Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20141119

800,000 barrels of oil. And republicans, and independents, and all offers, also, handle or go to facebook. Com, and, send us a email. Well get to your thoughts, but let me begin, with showing you a couple headlines, this is how they play it, democrats, stiff landrieu, on pipeline for green lobby, and unions, also snubbed over the Climate Change, and, now it is doomed and, the party, where environmental lists, have emerge he, triumphant, and, far beyond the small impact, and the slight effect expected to have on gas prices. And they drew lines, and, to cross it, in the end, most were unwilling to defy it, and it was a key moment. The financial times, their headline, on this vote, party push to approval a 7 billion pipeline falls short, and environmentals, cheer,. And washington times, this morning, with their take on the vote in the senate, the vote was a victory, for activists, who have defeated, it, for the causes of their movement, and, republicans, vow to return to the fight next year. 6941 roll call, fell one vote shy of passing legislation, meant to force, president barak obama to approve the project. With just 14 democrats backing it, fell victim, to a filibuster, and all 45 republicans voted for the measure. Whats your take, what do you want to happen next. London, youre up first. Caller yes, i think the democrats are making a big mistake, and im a member of the Democratic Party for. Years, i think they should approve it, and, theyre going to get that into the system, either ship it over to the chinese, or they better have it, to us, because we have some controls over it. The way our refineries work, and i understand, a lot of it, is trains, and thats a whole lot more dangerous to the environment meant, than if we had it had with the pipeline. Host youre from michigan, youve had oil pipelines, in your state. Caller yes, right here. Host right, so do you have any Environmental Concerns about this. You say they are making a mistake here. Caller yes, i think they are. Go ahead and approve it. And we can never be in a place, where we have perfect safety from everything. And, and living in the mountains, without any conveniences of modern life. And most of us like the conveniences of modern life, and were going to have to put up with some danger, and hope that the federal government, can have some controls over these pipelines, and i think the dangerous jer is not as great as the other way. Host do you know what the pipeline industry means to michigan . Is it significant . Caller no, i dont know. Host okay. All right. Some making the economic argument, saying it will create jobs. And others say those are temporary jobs, and then you have the Environmental Concerns. We turn to you. Lets go to john. Caller hi, good morning. Yes, i am for the pipeline, i think, with the oil, and, it is ridiculous. Itits going to happen, and its unfornat that is wasnt done before. And im upset the way our senator voted against it. He gave his explanation as he didnt think that the government should control contrucks jobs. Or worths to that effect. Yeah, i just dont understand that. He said he is independent but he always votes with the democratic. Host so you think he hes a indipep dent. Caller no. Host they vow to bring it up. I think it will carry easily with the 7, and host but landrieu was a yes vote. Caller yes. Host so, still at 59. Caller but when this comes up, after the first of the year. New think they can get over that. If theyre short, the 67 that they would need to overcome a veto from the president. Caller thats right. Wasnt doing my math right. Host thats okay. Caller i think hell get a lot of pressure and hell probably stick to his irrational explanation. Host look at the press herrable, about his vote. Casts pivotal vote, and he sides with most of the democrats, in refusing to bypass the president barak Obama Administration. Now, yesterday, we heard from dan, who said that, excuse me, it was nick, who told us yesterday, that senator mary, she was confident that she would get 60. She had 59, and she was looking to senator king from maine and dick durbin, and she could not convince them to say yes. This is who she convinced to say yes. Michael bennett, and, delaware, and, bob casey, and joe don netly, and, hagan, who lost her bid, and, joe, from west virginia, and, claire, from missouri, and, mark prior, and johnes iter from montana, and, john walsh from montana. So, in you say, mark priors vote, and kays, and mark vote are yes, in this next congress, that does put them over 59. But, excuse me, these are yes votes. Republicans are confident they can get to 60. Well have to wait and see if that happens, but, theyre still short of the 67 to overcome a veto. Getting your thoughts on vote, as we said, mary thought she can get to 60,. This is what she had to say. Where i come, from we never talk about quitting, and after the game is over, this was very serious, when i play ball, you just shook the opponents hand, and you went to fight another day. So there will be no blame. And the reason that i was fairly confident is, because i had 14 votes and felt certain that the coalition was Strong Enough to find the extra one and, i say we have to work on our little muscle a little bit more. After the senate rejected her bid by one vote. Here, is the democrat from massachusetts, saying why he voted against it. Host as you know, the house or friday, passed a version of this legislation, as they have done so. Times before. What are your thoughts . Should it be built or not . Bill, good morning. Caller no, it shouldnt be built, we have never been able to convince them. Exxon built theirs, and oil spill still has not been cleanedup. Its ridiculous. It should be let in the ground,. Were going to reverse. It doesnt make sense. And really points to say america, no good whatsoever. Host all right. Oklahoma, where is that curtis . Host are you close to any pipelines . A big Pipeline Center for the state . Caller yes, no, im 100 miles. Host so, what do you think about pipeline . Caller well, theres 63 votes for pipeline, and, rockefeller lost, and, and two yes votes will so it is going to be 62. And 63. So, after january 1st. Host what do you think, the president vetoes it or what . Caller if he does, hes foolish, because we have zero invested, and, its going to be 100 , jobs and. Host okay. All right. Ronald. Democratic caller. Caller yeah, what i would like to comment on, it its ben about a month ago, there was an earthquake, and they said it was in the state of kansas, and the state of oklahoma. Now, i oppose this thing, have they ever checked to make sure this could take it . They thought it was due to fracking and can it take a fourandahalf magnitude earthquake . And have they ever checked to see the oil lines in the area . Has anything ever happened . There has been no real talk about who is going to clean it up, and everything like that. So i oppose it until they figure out, if it can take magnitude earthquake. So, do you agree, with this process . The president said, i havent made a decision, because im waiting for the state department to finish its review of this, and the state department put out a review, in january, and then, there was, it decided to wait until there was a court review, and so, they have said, the person second im waiting for the process to wait out. Do you think that is the wise course . Caller yes, earthquakes, and who is going to clean it up . And also, you know, they keep saying about the jobs. I worked on these lines before, and, theres going to be canadian people on it, because youre going to go across the border, and your expertise, and all that, i dont know if no start out canadian, and it probably has. Its going to be canadian people on this line, theyll stay with the expertise, and standard dise it. And again, will it clean it up . Who is going to find out if it can these earthquakes . Host all right. Yesterday, usa today, said. Lets go to joel, in louisiana. What do you make of this vote, and her effort to get it through the senate . Caller well, im very disappointed, in mary, because, to be elected, shes willing to sell her principal. That she should go against t and, vote for her. And then, not any more after what they did will and i feel all the pipeline, all over the ground, in the United States, and we dont have no problem. This is all just politics, and blame democrats, and republicans, and they can put it parttime. I know all about it. It is not a problem, its just a game theyre playing . I wish they would kit playing this game and get back to work. Host rich, democratic caller, hi rich. I think this is much ado about nothing, what will happen, the new congress will come in, to override the veto, and youll see, deal making, the president was unhappy that he lost some operation, on the solar, and wind, and hell make a deal. Hes going to use it as a bargaining chip, and then he will pass the Keystone Pipeline. They used to make a deal. Q. Well, you are right, about what in the New York Times. They write this. Whipping the vote, and coming up one short of the 60 vote threshhold to approve it, in the senate. What are your thoughts on that . Well keep taking more of your phonecalls, and i want to show you what they were up to, and a couple headlines for you p the washington times. Youve got recent polls, showing that americans, disapprove of the government surveillance program, collecting data it, on americans, and Senate Republicans blocking reform. Well be talking about this legislation coming up here, with the a. C. L. U. Let me go to rich, democratic, what do you think about the pipeline. Caller didnt we just talk about this . Sorry, can did i talk to you . Let me go onto dennis. Hi, go ahead. Caller yeah, im against the pipeline. Host were listening. Caller hi, because, i think, the native americans, done have enough. We done distorted the beautiful land long enough, let these people, a little bit piece, a little heavens, and, try to keep this country as clean as possible. I. Against it. I know it will bring jobs. But, hey, im just against it. Host okay. Got t. Phonelines are open we want to hear your thoughts. Democrats, republicans. And independents. Well get to more in just a moment, and joining us on the phone, is christina, the congressional reporter, to give us an update on the House Committee chairs that were announced yesterday, so, christina, the house leadership, decide who would chair their committees . Whats the headline. Guest well, once again, theres only one female, and every new house chairman, is a white male and also, every single one, chair for next year will be white. Host okay. Guest you know, the issue with day varsity. Host and there was most of these contests, for the top spots or committees, were not surprises. However, there was a contest for the oversight, and ice a stepped down, who will take his position . Guest jason, will be succeeding him. And he was in a fourway race, and mike of ohio, and, john, and, john of florida. He comes out on top . Who was backing him. Guest he was considered the frontrunner, along with turner, and hes very active, for a long time now, and long time interest. And his argument was, that he would be this aggressive watchdog of the president barak Obama Administration, and he would be able to work with democrats than current house chairman. And, clashing with democrats. Host so, then, what was the reaction from democrats . Guest well, last night, they put out nice, saying they look forward to work with the new chairman, and, he says, very aggressive lawmaker, and you can be sure, that it wont last for very long. And some fear that he wont be so like ice a, and, very aggressive investigator. Host all right. Well, who else is note worthty here . Familiar face, no longer going to be Armed Services chairman, hes stepping down from congress. And max, will take this over. What does that mean for the military and defense policy . He has been the second highest ranking republican, and he the endorse men and he is retiring. And, he had a been working, with the committee on some of the biggest issues, and policy like the acquisition program, and other things. Host and then also, noteworthy, is judiciary committee, bob will retain that post. What does that mean for immigration . Guest well its probably going to be more of the same, same chairman, who, the committee did approve some immigration bill, regarding visas, but it never made it to the floor, and it remains to be seen. Host yeah, and bob, knows, he writes, in the opinion pages, this morning, that congress will fight, president barak obama power grab. Thats what he writes. Host any other takeaways. Guest another chairman ship was for the committee, appointed, just by speaker boehner, and out of 3 competitors, the most senior was jeff miller of florida. Nunez won out, and its noteworthy, because he is very Close Friends with speaker boehner,. Host for more information, go to the hills website. Hill. Com thank you. Guest thanks for having me. Host lets get back to your calls, the senate rejected building that pipeline. Don, democratic caller. Was it the right move. Caller good morning, yeah, i think, mary was right the first time, its a game, that theyre playing. And its only as good as the next sledge sleigh tough body, and thats whats going to happen next year. And he says, holding off on it, because he said he wanted to look at the environmental impact, what does it do to the envontment . What does it do . This crosses yellowstone park. Its frustrating, because, nothing is sacred, our fresh water is not sacred any more. It is vital. Thats all i have to say. Host ray, in person, a row public can. Caller yes, interesting thing about this pipeline deal, if you look at history, youll see that Warren Buffett brought up all the respect, before that came online. Hes also a very big contribute tor to president barak obama, and when see himself those railways, then youll know that it is going to be approved. There will be no pipeline, as long as buffer at the time is making a fortune. Host all right, ray. Princeton, new jersey, valuelerry. Caller thanks for taking my call, im a mom with two little boys, and whats important to me is a clean environment. I dont think that the oil industry has dom minute straighted, safety. And how much and over the longterm, it has not been adequately study he. And, yes, it would create jobs but not a longterm job