoice that john mccain made but also, after all the years when i paid Health Insurance for my employees, when i sold the business, my wife and i both with preexisting conditions could not by Health Insurance buy Health Insurance. That is a scary thing because ultimately i had some really serious sicknesses after i got Health Insurance on medicare. Everythinge lost that we work for all our lives. The thing i dont understand is there are 48 Million People without Health Insurance. We tend to look at 48 and six zeros without counting them. How long would it take to count to 48 million . And these are all human beings. When you go to the doctor, the first thing they say is i want to see your Health Insurance. I spent my life in marketing, and i know that it is possible to come up with any answer you want in a poll on the and then the media, who i also had a connection with, take that and makes peopleeally in one want to believe or another thing. Host ra bill, you get the last word. It is prettylpe, clear that the healthcare issue will be an issue going into 2014 in your neck set of questions on the pole. Next set of questions on the poll. What will be the next set of questions that harvard will explore . Guest the next will be in april, so we will give an indication of how people signed up, what the benefits are, etc. Im sure we will look more deeply that. We will talk in spring about ideology and Political Attitudes generally across the spectrum of issues from progressive to conservatives to libertarian. We will dig more deeply into the ideologies as well. It is a process with undergraduates on campus here at the thing that makes his poll special, it is not just a professional set of questions come it is really working with undergraduates to see what they questions, it is really working with undergraduates to see what they think. Host our cspan viewers and listeners can follow you on twitter and read the latest at vard. Edu, the institute of politics. John della volpe is their polling director. Thank you for being with us. Guest thank you for having me. Host washington journal continues in a few minutes with a look at guantanamo. Vladeck, as stephen professor at American University, talking about detainees at guantanamo. But first, a look at what is coming up on the sunday show that cspan radio. On todays a sunday Television Talk shows, the talks include the budget deal, Health Care Law, foreign policy, and gun violence. You can hear rebroadcasts of the program youre on cspan radio beginning here at noon eastern with meet the press. Paul ryan and democratic senator patty murray and also republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and michael peyton, former head of the cia and the National Security edges secured a 1 00 p. M. Eastern, it is abc guesthe this week, the sector is say john kerry. Fox news sunday, guests include paul ryan and larry pratt, executive director of the group gun owners of america. Cnn state of the union follows that rick lazio follows at 3 00 p. M. , john mccain and peter ortzag. Ce thethe nation fa nation with john mccain and dick durbin during the sunday network tv talk shows are on c span radio, and they are brought to have a Public Service, provided by the networks and c span. Again, those rebroadcasts of the shows begin at noon eastern with abcsmeet the press, this week anaphoric lucky said, face the nation from cbs and at 4 00, face the nation. Find us on channel 120. You can download our free app for your smart phone or listen online at cspanradio. Org. The other thing we do to test whether roosevelt made a difference or not is use my counterfactual test. Suppose a plausible alternative had been present. Not wendell wilkie, who is the moderate provoke and republican rickets roosevelt in 1940, but suppose the nominee suppose the republican had nominated charles lindbergh, a great aviation hero it was very isolationist and quite synthetic to hitlers germany. Lindbergh president instead of president roosevelt, i think history wouldve turned out quite differently. I doubt he wouldve maybe prep made the preparations that roosevelt made. And i doubt that after japan attacked the United States that put the wartorn europe rather than keeping it focused just on asia. In essence, Franklin Roosevelt made a big difference. Centurygn policy in 20 president ial leadership later today at 7 30 p. M. Eastern and pacific this weekend on cspan3. Cspan we bring Public Affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and offering complete gaveltogavel coverage of the u. S. House all as a Public Service of private industry. We are cspan created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. Now, you can watch us in hd. Washington journal continues. Host and our final segment here willashington journal, we be asking what to do with guantanamo detainees. Professor atik is the American University Stephen Vladeck is a professor at the American University, and he also thank you for joining us this morning. It comes up as an issue this week, certainly because of the debate over the Defense Authorization bill, so lets start at that point. A headline in the Washington Times this likely this last eases thethe bill transfer. The Defense Authorization bill will not allow guantanamo detainees to be transferred to the u. S. Or any defense funds to go toward building or updating facilities for the detainees in america. It does, however, make it easier for the secretary of defense to transfer cleared detainees back to their home country after entering the prisoner will not return to terrorist activities and working with the home country on individualized security plans. On that issue of ensuring they will not engage in terrorist activity, how will they do that . Guest that is a great question and one of the obstacles to translating transfer and some of the detainees. The Obama Administration is going to enter into and formal informal agreements