Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20150222

We want to begin this morning with another looming issue, how the u. S. Should deal with isis and isil. There is a new poll out showing a majority of americans want Ground Troops. Do you agree or do you disagree to go . 202 7488001 for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats. 202 7458002 for independents. Or send us a tweet http twitter. Com cspanwj. Post on facebook, www. Facebook. Com cspan. Or send us an email, journal cspan. Org. Here is a comparison from september of last year. Those who favor the use of Ground Troops now at 57 versus 47 . Those who oppose 37 percent, what was 46 just a few months ago. We also have a line set aside if youre active or retired military. That number is 202 7480003. Good sunday to you. Lets begin with the New York Times. The piece points out that american intelligence agencies are struggling to determine how difficult it will be to take over multiposul. I battle that is intensifying for aor a major test of the Obama Administrations strategy to stop the spread of the terrorist group in the middle east. By the way most will is a city of about one million people. There are an estimated 1000 to 2000 isil forces that have taken that city according to the New York Times. This week, the president will be focused on my lifestream is him including what we are seeing in that part of the world. [video clip] collects we must ignore knowledge groups like al qaeda and isil are targeting their propaganda to muslim communities, particularly muslim youth. Muslim communities, including scholars and clerics, have a responsibility to push back. Not just on twisted interpretations of islam but on the line that we are somewhat engaged in a clash of civilizations, that america and the west are someway at war with muslims. That narrative sometimes extends far beyond terrorist organizations. That narrative becomes the foundation on which terrorist build their ideology and by which they try to justify the violence and that all of us, including muslims, are the ones most likely to be killed. Obviously, there is a complicated history between the middle east, the west, and none of us should be immune from criticism in terms of specific policy. But the notion that the west is at war with islam is an ugly line. All of us, regardless of our faith, have a responsibility to reject it. Steven the president this past week at a white house summit focusing on violent extremism. His comment on lima islam. Our question should we send Ground Troops to fight isis or isil . Another threat facing the u. S. And canada, this from cnn. Com. The Group Alshabaab has released a video threatening malls in canada, you u. K. , and the u. S. They left over 60 people dead at a mall in nairobi. In a new video, they call for a new attack on malls. Mall of the america says that it is aware of the video that name to as a potential target. Again, this morning from cnn. Com. Lets get to your phone calls on the issue of Ground Troops fighting isis. We will go first to our caller from roanoke, virginia. Caller my take on this is quite simple. We do need Ground Troops. I do not believe we can win this in the air. Steven lets go next to daniel. Democrats line. Caller first off, god bless america. God bless all of americans that jens, current, past, present. God bless their bravery. Pertaining to rethink ing mosul, no Ground Troops until all have options have been purged. As far as fighting isis, america has to bring back a 10. As an analogy, for instance, if you were out there clubbing mailboxes, as we did as children, would you use of ferrari . Or would you use a 1951 mercury . What im trying to say is you do not use such a sophisticated aircraft as an f16, you use Something Like an a10. Something easily manageable, something that is a simple aircraft. Why they have retired the a10s is one more instance of the military industrial congressional complex. Steven thank you for your call. By the way, we do have a line set aside for those of you in the military. That line is 202 7480003. We are posing the question, that cbs news posed in their survey do americans want to send Ground Troops to fight isis . Americans increasingly see isis as a major threat. 18 view it as a minor threat. Next is grace joining us on the sunday morning. Independent line. Long beach, florida. Good morning. Caller good morning. I really want to know how much of this is high. How much of congress putting into this . When we had the of bola scare, everyone had scare, everyone hopped on it. We need to calm down and think this over. We dont want to get in another war. We are over there and definitely, and children are getting killed. I have grandchildren of that age. I dont need it. Neither does his world. We need to call down. Steven thank you, grace for the call. The cover story of the atlantic magazine what isis really wants and how to stop it. There is also the story Available Online at the atlantic. Com. For the first time, american support Ground Troops against isis. This is from a new gallup Study Released on wednesday. Terrorism is a National Priority ranked fifth for other issues like the economy and unemployment. Again, that is from the atlantic. Going next to cody from older, colorado. Caller i do not think we need to send troops out there. I think we have learned our lesson from the iraq war. I think this whole blackhole started from 2003. We made iraq a very unstable state. Should we do something about it . I think we should. Boots on the ground, no. Maybe some type of airstrike, possibly. I think it is time for the United States to let that part of the world handle that problem , with the exception of the fact that we did cause and so we must be involved. That is my opinion. Thank you for taking my call. Steven cody, thank you for getting up early on a sunday morning. From my Facebook Page a lot of you already weighing in. Here are some of your comments. From jed, read orwells 1984. Karen says, ok, but how will be paid for . Phillips says, can we afford not to . Deedee says, no, no americans on the ground. Sean tase says, not under the leadership of this president. Rad says, better than the state departments plan on trying to give them jobs. Finally, no way. Send us a tweet. If youre just tuning in or listening on cspan radio, we are asking the question, based on the cbs survey from this past week, do support Ground Troops to fight isis. Good morning. Caller i would say no to Ground Troops because is exactly what isis wants. They want to draw americans into iraq so they can kill americans. They cant defend against the airstrikes because they dont have the equipment and technology. They are fitted to fight a ground war. They want americans over there. If we go back over there again we been there for 10 plus years we will not get out. Steven thank you for the call. But go next to andre from cap a, florida. What is your take on all this . Caller someone said the same thing i was thinking. 1984. Instead of sending Ground Troops, we have superior air technology, drop bombs on them. If they are in an urban setting tell the regular people to get out. Job something heavy on them. Hit them hard and not some sense into them. I know they have a religious basis, or whatever. If you want everyone in the world to become muslim dont chop peoples heads off, that will not win anyone. Thank you for taking my call. Steven npr is also reporting on this. Available online at npr. Com. U. S. Command officials telling the pentagon that retaking mo sul will be in the april to may timeline. Tom bowman pointing out that they did say it wont be easy because Islamic State fighters had been dug into that city since last june when they took it over. Asked why a timeline would be publicized months before, he said that the topic came up, it might be a psychological operation to unsettle the enemy. In addition, you want to give civilians side to leave the area. Jenny is joining us from lakewood, washington. Caller good morning. No, i totally disagree with Ground Troops to fight isis. There are 1. 6 billion muslims worldwide, most of them are in the mid east. If they are not willing to sacrifice their own lives, why should we sacrifice american lives. There is one million inhabitants in mosul at 1000 to 2000 isis there. If they were in an American City with 2000 Ground Troops, they would not last a hot minute. These muslims cannot sacrifice their own lives, five for themselves. I say stay out of it and let them take each other out. Steven go ahead, your other point. Caller we are billions in debt fighting these wars. Give me a break. Thank you. Steven the other story that we are tracking this week is with secretary of state john carried back this week. He is said to talk on appropriations issues. Brush is likely to come up. From the Washington Post this morning. Despite speaking to reporters yesterday kerry said he expected that the United States and the europea allies would impose some very serious sanctions and other steps to punish moscow after repeated ceasefire violations i russian backed ukrainian separatists. Kerry said one of the most egregious violations was a separatist assault on the strategically important railway halt. President obama and european leaders have vowed that it will be caught to get valve there will be consequences. Lets go to bedford, michigan. Independent line. Good morning. Caller thank you for having me. I oppose sending Ground Troops into iraq. Iraq and syria. We spent several trillion dollars in equipping iraqs military so it can fight wars for itself. For us to send more can troops american troops into iraq were just continue the military Industrial Complex for this country. I do not think the current authorization of military force in iraq provides