Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140330

Number to call is 202 5853882. You can send us a tweet cspanwj or join us on our Facebook Page at facebook. Com cspan, or send us an email. Already many of you are weighing in on this topic on facebook. A couple of comments from josh saying keeping our Young Americans out of pointless wars keep it up, president obama. Bonnie says what Foreign Policy . He has none. Good morning on the sunday. We want to begin with an assessment of where the president is after his weeklong trip that included stops in brussels, the netherlands and italy. Joining us here in washington is fred kempe the president and ceo of the Atlantic Council will stop we appreciate you being with us on this sunday morning. Guest it is a pleasure. Host let me begin with the broader if it issue, the president beginning a significant amount of time in europe, trying to realign our relations in light of what is happening in ukraine. Guest steve, first of all we have got to remember that president s do not choose the moments in their two terms when they are going to make history. George w. Bush did not choose 9 11, and although an invasion of crimea is not 9 11, barack obama has not chosen that will stop i would argue that the last week was the most important week of the obama presidency. I would argue that partly because of what obama himself said in brussels in his excellent speech there. Three things at play what is the greatest accomplishment of the United States during the 20th century, the victory of world war ii the victory in the cold war, and then the enlargement of the europepoland prix. Number two, our greatest asset for the 21st century is our alliance and nato and our relationship with the European Union the greatest and largest economic relationship in the world. That is at stake here too. Finally, president obama really nailed it when he said in brussels that this is about the moment of testing for europe and the United States and the this is about the international order. We at the Atlantic Council believe we are adamant collection point that is just as important as 9019, 1945 1989 big shift of political and economic influences the 19th century. We will shape the coming years with our allies or they will be shaped by less benevolent actors or perhaps a leadership voice. This is a moment of testing, and obama said that very clearly. A very important trip and he laid out all of those arguments and also what he would do about them. Host we will have some of the highlights of the president s speech this past week, the entire week and events on our website at cspan. Org. Fred kempe will be joining us for the next 45 to 50 minutes. Lets put events into perspective because later today there is a key maybe between senator estate kerry and russian Prime Minister law vrov. He bypassed his parents his plans to come back. Prime minister lavrov says we have no intention or interest in crossing ukraines borders. Do you believe this . Guest we have to go back to president Ronald Reagan were he said trust verify. Vladimir putin told Angela Merkel he was not going to go into crimea. We were told the same thing. We have to look at this with some doubt. Particularly when you have between 80000 and 100,000 Russian Troops between 30 and 100 kilometers of the ukrainian border. If you look at what is there with those troops, you have hospitals, spare parts, extra medicine, the russians have taken steps to conceal their movements, and when you are doing exercises, you do not do that. To reassure your partners, you make sure they can see be movements by satellite. All the things that happen taken place on the ukrainian borders which exist would suggest that they are either there to intimidate the ukrainians or to do more, and i think at this point we have to keep both of those options open. Host as your website points out , nearly 100,000 Russian Troops now located along the ukraine border. Guest that is right. In they cannot stay there forever. Would you deploy troops in that fashion, you can do one of three things. You can either send them into an invasion mode, you can have them exercise, or you have to pull them back. You cannot sustain a number of troops in that sort of position for a lengthy period of time. We learned that ourselves. Host robert kagan has a piece in the Washington Post, he calls it president obamas foreignpolicy paradox. He framed a primarily on domestic issues, of course the Affordable Care act will be front and center again this week, and yet recent polls and Robert Kagans words show his handling of Foreign Policy as dismal. Guest it is a paradox. I read that piece. I thought it was excellent. The paradox is in many ways the president obama is giving the American People what the polling says they want. It is not want to be in iraq any longer, asking serious questions about a broad we have robbed of building a home. Nation building a home is very popular thing. At this point in their presidencies, though clinton was at 57 approval rate for foreignpolicy. George h. W. Bush was over 50 , and Ronald Reagan was also at that level. You have to ask why is present obama down at 35 36 if you look at the cbs poll in the pew poll. People may not be happy that they are not engaged elsewhere but retreat does not inspire a great deal of enthusiasm among the American People. I think the American People are asking themselves some very serious questions about what will be the cost and longer term for us if we pull back too far. They dont want to have a military engagement in syria but is there another way to go forward. No one wants to send troops or have a new cold war with ukraine, but is there another way to defend our interests with our allies . I think the president has got to be looking at these numbers and seeing that the American People dont want to send their men and women into harms way yet again, but on the other hand do want the president to exercise global leadership. Host this is the cover story of cq weekly, titled mind the gap. The u. S. Is scrambling to mend fences with european allies and forge a unified response to russias landgrab in ukraine. [video clip] he said that he considers the breakup of the soviet union to be tragic. I think there is a strong sense of russian nationalism and a sense that somehow the west is taking advantage of russia in the past, and he wants to in some fashion reversed that or make up for that. What i have repeatedly said is that he may be entirely misreading the west. He is certainly misreading american foreignpolicy. We have no interest in circling russia and we have no interest in ukraine beyond letting the ukrainian people make their own decisions about their own lives and it is true that we reject the notion that there is a sphere of influence along the russian border that then justifies russia invading other countries. Host the president on cbs news friday. Fred kempe, your response. Guest it is true that putin views the collapse of the soviet union at the biggest disaster of the 20th century. That is saying a lot because world war i, world war ii, the holocaust all happened in the 20th century, so that says a lot, and i think he truly does believe that. The question is what pieces can he put back together . For him taking crimea is not going to be enough. He really has to figure out a way to bring ukraine back into the russian sphere not annexing it, but guided into the russian sphere of influence. On that front, president obama did three important things this week. First of all he did rally his nato allies, and he did promise article five support. That means if you are attacked as a nato ally, we will defend you. Two, our allies nearest the russian border, estonia, latvia, with a when you come up , there really lithuania poland, they are really nervous. Second, that alongnot only survives but also thrive. You have a support package from the imf, 14 billion more they do, that as up to more than what the russians were promising earlier. Ukraine has a fair chance to do well economically. What is unclear is how does he answer and this is what you were getting at president clinton . Putin . Can you determine 03 action with economic sanctions and pain and with hits to prestige and withdrawal or suspending of russias part of the patient and the g8 . That is a big question that we do not know the answer to, but we had the phone call with gluten and we slowed on the conversation at least for the moment. Host lets try to put this in perspective based on your book a berlin 1961, and see you what president Kennedy Facebook in the 1960s and what obama faces now. The tripwire that would be sprung for a war would go nuclear in a heartbeat. Host what are the lessons or parallels . Guest thank you for quoting from the book. The book is done as well as its done and it is now in 13 languages because they central argument that it made which was a bit of a breakthrough argument, and that is that it was khrushchevs perception of president kennedys weakness during the berlin crisis of 1961 when the berlin wall was built that led to the cuban missile crisis a year later. In other words, khrushchev thought kennedy would look the other way and allow missiles Nuclear Missiles to be based 100 miles off the florida shore because of what he was able to get away with in berlin. There is an application to today. Crimea is not cuba, is not as close to american soil. And narrow assessment of our interest was a why should we do anything in ukraine, why should we help ukraine, but what we have learned is if we stand back at moments like this to my things will escalate, and then leaders will take other steps. A couple of our most important allies have told me that they believe putin felt empowered to do what he has done in ukraine because of president obamas lack of action in syria after the chemical weapons use when he drew his redline saying that this was a redline where we would respond and then he stepped back. That is not my view that is the view of an allied foreign minister who feels very strongly that wastey. I do think there are applications today were it if you are seen as being accepting of and act of aggression you can very often invite further acts of aggression from the same party. Host the headline this morning from the Washington Post in Eastern Ukraine, fearing the worst if russia invades. And again, and says my scoutos and again, a quote. Lets get to listeners calls and comments as we look back at the president s week in europe and saudi arabia and assess the president s foreignpolicy. Bob is 20th in philadelphia. Good morning, republican line. Caller hi. Good morning. Thank you for cspan and thank you for taking my call. This guy, our president , unfortunately is extremely naive. The bullies in china and in russia receive him as being extremely weak. They will push and push and push because they know they will get away with it. That is unfortunate. That is what we have. Thank you for taking my call. Host bob, thank you. We go to mike in new york city. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am a professor at the School President obama graduated from undergraduate. Why tell my students it is not what they say that is important it is what they dont say. The army came out and said that the russians in a war conflict could sync all of our carriers within four hours. I think the situation with president obama has lost moral standing. We have gone into two wars that we have laws. We have one million dead in iraq, men, women, and children. We have a failsafe that laid more bombs on iraq than we laid on monti, germany. Now putin goes into crimea and there is not one person killed there are no bombs dropped. It is their naval base for a couple hundred years. The last when i want to bring out about president obama is that he tends i am rating saudi arabia, and what is not brought out in the press is that we are funding army and training religious extremists on behalf of Saudi Arabians going to syria. You can solve an economic war but you have got a religious war going on, backed by the saudi s, pitting sunnis against the sheiites. Northern ireland has been a conflict over protestant versus catholic for 300 years. This is not going to be solved. What i object to obama is why dont he bring to the American Public do we want to have secret military bases in saudi arabia to put a foreign extremists in syria . Saudi arabia themselves our response will for this problem in syria. Host mike, you teach at columbia university, i suspect . Caller very close. Host what is your class or classes . Caller i started with a phd in history and then i went to the nba program, so i teach the secondyear mbas. Host thank you for adding your voice to the program. We appreciate it. Lets go to catherine from the bronx. Good morning. Caller good morning, gentlemen. President obama is a grownup. We are used to going to wars thinking we can solve every problem. We cannot solve every problem. We need a collective. What president obama did this week is get everybody on board without panicking, without pushing buttons, without going to war. Our soldiers are not toy soldiers. We have been in war what, 10 years. It is ridiculous. America, you have got to realize this man is a grownup. He needs help from all of us. All we do is complain when he does something that we dont like or when we perceive that he is weak. Host catherine, thank you very much for the call. Lets go to this point from cq weekly making up is hard to do, the essay, with the rest Europe Alliance suffering from neglect and the nsa scandal, the president faces high hurdles and forcing a united response. One of the points from Jonathan Broder is that our european allies have felt neglected by this president over the last 5. 5 years. Guest i think a lot of that is right, it is even more pronounced in germany where the nsa revelations that chancellor merkels cell phone has been listened to, has become a longlasting national sewer, and it does play a role right now when they are looking at russia and theyre getting over one third of their Energy Deliveries from russia, so they are going to look at this entire situation much differently. That also shows what opportunity there is here in every crisis, there is also an opportunity. When we stood up to the soviet blockade of berlin in 1948 and did the airlift that save the city and probably ended up saving germany and ultimately setting the stage for german unification, we did not know how that would turn out, but what followed it was the establishment of nato among the european coal and steel community, which began the European Union. So there was a crisis that turned into longrange structures that promote democracy. We have to look at this crisis in much the same way. Nato does need some reinvigoration. We thought that the time of dangers and security dangers in europe were gone. We are now facing the biggest European Security threat since the end of the cold war so we have to take care not only of our nato house but also taking a look at something new called the transatlantic trade and investment partnership, which is currently being negotiated. This would be the biggest trade and investment deal in the world between the two largest economies in the world, the European Union and the United States. Many people in america do not realize the European Union is actually a larger economy than the United States, 17 trillion against 16 trillion. If this comes together along with another set of negotiations, the transpacific partnership, we will end up with two thirds of the World Economy under the kind of trade and investment rules that we can live with. And then we are setting up for a proper future, and this is the sort of the store legacy that president obama has within reach and could conclude by a second term. Host we welcome our listeners on cspan radio. The scary this rober miscarried coasttocoast on channel 120. Our guest is right hip, is fred kempe, president ceo of Atlantic Council and the author of a number of books including berlin 1961. This is from the Washington Post this morning, looking at crimea and the yalta conference that took place back in 1940 five. Interesting perspectives. One of the notes on the state, secretary of state William Seward purchased alaska from russia. The price tag 7. 