Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20141008

President s term . Independents. All others. Send us a tweet. You can go to facebooked you can also email us. Start dialing in now. First the column for the Washington Post says the president should listen to the criticism. Writing in his piece this morning that, that anyone that knows leon panetta cannot be surprised if he has written a candid and insizive memoir. Goes on to say at the end of his column that panettas book is not the first time hes expressed frustration. A year ago, he lamented the changes in the culture of washington that he has seen. He says there was plenty of blame to go around. And today says there are many ways to convey a message to a pet he says. But sometimes a public bracing can be more effective. Main message is that obama will need to change. Restrictions sense to engage are no longer options. Frustration with Congressional Republicans or the political process or the culture isnt either. At this point, as panetta says, the jury is still out on obamas legacy. Drawn the indignation of officials. Instead, they should take to heart the critique from someone that served the president and the country loyally for many years. How obama responds will be telling. What are your thoughts on this. Is it appropriate for him to be criticizing a sitting president . Ed Vice President joe biden recently said that it was inappropriate for leon panetta and other former Administration Officials to be criticizing a sitting president. Former defense secretary in his interview with cnn responded to the cell phone. Heres what he had to say. No. Im of the view that huh dont put a hold on history. History is what it is. You know . I would say now that i recommend the president and vice postpartum depression take the time to read the book. When you read it, its a balanced presentation of what happened. Leon panetta saying its inappropriate for someone to criticize a sitting president. And headline, leon pan knelt that show stunning disloyalty to this postpartum depression. What is your take on it . Dial in now. The front page of the Washington Times this morning. Friendly fire. Panetta latest to turn on obama. And they have a picture below past and present obama investors, joint chief of staff charm on the left. Hillary clinton, and former defense secretary leon panetta publicly aired grieve ans with president obama. New book worthy fights criticizing mr. Obamas decisions on Foreign Policy and he said yesterday in the interview with yahoo, leon panetta did said that the president harmed credibility by drawing a red line against syria use of chemical weapons and failing to back it up with military force when syria crossed that line in 2012, it was damaging he told yahoo news. Says he sent a mixed message not only to the syrians but to the world and that is something you do not want to establish in the world. An issue with regard to the credibility of the United States to stand by what we say were going to do. What are your thoughts on this . Leon panettas new book, worthy fight is out. Hes doing a rubied of interviews with many of the different networks. Cnn, fox. He talked to bill oreilly as well. Bill oreilly trying to press him on whether president obama is an effective leader or not. We can show you a little bit of that coming up here on the washington journal but want to get your thoughts this morning. Is it appropriate for the former defense secretary, the former head of the cia to be criticizing this president with two years left to go in his term. Phone lines are open so start sky aling in now. On the issue of isis in iraq, which leon panetta in syria has been critical of the president there is news in the papers this morning. The Washington Post says u. S. Air strikes are keeping kobani from falling, a city on the turkey border. Their attacks come after there is a turkish plea for help for the Syrian Border town. U. S. Led coalition stepped up air strikes on tuesday after turkey appealed for help. Enapril ling kurdish fighters to advance for the First Time Since they launched about three weeks ago. The strikes follow the request by turkey for intensified efforts to prevent the predominantly kurdish town from falling. Turkey has lined up tanks and troops defending kobani but has not intervened for a fangle of reasons. So, turkey refusing to fight but asking the United States to step in on that and so there is plenty of opinions about this in the paper. Start with the Financial Times this morning and they are saying turkey must stop preaver indicating over isis. Exposing the weakness of the u. S. Led coalition. They call on turkey to step up as well and the wall street journal says waltz to a massacre. The siege of kobani shows the holes in obamas strategy. That is the latest in the papers on this fight against isis. By the way, the president sitting down today with pentagon top brass to get an update on that strategy and well talk about that on the washington journal tomorrow, what is the latest on the strategy . Is it working with isis . First, today, were getting your thoughts on is it appropriate for leon panetta to write this book now and express criticism of the president. Lee, independent, youre up first. Companion. Caller i think it is very disengine us with for mr. Panetta to make a stance like that with the lease of his book. You have to present a unified front. Like when you have a household and you have the mother and the father raising the children and disciplining the children, you know if the father is trash talking the mother and expecting the mother to be respected, its not going to work. Host do you see the legit massey in this criticism . Do you think it is a legitimate criticism that leon panetta is talking about, about the president s leadership and the Foreign Policy decisions . Caller i mean there may be legit massey to it but at that time, when there is the relationship in america with the rest of the world so delicate and as were trying to strengthen our relationships, our ties with the rest of the world and strengthen our image, i think it is counter intuitive, you know, to come out and trash talk everything that has been done or attempted to be done by the president. Host okay. Jordan, independent, what do you think . Caller hi. I absolutely think it is appropriate to criticize a sitting president. Okay. Hes a public servant. Whether he likes it or not, that is his job. He needs to know how we feel or he wont know how to do his job. Apparently he doesnt know any way. Host so you think he should take this and learn from it. Caller yes. Absolutely. What he should have been doing the whole time hes been president. Host youre an independent. Have you voted for both republican and democrat . Caller i go either way from city voting to the federal level, but i really am disappointed in most of the people that you have to vote for. Host what does that mean nor this senate race in louisiana . What are you going to do . Are you going to vote for cassidy or Mary Landrieu . Caller i just moved down here from twin falls idaho so i havent looked a whole lot at what im going to do here yet. I moved here three days ago. I wanted to call in on whether it was appropriate to criticize the sitting president or not. Host got ya. Jordan, louisiana, independent. Show you some of the criticism that leon panetta has volleyized. This is with cnn and he is criticizing the president s decision to rule out the use of Ground Troops to fight isis. I take the position that when youre commander in chief that you really ought to keep all options on the table. To be able to have the flexibility to do what is necessary in order to defeat the enemy but to make the air strikes work, to be able to do what you have to do, you just dont send in planes and drop bombs. You have to have targets a and know what youre going after and you need people on the ground. Leon panetta criticizing decision not to use troops in the fight against isis. Washington post opinion, board says straight jacketed war. President s limits on battling the Islamic State undermines his aims and they say this, contradictions such as these are allowing the Islamic State to survived and expand. Believe that in addition to targeting kobani, the Islamic State is readying a full scale assault on baghdad. U. S. Forces will need to step up the tempo and react more quickly to movements on the ground which will be difficult without ground personnel. Turkey with powerful army must be brought into the fight and that will require u. S. Turkish agreement on a strategy for dealing with the assad regime. For now defined mainly by limitations. Restrictions are not combatable with objectives. What are your thoughts on leon panettas new book. Is it appropriate . Caller yes, it is. It is not appropriate. Because i see it as another ploy of the, of another republican trying to bring the president down. He probably was joined in with them other guys when they said take him down when he first got into office. I dont see why president obama was putting all these republicans with him anyway because hi know all these white folks hate his behind. Dont know why he even deal with them. Its just a sad case in america nowadays. Okay. All right. Aj in baton rouge, what do you thunk . Caller sad when people panetta is a republican. Why we need tests for voting again. Panetta is a democrat. He was in the clinton regime. And now hes in the Obama White House or was in the Obama White House. These democrats are so duplicitous. When people were coming out and criticizing george bush, they were held as heroes and most the big thing about it is most people in this white house couldnt read panettas book because they couldnt read the aca law. So they cant read it all. Host apparently, we learned yesterday that mr. Panetta gave the book to the white house after it was finished. That there was a back and forth between mr. Panetta and the cia about some, what they thought was secret information, intelligence, classified information. He took some of it out apparently but it did not change the tone of his book. A conservative columnist writes in the Washington Post that president obama ignores leon panettas warning. Writes that it is because panetta did not wait until Obama Left Office that his criticism is appropriate. It is not simply the latest contribution to the blame game over what we want wrong in iraq. It is a warning about the future because obama is about to make the exact same mistake in afghanistan. In may, obama now said he would withdraw all u. S. Forces by the end of 2016 from afghanistan leaving a tiny force to protect the embassy in kabul and last week as United States signs agreement to extend presence beyond this year, National Security council spoke said the administration had no plans to change the plan the president announced for complete afghan withdrawal by the end of 2016. Mark deson in his column thinking this will replay over again in afghanistan when u. S. Troops withdraw. Dell, warwick, new york. Democratic caller, what do you think . Im behind the president. Its the same thing that happened during the second world war. We didnt get into that war turkey has an army. Its a big country, not as big as ours but a big country. People should fight for their own country. Were going to spend send our children into their country to fight their battle . If theyre not interested in winning, im talking turkey, then let them fall into isis. I mean, every place on the planet that somebody doesnt want to defend their own country, were going to run in . Forget it and panetta and all these right wing conservative thinkers are going to dictate to the president of the United States what he should do to protect us . No. Im sorry. It is really so frustrating. And the fella from california, he was absolutely right. Everything he said, i agree with, the caller before this last louisiana caller that didnt even sound like he could speak english, forget about it. If he could read or not. Host quell, lets move on. Ken, independent, what do you think this morning . Caller yes, get a. Yes, it is okay to criticize the president. Losing iraq in 2008 hello . Yeah, were listening. Caller at 2008. Maliki wasnt including any of the activity but panetta rebel, syria, that wouldnt work at all. And another thing, in iraq, i seen the documentary the other day about ruining america that was in iraq, they lost all them minute. Those people got to learn to fend for themselves and other countries got to get involved. United states cannot do it all all the time. You got to think about the service men. The war is not a game. Host all right. Thank you. Foreign policy has beyond president obama, think it is yanking Hillary Clinton into a debate she doesnt want to have whether obama lost iraq, every time she thinks shes out, they pull her back in. What Foreign Policy has to say on their web site. Henry, democratic caller. Hi. Good morning. I see everybody is getting upset over the president not getting upset over isis and all this. I like what the president is doing, not over there but in this country, they get mad in this country because he dont go out and drink with the boys. Hes a good man. He go home to his family. Thats a good thing. He dont spend a lot of time with them, as far as this raping and going on, why is everybody so upset . What are they upset about . Nobody really know what theyre talking about. They dont have no more information than i do. We just read the newspaper, listen to the commentators come on and criticize but the president need to keep doing what hes doing. Everything will be okay. It will work ice out. Panetta agencies knew book, worthy fights is out. A lot of opinions build whether it is appropriate. What do you think. Were getting your thoughts. The phone lines are open. So dial in. We want to get your thoughts on this. Peter baker writes, amplified by social media, insider memoirs make more racket this is how he start his piece. Leon panettas new memoir was out and the president was livid, blind to major problems and presided with a lack of prescriptions pells. President told aids the book was a case study on how to screw the white house. The year was 1971. The president was Richard Nixon and the author, mr. Panetta written his original memoir after serving as nixon civil rights chief. If president obama feels a little raw about the book published tuesday, at least he has some company. Peter bakers piece this morning about the ritual of criticizing a sitting president going back to panettas original memoir as the civil rights leader for the next on administration. David ignatius, his column, white house shakeup . He wonders if the president needs new aids for the last two years. President s need new energy and talent to refishish second terms. George bush opted for that in 2006. Arguably saved his press dean. Barack obama facing a similar moment and looking to make personnel changes after the november congressional elections. President s value loyalty to be sure and owe must be grateful for team players after a publication this week of the memoir. A better irony that after assembling the team of rivals, strong independent personalities, panetta, gates and clinton, obama found himself second guessed by the former secretaries of defense and state. Next president may decide to include a nondisclosure form along with the oath 6 