any provisions to subset the previous 2001 authorization. Steven thank you for the call. His first trip outside of u. S. As defense secretary two days after being sworn in, Ashton Carter within afghanistan yesterday. In the New York Times u. S. Open to slowing troop pullout in afghanistan. Ashton carter arriving afghanistan on saturday and opened up the possibility of slowing the withdrawal of the last american troops in the country to help keep the taliban at bay. Those 10,000 troops are now conducting counterterror operations and most are scheduled to be with john by the end of 2016. Mr. Carter said that the Obama Administration was open to having a stronger military relationship with the current afghan unity government. Mr. Gottis government has reset relations with the west after turbulent years. That is a photo of Ashton Carter in afghanistan. Lets go back to your phone calls on the issue of fighting isis. Good morning. Caller good morning. I strongly agree that we need to bring a law of arduous back into a lot of our troops back into fighting over there. We have a lot of ice is coming forward and saying that they will produce against us, as well as france and other nations. Daily,. We just need to go in and take care of it, i believe. Steven chris, thank you for the call. We will go next to gave joining us from South Carolina. Welcome to the program. You are on the air. Go ahead, please. Caller yes. Steven please give us your comment. We will move on. Sorry about that. We will go to bob from melbourne, florida. Good morning. Caller good morning, steve. I think if we are going to put boots on the ground we should reinstate the draft with no consideration for college deferments, and also we should waive the age for members of congress who are ablebodied. All of these people who are anxious to going to war are thinking about the independent service that we had in the past. I think it would deter a lot of people if they thought that their sons and whatnot would be involved in actual fighting. I think netanyahu is very much trying to get the United States into a ground war with iran. It is very bad. We have had enough full list wars, we do not need anymore. Thats all he had to say. Nice talking to you. Steven by the way, the israeli Prime Minister is still scheduled to be here next week march the third for his speech before congress. If that goes on as planned, we will have live coverage here on cspan. Michael flint, the former director of the Defense Intelligence agency has written a lengthy piece on how the iraq defensive will fail. He makes this point that american officials plan to train iraqi troops. It is likely to fail. Unless the u. S. Takes dramatic more action that we have so far in iraq, the large lly shiite troops are likely not by themselves to take over mosul. The u. S. Must be prepared to provide much more, like logistics, for example. Again, that is from politico. Lisa. Independent line. Caller good morning. My comment is that we should probably send in special forces, similar to rambo. I dont know enough about the military. Get our forces out of there. I know it is a lot of people who are being martyred for even being christian. I think something really needs to be done about that. Steven thank you for the call. The front page of the Chicago Tribune a preview of the primary. It is what is being called a final push before the primary. The president was in chicago this past week to dedicate the pohlman site which is now a national monument. We will go back to her calls on fighting isis. Do we need Ground Troops . Justin. Good morning. Caller good morning. My opinion is that it would be better if we just let the arab countries take responsibility. Weve already had 13 years of war and sending u. S. Troops in there. I think it is time. We cant do anymore. We have so much debt. I think it is time to let the arab countries its a problem the muslims themselves have to face. Steven from National Review this week. Female rage. From the standard the transgender trial. Triumph. Democrats line. Caller thank you for taking my call. Ive been watching since 1982. I like listening to the American People. This is my first time calling. I must say this. For this discussion that we are having this morning, it amazes me that people do not have recall of what we just went through for the last 10 years. Im a military veteran and i will help fight with any ally. They are asking for us to send troops in the to fight for potential ally that ran. For the life of me, i can understand why these politicians can assess to send our sons and daughters to fight for military that we do not know will fight for themselves. Basically, what we really need to do this is basically a religious war, and we are in the middle of it. We do not need to be in that war. Steven john, thank you for the call. We will go next to richard joining us from beacon, new york. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would just like to make a comment the isis is a threat to our whole world. Why does always have to be american troops . Since it affects all of us, why cant we send in the chinese and russian troops. They could do a fine job also. Steven thank you for the call. Next we will go to lawrence in allenwood, georgia. Good morning. Caller good morning. I say no troops on the ground. Who will pay for this war . Steven thank you for the call. Next we will go to v a caller from new jersey. Caller good morning. My question is why were we over in iraq and syria on the isis again when we were supposed to go over there to bomb another group that was supposed to be putting bombs in our cell phones. I dont get why we are over the embalming isis. Im income i mean bombing iraq. We were supposed to be taking care of a group that was putting bombs in a cell phones. Whats the deal . Going to war why . Lies, all the time. I would like someone to explain that to me. Steven thank you. From the Associated Press reporting on the visit by the israeli Prime Minister. The white house tries to counter netanyahus visit. Trying to blunt his message that potential and nuclear deal with iran is bad for israel. There are ideas of the president giving in iran focus speech. Other options remain on the table. Among them, and interview with a prominent journalist on the ro risks with nine yahoo . Also, a pointed snout of the proisrael lobby which is holding a meeting during netanyahus visit in washington. A meeting between the president and the israeli Prime Minister has been ruled out as inappropriate just weeks before the elections in israel. Again, that was from the Associated Press yuriko this past week this past week, jeb bush talked about iraq and mistakes, including mistakes made by his brother, george bush. This is jeb bush from chicago. [video clip] first the strategy needs to be restrained them. Tighten the news. Theres no talking about this. That will not work for terrorism. It has to be done in concert with the folks in the region. You look at jordan. Jordans population has grown, i think double digits with refugees from syria. Cap refugees from iraq, from previous wars with israel. Palestinians are there. This country is a powder keg. Similarly, other countries in the region are seeing real challenges, whether it is turkey or the persian gulf states, or the saudis who have an estimated 1000 citizens hired for isis. These are big security threats in the region. We need to create a Coalition Led by the United States. Only the United States could lead Something Like this. In concert with the neighborhood. Steven the comments of jeb bush, former governor and 2016 president ial bid. The chicago suntimes focusing on politics. Governor scott walker of wisconsin saying he does not know whether obama loves his country. Walker unsure about obama. Wisconsin governor saying yesterday that he does not know whether the president is a christian. He said, i kno dont know. He said that frequently when told that obama has frequently talked about his christian faith, walker maintained that he was not aware of the presence religion. His staff later try to walk back the statement saying that he does know that he is a christian. That is from inside the Washington Post. Also from an opinion piece in the Washington Post saying that what Rudy Giuliani did was stupid. Too spineless to be president. Lets go to george from georgia. Good morning. On the democrats line. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I want to object to any soldiers, american soldiers, going anywhere and putting boots on the ground to fight war that have nothing to do with the United States of america. It is a shame that our top officials, our elected officials, have forgotten about what they have been elected four. We send money, our soldiers to countries they give us nothing in return but take lives of our innocent soldiers to fight a war that they cant get together in their own country. I say, cut them off. Lets start taking care of the people of the United States of america. Steven thank you for the car. Next is steve joining us from haymarket, virginia. Good morning. We are like the Ground Troops in iraq and syria to fight isis yes or no . Caller i think whenever you have people who become drunk with power look to the United States to be the designated driver. Thats what weve been doing increase all these years, in germany all these years. Unless we want the Ottoman Empire to come back together, then we need to add troops there to get rid of the people who are drunk with power. Steven New York Times sunday magazine, and extended issue called, hello world. Good morning. Caller i do not think we should send troops over there until the rest the world gets behind the United States and matches of man for man, dollar for dollar. If the rest the world would get behind the United States, and send troops over there, man for man, like i said, dollar for dollar, and go over there and take care of them. We need the world behind us, we can do it on our own. Steven thank you for the car. Jan has this on our twitter page. Again, you can join the conversation at http twitter. Com cspanwj. I think the people watching cspan do not want boots on the ground. Again, 50 said 57 of people say they favor troops, up 10 from september last year. Looking at ruth bader jens berg ginsburg in the sunday review from then your ties. Caller i think no Ground Troops to continue the bush war. We created Saddam Hussein and we created isis. It will continue. We will continue creating enemies and it will never end. Steven jimmy is up next. What is your take on this . Calling from marble, North Carolina. Caller im with most, against having ability to lose the war. Ive spent 20 years in submarine service in the cold war. We had a threat throughout that time. Nobody one, nobody lost. I think we should carpet bomb over there. Take all of our troops that are there out and not worry about who you get. Just get rid of the people. They are all our enemy, whenever you look at it. The sunnis, shiites, an neither one trust us. If that does not work after you carpet bomb them, i would make vegetarians of them and feed them mushrooms. Steven thank you for the call. From North Carolina. Richard has this point, the middle east war without end. Chuck is next from michigan. Good morning. Welcome to the conversation. Independent line. Caller high. Hi. Im calling just say that here in michigan, we are over flooded with people from the middle east. From bosnia and ukraine. We are constantly sending troops over to these places and the people here in detroit are being treated like dogs from these people when they get here. They have very nasty attitudes towards americans. They have lots of young guys who are here from a Foreign Countries, and they talk about immigration. They need to talk about always feeble from Eastern Europe that are coming here, and the middle east. They have young men. We will send our young americans, but they have their young men doing nothing. Steven thanks for the call. John has this point on our twitter page the beheadings the muslim savagery in general, no biggie. A couple more minutes with your comments. We are tight about Ground Troops to fight isis. Then, we talk to Daniel Halper. Later, adam green, the cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign. Nick district is joining us. Caller thank you for taking my call. As far as Ground Troops, i agree with the American People that we do not need to put Ground Troops on the ground. Also, we all know what created isis. The mistake that was made that brought them about. They threaten the United States and beheaded some of our citizens. I think we need to send a message. I think we need some Ground Troops on the ground. I think because of what they have done and the threats of the opposed to us today. We need to send a message that isis is one of many terrorist groups. None of the terrorist groups are as vicious and bad as isis. I think whenever we find a group that is that they should an animalistic, yes we need to squash them and squash them fast. Send them a message that we will not tolerate what they are doing. There will be more after them. Ok. We will deal with that when it comes. When it gets as bad and murderous as isis, i think they should be zapped off anyway possible. As far as one last thing i just want to say. I just heard that obama is r getting ready to bring over Syrian Refugees to t over here. If you love this country, would you jeopardize our safety. Would you do that to the American People . Steven thank you for that. From our twitter page, is there a country without military, has brown people, rich in oil, gas or minerals that we missed . Secretary of state john kerry is flying back from london. He will be back on capitol hill on monday and tuesday and calling for additional sanctions against russia. This is from then you are times. The New York Times. Among the hearings that we are featuring this week is janet yellen before the Senate Finance committee. It will be live on cspan 3 on tuesday. Lets go to ill from pennsylvania. Republican line. Caller good morning. Listen, this is really important. Ok. My cousin is in europe. The United States is not putting boots on the ground. If the people that want to fight us, fine. If the president United States would come up and say, you want to play games, fine. If you want to play games, we will go you to pieces. Thats all you have to say. If you tell them that we will blow them to pieces, and we are not sending all these people down there, and doing the stupid things creating the problem with iraq. We have to stay out of it. Stay out of it. Steven from one of our viewers saying, we need to send at least 30,000 troops and wipe out this play affords reds. We will go next to henry. Caller good morning and god bless america. I have a granddaughter there is a spotter for the marines. I also have another grandson that is an. I was the first person to go through the jump school. I believe that we should put troops on the ground and miy granddaughter as a spotter for the snipers said that we had more spotter is a more snipers, we could a limiting a lot more deaths than any war. They have that distance and can control a lot of deaths. Steven a proud grandfather, as you rightly should be. Caller very proud. One in the marines and one in the second airborne. Steven stay safe. Henry, thank you for the call. We are short on time, but one final comment from bill who says we are still in germany asia, europe, japan and korea. You think of you can continue the conversation on our facebook and twitter pages. Coming up in just a moment Daniel Halper will be here to talk about president ial politics and Foreign Policy. Later, adam green from the Progressive Change Campaign committee. We will also introduce you to William Braniff. First, a portion of cspans Newsmakers Program which follows our Program Every sunday. Governor gary herbert of utah. Here is a portion. [video clip] immigration is an emotional issue. Im sure its not unique to utah but we have had a lot of frustration based on the lack of action on congress as part. It is their responsibility to resolve this issue and do something. Do is an operative word. Something can be defined as a little or a lot. Do something. We finally got so frustrated in utah that we tried to offer our own policies as a state. We said that we would enforce the law that you are not forcing. And to see if we could find a better way to solve the problem. We got challenged in court by the Obama Administration saving you cannot go around congress. This is their responsibility. Not yours of the state of utah. While we won some point in court, we lost on others. Guess what, we are frustrated with congress and now we have the president frustrated with congress saying, i will go around congress. Now we are saying, wait a minute, we are to have this debate and discussion. We lost in congress. Its not fair. Now we are suing him and saying that he has extended his executive authority and he cannot go around congress either. Frankly, its not about the results he wants to get, its about who has responsibility on the policy in place. It is congress. We have called on congress to do something. Even if it is just as minimal as securing the border. Everyone agrees. Do it. How much blame do Congressional Republicans deserve for failing to pass something on immigration . Or is it the Obama Administration in the way that they have approached the issue . There has certainly been a lack of leadership. Leadership would bring people together and get things done. Despite difference, find a compromise point. We have done in the past, we can do it now. Theres probably blame to go around for everybody. Youve got to bring people together. That is part of being the president. Steven again reminder, cspans Newsmakers Program with governor gary herbert. You can also listen to on cspan radio, heard nation wide on xm. We want to welcome Daniel Halper, the online editor with the Weekly Standard. We want to focus on 2016. We heard from jeb bush as he outlined his Foreign Policy at agenda. He is quick to make the difference that he is not his brother. What was your take away . Daniel i thought it was interesting. Obviously, the very beginning of the campaign and what he believes in and his vision of america. I think that is great. I think all the candidate should it out there and give series for policy of justice. I thought it was a little light and substance. He did not really get into the nvidia and gritty of what mistakes were made and how they were made. And how he as president would avoid those mistakes. I thought that was a little lacking. I thought the q a was, i would not say dazzling, but close. It was very good. He shows that he will be a good contender despite the fact that he is a very popular last name and that it would take a certain amount of work. Steven lets go back to that speech. Heres a little bit of what jeb bush said in chicago. [video clip] there were mistakes made in iraq for sure. Using the intelligence capability about weapons of mass destruction turned out not to be accurate. Not creating an environment of security after the successful taking out a hussein was a mistake. Iraqis wanted security more than anything else. My brothers administration through the surge, which was one of the most heroic acts politically that any president has done, because there was no support for this, it was usually successful and created stability that when the new president came in, he could build on it to create a more stable situation. The board has been fill