solution and jobs, once they are done and gone. So i think, that it is going to be better, our health, and i think that before, the oil industry would need to demonstrate a greater degree of safety and, more longterm studies. Because there will be spills. Host what about the argument, that youre just adding, a little over 1,000 pipelines, to what a 1 50s,000 of existing pipe loin, and the northern leg of keystone, has been built. Were just talking about the southern leg. From curbing down to the gulf of mexico mex. Caller i think thats still 1,000 miles of water, thats in jeopardy, and wildlife. And i dont think you can effect the ecosystem, without effecting our health. So, i dont think that it is a easy decision. Yes. Okay. Host so, the southern leg has already been built. Its that caller yes, i think thats a better point, because, it is a route that is not in use. The northern leg doesnt really, it is a shortcut. Host yeah. Caller the southern leg connects to the gulf, so it is affecting oil. And the northern route is creating a shortcut. Host okay. Mike, in houston texas, your thoughts. Caller yes, i would say, the pipeline, it means jobs for the entire country and, you have the west coast, and east coast fighting it, and i dont understand why the democrats doesnt comply, with jobs. I mean it just seems like they fight jobs, every time republicans try to create jobs. Host so, the argument is, that it would create these jobs, usa today, said that the topoftheline economic benefits, and state department says, during the year or two that it would take to keystone, could produce 42,000 jobs, thats nothing to sneeze at. Once the job is built, the number of permanent jobs will be 35. Caller you have to look at the pipeline, it would be more than that. All the labor involved, in transportation. And, carrying it across trucks. And its just really i go for rent. Its the safest way, it means more than the job, that they talk about. They dont tell you that. It means more jobs from Small Businesses up. Host okay. So a little bit of color for you, about how this all happened in the senate, and the negotiations, this is from the New York Times. Take a listen to her argument. Guest theres a lot of discussion, on this floor, about the Keystone Pipeline, and the number of jobs, that it will bring, i think we recognize, when you build something, there is that flurry of activity, and there are those jobs that are very real, and if and promising. But, construction jobs come and go. So what do you have left after you have completed it . What you have, is in a very real sense, an energy lifeline, that connects our friends and neighbor, canada to the north, to our opportunities, for row fining capacity in the gulf of mexico, and opportunities within this country, to be more energy secure, to be less energy dependent. Host the senator, she will be chairing in the 114th congress, the committee that has jurisdiction over energy issues, and republicans saying they will bring this back to a vote. Frontpage of the New York Times, in other news is, a story about reverend al sharpton. The lengthy piece inside the New York Times, if you are interested. Also, in other news, we said that, president barak obama has ordered a toptobottom review of the nations hostage policy. And this review will not include the ban on ran some payment, that is not going to be reconsidered, as part of this review. Also, in ferguson, missouri, as they wait for a grand jury decision, about the Police Officer who shot michael brown, heres a headline. Also, this morning, on ebola, heres a piece in u. S. A. Today. The u. S. Is going to build fewer clinics, and the drop in infections, is the reason. It has declined, to about 25, which has reduced the need for clinics. Thats a update on the situation in liberia. The opinion pages, saying that Congress Must act on War Authority. That it must act on this isis strategy, and give the president , War Authority. The Washington Post, too many limits, president barak obama is dedicated to a flawed strategy, and if he continues to allow his resistance, to steps suc such se deployment of ground forces, he will ensure its failure. Hi, good morning to you. What are your thoughts on the pipeline. Caller good morning, i oppose it. I believe, the main reason its going to be built, and thats a port city. Theyre counting that it will lower fuel costs, and i doubt that that will will ever happen, and its going to the gulfport. So it can be export he. Host ali shasm. Caller good morning. I want to congratulate you for bringing representative walter jones on yesterday, i really enjoyed him and i hope you will have him again. I am against the keystone. How come they want to ship it out . Thats known as rotten oil, theres nothing good about it. And, it ruins the environment. It is going to go through our food basket, and after they are ruined, whats better the people going to have . The only people who are going to benefit are the oil people. Once that oil is shipped out, the people there will have nothing. So few people will have the jobs. And those are the only people who are going to benefit. Host all right, we told you, that Senate Republicans blocked an effort to rein in the n. S. A. , that surveillance program, that came to light after the leaks were made available to the public. And the Senate Republicans blocking that effort. Senator rand paul, didnt think it went far enough to protect peoples Civil Liberties and, they said you cant tie the hands of our init will gence agencies, when theyre trying to fight isis. This is the daily beast headline on it thats the headline, two potential contenders. And then also, heres some tweets. He wrote this legislation, and he calls on the senators, to protect the privacy rights and support the reforms. And, senator oconnell, he points to a wall stree wall stt journal opened and they wrote, in yesterdays wall street journal. You cannot tie the hands of n. S. A. We have a few minutes left, and i want to go t louisiana. It talks about the outcome for yesterdays vote, on keystone, for mary, and her run off race. The reporter, elizabeth, what do you think this means for her runoff bid. Guest you know, i think, here, were watching this all week, and wondering, is there really that much to gain here . The way the vote went, theres probably more to lose, and i dont think it will have that much of a race, it might hurt her chances, just in the fact that it does diminish this argument, that shes making. Host what do you think this does for bill cassidy, what is he saying, that, if he wins, and he is the senator . Guest you know, congressman cassidy, has been with the senate majority, and hes already been promised a seat on the energy committee. And he is fighting for keystone. And so, i dont know that with them taking the same position, on this issue. I dont know that this has ever been one of those situations, where one has the upper hand. Host how is the run off looking. Guest the polls definitely show cassidy with a significant lead right now. Part of that is because, just under louisiana primary setup, she took 40 . And those are tea party, and, it would be over 55 , and you dont see a lot of the tea party jump into the democrat side. What is the effort like by republicans, to get bill cassidy elected, and, what are the efforts by democrats . Host theyre, especially, the primary, a couple weeks ago, national leaders, on both sides have come, and, theres still a lot of Republican Television ads, and, the democrats have come in, and backed away, from her campaign, she still has some ads, and didnt have the National Support that she has. You have a piece on the ad vote cats, marco rubio to stusm u stump forecast sidney. Yes,. And thats been one of the things, is just how many marquee names, are drawn up, rand paul was down, and, john mccain was in before the primary, and then on the democrat side, they are having a fundraiser, and, the clintons have been here. And it has drawn a lot of big names. Host okay. Thank you, appreciate it. Guest thanks for having me on. Host lets go to caste, and youre our last for now, on this Keystone Pipeline. What are your thoughts on it . Caller i dont want us to pass this bill. In congress, the other day, a woman congressman came up with an ament men, because the spill would be responsible for the bill. This crude oil does not fall under the same law, that oil regular oil does, that the Oil Companies have to clean up. So she proposed a ameant, if there were any spills, they would be responsible for for paying for the cleanup and, every republican said no. They would not allow that. So, if this Keystone Pipeline gets built, there was a leak in the river, that cost over 1 billion to clean up. So, if there are any leaks, you, the american taxpayer are going to have to pay. Host okay. Thats cathy. And well continue this conversation, and n. S. A. Immigration reform, as well, with senator rob johnson and, well talk, with a. C l. U. , on the Senate Action yesterday to reign in the n. S. A. But first, the director, updated congress on the u. S. Response to the ebola outbreak. Heres a little bit fromhigh yesterdays hearing. The most important principc that we are following, in ebola control, is to find out as quickly as possible, what works, both on the ground, and in the u. S. What we found is that, treating ebola in the u. S. Isafi difficult. The two infectionses in dallas e were an indication of that. We moved to add a margin ofti safety to ouron guidelines, and personal protective equipment, and s we have put into placeon multiple levels of protection. Multiple levels of protection. Americans, and we control it ino africa, and screening. And the active monitoringsour and the active monitoringsour individual hospitals, and health departments, and we have something called, rapid ebola teams and, have visited, hops, to get them ready for the next ebola case, and, the team has been developed before doctor spencer became ill, so, it is key, and rapid adjustments as we learn more about ebola. We want to welcome back to our table, republican of wisconsin. Let me begin with yesterdays vote or Keystone Pipeline. You alone, all voted yes to build this pipeline. It failed by one vote. In the 114th congress, how many votes does it get. Guest its hard to say, hopefully, get 54, and need six or seven. And we had 14 democrats, and some of those individuals will no longer be in the senate, and, get the support. Host what do you think then . Do you have enough votes to override the veto . Guest if president barak obama wishes to the american public, this is an issue that the American People support, because they want their Energy Prices lower, and thats just good economic growth, the goal here, is lets keep american Energy Prices low, and its a huge economic advantage, and we have cheap power, and what makes us uncompetitive, is the tax system, and the burden. Lets not draw up the power. Host what evidence do you have that this will have an impact on americans costs. Guest when you increase it, it makes sense, its just it. It is hardly to say, you know it will be beneficial from keeping prices reasonable, and, competitive. Host how much does it add to the smile, when there is already, this oil coming not a oil, and has been, and 1 50s,000 miles of pipeline that exist . How much is this adding . When you play the numbers game, the bottomline, regardless of whether we build the pipeline, this oil is going to be used. And i would be concerned about the environment. And this is the least impactful way of transporting it. The most environmentally friendly. And, were going to burn, and utilize the oil, here in america, and so, if you are concerned about the environment, the pipeline is a good deal for the environment. As you know, americans, do want the pipeline, according to the usa, 6025 , should approve it. They also, approve of the president s deal with china, on Climate Change. So, should republicans work with the president on that . Guest the deal with china, they do nothing. At the same time, what president barak obama has committed, america, is pretty significant costs on the economy. He said, because of his cap and trade, and hes going to push it through, his regulation, he said electricity rates would skyrocket. If you fear monger about Climate Change. What can we do about it . How much do we want to spend and how much harm do we want to cause to our economy and, americans. How much do we want . I think if americans really take a look at what president barak obama, what his policies will do, i dont think they would support the electricity rates skyrocketing. Host according to a gallop poll that was done, after the leaks were made, americans, disapprove of the surveillance program, and they want it reined in, how did you vote on doing that . I voted against it, this bill didnt go through committee, and this is the lameduck session, these are some serious issues. I want to make sure that americans privacy is protected. But, we also face some significant threats in this nation, around the world, isis is a threat and, that threat is growing. Our best line of defense, and terror, is this. We need to debate them, and we need to have all the facts and, make sure we understand, all the threats, and we know how these measures would hamstring our National Security efforts to keep america safe, and just rich it go through is, not the way to go. It never should have been rushed before, and we have plenty of time to debate this, and make sure we vike that very delicate balance. Thats not easy to strike. Host so, on the policy, who do you agree with . Senator mitch oconnell, it ties the hands of our people, and then, rand paul saying, it doesnt go far enough to protect americans. At this point in time, that balancing time always shifts, and im looking at the balancing points. And having to impose as many, as many as tools as they need. This is very difficult and it needs far more thoughtful debate. Did that come from your positions, on foreign positions and home land security, that you lean mortareds, dont tie it. Guest we need to control them, these programs are, have robust, oversight. This is one thing, particularly, if you take a look at the far right and far left theyre both concerned, about Civil Liberties, and theyll be watching. Where have we seen any americans rights abused because of this pretty narrow program. If we stop one case of abuse, i would be far more concerned and, more on the civil liber