with yemen, algeria, other areas in that region to not hold these detainees but keep an eye on them, to undertake a whatever surveillance would be lawful to make sure we are not releasing these guys into a situation where they might get into trouble. The folks who are going to release would be inclined to try to continue to engage in this, but one of the hard questions if there has never been definitive proof that that is true. As 770ave been as many nine detainees on a mod one point here and were down to 152 at one point,es and we are down to 152. It has the more of a scare tactic been a real concern for the Obama Administration. Host just some background, the facility was opened in 2002, not long after the first invasion into afghanistan. Detainees,ioned, 162 about 80 are cleared for release , this of housing a detainee cost about 3 million per prisoner per year. One of the problems that the obama ministration has run into, was to close one time up. I think he has found it a lot harder to automatically to convince these thirdparty countries to take the detainees off of our hands. Even their home countries and some cases. Even before congress had begun to legislate these transfer restriction, the ones that have not been relaxed, we saw a really very slow, very Little Movement from the executive branch in ascending home even those detainees that their own Task Force Said were ready to be transferred. Heres where they have gone 199 have been sent to afghanistan, back to afghanistan, 122 saudi arabia, pakistan 63. 22 to yemen. You mentioned the word recidivism, in other words, a former prisoner return to al qaeda or another terrorist group. What is the percentage . Guest you hear wildly different figures. At one point, the Defense Department would say as high as 20 as it is a comparative it turns out those numbers were widely overinflated. It is hard to figure out what counts. The obama and estrogen has been the Obama Administration the best we can say is maybe one and 20 are engaging in any kind of from rocktivity once they are released, and then it very subjective about whether you count what we would think of as a run of the mill criminal activity as recidivism and the contents where we were holding the because of their ties to al qaeda and 9 11. Host we open our phone lines for viewers, seasoned listeners. 202 5853881 for republicans, for democrats, it is 202 585 3880, and for independents and all others, 202 5853882. You can also reach us on contact isd the cspanwj. You mentioned the president earlier on and has continued to try to want to close one,. There is no language in the upcoming Defense Authorization bill. Guest Getting Congress to repeal or heavenly been replaced as restrictions of transferring detainees to other countries. At the very least, that should help with some repatriation of the detainees, to have them cleared for transfer. The itblem with even if ministration is successful, able to get all the detainees who have been cleared for transfer out of guantanamo, that still leaves two categories that guantanamo. Fordetainees who are slated trial by military commission, and those are ongoing, and it leaves the detainees whom the it ministration believes are too dangerous to release, but insufficient or unreliable for trial, there are three different buckets here. All that happened last week is roberts made it easier to close one of those buckets. We still have the other 2 congress made it easier to close one of those buckets. Is inour next caller rome, new york, on the democrats line. Caller we talk a lot about blind justice as an ideal but not a reality. This overwhelming plan, proving that the twin tyrants and Building Seven were brought dominic controlled demolition, and prosecutors and government legislators host were going to let you go. That is not the topic of this conversation. We will go to david in allentown, georgia. Caller im just wondering how can verify, because i saw one of the detainees went back into his normal position, you know, as terrorist, at least antigovernment. Yeah, i mean, you know, input from regular people, not just law professors. The first africanamerican born in kenya who was elected the president of the harvard law review, i believe he is in the white house now. The team were part of v. Hallenged rumsfeld. Guest it had been the bush ministrations position the Bush Administrations position that the detainees were entitled to judicial review. One of the things that happen in that case, is the Supreme Court, hamdan case, and then in others. Are they too dangerous to be released, so it is not just academics who are making these determinations, it is lawyers, judges, it is the american legal muchm working at least now the way was meant to. The hard part is will a lot of this is happening behind closed doors where you have the government saying trust us on these recidivism numbers, when every time you hear a figure quoted, it is turned out to be easily belied by the available evidence. There is no question that it is a nonzero effect of the detainees who have been released to have in case who have engaged in future criminal act, but it is a smaller number than was widely originally reported. Keith inep emma bama i alabama. Caller my comment has to do with the fairness of sending these prisoners back to their home countries. I do believe that a nation that claims to be a place that values human rights should absorb these prisoners into our own society. There needs to be some sort of way in which those who have been taken against their own will have a way somehow to get absorbed into american society. Guest that is a great point. We saw a couple of weeks ago the last detainees who were transferred from guantanamo were repatriated in to algeria, where there are serious questions or the human rights conditions they will face. Again, there is a nonfrivolous argument that the u. S. Is violating its human rights