because we created the void. Edwhen you have a failed state or a week stay, and you leave the first thing that happened was it was fragile, who did he turn to . He turned to iran. Iran has dealt replace the United States in the significant way. If you are serious about protecting the size of nationstates, you have to be able to protect the integrity. Steven his first speech was a detroit. As you indicated, in chicago last week, focusing on Foreign Policy. The New York Times reacting. He called it jeb bushs mistrust. It is pointing out that some veterans including people who serve for george bush and Ronald Reagan are the people advising jeb bush on Foreign Policy. Is that good or bad for jeb bush . Daniel i think he is in a tricky spot. If youre running for president who do you turn to for experienced . It just turns out that his brother and his dad have experience. He cant really connect or have advisers they dont have this experience. It is a little bit of a problem and is reminiscent of previous a ministrations. I do think in a way that is unpreventable. In the same way that Hillary Clinton will have advisers from president obama as well as her own president. That can be avoided. Those are people with experience, when you like it or not. Steven the old gang of warmongers back together or co how does how does jeb bush deal with that . Daniel that might make a nice column, i dont do get is quite correct. I think we should give the guy a chance. Listen to what he has to say. If he is gunning for war, maybe there is a good argument for it. Maybe it is in the blood. We dont know. Lets give the guy a chance. And not jump to conclusions. Steven Daniel Halper, if you look at the republican field scott walker a likely candidate chris christie, marco rubio rand paul, ted cruz from texas where do you see the debate going . Daniel i think it depends. If the media is in control of the debate, it dissolves into garbage. We have seen that today. The Washington Post has a silly story about walker the fighting obamas religion. It is kind of an appropriate inappropriate. Im in favor of candidates be able to ask presence whatever they wanted. It is not really telling. I think republican candidates will have to rise above and be aspirational in a way that the media might not allow them to do, or encourage, because they want to play this game of gossip. It drives a lot of interest in the story. Giving big speeches, talking about big ideas, not taking anything for granted not pretending like they are definitely going to be the party of the future because they will be against Hillary Clinton, and old faith. It requires a lot of thought and policy ideas. I hope they will do that and rise above what is happening. Steven your response to this sentiment from another viewer responding to what jeb bush had to say. Someone tell just that it was a desperate effort to save face. Daniel thats not true. It was a heroic decision. The easy decision would have been not to surge. He took the hard decision, the politically unpopular decision because it was right. Granted, other things that happened since then that have made it not as good, by do not think that is the fault of george w. Bush. I think it is the fault of the personn that followed them. From defense one how hillarys hawkishness could cost her the presidency. Daniel i dont know. Libya, we dont have troops on the ground. We dont have the same thing. Obviously, hillary spearheaded the libya intervention such as that was. She does take some blame that we did not do anything to help reconstruct libya afterwards and sort of a dissolves overrun by terrorist. Obviously, she takes the blame. I dont think it will have the same residence as iraq at the time. Americans are not dying in libya. For the most part, with some exceptions such as the ghazi. I dont the will have the same residence, politically. Steven her plan to have the reset button. One of her early initiatives will that come back to haunt her . Daniel absolutely. It was shocking last summer when she said it was a brilliant idea and defended it on her book tour. I think everyone sees russia as an aggressor. They see Hillary Clinton as someone who failed in resetting relations and sort of gave them a free pass on doing things around the world. Ukraine. I think ukraine is a perfect illustration of this. Back in the clinton the administration there was an agreement signed for ukrainians to give up their Nuclear Weapons. Under the assurance that the United States, Great Britain and russia would not be an aggressor. They have obviously been invaded and crimea. I dont think it has borne well that Hillary Clinton has reset with russia. Yet, we have provided no covered often ukrainians. Steven our focus is Foreign Policy on the 2016 president ial race. Our guest is Daniel Halper, the online editor for the Weekly Standard. You are also the author of a book that weve talked about in the past when you have been a guest on the program. You talk about the amount of money that the Clinton Foundation has been able to raise. They are raising money from foreigners daniel they are raising money for from foreigners. My question is, what do you people want in return for their investment in the Clinton Foundation. They are giving money, obviously they want something in return. If you look of the Clinton Foundation, it is not the most charitable foundation. If they are looking for charity, they would probably look elsewhere. It is basically a donation and kind for Hillary Clinton. And for Hillary Clintons upcoming election. I think that raises a lot of ethical questions, a lot of Campaign Finance questions, and things that i hope we will get to the bottom with. We need more cooperation from Hillary Clinton. Steven as you look into this what are your questions . Daniel what to the people expected return. What is the foundation doing. How has the foundation been financing their own lavish lifestyle. Last year, they paid 800 thousand dollars alone for travel. For what . Is that where charity is for . There are numerous questions on those lines. Steven our guest is Daniel Halper. First up is mike from ohio. Good morning. Welcome to the conversation. Caller good morning, steve. As i think back on this, i remember butler whose spilled the beans under fdr. Hello . Steven yes, we can hear you. Caller he spilled the beans socalled. Thats where the thing came from. If you think that, or had a History Lesson on that, and pointed out that the big bankers tried to bribe butler into a coup detat. Talk about drunk on money today. The summer before 9 11, james butler the third set up offices throughout the middle east before 9 11. Could you point that out because at the end of the Bush Administration, halliburton and blackwater also set up their offices in the middle east. I just wonder how that Corporate International sashes them host is there a connection . Guest im not sure what the question is. Obviously rand paul would have you believe that there is a question but the facts dont really back it up. Host what about rand paul and his approach . Guest i think it might have resonated better a couple years ago. The fact that he is to the left of Foreign Policy doesnt help him in a republican primary. I think the fact that he is willing to give president obama benefit of the doubt but various republicans such as dick cheney and what not hes questioned their motives throughout the years i dont think that sits very well with republicans. I think his moment has in a way passed. He is obviously clever and intelligent politician. Obviously somewhat gifted. I just dont think his moment is there any more. Guest absolutely. Thats why we have various disclosure laws. And we should. Its a problem. Obviously domestically as well. Look theres a lot of wall street bankers giving hillary paid speeches as well as huge donations to her campaign. They obviously want something in return. As the first woman president , someone who would be, if elected, i think that hurts her credibility as such a stallwart for those values when indeed shes willing to take their money. Host many of these candidates will be in the National Harbor just outside of washington, d. C. Next week. Well have live coverage here. Our guest is daniel hall pert. Patrick is next from canada. Good morning. Caller im from florida. Thats ok. Host quite a difference. Go ahead. Caller a couple quick questions for your guest. With jeb bush, the guy that supports common core and amnesty, dont you think that thats the number one and two issues with us conservatives that were passionate about and this guy supports this. I have no clue how this guy thinks that he is going to win a primary. Even if he was to win, thing about the general. Over 4 million conservatives didnt vote for romney and that was against obama. What makes this guy think that he is going to win with a bush name by the way, because most people are thats a damaged name for the wake and everything and the bad can i war in iraq. And what do you think about the chances of senator marco rubio winning a primary . I think this guy is really smart. Hes got really new ideas. Hes hispanic from a swing state. I think republicans want a fresh new face. I was just wondering what you thought about those two questions. Thank you. Guest so i basically agree. Rubio has i think a much better shot than bush. Bush does have problems with common core and his support of Immigration Reform. I think thats a problem for him. I think if he wins the primary he will obviously come off as a stronger candidate. And so in the general election it will be a different ballgame. But i do think that he has weaknesses that might be exploited by other republican candidates and those are two very good ones. One advantage that he clearly has is he will post the best