terry case, and i think the judges are patriots, and they are trying to keep people safe. Host this is a little bit of a lightning round. Immigration reform. Theres a headline, immigration site republicans explore alternatives, for a shutdown, what option, calls for passing his committees broad spending bill and then rescinding fund for his executive agency. Do either one of those sound appealing to you. Guest this is where we can use our power, get the American People support. I dont think they support the executive amnesty action. Theres nobody threatening the shutdown do a process, through the appropriation process, and fund the vast majority of the government, we can focus, a defund effort on those actions. And wed be talking about a couple Million Dollars, that we wouldnt grant them. Maybe hes assuring documents, and green cards and, we could prevent him, and the vast majority open. Do you do that by december or i in the next congress . Well see, whether or not democrats may go with that. They may try to shut the government down and, maybe we can pass a c. R. , and, new congress, where we have control, and then, we can focus, this is not going to be ab overreaction and, from my standpoint, regardless of what president barak obama does, my primary focus or home land security, is to finally pass, a Border Security, and enforcement bill. Secure the borders. Most americans, believe is the first step. Because, they dont believe, they have no reason to believe, that we are securing the borders. And we have do that first. Host so, this Border Security legislation has to go through your committee. Guest theres a number of committees, and, im sitting down, with the house, and i want to coordinate the actions, with the Relevant Senate committees, and get them working together, and develop one bill, its going to cut down both of those bills and, we go to the floor of the senate, and the house, and it could be amended, and if we can come up with a prett with a pred voice. Host as you told me, the incoming chairman for the 114th congress for home land, and lets go to phillip. Caller good morning, i just wanted to comment, ive been listening for several weeks, on this well that the culture that i heard yesterday, the evil culture the gentleman was talking about yesterday, that part of the world has been in effect for millennium. Headsave been shopping off as far as david and goliath. Phyllis, do you disagree with this strategy to destroy and degrade them . Ander we cannot destroy degrade them because they have been here for a long time. Their culture has been here longer than american culture, and we ourselves have a lot of evil in our own system in society. Even present day, as we look to try to support other people, we have to make sure that our own people can walk and live in this country. Host phyllis, i have to leave it there to get in more voices. Guest phyllis, you covered a lot of ground. The latest poll, American People support the Keystone Pipeline. One of things i would like to add to a Border Security bill would be a strong and functioning guestworker program. I am a manufacturer. I always go to root cause analysis. Secureit difficult to the border because a lot of people are coming in illegally. If we could reduce the incentives for immigration, it would make the challenge of securing the border a lot easier. What is the number one reason people come here illegally . They are coming here to find work. If we have a functioning guestworker program, they can set the wages. Get the stakes involved. If we have a functioning guestworker program, you reduce the number of people coming in illegally and it would be easier to secure the border. Host what about making companies do the background check and clearance . Guest those other components then you need any eeverify diligenceing the due and then we need enforcement. 40 of Illegal Immigrants are here because of the cell overstates. We should be we can track the package of ups, so we should make sure people are not overstaying visas. Host clint. Republican. Texas. Caller how are you doing . Guest hello, clint. Caller a pleasure to be on the show. My comments on a couple of things one, i voted republicans with a promise that you guys would go in and start doing the things. What you do . The first thing you do is try to pass the Keystone Pipeline which benefits the rich Oil Companies, which i assume are your backers. When you have the immigration bill on the floor there is one on the floor running around somewhere. Nobody wants to vote on it. Also, there is a bill for infrastructure that would put millions, hundreds of thousands of people to work working on our highways, improving our infrastructure as it is. You know, it is mindboggling that the first thing you do is go for the throat, go in and try to help the Oil Companies. Host ok, click, dr. Point. Your point. T it is something the democrats wanted to pass as well. Having that supply keeps prices low. Do analysis, the strength of the American Economy is we are the biggest customers. Plus, we have relatively cheap power. Chief cheapg, power is better than expensive power. Or you know what to do is artificially drive up the cost of power, what you do not want to do is artificially drive up the cost of power. It is not just benefit Oil Companies. It benefits every american. Darrell. Bloomfield, indiana. Independent,. You are on the year. Caller. You are on the air. Ler i have two questions one, does he think it is ok for a Foreign Company to take americans land away from them under imminent domain . Does he think that clean water is more valuable or is loyal more valuable than clean water . Number three, does he think it is ok to break our treaties with the indian tribes. I will take his answer on the air. Guest ok, darrell. Where do i start . I cannot read my writing. I have a concern about the expansion of Eminent Domain. I actually encourage Foreign Investment in america. That is all we want. We want to make america an attractive place for job expansion. The second one was clean water versus oil was host clean water versus oil. Guest it is not either or. Third, we have a real obligations to native americans to abide by those treaties and we have a lot of tribes in wisconsin and im trying to do everything we can to have good relationships with native americans. Host new london, wisconsin. Jean. Independent caller. Know who would like to would be responsible for the cleanup if the pipe should leak the taxpayer or the oil and please do not talk around the subject matter. Host guest my wife was born in new london, wisconsin. In the past, the companies have been held responsible. Maybe additional government rushing resources, but in the end it is the companies that pay dearly. Bp paid 20 billion for what happened in the gulf. In other pipeline spills, and those Companies End up the full price and then some because you get sued. The companies have every incentive to maintain safe pipelines as possible because in the end they will end up paying for it. Host cori. Lexington, kentucky. Republican. Caller i have three questions the first being how can you who the board for the nsa is completely overstepping their power, and getting rid of any much, the Fourth Amendment, by pretty much, the Fourth Amendment. The one thing i could see being a loophole is we actually make people sign privacy agreements before they can use just about anything in this country, which loopholes a lot of the policies that we originally settled in our country. I need you to answer that. So why are we spending much money on oil in other countries when i have friends who actually engineers in this whoe and in this country work in oil minds, and we have plenty of our own. Going to continue with this pipeline idea, and something does happen, are we going to continue to use the same exact chemical that we used bill, and89 exxon also the bp spill, that was disapproved and continues to be used even though we know it does not dissolve the oil but sinks the heavier matters of the oil to the bottom of the flow, and it has the film on top of the water leaving the workers to touch it sick. Host have to run. Guest i am no engineer, so i will have to weve from that question. On the nsa, local prosecutors have greater subpoena powers and the nsa. This is not even able. It has been ruled constitutional you legal. It has been ruled constitutional. It has been blown out of proportion. Your people on both the right and the far left are monitoring to make sure we are not accusing american Civil Liberties. Again, we face very significant threats in this nation. We need intelligence gathering capabilities. Lets not hamstring people that are trying to keep us safe. I do not have any cancers for the others. Host bronx, new york. Democratic caller. Joe. Caller good morning, greta. This is joe the counselor from the bronx, new york. Guest how about just one question. It is hard to keep track. 1 [laughter] i hearmigration people talking about the border, the border, and most of the time you hear people say the border has been secured. That is not the problem. What i am saying to you today why asking this question, do you think republicans do not want to see immigration . Sometimes immigration sometimes republicans on this station without it that if immigration on this station will tell you that if immigration passes the democrats will have all of these people that vote democrat and the democrats will be in power. Host will take your point. Delve down into it, i do not think there is a difference in positions. Republicans believe you have to secure the border first before we can really address the remaining issues. We nationalize about one Million People in this country. We are a nation of immigrants. I value that point. We have a lot of immigrants in wisconsin working dairy, hardworking people, members of our community. We would be welcoming those people, but we have to do it in a legal way. You have to secure the border first, not just to stall the immigration problem, but as solve immigration problem, but as a Public Safety issue we have tuberculosis, and now ebola it is the timing. I have yet to have an immigrant in wisconsin asked me asking me for citizenship. People say had is and dad or my young husband or wife who was brought in as a young person. Host isnt that what the president is proposing to do . Guest by not securing the onder deferred action emissions, that is what he is doing, but the problem is he is creating an incentive for illegal immigration, so young people are so training are going toward the border. I do cost analysis. When you talk about citizenship and before you secure the border you are increasing the incentive for illegal immigration, so lets reduce the incentive and they will be able to him together with what we need to do with people that remain here. Host i want to show the viewers the fiscal times. They point to things that you have said, that federal employees are overpaid. They also say you have said are you going to go after federal workers . Guest lets set federal workers mind at ease. Inave seen a high quality our federal workforce. I come from a business background. In business you have to benchmark your competitive attributes against competitors. I do not think anyone wants to underpay publicsector or federal workers, the we also cannot afford to overpay them. There have been studies on both sides of the issues. Lets get the truth, the fact and the figures. Federal workers should not be immune to modification of their pay packages. In my private sector, or company, because of runaway healthcare costs, we are modifying our Health Care Plan every year. I do not think federal workers have anything to fear from me at all. We have priorities to address securing the border, reduce the Regulatory Burden. I would be happy if we could get through those Top Priorities, we will look at this, and it will primarily be a factfinding, informationgathering, so we can get political demagoguery out of the way and we will address it in a forthright and her. Host what agencies are your top priority as chairman . Guest this committee is Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Host right. Guest on Homeland Security it is Border Security, cyber security. I would like to see an authorization for she mining reporting requirements to congress. I want to see secretary johnson succeed because if he succeeds, america stays safe that i want to do everything we can to protect our grid. That is a big focus of mine. On the Governmental Affairs standpoint, one of the disadvantages we have is a Regulatory Burden in this country that is onerous. We need to reach out to the other side and that is the way im going to approach this. Lets frame this as an agreement. I am not going to ask Democratic Senators to violate principles, but there have to be regulations in their states that are causing real harm, preventing businesses have been able to create jobs and expand businesses. Lets Work Together to reduce the Regulatory Burden. The also, what about secret Service Agency it falls on Homeland Security, with the breaches at the white house, what do you want to do . Guest we have to get stronger. My preference would be to bring in someone from outside the agency. When we started to look at these reports, we found out the current Inspector General was not did not have integrity, lets put it that way. The reports were not accurate. He has moved on to we have a good Inspector General. I have a great deal of faith in secretary jeh johnson. We have a cultural problem there. That is my standpoint. This is where a new perspective, a fresh set of eyes, i think, will be very helpful. We have to restore the credibility of the secret service. We had to make sure there are procedures in place to keep the president of the United States safe and other officials can perform the duties. To go outsideme of agencies and bring home a fresh perspective. Host after the resignation of julia pearson, a House Judicial Committee will hear from the acting director, joseph clancy, and we will have coverage. He is expected to tell the committee at 10 00 a. M. Eastern time on cspan3 that the secret service has fallen short of its high standards. Guest it has. It is just obvious. Again, we need to bring in a strong director, someone from the outside and that the cultural problems clicking the agency. , toledo, ohio. You are the air with ron johnson. Caller good morning. One of the things that offend me