obligation when it sends detainees to countries where they may credibly fear persecution or other forms of mistreatment. Host why were they sent to all jerry at . Algeria . To guest it is their home country. But it is our lot to not return detainees to countries where they credibly fear being mistreated. It is part of why this has been such a sticky wicket for the Obama Administration. On one hand, they very much want to close guantanamo. On the other hand, there are diplomatic human rights situations that make it hard to send the detainees to their home countries, even if the home country is willing to take them. These are all pieces of the larger puzzle that explain why today almost five years after president Obama Took Office we still have 162 in guantanamo. Host if the Obama Administration to get their dream come true in closing guantanamo, what would it propose to do with the detainees . Guest that goes back to the three groups were talking about. Regard to the detainees who have been cleared for transfer, we would see those individuals; or sent to third countries that are willing to take them. With regard to the military Commission Defendants, and to the four dozen or so who have been deemed too dangerous to release, i think the obama game is ations and longterm detention situation in the United States. Weve heard a lot of talk in the last couple of years about the dissension is only in thomson, illinois being one example of detention the facility in thomson, illinois, being one of able of where these detainees could go. Kept in place the researches from keeping any detainees from guantanamo into the United States. That bill or as far as we can tell from any other appropriations bill. Those latter two categories, the military Commission Defendants and the 48 who are too dangerous to be released, they are not going anywhere anytime soon. Host on those military Commission Defendants, what are the options there . If theyre found innocent, are they release, if theyre found guilty, do they stay at guantanamo . Guest first of all, nobody is acquitted. The detainees who have been convicted, most of them have served all of there sentence and have been sent home, or at least have served part of their sentence and it we entered into an agreement with their home country where they would serve the rest of their sentence in their home country. So if you are free, david hicks is free in australia. Host what is the typical length of those and at this . Guest relatively modest. About received 56 month, 5. 5 years, but that included time served. It included time he had artie spent in detention. Went to was convicted, he was only at guantanamo for another six months. Host do you hear from former clients . Guest he has quite rightly decided to keep a low row following a joint effect that he can be free and some country. Host this is bill in texas. Good morning, you are on with Stephen Vladeck. Caller good morning. I have a question that guantanamo, do they have a percentage is or how many detainees were brought from iraq that are still at guantanamo . Or were originally brought . Guest that is a quick a great question. We have a separate dissension operation when we were in iraq i think only two or three and one or two of them are still there. Of the 162 men were still at guantanamo, the dominant percentages, folks primarily picked up in afghanistan or pakistan in 2002, 2003, 2004 with a huge marginal case of those pickup elsewhere. Caller basically they were held without a trial. That is a violation of their civil rights. Committee their entry loss or harm, and there must be a victim, so any of they charged basically should be sentenced, they should have a speedy trial, the whole nine yards, and in those convicted serving time. Now you are holding these guys, it is time served because theyre serving the time without a trial. An earlierwith caller who said we should really summoned american society. After the first war with iraq, we did that with iraqi Prisoners Committee for first thing they did was go underground to terrorist cells, operating out of springfield, virginia, and other places. I think their civil rights have been violated, and as you know, both president bush and our present president obama have been indicted for war the hague. Jim is right that our normal mode is to take individuals who we suspect of criminal ought to be and put them into our symbol civil criminal justice system. In that regard, i think it is telling that both president bush and president obama have increasingly moved toward that paradigm when it comes to newly captured terrorism suspects were. For example, we had the rate in tripoli, a very senior al qaeda official is now being tried in a senior court in new york. Weve not send any new detainees to guantanamo since 2008. Clearly this is the mode going for that is preferred by the Obama Administration 30 problem is for the guys at guantanamo, these are folks who were picked our troopscases by at a conventional battlefield where historically the reason why youre allowed cap and if attention is because we thought it was better than requiring us to kill them. The question is what do you do about the legacy cases, and i think it is true that were pushing up against the envelope as far as how long can we detain somebody during war crimes . This is a new paradigm. We have limited this now so that the legacy cases at guantanamo, the Obama Administration to its credit has not had any new cases of longterm military detention without trial. A couple of calls it wastioned iraq, and an attempt to break out prisoners, al qaeda break out in iraq has provided additional headwinds to the administration as far as changes to guantanamo, closing to guantanamo. Andrew mccarthy wrote about that and he said the plots to free jihadists have resulted in acts of savage violence. If obama shutters gitmo and moves the terrorists here, he will in effect be moving more