office. Cleveland, ohio, democratic caller, good morning to you. You are on the air in cleveland, ohio. Caller yes. I wanted to comments on the crisis about isis over in iraq. I mean what dont we fight for . You know what im saying . We should be fighting to contain this ebola that is about to, you know, break loose all over this country like it did over there in africa. Are you critical then of president obama . Caller hes the greatest president the United States has ever had. Host all right. Mark in new jersey, hi, mark. Caller thank you for taking my call. Two quick comments. I think it is perfectly appropriate for leon pan knelt that to criticize the president. We live in a free and open society and commentary is the way we this is to deflect away from the comments, calling them disloyal and on the issue of one comment on the turks, the failure to get involved in the fight is really shameful and i wonder if it is part of a larger agenda they have to perhaps weaken the kurds over time. They had issues with the pkk for a long time and you know, perhaps they would like isis to weaken the kurds. Those are my two comments. Yeah. I think that would be ha good discussion here on the washington journal, sort of a turkish expert, u. S. Turkish relations over the years. As far as isis, the front page. Washington post for the Islamic State, water is a weapon. They are rampaging across Northern Iraq using water as a weapon, cutting off supplies to villages that resift their rule and pressing to expand control over water infrastructure. Says controlling the dams important because of role in irrigating the countrys vast wheat fields and providing electricity. Islamic state has used control of other are water facilities including as many as four dams to displace communities or deprive them of crucial water supplies. Front page. Washington post if youre interested in that this morning. Ebola, caller brought that up. Front page, houston chronicle. Texas officials are cautiously optimistic about ebola. The governor there, rick perry, touring a Galveston Lab as lawmakers meet in response to this dallas case and the Financial Times this morning, they have, theyre out with this headline that is in several papers, ims warning of a third eurozone recession since the financial crisis mostly because of jeb mean. Alarm after german suffered biggest monthly fall in five years. That warning from the imf and then youve got front page of u. S. A. Today on the economy. Imf trades Global Growth forecast and Third Quarter earning estimates scaled back. What happens . Wall street gets spooked and the dow dumps points, biggest drop in two months. Thats what is happening with wall street. Well go to patricia, republican caller, good morning to you. What do you think about leon panettas memoir . Caller i love it. As you said, im a republican but ive always liked when i listened to him, you know, i try to listen to everybody and he always seems very sincere. And the fact that he wrote it maybe will save us because we need something to change. This is not good. But the woman that said let them fight their own battles and their own wars and turkey, et cetera, well that would be okay except that if we let isis take over, does she realize they dont want us to live either. They want to come here and they are here. This is why we have to do this and i dont think obama understands that. All right. Washington, d. C. , democratic caller, youre on the air. Its almost laughable how these socalled americans criticize the president. Leon panettas commentary is such a laugh and so glad thatted president is above the fray of these. Ville people that cannot see past color. The president of the United States is a black man. Get over it. Host okay. Patrick. Democratic caller, what do you think . Caller a couple of points. One, former second of defense panetta has a right to speak. Hes an american citizens we believe in freedom of speech. Im in the military. In terms of the president s policy, what he is doing is exactly right. Its about time we held countries in the middle east accountable for their own problems instead of us going over and spilling our blood for things they know they need to stand up and fight against. You have this is their problem, an age old problem and the governments there need to take control of their situation, turkey, saudi arabia and they need to get involved and let them spill their blood to fix their own backyard. All right. Patrick in the military in maryland. Leon panetta on fox last night went on bill oreillys show. Asked about the difference between mr. Obamas leadership and mr. Clintons leadership. Leon panetta 7day in the clinton administration. Heres what he said. Who is the better leader . Bill clinton or barack obama . Theyre both bright, both able. Both want to do what is right for the country. The difference is bill clinton likes politics and engagement. Barack obama does not like that process of engaging in month politics and i think that hurts his presidency. How . If he doesnt like the plot call spectrum in dealing with congress and other things. In terms of getting things done. You have this stalemate in washington to begin with where there is such partisanship happened Division Going on in the congress and then you know, if the president doesnt engage with them, you have a situation where everybody gives up and theyve given up on a bum deal, immigration refor. Given up on issues like infrastructure funding, on trade, on energy. I mean, that is what concerns me because i think this country wan not stand another 2 1 2 years of stalemates. And if the president losing the senate, youll have a real lame duck situation. Leon panetta on bill oreilly show talking about the differences between president clinton and president obama. He was the director of the cia and when problem got stepped down, mr. Obama moved him over to that slot. Now, after he left of the administration and running a walnut farm in california, hes out with his memoir. Came out tuesday and doing a round of media interviews. Great falls, virginia, republican caller, what do you think . Caller good morning. Id like to make a comment about people. Disgusting to hear every time there is a criticism about president obama they are making this a race issue. But as far as the defense minister comment, hes absolutely right. The situation being syria and iraq right now a total failure of American Government. They created power vacuum in syria. Syria was one of the most stable countries in the region and if American Government or turkish government did not support the rebels against assayed this was not going to happen. Like 10 years ago, george bush tried to invade iraq, took down saddam human nature, created another power vacuum. The whole region, egypt, libya, somebody has a bigger plan to create this mess in the region and syrians are paying with their life. Host all right. Peter, democratic caller, go ahead. Caller i dont like the idea that once they come out of office or working with the president , panetta comes out with a book so he can sell a lot of books. Good move. Start making it this time of the year but dont forget, americans are fighting. Boys are dying there. Theyre not they were all volunteers. How about bringing back the draft . Like i was a korean veteran. I was drafted. It was different times when everybody is in this war. Why is it that just the volunteers that keep saying send our troops. Who are they senting there . Why dont they send all american troops that belong in the army or the navy or the air force . Why just the volunteers from poor families . I think it should be all americans involved in this. Maybe we would think different before we say send the troops over there and have them die for us. Host okay. All right. Peter. We will leave that discussion to turn to campaign 2014. 27 days to go. Were going to open up the phone lines to hear about which races youre watching and well talk about those keep senate races as well. Later, well continue our election 2014 talk with Political Editor at the National Journal but first we covered the North Carolina Senate Debate last night between democratic senator kay hagan and republican challenger tom tillis. George stephanopoulos was the host. He asked how he would fix the political gridlock on capitol hill. Heres their answers. The problem we have with washington is it is broke. The people are not community indicating across the aisle. Senator hagan over six years has not authored a single bill that has gone to the president s desk. Thats a problem. We need people that will bring people together n areas where we cant agree, dont take the time hand move into areas where we can agree, find policies that can create jobs versus kill them like obama care. 600,000 jobs with the epa. Are. On which issue would you take on your Party Leadership . I dont know at this point, its hard to say because in the senate which ill speak for the senate, not for the house, harry reid hant allowed anything to be pad. You know this better than most. When you have the house and 350 bills to the senate and a few dozen votes in the house, only a few dozen votes in the senate, hard to First Quarter out where the differences would be. Theyre thought debating. No such thing as regular orders. Senator hagan rubber stamped policy to shut down the senate. Save all the tough votes until after the election. You need to understand. Delaying manned dates and delaying amnesty are election issues on the ballot. You have an opportunity to stop it. You want to ask your with again . Against the rules. You go ahead. The keystone pipeline. I disagree with the president. I think we need to build the keystone pipeline. Trade deals. I have voted against them because then sent too many North Carolina job overseas and i voted against my own partys budget because it has 2000 deep of cuts to our military. He would have supported a budge that would have turned medicare into a voucher program. Would have supported sequestration. Would have supported a government shut down and when he would have supported the government shut down in North Carolina when that took place, it was the height of our fall. And our fishing season in the east. That is what he would have done. 30 second. Which party will control the senate. That was the question last night as many, as there were many debates across the country for control of the senate and we just showed you North Carolina Senate Debate with the incumbent senator kay hagan squaring off against the state house speaking tom tillis. One that folks with keeping a close eye on. Time magazine says Tom Tillis Bush dense kay hagan with president ial baggage in north coast Senate Debate. We want to know which races are you keeping an eye on whether it is in your state or some of these Key Senate Races that will determine the control of the senate. Well get your thoughts here in a minute. Republicans, another key race in georgia. One of three seats that republicans are defending. Daniel malloy, washington correspond depend is down in georgia. Candidates squared off in a debate. Daniel malloy, what was the take away . Caller first off, the dominant thing was the crowd. This thing was held at the Georgia State fair. Candidates bussed in thousands of supporters and it was like a boxing match to want point where a lot of people couldnt hear what the candidates were saying and they had trouble gets points across over the cheering and the jeering. But really, there were two main themes. Michelle nunn the democrat going every david perdue on outsourcing in light a story where he said most of his career was spent in outsourcing. She was hammering him on that per dude keep the trike to steer the conversation back to barack obama and harry reid again and again to the point where nunn wrangled him youre running against america not obama and reed. Already says im absolutely running against obama and reed. You have these divergent paths of nunn wanting to make this about perdue and his background and perdue wanted to nagsize the race. That seems to be a theme of republican running against the democrat saying president obama is on the ballot lear and you need to vote against president obama by voting for me. Is that working . Is it working in georgia . Guest i think the polls are showing a tight race now but perdue with a decent lead and i think you know, that certainly is the strategy that theyre pursuing and i think to a degree, yeah, because obama is so unpopular, his Approval Rating pretty down in the dumps in georgia under water and you know, the more that perdue can tie nunn to him, the sort of the better he will fare but on the flip side, a lot of Michelle Nunns plan for a upset victory relies on turning out the African American base and the more that base sees her on tv with obama, the more that base gets fired up. Kind of a double edged sword but overall the strategy would seem to work because of obama aspire proval ratings. What is the ground game like in georgia . Guest youre seeing a lot of activity, the democrats more active probably than many cycleles in the past decade when these been swept out of power. And weve seen a surge of applications in voter registration. Well know more in the coming days where the new voters are from which will give us a better idea of how theyll vote. Were hearing there have been a lot more new applications this year. People are much more interested in a normal midterm year because this is the first Midterm Election that has been close in sometime here. Yeah and the front page of the Atlanta Journal constitution this morning georgia sees surge in voter rolls. Guest yeah, thats right. Thats what i was talking about. Registration deadline was yesterday. We dont have a full picture yet. The numbers we have are through friday but the reality is a lot of folks are signing up and the democrats have poured a lot of money into trying to find and turn out the nevose voters. Their whole theory of the case here is that the more transplants, the more African American voters, the more other minority and young voters they can find. There is a Sleeping Giant out there. Look at other races in iowa and north coast, obama team went through there two cycles in a row trying to find these folks and no one really doing that in georgia. The democrats are really saying theres a lot of quote unquote low hanging fruit out there for them though find and get to the polls but this is still a republican state and still definitely a tough one for democrats to get over. Michelle nunn strategy is to jump on these comments that david perdue made about outsourcing. I want to show our viewers the ads that she put out ream on this. Im Michelle Nunn and i approved this message. Newspapers broke the story about david perdue n a sworn deposition, perdue was asked can you describe your experience with outsourcing . He restoppedded yeah, i spent most of my career doing that. Thats right, under oath. David perdue admit he spent most of his career outsourcing jobs overseas to places like china and mexico. David perdue, hes not for you. Danny malloy, have polls been taken since this news broke and do you think this strategy could work . Guest we dont have any new polling since the story broke on friday so it is hard to say the Immediate Impact of this but yet, you know, its really in line with what nunn had been doing all along after perdue won the runoff in