fundraising numbers in the first quarter, probably the first two or three quarters of any candidate. I think that will give a lot of momentum in the press. Nonetheless he will get that. I think a lot of the elites both in d. C. And in new york seem to be rallying around jeb bush because they believe that they can work with him. And a lot are in favor of Immigration Reform and even common core. So there is a little divide that i think bush is sort of emblematic of between the donor and elite class and conservative voters. So he will have to bridge that if he is going to be successful. Rubio, a lot of people are quick to write off his chances. I think he has an immigration problem because he worked with the gang of 8 and chuck schumer. That is a bit of a problem. But rubio is an enormously eloquent speaker. He is a very talented politician. He can be a very strong candidate also for the reason that you suggest. Hispanic from florida i think would appeal to a lot of conservatives. So we will have to see how it plays out. Its very early. But it will be interesting. Host politics and Foreign Policy. This headline. Guest i think that article shows perfectly well that president obama is not meeting with netia huh but not because its too close but because he doesnt feel it is in his interest. He is obviously intent on getting a deal with iran. He obviously believes it is very important for his legacy and his country to get a nuclear deal with iran. Netanyahu hasnt been quiet on this. He believes that any deal most likely will be a bad deal and the iranians would only agree to what he considers to be a bad deal and therefore we shouldnt be so eager to get a deal with iranians. Host is the president right . Guest no. I dont think the president is right. I think the president is living in a fantasy world where you can get a deal with iran and they will abide by it and decide that they dont want Nuclear Weapons. Thats crazy. Why are they so intent on maintaining some level of enrichment . You only need enrichment if you want to make a nuclear weapon. This is clearly irans ambitions. They have made no secret about it. I think president obama is living in the world he wants to live in and not the world that actually exists. But the white house argument and secretary kerry said lets go through this negotiation process. If the deal doesnt work out then we can go back and look at other issues but dont do it until we can try to reach an agreement. Is so does the netanyahu visit complicate that . Guest i think it does in a way. The administration seems to think if they welcome netanyahu it will make it harder for them to get a deal with the iranians. Nobody is against diplomacy, obviously. The question is, is does diplomacy have a remote chance of working . I think its very, very very remote and i think the administration has made a series of errors that suggest it wont be able to be possible to get a good deal and one that prevents iran from getting Nuclear Weapons. Host secretary kerry is in switzerland working on that agreement. Richard from maryland. Good morning. Caller good morning. My observation in regards to the 2016 president ial elections is pretty obvious that hillary most of the evidence points to her running. And i think the conservatives side of the u. S. Thinking is that they have a winwin situation because the whole point is to continue to go into the middle east with the object of iran or iran being in the cross hairs. And its a winwin because bush is definitely neo conservative thinking and hillary is owing to that same branch even though she claims to be a democrat. Host thanks very much for the call. A related story. Guest whats interesting about that article is its about how shes using all these corporate p. R. Executives to help rebrand her. Theres no mention of her being the first woman president. I think that would be a Central Point to her running. That was a strange article in that regard. It is sort of reminiscent of her 2000 campaign. She brought on this guy, dwight helped rebrand taco bell and various other corporate entities. And he helped rebrand hillary. So its a weird sort of Corporate Outlook on the election that i dont think is too common and it runs a certain amount of risk. Cocacola one of the executives is helping hillary rebrand. I think her name is wendy long, if i remember. And whats weird is new coke wasnt exactly a big hit. Right . They had to go back and put out the old coke. So there runs a certain amount of risk this those things. As for hillary being a noo con i dont see it. She is very supportive of these iran negotiations. She seems to be sympatico with most of president obamas Foreign Policy. She voted for the iraq war. Obama didnt. But obama didnt have the vote. He wasnt in elected to office to vote on the iraq war at the time. Most americans supported the iraq war then, too liberals and conservatives. So i dont see that as an issue. I dont think that shes a neo con. As for jeb lets see what his Foreign Policy is. Its still early. Host another point from one of our viewers. Go to timothy in indiana. Caller good morning. I believe that groups like isis in the middle east are trying to bring us into a war with them in an effort to break our financial backs so to speak. They work on a very longterm belief and i think their belief is that we tried to convert muslims to christians and now they believe its their turn to bring muslim religion to the front in the world. And the way theyre going to do this is by breaking our financial backs. People who believe were going to get rich by going in there and mining oil, gold, silver, litsium, stuff like that, it will give us the money in the short run. But in the long run were just going to have more war and more problems over there. And i still believe we should bring our troops home and guard our own border and stop causing problems. Guest i dont think anybody has made the argument that we should fight isis so that we can capture more Natural Resources or minerals, whatever you said. I think people are making the argument that we should fight isis because theyre fighting us. Theyre chopping off the heads of americans and the American Government shouldnt allow their own citizens to have their heads chopped off without any rhett bution. So i think thats the real question. What should we do with isis . And president obama has said actually weirdly not many people have argued with his plan for isis in the most abstract manner which is that isis should be degraded and destroyed. The question is, how do we go about doing that . And as it is even the Obama Administration has acknowledged that air strikes alone has said on tv a couple weeks ago, air strikes alone will not do this. It will require a certain amount of Ground Troops. So if we are serious about degrading and destroying what do we do host we began this morning asking our listeners. This morning the front page of the New York Times. Lets look at the poll first. 57 now favor. That is a 10 increase. The New York Times. The battle to take the iraqi city. Of course the goal is to take over mosul which is a key stronghold of the isis forces. Guest i never know what those mean. I think its along the same lines that if were committing to degrading and destroying we should do it right. Does that mean we should send in the 82nd airborne . Thats probably a little premature. But should we have more forces on the ground being active able to give intelligence back to the air force . That makes a little more sense at the moment. The problem is if we dont degrade and destroy isis now as president obama has said he wants to do i think the problem will get worse. Theyre only growing in strength. If we dont tackle it now where are they going to be in five years, in ten years . And will it then be a much, much bigger problems thats not 20,000 troops but much larger . I think thats frightening to me and perhaps a lot of other americans. Host sam is our next caller from new york. Caller i think that we have to deal with the misperception that is promoted by mostly the right. And that is that the iraq war was not a mistake by the Bush Administration but they consciously lied us into this conflict. There is a lot of evidence for this. One can look at cheneys meetings with the c. I. A. Where he is asking them, keeps ordering them to come up with evidence that proves his theory about iraqs connections, nonexistent connections with al qaeda. And the whole lie about weapons of mass destruction. It should also be pointed out that the Weekly Standard was part of these series of lies. Which got us into a permanent war. On the issue of isis, let us be clear, there would be no isis if it wasnt for the Bush Administration that lied us into a war. Host well get a response. Guest sounds like Michael Moore on the phone there. Look are you saying that john kerry and joe biden and Hillary Clinton all people who served obama faithfully are you saying that they were in on the lie or were they duped by the lie . It just doesnt really make sense. There was obviously some faulty intelligence. I dont think that was intentional by any stretch of the imagination. I think its nuts to question the motives. Host michael has this question. Guest im kind of troubled by it because it is just a weird document. Most commanders in chief dont ask to limit their own abilities. And it doesnt really seem president obama has the will to do this. I think the commander in chief having the will to do this matters and i think it mattered back a couple when president obama wanted us to go to war in syria i think it matters that people didnt get the impression that he was himself was behind it. He didnt do a very good job selling it. I think the same is happening here. Its beginning to collapse. The left is automatically