of these plots here. Guest i have to disagree. That assumes facts in the avenues in the evidence. It assumes that they could get into the u. S. One of the things within the last 12 years as a significant ramping up of our immigration patrols to prevent exactly that. Second, i do not need to sort of sin this into a depressing conversation, but there are far softer targets in the u. S. The band highsecurity attention facilities. If there were terraced able to sing for hours immigration controls, the last thing on their lives would be such a highsecurity target. Anyone whos ever been to one of our maximumSecurity Federal prisons it is about as hard to get in there it is harder to get in there than it is to the white house, dependent on. I think this is a little bit of overflowing rhetoric. I think the road question is and we own the policy that we are thoughtful for, and shouldnt we save for the folks who we are not able to send back to the home countries, were going to let them into the u. S. Or we are going to detain them, but we have secure facilities where we will make sure they are provided the rights they should be afforded to under our constitution . Host lets go back to calls. Bill is on the line, illinois. Caller my question is why did the United States not take the that under the Geneva Conventions, people fighting out of uniform for an entity that is not a country, why should they be afforded the same protections provided under the Geneva Convention . Why didnt we take that position and stick to it . Guest that actually was the u. S. Position and in some ways nontraditional belligerents, not following the rules, as you just mentioned, individuals who were fighting on the behalf of the taliban or al qaeda are not entitled to all of the. Ofural all of the m procedural conventions provided in the geneva. Basic rules that should apply to all conflicts the u. S. Is involved in whether or not we also get the full additional panoply of protection that would attach to privileged belligerence following the rules of war. For example, you cant torture detainees, you cannot try them in court that are not regularly constituted, and this was a very different element back in 2006 the of the help bring an end to prisoner abuse and so on. If the u. S. Position that detainees are seven to detention at least in part because they have not complied with the historical rule governing the laws of war, but that is not get evil that much further than where we are today. That does not get you that much further than where we are today . Host what is a life like for a detainee . Guest it depends of which camp youre at. Whether you are cooperative or not, whether you have been a threat to yourself it we heard a lot this fall about Hunger Strikes at guantanamo. The short version is that conditions have improved at guantanamo since 2002. For most of the detainees, they resemble probably 80 into maximum Security Federal detention. That is encouraging, but there is still the larger question of the elephant room, do we have the right to continue holding them perhaps in perpetuity. Was a prisonern there . Guest until he served his sentence in 2009. Host did you visit him there . Guest i denied it a city cancer cells, but there are plenty of other lawyers who have an human rights groups. The conditions have largely improved, but there are still reasons for concern. I mentioned the Hunger Strike spared one of the things that happened earlier this year that triggered a new round of litigation has been a far more invasive search policy on the part of the guantanamo guards before detainees and me with any outside personnel, including their lawyers or human rights records in the district that helped human rights representatives. That helped lead to the Hunger Strike. Host what are the commander institute this new policy . Guest good question. In papers filed in court, the commander said policy was in response to countryman somehow making their way into the camps, thoseally clear just how concerns really were and how much they abandoned substantiated. This whole dispute was argued before the federal Appeals Court in washington last week. Host hey dave, its earlier to 60 minutes. He gave comments earlier to 60 minutes. Host that is from the former commander, michael d, who left there about when . Guest i think he left in 2004, 2 thousand five. You see not surprisingly that guantanamo raises strong emotions from all sides feared that is inevitable. He harder question is what do we do Going Forward . Ton president obama came office and had a big mandate to the policyanamo, and of longterm detention without trial. Im not sure what that is what the Obama Administration ever really meant. I think they want to close the camp, closing simple, and bring the program onto a more humane, visible, public. How does president obama do that in the face of a decidedly Recalcitrant Congress . Host independent line, max calling us from wales, good morning. Thank you for joining us this morning. Caller just to keep it brief for you guys come in relation to guantanamo they in detainees, reports a british newspaper several years ago mentioned the fact that many of them had actually come from transported via the u. K. En route to the guantanamo they, meaning they should have been checked about my countrys doctors, my countrys military as well. Just to ensure we are protected. Instead, they have flown by u. S. Military bases in the u. K. I would just like to know, on that score, do you think that its a little bit wrong that they were flown via the u. K. . I would also in relation to this entire issue, you talked about guantanamo they as a whole entity. It is basic yuba, which you currently have a blockade upon it is based in cuba, which you currently have a blockade upon. Regardless of the history of the place, operating something in an island that you blockade. I cannot even get a direct flight from the u. K. To