july, nunn came out immediately and started to bash him on his Business Career and for the lawsuit he was involved in with Dollar General. And it has been the attempt top mitt romneyize perdue as this corporate heart less, corporate greed kind of guy that doesnt scare about the common man. Last night she was asking him about the minimum wage and why he doesnt want to raise minimum waged and had this pre planned zinger that he made more in one day at Dollar General than a minimum wage gee made in a year. This was her plan, trying to make him look like mitt romney is that romney won georgia by 7 points there. You have it. Danny malloy, thank you for your time. Appreciate it. By the way, the georgia Senate Debate that took place last night, we will be airing it later this week on consider span. Go to cspan. Org. See our campaign 2014 web page there for more details and schedules of when that will air. Were getting your thoughts on the campaign 2014 this morning and which races are you watching . Mary in illinois, democratic caller, youre up first. Go ahead. Good morning. The gentlemen you just had on and yourself, you can tell that the both of you are republicans because he refers to the president , he doesnt respect him and you also call the president mr. Obama. But anyway, i want to watch all the debates and i think the republicans will be very surprised because the African Americans are going to turn out for the reason that you all are trying to keep them from voting and that angers them so i think the republicans are going to be quite surprised. Mary, are you helping with that effort in illinois . Caller yes i am. I robo call. Okay. And greta, i think you need to go on fox news, i really do because you need to go on fox news. Thats all i have to say. Host okay. Robert, independent caller, hi, robert. Caller good morning. I watched the debate between senator hagan and mr. Tillis. The thing most stark between them is that first of all, mr. Tillis talked in soundbites. Comments were disjointed, dins have a logical flow. Couldnt connect one thought with the next and i got the impression that the decisions that were made by him were more for the benefit of the government than they were for the benefit of the residents of north coast where as senator hagan, when she spoke, her logical progression seemed to run one thought to the next where you could follow her and when she talked about the things going on in congress, what she was trying to do gave me the impression that what she wanted to do was to help the people of her state and not so much done things for the best interest of president obama or whatever shes being accused of. Its hard to keep up. Shes been accused of so much. Host robert, youre independent. Have you voted for republicans in the past . Caller yes. Host and so where are you leaning democrat this time . Caller well, because they just, to me, they present a logic that i can follow. Based on their record. Whereas, republicans seem to belong to a good old boys club. She they seem to do what is best for them without regard to impact on their own voters, their own electorate. All right. Joan in tucson, republican caller, what races are you watching . Caller sorry. Im a democrat caller. Im watching races in arizona and all of the what is being shown on cspan, i really appreciate being able to see what is happening in the rest of the country. I called about how i support the president and the, what the woman from new york said about turkey having to take an Important Role in this. The countries in the area have to fight for their own freedom and safety and we should be there in my opinion in a supportive role. I hope host does that make you less or more reluctant to vote for a democrat because of what the president is doing . Caller it makes me, i do vote and it makes me more, more that i will vote for a democrat because i want to support what the president is doing. Host okay. Joan in tucson, arizona. Role call. Six races both parties view completely differently. Minnesota 7th district. National republican targeted representative peterson for defeat from the beginning of the cycle since he represents district that supports republicans. Members of the gop continue to believe there is a path for state representative to win. But democrats are confident peterson has withstood attacks and starts the final sprint in good shape. Arkansas second district. Democrats are bullish on former mayor to take over the republican overe open seat and in maine second district, both sides believe their nominee starts in the drivers seat. Currently held by a deem rat. Both sides cant be right but we property wont know until either democrat or republican wins on november 4th. New york First District, gop strategist believes that lee still anyone a terrific position to recapture this seat. Iowas st. Patricks day and hawaiis First District also. Key house races that people are watching closely. Greg, state department, republican caller, good morning to you. Which races are you watching . Caller the one in the state of san diego now because we have an independent that is breaking out and could be elected. And he carries with him a lot of seniority that hes going to get back because he served as a republican senator and he could become the ranking independent. That is larry pressler. All right. Chris, inned indiana. Thank you for taking me call. Sometimes it gets me riled up. Republicans out there will have to realize a vote for the republican is is a vote for the cook brothers and i spell it. Koch. Go in your computer, do some research, find out about them. Theyre going to make Social Security. Privatize, go ahead and take medicare and medicaid away. Theyre going to be against education, against hourly wage. And you guys beater realize if you vote republican, this is who youre going to vote for. Most money made in russia by their father go into the computer, research them and find out what theyre about. Theyre no good and just vote against them do. Not vote republican. Thank you so much for your call. All right. Vince, oklahoma, republican caller. What are you watching . In house, fallin, dorman. Langford, stevens. Thank you. Anything outside of oklahoma . Caller nothing else. Host are you realizing or do you know the control of the senate is up nor grabs . Caller you mean right now im not sure who is in charge of that but im thinking im vote are forconnie stevens. Bill, michigan, democratic caller. Thank you for taking my call. I do not want terry lane to be our senator because she is in favor of drilling in the great lakes. Another issue i have is that isis people are wondering why turkey isnt helping. Do you think the israelis would help the palestinians . Same thing. Nation groups of people without a nation. Turkey would have to lose land along with iraq for kurds to have their own nation. Well,. Host bill, i dont want to go too far down that road. Let me ask you about the michigan race. Are you getting out . Are you participating in grassroots efforts, canvassing, et cetera . Companion. Caller no, i just talk to the people i know and those that i meet. I always do that. Im interested in politics aged what happens. All right. Bill in michigan. One of the race thats folks are watching closely as well. Another one in arkansas where the democrat there, mark pryor is up for reelection. Andrew demillo is the correspondent for the ap, mark pryor taking some heat, we understand his response on ebola question after running ad earlier this year criticizing opponent for not doing enough to protect americans from ebola. Whether is this about . Host he had given a halting answer to msnbc about the president s response on ebola and you know, cottons campaign seized on that. He hadden given the fact that pryor had run an ad that had invoked the ebay lap outbreak as a way to criticize cotton where pryor followed up later that to msnbc and said the fact is weve got to do everything possibly to prevent outbreak at home but still it was one of hopes to instances where cotton and republicans were eager to jump on. Host andrew demillo, president clinton was in arkansas for two days rallying democratic voters, urging them to vote and not do a protest vote against the president. Did it work . Does bill clinton, former president , have the ability to sway voters in arkansas . Clinton remains a beloved figure in arkansas. This election, yeah, hes gotten deep personal king shuns with many of the candidates on the ballot. Pryors father was his political mentor. Mike ross, nominee for governor got start in politics driving clinton around the state. James lee with it. Running for congress. And you know, the thinking is that this year, youve got some pretty tight races that, you know, clinton has the ability to mobilize democratic voters that could have impact and hoping he will be able to reframe the election, reframe the debate. It moved away from antiobama messaging that republicans were really able to use effectively in arkansas. Representative tom cotton new to politics or elected to the house recently, up against some big names, some legacy names. How is he doing . Guest this has been a tight race. Going for over a a year. Remained a tight race. Very, you know, very stark contrast from what we saw from last senate race four years ago where incumbent democrat was basically running from behind throughout the whole campaign by double digits. This has been tight, heated campaign. And so that is the big difference that weve seen here. Host all right. Andrew demillo, correspondent with the ap. Appreciate your time. Getting your thoughts on which races youre watching whether theyre in your state or outside of the state as the control for senate hangs in the balance. Will republicans take it over. Fred, independent caller. Alabama. Where do you have your eyes this Campaign Season . Caller good morning, greta. Im a little cynical now because im through with washington. Im done with washington, d. C. I lost all respect and regard for those people. I dont vote for anybody any more. I just vote against people i voted against mccain and romney. Mccain because he picked palin and romney because he cant make up his mind about anything. The last straw for my was newtown. When those 20 young kids were slaughtered like that brought a tear to my eyes and they politicized that and blew all that hot air and moved to the next item so i am through with politicians. Dont call them by their position any more. Just their last name. Ill be voting in alabama. Go in and check the d block because i vote all democrats and for the next president election, i dont know, i might write in somebody. Host will be. Piece is election may not end on november 4. Says democrats control the senate 5544. Two i want senators now caucus with democrats. Republicans need a net gain to win control outright n a senate the tie is broken by Vice President biden. Here why it may still be in doubt. Margins so thin it is possible a winner will not be declared on election day. Goes on to say the races in louisiana and jar appear to head into run offelections with no victor over the 50 threshold. Louisiana runoff, december 6. Jacks jan 6. En independent candidate greg orman made or man coy about which party he would caucus with if he wins, leaving open the possibility of siding with whatever party is in the majority. Senate controlled by one or two seat margin could spark scrambling from republicans. Not unprecedented. 2001, senate split until senator left the gop to become independent handing democrats control. Speculation focused on i want from maine. Senator joe mansion, democrat from west vast that parted with democrats on many issues. Robert, charles town, West Virginia, republican caller, which races are you watching . Caller hi. Its nice to call in. Im watching the main race that i have control of, the senate race in West Virginia, between the secretary of state bennett and congresswoman and to be honest, its a tough race. Last night during the debate, the debate ads, they both had good ideas but the key is looking for someone that can get the job done and the control of the senate is so important right now because of the two party system. You know, there are three other candidates im aware of that are running for senate as either libertarians or independents. And when the vote counting comes down, those votes that they get would have been better to put against either a republican or democrat, will be a tight race here. You know, im permanently going to vote for a republican on this ticket but its going to be hard. Host take a look at this headline. More than ever, West Virginia leans right. Set to flip the u. S. Senate seat as anger over ppa rules hurts democrats. Caller its the same thing the other callers and experts were mentioning. The key of putting the democratic ticket on a vote for a democrat is a vote for obama. I dont really see that as a decision factor in my world because you know, you should be voting for the individual. You should be doing your research on the candidates but West Virginiales looks like it will be a red state and that is actually a good thing for West Virginia. With the epa rules, its a tossup because of the amount of jobs that will be affected by the coal industry and the oil and gas industry. When you have other states or National Level dictating what an individual state should do with Natural Resources and their job market, it really closes down the opportunity for the state. Host robert, i want to show our viewers last nights debate. We have aired it on cspan. In this part of the debate about the Affordable Care act. What i would do is repeal and replace. I voted forthat 50 times. I also recognize the aca has good things about it. First of all, making sure people dont get caught off insurance for preexisting conditions. [please stand by] it was sold as a bill of goods. We are hearing of people that are losing their physicians. It is unaffordable. I wish we had worked together in a bipartisan way to find a way to keep folks on insurance now. We want to keep than insured. That is important to us as a state. Your response . There she goes again. She says one thing and votes another way. She said issues for all these things in the aca but voted to repeal it. I know what it is like to go without health care. My daughter had openheart surgery when she was a week old. Many folks across West Virginia prayed for her and those prayers were answered. She is a healthy, happy 12yearold right now. When my husband and i started a small business, we wanted to buy insurance. He said, i talked to the insurance company. He said they would cover me and you but not our daughter because of her preexisting condition. I was devastated. What parent take something their child cannot have . I will not back to the days when Insurance Companies can deny somebody with a preexisting condition. To say she is for that, too. She voted to take that away. Host West Virginia Senate Debate taking place last night. We have more on our website, cspan. Org. We talked about arkansas. We are going to air that debate on october 14. Go to cspan. Org. Ofr 100 debates for control congress. You will find them there. A democratic call from ohio. Which raises are you watching races are you watching . Caller i am a swing voter. In, i have has been heard republicans get in front of the camera from all states and all races and rail against