about the government is when they exempt themselves from their own laws. In relatione suit to obamacare, and even though it was written into law that congress and the administration would have to participate in obamacare, somehow, magically, they were exempted from the mandate. Is that correct that that was you . Guest right. Caller how is that lawsuit going . The office of Personnel Management literally changed the law and i filed suit to uphold the law. On fortunately, the district judge did not grant me standing, so dismissed the case on that legal technicality. We never heard the merits. We have appealed that to the second circuit. We have a good chance to have them overturn the dismissal and it would be reprimanded back to the district court. Even the district court, when they ruled on that, a basic chord at James Madison said how was because ifse we vest all power in the hands of a few, that is the definition of tyranny. Even though he dismissed my case , and we think he got it wrong on that standpoint, if we hear the case on the merits, i think we will prevail. Host florida. Steve. Democratic caller. Caller good morning. Guest good morning, steve. Caller yes. I am listening to the other colors, and you had a republican that was definitely recommending to invest in the american infrastructure. The Keystone Pipeline, that company does not pay the eight cent per barrel emergency money in case there is a spill. Yes, you correctly identified that federal resources would respond to it, but that is federally supported by the taxpayers of this country. Absolutely, they would be involved, but in court, when you try to recover the money spent federaltaxsupported companies, there has to be that eight cent per barrel emergency money available, otherwise the company could claim bankruptcy, shut down. There is nothing to go after. Or, you are just tied up in court for ever and ever and ever and ever, hoping it goes away. I agree that by the procedures going as it is, it is a mechanism for the republicans to prevent a democrat votes, but unless this country, the 100 ess gets absolutely investment toward american infrastructure, our economy will crumble. Host all right. Senator, your reaction . Republicansnk strongly support investment in infrastructure. It is one of the Top Priorities in federal government. We need to look a lower priority spending items in the federal government and substitute spending in these lower priority items for the higher priority, which is National Defense and infrastructure. There are proposals right now. Rand paul is pushing this and a lot of us have been and have been supporting the lets get foreign earnings over here, and with a windfall tax from the onetime repatriation, lets apply that to Infrastructure Spending. Dollar a 3. 5 billion year budget. The shortfall from the Highway Trust Fund is 10 billion. Surely we could have found 10 billion of wasteful, duplicated suspended spending that we could have used for infrastructure. The whole point but im open republicans do is we go through the thoughtful appropriation process, past 12 appropriation bills, prioritize spending. We have not been doing that, not since ive been here for four years. It is well past time that we go through the budgeting process and prioritize federal spending. If we do that Infrastructure Spending will be high on everybodys list. It will be strong, bipartisan support to support Infrastructure Spending. Randy is watching and transport, indiana. A republican. Caller , we all this morning . Host good. Guest good. Caller i have a comment and a question. Ive sit here and i listened to cspan and watch all the networks. Harry reid stands up with his people behind him and the first thing he says is we are not for anything but the middle class, so what is the first thing they do . They voted down a project that to 40,000 30,000 people that obviously would be in the middle class. They could care less about them. All they want is for people to stay home and get their goodies from the government so that they can vote for them next time. Have you heard about the solar plant in nevada . Guest im generally familiar, but not an expert. Caller they have not had enough economicallyt feasible for them to do some of the stuff they want to, so now they are asking for a 500 million grant to help pay off their loan that they got. So, you democrats, you keep talking about the skills and everything, but just think about who is going to pay for that 500 million. Thank you. You all have a great day. Host ok, randy. Guest randy, i agree with you, government is a horrible allocator of capital. I want to have a strong private sector to incentivize that type of growth. From the standpoint of peoples motivations as americans, we all share the same goal. We want a prosperous america. We want every american to have an opportunity to build a life for themselves and their family. What you are hearing from me and leadership is we really are taking this responsibility the American People bestowed on us with a great deal of humility in trying to reach out to the other side and find those areas of agreement. That is how i approached business. I did not start the negotiation fighting off the bat like president obama is doing on it immigration. Theent on the dash time on front end on everything we agreed on, developing a relation spent time on the front and on everything we agreed on, developing a relationship, trust. That is the approach im hearing from members of our caucus, and it is up to the democrats to accept the outraged hand, work with us, lets reduce migratory bird, make a tax system more competitive, not artificially drive up the cost of power. That hurts americans, and lets take advantage of with this opportunity provides all of us. The Washington Post said recently that you enter the 2016 cycle as one of the most moldable the publicans on the map vulnerable republicans on the map. I am i do not doubt that definitely a number one target, ok . Hopefully, will end up happening in the state of wisconsin i travel the state all the time, giving a powerpoint presentation. I lay out the facts. They are not pretty to look at. Hopefully in the end, the voters and the citizens will value someone serving them in the United States senate not afraid to tell them the truth, works really hard to get the truth out, not afraid to be the messenger even when the message is not fun to look at, and promises to carry through on the promise that i will never vote on a reelection line. I am not doing this to get reelected. I will focus on the next couple of years, tried to find the areas of Common Ground for commonsense solutions, reduce the Regulatory Burden, get the economy moving. That is how you build a strong middle class. That is how you increase wages. I am not going to change. I have been very focused and direct in what my mission is in getting americans and wisconsin the information they need so that we admit we have a problem, and then find it, those are the first two steps. Host what about fundraising it is a necessity to win reelection. What is your position right now . Not done a lot of fund raising the first four years in wisconsin. There have been higher priorities. We had to survive a recall against our governor and we had a 2012 election were Governor Walker had to be reelected again. Ofave been fully supportive efforts. I am in cycle the next two years. You have to do that. It is not a fun part. I do not like it, but if youre going to get a message out if i am going to be able to defend myself against the onslaught of just negative, nasty ads that are going to paint me, you are not going to recognize the person they are going to portray over the next couple of years. They tried it already. Spent half a Million Dollars on a targeted ad campaign against me already. See how i putting nasty pictures of me up, how that drives down my approval rating. Reasons why the good people are sometimes pretty reluctant to get into the political fray. It is not typically present pleasant process. I traveled around the country are supporting candidates, and i listen to the ads. The people i was supporting were not the people being portrayed in these ads, and im hoping tuneamericans, they just the negative advertising, negative campaign ads out, and look at the substance of who people are and on that basis, i will be the calmest guy on my election night. Either get my old life back, which i love and i miss, or i will appreciate the wisconsin values someone that tells them the truth and not doing is to get reelected but here to solve problems. Edu use yourst personal wealth the first time around and will you use it this time . Guest i use a lot my first time and i will not. Host why not . Guest i do not believe i have to. If peoplecord want to support me, it should not be an issue. We have seen how much money was raised in the last election cycle. I made a 9 Million Investment want and i do not think i should have to do it again. Host a couple more phone calls. Patty is first in new orleans. Caller thank you for cspan. Senator johnson, the concern is that i have regarding the keystone xl pipeline the biggest thing is we talk about Approval Ratings 60 of americans approve of this, but the problem i have is it is not based on fact. I was listening earlier to randy who called from trees for and these numbers get called thrown out there from support,r, shreves louisiana, and the numbers get thrown out 30,000 to 40,000 jobs, and that is not true. Most of the jobs will be temporary. I know they were throwing a lot of questions at you. Guest i am getting old. Caller the question with the peoplee domain, and skirt around it, but i think is being improperly used. I would like to hear you address that issue. You had said that was a concern. Host i will leave it there because we are getting short on our time with the senator. Guest my concern about the apansion of Eminent Domain is local government could say we want to tear down this house up ane if we put apartment complex, we will get more taxes as opposed to all of us need this highway, and we want to have a go relatively straight, or we want a pipeline because we need oil, energy there are certain things that are common goods that the public doesnt need to impart does need to impose Eminent Domain so we can build infrastructure paraguay have problems is where it is for economic purposes and it has nothing to do infrastructure. Where i have problems is where it is for economic purposes and as of the to do with need. Johnson, thankon you for your time. Well be talking about the nsa bill that was defeated yesterday. We will get to that, but first open up the phone lines and get your thoughts on what we have heard on the show on Public Policy issues, reform on immigration, and the strategy against isis. You can weigh in on any of that. At me kick this off with story that is in the washington times. Headline is illegals released from new mexico facility. Ice officialthe said any decisions are made by the judges for review. Timesom the washington this morning on those that have led to the United States from Central America and were being held in special facilities. 77 of the 82 let go. The Washington Post editorial this morning too many limits. Editorialork times they say Congress Must act on War Authority from the president to fight isis. We are in open phones. Baton rouge, louisiana. Democratic caller. Good morning to you. Caller good morning, greta. Host good morning. Caller i am calling just to say that i find it amazing that republicans are so concerned about jobs when the president has had a bill for two years and they refuse to bring it up for vote and now they are so concerned about jobs. Republicans are a bunch of hypocrites. That is all i have to say. It is ridiculous how they are so concerned about jobs when they refused a bill the president has had for the last two years. Jim. Independent. Caller i was trying to talk to the senator, but i will just leave a comment i have never heard a guarantee that the oil, once it is in operation in our country is that it will go to our benefit. All i have heard is they think it will, but i do not know if theres anything in the bill written in there that says a certain percentage needs to be sold to our country, and that is my comment. Host all right. Surely. Texas. A republican. Have a i think we should moratorium on all immigration temporarily. In the entire life of usage of ellis island we only brought in 16 Million People and they had to meet certain modifications, and if they were not, did not, they were sent back. That gave people time to assimilate and i just to our culture because the way we would i just to our culture because the way we do it now when we bring in thousands and thousands of people from one place, we are destroying the culture of our country and it is a very good culture that needs to be preserved. I think that people should be sent home everyone that is here illegally, i am sorry. We are going to become a third world country. We are fast approaching half a billion people right now. Inwe want one billion people the streets with pushcarts to make a living . No. Thank you. The most of you know about story of jonathan gruber, the m. I. T. Economist ran a controversial remarks about the passage of the affordable who made those controversial remarks about the passage of the Affordable Care act. I want to show you a compilation video that is then put together by american commitment. That is the group that found the video and put it up. You can find it on dailysingle daily signal. Com. It is a twominute video. It is not something we were part of. Website, to the cspan went to the archives and found some of the video. It includes cspan video, but it is put together by american commitment, the conservative group. Take a look. [video clip] who exactly was gruber, and what was his role in crafting obamacare . I do not know who he is. Mr. Gruber, m. I. T. I do not know if you have seen Jonathan Grubers at m. I. T. Analysis. Jonathan gruber is one of the more active economists in the world. The 12ttended five of meetings at the Obama White House in 2009, including the meeting with the president. He up to develop the Technical Details of the bill. 6 million in consulting fees on obamacare. Who knew you could make so much money working for the government . The fact that some advisor advisor. Who never worked on our staff ive stolen ideas liberally from john gruber. Express an opinion