cuba, for example. Host thank you for watching us on the Bbc Parliament channel. Think it is true that there are serious questions that have been raised about the participation not as of the United Kingdom but of a host of European Countries in the program in guantanamo and so on. Some of those questions are being litigated under the european connection to human rights, and we could see some of these cases make their way up to the european court. On the cuba question, i think one of the things to understand about guantanamo is the u. S. Position has always been that it is not actually part of cuba. They just happen to share physical space with cuba. It has been the u. S. Position that there is really no relationship whatsoever between u. S. Foreignpolicy visavis cuba and the questions concerned on the scope of the dissension facility on guantanamo. The fact that the same legal questions would rise if we were holding these detainees anywhere outside the u. S. And not just on a strange corner of and i learned of an island. Invasive more searches, the Associated Press has an answer to that. They wrote about this, the defense lawyers, they say the searches began after prisoners were told it would have to travel from the resident camps to another side of the base to meet or talk with their lawyers. If that it change from procedure in the hamdan case . Guest it is. The government conceded to change in procedure. The question is whether the change is justified. That is what had been argued before the federal Appeals Court in washington. At least the trial court here in washington said the answer was no, that it was too much interference with the detainee rights to continue to meet with their lawyers, to condition thats meeting upon such an invasive search and will save the federal Appeals Court agrees heard it is another further example of how there are still so many messy legal issues surrounding the detentions at guantanamo. Host lets go to saint y. Gustine, florida, ton caller good morning. You are talking but because of the detainees in approximately 3 million per person. That is a lot of money to be spending on somebody that we ourselves have said that well, they are not very valuable to us, they have not given us any information. Why do we keep holding them . And if you let them go back in their home countries, you say well, we are going to watch them. How much of the cost to keep watching . How to we keep throwing money at things that we know in advance is not going to have any result . Isnt that a waste of american taxpayer dollars . Guest the short answer for tony is yes, it is a waste of taxpayer dollars. I think the administrations response would be that the problem is not a sort of cost sensitive analysis. The problem is it is exceedingly difficult to convince these countries to take these detainees. If we think about that for second, part that maybe our own fault. We are the ones who are responsible for basically stamping a big red d on a chest of these detainees and think they are or at least they were newly to be a serious terrorism threat, but hey, now they are fine, please take them back. At the end of the day, we would be the only we would be only too happy to send half of the detainees back to their home countries, cost considerations aside here the problem is those countries are not willing to accept them. Figure came million from the statistics in the New York Times, but he brings up a point in terms of the cost beyond guantanamo. The cost of keeping up with the release reserves. And he figures out there, that costs . Any figures out there how much that cost . Guest no. Host next up in virginia, james, go ahead. James, make sure you mute your television. Go ahead with your question or comment. I want to put you on hold for a second, and we will come back to in a moment. I had a question from ron in e mails what happened to prisoners captured in the last five years . Guest for the folks weve picked up in the last five years, virtually all of them have been brought into the United States for a criminal trial in the u. S. Civilian court. For example, we picked up osama law earlys sonin last year. He is being tried in civilian court in new york. We picked up another suspect in tripoli, and he is being tried in civilian court. There has been this Movement Even by the end of the Bush Administration to move as many of these cases into our civilian courts as possible partly because our civilian criminal courts have actually seen their jurisdictions expanded since 9 11 to allow for more these prosecutions. Really quickly, on 9 11, most of our major terrorism offenses, was of the criminal laws riveting acts of terrorism do not apply if prohibiting acts of terrorism did not apply to acts committed outside of the United States for that is what it was so hard at first to bring these into the u. S. For trial. That is no longer true. Whenever we pick up a new detainee outside the u. S. , he will end up in a u. S. Supreme a u. S. Court the matter what. Host back to the call. When you are you ready to go . Caller first, i would like to ask you something, ok . Then i will ask him. Why dont you have something on ones that aree keeping them in guantanamo . Everything you said was against keeping them down there. In other words, you are reading off a thing, that people are against guantanamo holding them prisoners. Why dont you have something on there were the people are for holding them down . Host we did review the comment by Andrew Mccarthy who is in favor of keeping guantanamo open. How about you, james, what do you think . Caller i think you ought to shoot every damn one of them. Trial . Ithout a caller give them a trial, give them a military trial. They are combatants that i am a korean veteran. They are combatants. That is what they are. Lets go to Stephen Vladeck, they go through these military commissions, what guest it is possible to receive a death