women, blacks, browns, gays, voters rights, equal pay, unions, Social Security, medicare. What do they stand for . Tell me. Is not the fabric of United States of america . Host herndon, virginia. Who do you plan to vote for in the senate race . For mark plan to vote warner. Warnermy understanding [indiscernible] i will vote for him. Too not think he is going win the election. Obamaso, if [indiscernible] he is going to win the matter what the republican candidate is. [indiscernible] people. Es and other they only concentrate on whites. And all that. Host i want to show our viewers the virginia debate from last night. Theetro section from Washington Post has the headline that both candidates promised independence. Here is a little bit from last nights debate. [video clip] when Congress Passed mandatory minutes minimum sentences, we swung too far. I believe we need to revisit those, particularly for nonviolent offenders and allow more discretion for judges and the states in terms of proper sentencing guidelines. I think we went overboard in terms of federal sentencing mandatory minimum sentences. I believe in redemption and reconciliation and that we need to look at the prospect of checking after you have served your time and paid your price in terms of time in prison for certain crimes and certain jobs. I do not think you should be able to check the box as a felon, which only increases recidivism. Needs to make it easier to come back into society. I appreciate you asking that question. My opponents campaign has been based on this bogus charge. Independent analyst have called it misleading and not reflective of my record. There was a review of all of the votes and i am writing to in the sensible center. Where have i stood up against my party . I support journaling off the coast of virginia, as long as we get the royalties. President against the on his foreignpolicy choices with isil and with putin and russia and stronger opposition. Host mark warner, the democrat, in a debate with ed gill ispie. If you missed that, go to cspan. Org. Warner leading in polls in that race. Mary in new york, republican caller. Which races are you watching . Caller i just wanted to say about kay hagan. I am disappointed if people vote for her again. Hery her 100 to pay 180,000 a year. Liedent along with it and just like the president did on keeping their health care, that it would be cheaper. She did not back off until they started it. Knewcame unpopular and she that people are going to be unhappy with her. Then she backed off. She has gone with everything. There is no reason to believe she wouldnt do it again. Who has given millions of dollars for Cancer Treatment and helpful things for the people. The democrats have a alien there who is giving them a billionaire who is giving them money so they will not pass the pipeline. They use their money and owe him a lot for that. Host edward in virginia, democratic caller. Caller i am watching five races. Virginia, since it is where i live. Spiehe last be gille versus warner. Carolina, north kentucky. Races . St why those caller they are fairly close. Republicans need six or seven seats to get a majority. And they are also interesting. I heard the debates for North Carolina. I did not hear the one for virginia. Host the kentucky race. Mitch mcconnell. Caller i thought i called in on the republican line. Host sorry. Ok. You are a republican. You want republicans to take control . Would want the republicans to take control. Im watching chris they are most interesting. Aboutwere going to talk all of these and will continue this conversation. We want to go to colorado. Have a Political Party reporter joining us on the phone. Youre a comoderator of the Senate Debate last night. What was the take away . Guest there was some criticism but the questions were about social issues. That is not true at all. Were socialanswers issue related. Opponent, said his cory gardner, wants to make abortion illegal. Republicane repeatedly recused mark udall of voting with president obama 99 of the time. Heard a lot about this race. If this were a movie, the backdrop would be a gynecologist office. It is been all about contraception and abortion. Guest that was my story. Host how is that playing out . Guest i assumed the internal polling for mark udall said this is successful or do it move elsewhere. One of the biggest laughs came when i said, i asked mark udall if he had gone too far on that track . I said his nickname was mark uterus. Host what was the response . Guest his response was, no, he hasnt gone too far because cory gardner has a record to outlaw abortion and ban birth control. Cory gardner did sponsor some bills that you look at and say, servedat he worked in the legislature sponsored a bill to make abortion, performing abortion a felony. If you know his record, he is not someone you would ever consider a social issues candidate. Taxes,much more about property rights, energy. Not until they got into this race did anybody say, wow, that guy is right wing on social issues because he wasnt known for it. Host what does it mean for the people that have to vote . Look, well, i mean mark udall is the incumbent. He has the advantage. The idea that this race is tied just gives them a kratz fi just gives democrats fits. E has these positions on womens issues. How could he be tied in the races . The whole mood about congress and are they effective . Host what about president obama . Guest president obama does not fare well in polls in colorado. I think that is a factor not if youre a democrat. Colorado is interesting politically and divided almost and 1 3, 1 3 with democrats unaffiliated voters. Unaffiliated voters usually go with the national mood. That did not happen in 2010 one Michael Bennet narrowly won the senate race. Michael bennet employed the strategy, the war on women. I think that is what the udall campaign has borrowed that page. Host let me show our viewers the recent ad talking about mark udalls family and legacy in politics. [video clip] i am cory gardner. Guypponent is a real nice who will never change his image change the senate. He has two senators who are he has two cousins who are senators, too. My dad sells tractors. Lets shake up the senate. I am cory gardner and i approved this message. Host is that at effective is that ad effective . Guest one of the questions we wanted to ask is why mark udall was so offended by this ad. He felt it was an attack on his late father. He was upset by it. The favorite headline about the ad was a story that said gartner calls udall a nice guy, democrats demand ad be pulled. I thought it was an interesting ad. More interesting was the reaction from democrats. There was talk about how the udall campaign overreacted in making this an attack. Up, what iswrap going on on the ground in colorado . Guest the race is tied. Democrats keep saying now our ground game starts. We are so ahead of them that it will not be tied within a few weeks. Next tuesday. Out you should expect people on your doorstep nonstop. Turn in your ballot as soon as you can. Host we will be watching. Lynn bartels, thank you for your time. We have a few minutes left. We will take some more phone calls on what races you are watching. Thomas in new jersey. What are you watching . Caller i am watching cspan. Host ok. Caller lets say the democrats do win the senate . Billsn we expect any to make it to the president for them to veto or approve these bills . If we were republicans in the say,e, at least we could here are your ideas, see whether or not everybody likes them, and then do it. If that is true that harry reid is holding stuff back, i do not think that is right for the american people. The administration has been lying to us. Host you sound motivated to bring republicans in to the senate. Are you giving money . Caller no. Do notve people i think that money should be the issue. Joe, democratic caller. Caller i want to try to understand the Republican Party. They have to start with the pollution of coal in West Virginia. I do not understand how you can vote for the Republican Party abortion. They said they are against anybody trying to tap into health care. How can they tell people what to do when they want Less Government . I do not understand the Republican Party and their issues. Thank you. Host Josh Kraushaar is the Political Editor at National Journal. We will get his thoughts and analysis on these races and more. The Big Ten College tour continues at Rutgers University. Here is a bit from a debate between ron barber and the candidate for reelection and the republican from arizona on the issue of gun control and gun laws. [video clip] i am a Second Amendment supporter. I shot the gun in combat. We want to make sure that gun violence is addressed in our communities. The way that this is happening in this campaign has just been disgraceful. There were ads that were run that were considered vile and nasty by the arizona republic. We asked for you to stand up against them and you would not do it. They finally took the ad down because it was so her and us. You have a chance now to apologize. Do you believe that ad was wrong . I will respond when my time comes. Please respond now. We have three seconds left on the clock. What do you think of that ad . Where do you stand on ownership of guns . I want to be clear with this question. It is important to me as a survivor of a mass shooting. What happened to you was horrific. It should happen to know women. I want to make sure let me finish. I want to make sure they are protected and that every woman is protected. That ad was not run by me. When you talk about allies, the ad was run by somebody highly regarded for her work to prevent gun violence, get the giffords. Gabby giffords. The problem with their position is she still refuses to say we should expand background checks. 40 of the guns are purchased outside of the background check system. I believe we must expand it. Washington journal continues. Host back at our table is Josh Kraushaar to talk about the lay of the land, which races to watch. There is 36 senate seats. What races are you watching . Guest the majority is very much in the balance in november. Republicans need to win at least six seats. There are a whole number of opportunities we look at some of the conservative states, arkansas. You have Mary Landrieus race in louisiana, which will likely go into december. You have the swing states that we will be talking about in 2014 like iowa, which is gotten a lot of attention the cause of the personalities involved in that race. Farming and a military background for one of the candidates. You have the colorado race, which i think will be one of the closest in the country. It talk about colorado being a big bellwether. Mark udall against cory gardner. I think it will be a late night. Contestill be another that will be counting the ballots until midnight eastern time. That is a close race between the emigrate and dan sullivan, former state attorney general. You talk about red states, swing states. Democrats think they have a chance in georgia. A very big map this year. Host possibly we do not know who controls the senate on november 5 and we might know for a number of days and weeks. Guest louisiana, it is likely that Mary Landrieu will be headed into a runoff that will be decided not until december. Her numbers are not very good. If she does poorly, enough republicans on the ballot and this is likely going to go into the runoff. Georgia, a libertarian is on the ballot taking up the vote. Vote,e get 50 of the that goes into a january runoff that would potentially decide the majority in the senate. You never know which raises will be too close to call. By a few hundred votes. Host what is your prediction . Guest the environment is looking good for republicans. Democrats argue they have a strong tactical advantage. They have a better ground game and more money in all of these significant battleground states. If i am looking at the big picture, i will take the environment over tactics. The tactics can make up those couple of points. I would say about a five or eight c pick up and they need six to take the majority. Odds are they will get a majority. It is too early to make a Firm Conviction i what is going to happen. Host in the house, are there some outcomes that could affect the margins for republicans and how they govern . Guest republicans are going to pick up seats. The question is how many . People look at the net gain in terms of the election. Republicans are starting with a high baseline. The chairman has a drive for 12 seats and that is their outer end to get an expand their majorities. It is unlikely they will get 12. There are some races that are consequential. Look at how people are thinking heading into the voting booths. A big race in colorado in the denver suburbs. Redistricted was and now trying to moderate his position. The democratic is one of the best recruits the democrats have landed. People will the tank attention to see if one party has an advantage. Iowa, a big open seat in one district. Republicans are running the chief of staff. I wrote a column today that said being a chief of staff is not a big job description. He is having trouble. The democratic legislator is running and it is a close race. Host lets get to some phone calls. Dean in naples, florida. Caller i would like to comment on the governors race. I am going to vote for scott because he has all the right ideas. He is such a good man. He is against gay marriage. He is against abortion and a lot of other things. I am 94 years old and i registered just to get to vote for scott. He has been good for florida. Host ok. Guest she is talking about rick scott and charlie crist. You have two republicans now running for that race. Extremely close contest. One of the most negative contests. Scott has a very slight christ is starting to spend as much money as the governor. Not a great place to be. That is going to be a very important place to be. Thatry clinton is watching campaign closely. She is watching florida because it will be a big president ial battle. She is planning to do a fundraiser in helping out Charlie Crists campaign. She has not been a lot of campaign appearances, but that is one she has announced for the midterms. She was in iowa for the harkin steak fry last month. She is going back to campaign for bruce braley. She is doing a fundraiser for mark pryor in arkansas. She is hitting a lot of the battlegrounds. Has not overly participated in politics. Host bill clinton . Guest he is in arkansas this week. He is pushing for mark pryor, his old buddy. For theoking more republican advantage. If there is any democrat trending decisively toward republican and if there is a democrat who is still wellliked and convinced undecided voters, it is bill clinton. Endorsed a has number of candidates, some of them who are underdogs. He is undefeated. He has not backed a losing candidate. He has this mojo in this real momentum that a lot of people did not expect. Scott brown is another one of his favorites. He will be campaigning in New Hampshire. For someone who is not likely to run again, he has been very active on the midterm battleground. Marco rubio has been very conservative. He has not campaigned all that much. He picks candidates that are important for his own future aspirations. He has been supporting joni ernst in iowa. Rubio not so much