he is tebt to go to war. The right thinks if were going to destroy it then we should destroy it. And this document doesnt satisfy earther party. I dont see president obama out there on the stump trying to push it to succeed. Hes not making the case that he needs this authorization for the use of military force. Instead this week hes going to florida to talk about immigration. If he was serious about it it would be a totally different issue but it doesnt appear that he is. And until he gets serious its hard to support his plan. Host from alabama. Next caller. Caller good morning. My question is this. Mr. Bush is running for president. And my question is was he the one that signed the bill into law on this stand your ground . Somebody needs to check into that before he gets too far over into the presidency. Host thank you. Guest i dont know the answer to that question but its worth asking what he thinks about it. All candidates i think should submit to as many questions as we have. I think its our right as citizens to be able to ask our politicians about what they think about various issues. Host a new video that uses cspan footage claiming that jeb bush is unelectable. From an organization put together by conservative advocate. Lets watch. I want to say thank you to both secretary clinton and to president clinton. Thank you for your service to our country. We are united by love of country and public service. I want to say a special thank you to governor bush. Now, this is not the first time that he clinton and a bush have shared this stage. The organization for america. Org. And at the time that jeb bush and Hillary Clinton shared that stage Rush Limbaugh also criticizing jeb bush. And his first ad again using our footage, which is fine looking at this potential matchup. Guest look, the bushclinton relationship is bizarre. It has become one of friendship and it has become one of actually deep friendship and deep mutual and financial interest together. Just the other day i read that george w. Bush and bill clinton were giving a joint speech in tennessee. I think it was paid. I think it rubs a lot of voters the wrong way. America has not been a country of dynasties. I think the bush dynasty is unsettling to a number of people. And its not that he cant run for president. I think he should. I think everybody should who is interested in it and i think people will make a decision. But it is certainly something that he has to overcome. Just the fact that his own mother said, arent there other families besides the bushes and the clintons who can lead this country . And i think most people think there probably are. Host phil in los angeles. Republican line. Caller i would like to ask what do we hear from the arab nations regarding the potential that the u. S. Iran Nuclear Weapons deal . And why does it seem so muted other than just the israeli reaction . Guest thats a good question. A lot of the arab nations are very, very wary of this. They have said that outright. And they are a little some of them are have other problems at the moment. Like isis. And threat of this growing Islamic State. But a lot of arab nations arent in favor of this. Indeed, most of the nations in favor of it are sort of very far removed from it. And it doesnt really impact them in such a direct way. With the exception of america which seems for bizarre reasons to want this. Host the next caller from florida. Good morning. Democrats line. Caller good morning. I am imgrated to this country from haiti under president reagan. When Ronald Reagan was president , we had the snl crisis, the savings and loans. And we had deficits as far as the eye can see. And then comes bush i. Which made it even worse. Then we had bill clinton came and said if you give me four years i will eliminate the deficit. Which bill clinton did. And in fact, at the end of his administration we had surplus. We were talking about surplus. Then comes bush ii. Which gave us the what we call the isis now by disbanding the republicans army who are the isis right now, and then we see conservatives. The open arms asking democrats what are you going to do about it . It seems to me that my observation is the republicans always drive the car into the ditch and yelling and screaming at democrats to get it out. Guest to be fair, both parties have been atrocious on this issue. Clinton of course had some years of success as you pointed out. Look i think the real problem is that its not a yet a crisis. And our government, congress right over there and the white house, they tend to govern only in crisis mode. And the budget is scary, its frightening, its going to create problems. We all know this. In the distant future. But were not sure when that will be. And until it starts creating problems politicians probably wont act because its not in their interest to start cutting the social welfare programs or start reforming social welfare programs or various other programs that help various americans or at least its perceived as helping various americans. So i think we will wait and we will have to get worse before it can get better, unfortunately, unless somebody comes along with the political courage to do something about it now. Barack obama has essentially doubled the debt since he has come to office or he will when he is leaving. The same with george w. Bush but its growing exponentially now. It will have to be something we take care of. I hope somebody has gumption to do it soon. Host let me get your reaction. Rudy july ni saying he didnt think the president was patriotic. And then on thursday he had this to say on fox and friends on the fox news channel. Well, first of all im not questioning his patriotism. Hes a patriot, im sure. What im saying is that in his rhetoric i very rarely hear him hear the things i used to hear Ronald Reagan say, bill clinton say about how much he loves america. I do hear him criticize america much more often than other president s. And when its not in the context of an overwhelming number of statements it sounds he is more of a critic than he is a supporter. And you can be a patriotic american and be a critic but then youre not expressing that kind of love that were used to from a president. Host the sentiment of the former mayor of new york and White House Press secretary saying he feels sorry for rudy july ni. In this morning in the Washington Post. Too spineless to be president. Guest the whole thing is such a crazy stupid phony scandal. Its like a media fantasy right here. Look this one guy has an opinion which might not make a lot of sense but its one nonpolitician opinion. Hes not running for future office that we know of. He is entitled to have whatever opinion he wants. Why do all republicans have to repudiate or defend whatever he says . Joe biden just this week he was seen on camera inappropriately touching the wife of the defense secretary ash carter. A lot of people noticed that it was creepy. I didnt see a lot of reporters going around asking various democratic politicians what they thought about joe bidens creepy hand touching. The double standard here is outrageous. We see that again in the Washington Post in the article we discussed a little bit talking about scott walker. Does scott walker have to talk about what religion president obama believes in. Whats crazy about that story is David Axelrod cast dispersions on president obamas religion in his own auto biography. He said that president obama used religion as a cover to lie about his position on same sex marriage for the election. I mean its bizarre that these questions are sort of being talked about in such a manner. And one more point. The person who was first questioning president obamas religion and frankly his americanism was Hillary Clinton. I dont see a lot of people turning to Hillary Clinton saying what do you think about it now . What about the seed that your campaign sowed in 2008 and even your own words helped cast dispersions on president obamas religion. What do you think about it now . Are you sure that president obama now isnt a muslim . Because before she wasnt so sure when she was asked on camera. Host this is carried overseas. Caller hello there crmp span. Excellent. Look, what i would like to say in relation to this Foreign Policy and 2016 is as you probably know, there was a lot of himming and hawing about releasing certain information to do with the invasion of iraq. And that was the information was being withheld initially because of the parliamentary system that we have in the u. K. Anything discussed is whats called hand sod which means the record of parliament. And that would have meant that any information that you guys gave us would be publicly held accountable to the british people. Now, we know that the report was supposed to be published before the general election here on may 5th. However, it has beep actually withheld until after the general election. And i would just like to ask a question which is do you think the u. S. Foreign policy does affect what happens when it comes to reports of that nature being actually published to ensure that we get a full and democratic viewpoint before we go to vote for our members of parliament so that obviously that then would constitute who becomes the Prime Minister and the political leader of the u. K. . Guest im not sure about the particulars of this report. I would say in general i tend to be in favor of more documents being released than less of a more transparent government than a less transparent government. Assuming there arent severe and National Security interests at risk here. I think whats driving american Foreign Policy tends not to be such reports as much as politicians would like them to be. I think what teppeds to drive americans to Foreign Policy are events. I think when an americans