that i completely disagree with in terms of the voters. The stupidity of the american voter, or whatever the clever, hasek exploitation basic exploitation of the american voter. No exploitation. Quicksilver way to take it on was by mislabeling it. John kerry said we are not but yourtax you, insurance companies. We noted attacks on people hold the insurance plans. It is fair to say there was not a provision that was not extensively debated. The bill was written in a way that the cbo did not save the mandate was tax was taxes. Has cbo dataruber and he has helped cbo giving them information they otherwise did not have. You have a law that says Healthy People will pay you an money and get you say sick people get money, he would not have passed. It was fully transparent. A lack of transparency led to this advantage. How can that make sense . American commitment putting together that compilation of video that democrats have made and m. I. T. s jonathan gruber. Heritages website, and dailysignal. Com. Me go to joseph in ithaca, new york. Democratic caller. Hi, joseph. Caller i have a question in the definition of the word treason you showed a clip of comments from different people, but if i tositting here listening chipsable chips potato , i would be convinced. Byer listening to distortion the Republican Party, repeated distortion by the Democratic Party, i get to the point where i am listening to some subjects that are quite treasonable, i believe. It ise question for me the physical, Legal Definition of treason. Host ok. John had florida. John. A. Republican caller. Caller john. Florida. Republican caller. Caller i was thinking about the nsa. In the case of lois lerner, obviously they are keeping track of the people in the irs, so why can we not regain her emails from their supplies . Host ok. John, in florida. On immigration, the front page of the Los Angeles Times this morning, courtesy he museum in washington, pushing the boundaries. Immigrationrning on is this on the front page of the Houston Chronicle texas guard to remain on the border through march. The agreement, set to be shifted december 1, which 86 Million Dollars from an account used to pay off transportation bonds and other parts of the budget to continue the deployment started last june as unaccompanied Central American children flooded over the border. Illegal border crossings since have fallen dramatically, but governor rick perry has said added manpower is still needed to fight crime fueled by mexican drug cartels. Arthur. Staten island, new york. Republican. We are in open phones. Good morning to you. You, greta. Bless i have not called in a long time. First, the pipeline one of the most important questions you asked the senator, and i am paraphrasing, forgive me, is a you have proof or can you give evidence of how the pipeline will benefit the people, and he had none, which i find amazing. He was general in his response. My main concern is about the missions and missions. It should be someone that should be able to present. It is only the inside that we would not it has already been said that we would not benefit directly. Arelast thing they receiving a crazy tax incentive. That does not appear to benefit the American People. Can presentple those answers, we can make a decision. War is concerned, you cannot fight a war on tv, and this is not an insult to cspan because cspan brings it right. Want information, but information from the president , congress, in that regard, it is a disadvantage because there are many that are watch this kind of communication, including those that we are fighting against. We have to allow for a committee to have oversight on the so that we have confidence in them if something is not going right. For a military to explain every is athey will make that strategy that and we are all being taken advantage of. Host i want to share this about keystone from the washington from the Washington Post the Energy Industry has undergone a huge transformation. Thea little bit about business side of the keystone xl pipeline, and what has been happening as transcanada has been waiting seven years for approval of this Keystone Pipeline. Julie in springfield, virginia. Democratic caller. , greta. Hi i am calling because i want to speak to some of the issues senator johnson brought up. Host ok. Caller i was fortunate enough to listen the morning on cspan when Homeland Security secretary johnson was discussing the issue of the number of illegal aliens in the workforce and there has been a fantasy or fallacy, which ever way you want to approach, from both parties, that there are 11 Million People, hardworking, this were that. What really came out was all of the industries, hotels, restaurants, construction, landscaping they have a very good idea how many people are in this country. It is not 11 million. Hilton,iott marriott, their major hotela, the the major hotels, that is who theyre cleaning staff is. It is not a mystery. Important tot is remember is that this is something that our government is aware of the business community, the chamber of commerce all of these think. Anks push for cheap labor they have restructured the way our society works, and it used to be as a teenager or a College Student you worked on long services, especially here in northern virginia. There were people from western virginia that would drive here to work in construction. You do not see that anymore. So manyreally sad is people are shut out of the workforce and the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and the when you talk about work, people really care. Mr. Johnson was talking about working looking at the federal workers, making sure things will balance. That is the way it is across the board. Everybody who has the ability to employ is looking to find the best way to maximize their profits and the best way to cut but as aenditures, country, you have to say where do you want to be do we want to be on a race to the bottom, or a shining star that you are supposed to be, where people work, their work is valued, and they are respected. Host providence, rhode island. Joseph, independent era independent. I have been on hold for about 15 minutes and i listen to you talk and read the newspaper. This government on immigration is foolish. If we all get together in the hundred 14th congress, you will have a big surprise because we are going to take over washington. We are coming. January 15, washington will be flooded with independent peoples. Watch. Host patty. Louisiana. They had therday Keystone Pipeline vote and it was voted down. Host right. Caller i have been hearing they wanted to have this vote for years, and it finally went to congress and got voted down, but the president is getting ready to sign an executive order, and he is saying well, it has been on the desk for not quite two years, and he is tired of waiting. That i it fair think before he signs an executive order, he to wait at least a same amount of time that that Keystone Pipeline people waited for a vote. Host ok. Caller why cant he wait like other people had to wait . Host ok. All right, patty. Here are the 14 democrats that agreed with the 45 the publicans but fell one vote short on haveving keystone you mark begich from alaska, who lost his reelection bid. Kay hagan also lost her reelection bid in North Carolina. She will be replaced by republican thom tillis, and likely still a yes vote. Pryor, who will not be returning to the senate as well in arkansas. Those are the 14 democrats who voted yes. They will likely, even those that are leaving, be replaced by republicans who will vote yes, but you have more republicans coming in replacing democrats like senator jay rockefeller, for example, from west virginia. So, republicans are vowing to bring this back up in 2015 for th congress, but if the president vetoes it, do they have enough votes to override a president ial veto . Augusta, georgia. Democratic caller. Hi, david. You are on the air. David, im going to move on. Doug. Gainesville, virginia. Good morning to you. Go ahead. Republicann the next president gets in there he will cut taxes in half by executive order, and what will everyone do . The president has been said. I cannot wait the precedent has been set. I cannot wait. What are you going to do about it, dumb masses. Host mary. Caller i am calling nobody has mentioned minimum wage. I walk three miles to my job and it is only part time and three miles home. I live in a poor area and there is no bus system. I am making 7. 25 an hour and i Adult Children at home because there is no work. If they would raise it to 10 an hour, people would have be able to get off programs, and when they do raise it, the president has to put a freeze on prices, like Richard Nixon did in the 1970s. I also believe there should be time assertions for bills. The q4 your time. Host ok thank you for your time. Host ok, mary. Gt. Independent. Caller i wanted to address what senator ron johnson talked about in the analysis of the Keystone Pipeline. He did not mention Global Climate change, and again, stressing economic diaries over everything environmental. You need to consider the impacts this is going to have for future generations. We know how much emissions we can release into the atmosphere before we reach catastrophic Climate Change and this Keystone Pipeline will accelerate that. On open phones this morning, getting your thoughts on Public Policy issues like the Keystone Pipeline, a roadblock in the senate yesterday. The democrats a vote in the senate yesterday. The democrats blocked the Keystone Pipeline. You also have the situation in ferguson awaiting the grand jury decision. International section of the New York Times we told you yesterday, shane harris of the daily beast and the story that president obama plans a top to bottom review of hostage policies, and the New York Times reports that review will not include paying ransom for u. S. Hostages. That is not being considered. Mike. Republican. What is on your mind this morning . Hi, thank you. A couple of comments. I enjoyed your speaker today. I hope he gets reelected, but i would caution him when he talks about securing the border. Remember what happened to reagan do not let them fool you twice. Host ok. Caller second, the democrats love to use science as the basis of their opposition to keystone, about global warming, a lot of things, but it is convenient that they do not use science, consider science, when it comes to the termination of an unborn child. They forget about science in that area. Also, the guy yesterday he talked about the draft. Host walter jones . Caller yeah. I was a vietnam war drafty. I did not want to go, so do not thank me for my service, but it does change it was perspective about wars. While most of us just wanted to still, it serves the country, and if it brings it brings people into awareness about what war is about. Host ok, mike. On the keystone xl pipeline, the New York Times reports in the New York Times, it also says that senator Mary Landrieu tried to conjure all and browbeat her colleagues during a private lunch that one attendee described as civilized, but pretty contentious. Landrieu, who often bulldozed her way to success was not able to produce that elusive final vote yesterday. At the lunch, she made an impassioned plea that at moments verged on tiers according to a democrat. Maureen in york, pennsylvania. Democrat. Caller good morning, greta. I was listening today, and i was just wondering, if they really want to be transparent about the pipeline they say the American People want this and that, and nobody asked me my opinion. Why dont they have a panel with greenpeace . The people that i am getting information from that say it is no good. Whyndly, about immigration, wont we hear from the former governor of texas, george bush . He was the governor of texas, running the border there. Also, about the president of mexico, what does he say about it . If they really want to be transparent, lets really see it. Really want to be transparent, lets really see it. Interested,ght be coming up on washington journal in the coming days, we will be ofking to eric pika friends of the earth, and he wrote a piece, the opposing view in usa today yesterday, a project of no redeeming value, his opposing view in usa today. Paula, independent caller. Caller hi. My thing is the keystone and the domain. That they should get out of our country it is not their country, and as far as im concerned, we have got to kick everybody out of washington because we are going downhill. Thank you. Frontall right, paula, page out of the starledger out of new jersey this morning, israel vows retaliation. Greg, huntsville, alabama, republican. Hi, greg. Caller on immigration, i kind this. A firsthand view of value ofy watched the our product go down because of cheaper labor coming in, we are not paying in taxes, anybody in the Construction Industry has the devaluation of our job. I make less per job now than i did 18 years ago. The strip the same number of jobs are out there, but it is killing me. The president is not paying attention. With health care, i have got about 20 employees. With my employees, they are all suffering. Mine went from 800 a month to 1320 a month. Im not sure when you have a president who opens a business, holds the constitution to your head like a gun, forces the American People to take this health care program, and everybody lost their insurance or either it went up. I do not know one person, not for me,on that works insurance went down committee for stated Virtual Office collapsed on his head. What a great businessman. Host ok. Daniel, michigan, democratic caller. Hi, we are on open phones. Caller i want to make a comment on the Keystone Pipeline. They are not educating the americans on it. Number one, once that oil is refined, it will be shipped out of our country. In 2012, the leading export out of the United States was gas, refined oil, so americans have a we are thinking we get this pipeline and we are going to have all of this oil access, cheap prices, but that is not what is going to happen. Is they that it dirtiest oil to refine, so why are we doing that for canada for it to be shipped out . That is what i do not understand. People need to know that they will not get the low prices because the Oil Companies are going to be able to export more oil. Thank you. Host all right, daniel. We will leave it there because of next we will be talking with american Civil Liberties unions laura