as romney. Host rand paul. Guest he has been a big surrogate for republicans and some of the races where you have libertarians on the ballot. You have a libertarian candidate that has seven or eight points and some of the public polls. That could cost republicans a pickup opportunity in North Carolina. He is campaigning for dan sullivan. Host he is saying, vote for the establishment republican . Guest he absolutely is. In North Carolina, he absolutely endorsed the tea party challenger. He is doing a little bit of a mia culp i now. Mea culpa now. Caller good morning. I would like to comment on the debate last night between tillis and kay hagan. George stephanopoulos moderated that. None of the questions presented to tom tillis were directly answered. He dodged every single question. He would not commit boots on the ground in syria. A stance that most of us feel like he would take. He has just not been that great of a legislature in the state here. And he waso office going to create all these jobs and nobody has seen them. It would be real hard to convince me that you can go through a campaign and win and not lay your own ideas out there. Host let me ask you this. You are going to vote for kay hagan. It sounds like. Are you getting out going doortodoor . Caller im just talking to people that i know. Im presenting the differences. I would just like to hear a plan. I have never heard a republican plan. They criticize everything but they never replace it with a plan. Guest i watched the debate on cspan last night. It was very interesting. The candidates were both so wedded to their talking points. They were not answering the questions. I didnt think either candidate had any material advantage. It is a very close race. Kay hagan has a slight advantage. The big question is the undecided voters and the libertarian voters. Will they and up going to tell us in the end . Tillis in the end . Neither candidate is viewed favorably by most voters. What needs to happen on the ground for either one of these candidates in the closing days . , it isin North Carolina the best test of the democratic ground game. They have every element of the obama coalition. The africanamerican voters will be fired up and ready to go to the polls. You have a lot of young collegeage voters. Probably not likely to vote, but you can get enough of them to the falls for a big advantage. You have a key advantage in the single women. That is a key for democrats. They are really important for kay hagan. For republicans come of the ground game has been less advertised. They have a program active in North Carolina. Their efforts on the ground game. Host lets go to iowa. Jeff is an independent caller. There isctually, endless mudslinging going on. Thank god i have a mute button on my telephone. [laughter] or on my remote. What i think they should be focusing on is the economy and you never hear anything about it. I really dont know what our economy is based on anymore. If it is just the fed printing more money or China Building empty cities. I do know what is going to happen in the next recession. Are they going to print 10 trillion instead of 4 trillion . Tot do they want to get washington for any way with the gridlock and everything . If these parties dont start working together, the common man eight going to have much going for him. The billionaires got plenty. They can finance all of these commercials. All got an island to escape to. I dont think that is going to do them any good with food riots. You know. Host it sounds like you are not hearing from the candidates, either one of them. You are an independent. You are not hearing what they are going to do for you. Caller i dont see nothing happening in washington. Im going to vote. Im probably going to vote mostly democrat. I just dont see washington host why . Think theycaller i carry little bit more about the people. But even they are financed by the billionaires. Guest that is an interesting take away. Democrats of not been doing well with workingclass voters. A generation ago, they used to dominate among the demographic. Iowa has a lot of middleclass voters that are feeling the economic squeeze. These voters usually trend democratic. Are plenty of signs in iowa that president obama is very unpopular. That the democrats are not anymore caring about the working class than the republicans are. The republican nominee has run a very personality centric campaign. She has talked about her career as a farmer, her career as a military veteran, someone engaging, someone using her personal biography in a very significant way. That is an advantage she has. Host steve in pennsylvania. Independent caller. Isler the media in general not keeping up to speed and neither are the candidates for the democratic or the republican parties, keeping up to speed with what is going on with the silent majority of the independent voters which is considered one third of the voting electorate. A very bigsue is thing in pennsylvania and a couple of other key states for the senate races. The opinion is being thrown out on the television by the media, they have not even affected the people on the streets. The street talk with neighbors and stuff like that is that the obamacare is also killing the middle class, especially in our area. I know of seven neighbors they cannot get insurance and it is like, ok, they went to the government exchanges and they got screwed. Host ok. The aca. Guest it has not got as much attention in recent weeks. There was a very fascinating analysis in the ads. Republican ads in the big senate races overwhelmingly focus on the health care law. It is still a tribe or four ublican boaters voters it is still a focus for the republican voters. Care is the sleeper. People think it has faded away. But it is one of the dominant issues tied to the economy, as the caller suggested. If republicans take the senate, it would be the top reason. Host lets go back to iowa. Bob is there. Caller a couple of comments to my fellow iowa colleague. Im going to vote for joni ernst. Carolina saidorth that he wants to debate and they never answered the questions. I have been watching all the debates. The democrats and the republicans never answer the questions. Their canned speeches, they go into their talking points. It is just like, why even have a debate . It is just interesting. Back to iowa. Your response on joni ernst winning this race . Also on the congressional districts. The one that most back mosbeck has. , it is one of the few open seats where you do not have an incumbent on the ballot. If it is a good republican year, that generally favors republicans. Joni ernst has run a Good Campaign and has raised more money than bruce braley. I would give a small advantage to joni ernst. She leads by 26 points in most public polls. Host what about senator tom harkin . Is he helping out bruce braley . Guest he is very popular and has a lot of clout. Facesoblem bruce braley a lot of it is fundamentally he is a member of congress, he is someone who is an attorney, it has been hard for him to connect to your average middleclass voter. He is not politically charismatic as ernst. In a close race ended environment that favors republicans, that is a challenge to overcome. Changednvironment has and ernst has run a strong campaign, she has started to pull ahead. I would expect it would take a for loebsack to lose. It should be a democratic old. Is Third District in iowa one of the best democratic pickup opportunities in the country. Young and you have stacy appel. Woman tobe the first recognize represent iowa in congress, joni ernst or stacy appel. Those are historic on other sides. Host ray is an independent caller. Caller im interested in the governors race in maryland. Host did you whats the debate last night . Caller yes, i did. I thought of this great and i hope hogan wins. He at least has some common for the budget of maryland. Host civic issue for you. Caller yes. Guest that is one of the surprising governor raises. Lot closer Anthony Brown so has the lead, but the republicansand is much more competitive than anyone ever expected. The Democratic Governors Association has put more money in maryland. Affluent voters in some of these big governors races. There are a lot in montgomery county, baltimore county, wealthy voters. They are not a fan of the tax proposals by governor omalley. Pat quinn has hit on taxes. Daniel malloy has been surprisingly notable. Because of some of the tax and spend policies in connecticut. Has become a sleeper issue in the governors races. That is the headline from the Washington Times. Brown duals over the economy. Be airing some of the debates that we did not get to last night later in the week. Georgia. We will be airing the arkansas Senate Debate. Lets go to North Carolina. Fayetteville. Republican caller. Brian, did you watch the debate . Caller i did. My response is jibber jabber. I got a choice of the lesser of two evils. A political scientist and an attorney. I still feel like i need to decide by flipping a coin. Them weree neither of responsive to the questions. They are always canned answers. Tillis is from the republican run party. It is a terrible party. I have been a republican for 20 years and i hate the North Carolina state Republican Party currently. I dont mind the national party. That is why i am a member still. D. C. Gan is always up in i might as well just flip a coin. I cant decide which is the lesser evil. Host can i ask you how you feel about president obama . Caller mixed emotions. I felt like he got handed a bad deal in the beginning, but he has had six years and there have been some serious problems. They could have been handled much better. Everybody knows about benghazi, the cia, the irs. There are tons of issues that have happened and every president has them. He has serious, sincere issues in the beginning. Monopoly andmplete control in the beginning to pass the aca. I voted for obama in 2008. Im partially a swing voter. I hated sarah palin. I liked john mccain, but i could not stomach stare a palin. Sarah palin. Guest that caller reflects the challenges that tom tillis is facing in North Carolina. North carolina voted for mitt romney in 2012. Votedou have a caller who as a swing conservative voter who does not like tom tillis and does not think he answered the issues at the debate. Tom tillis has underperformed among republicans. He is getting fewer republican votes than most of the other Republican Senate candidates. That is a big problem with tom tillis and why the race is so close. Host the front page of the wall street journal this morning has this headline. Voters are excited about nobody. Bill is a democratic caller. Morning. Ood i have a couple of comments and the question. I just moved to florida two years ago. I have never seen such negative campaigns in my life. I have been around. It seems like every commercial down here is a negative campaign. The two guys running for governor are awful and their negative campaigning. Absolutely ople accidentally hit the libertarian button. The negative campaigning is absolutely terrible. These people running for state ,epresentative, state auditor they are all on this antipresident obama campaign. Even they are running negative campaigns. There are not a lot of excited voters. Have an intensity advantage. As there is a lot of antiobama sentiment. You look at a lot of the thirdparty candidates. You have the independent candidate in kansas who is leading pat roberts, who has not ever since he was elected in 1980 into the house. This is a race where he has never had a race in his life. You have this independent running who is five or six points ahead. There is a very antiwashington, antiestablishment sentiment. I think it will translate more to the gop side. The senate and the white house hold both of those branches, the democrat side. Eric cantor was out this spring. What will you be watching for in kansas in the coming weeks . Republicans are belatedly trying to nationalize this race by portraying the independent candidate as a democrat in disguise who is getting support from harry reid and democratic donors. That has the potential to have a significant impact, given that they do not know who greg gorman is. Because this is such an antiwashington environment and pat roberts has so much trouble on his right flank and his middle flank, that is a really serious challenge. Host lets go to new jersey. James is an independent collar. Caller hello, cspan. Hey josh. [indiscernible] minimum wage, 7. 25 per hour. Most of the states. Stampshave to get food to survive on seven a list on a five cents per hour. 7. 25 per hour. [indiscernible] raising the minimum wage to 10. 10 per hour for the poor people. Host is minimum wage an issue . Guest democrats are hoping it is to mobilize their base to the polls. It has not mentioned been all that much in advertisements. Trouble speaking about the economy more broadly. There are so many issues in the news. Whether it is a Terror Threat in the middle east or immigration or the fear that a lot of americans face about economic comfort. Just saying you are going to raise the minimum wage. It helps get the base out there, but it does not persuade a lot of people. Host we are talking with Josh Kraushaar, the Political Editor for National Journal. Watch is our discussion. Lets go to bedford hills, new york. Michael is a republican. Caller good morning, everyone. Good morning, josh. Trendingn is [indiscernible] it is trending among the students and teachers and going across the university. [indiscernible] asking theampaign people to not enter this because the congress did not do anything for our country. In thee just interfering domestic issues of the country. Here is my question for josh. Did the government feedback abouts holdingnd opening and this page on the facebook which is against congress and both sides . Maybe this will translate to other countries and develop in other countries because there is no limitation for facebook. Host josh. Guest not quite sure what the question was. It sounds like social media. And otherfacebook tools to drive voter turnout. Candidates from both parties are utilizing it. Host it is that a prominent tool in the toolbox . Guest this is nothing new. The big challenge for republicans, they still have had problems with getting the voter identification, getting the tools to micro target voters with the same precision levels the democrats have. Tools make, these about a pointer to of difference , but if it is a decisive outcome, it will not change the results. Host which groups come which people are going to be making the difference in some of these races . Guest outside money is the story of the senate landscape. On the republican side, you have a hold host of groups like american crossroads. Tens of millions of dollars in big battleground states. Of if theyquestion have the same amount of money as 2010 or 2012. They are going to have quite enough money to play in the big battleground states that we are all talking about. Americans for prosperity and some affiliated Groups Associated with the koch roleers have played a huge in getting people paying attention to the races early on in the election cycle. People were engaging as early as february and march of this year attacking each other. Issues came up months ago. The first groups to get involved against obamacare and it really crystallized these