2 million. Fred kempe, any thoughts on that . Guest first of all, that is a great deal. Let me say one thing about the point of history, and for any history teachers out there, i would say, put in front of your students this week the two speeches that have been given in the last couple of ways. A lotVladimir Putins and speech in red square and president obama speech in brussels. To see totally different ways of looking at the world and the kind of dangers that that rate ises in a situation where we do not have a good way of talking to each other for sub during the cold war, we had structures, dialogs in place. We knew how to handle each Others Nuclear weapons and the questions of deterrence. This is a new world and therefore it is more dangerous because we are getting into it. What i liked in terms of history, and let me just read one sentence from president obama speech because he says russias leadership is challenging truths that only a few weeks ago seemed selfevident but in the 21st century, the borders of europe cannot be redrawn with force but International Law matters. The people it and nations can make own decisions about their own future. A very important speech. These two speeches should be read by history classes all across america. Host here is more from a speech this past week as the president addressed young people in brussels. The entire speech, 40 minutes, on our website at cspan. Org. [video clip] one of the things i said in the past and will repeat again and i bet the secretarygeneral agrees with me, if we have got collective defense, it means everybody has got to chip in, and i have had some concerns about a diminished level of defense spending among some of our partners in nato not all but many. The trend lines have been going down. That is understand what would you have an economic crisis and financial crisis and many hunters are going through fiscal consolidation, but the situation in ukraine reminds us that our freedom is not free, and we have got to be willing to pay for the access, the personnel, the training that is required to make sure that we have a credible nato force and an effective deterrent force. Host fred kempe on a point in which the president basically said we will do our part, but europe basically need to do more of its parts. Guest that is absolutely true. After that speech, there were announcements in latvia and lithuania and increases in defense spending it is not sustainable domestically in the United States for president obama to do more for European Security van the europeans are willing to do. This has to be redressed and addressed. It is going to be very interesting to see how this plays out because we have been thinking about russia as a flawed western states, and if only we could integrate them over time, which i think should still be our hope and dream, and i would think most of the russian public would welcome that if they can come about. At the same time, putin is asking at acting as a spoiler, acting as it antiwestern leader. I think this will create a much different nato summit in wales. The nato summit was going to be based on what we do now after and get after afghanistan. We ended be deployment and it is now time for the withdrawal. I think we will be talking a lot more now about European Security in article five, the defense of European Security is up i feel nato will be going back to basics. Guest after host after that speech coming here is more from the president after he spoke to young people in belgium. [video clip] of course, neither the United States or europe are perfect and adherence to our ideas. Nor do we claim to be the sole arbiter of what is right or wrong in the world. We are human, after all and we face difficult decisions about how to exercise our power part of what makes our power, and part of what makes we look to the east and the thousands he nations poised to play a growing role on the world stage, and we consider that a good thing. It reflects the same diversity that makes us stronger as a nation and the forces of integration and cooperation that europe has advanced four decades. And in a world of challenges that are increasingly global all of us have an interest in nations stepping forward to play their part, to bear their share of the burden, and to uphold international norms. So our approach stands in stark contrast to the arguments coming out of russia these days. It is absurd to suggest that the steady drumbeat of russian voices do, that america is somehow conspiring with fascists inside ukraine, for failing to respect the russian people. Host a portion of the 40 minute form policy speech you were alluding to a moment ago. Guest first of all, i hope and a future show you my put that speech against the Vladimir Putin speech because it is a very interesting contrast, but let me say one thing about the speech where president obama proactively took on russias allegations about the u. S. Approach, and also some comments have been made a home by analyst ts here. Some say what russia is doing in crimea is when nato did in kosovo and the war in ko sovo. President obama said that is not true. You had a genocidal situation where nato only step in quite reluctantly when there was a situation where one has to save lives. The situation with the right to russian nationals in ukraine is trumped up it is just not there. He made that clear that was his view while coast ofkosovo was a different situation. President obama said look, i am against the iraq war, but look at where we are in iraq right now. Iraq is taking care of its own future. There are no u. S. Troops left in iraq. It is deciding itself and the people of iraq are deciding themselves what track they want to take. So one can be critical of the u. S. Military action in iraq as many people in the United States are, but one cannot compare that with the potential kremlin intentions toward the ukraine. President obama proactively took on his critics that way without them having to raise it themselves in brussels. Host let me go back to some of our viewers called in, they get your reaction to the assessment of former terry former secretary of state condi rice. First, joe has this point saying be whole lesson of the cold war was it was based on mistrust and misunderstanding. Walter is joining us here in washington, d. C. Good morning. Caller good morning, cspan and good morning to your guess. I think that diplomacy and as some of these cowards on the right keep alluding to the fact that we are not the strongest in the world was up i am sorry. It is tragic for me because as i sit with my father here, a korean veteran, and we communicate with each other this is the problem in this country that we are always right. I believe your guess knows that we are not always right. My question to him is how do we respond to these cowards on the right, or these Chicken Hawks who just do not get it . We are not going to run the world, nor should we allow russia to, but the idea that we have neglected our own basic infrastructure to provide a military complex that is draining as dry. Host walter, thank you for the call. We will get a response from our guest, fred kempe. Guest sure, let me take that on. First of all to your father, the korean veteran, we are now in a situation where south korea is a democracy, south korea is free, south korea is one of the most vibrant economic Success Stories of the asian region and has brought a lot of stability to that region. We still have our problems, as you know, with north korea. The only Nuclear State that have actually been testing Nuclear Weapons over the last couple of decades. I think we did play a role there where your father should be proud. In terms of exceptionalism, the United States has never defined National Interests or has not always defined National Interests narrowly. We are very unusual as a rate world power in that respect. We have a Second Chance in history, which is very rare for a great power, to shape the global system. We had that in 1945, and the result of us caring about something beyond our borders resulted in the United Nations and nato, the european coal and steel committee, the imf the world bank. A lot of the structures that really hold the structure together now. If we do step back now, and there is a difference between exceptionalism and reality, and the reality is that we do step back now we do have to face the reality that either less benevolent actors will shape the future, and we will not like the outcome of that, or there is going to be a Leadership Void because there is no one to fill our shoes. We do have reduce resources, and strategy is the leveraging of available resources. We do have to think about what our global strategy is where we cant do everything. Once we do that, it becomes clearer why do we do in ukraine, what do we do in syria what is important and not important. It is important to really frame and National Strategy that the American People will get behind, realizing that we could do just fine as the United States and a global crisis, probably better than most other countries in the world. On the other hand, we do have some obligations internationally where we will pay a longterm price if we disengage too precipitously. Host we are talking with fred kempe, the president ceo of Atlantic Council. There is the story this money from the Washington Post as the election is about a week away in afghanistan for the successor of president karzai, the headline is afghanistan after karzai. Carol has this point on our twitter page the president said afghanistan was the good war. How has that worked out . Lets go to dianne from tallahassee, florida, good morning. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. Being a thirdgeneration floridian, we have struggled with billing issues. I am curious, as i believe at 43 years of age the United States is a wonderful gateway to have brought our World Community together. Where do we stand with . Poland . In light of everything is going on we have gateways, panama canal, shipping lanes, land, air, and sea. Where do we and thank you sir, for bringing about alaska the bering strait. We dont all or purchase land. We borrow it from our children. So for generations to come, the unspoken heroes need to be recognized too. Host thank you, diane. Guest let me answer the question on because poland is one of our eras great Success Stories. It lost its sovereignty for many years. It was divided before being under soviet rule by difference in players. We now have a situation where poland is not one of the most successful economies in europe it now has to be viewed much less of a Central European state or an east european state and much more as one of the leaders of the European Union because the poles themselves experience democratic change. As a journalist, i was able to cover that for newsweek and then the wall street journal, and i have to say the poland people inspire me during that period of time when they were able to fight for a dream that they have now achieved, including members of nato, members of the the European Union, a very vibrant democracy. They believe in democracy as people do who have newly received it. They are one of our best partners on the world stage when we work at democracy promotion and advancement. So i am glad the caller asked about poland because i think they are also one of the leaders in thinking about what we do with neighboring ukraine. Clearly a stable western oriented democratic ukraine is in polands interest because it then becomes a stable state between poland and russia rather than an unstable state that is in turmoil right on the polish borders. Host a couple of comments from our viewers and listeners. This is from didi fredericks who says yes, we are in full heartedly destroying our economy order to make things perfect around the world. And from our Facebook Page, this is from banality my thoughts are that the president s Foreign Policy is far superior to that of his failed republican predecessors, hands down john has this point it seems to be working well for russia, iran, and syria the usa not so much. Join our conversation on facebook. Com cspan. Let me share with you comments of former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice committee story Available Online at Weekly Standard. She says right now there is a vacuum. There is a vacuum because we have decided to lower our voice. We have decided to step back. We have decided if we step back and lower voice, we will others will lead and fill that vacuum. When america steps back in there is a vacuum, trouble will fill that vacuum. She also added that lowering your voice, referring to the president , is not leadership. Guest you know, its very interesting listening to secretary rices point of view and also some of your twitter feeds, which shows tension in the United States right now. We had it easy during the cold war because we had an enemy that was cleared as communism that was globally oriented and in the end and effective. It is much more difficult to explain to the American People now why we have to have a Global Presence and how we have to exercise that Global Presence. Secretary bob gates, former defense secretary wrote in the Washington Post that this is the time for American Leadership because we have to explain to the American People what is at stake. It is not obvious at first glance. I think it is true that if we step back, it is not automatic that a set of other players is going to fill the void and everything is going to turn out just fine so we have to remain engaged, but we have to be engaged in a different way. We have 18 of global gdp. In 1945 as we started the marshall fund, we had 50 of global gdp. That means that we have to work more closely with partners. We have to share the burden with others, but we still have to lead. Host with regard to secretary rice and lowering our voice lowering the debt is not leadership . Guest it depends on what you call lowering your voice. We have traveled around the world with the mission of the National Intelligence council looking at global trends, what the world is going to look like through 2030. We have gone to more than 20 countries talking to elites about what to expect of American Leadership. Interestingly enough, we did not find people wanted less america, they wanted a different america. So they want more American Leadership, they just want a more collaborative American Leadership and a leadership that understands how dramatically the world has changed will stop but we has changed. But we rarely hear less. It is more in concert with other actors. Host lets get to more viewers calls, and comments. At a story us and washington d. C. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for your guess. You have the person the perfect person on. There is so much misinformation about the residents regarding anything. Your guest today withrow clarity has shown that the president is making all the right moves in my opinion. Host thank you for the call. Our next call is from chisholm, minnesota. Good morning. Caller good morning. I spent one month in europe, and i within eastern slovakia. As a matter fact, i drove to the border. My point is one of the things by the way, i participated in pragues spring in 1968, and i was over there during the invasion. My point is that i think one of the big mistakes we made that we made fun of putin and his olympics and so she. In sochi. If we had used different diplomatic approach with him and sort of try to talk a lot more and dont knock him down, how much money he spent and so on and so forth, in my opinion, i thought he would have ended up in our corner. Host thank you for calling. Guest there is a healthy debate that goes on regarding russia and whether we did enough at the end of the cold war to integrate russia. There is no doubt that president putin feels a lot of resentment and a lot about rage about how russia was treated at that period of time. The feeling that nato was moved to the russian borders. The feeling that russias interests not taken into account enough. The other argument against that is the west reached out to russia. The tried to engage russia more closely with nato through the nato plus one talks with russia. It has brought russia the wto will stop the argument goes we did not choose the kremlin should stand down on Free Expression and take actions against its political opponents. Why did not create the oligarchs and russia russians did that. It is a great healthy debate, and looking back is useful so we do not get things wrong in the future. But we are where we are, and we are in a situation where the west would still like to engage with nato. Nato is not as defensive an alliance as putin would like to paint it otherwise. Now we have to do with the russia that we havent over the short term, we have a situation that is quite dangerous, but in the medium term, we have a country that is written resources, and like, and capabilities, which would be a Wonderful Partnership to the west and in many respects a natural partner for the west Going Forward, so it is quite important that we navigate this for a dangerous moment in the right way because ultimately it strikes me if you look at where russian businessmen are looking where they are investing, where they have their house is, where they are sending their children to school that there is a natural affiliation with the west that i think a time will come about if we can just avoid the worst right now. Host we have another eight minutes to 10 minutes with our guest, fred kempe, as we size up the president Foreign Policy following his weeklong trip in the netherlands, brussels, italy, and overnight in saudi arabia. I want to share with you comments of two of the president s fiercest critics here in washington. First from senator lindsey graham. He said out a tweet that continues to get attention putin basically came to the conclusion after benghazi, syria, and egypt that everything obama has been engaged in is that he is a week, and decisively there a weak, indecisive leader. And this from senator john mccain with a German Television reporter. [video clip] well, there is concern about ukraine, there is concern about putins rather aggressive behavior. There is clearly a perception that the United States is withdrawing from parts of the world. I think that is one of the reasons why the president of germany made the statement that he made about maybe greater involvement by the federal republic of germany in World Affairs may be necessary. So, look, tensions are high. In iraq, 96 american soldiers and marines and 600 wounded in the second battle of falluja. Now the black flags of al qaeda are flying over a falluja. That is hard to explain to the families of those who sacrificed. Russia is needed to solve many of the problems that are being discussed here at the forum. Are you convinced there is any prospect for real cooperation with russia Going Forward . Not unless the russians are convinced that we are steadfast that we will take certain actions such as Missile Defense and others. Right now, they believe that we are not very strong. President obama told medvedev, tell president obama i will be more flexible when i am reelected. We are almost rudderless as far as our Foreign Policy is concerned. Host let me get your reaction, fred kempe. Almost rudderless, indecisive. What critics have been saying with regard to Foreign Policy. Guest i do not buy that. Lets look at this in a different fashion. President obama was hoping to redress a lot of our International Problems by ending military engagements that were unpopular with the American People and by engaging with adversaries in a way that he thought would explore possibilities of improving relationships. When you can improve a relationship with a longstanding adversary, nothing is more preferable. With iran, i think the jury is still out. We will see where the negotiations are, what we are in talks with iran, which is better than being at war with iran. On russia, we did have a policy that it pr that did produce some good. On the other hand, the president has reached the conclusion that the engagement it with putin has not turned out the way he wanted it to. The previous leader, president medvedev, seem to be a row cooperative leader. He wrote ships took place when putting it back into power. So i think the effort and engagement with russia was the right one, but now he also has to reach the right conclusion which is that it has not worked and if we do not shift our approach, and i hope president obama will continue on his tax cut my thing last week, as i said, was the most important week of his presidency, that will be made all the more important is it if his rhetoric is followed with consistent action ain ukraine and buttressing nato and the invasion of ukraine a for his own wellbeing he pulls back because he sees that those around him will see that his actions are bad for business and that for russias economic interests. Lets not forget that russia had 70 billion of flight capital in the First Quarter of this year. More money was less than one day in the Russian Stock Exchange then through the 50 billion spent on the sochi olympics, so there is some pain being felt. It is not as great as it could be in the real question is does he look at that and say you know i have gone part of, it is time to pull back . Host one of the many photographs on fredkempe. Com including this iconic picture from 1959, Vice President Richard Nixon with khrushchev, the famous kitchen debate. The question i have is this really did but throughout the early and mid20th century, this distrust between russia, the soviet union, and now the russian federation. Guest distrust and also khrushchev felt humiliated by next and in the kitchen debate just like president putin to a certain extent also feels humiliated. I do think we have to watch how people read us and read our intentions. Khrushchev went from feeling humiliated to feeling that president kennedy was weak and therefore he could act in cuba. This kind of misreading and miscalculation, and president kennedy in his vienna summit, very famous vienna summit, june 1961 with khrushchev, repeated the words miscalculation miscalculation over and over again because he wants to make sure that khrushchev did not miscalculate at the american intentions, but he did anyway and we got to the cuban missile crisis. Putin is on the same track where he is assuming that there will be no response from the u. S. And may go so far that we get into an even more dangerous situation. Host this question what exactly should the u. S. Expect from our european allies . Guest the one thing we have to expect as unity both in terms of understanding the danger we are facing as a common danger in ukraine, and we got that last week in terms of unity of attitude. The fact that the g7, the most important democracies in industrial countries invited russia out of the g8 meeting for right now, so that is not going to happen. It was a very important sign. The other thing is a sense of urgency, and im not sure we have a wheelie in europe. Im not sure we have a completely in the United States that one has to ask now and one has to respond strongly now regarding ukraine or pay the price later. I think we have come a long way but europe itself, 28 countries of the European Union rarely agree with each other on anything entirely, and pulling them all together now where they have differing degrees of economic relations with russia many of them are enormously dependent on Russian Energy its going to be a problem. There is one positive sign, and that is there are some very important talks taking place between the u. S. And europe over a new Energy Policy where overtime we can leverage our riches and natural gas and shale gas for lng deliveries to europe. Now, that wont help or another two years or three years, but markets will already see that and will see that there are possibilities to diversify Energy Resources in europe, which longerterm is going to be the only way that one gets a healthy relationship with russia. Host let me conclude on two points, fred kempe. The meeting will be taking place in paris between secretary kerry and russian minister lavrov. What, if anything, will come out of todays session . Guest what was troublesopmme on friday with the readout between what happened in the hourlong talks between president clinton and president obama. President obama three that was about the search for diplomatic solution. President putins redoubt was on the extremists of ukraine that were threatening russians and also looking to new problems in the ethnic russian area of moldova. This is a row gap that needs to be filled, but when one is talking about is a federal structure for ukraine and nonaligned situation poor ukraine. If that means no European Union Association Agreement or no European Union membership in the future, i dont think ukraine would accept that. He wrote question is can they reach enough agreement in negotiations, that talks go on and the Russian Troops step back a little bit from their visions in Eastern Ukraine . That would be the best outcome of all and we will certainly get some good reading on that if not later on today then tomorrow. Host we refer to the piece by robert kagan in the Washington Post, titled the president for paradox. He touched on some of the things we have been talking about. Let me share with you part of what he said. He says the majority of americans have opposed any meaningful u. S. Role in syria have wanted to lessen u. S. Involvement in the middle east generally, are eager to see the tide of war receded, and what like to focus on nationbuilding here at home. This is essentially what the president is dealing with what he looks at his own poll numbers. Showing his handling Foreign Policy down yet majority of american saying it is time to focus inward. Guest american leaders have to walk and chew gum at the same time, and i think president obama understands that it is doing that. If you look at the last time we had a real isolationist instinct, it was in the 1930s, it was after world war i, and we see the result of what happened. World war ii, the holocaust, the rise of fascism. Now, this is a different period of time. Im not predicting that is going to happen, but we have a much more globalized world in a much more globalized economy. That makes it much more difficult for americans to be isolationists, which is ultimately underlying instinct of this country. I do not think we will go in that direction. I think americans do want an activist american Foreign Policy, but they want one that they see as effective in not too high a cost. So i do think this is an inflection point, and i think the president coming days will find that how he addresses the russia situation, ukraine situation could be the testing point not just for europe and the United States but really also for his legacy and for his presidency. Host fred kempe, where can people follow you on twitter . Guest fredkempe, and they can also look at the Atlantic Council, at atlanticcouncil. Org. A lot of weve talked about is core to the Atlantic Council a 50yearold organization. Host and your latest book berlin 1961, lessons from the cold war. Thank you for being here on cspan. Guest thank you, steve. Host we will continue with your calls and comments on the president s Foreign Policy. One of our viewers resolving the ukraine vigorously without war will be long and difficult. Obama is best to permanently suited for the work. Heres a headline on the sunday morning began with the state newspaper in south carolina, a race that is getting a lot of attention. We made reference earlier to senator lindsey graham. How graham, foes stand on key issues. Houston chronicle Immigration Reform and be on the back burner as House Republicans face a discharge position from house democrats, obviously not the votes necessary to force a vote on immigration despite the push by the president and democrats. From the Detroit Free Press lesson for being executives and what is called the 08 fiasco. And from the Orange County register the aftershocks heat nerves on edge. That 5. 1 earthquake that hit california. And this from the Chicago Tribune 100 years of wrigley field. Marcel is joining us from arlington, virginia, republican line. Good morning. Caller yes, sir, i think mr. Kemp ashas an overly positive approach to this problem. I think realistically that when putin sees that the president took out the Missile Defense in poland as he and celtic knowledge that we have as he himself acknowledged that we have left europe to its own devices for the last four years or five years and put our emphasis elsewhere, that the president also has led in syria assad crossed the red line even though there has been a chemical negotiations we seems to have lost that initiative early on. I really think that europeans have not done what we have asked them to over the last eight years to 10 years, and that is to put their share into nato. We are really going into this in a very defensive and i think losing weight because the russians are willing to put their troops right where they are now, and we are just talking. So thank you so much. Host appreciate the call. Bill is joining us from dallas texas. Good morning. Welcome to the program. Caller oh, yes, you said bill, that threw me for a second. Host i apologize. Caller no problem. There have been several mentions of Richard Kagan host robert kagan. Caller of course. 