murphy about yesterdays vote in the senate on the usa freedom act 2014, which is being which the senate did not decide to take up. Nationald rein in the security agency. We will talk about that, and then later, our spotlight on magazine series continues, Michael Hirsh and his recent piece on magazine president obamas National Security team. We will be right back. Her answer . Was no. Thank you, mr. Speaker. Ask i would just say to my good friend from wisconsin, that was part of the story. I think my good friend from california. Sponsored by my good friend cory gardner from colorado. With this lineage comes from Parliament Hundreds of years ago where if you have ever seen the proceedings of the house of commons, they Say Something similar, the honorable is a thinlyhich veiled approach to trying to be polite to someone that you do not really care for. The house of representatives, where there are 435 members, all of these a lot of these men and women do not even know who each other are. When they are saying my good friend, it is kind of disingenuous. In the senate, there are only about 100 that know each other. It might not know each other that know each other, they might not like each other anymore, but there is a chance of them being dances. Journalist david mark on the world of political terminology sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Host we are back with laura murphy of the american Civil Liberties union. She is the are washington legislative director. The senate voted last night 5842 to not consider legislation that would rein in the nsas surveillance program. Your reaction. We are deeply disappointed. This was an opportunity to make the first round of reform since 9 11, and since these. Isclosures of Edward Snowden we really are upset that the government is acting in secret fashion, making secret law, and surveilling all of americans phone records, gathering that information, in some cases that theo we believe government had an opportunity, the congress had an opportunity to correct the wrongs, and they missed that opportunity last night. This what would legislation do, the usa freedom act of 2014 . Guest the usa freedom act would rein in section 215 of the patriot act, which would allow moreovernment to have a targeted approach in collecting information on intelligence matters, so if they are investigating terrorism, this bill would have narrowed and gotten rid of most of the bulk collection at the government and gauges and right now on every u. S. Citizen. So we would have our privacy protected. It would also allow the opinions of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to be released in summary form when they made significant decisions, but we would understand how they are interpreting the law. Greatly expand the adversarial relationship in front of the court. In other words, there would be an individual in the court who could present an opposing viewpoint. Nowhere else in our judicial system do we have a nonadversarial proceeding, so ability tocreate an argue on behalf of the American People and protect their Fourth Amendment and First Amendment right. Host what about Technology Companies in the information they are required to get to the government . Bill would notis force the Technology Companies to give the information to the government. They would be allowed to keep the information and with a narrow surveillance capacity, the government could seek information related to a terrorism investigation, but the government would not hold the information, and we have no historically when the government holds this information, it has been misused sometimes for political purposes. Host can these companies let the American People know what they have had to get to the government or what they have disclosed to the government . Guest yes. Under the legislation, they would have more flexibility in disclosing when customer information has been sought. Host in light of isis, some are arguing that this is the wrong time to try to reform our intelligence agencies. I want to show you what the leader of the Republican Party in the senate has to say, senator mitch mcconnell. [video clip] most damaging way, it would hinder the ability of Intelligence Committee analysts to query a database to determine links between potential terrorists. Instead, the leahy bill would have us data held by Telephone Companies and would make it harder for records to be gathered for a specific selection term. Under the leahy bill, the Telephone Companies would face no statutory requirement to even hold relevant data. There is a legitimate debate to balanceover the proper to strike in our democracy, and hatcontinue to have ita debate, and we should, but the proponents of this Election Program have not provided any examples of the National Security agency intentionally spying on innocent civilians. Courts, the nsa, the and the congress have put in place detailed oversight procedures to protect both privacy and National Security. Host laura murphy . Guest i think that is very insincere rid us of the. Nothing in this legislation would stop the foreign intelligence from being gathered. The government admits it has these powers, and nothing in the usa freedom act would stop the government from finding out about isis. This legislation just goes i mean, this law in congress and the administration are operating under just goes too far. We are talking about protecting domestic records of american citizens, and i think this specious. S really it has nothing to do with isis and egovernments ability to follow isis. Senatorat about what mcconnell set and ron johnson said about where is the evidence that there has been abuse . Guest the fact that we live in a country that has a Fourth Amendment is very important for people to understand. This conflicts with American Values. We were founded in response to king georges issuance of general warrants, and those warrants allowed british soldiers to go through all of the possessions in the houses looking for contraband of the colonists. The founding documents of this country argue for the fact that the government should not look at our private information unless they have probable cause. So this goes straight to American Values and what we stand for. Collectovernment can information that details our personal activity, who we are friends with, where we go to church, we are not living in a free society. That is chilling free speech, that is chilling journalism, and go journalists ability to to sources. This is really a bad idea to continue these kinds of programs, and even the authors of the patriot act themselves, senator jim franson burner commerce min Jim Sensenbrenner sensenbrenner jim and pat leahy said this is not what they intended when they rose section 215 of the patriot act, so it is really difficult to understand the rational basis for the kinds of arguments that senator mcconnell is making. Lesson,quick history the patriot act was passed when and why this usa freedom act now . Guest 40 days after the events of 9 11, the usa patriot act was passed. Congress did not have a chance to read it. It was a secret bill inserted at 3 00 a. M. In the morning, but the house members never got a chance to see. The bill did not go through a markup process in the senate, so we are left with a law that is reaction, and it was past and panic to the events of 9 11. Fast forward over a year ago, Edward Snowden said you know, he felt compelled to release documents that showed how the government was spying on soabiding americans, this legislation came as a result of the snowden disclosures, and i do not think we would be having this conversation if Edward Snowden had not done what he had done. Host is the patriot act about to expire . Guest most of the patriot act is permanent. Three provisions, for expiration in three provisions come up for expiration in june of next year. Host lets get to stephen. Hello, ladies. Thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity. I am a fairly outspoken man. I am 58 years old. I have been locking horns literally with the government since 1972. I was just a teenager then. The reason being, number one, they do not teach the dog gone constitution and our schools. Even in montana, we do not allow the constitution in our schools. What is your, question for our guests . Caller i hope you will hold up with me just a little bit, please. Host stephen, we do not have a lot of time, i need you to get to your question for our guest. Caller what the deal is my peoplen is why cannot in america read the constitution and understand the sympathy of understandrid of the simplicity of it and get rid of the corporate socialism that has been in our country since the late 1930s . Host ok. Laura murphy. Guest i do think there is a lack of Civic Education in our country. People do not know their rights. People are often afraid to stand up for those rights, and that is why organizations like the aclu the firsted because amendment, the Fourth Amendment, all of these provisions in the constitution and the bill of rights that allow for individual liberties, that allow freedom from government access, these inues are being an abandoned this National Security surveillance state that we have created in the aftermath of 9 11. People need to understand that their rights are being abridged by the very corruption of the information about them. Host gary, ohio, democrat. Hi, gary. Caller hi. All these people to be old to the constitution and our government all these people took the oath to the constitution and our government. What needs to be done is everyone in washington that is participating in this should be prosecuted under the rico act because it is against the constitution, and this is a mob type deal. Host miss murphy. The Republican Leadership in the senate really pushed a lot of senators away from voting for this legislation. If this vote were held a week ago, i think it would have passed, but in the last minute, you know, people like senator rand paul and others decided to consideration of this legislation, and it was really surprising and shocking. Host senator rand paul saying it does not go far enough. This is the tweet he sent out urgeed real nsa reform, your representatives to uphold the constitution and objects to patriot act extension. Guest this was the law that would make the proceedings secret by the court more transparent. This was the law that would end bulk collection of americans metadata, highly personal information about who they call, when they call, where they call, who they email, when the email, what websites they search. This was an opportunity to make real change. Was it perfect . No. But i dont think congress ever comes up with perfect answers. This would have been a major positive first step to push this legislation forward and end the surveillance state. Host susan, you are next, florida, republican caller. Rememberf you yo timothy mcveigh, we had a homegrown terrorist who attacked our own citizens and killed many innocent people. I do not know if this would have stopped it or prevented it. Figured just of from what i gleaned in the world that there were always people that were, you know because of the way i have seen some of these court cases come out, how the heck did they get to the end, and it was not just through informants, if they were not already tapping phones and doing what they wanted to do anyway . Guest i think the caller makes a very good point. I do not think these programs have been effective, and if you do not believe me, you may want to be leave the director of national intelligence, mr. Clapper. Themay want to believe attorney general and the president s, who say that this does not interfere with legitimate intelligence investigations. We have the Intelligence Community on our side, we have the president on our side, we had an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the house of representatives earlier this. Ear just overwhelming republican and democratic support, something passing thiss legislation, so no one in the house who voted for this legislation thought that this would undermine legitimate Law Enforcement activity. Host there are a few folks i do believe that, and that is Michael Hayden and Michael Mukasey, who write in the wall street journal yesterday, and if a reform that only isis could writeand a righthey host the bill would substitute would substitute a cumbersome policy, reasonably associate with terrorist activity to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and then scurry to each of the nations Telephone Service providers to come through the information that remains in their hands rather than in the nsas. Debatedes, i have and i amayden, familiar with his arguments, but what he does not understand is the government is only supposed to seek this information when they have probable cause or they can argue that there is an urgent necessity for this information. These procedures in usa freedom act or not cumbersome, or else the Intelligence Committee would not support it. But hayden is trying to support his own record because he helped create these laws, and so is Michael Mukasey, so the government has been on a binge of taxing National Security laws without adequate checks and balances for the American People, and the American People have had enough, and i think they will rise up again next june and say that Congress Needs to act. Michael hayden, retired air force general and reformer director of the cia from 2006 until 2009, and National Security agency from 1999 until is thend Michael Mukasey former attorney of the United States, serve from 2007 until 2009 and as a former u. S. District judge from 1988 until 2006. Sally is next, independent caller. Caller hi. I am very bad with public speaking, so please bear with me. I would like to say first of all, you are 100 right i do not want to argue any of that, the constitution, everything is correct, but the terrorism threat is very real. Even though it has not stopped terrorism as of yet, it may be. N the future i believe that the problem is actually that we should not be allowed any of this information to go anywhere but towards terrorism activity. There should be no Law Enforcement opportunities for any of this collected data, not even former under, because it is only supposed to be for terrorism. Lawabiding americans there are no lawabiding americans committingare all three felonies a day. There are so many laws. They could pick on anybody they want and go