sentence, to be executed, the five defendants who are being most specifically tied to masterminding the 9 11 attacks themselves. I think the hard question and estionemise of james qu that i would go back to him at the notion that these are combatants who are subject to trial by military commission. Historically, military commission trials are appropriate for any belligerents who violate the laws of war. There is a pretty strong argument that the 9 11 masterminds are appropriately subject to trial by military commission under that exact understanding. The problem is that for most of the detainees who have been subjected to trial, including my theer client mr. Hamdan, charges that have been proffered are not war crimes. They may be offenses to trials ,n sick in civilian court but military commissions are not just for someone would point a finger and say they are a combatant, they are a terrorist. They are specific we for war crimes, otherwise we blur a very important line between civilian courts and military courts. Host the policy of the u. S. In terms of military commissions is it clearer now than it was in 2002 . Guest is a little bit clearer partly because congress has gotten back in the picture. When president bush gratis commissions and a 2001, they were primarily unilateral. There was very little direction from congress, and part of why the Supreme Court in the hamdan case struck them down was because president bush had sort of done too much along. He had alone. He had deviated too far from what congress had previously authorized pre9 11. Now, there are still a couple of questions on the margins about whether specific offenses, conspiracy, providing Material Support to terrorism, whether these are war crimes and therefore triable by military commission, but there is no weston at the core of the commission is at least within the historical scope of what is permissible. There are of course residual questions about the procedures the commissions are following, whether those are sufficient. Host you were involved in the hamdan case. Are you still evolving cases involving detainees . Guest a little bit. I do not have client, but there are challenges here in washington, i have filed a couple of amicus briefs. There are hard questions Going Forward about the permissible scope of military commissions and the role of the court in these cases. There is still a lot of work to be done. The core has been increasingly settling of romney notion of what the government is doing is legal, whether or not it is a policy that is wise. Settled around the notion of what the government is doing is legal. Caller i am so amazed at stephen. My hero was William F Buckley junior at yale, and he was a theicipant in the of law, even though he was not a lawyer. My reasoning from your person on all his viewst are in the classroom. All his views are in the classroom, and it is not a matter of guilt or innocence it is a matter of retrospect in the classroom because the students are just getting their grades. But if you put them out in guantanamo bay, like the , that is what they called emotional suicide. He should understand this. I do not know if he has been in the military, i do not know if he has been a war, but the percussion is like classical music. When you hear the percussions of music as opposed to war, it is a matter of discontentment in the whole world. Got rich, i will let you there. You are a professor at the American University. These issues one up in your classroom . Guest and constitutional law, obviously, there are hard questions about the proper relationship between executive ranch in the course during wartime. There are hard questions about what the federal courts are supposed to do in these cases. One of the more fascinating things about the last decade has been that we have been asked to answer legal questions and policy questions that really have seldom arisen in the history of this country. Therek in those contexts, is nobody with the requisite experience. Nobody has had the right background to actually say all things considered, what is the best way forward. What are the most important things we have learned over the last 12 years is how useful it is to have all sites, perspectives from all sides. The former guantanamo commander who says it is the mistake, and then those commanders who think it is the best thing weve ever thought of. I do not know anybody who can claim to have all of the answers. If nothing, i think also what we have learned is the importance of educating not just my students but the entire American Public about why these questions matter, why we should actually care about the plight of a noncitizen in guantanamo. Host Stephen Vladeck teaches law at the American University, appreciate you joining us is going to talk about guantanamo. Guest thank you, bill. Host that will deliver this mornings program. We are back tomorrow 7 00 eastern. Tomorrows program, we will hear on. M christine hanse she is with americans for prosperity. Alex wayne is with bloomberg news, and yet the latest numbers in terms of the enrollment in the Affordable Care act, and we will hear from Charlie Ornstein with republica, prescription drugs under medicare, tomorrow morning, washington journal every day beginning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] host we will see you here tomorrow at 7 a. M. Hope you enjoy your rest of your weekend. Today on cspan, newsmakers with Kentucky Republican representative harold rogers. On thethleen sebelius healthcare law and the health care website, healthcare. Gov. Then treasury secretary jack lew testifying about the system. We want to welcome back to. Niel newhauseto newsmakers Daniel Newhauser is a reporter for a roll call. Derek wallbank is with bloomberg news. Thank you for being here. Capital ist of the julius. They are both saying this will avert any shutdown fears for january 15 and possibly for october 1 as well. Thatno