10 years to 12 years ago he and his brother and sister, who were frequent on cspan, were among the biggest promoters of the invasion of iraq, which has turned into another disaster. Kagan was also married to vittorio newland, who Hillary Clinton brought into her office oddly enough in dick cheneys office. Host thank you. Ukraine doesnt want the you or russia. Stuck in the middle of both. Gop elite hoping to learn jeb bush, reporting from Philip Rucker and another saying while publications have remained private, bush has dodged questions about presidency. He says im going to ignore that one, but he is considering a potential bid for the white house according to the Washington Post, and we will have more details later, but edward is joining us from woodstock, vermont. Democrats line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have to say it is so sad to see these people on the right act the way they do. They act as if history started when president obama was elected. With all the technology that we have these days, you would think the population would become more informed, but it is just being used as a tool of misinformation. If you look at iraq these republicans were warned what would happen if you got rid of saddam how it would destabilize the region there, how it would turn iraq into one big iran. Now there is no buffer between syria and they did not look at these consequences. They blame obama. He pleaded with congress and made a speech. He said how he would like to intervene. They destroyed some of assads infrastructure. Cspan should go back and play the responses. World war iii was going to start with the russians. He was arming terrorists. He did not act on his red line. Then they say he is weak in the ukraine. What is he supposed to do . Now they are not worried about world war iii . They are taking both sides of every issue these days. I think it is terrible. Host thank you for the call. Theres another store in the Washington Post about veterans from iraq and afghanistan. A nationwide poll reveals a profound effect of battle on 2. 6 million americans who served in that conflict. A republican lawmaker from indiana spoke about the issue in a republican weekly address. [video clip] i hear every day from veterans who wait for months for their disability claims to be processed. Unfortunately, this is typical. Average wait times are nearly 330 days. Even worse the backlog is associated with the deaths of thousands of patients waiting for their paperwork to clear. On top of that, their grieving loved ones have to deal with miles of red tape and waiting on the compensation they are owed. These men and women thought for our country. They should not have to fight for their own benefits. We have traced this problem back to a sheer lack of accountability. For example, an audit of an atlanta va hospital shows three preventable deaths. Top officials were to retire early and three were werer eprimanded. In many cases, we have found that managers have received no discipline. They have gotten bonuses too. These pats on the back and slaps on the wrist only protect bureaucrats, enabling him proper behavior and putting our veterans at risk. That is where the v8 accountability act comes into play. This will give the v. A. Secretary the authority he needs to fix things. He can clear out those who need to fix this mess and bring in those who will clean it up. No, this bill will not solve the back log. It is a step in the right traction. Host veterans issue is the subject of the republican response to the president s address. This from the washington freebie can website pointing out the number of suicides among activeduty military personnel equipped the number of casualties in the war on terror in 2012. Young veterans taking their own lives is increasing dramatically. A record 349 members did last year. You can get information on that from freebeacon. Com. Greg from missouri good morning. Caller he has been week. He is lying to the American People. The guy from vermont does not know what he is talking about. Obama has no backbone and putin knows that. He can take obama and do whatever he wants, make its own decisions. I predict that his group will attack iran in the next six months. Host heres this from another viewer putin realizes our distaste for war after bushs bungling of iraq and afghanistan. And cq weekly with a photograph of the president as he addresses young people in brussels. The piece is called making up is hard to do. From its bird, missouri p ittsburgh, missouri my comment in reference to ukraine who is behind giving information to the president . The reason why i think that pu tin has reacted he has reacted was not a sign of weakness or the president. But, it was in fear of that said, ukrainians in these former republics and former satellite nations were not protected as well. They are being infringed upon. Host thank you for the call. Another viewer says what does bush have to do with anything . The New York Times republicans enacting new ballot curves in pivotal states. Republicans in ohio, limiting the time the polls are open and trying to cut into weekend voting. Blacks sometimes caravan from churches to polls. Democrats in North Carolina are scrambling to fight back against restrictive voting laws. The measures reduce the number of early voting days and establish rules that make it more difficult for people to register to vote in provisional balance or absentee. Lets go back to this piece by robert costa front page of the Washington Post. A photograph of jeb bush in las vegas support from the republican business advocates. He was a big supporter in 2012 of newt gingrich. The piece points out that many republicans, the most powerful have begun a behind the Scenes Campaign to lower jeb bush to run for president. His advisers insisted that he is not actively exploring a candidacy and will not announce a decision until next year. He has traveled the country delivering speeches for republicans ahead of the midterm elections. He is focusing on income inequality and cultivating ties with wealthy benefactors signals that he is considering a run. Republican mine caller i have two questions. What is the difference in putin going in and taking over ukraine and the u. S. Using Eminent Domain to take anyones property they want . My second question the sanctions. What good are they when obama is taking them and gives them two weeks notice to move their interests around . Tell him that one time in office i will have more flexibility. Wink wink. I wish i could have asked that man. I want somebody to answer me. What good is this . Why can we take are pretty and give it to big businesses . Putin can not just take ukraine . Same thing. Host let me go back to the Weekly Standard piece. Remarks here in washington last week. The president is weak and there is a vacuum in Foreign Policy. He says i understand the extent of wariness. I know that we have been through two wars and we have been vigilant against terrorism. It is hard, but we cannot afford to get tired. Leaders cannot be weary. That is from Condoleezza Rice. Baton rouge louisiana caller it is like this. The people in the United States do not know. They do not know what is going on in the rest of the world. The media in america has been in a blackout for five years. Putin knows that obama is not eligible to be president. That is why he has him over the barrel. He cannot move one bit. If the media and the United States would give us the information that the whole world knows, i have seen it on televisions. I have seen it. Everybody knows it. Nobody will say it. That is why our country is going to the pot. Host this week, voters in washington, d. C. Go to the polls to select a nominee for mayor. The democratic nomination is almost guaranteed victory in november. We want to point out an endorsement. The current mayor is facing his own investigation. This editorial this morning. Muriel bowser offers a promising alternative to vincent gray. Voters in washington will go to the polls on tuesday. Vice President Biden was in new hampshire, drawing speculation on his own potential 2016 president ial run. He also delivered the democratic weekly address. The president was out of town. He is focusing on minimum wage issues. Here is more. [video clip] minimum wage will help with hardworking people rise out of poverty. It is good for business. It is good for the overall economy. And right now women make up more than half of the workers who would benefit from increasing the minimum wage. Hello minimum wage is one of the reasons why women in america make only . 77 on the dollar that every man makes. By raising minimum wage, we can close that gap i five percent. It matters. It matters to a lot of hardworking families, particularly moms raising families on a minimum wage. And it is with the American People want to do. Three out of four americans support raising the minimum wage. They know that this is the right and fair thing to do and the good and for the economy. It is time for congress to get behind the minimum wage goal. The proposal would raise the federal minimum wage to 10. 10 per hour. Host that is Vice President biden delivering the address this week in place of the president , who is traveling to europe and saudi arabia. Looking ahead at the elections slated for may in ukraine. One candidate has dropped out of the race in a profile of one wealthy ukraine industrialist you can read more from the a section of the New York Times. Rob is joining us from illinois. Good morning. Caller love the show. President obama is so used to doing stuff with his phone. He could have gone into syria when they crossed the red line. He went to congress, looking for cover. It was not for that female reporter asking secretary kerry and offhanded remark something wouldve been done. They had a built in excuse. She deserves the freedom of peace medal of honor, whatever. Host your point is . Caller president obamas Foreign Policy is lacking. Host thank you for the call and thank you for all of your calls and comments. The president speech from brussels is available on our website at cspan. Org. He is back in washington this week, as is the house and senate. Tony carrk and the center for American Progress is another deadline rules for americans to file for the aca. And we look at what is ahead for republicans in the tea party as washington journal continues. Back in a moment. Two weeks after the burglary i received a large envelope from the Washington Post. And had a return address of liberty publications pennsylvania. That did not mean anything to me, but it was intriguing. Inside with a cover letter from the Citizens Commission to investigate the fbi. That is the name that the burglars gave each other. What they wrote really was something that a commission appointed by president or attorney general might. They described that they had burglarized and fbi office. They had become concerned that there were informers and antiwar and civil rights organizations. They saw no way to confront this, except by getting evidence. So, they were enclosed and they hoped that i would make public these files. They were sent to five people, two members of congress and three journalists, not named. I started to read them. That enhanced paranoia document stood out. It stood out so much that i was not sure if they were real. It seems like this might be a hoax. On march 8, 1971, a group roped into an fbi office in pennsylvania trip the story tonight at 8 00 on q a. Washington journal continues. Host we welcome tony carrk from the center for American Progress. We want to focus on the Affordable Care act. Tomorrow is the deadline. If you have started the process to apply, you have an extension for the next week or two. At this moment, where are we . Guest we have 6 Million People who have signed up. That is a huge success considering where we started in october. Like you said, there are two more days to sign up. The deadline is march 31. If people have not signed up, i would not wait. Go online now to see what kind of options you have. Pick a plan that fits your needs. People are finding plans that are affordable like 100 a month. We are in a very good spot. It is only Getting Better. We have seen traffic surge over the past week. I think the administration was saying upwards of one million or 1. 5 Million People going onto the website. People are signing up at a faster pace. Things look good. Host this is what the website looks like. One hour one day and 16 hours remain. Explain the announcement last week from hhs. If you start the process and you do not finish tomorrow, there is an extension . Is this extending the deadline . Guest the deadline is march 31. The Administration Says that if you have made an effort, but you could not for no fault of your own, you would be given time. If you are voting and you go into the line and the voting closes at 7 00, but your and mine you will still be allowed to vote. If you are in a store window closes, youre still allowed to shop and check out. That is what the administration was saying. I do not think they have put a timeline on how long, but it is meant to put people through the process. We want to give People Health care that one health care. If they have had trouble getting it before, the administration wants to make that happen. Host how do you know . If i say i tried to sign up and i logged on and could not do it, how can they verify . Guest i think first of all there will be a box on healthcare. Gov that you check that says that you have tried before. This is similar to what they did in december. The deadline to get coverage for january 1 was december 20. This was not out of the ordinary in terms of how they are doing it. Host there is no tracking. It is based on you being truthful. Guest i would think that the motivation of people is wanting to get health care. I dont think that what we have found is that using this tool, there has not been any malice of intent. So, the people that are going on are wanting to get health care. Host let me share with you what the speaker of the house, john boehner, said. [video clip] last night brought us yet another delay of obamacare. Another deadline made meaningless. He has not put enough loopholes in the law already. They are now resorting to an honor system to enforce it. Is this a joke . Listen, this is part of a longterm pattern of this administration manipulating laws for its own convenience. It is not hard to understand why the American People questioned the commitment to the rule of law. Host tony, can you address that . Guest i would like to point out that for the past four years the House Republicans have been on a appeal at all cost wanting to take away the benefits and go back to when Insurance Companies were in charge and could deny you coverage. They could charge women more and put caps on your care. We have to put that on contxext. The administration has made efforts to implement the law as effectively as possible. There have been deadlines changing. There is some pushback. The deadline to enroll is march 31. I encourage people not to wait or think that april 1 or second, that is the time to go on. The time to get coverage is now. Host the aca let me go back to the center for American Progress. Your role in the aca guest what is that . We work with a couple of factors. Were trying to get people covered and get the word out and let people know what their benefits are. A lot of people were unaware that march 31 is the deadline. A lot of people were unaware that there are financial incentives available so you can lower your cost. All of these factors help in terms of getting people more aware of the law and when they have those facts and getting covered. Number two, we are also trying to fix the law against attacks. Were also trying to get the message out. There is a lot of back and forth. With with the speaker is saying trying to get the truth out there, and changing the perception of the law. Host our guest is the Senior Health advisor for the center for American Progress. Tom is joining us from vermont. Caller good morning. I do not know how we can believe anybody. We have the speaker, the majority leader of the senate is lying to us. We have the president of the United States out there telling us lies. We have the head of the health care in front of congress telling us lies. Host those lies are what . Caller there is one my after another. You keep your doctor. Your payments are cheaper. I have two kids. One is 30 and one is 27. They can get jobs and they both have college degrees. They go to interview after interview. Then they have been on this obamacare website, trying to get insurance for months. They still cannot get through. They were on there all weekend. Still cannot get hooked up. I told them to sign up for welfare. Let obama take care of you. There is going to be obama total care. Take care of your paycheck and your rent and your phone. Your tv, your cable. Your internet. Its just obama might as well take care of everything. We can all vote him and it 100 . Host we will get a response. Guest i would say, please continue going onto healthcare. Gov. I know that there is a huge surge of people going on. If the website is not working there is a call center. 