in as Law Enforcement. So basically they can pick and choose. Host ok, i will have laura murphy give a response. Anst the caller makes excellent point. The information collected allegedly for terrorist information has been used for other items, and i was not the intent of the authors of the patriot act, southern is to be a law erected to stop the sharing a information and creating backdoor romney fourth of soo, but to the caller there needs to be a law erected to stop the sharing of information and creating a backdoor around the first Fourth Amendment. But to get to the callers earlier point, we have a system that makes prosecutors go to the court, Police Officers go to the court and get an authorization to investigate and to surveillance individuals, so what our National Security laws do right now is turn that value you mustad and says all give us all your information and then we will sift through it and decide which one of you is guilty, and that is just not the american way. That does not comport with our founding principles. Host we are talking with laura murphy of the american Civil Liberties union. We will go to chuck in new mexico, republican caller. Caller hi. I just have a statement and a question. [indiscernible] they spent over a year to do these tests because of the five the court and stuff of the fisa court and stuff. Hear chuck, we did not that first part. Icler i live in the community. Guest ic . Caller Intelligence Community. It took over a year to cross all of the is and ts. Byt this lady is saying falls me. This is the question if she is so concerned about all of these things, which i believe we follow, why dennis she go after she go why didnt after the irs when they were going after these conservative groups . She always the liens the left from her statement and stuff. Host chuck is still there. Go ahead and finish. We lost him. Guest first of all, we were involved in going after the werewhen they targeting the conservative groups will stuff i can become a something is difficult to achieve, it may be how the Law Enforcement agency is going after achieving a. The fisa court has turned down very few warrants. Requestste number of from Law Enforcement and intelligence agencies. The question i have is why do we have a secret court in america . Why dont we know the opinions of that court . Why doesnt the Supreme Court review the opinions of that court . This is just not the american way. I understand there are intelligence secrets that cannot be shared, but there is which is called ciba, a law that protects intelligence information in the courts. We have been able to prosecute terrorism cases and subjects successfully in the u. S. Federal Court Without giving away important state secrets. I just think that this whole star chamber type of court has to be examined, has to be opened up. Host i want to ask you about the politics of this. Rand paul beats ted cruz, saves nsa from reform. It says host are you concerned if this gets tied up with 2016 president ial politics . Absolutely. President obama started his 2007, soin february the equivalent of that for the next president ial cycle is february 2015, so this will become a political football, and it will be involved in president ial debate. Host laura murphy, you can find more on their website, aclu. Org, she is the washington lodges late of Office Director for that organization. Thank you for your time this morning. Guest thank you for having me. Host coming up next, we will be talking to the National Editor michaelitico magazine, hirsh about his piece analyzing president obamas National Security team and whether they are up to todays challenges. We will get to that right after this news update from cspan radio. 929 am eastern time. Construction of new homes fell slightly in october after a big surge the previous month, but it is largely driven by the volatile apartment sector. Us Home Construction falling by 2. 8 in october, but the drop of applications for Building Permits a good sign of future activity. 1. 0 rose 4. 8 in october 2 8 million. Economists believe the housing recovery, which had slowed this year, will Gain Momentum in the coming months, helped by stronger job growth. And Bloomberg Politics steve inse writes today that the 2016 president ial cycles first highprofile stuff aff poaching, senator rand paul has hired away from rival senator ted cruz. Mr. Harris, 26, will become chief digital strategist for in waitinge campaign for the candidates 2016 run for the white house t. The Congressional Progressive Congress will vote to elect their chair. Tol grijalva will seek maintain his chair. The house meet today at 10 what am eastern time. Live house covers on cspan. Today atuse meets 10 00 a. M. Eastern time. Live house coverage on cspan for tuples are some of the latest headlines on cspan. The 2015 cspan student cam competition is underway, open to all middle and High School Students to create a fiveminute to sevenminute documentary on the theme the three branches and you, showing how policies, law, or action by the executive, or Judicial Branch of the federal government has affected you or your community. There are 200 cash prizes for students and teachers, totaling 100,000. For a list of rules and how to get started, go to studentcam. Org. Washington journalcontinues. Host and ill last hour of the washington journal in our last hour of the washington journal, our spotlight on magazine series full stop we continue that fit with a recent piece in politico magazine, the headline from Michael Hirsh bumblers, taking a look at president obamas National Security team, our susan rice and chuck hagel equal to todays National Security challenges . Michael hirsh, why write this piece . Guest well, there are a lot of questions around town, some of it a rumor, but some of it quite substantive, and i think two big questions, one is susan rices National Security counsel enough,d tative particularly with the Defense Department . There have been cases on important issues like the title against isis where they have not done a good job coordinating. About tod question is chuck hagel as defense secretary. He was but that is time, 20 12, where the president wanted to reduce the profile of the panic on and u. S. Military force around the world. Yet said so quite plainly. Chuck hagel is a bit numb warrior turned dove who opposed is leery in iraq, about sending u. S. Troops abroad, and now in this year, were dealing with tough challenges in ukraine, and you have the potential takeover of iraq and syria by isis. Any question are we going to put u. S. Boots on the ground . The legitimate question about hagel is you want a defense attorney, for all of his good qualities, who is as invested as hagel is in not sending troops abroad full stop is there a bias there that is not appropriate for the times . Host interesting because last week when he was up before the house Armed Services committee, walter jones, a republican from North Carolina who we had on this show yesterday, with comparing defense secretary hagel to Donald Rumsfeld and saying you are sounding an awful lot like him. There is not an in game here. Guest no. Interestingan comparison, but rumsfeld was also biased toward minimizing the number of troops abroad. Which, to be fair, is what you would want in any senior government official. We do not want warmongers. Rumsfeld was also the guy who actively advocated the iraq war, so there he is very different from hegel, and hegel wins praise from a lot of people, even republicans, on a lot of other things come in terms of his outreach to the hill, the way he deals with allies, his Strategic Vision for the dod going decades into the future. There are a lot of people who think he has actually proved to be a better defense secretary than expected, but on this issue of troops, he has remained very quiet. You have this sort of struggle playing out between the president and joint chiefs chairman Martin Dempsey with kind of sitting out and it is a little bit odd because of course the defense secretary is supposed to be somehow weighing in on this, and we have the sense that perhaps dempsey and some of the other senior military leaders over in the areagon, seeing that we kind of not winning or losing against isis right now, are pushing for more boots on the ground. We have seen rightly that step up in terms of the numbers of troops, and again hagel kind of city and out. We do not have a sense he is a strong voice at the table on this. That is why these questions continue to linger. Ort do you have sources knowledge that secretary hagel when he is at the table is actively sitting it out or arguing the other side . No, lets wait, we do not need to put boots on the ground. Guest i know based on my reporting that he has been a strong voice on a couple of issues. Weeks agoly a few there was a relief operation he syrian in kobani, t border town where the kurdish huge duressunder from isis, and hagel actually advocated that mission, but again that was a rescue mission and not a mission where you are sending and not huge numbers of troops i want to be clear that is not what we are talking about here. What were talking about is sending additional troops that would be used frankly and a combat advisory capacity where they would become spotters on the ground directing airstrikes much more accurately than we are doing now, somewhat the way it was done in the very early stages of the afghan operation in the fall of 2001, which was devastatingly effective against the taliban at that time. That is the kind of thing people as opposed toout a largescale, 50,000, 100,000 troops. No. And here is where it would seem that there is a little bit of drift here. A lot of it probably reflects the presents views. The president picked hagel for a heason because th reflects the presents own views. Host you wrote in the piece the white house approach to National Security does not instill confidence and seems more question will than ever in the face of the new challenges on the scene. Are they up for the job, the National Security team . Are there folks out there that are questioning it . Guest i think the questions do surround susan rice much more than they do chuck hagel. We were speaking about this particular african hagels this particular aspect of hagels view. A consolation got prize. He wanted her to be secretary of state. A number of senators came out against her being secretary of state, so the president decided to make her National Security adviser, which would not require a confirmation, but that does not mean she was necessarily ideally suited for it. There are questions about her temperament, certain address ability, certain inability to reach out. You hear complaints about people house Armed Services committee saying he cannot even get a meeting with her after he sent timely with foreign leaders in the mideast, so there is a sense that the coordination job, the job of outreach both to the hill and other agencies like the dod, and in terms of consulting is, fory, whether it example, the decision on what to do about the authorization for the use of military force in iraq, which is still sort of midstream rainouight now. One of the things i was told, and i reported in that piece, is susan rice wrote a letter to john boehner saying the administration wanted to repeal beenraq aumf, which had the policy before isis, and this letter was sent after isis took over most, so people even in the dod were saying we do not want to do this anymore, we need an authorization in iraq now. So it was a sense that things on been not working smoothly very important issues that needed to be decided in a decisive way. Host so the question is is president obama going to shake up his team for the remainder of these two years . Is thatvery indication to the extent there will be in a shakeup it will be at lower. Evels i do not think we will see chuck hagel replaced. I do not think we will see susan rice replace. Tony lincoln, the deputy National Security advisor is going over to be dec deputy secretary of state, but obama has proved to be a president that does not like to fire people at all. Really even less than other previous president s. I do not expect we will see that, but there have been calls around town, if you will, suggestingmnists there will be fresh blood, but we do not know. It is still only a few weeks but from the election log, president obama has probably feels like he is doing well. He has met with the chinese, there is a sense that isis at least is being contains now, that they are not doing as well in terms of their military advances as they were. It may well be the president saying the criticism was way over the top, i think my team is doing ok now, and we mean is the most changes. Host we are talking about president obamas National Security team for the remainder of his two years. We go to aaron first in fort drum, new york, republican. Caller hi. Thank you for having me. How is it that president obama does not would to send boots on the ground while isis seems to be rapidly spreading throughout the middle east yo . To me, it seems like we should be sending boots over to confront them rather than confront them to thousand feet in the air. Thank you. Some respectsn this is a fake debate because there are already about 3000 u. S. Troops there on the ground. The panic on a saying they are not combat troops, and many of them are serving in a logistical or advisory capacity. In reality, many of them are in dangers way. It depends how you want to define combat. Little silly. Clearly this represent a bias, if you will. It represents a view of the president and his defense secretary that to the extent we are going to have troops over there, it was going to be the absolute minimum. Martin dempsey just one over there to assess the situation. I have not done the reporting on this yet, but there is reason to think that there is a real sort of tugofwar going on between the pentagon, between dempsey and the white house in terms of do we need more, how many more, where should they go . Be at someund to point a combat casualty, and then the debate will really pick up. General dancy sort of alluded to that when he was up on the hill was secretary hagel and his testimony. Ofre might be a sort different advisement to the president on a strategy that come to him and others. Guest right. Dempsey has been alluding to this for weeks, saying we are not sending troops, a putting ground, andhe then dempsey saying i may have to