races. Afp has come up with a new ground game that they are displaying in iowa and other races. Guest they claim they have a sophisticated operations that is going to be crucial. They also cut back on the advertising. They spent a ton of money early on in the cycle. They have cut back and little bit. A have not spent quite at the same level as they were earlier in the year. Might be concerned that they are getting outspent in a state like North Carolina or colorado. Host are there democratic groups to watch . The democratic side is a more coordinated effort. Run byate majority pac former staffers to harry reid spend more money than any other single super pac. Most of the democratic outside money is through Senate Majority pac. They have kept them a craddick incumbent in the game and some e difficult states. States where republicans look like a National Natural political edge. Helpedate pac money has tremendously. Are they coordinating with groups like planned parenthood, moveon . Guest there is much more coordination, much more to the same messages. They know a lot of the same people that are involved in the campaigns. On the republican side, you have folks like the Koch Brothers that are much more oriented to antiobamacare message and you have the more republican outside groups who may want to help a campaign in a different way. Some of the messages have been different coming from outside groups. From the democrat side, they are much more cohesive and consistent. Host robert is from arkansas. What is it like living in arkansas with that competitive gubernatorial and senate race . Caller i am on the air . Fuck. Host apologies for that. We do not have a time delay. Colleges to our audience. We will go to kingsland georgia apologies to our audience. We will go to kingsland, georgia. An. Er im a veteran for i am a vietnam veteran. The last time a motive for george bush. Was for george bush. The republican candidates seem to have a very low iq. What are their issues . Criticismsof the from a lot of democrats and republicans is that republicans are running to prevent defense. They are running against obama and his policies. Are not advancing their own policies because they think that it is so favorable to them that they do not want the democrats to criticize what they would offer on certain issues. It is pretty clear where republicans stand. They are against the health care law. Issuess a broad array of where all republican candidates stand. One of the you are challenges is that you dont really have an agenda with specific policies that s are running on. Youve seen mostly antiobama or antidemocratic ads rather than a pro sort of policy. Host good morning. Caller good morning. Will be a tsunami of young republicans that are really concerned about our nation and where its headed. Straight to vote republican ticket in hopes to get the country back on track again. Its been a mess the last few years. Everybody will agree on that. For rick scott, and not for charlie crist. Im going to vote did straight republican and i think we will take the house and in 2016, we will take the white house back. What about her prediction . Guest the governors race will be pretty telling. You have a lot of money. The floridas governors race will be really usually, governors races do not track with as much attention, but floridas race, i think most will watch it pretty closely. And marco rubio was talked about a little bit, but he will be a surrogate for rick scott, someone who has president ial ambitions of his own. He will be watching his own state numbers very closely. Host lori clark on twitter says this lets be honest, does and when the beast elections will matter . Were still going to get gridlock, right . Gett we will still gridlock in all likelihood. There are areas where a democratic or republican senator , judgese a difference most likely. Democrats change the filibuster level earlier in the year. But if republicans retake the senate, that is on the neck up come back to haunt them. We are not expecting any retirement in the next couple of years, but if that were to happen, that would give republicans a lot more leverage. View, Strategic Point of if they get control of the congress, they could pass legislation and get put pressure on the president politically. They could hypothetically pass an immigration bill that is more to their partys liking, more Border Security for example. It might give president obama less leverage or less ability to say that these republicans arent passing anything and that there to saying that what they are against. If they play their cards right, they could put pressure on the white house. Host millman, democratic caller. Imer im a democrat and trying to find out what these democrats, they have set down their policies to help people, but now they are running away from their own policies. Host are they . You seen a lot of democrats distancing themselves from president obama. Using this in the Kentucky Senate race you have seen this in the Kentucky Senate race. Is the veteran Senate Minority leader, but shes in kentucky. And shes having a lot of trouble explaining she was asked whether she voted for president obama in 2012 and she just ignored the question at a recent press conference. There are other challenges. We have about 10 minutes left. I want to get more of your phone calls and foes of the lines are open for republicans. We will go to marion potomac more of your phone calls in. The lines are open for republicans. We will go to marion in atomic. Im wondering why anyone who makes less than 250,000 dollars year would want to vote for a republican. They are sending our jobs abroad. The chinese are now buying homes in atomic and all over canada for in potomac and all over canada for cash. 300 Million People around the world are in poverty. And they refuse to give benefits to people who have been looking for jobs for more than two years, but they keep making the rich richer. And now they are thinking again of giving tax cuts to the super wealthy. As an independent, who are you more inclined to vote for . Caller im not come through with everything mr. Obama has done, but i think hes the lesser of two evils. Guest that is the hope that Democratic Senate rates as a senate race in maryland, but like are many who dont obama, but dont like obama either or or dont like republicans either. , anda tough challenge especially given how polarized our country is right now. But it is the name of the game for the democratic party. Ohio. Cincinnati democratic caller. That inim concerned two years, if are public and get both houses, was going to happen . How will they fix Social Security . Social security, medicare, they are called the third rail in politics for good reason. When the issue comes up, even conservative republicans talk about how they want to protect Social Security, how they want to make sure it is sustained for another generation. Republicans were talking more about Social Security, trying to you would expect in some of these bluish or purple districts. Somean you would expect in of these bluish or purple districts. It is not a politically popular thing to say that youre going to cut benefits or reform the program. But that is a political vulnerability with republicans that they are trying to inoculate themselves with. Host jacob, democratic caller in new york. Youre on the air. Caller hello. Can i say my question . Host yes, please. Caller i want to talk about congress. Congress has done nothing for the american people. Does the new Congress Want to continue that way . What about the people, the 5 million that are below the poverty line . I think congress should discontinue its action. Thank you. One thing ive really seen is that since 2006, wave election after wave election. Democrats swept seats indeed conservative territory that year, and then republicans got all back in 2010. 2012 was a status quo election, but 2014 was again shaken up. A very good republican year is taking place right now. I dont think we realize how volatile and dissatisfied our countrys voters are. Its a very turbulent time. See a lot of new votes of no confidence on both sides in the last decade. In 2016, you could see a senate, but theres a good chance for public and could take it back. Host why is that . Upst some of the seats are and there is the competitive landscape. But also because the republicans have power. And if Approval Ratings are as low as they are today, they will take more outrage out with republicans, i would imagine. Host and they will have to defend more seats. Its favorable for republicans in 2014. Its about as favorable for the crack in 2016. Host alex, youre on the air. I was viewing your channel and i saw some previous a remarkying to make about boycotting elections. Congress has made a very according to some polls from gallup, the american of thedo not approve congress. The congressmen are not doing in focusing on american problems. They are focused on International Issues rather than caring about domestic problems. Guest the latter point, the fact that we are talking about social issues and economic big concern. In colorado, almost 50 of the arecratic ads in colorado relating to abortion or contraception. Its a way to mobilize the base and try to paint the republican nominee as extreme. It may be effective. It certainly had an impact. Its remarkable how the issues mentioned in a lot of the ads dont match with the issues that most americans say are their top economy, health care. They need to mobilize their bases rather than appealing to the 5 or 6 of the middle. The ads dont really connect to what the voters are talking about. Host sandy in new york. We lost her. We will go on to lyle in plainfield, illinois. Republican caller. Caller i think people misunderstand what is happening in the world. Talk about the republicans representing the rich, but obama flies across the country and has all these meetings at a rate of 50,000 per plate. That sure is in the middle class or the poor people going to the dinners financing obama. Has athe Washington Times story about that this morning, obama was the wealthy while knocking the billionaires. Guest that has been the democrats a gridded banished that theyve had. I think it secret advantage that theyve had. I think as cost obama this year. Politically. You hear Senate Majority leader harry reid talk about the secret money on the republican side and all of the outside groups, but democrats have just as much financial firepower. Perhaps more so, when you compare the outside groups money and the room and the president ial fundraisers. When you look at the fact the fat cats, they are a lot more democratic than you would expect. Story in thee is a New York Times. Bloomberg tries to help centrist with tv ads. That is, Michael Bloomberg. Will he be a factor . Guest that will be one to watch. Rick snyder is in a very tentative campaign. Michael bloomberg has tended to support more vulnerable democrats. Helping out rick snyder, hes in a very tough race. And i can make a difference. Host four rick snyder . Guest four rick snyder. Michael bloomberg is saying that is a bad economic steward some are saying he is a bad economic steward. For Michael Bloomberg to come in and say he supports him, that could make a difference. Host good morning, next caller. Caller good morning. I watched cspan all the time. I love the program. I was not active most of my life in politics. I voted. Two things that spoke to me. At this point, i am what my children called a radical progressive democrat. If you look at history, which i do now, and you see what the Republican Party has represented over the last 30 years or 40 ands since president reagan you realize what theyve done to who votesry, anyone republican doesnt know what theyre doing. They have not researched. They have not checked facts. They have put fear into the american people. They have created the hate for. Resident obama, not mr. Obama president obama. Wrap up your,e what are you watching for in the coming days and weeks . Battlegrounds that are worth watching closely california, iowa, colorado. Is a wave election, and if republicans win two of these states, and you could even throw New Hampshire into this mix in the close race with scott brown. Its a good time for the republicans to take the senate. These are 2016 battlegrounds that the republicans have made inroads into. Colorado, iowa, North Carolina. In colorado, this is the first election that they have voted all by mail. That could speed things up in an ironic sense. The other thing is, the are asrs race, there many 12 as many as 12 sitting governors. There could be a lot of governors thrown out in some unusual state. Like the maryland race. I dont think Anthony Brown is going to lose of lieutenant governor. But a surprisingly close race, dan malloy in connecticut. Sam brownback on the remote insight in kansas. On the republican side in kansas. This is more of an afterthought for the house landscape. The for more coverage of gubernatorial and senate races, by National Journal, go to their website. Thank you for joining us. , thext, dr. Robert barchi president of Rutgers University. He will talk to us about Higher Education issues right after this update from cspan radio. Alexis 9 17 a. M. Eastern time. The World Bank Group says the Economic Impact of the the ebola epidemic could reach 32. 