18003182196. There are people out there. You can look for people to assist you. People want to help. In terms of the line portion. I would say, do not take president obamas word for it. Do not take senator reed or Speaker Boehner the law is set up that people go on and make their choices for themselves. You can go, look at what plans you have. See what doctors are available. See what tax credits are available and make the decision for yourself. Host lets go to bay city michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. On this obamacare, i have a daughter they canceled their insurance. The copay is terrible. There is no way they can pay them. That is millions of people out there. This guy you have up there is a mouthpiece for obama. Host thank you, jim. Guest i dont know the particulars to that Persons Health care situation. I would say that there are millions of people finding Health Coverage through health care. Gov. About eight in 10 people are finding tax credits to lower the cost for it health care is more than just the premium. You should look at outofpocket cost and adaptable. All of that is there for you. You make the decision. You do not have to listen to what i say or what the president says. You can decide for yourself. Host lets go back to the earlier callers comment. This is one of to one of the promises by the president. He says do not take the president s word why . He told the lie of the year . Gosh. Lets go back to if you keep your health care, you can keep it. Guest the president acknowledged putting things into soundbites sometimes you present things that are misleading. To the fact host that was a major mistake. He said that time and time again. Guest look what he did afterwards. The administration is allowing states to decide whether or not to keep those current plans that were going to be canceled. They just extended further for another two years. Lets take a step back. The point is not only to provide access to coverage for millions of people. There are millions of people walked out of the system because they had a preexisting condition. It was unaffordable to them for that reason. Also the law is there to provide good coverage. This law has covered certain benefits, like hospital stays and maternity care. Dr. Visits. It has to be transparent in terms of what youre paying. It tells you what your copay will be and what your premium is. What your deductible is going to be. You can compare sidebyside. Lets look at the best majority of people not in the individual market. They get their health care through their jobs. That is 56 of people with coverage. This is not affecting them read except in the sense that they are Getting Better coverage. No lifetime caps on care. Insurance companies could not do that before. Free preventive services. No cost to consumers. Before, you might have had to pay for a check up. Now you dont have to. Host we talk to Industry Leaders about what this means. Out of that 6 million, how many are the younger, healthier americans . Guest we do not know, right now what the actual number is. We still have two more days. The deadline is march 31 to sign up for health care. What we have seen in the previous month, the administration has said it is 27 or 28 of the risk pool in the marketplace are the young invincibles, 1834. What we have seen is that every week, the risk pool is getting younger and younger. We know from massachusetts, if you look at the enrollment trajectory, the young people waited until the end to sign up. There is no expectation. At the end, that is when you would get the most young people signing up. We will not know that until the numbers are tabulated. Host choices . Not for people in some counties in rural areas. For many, there is only one provider. Nancy from new jersey, good morning. Caller good morning and thank you. I believe the reason mr. Obama lied about keeping doctors and Health Insurance and having premiums, is because if you did not, he would not have passed this disaster. Two questions for your guest first, given the fact that Kathleen Sebelius admitted that a navigator could be a convicted felon, she admitted to congress why wouldnt people why would people want to get their personal information. Including Social Security numbers, to them . Number two, thank you why shouldnt obama and sebelius be held accountable for putting millions of americans potentially at risk for having their personal information stolen . Host thank you. Guest in terms of the navigators there has to be a rigorous process that goes through to get people to be able to perform those duties. On the second question, i think that the president is making sure that people are held accountable. The First Priority was get the website fixed. October and november were very intense in terms of doing that. We are seeing that the premiums are lower than what people projected. About 16 lower. The healthcare spending is actually about the lowest it has been on record. The law is working. Host lets go to mike from North Carolina. Caller good morning. My comment would be i have thought this issue out quite a bit and im having a lot of trouble trying to understand what is available. What role does the Insurance Company play . They are taking . 20 out of every dollar to put in their pocket. To sponsor sporting events. Executive salaries stuff of that nature. The other comment i would like to make is, when george bush did the Prescription Drug plan, i believe they extended time for that into the month. Host thank you. Guest you are right that president bush, under the first year of Medicare Part d did extend deadlines and with penalties. On the Insurance Company peace i know that there are many who agree with you. The law was put into place to build on the system we have now. It put in key Consumer Protections that crackdown on companies and hold them accountable. They can no longer deny coverage. They cannot the lifetime limits on anyones care. They also have to spend more money on your care, not their profit. Under the medical loss ratio in the nongroup market, . 80 out of every premium dollar has to go to your care. Before, it was in the 75 . There are measures to hold companies accountable. Host the website is americanprogress. Org. Who funds your organization . Guest if you go onto the center for American Progress, they actually disclose all of our corporate donors. It is the first time that a think tank has done so. They are not required to by law. They took the step to outline. People can go on and say who the funders are. Host jackie is joining us from california. Caller good morning to you. I just wanted to say, as far as the Affordable Care act republicans are calling in and saying that this president is pushing the deadline back and he is weak. Saying that all these people are saying they are kicked off of health care because of obamacare. They have been proven to be untrue. At first the president being week, look at osama bin laden. All of the road people are complaining about these other things is because the majority of republicans are just mad. A black man is living in the white house. Thank you. Host we will go to shelley from los angeles. Caller i want to comment on what the man said. I am black. I am not liking what the president is doing either. Not everything has to deal with that. What about all of these immigrants . I know that he said he was going to do this and not let them sign up. Most of them are not going to do that. Who will pay for the . What is going to happen with all of these people here legally . They will still get Free Health Care . Host thank you for the call. Guest there are a couple of things. I agree that the immigration system is broken. That is a discussion for another time. There is no undocumented immigrants cannot sign up through the marketplace. They are not allowed access to the tax credits. I know that is one of the conceptions out there. That is not accurate. Immigrants can sign up, but undocumented immigrants cannot have any access. Host this is from you wayne cummings. She sent in this tweet by 24yearold son make 15,000 per year. His premium is over 200 with a 6,000 yearly deductible. It is an affordable. Guest there are a couple of things to that. I do not know the specifics, but if that is the premium before or after tax credits one of the things we have not talked about is that there are the law was set up to cover people with lower income. The Supreme Court ruled that could not be a national program. You have some states expanding their coverage. Some states are not. North carolina is not. That is affecting peoples ability to get access to care. There is Something Like 4. 8 Million People who could have coverage, but cannot. The states are not expanding medicaid. Host the plain truth is that republicans would replace obamacare with a large part of the aca. In effect right now. Lee from new jersey, good morning. Caller good morning. I have two questions. First, i do not have health care now. I have a preexisting condition. I go on the website and it is not affordable. It is outofpocket i also make a little too much to get a subsidy. If i buy this insurance, and they get a major illness i am on social support. I cannot pay the premiums anymore. What happens to me . Does the government paper my premiums when i am ill with cancer . Or do i have to go on medicaid . Host can you put your analysis in terms of numbers . How much are you looking at in terms of premium . Caller i dont remember the premium exactly. 6,500. Host your outofpocket expense each month . Caller no. Last year, i did not spend that much. Host how much do you make . Caller 52,000. Host stamm align. Guest i would say to that, i do not know what the options are in terms of the premiums. In terms of whether i would encourage you to get coverage. Especially if you have a preexisting condition. One of the reasons we task this act is that people would be getting sick. They have huge medical bills and that would lead to bankruptcy. The law has protections. It is not just premiums. There are some cautionary subsidies. The law also cap outofpocket expenses. If you hit the past i think it is 6,300 per year. After that, you do not pay anymore. It is basically saying that you do not have to go broke. Host does that answer your question . Caller not really. If i cannot pay the premium, what happens . It is my experience that you cannot pays for something if you dont have it. Guest i dont know all of the specifics of what tax credits are available for you or what the situation is. I would encourage there are navigators that you can call and the sisters who can help. The law is there to help find people coverage. Before, companies were charging way more because of preexisting conditions. Now they cannot. I hope there are options there for you. Host there is this from jim. The bronze plan with those 5,000 per your deductibles have no support until your outofpocket. Does that sound right . Guest there are a range of options. Each one is going to make a decision if you pay a lower premium, you might have to have a higher deductible. I would encourage people. They might not be the lowest premium land. You might have higher outofpocket costs. If you want to spend more on your premiums so you dont have those high outofpocket costs host jan says the high deductible is better than going bankrupt. Salt lake city, good morning. Caller you are getting whooped left and right here. What i want is the cost to start the website 600 billion . Nobody is ever held accountable. And then there is propaganda. You should be ashamed of yourself saying you have obamacare that cost us 54 million. You have that racist guy, that we are all racists. This is ridiculous. It is unaffordable. I am in utah and they did not set it up here. The other states should do it too. Host that is probably too high for the development of the website. It was not quite that expensive. Guest on the propaganda side what we are doing is just trying to get the word out. A lot of people dont know about the march 31 deadline. They dont know the healthcare. Gov exists. I know they are doing creative ways to make sure that people can go onto the website and find out for themselves. Host andy response to the attention in North Carolina cant get health care right now, talk to the governor. The governor did not accept funds. Asks georgia. Olympia, washington good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I would like to talk about the opinion about what is going on. This representative represents the regressive ready. He is pretending that tear any and government power will go as freedom and future. They have no clue. I will not attack your guests, because he represents a movement at the end of this existence. The comment is that the medicaid portion it needs to comply. The states need to reject this and get back to having liberty. The states need to decide what their medical circumstances are. If that means that the state can mandated, let them mandate it. This is a fascist bill that was written by the Insurance Companies. If you look at who wins, the government wins as a backdrop. The Insurance Company wins. I used to pay 738 every three months for my catastrophic coverage. That is all he want. I am healthy, i stay healthy. If i end up in the hospital with cancer, i want a backdrop for that. I do not need the federal government to dictate anything to me. If i choose to get it, 567 a month with a 6,000 