head gets chopped off that alarms a lot of americans and i think that drives Foreign Policy. When bad things happen to america and american i want rested abroad tends to drive events. Host florida, independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to ask in reference to the policy. Hes asking about the Clinton Foundation accepted money from foreign governors. My understanding of clipten is it is international. They do work globally around the world. So i dont see anything wrong with that. Donating funds. Because it comes back to their country and it helps their people. Guest well, that would certainly be their defense. But theres not much evidence that it does go back to their country its a little more complicated when you have perhaps a future president of the United States taking donations. It is one thing if it was just bill Clinton Foundation but i think hillary attaching her name to it it does raise a different set of questions. I think nobody seems to wonder or care where jimmy carter and his various groups get their money from and what theyre doing because nobody thinks that jimmy carter is going to run for office again. If he were going to run we would want to know. So i think the circumstances are a little different and thats what makes this question worth asking. But if jeb bush is elected questions could the same questions be asked about the Bush Foundation or library . Guest his name isnt on them. Hillarys name is on the Clinton Foundation. But i think those are fair questions for anybody to answer. Mitt romney had to answer the question of why he had Bank Accounts abroad or why he had different investments abroad. I think getting money is a much more severe question than that. And i think a much more interesting question than what was such a big issue for mitt romney in the last g around. But look i think all questions were fair fwame. I wish more politicians sat with the press and with americans and i hope all republicans do that as well as Hillary Clinton. Host boy, that short piece of video sparking a lot to weigh in. Too many comments to share but one from a viewer. Guest thats so silly. What has he made off of terrorism. I dont even know host ipping theyre saying that he with speeches and with his Security Company making money off of 9 11. Guest so hes not allowed to talk about president obama or his views on president obama because of his interests . Look if you want to ask about it ask about it. But i think he should be allowed to express his opinion without creating this massive crisis where every republican candidate has to say whether theyre on rudys side or anybody else. Hes a private american citizen. Hes allowed to have an opinion. Host final question. We talked about a lot of candidates over the last 40 minutes or so. Which one do you think is going to be particularly interesting intriguing or under the radar that could be a series contender . Guest i think rubio. Obviously everybodys attention seems to be on walker and bush. I think cruz has laid low for a couple weeks uncharacteristically. I think he will be strong and persuasive and perhaps effective. And also i mean hes got his problems but hes also probably the purest and the best politician in the field, and thats chris christie. A lot of people have written off chris christie. I happen to think hes enormously talented and a bright politician. Host the on line editor thank you for stopping by. Guest thanks. Host and his book, clinton, ink. On our facebook pange we are still asking the question. Ground troops to fight isis . You can weigh in on the conversation. You can see several hundred of you already weighing in. And we will look forward to hearing from more of you. We will take a short break. We will turn our attention to the Progressive Movement. Whats next for the democrats. I went there on the third day. So the guys had gone down on the first and the second, and here is the third day and theyre expecting us at by this time. They know something is going to happen. So number one is quiet. Number two, the lunch counter which is very long and lined up but it was quite intimidating. Most everybody else was like im not going down there because anything might happen. And we go and sit down and wait. To see whats going to happen. A waitress came by with a tray of knives that were she was so nervous that the knives were rattling. I was so nervous that i didnt know what she might be doing with those knives. But i could tell that she was as scared as i was. We sat there with our textbooks trying to study. I remember her saying we cant serve you all or we dont serve coloreds. Were going to have to ask you all to leave. So i sat there for at least an hour. And i think we had hour shifts. So it was quite a nerveracking, exciting, you had the sense that you were doing something very important and very significant. Host the book is called bells of liberty. That was not the Dolly Madison exchange. But we do hope you do tune in to our book tour. This weekend we do travel to greensboro North Carolina and you can check out the full cities tour on line at any time. We want to welcome adam green the cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign committee which is what . Guest it is a million Member National grass roots organization, we do about half electoral work and our main focus is economic populism issues and democracy issues. In fact we coined the phrase, Elizabeth Warren wing of politics. Our members chipped in over 1 million in small dollar donations. And we have been a champion of some of her issues. Host we love political paraphernalia. She insist that is she is not running. Do you think she might . Guest never say never. And she said that herself. Right now i dont think she is but our organizations focus is trying to incentivize all president ial candidates including Hillary Clinton to have a race to the top and basically campaign on Elizabeth Warren style issues. Our basic theory is the only way the democrats can lose is by not running an economic populous Elizabeth Warren style campaign. And when you hear income inequality, i think its happening in america. Theres a rising tide and therefore her message is a smart one. Host secretary clinton and senator warren had a meeting back in december at white haven not far from where the Vice President s residence is, the two talking about issues politics and policies. If you were a fly on the wall what do you think transpired . Guest i would be breaking some heavy news in various sites. I think it was a huge step forward that she does not see Elizabeth Warren as oppositional but is seeking her guidance. There is going to be a degree of skepticism among some progressives who want more than just rhetoric and meetings. They want progressive economists in her inner circle. They want real policy positions backed up, the actual actions on things like wall street reform where you talk to your guest. A lot of their funding came from wall street. There were red flags raised around secretary clinton 200,000 speeches. So the burden is on her to show that she is not jist going to talk the talk but walk the walk. The more she seeks the counsel of progressives, the more competitive she will be in the general election. Host on these issues that are so important to you and to those who support the progressive caucus by way of the Democratic Party, where would you place the president . Guest hes somewhere in the middle. Thats where he wants to be. But he campaigned as more of a progressive than he has actually governed. Imagine who you surround yourself by. And rahm emanuel as the chief of staff brought an old ethose to the white house. One that learned certain lessons in the 920s before the internet and before the current populous tide. I think he has been a little more timid than he needs to be. That said theres been a dramatic difference in the last several months. And his being out there pushing the issues of net neutrality, immigration, asking the rich to pay their fair share in order to fund things like Free Community college and universal prek. I wish this was the obama we saw in e89 but it is better than never. It is constructive for him to be putting oxygen in the room for some of these big bold progressive ideas. Host when you say big bold progressive ideas, some will look at that and say bigger government. How can you expand the government and also bring down the debt . Guest you dont have to expand government. You can cut military waste and cut hundreds of billions in corporate welfare that goes to wall street or the Big Oil Companies or big pharmaceutical companies. The question is where and who does the government prioritize . Does it stand with the Big Industries or with middle class families . Our Sister Organization recently did two things. One a bottom up process where basically for a month from december to january asked people across the nation to submit big ideas that they want progressives to focus on. And thousands of ideas were submitted. From regular people and from folks like the policy director. Thinks thanks around town. And after 1 million votes ideas that rose to the top including things like expand Social Security benefits. Lets have a National Goal of Debt Free College. And things on Campaign Finance reform. And the next thing that the change is a national poll. And surprise, it wasnt even close. When it comes to a government that actually helps peoples lives, even a republican mother wouldnt you like to send your kid to College Without saddling her to debt . These are overwhelming benefits. Hopefully democrats learned over the last couple of years. My prediction is if Hillary Clinton decides to work on Debt Free College reforming wall street. She wont just win the primary. She will be very, very successful. One of