6 billion by the end of next year is if the disease in was governor continues to spread. If the outbreak is contained in the three hardest hit countries, liberia, sierra leone, and ginny, the economic costs could uinea, at theg economic costs could still be 9 billion. The army has awarded 80 million in helicopter contracts to wall street executive lynn tilton, even as the Justice Department investigate her earlier contract awards. Tilton is the founder of the private equity firm Patriarch Partners that owns and the helicopters of mesa, arizona. The Justice Department inquiry is focused on tiltons hiring of a former army officer who ran the acquisition office. That officer allegedly steered millions of contracts to m. D. Contractors and the helicopters while they negotiated his employment. They will provide the Afghanistan Air force with armed helicopters. States arehe united revising their mutual defense guidelines for the first time in nearly two decades to respond to chinas military expansion and increased japans role in regional defense. An interim report released today says the u. S. And japan are pursuing a wider partnership that requires enhanced capabilities and greater shared as possibilities. That revision, the first since 1997, comes at a time of heightened japanchina tensions over islands claimed by both countries in the East China Sea as well as concerns about north Koreas Nuclear development. Those are some of the headlines on cspan radio. Cspan 2015 student can competition is underway. This nationwide competition for middle and High School Students has prizes totaling 100,000 dollars. Create a five to seven minute video on the topic the three branches and you. The video must show varying points of view and be submitted by january, 20 15. Go to student can. Org for more information. Grab a camera and start get started today. Washington journal continues. Tourans big college continues today. We are in new brunswick, new jersey. Joining us from rutgers is the University President there, dr. Robert barchi. He will be taking your questions and comments about Higher Education. Let me get the lines out for our viewers. Students have a line. Parents have a line. And educators have a line. The numbers are on the screen. New jersey residents as well. You dont have to have ties to Rutgers University. Hear your comments and questions about Higher Education. Let me begin with what keeps you up at night with Higher Education, the challenges with it. That is a huge question, greta. There is something every day that keeps me up at night. I guess, the Biggest Issue for me revolves around how would provide a quality education to all the students in this state who can benefit from it at a price they can afford. And in conditions where support for the university is decreasing at the state level and expenses continue to rise, its a huge challenge for us. Host and what about College Financial aid for students macro for students . How does it work at Rutgers University . And what are your concerns with for, federal assistance kids to attend college, pell grants, etc. . We have a high number of pell grant recipients. Pell grantf them are recipients, which means they come from families that are less than two times the minimum poverty level. We have a very needy student population at we want to educate. Ofdepend heavily on sources support for those students, both internally from our own resources, and external from the state and federal government. We simply could not educate our students with all the expenses of doing so without help from the government, from the state, and from our private supporters. Host i want to show you a column in the business section of the New York Times and show it to our viewers as well. , why aid foris colleges missing the mark. , have colleges raise their tuition in line with more college aid being provided by the government . I would first call your attention to the very last paragraph of that essay, which states that a College Education is a tremendous value to the andent, to the individual, a tremendous value to society. That was his conclusion when he wrote the article. I believe it is still true today. The issue really is how you control the flow of Financial Aid. And you make sure that Financial Aid is being appropriately used by universities across the country. If youve seen one university, youve seen one. You cannot lump them all together. If youre going to criticize the coupling between a natural aid and tuition at a forprofit university or a private university or a public there are different sets of facts involved. You have to ask the question more specifically with regard to the university you are talking about. I can tell you here at rutgers, we make every possible effort to keep the cost down. Is a transparent process. We are just moving to a process, which is even more visible to anyone who wants to look and see what the costs are. We areare more perfectly willing to be more accountable for what it cost to educate a student. Host i also want to talk about your background a little bit. Youre a medical doctor, and indeed. D. An m what role does research play in Rutgers University, and what benefit do you think that gives to the health care of this country . And im am an m. D. , also a phd, so it depends on which day of the week what the topic is. Rockers is a Great Research university. Its one of the top in the country. Rutgers is a Great Research university. Its one of the top in the country. There are many issues relating tohuman health and wellness biology. And we have all of the components of that on our campus. The basic research, the clinical research, the Clinical Care components, as well as the arts and sciences and humanities that are necessary for any wellrounded individual who will participating Clinical Care research. It is critical to our mission. Guest the one thing youve brought up and the one thing you focused on personally is diseases. Outbreak in west africa, the ebola disease, how do you think this country is handling that . And not only this country, but the world. Guest if you look at it from the perspective of the world, its a response that has multiple levels. How do you deal with the disease as a disease . How do you treat the individual patient . Theou have in your location healthcare care system that can handle providing that treatment . Is there the simple, basic sanitation and care in place to deal with the . That differs from country to country. Or countries are prepared able to deal with ebola is tremendously different if youre dealing with a country inn, for example, locations in africa, or if you are dealing with something that happened in france or england or the United States. I think the cdc has been working very, very hard to lay out the guidelines for dealing with a suspected ebola case, and disseminating that information to hospitals and to clinical practices. I think the one case that we have recently dealt with in the number of cases, including several here that we suspected initially of being given us an opportunity to run to the protocol and understand what we are doing and that we understand what we would do if we had a documented case in our vicinity. Think that here in this country, we are prepared. That infoy, we have structure in this country. We have the Clinical Care facilities and the public facilities to handle the response. You have some suspected cases there. Echo the process like like . A you have done . Not anlet me say, im Infectious Disease specialist. Im going to comment as an informed layperson. I am pleased with the rigor of the cdcs approach, and the rigor of the approach that our clinicians and our hospitals take to that. I think that was evidenced by the way they handled the two cases this past weekend where ebola was raised as a possibility. Protocol involves how you handle the patient, the establishment, the isolation around the patient, the documentation of contacts and the contact that those people might have contacted so that you can toidly traced back any risk a broader population. And then document whether the disease is truly present or not, and then at that point, bifurcating to treatment of ebola or some other disease that might be present and then falling back to a lower level of threat. Before we get to phone calls, tell our viewers what sort of research is being done at rutgers and what sort of grant you get for that research from the federal government, and the amount. Ofst we are doing in excess 700 million worth of sponsored research here at rutgers every year. Research the spectrum, thats involved with protecting our coastlines to atmospheric sciences, to research that is dealing with drones or implantation and safety that surrounds that, to research that surrounds biomedical topics of all sorts, from Infectious Diseases like the ones youve been talking about to cancer to neurological diseases. And fundamental research that has to do with what goes on in the human body and what makes us tick, how we can produce that are chemicals, how we can improve the processes of engineering. Our chemistry and Biology Department is number one in the nation in terms of research. Our Research Covers the spectrum. That is part of our job. Were here to educate. We are here to push back to the frontiers of knowledge through our research and translate that knowledge to the benefit of the committee by building new companies, by working with companies in the community to the benefit of the community by building new companies, by working with companies in the community to build the economy. To competeis it like for these federal dollars for contract echo what is the process like as well . Guest these are not contracts per se. Host grants. Guest these are grants by research initiators. And as you know, after the funding wrapup in the 1990 through 2000 decade, funding has been decreasing. The competition for those dollars is very intense among investigators. Only the very best Research Projects are funded. And often, not at the level we would like to see. Im not so concerned about our investigators per se. Concerned with the Research Capacity of this nation. We have built a wonderful Research Engine since 1950, 1960 host of adjustment as a leader in the world in terms of research and development and our since 1950, 1960. It has made us a leader in the world in terms of research and development in our economy. And over the last 10 years we are slipping. We are slipping because we dont spend the percentage on research of our gross product that most of our competitors do. I think that is an issue. Bringan issue that we into science and technology. Our educational institutions dont see a future there and end up taking careers elsewhere. Thatll be a problem for the country, five years, 10 years, 20 years from now. Lets go to illinois. Lori, youre on the air. A parent. Caller thank you for taking my call. Im calling because i dont think colleges are doing enough to Lobby Congress for help. Elizabeth warren has been working to bring down Interest Rates on loans. My husband and i have about 100,000 in loans. At a time we have paid all of that off, believe it or not, we will have paid over 30,000 in interest. Also, the economy is doing better, but families are feeling it. I think truly part of the reason for that is families are drowning with this financial debt from colleges. Also, i wanted to mention that maybe what we need to do is reduce the amount of years it takes to get a bachelors degree. At least, that could possibly bring things a little bit more in line with what families can afford. Thank you. Thank you for those questions. You raise a number of interesting points. As i said earlier in the segment, we are very concerned about the cost of education for our students also and we are certainly trying to do everything we can to keep it under control. There are some strictures where we are a public university, so there is there are limitations to what we can do with public lobbying. There are some things we can do in some we cant. There are things we try to do all the time to make our the state legislators aware of the challenges that we face and the challenges the students face. To see if we cannot get them to help us with those things. We have had some response there. I must say, academics are not always well coordinated in making their voice heard, as some of our commercial neighbors out there in the business community. We could take some lessons from them. And you also raise the issue of the cost of the cost and its impact on families. I have four children and the last is recently graduated and still in graduate school. I fully appreciate the expenses myself. Im not sure how many families can possibly sustain the burden they are facing to bring their children forward. What i can say is that there is no doubt that College Education has demonstrable benefit for the individual, for the student in society, as well as for society. We have the obligation to make sure that it remains affordable. That we can see our way to doing that, making sure that her but he has that opportunity. , she alsobarchi mentioned reducing the number of years it takes to get a ba. Guest yes, thank you. I think we are all answered about count ability at the College Level. We tend to look too much at the input, the gradepoint average, the sat scores. In fact, we need to focus on the outputs. Are we graduating our students . Are those students graduating within a reasonable timeframe . And somehow, we have to figure out whether they are succeeding. We dont have a good measure of that yet. Host why is that . Anyt because there is not generally excepted measure of what that means. On theocus for a moment graduation time. Most of us went to college and graduated within four years. Nowadays, its very common for students not to graduate for five years. Thats a difficult time. Y . Ourn tell you that most of students here at rutgers are working, and many times to jobs. They dont have the luxury two jobs. They dont have the luxury of taking full courses to get out in the usual time. Some are taking semesters abroad to broaden their education, or doing Research Projects for a semester. There are a variety of measures reasons why five years might be a measure that is better than four years. But we also need to make sure that they come to college prepared for college work. We cannot have Students Entering College level that are not prepared for that work. The amount of time we are spending remediating our incoming students to what we think is a level that is able to benefit from College Level courses adds to the time that they are in our institution. Colleges. Ust with the k12 system that needs to be fixed as well. About that forlk more, but first, brent in california. Go ahead. Caller this is the first time ive had a chance to break through. I have a question for the doctor. I think its kind of unfair that he is a doctor one way or the other. [laughs] push forstill a big colleges to publish. I know my exwife got her masters, and later on her phd. And shes now teaching at unlv. She managed to get herself published. I was urged by her to continue to go after my masters even though i just retired after 30 years of working as an investigator. Is the push really strong for people to publish . Does in this kind of give when the idea is within your field of study, there are just so many subfields that people can get into, isnt there a lot of competition and often a lot of differing views . Guest that is an excellent series of questions. I can subsidize with your approach. My wife returned to academia i can sympathize with your approach. My wife returned to academia after 30 years of running businesses in other areas. The adult scholar is an interesting approach in education these days. But what we are talking about is not the individual whos gotten a masters degree in a professional area, or an individual who has gotten a professional doctorate, but the individual who has gotten a phd and is going into academia. Those terminal degrees are designed to train individuals who will produce scholarship as we traditionally know it. And we measure scholarship in a variety of ways. Its not just by publication. But if you are generating new ideas and youre going to get them out there for others to benefit from, then youre going to be publishing. If you are not publishing at all, that i would have to question whether you were doing what you were trained to be doing. Having sat on the committees that make these decisions for tenure, its not how many publications youve had. Its the quality of the publications, their impact, are people reading them, citing them . Are they important contributions to the field . Its not a numbers game, although sometimes its portrayed that way. Of the business of being a phd who is educating and doing research is getting your new concept, your new information out to the rest of the world. We will go to oakland, california. Mary, a student there. Caller good morning. I have a question for dr. Barchi. Earlier on it earlier, about for his university there, the connection between future leaders, future ofdents, and the type environment they will have to be employed in, and keeping arma our country moving forward and being a leader. He laid out a good example for his university. But i dont see this across other universities as prevalent as it should be. And in fact, we see people from other