deductible. The caller earlier was asked about her to the people. Who pays 6,000 a year in medical expenses . The only People Living in the scenario are the government. Like the Supreme Court says, is a tax increase. Oer the Insurance Companies. You pay money every month and get nothing. It is a fascist, to radical bill that needs to be repealed. The democrats will be known in history for what they have done. Host thank you. Guest a couple of things i would say. I am glad that you are in good health. I know that there are people who are not like that. There are huge medical bills. If you were to stay a week in the house bill you would see that the bill would be more than 6,000. Who are the winners . The 6 Million People who signed up for state and federal marketplaces. I think that it is millions more who enable us to get coverage through medicaid. It is 3 Million People who are young and can stand their parents Insurance Plan until 26. It is the 77 Million People who have gotten free Preventive Care services. It is the 8 million seniors who have been able to save money on Prescription Drugs. This law is closing the doughnut hole. I think that the law is benefiting rail people. Host tony carrk is with the center for american. Guest go on and look for your land. You can find a plan that fits your needs and budget. Do it now, rather than later. Host one final point. Do you have a concern i am pay more outofpocket and i would ever pay . Guest that is why there is a range of options. In terms of what the deductibles will be and the premiums. I totally understand that point of view. I think there is a constructive conversation that can be had to try to address some of these issues. The overall climate that we are having in terms of talking about the Affordable Care act is on one side you have an adl as you that wants to repeal the law at all costs versus the other side that is just trying to make this work and get as many people covert as possible. The law is set up number one to get people covered who did not have access before. Those with preexisting conditions or those who found it unaffordable. Now there are tax credits. It is a multifaceted law. There are ways that it can be improved. I think it is worth having that discussion in a good manner. Host thank you very much for being with us. When we come back, we turn our attention to the Republican Party and the tea party. Sal russo is a chief strategist from Tea Party Express. He will be here to take your calls and comments. Later, the former u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. And iraq and afghanistan. Afghan voters prepare to go to the polls next month. Youre watching washington journal on sunday morning. Back in a moment. I do recognize that islamophobia exists. There is a negative attitude toward the community. I am against it. It is a xenophobia versus one group. Any foreign film you phobia is part of it. The islamist lobby has contacted that notion and made it a weapon. It is a policy issue that has nothing to do with religion. Nothing to do with the five pillars. They have been accused of islamophobia. This is close to what the National Socialists in germany would have accused anyone against their policy. Even at the international level, this is very dangerous. Walid phares on u. S. Policy in the middle east. Tonight at 9 00 on book tv. On april 6, more discussions on the middle east with military strategist bing west. With your calls and comments come alive and in depth at noon eastern. Book tv, every weekend on cspan 2. Cspan, 435 years, bringing Public Affairs events from washington directly to you. Putting you in the room a congressional hearing, white house event, briefings and conferences, and offering complete gaveltogavel coverage of the u. S. House. All is a Public Service of private industry. We are cspan, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to you as a Public Service by your local cable or satellite provider. Watch as in hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. Washington journal continues. Host sell russo is the chief strategist for Tea Party Express. Welcome back. I want to get your reaction to todays frontpage story in the Washington Post. It is getting a lot of attention on the web and social media. The republican elites are hoping to board jeb bush he is visiting las vegas. Likely to pay a play a key role. First, this piece regarding jeb bush. Would your organization be happy to see him at the Party Nominee . Guest we are pretty open. I have met with jeb. He was a terrific governor. We have a lot of good candidates out there. 2016 will be a great opportunity for republicans. All of the candidates are on the message that we have to do something about increasing the intrusiveness of the federal government. The more the merrier as far as were concerned. We think we will get a good nominee. Host two point from the story. One, the concern over Chris Christie and his handling of the George Washington bridge. And a concern about the rise of rand paul. Prompting some prominent republican governors to look and say, we need somebody else. Maybe jeb bush. Guest i think senator paul is terrific. If you look at the candidates, the members of congress have dominated the news. They are things done in washington. Laying out a vision for 2016, whether marco rubio or rand paul that is where the ideas are coming from. That will be fertile ground. We have great governors. Jindal christie, bush, lets get them out there and see what they have to say. The government has gone out of control. We have to use those laboratories of democracy. Were going to give everyone a fair shot. Host the Tea Party Movement needs to get beyond president obama. There will be an inch to this administration and we need to move beyond that. How do you do that . Guest that is what i just said. Look at who has responded to the war on poverty. It was marco rubio. Mike lee went to heritage and laid out an agenda. Ted cruz had an energy plan. Rand paul has gone out to constituencies. It was unheard of for a republican. In detroit, a plan to revitalize inner cities. These Tea Party Candidates have lots of good ideas. Host let me share with you the atlantic magazine the clout in congress appears to be on the wane. The ability to win intergop contests is the new challenge. It is no longer as clearcut. The rankandfile agree to the movement as an exciting infusion of new energy, now regarded with weariness and skepticism. Guest that is not quite accurate. When we go out and meet with candidates, i would say there is one thing that all the candidates tell us. Whether they are more conservative or more moderate, they are trying to do something in washington. The tea party keeps getting stronger. If you look at the news look at any report. Who are they talking about . The Tea Party Members of congress. They have ideas. Theyre not talking about obama. Theyre talking for americas future. It is right what senator rubio said. That is what americans want to hear. Host one of the lessons for the republicans in 2012 the seat that many republicans said was leaning republican or favored republicans, yet Claire Mccaskill won reelection. How do you put the right candidate to appeal to a broader base in the election . Guest it is critically important. Sarah steelman is who i thought would be a strong candidate. We fell short. We tried to get the nomination. Were working very hard to get good candidates. We have four criteria for supporting candidates. One is that they are solid on the economic issues. Second, they have grassroots support. Theyre connected with the people of their state. Third, they have examples of moral courage in their history. A willingness to stand up and say the emperor has no clothes. Fourth are they capable of putting together a Successful Campaign . Do they have the professionalism to run a Successful Campaign . That is the four criteria. Our goal is not to make a stand. Host you talk about the potential candidates in 2016. How do any of them care if Hillary Clinton is the nominee . Guest there is a lot of hype for hillary. If you look at who has won the presidency in modern times, it has always been the person talking about the future. She is very much the past. She will look good as a front runner, but like many frontrunners, she will falter. It is a great opportunity for young republicans who are considering running. Host as an observer of politics, will she pays a Democratic Party challenge . Guest i think she well. There is a vacuum. Someone will see the opportunity to be the alternative. Barack obama sell the opportunity ive years ago. I think there will be a challenge for senator clinton. Host our guest is sal russo. How did you get involved with the tea party . Guest like so many, we heard the rant on february 19, 2009. We decided to have a rally at the State Capitol in sacramento. We expected a couple dozen people and 500 people showed up. We realized there was a deepseated unhappiness with republicans and democrats. We had just come off of the bus tour on behalf of senator mccain and sarah palin. We said lets go back on the road with this bus and it brought a lot of excitement. We have done eight national bus tours. That is how i got started and it keeps growing. Host what is the biggest single domestic agenda item in the selection . Guest growing the economy. That is the primary focus of every tea party group. 3000 groups all have different agendas. We have to do something about increasing the size and cost of the federal government. Then we have an important thing we are not deficit hawks as much as a Ronald Reagan tradition. We have to grow the economy. You cannot cut your way out of this. We have to reduce the taxation burden and regulatory burden. How do you get this to be a jobfull recovery . Host how Many Tea Party organizations are there . Guest about 3000. They come and go when they split. They are now all over the world. There in the middle east and europe and asia. This whole idea that the government has gotten too big and too out of control there is a worldwide phenomenon. It is there. It is not a protest Movement Like it was in 2009. Scott brown won that election in january 2010. We were the First National group to support scott brown. It showed people that we can win massachusetts. We can win in washington. Or in kentucky or north dakota. We can win everywhere. It converted from a protest movement we dont see as many big rallies. It is now a political movement. Host sal russo is our guest. Mike is joining us from tampa, florida. Caller sal, i would like to ask you two questions. What are the top three programs that the Tea Party Express would like to eliminate in the federal government . Second, who is your top funder . Who supervises most of your funding . Guest one, unlike a lot of groups, we do not have a questionnaire. We do not have a litmus test of issues for people. We interview candidates and maybe we have opposition to obamacare. As i jokingly say we have more corn and cattle, then you should be for ethanol subsidies. If you have more cattle than corn, you should be against them. We let candidates represent their district and their state to do what they think is best. We do not have a hard litmus test. We let them have their own choices. We support a wide range of candidates. The only thing we insist on is that we have gotten solid on the economic issues. We have to do something about this poor economic recovery. We have to do something about the debt. Host lets take a look at what you have raised. You indicated 10 million in 2012. What about 2014 . Guest we are a small donor pac. We dont have any big donors. The most anyone can give us a 5,000. It has to be an individual. We really rely on small donors to keep us going. What i always like to say is that we are the most democratic small force organization. We put it out there, what we want to do. If the people agree, they sense their 2500 check. If they do not support it, they do not send the check and we cannot do it. Some of the organizations are big donor organizations. They get most of their money from big donors. That is not up. Host this piece online, titled the tea party is over. He points out some of the mistakes of nominating candidates in 20 12 who cannot win a general election. And some concern that republicans need to do the same in 2016 when it comes to president ial nominee. Guest i dont see that. I dont think we had many bad candidates in 2012. I think we have for Tea Party Candidates fisher in nebraska and ted cruz, who we spent a lot of time supporting in text. The fourth is Richard Murdoch, who was a solid candidates. The senator was not helpful in his campaign. We never could heal those wounds in indiana. I dont think anyone could say Richard Murdoch was not a good candidate. This campaign got undermined and had one bad thing to say. Tea Party Candidates are pretty strong. Host lets go to alan in arizona, youre on with sal russo created caller good morning and thank you for cspan. I want to let you know that at our Tea Party Meetings we had 178 people with standing room only. A the tea party the tea party is for many things. You take a look at this economy and everybody says they want to get jobs. The number one thing i would like to see for the Republican Party is to have a theme, and that is lower the cost of living for every american. The it starts with energy. Once we get energy below 39 per barrel, we win. We outcompete every nation in the world when it comes to energy. That brings jobs back to the United States, manufacturing you actually lower the cost of being able to do business. If i want to open up a taxicab business in new york, i need put a Million Dollars up to be able to do business in new york. That is ridiculous. We have heard little kids wanted to and understand and they couldnt even do that because they had to have so many restrictions. The thing that socks me about harry reid and his agenda that shocks me that harry reid and his agenda of blocking all legislation from the house of representatives is one thing and that is to not allow the president of the United States to vote or veto anything. Guest as i mentioned, ted cruz mentioned ted cruz introduced a comprehensive energy plan a couple of days ago. They are anticoal, antioil. I think it is really hurting our economy. I think it is going to be a big issue. Those will be big issues in 2016. Host, you recall the firepower behind the tea party. The story is available in the archives at cspan. Org. Working for governor reagan back in 1969, would he feel comfortable in the tea party today . Guest yes i think he would. He spent his whole career campaigning against excessive government. Even jerry brown, Governor Brown in california, said that was profound. He said every wrong does not have a government solution. Him i think thati think that is true. Him Ronald Reagan was a great believer in the 10th amendment opposed expansion of the federal government, and he would be in sync with our message. Host and yet Ronald Reagan it did raise taxes and any republican candidate to talks about a cass a tax increase faces a challenge with your organization. Get, i would say that times have changed. Him he introduced the tax rates considerably. You have to take the hand that we have become provides. Him we