advice him to do that, so you have seen this play out and i expect that to continue. Host talking about National Security challenges for the president. Democrats 202 5853880, republicans 202 5853881, and independents 202 5853882. Lets go to james and lexington, kentucky. Hi, james. Caller hi, how are you doing today . Questions concerning yesterday over the outbreak of ebola. There has been much talk about in my country, but i have family that lives in country such as zimbabwe and the congo. Theirms there that magazines are more inept to trying to convince people that. Bola is real they have songs about it, they have songs for the youth, songs for the adults, yet here they are telling us that people are dying by the thousands. If the message to us is that they are dying by the thousands, and they are actually living where they are dying by the thousands, why are the messages so different . Host Michael Hirsh, if you have got some thoughts guest yeah, obviously it is still a terrible tragedy that is underway in africa. I think that the sort of fear and focus here has been reduced in the last few weeks because of the fact that it has not spread, the couple of people that did contract it here, those nurses have been cured as with the doctor in new york who contracted it after the most part after a rocky beginning, it seems like it has been contained. I agree with the caller, though, that this will not go away. We have a large contingent of u. S. Troops over there to help its containing disease. We hope the procedure is when i get back here are effective. There are still questions about it. Obviously this policy is ongoing in terms of trying to treated there in africa. On capitolom frieden hill talking about the Ebola Response in this country and abroad. It is seen as a National Security issue by this administration and others. Why . Well, i think this goes back to the issue of how disease can undermine readiness, goes back to the anthrax attacks right after 9 11. The question of biological weapons, not that this is a weapon, but could it be to essentially but could it be potentially used as one if it fell into the wrong hands . Then we have the department of security, running on all of those issues, including this one. Democraticsota, mel, caller. Caller i am 80 years old. I served in korea and i served in vietnam. I do not understand how people can get over there, i worked at a g2, and i can understand how anyone can undermine the government for trying to weed out all of the weasels coming over here to cut our heads off, and people get on there and talk about hagel he served in vietnam. They dont doout this and they dont do that. I do understand how anyone can knock their own country and subliminal messages coming out like snowden, he is a traitor in my opinion. Unityok, so the lack of around a president when it comes to threats from terrorists or other countries. Guest i am not sure if the callers question be media caller is the questioning the media. Look, the things happen, and we are opportunity reported host those questions themselves. Table say we need to get around, behind our president. We have gotten behind other president s who have taken these challenges. Guest i think in the immediate aftermath of the isis takeover and particularly the horrific beheadings of the two american journalists there was unity around the president. The with the expression out of the republican house, which has refused the president almost every thing else, that they were going to back and they did back his mission to supply and arm iraqi army and kurdish rebels. So there was a unity and continues to be for the most part i think on this particular issue. But at the same time, there are questions about, and yuki peering them, are we doing enough . Hearing them, are we doing enough . This policy of Mission Creep where we dribble in troops bit by bit, is that enough . Host another issue that has been there for this administration and other ones, is the middle east, palestinian and jerusalem conflict. We are seeing violence again yesterday at the synagogue. Secretary of state john kerry quick to condemn the attacks and call on the Palestinian Leader to do so as well. Also blamedhen israeli provocations. Where do you think this is headed . Peace process was fairly moribund or even dead before this happened. This obviously strikes right at the heart of the worst israeli like, do have something this happen. You have to remember in jerusalem, there are not really any barriers. Conducted byrently israeli arabs, so suddenly there is a sense among israelis, you know, we have the enemy within too, went before there was not a sense that you would get attacked there. Numerous questions are sailing around. What is netanyahu, the premise or, going to do . The prime minister, going to do . You did have the Palestinian Leader condemning the attacks but you also had hamas praising them. Reflects this continuing divide among the palestinians that have allowed the israelis to avoid negotiating peace because there is no real singular Palestinian Leader with which they can do so. It has taken something that was in a very bad place to, if possible, and even worse place. Arkansas, republican, go ahead. Caller israel is our homeland and our ally. I thought the president was going to go support israel. That is not what is happening. Host we are getting that feedback there. Extent, obamarge has gotten a bad rap on this question. You have to separate the issues. He has not gotten along with benjamin netanyahu, who has been provocatively sort of expanding settlements in the last six years, the same time as president obama has been trying a peace process, which has failed again and again full stop it has been very frustrating. At the same time, the Obama Administration has stepped up to israel to an unprecedented degree, more than any other president has, so even though it is true that there are a lot of people, particularly in American Jewish communities, who question obamas commitments, in fact it has been pretty steady. Host larry, south dakota, independent. Caller hello. One of the things i wanted to mention, the neighbor your magazine, politico magazine, that a summing up probably needs to be changed because that is tweaking the truth. You get the truth out of politics not really. Why are we policing the world . I do not quite understand that. That is something that in the middle east, the middle east should be taken care of their own problems. They do not want to take care of their problems, they go through their own borders. It is like saying we have a gang northm in rapid city, dakota, lets have california go and take care of our little problem here. Point ofe callers view is a rising tide i think in american politics that is going to be there for a while. I think it helped six in the rand paul phenomenon. He was i figured helped explain the rand paul phenomenon. Call neil what people isolationism. Why do we need to be out there doing this . The middle east has always been seen as a place of u. S. Involvement because of oil to a large extent, but now the United States is in the process of becoming somewhat Energy Independent in terms of our oil and natural gas production, so i think it is a legitimate point of you to question how much do we need to be over there. Host has president obama during his tenure reflected that change it little bit as well . Guest i think he has. I think there has been a sense that this minimalist approach, u. S. Military presence abroad, and the president has said this , the pollingy shows we do not want to get involved. It was not until the beheadings that there was a palpable shift in opinions about people want to get involved against isis. One pitfall of that as of course we cannot forget the lesson of 9 11, either. We were not involved in afghanistan. We left there after the soviets left while the cold war was still going on and then over a period of a sort of 10year gestation, you had al qaeda arising. In afghanistan, the next thing you know, we have 9 11. There is a National Security argument for staying to some extent in the fight against isis and other potential terrorist groups because they have shown before they are going to come to our shores. Host georgia, al, democratic caller. Caller hey. Thanks for taking my call. I have had a hard time trying to figure out president obama in terms of the chrysostom he has been getting. In domestic issues, he is always to the positions that republicans once supported and then decided to turn against him estimates he adopted them. I am wondering if you see that in Foreign Affairs as well and this is really all just political backbiting, or has he actually done a bad job . It is confusing to me because it is hard to separate the political noise from what is actually going on. Guest it is a good point. It is very hard to separate the political noise, even for those of us right here in the middle of town trying to do it. Has think that there probably been too much chrysostom. To much criticism. If you things happen in a period of several months over the last year or eight months that have been very intense. You had putin invading ukraine, you had the rise of isis seemingly from nowhere because no one had really even heard of them before. Of thesehy some questions about hagel are being raised, but at the same time, it is not a disaster. Lets be frank putin clearly has been contained to some degree by sanctions. He has been isolated. It is not as if the soviet army is invading eastern europe. You basically have a part of ukraine that has been cut off by the russians and crimea. There is some question about how effective isis is going to be in the long run. I would say that on the whole, the president probably gets a little bit too much criticism, particularly leading up to the midterms when there was a sense that everything was going wrong. I think when the dust clears and we look back at these last few years, it will look better than it looks right now. Host all right, bill, pittsburgh, republican caller. Caller hi. Before,ck to a question the National Security staff in the white house, three years ago, we had supposedly a great debate inside the white house about how much and whether to aid the Syrian Free Army that a debacle, but i wonder if those guys, the same cast is still arguing the same things there. Rice and others are Still Holding the position as they held before. Will all right, bill, i have Michael Hirsh jump in and answer that. Guest the thing to understand about this serial is it syria debate has been clear for the last couple of years that it is the president who did not want to get involved. In fact, he stood alone against almost his entire National Security team, including hillary clinton, then secretary of state, including leon panetta, then defense secretary, clear where susan rice, who was then the u. N. Ambassador rice must have on that issue. He is the one who is deciding i will get involved in a very minimalist way, but that is all. Of obamaseflection known views. I do think you want to go only so far as questioning the effectiveness of his National Security team because it may well be that what we are seeing right now from chuck hagel, from susan rice is just purely a reflection of the president s own views. Host is there any consideration within the president s team to remove Bashar Alassad from syria . Guest i think that is a secondary goal at this point. It is not something that is practical host the key to guest right. Aere were those who argued in sort of strange bedfellows way, the enemy of my enemy is my friend way, that we should have worked with a thought. The agonist ration not want to do that, even though worked with assad. The administration did not want to do that. But it looks like they are simply setting aside the assad issue and looking to take care of isis. Host we have a few minutes left with Michael Hirsh of politico magazine, talking about president obamas National Security team. John harwood has just tweeted this out, that is a reporter here in washington, d. C. We got a confirmed by a source familiar that president obama plans to announce his immigration order on friday in las vegas. John harwood tweeting that out of cnbc. Fort lauderdale, florida, democratic caller. Caller yes. I am one of those persons who are against putting boots on the ground. President bush put hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground, and we did not settle the issue, so why should we send additional boots over there to settle the issue . Hirsh. K, mr. Guest i think that a spring much president obamas policy. The clearing the iraq war to be a dumb war, and clearly in that aftermath of that disastrous war, there has been widespread Public Opinion against further involvement. I think it has to do with this neoisolationist and we were talking about before, but again, the question here is not sending another 100,000 troops over there. No one is talking about that or going to talk about that. The question is do you send additional combat advisors and spotters who can help direct airstrikes more precisely than we are doing now . That is really the only issue alive right now. Host president obama is asking congress for more money on this effort. Again, there is a sense that there is Mission Creep. We started out saying we were not going to send anyone, we now have about 3000 troops on the ground, more money, a couple of Italian Division headquarters that were set up, which were by general ray odierno, the army chief of staff, so you get a sense of there is very quietly a u. S. Presence being created without any particular announcement on it. Host what is next on this . What are you watching for . Guest the big question over the next several months to be washing for is can the u. S. Hyphenated iraqi army and kurdish the main combatants on the ground, will they begin to a dance and take out isis . Particularly in the city of mosul. Cannot be retaken . Host all right, more to come, Michael Hirsh, National Editor with politico magazine, thank you for your time. Now live coverage of the house here on cspan. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the house a communication from the speaker. The clerk the speakers rooms, washington, d. C. November 18, 2014. I hereby appoint the honorable diane black to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, john a. Boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the order of the house of january 7,