countries, which is not a problem, but he will from other countries are coming in and occupying those jobs that didnt studentsountry that in this country should have the opportunity to have. Rate. Barchi, do you share that concern . Good point. Aise a i cannot comment on how other universities do it, but you do the idiosyncratic sees the idiosyncrasies of the way they do it, but i can tell you what we are doing here. One of our primary jobs is to create an educated workforce for the state of new jersey. But keep in mind, its not a 121 tie 11 tie. If you look at College Graduates 30 years out to my you find that well over half of them have changed fields two or three times. Jobs that are not necessarily what they majored in. Education at the College Level, the university level, is all about training people to problem solve, training people to assess information, to communicate, to solve problems in multiple ways and a variety of disciplines to be able to change and adapt with the needs of the time. And also, while we are educating our students, we are looking at two or three different tracks. We are looking at the ones that will train the leaders, those who will start new companies, be the new leaders in their field. That is not everyone. On the other hand, we do want to make sure that all of our students are capable of succeeding in their field of interest and moving ahead and contribute in not only to themselves and their families, but to the society within which they live. Host heres a question on twitter from dd, who says that firms are always saying they cant find workers with the skills they need. Universities training to skills employers require . Dr. Barchi, do you think that is more the role of a Technical School and not a university . Again, this is greta that asked the question, because i cant see you. It depends on who is making that statement. A it is industry that needs worker that is skilled in a particular kind of welding or assembly, that is not what we do at universities like wreckers. If it is a company that needs a atdent who has the universities like wreckers. If it is a company that needs a student who has the intellectual skills to assess the problem and adjust solutions and carry through in an organized way, we do train individuals to do that and i would hold us fully accountable for that. We need to be able to provide our students not just with the esoteric knowledge or the humanistic knowledge that makes us all citizens, but also with the analytical skills that allows us to succeed in the environments that we want to earn our living in. Host the next phone call is from lorna in upper marble, maryland. I want to talk about first off, im happy that in 2009, the president came into the office and you begin and he redid how federal Student Loans were coming through thirdparty banking institutions, which was double dipping money from the students. And causing students to go into more debt. The banks were being paid by the students and the banks are being paid by the federal government. That was a policy that was tituted in the early 90s in 1982 under the reagan administration. And since that time, the federal government had depleted funds from the budget. They should have gone into Public Education and to universities throughout the United States. This cost universities to become skeletonized in a lot of ways in which no institution can without the resources they need to educate their students. On the stateside, the state side, having republican lawmakers coming to the states in the early 1980s again, coming in and depleting our Public Schools of the funds from the budget, the funds and resources that they needed to ction, skeletonized thing skeletonizing them so they cannot operate properly today. This was not seen before republicans came in in the early 1980s. Host ok, a lot there. Dr. Barchi, something you want to weigh in on . Guest you raise a lot of points there. I will not comment on the political aspects of who was in office when, but you made one big point about universities. That is, you cannot provide a quality education if you cannot provide a quality provide the of the structure. Realceived the same in , the same as the early 1990s. That is despite the fact that we have 14,000 students in addition to what we had then with no Additional Support for that. Workers used to receive 70 of its operating budget from the state. Now its around 20 . And we are not unique. That is the state of play for all of the big public universities. There is a limit to where you can go. You cannot provide a quality education without someone helping to pick up the bills. As public universities, we dont have huge endowments. We dont have huge private sources of revenue. Education is a benefit for the student, but also for society. It is a critical factor. We are training the citizens that will be part of civil society. We have to agree that society as a whole has to be for it. That is the part that bothers me the most. Keep cutting the budgets, and yet turning back to the state universities and say, dont raise tuition. Wheres the money going to come from to educate students to the way we need to do it . Its a huge problem. Host what do you think the outcome is if we continue on this track echo guest i can tell you continue on this track . Guest i can tell you what we are doing here. We are working very hard to diversify the Revenue Sources at the university and doing it as quickly as we can. Were looking for ways to build publicprivate partnerships that are winwin for the Public Sector companies and universities financially. Upare looking at ramping contributions from many alumni and supporters, once they realize how critical this issue is. Were looking at increasing the amount of federal grant activity we do, which can help offset some of the costs. Mainly, we are looking very hard at how we reduce the cost in the university. How we take all of our Corporate Services and bring them into the 21st century in terms of the most effective, most efficient way of providing the Surface Service at the least possible cost. We have the ability to reduce cost, and at the same time we are asking people to help us with additional revenue. Host we are talking to the wreckers president dr. Robert barchi as part of our campus tour this morning. I want to talk to you about the Eagle Institute at wreckers. What is its role and mission . Guest this is a wonderful gem on campus. It is one of many institutes that we have. This particular one is focused on the interface between our students and people in public life, the legislators, senators, folks who work in our and bring them together to exchange ideas, to educate our students, to help them think about a book policy and build the bridge between the university and the public government sector. In potomac,et maryland, a parent there. Go ahead. Collegesm looking at for my daughter, and im concerned with how much it costs. 30 years ago when i applied to university was 5,000 for tuition and 5,000 for room and board. He looked at so many institutions and its over tuition and 15,000 for room and board. Ofjust shows how the cost education has really outpaced the rate of inflation. It seems to me that we need some Bold Solutions to address this problem. You are mentioning a couple of ideas, but it seems to me we are just kind of going around the edges of the problem and not really tackling it in the way that it needs to be tackled to permit families to not incur so much that and to still allow a ladder from a ladder for prosperity for lower income people. Motherlet me say that my was the first in her family to go to college, and she went to the university of pennsylvania. And i have kept on my desk in a little glass holder one of the cards that was her mission her admission card to class. It was her tuition to the university of pennsylvania. 200 per semester. Just to keep reminding me what the cost was for sub of course, for her family, too. Just to keep reminding me what the cost was. Of course, for her family, that was a lot of money. Tuition, what it costs to come to a university is one of the Revenue Sources. But a University Like wreckers with a budget of 3. 7 billion like wreckers with a budget of 3. 7 billion a year, thats a large enterprise. You have to manage all across the board. You cannot expect tuition to be the alternative revenue store source when everyone else is not providing their share, whether the State Government or the federal government or private philanthropy. We cannot put that burden on students anymore. Part of the question is, how can we reduce the cost to students . That is question number one. Question number two is, how can we reduce the cost of education writ large . In many ways, that means redesigning the traditional university. It means providing education more effectively and efficiently using distance education for students who are in residence. For example, students at wreckers to are living on campus fulltime are often taking one or more of their courses at least in part by computer. The time they spend in the classroom with our faculty is a Higher Quality time. Ourgnizing that 60 of budget is personnel. Faculty are very extensive. Support staff are a major part of what we need to do. We have 26 million square feet that we have to maintain in this university. Anything we can do to reduce the cost, while we improve the effectiveness of delivering an education, that is something i need to be done. That is independent of the tuition. But if we can do that, we can help to keep the tuition costs down. Host i want to ask you about players and coaches at Rutgers University. Many of many no ray rice from Rutgers University. Here is a headline. Time, to,was the decision made they say the race ray rice from was that decision made and how difficult was it . You upfirst, let me back a little bit. We take a very firm line on the ethics of our athletics program. It has been one of my primary concerns since i came here. I have a zero tolerance for any activities in our Athletic Program which i do not think mean our standards of ethics. We train student athletes. 95 of our studentathletes do not play professional sports. They need to be trained for a College Degree that leads to an educational opportunity. And im proud to say that the academic performance rating and Graduation Rates of our student athletes ranked nationally in the top 10 , the very top of the big ten. And we say we are doing. And we do what we say we are doing. Anybody who does not live up to the standards will be quickly out of the program. We have no tolerance for that. In regard to mr. Rice when he was at rutgers, and i must say he was only her for three years. He is not one of our graduates. And that was over seven years ago. He is a star player. We have had many star players since then and we have them on our Football Team right now. But we dont hold up for public accolade in our ring as individuals in our arenas individuals that we do not think portray the ethics of the university right now. That is a decision i make all the time, and one in this case that i did make. And i continue to stand behind that decision. Permanent, then, your decision to take down his image, videos, etc. From the stadium. Guest it is not about ray rice. It is about who we choose to use as exemplars for our students and athletes. The entire cast could change next year or next week. Its not about an individual. Its not about mr. Rice. Its about who we want to use as the best examples of that particular individual. Whether it is number 52 up on the stadium sidelines there, or one of our student athletes who does turn pro and is having it pro career. Is not point, is to rice a pro football player. It would be an anomaly to even have that video and include him at this point. But that is not the point. We want to emphasize who we believe are outstanding examples of our product as a student athletes. Host rome also. Role models. Guest exactly. To a student. Go go ahead. Caller i a former student Vice President. To sit on our governing board for nine institutions. We actually had voting power as students. My question, one thing louisiana has been doing a lot that concerns me, and you mentioned it, which is high tying Higher Education to Workforce Needs. While i think it is very important that state also look at the workforce, im also thatrned as to the move Higher Education is working toward only certain areas. I come from louisiana which is a very Industrial Area of oil and natural gas. There is a big move to make more and push back on our degrees in political science, theater, history. What is the balance that higher institutions should take when it comes to looking at the Workforce Needs of their state or region, but also not forgetting the true purpose of Higher Education, which is to create a wellrounded, welleducated, critical thinker for society . I think it is more important to create the next innovator, to create the new apple or imb, rather than to create a worker for any of these major companies. What is the balance between workforce and Higher Education . Facilethat was a very and educated question, which virtually gives the answer that i would give. Very well expressed. , if i can, another slant on it. I agree wholeheartedly with virtually everything you just said and i dont think i could say it better. When you look at the educational institutions in the state, you often have Major University a Major University, a Flagship University. You have a series of state universities and state colleges and eight series of and a series of twoyear colleges. The coupling of the mission and each of those levels and the immediate needs of the state work force is different. That question has to be answered very differently for a twoyear college. R a Fouryear College or the Flagship University of the state. I think the Flagship University should be concerning themselves with the future needs of the nation in exactly the kinds of ways that you talked about, and adaptable and educated workforce that can be business enough tomorrows civil society, and can be the innovator, the problem solver. Whereas it may be that a twoyear college must be more sensitive to the immediate needs of the business in its region. Im not in favor of tying tightly the Educational Programs of the university, a fouryear , to thety like ours Workforce Needs as determined by some sort of survey. Remember, those surveys reflect peoples opinions 2, 3, 4 years ago and then they finally get to a university that might change its programs for students that years inuate 2, 3, 4 the future. And no one can tenyear term out what the bills are going to be, so that kind of a coupling in my opinion does not make any logical sense at all. We need to be training individuals who are going to be adaptable for the needs of tomorrow and the businesses of tomorrow and more importantly we need to be training individuals who can help to govern our society and can be participatory in that government and really determine how we make decisions tomorrow. That is really critical. I think we are saying essentially the same thing and i must say my congratulations to mike fitz, west taken over as your new president at tulane. He was one of my colleagues and you have got yourself a great president. Host we are all out of time, but i want to thank you and the university for allowing us to come thereod