have to compromise. Were very much in the idea of compromising. Some of the narrative that we oppose compromise is just not true view not true. Weeks than in the bush tax cuts. We did not have the votes. That is one of the problems i think we face today. Senator mcconnell and gets a lot of grief. He gets 45 vote three he does as much as he can. 45 votes. He does as much as he can. Right now we dont have the votes in washington. Host why is it governor bob odonnell was composing a sales tax to prepare to repair roads and bridges. He faced fierce opposition from tea party organizations. Guest i would say one of the reasons for that is brass tacks is something, for the reasons you indicated needs to be revamped. There are a lot of problems with the way we finance transportation funding in this country. I think what we are objecting to is the answer is always to add more taxes, put more burdens on the economy. I think what were looking for is if there were things we need to do, lets do them. I think when you add it to the tax burden tax problem it is always a burden. The problem is the democrats dont want to cut anything. When we had republicans in congress, they didnt find much to cut either. We just got to a point where we cant spend all the money on all the programs. You have to make choices what is the biggest and most Important Role for federal or state governments to do . We supported candidates that have supported tax increases before, high week construction, the freeway on the northsouth and the freeway in arkansas. O i cant always be tax and spend area it cant always be tax and spend. Host lets go to patrick waiting from toronto canada, thank you for being with us. Caller thank you. I live in south florida but i am visiting some friends in canada. A lot of us support senator marco rubio. I was wondering we got killed when it comes to hispanics supporting us and voting for the Republican Party. Could the tea party and Tea Party Express support a candidate like marco rubio because of his stance on Immigration Reform . Host, i want to share the front page story of the houston chronicle. So his point with senator rubio and the immigration issue in general. Guest we have been strong supporters of senator rubio when he first ran and we continue to be good supporters of him. I think that is everyone looks at our immigration system they will notice a broad a broken system. I think sometimes the vocabulary confuses people. When someone says Immigration Reform, some people here widespread amnesty. I think we certainly agree there needs to be reform. Host nic is joining us from glascow, scotland. We welcome your viewership. Caller thank you for taking my call. I havent heard a lot about Foreign Policy from the tea party. I heard backing senator mccain, im wondering how strong the tea party has been and the comments regarding obamacare. There were comments of president obama being week, perhaps in the crimea situation. We are hearing a lot of backpedaling. The vote would have been the same no matter how long they had taken to run it that question plus what is their position regarding iran . Guest there are 3000 Tea Party Groups across the country. Some are involved in National Defense issues, some are involved in social issues. We made a decision at the very beginning that we would focus specifically on the economic issues. If we focus on that we can a cap 10th afp we can have people who are social conservatives but also have people who are more socially libertarian. Our goal has been how can we get the biggest chunk of conservatives that want to do something about the increasing size of government and the high tax rates and unsustainable debt. People with views on Foreign Policy and National Defense that is going to get bigger and more powerful on the elections. Host from twitter limited kids point and put on the screen where the debt is right now courtesy of debtcl ock. Org. If you look at where Government Spending is. Spending is two thirds of the federal budget. If youre going to cut spending medicare is were you cut. Where would you cut . Guest i would not consider some of what you need to do is cut them. If you ask a young person today whether they think Social Security is going to be there for them they are going to tell you know. They have no confidence it is going to be there. I am totally opposed to cutting them. You do have to fix and reform them so Social Security will be there for future generations. There are a lot of things in Social Security reform that can be done that dont involve cutting. I think that applies across the board to entitlement reforms. There is a Discretionary Spending part of the budget. Think you can not only reduce some of these programs, gao has a lot of good reports. Certainly we can consolidate the 78 programs into a few different programs. The plan under our system is for the states to be doing a lot of these programs. I think president reagan got too far with spending some of these programs down to the state and local level prethey can take local level. By doing that you reduce the burden of the federal government and start reducing the amount of the block grant. What they think is important in kentucky may not be important in oregon. That is a good way not to kill programs that run them down to be more efficient and effective. Host we want to welcome our guests, sal russo. George is us from eat few kentucky. From eat the you, kentucky. From east view kentucky. Caller i understand mr. Russo is a republican. Getting back to the election. Made the comp made the comments that he is not going to support anyone crazy like green goo when i going to fix jeb bush . Thank you for listening. Guest host you know Sheldon Adelson quite will. Guest he is a terrific patriot and does a lot of wonderful things. I think he wants what is best for this country. Do you always agree in politics . You dont. I think his heart is in the right place, trying to get good fiscal conservatives elected to office. He doesnt want to support candidates that cant win. It is our position. We dont want to support candidates that cannot win. Host, one more tweet from our viewer guest i dont think we need to do that. I think we can reform issues like Social Security and medicare without burdening our current beneficiaries. I think we can do it better than that. Host sal russo, cofounder of the Tea Party Express. When we come back were going to turn our attention to ukraine and also afghanistan with a former u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations as washington journal continues. It is sunday morning, march 30. We are back in just a moment. This is a report on the nato maneuvers of 1954. This is i gigantic a gigantic plants maneuver. It has many training purposes but an additional purpose could be to display natos and night natos might before the communists. Two opposing forces called black and green. In this exercise both sides have a 288 millimeter atomic cannon. The atomic cannon has never been fired in europe. What you will see here is a simulated atomic explosion. The atomic cannon can be fired in europe. The guns are ready, the men already. Should the soviets attack anyone of any one of natos 14 nations, this gun is ready to be fired. From the big picture series natos efforts to quell m soviet europe. Today at 4 00 on cspan three. I think their actions are a lot less scary and a lot less obligated than some people would like to make it. When you think about it in the video space, it is not a horizontal deal. We dont compete with Time Warner Cable anywhere. Or isnt a consumer an america who has a choice between buying comcast products or Time Warner Cable products. We are going to have under 30 of the markets, so not particularly scary. One thing that is appropriate to think about and to discuss is the implications on the broadband side. I think there is a very good story there, lots of procompetitive impacts proconsumer impacts of the transaction as a result of the increased scale and investment. Not a really scary story when you look at market share as something less than 40 of the wireline broadband share. If you factor in wireless, and i think it is indisputable wireless is beginning to be a n effective competitor for broadband share, it is less than 20 . National share in broadband, i am not sure if that matters. No local market will there be any less choice after the transaction before the trend then there is after the transaction then there is before the transaction. Washington journal continues. Host he is a former u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations and also represented the u. S. In iraq and afghanistan. Thank you for being with us. We want to talk about the elections in afghanistan but first lets focus on the situation in ukraine. You wrote a piece in the New York Times, indicating russia is not Strong Enough to go into a fullfledged cold war but the United Nations could revert to a cold war era gridlock. Could you explain . Guest the United Nations was often not as effective in terms of making decisions and implementing them. In recent years, although it does not always in a corporate environment, it has played a useful role in the u. N. In places like afghanistan and iraq did a lot of peacekeeping efforts are being done in africa as well as and iraq. A lot of peacekeeping efforts are being done in africa as well. I just worry with howl relations how relations the Security Council will increase and that will necessitate for us to deal with it outside the u. N. With smaller numbers of countries participating or a stick the burden alone ourselves. Host you served during the final years of the bush administration. As an institution and a body does it still work . Guest i would say yes. It has many problems and needs to be reformed, certainly. Many of these institutions are in need of reform in terms of transparent see of transparency, accountability. But i think we are better off to have it than not have the United Nations. But we need to keep pressing to reform it. Host secretary kerry is meeting in paris. What do you think will come out of that session . Guest not much. It is very difficult to undo what has happened in crimea. The focus is now on Eastern Ukraine. We want to focus on the attentional crisis on the potential crisis. The russians say they will not go there but they said they would not go to crimea either. If it is difficult to see any immediate progress. I think we need to focus on deterring russia from moving to each in ukraine. The certainly engaging in diplomacy is a good idea. Host if you could explain 80,000 to 100,000 Russian Troops are on the border create he also said that on the border. He also said the right of Eastern Ukraine needs to be protected. Guest in crimea they said the russian speaking population, the majority there were in danger although there was no evidence that was true. They were saying the same thing in regard in Eastern Ukraine. They mobilized a lot of forces along the border. They said they did not go into crimea, so what this implies is they do the same thing in Eastern Ukraine. Theyre going to mobilize russian elements in Eastern Ukraine and then that could set the stage for them to go in themselves without even admitting they are going in. It is a difficult situation requiring diplomacy. I think we need to do more to deter to help Ukrainian Military get stronger. Along with talking to them, encouraging dialogue between russia and ukraine as part of the overall strategy. Host we will give you a sense of ukraine and its position in europe area in the eastern part of the country the russian language is heavy, between 40 to 70 . As you move further rest further west the native population that the population that native language is russian decreases. This entire episode began with the ousting of president . Village because of president yanukovych. What do you think ukraine will look like a year from now . Guest i think there are two paths. One is possibly an Eastern Ukraine, russians coming in theirre. Russia moves in the east and the rest of the west supporting. What remains of ukraine and the Central Government the alternative is ukraine is reconciled internally where it has a good election, the Russian Forces do not come into to the rest of ukraine. At this point i think it can go either way and it depends not only on what ukrainians do but what the europeans, and particularly the United States does. And encouraging political reform by dialoguing with russia and making clear to russia that we respect including rights of protection for the russians in Eastern Ukraine. They are neighbors. At the same time, the fact that we dont have forces there and we are not going to war with ukraine does not mean they do not face a protective conflict that we will support in terms of the ukrainians so that the russians can look at alternatives to help stabilize ukraine. Host he served as u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations amulets get your calls and comments. Ed is joining us from new york on the republican line. Good morning. Caller where does the United States government get the dastardly to stand before the world and claimed the authority to clean get the audacity to stand before the world and claim authority to police it . Guest on 9 11 the United States was attacked by the terrorists. Thousands of americans died and in response to that we went to war in afghanistan with the al qaeda. Now afghanistan has come a long way. It has problems, certainly. I think what happened in that dastardly attack was very justified. What happened after that dastardly attack was very justified. Host what happened . Guest it did produce some increased cooperation with regard to sanctions on iran with regard to supplies to af ghanistan from the northern direction, because we were entirely dependent on bring ing supplies to afghanistan from pakistan. I think that has run its course. I dont think we should close the door to cooperation with russia. At the same time we need to be quite firm with them. I think we should form a policy of what i like to call in engagement with russia, which is you contain it, you oppose it where you differ, but you engaged where we serve out interests and we can Work Together on issues of great importance. Host diane is joining us from alaska. Good morning. Youre up early. Caller or a plate, one of the two. Four up late, one of the two. Or up late, oenne of the two. I believe putins real purpose here is natural gas. Crimea apparently has 95 of the natural gas in the ukraine particularly part of it offshore. Putin, under the guise of problems, has shut down the pipelines going into europe for a time. I believe what he is tryintg to do is follow the old communist way of doing things, two steps forward three steps back. He pretends to take more than he is going to take and then steps back. His purpose was not to take crimea so much as to get his hold on the gas as he has a much harder hold on europe. Host we will get a response. Guest russia exports and a lot of gas to europe and europe is dependence significantly on russian gas. One of the thing we need to do is that diversify europeans dependentce europes dependence on natural gas. Europe will have more freedom to stand up to russia when european interests collide. There are also options from the caucuses in the middle east that needs to be explored and expanded. As far as crimea is concerned, i do not know if that is the primary motive for what putin did. It host ash host and x is peter joining us from england. Good morning. Host next is peter joining us from england. Good morning. Caller good morning. Obviously in the past week or so and way back in the past we have had situations where clearly it is not for that purpose. Now this last week we have seen the General Assembly condemn a russian invasion of ukraine. I would like to put the ambassador one of the reasons why the Security Council is at such an impasse is because of the veto. I would suggest removing the veto or having a majority of Security Council permanent members would be the way forward. Guest there are many ideas for reframing reforming the Security Council. Russia reflects a postworld war ii circumstances. There is the u. K. And france, to european powers, with permanent seats. Asia feels it is under reset underrepresented. Brazil and some from the south like south africa. Like south america. I dont believe at the present time there is the will to reform the Security Council. I believe that without the major powers having veto, they would agree to stay in the United Nations. What happened in the league of nations is important. It failed ultimately because the big powers did not see that they could shape it, and then they sought changes outside the leak of natures league of nations. Host our guest served as the former u. S. Ambassador. He studied at the university of chicago. He represented the u. S. At the u. N. And was a representative in iraq and afghanistan. This is what president obama said this past week in brussels. [video clip] what we want is for the ukrainian people to make their own decisions, just like other free people around the world. Understand as well this is not another cold war we are entering into create unlike the soviet union russia leads and no block of nations, no global ideology. United states and nato to not seek any conflict with russia. For more than 60 years we have come together in nato not to claim other lands but to keep nations free. What we will do has appalled our solemn obligation, our article five to the nato nations never standalone. Nato planes patrol the skies over the baltics and we reinforced our presence in poland. We are prepared to do more. Going forward every nato Member States must step up and carry its share of the burden. By showing the elliptical will to invest in our defense the political will to invest in our defense. Host the president s comments in brussels. Theres this from former defense secretary robert gates, who you know well. Vladimir putin has a long festering grudge. He deeply resents the west for winning the cold war creek he blames the u. S. For the collapse of his beloved soviet union, an event he calls the worst a geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. His list of grievances is long and on full display in a speech on march 18. It is from robert gates in the wall street journal. The response . Guest i agree with both points. The president was right to reassure the allies, the nato allies. And the president was right to say another cold war is not likely because russia is not the former soviet union. It does not have the power globally to pose a global challenge. It is not ideologically driven. I think the president was right about these two points. And his point about what putin represents is quite right. What i would have liked to see particularly on the part of the president s point, where i was disappointed with was disappointed was right after what you showed, with regards to ukraine and georgia. He said ukraine is not on the path to be a nato member, which is true. But then he said we cannot even russians from crimea by force but then he said russia cannot be deterred from escalating visavis what remains of ukraine, by force. I think that is where he went too far and it reminded me of president trumans comments of korea. Weekend a turk, in my view we can help deter a russian move against ukraine, not necessarily by us. Of the by helping ukrainian use force but by helping you created use force i thought that was a mistake. Of putin would have liked to bring under russian influences. The former soviet territories it thinks the disintegration of the soviet union was a great tragedy. Host how do you rate the chances that the government in ukraine will turn out any better than any of their previous governments . Guest the revolution was followed by problematic politics and government. It is an important issue, a good question that has been raised. I think the ukrainians must recognize the great danger they face if they dont get their act together. They would be tested and we will see what happens. Host we go to eddie in massachusetts. Good morning. Caller do you have an opinion of why in the 80s the russians were given solons in the ukraine that though we have a proleader that synthesize zones in the ukraine. Host i think he means the 1950s. Guest he is correct. Kirchoff did that. Recently russia excepted postsoviet russia accepted the borders of ukraine. That was one of the factors that cause to give out Nuclear Weapons. They have very large stockpiles of Nuclear Weapons and rockets that it gave out. Ukraine does have a claim to International Community support for what has happened and confronting what has happened. Host this point on twitter a look at crimea and specifically yalta. Ofdell is joining us from bethlehem, pennsylvania. Call, i think youre doing an excellent job. A lot of people are jumping all over the president , calling him weak. Things like that. Maybe then explain to us will cut sanctions were taken when putin invaded georgia. Things havent changed that much. A lot of us are referring to historical ideas. Perhaps it goes back further to the point where ukraine was overflowing with the not see officers. I would like to hear your opinion. Guest he refers to georgia, i think that is correct. When the u. N. It was a very different set of circumstances that resulted in a egg clash between us and then and the Security Council in a big clash between us and them and the Security Council. Certainly georgia remains occupied. Some actions were taken by the bush administration. Soon thereafter we went back to business as usual. I think the russian calculation without talking about the specifics of ukraine, is that in the case of georgia maybe we will react to negative react negatively for while but we will move on and forget about crimea. It is a democracy. Without strong leadership, keeping the tension on the country on an issue, we can forget and move on. I think that is what putin is calculating that if somehow some agreement can be reached a ukraine. Of course we dont know what will happen with the rest of ukraine. That is likely to be emasculation. Host our guest is a former u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations and also to iraq and afghanistan. One of our viewers said this question dust, the cold war yes guest the cold war was a noble struggle between two political and economic systems. One of the instruments we used because of our strategy of containment was economic rusher economic pressure to force the russians i think with soviet overinvestment in the military and underperformance in the economy, in part because of their economic systems and the world and the pressure the world brought to them. Finally there is the discrepancy between the military and geopolitical efforts and the economicbased collapse took place. Economics play a significant role in containment strategy. Host 1961, looking back at the early years of the cold war. Greg is joining us from the u. K. Good morning. Greg, are you with us . Caller hello. Host, good afternoon to you. Caller mr. Gorbachev said something about the movement of nato. It is like we are trying to what exactly is going on. Host the question is how does this play into the geopolitical chess . Guest once the soviet union disintegrated and the Eastern European countries became free, they had two big external objectives. One was to join the European Union and the second was to join nato. As a result of which, in the case of many of them both had happened. It has been very difficult given the concept of the European Union, which is more ambitious than it was if you look in the 90s. Part of it is not being defended by the alliance, ask if they were going to be second class citizens of the same country or same consideration, which was their view. My view, although there was a development of hedge whether russia becomes a threat again. This reality of joining the eu and nato being the organization that protects not only north america but europe, also a serious discussion of keeping the door open to potential russian membership why not . Russia joining nato was part of the discussions that took place. It was the russia nato town so that was established. I think mr. Putin exaggerates. It is more about the interration of these countries than it is about their free political will. Him about the integration of these countries than it is their free political will. People were discussing russia joining nato. Host next calls from irving, texas area caller irving texas. Caller this frightens me. It reminds be of the 1950s when we hid under our desk, worried about nuclear war. Do you think that even though the United States seems to be so war poor and heavily in debt to the tune of trillions, that it would be suicide for us to even think about war. Think about war . Guest the country is very adverse to international entanglements in the aftermath of iraq and afghanistan. This can be risky as well if one goes too far. If we go too far, and some argue that we have, this encourages aggression and therefore you love to react to that ultimately and could cause an unanticipated bigger problem, including a conflict. I dont anticipate that global war is emerging from this crisis. It doesnt mean it is without difficulties and challenges short of big water, big conflict. At this point the issues to deter russia from making additional moves visavis ukraine and a choir economic support of ukraine, encouraging domestic acceptance of each other and reconciliation and elections, but also military support for ukraine. We dont need to go to war over ukraine but we can help them defend themselves. Host this response to an earlier email in question we will go to mark in asbury, in asbury park, new jersey. Caller just two quick questions for you. Besides the country of georgia who has russia invaded since 1992 . That is my first question. My second question is what with the United States do if russia had interfered when the United States invaded panama, grenada libya, somalia, africa, and iraq . Guest if you look at the russian history depending on how far back you go. Theres a small area expanded into a huge area taking over caucuses. Him as a root as we discussed earlier it once to entrenchment and collapsed. Him it went to entrenchment and collapse. It has legitimate interests. The question is how it exercises that power and protect that interest. Himi think taking over a territory by force and then annexing it is unique in recent history. The afghan operation was issued by the United Nations for you not nations United Nations. Hit has not annexed any part of iraq and has not even taken over any we suspect they would be motivated by iraq he oil or gas. Hrussia still in occupation of two parts of georgia. Hthere is no indication they will leave those two parts of georgia. Same thing with regards to crimea. They seem poised to threaten eastern europe. You have a leader that is nostalgic about the good old days of the soviet empire. Host we will come back to the afghanistan before the program concludes. 17. 5 trillion in debt. This is from our viewer guest we have very little independence in terms of our economy. The europeans tend to be much more dependent on us. That is why there is some concern that europeans may not participate so much in these sanctions, particularly with regards to gas. It is very important today for sophia european independence on russian gas and increase their dependence for sanctions to be caught and effective it has to be broad and persistent over a very long time. I dont mean the sanctions will affect russian policy in the near term. That is why i am ever sizing to deter strengthening local resistance to them. The soviet invasion of afghanistan in the 1980s proved extremely costly to them. The americans and europeans fought against them there. Host one of our viewers saying hostwe have a minute left. Caller thank you for taking my call. I want to make the same point. You guys talk about how russia invaded forcefully but in fact there was a referendum. Host what about that point . Guest, the referendum took place under reportedly false assumptions. They were being harassed, there was violence against them. Hithere has been no iota of evidence indicating any of this. Usually you get the referendum passed by parliament, saying under what circumstances the question is under what circumstances do they monitor more than others . It is a kind of special referendum. Him i think that i think that gives a legitimacy over normal referendums. The host what will afghanistan host what will afghanistan look like after the elections . Guest i dont think there will be a winner getting over 50 of the vote in the first round. There will be planning for the second round, and that will take place it is a three dollar intention for going to the second round. All three were quite worldly and most people know them quite well. I know the two candidates for my time. I think these are reasonable leaders and options. All three said they would sign the bilateral Security Agreement with the United States. Someone said within a week, another said in a month. I think it will be the beginning of an important transition for afghanistan. I think a portion is likely to stay to support the Afghan Military forces. We are taking on more and more responsibility. We are doing our job when it comes to disrupt taliban. There are some al qaeda elements that remain in pakistan. Hiwe use the afghan facilities for special forces operations against them. Host think you very much for being here with us. Guest it is great to be with you. Host we will continue the conversation tomorrow morning at 7 a. M. Eastern time. A lot of speculation on Republican Party politics as a number of leading republicans travel to las vegas. Josh crawshaw is good to be joining us Josh Kraushaar will be joining us. Then Emily Etheridge will be joining us from cq roll call. Newsmakers is coming up next. I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend, have a great week ahead. Journal cspan. Org [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] today www. Cspan. Org newsmakers. Later, son of president obamas meeting with pope francis during his trip abroad joining us on newsmakers congressmen Steve Scalise the chair of the republican study committee. Thank you for being with us. Joining us with the questioning is Burgess Everett who covers congress for politico and Susan Ferrechio chief Political Correspondent for the examiner. On the larger