our viewers has this. Why would you not want hillary since its very unlikely that it is liz warren . I said were trying to create a race to the top. We want Hillary Clinton and everyone else who gets in the field to compete with each other to adopt messages that are super popular in red purple and blue states. Theres a reason that she was the most Popular Campaign even in places like georgia, west virginia, and kentucky. When it comes to holding big guys accountable, that is a message that sells. And i hope Hillary Clinton understands that lesson. Host adam green, cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign committee. Our lines are open and we divide our lines between democrats republicans and independents. You can also send us a tweet. Rick from massachusetts. Independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have a question for you. Where do you stand on the tax issue . How can somebody pay 25 of their income not be paying their fair share . Yet the people paying no federal income tax are . Guest thats a great question. First my sympathies for the snow that youre probably digging out from up there in massachusetts. We saw this in the institute polling as well. There are corporations that pay zero taxes. Wall street banks basically admit to doing crimes and have to pay huge pements can deduct those from their taxes. Helps their debt. And meeble regular people are paying 2530 . Mitt romney pays less of a tax rate than you or i do. The real question is who is paying their fair share . How universities. Its ironic to me to see Hillary Clinton and jeb bush are running for president when the country is in the crisis that it is that power are making these two parties drunk on power. They do not look at the country any more. I just think that people have got to open their eyes and seeing that we do need somebody like Elizabeth Warren that see the country, the education and wall street and all the problems that are sending us to hell so we can have a country back. Host thank you for the call. Guest you are certainly not alone in feeling that way. A number of voters who stayed home on election day in 2014 feel the same way. Democrats failed to have a message, a unified message around big bold economic populous ideas that stick up for everyday families. A mother who did vote on election date 2014 didnt wake up and think i wonder if i can send my kids to college on an affordable rate. There was fragmentation. There was small ideas put out there and a lot of defensive stuff. Or saying im not a republican. And thats not what is necessary in this environment to get people to vote. What youre speaking about is the mick families, fighting for little guys. Are exactly what people need to hear. We hope that Hillary Clinton steps in the right direction and comes to full fruition by surrounding herself with more thinkers like Elizabeth Warren. And others, and really embracing those policies in her campaign. Host youve probably seen these numbers. First in New Hampshire showing that if the primary were held today among those voters Elizabeth Warren would get 30 Hillary Clinton 27 and Bernie Sanders 6 . Then look at the differs for iowa as well where senator warren is ahead of Hillary Clinton in that state as well. Of course Hillary Clinton did not win in 2008. Here are the numbers. This story this morning from inside the Washington Post. Once more a new brand for clinton focusing on how the clinton advisers are trying to rebrand. Her challenge unique. Your reaction. Guest thats a great point. Most people wont be deciding do i know Hillary Clinton what shes about. Theyll be deciding am i inspired enough by her message to come to the polls and vote. Thats where the populism comes in. About the New Hampshireiowa stuff i think its really positive that so many people are out there visibly in the streets and doing various other actions. Talking about how supportive they are of Elizabeth Warrens message. Whether you u. S. Drafting her or not. It really speaks to a passion out there in the country like our caller from massachusetts before. But also in places like South Carolina or kentucky or west virginia. People who really want someone to stand up for the little guy. And to me that just increases the incentive to adopt that message. I should say our Organization Strategy is concurrent, a little different. Weve had an organizer from iowa in New Hampshire. These people are going around meeting with local party officials, local elected leaders, asking them to keep their powder dry, to not rush to endorse a candidate but stay cool, let your endorsement be earned. And really publicly urge candidates to speak about Economic Issues like Social Security, wall street reform, student debt. And its really important that any democratic official out there really think about how much they race to endorse a candidate. If we want Hillary Clinton or someone else to be as competitive as possible we need to incentivize them to rush towards people like Elizabeth Warren. Host lets take a look at this page. John, good morning. Caller good morning. I just got a question for your guy here. When is the Progressive Movement going to stop being afraid of this 30year drug war that weve had . Are we so brain washed by the reagans and the bushes and all the ridiculous stuff weve been told about its ok to imprison our own people and ruin their lives, not allow them to vote because of felonies, because of nonviolent drug offensers . When is the campaign finally going to stop being scared of this ridiculous war that we spend billions and billions of dollars on . Guest i think that question might have been a little more appropriate say 60 years ago when there was fear. Im not seeing the fear right now. Only states like colorado and weaverb legalizing drugs marijuana and a big movement in that direction when we see actors agreeing on almost nothing but prisoner reform and the need to decriminalize. I dont see fear. I see similarities there. Also like gay marriage. There is progress being made almost every week. So social issues and criminal justice issues is really positive news. The big issue of our time the one that some democrats are fearful of are taking on Corporate Power including for the reason that corporations or Corporate Executives are the ones who fund campaigns so theres an intimidation of taking on the industries. And thats why we really need to break through that. And particularly as republicans try to parrot our talking points. We need to go the extra mile to show the voters that were for real and will take on. Host from a viewer. Guest there actually is reason. I wouldnt guarantee it. But theres a couple reasons. Again, on social issues i think there is no doubt. Times have changed. Laws are changing and Hillary Clinton showed an ability to evolve on issues like gay marriage. So social issues will be more progressive. Host on the question of Corporate Power again thats where theres potential and shes certainly speaking populous themes a little more these days. Shes been giving speeches about the need to hold wall street accountable. But worst arent enough. When you have a senator who represented new york and who has a history with some of these wall street banks and corporations even though not intentionally but just through the people that surround this world, people have a right to be skeptical. But thats why the next six months or so are such an important moment for action. If secretary clinton announces to run for president and decides to hold a town hall meeting, go and ask her a question about these issues. Ask her if she agrees with Elizabeth Warren to expand not cut it. And is she willing to take on the wall street banks . And if she hears that enough hopefully she will adapt her campaign to that. Similar to president obama orblingly not having a Health Care Plan being forced by the environment of the campaign to put one forward and making that the centerpiece. We can do this. Host maggie and jonathan were the first to break the news about Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren. Holding that private meeting with senator warren back in december seeking to cultivate the increasingly influential center, grapple with issues raised by restive democratic left. The two met here in washington, d. C. Lets go to jim from South Carolina. Caller good morning. This infamous talk about warren buffet secretary pay is a misnomer. When you say he pays 25 i heard you say that earlier. You act as if she is paying it on every dollar that she makes. She is not. Her average tax rate is more like 15 . I know thats not something easy to explain to people elerblely this short but shes paying more like 15 , the same effective tax rate as warren buffet. And he knows this and you know that. And you are never going to explain it because its very much easier to use that campaign to the middle class that they can get everything they want and the return payment of their share they can get every Government Program they want and theres somebody not paying for it. If you just vote for you youll get that for them. Really thats whats causing a lot of our problems. When you for example talk about paying for college by taxing the wealthy, what you do is you just we have seen youre sending more people to school that shouldnt be there and the colleges are dumbing down the education to get the pay because they want more kids in the school so theyll get more government money. Host a response . Guest i want to make a request. Please please apply to be a political advise tore jeb bush. We need you advising him on message. If republicans are honest about their agenda wanting the rich to pay less and wanting to cut education for universities, then well win in a land slipe. Youre wrong on the facts. Warren buffet has admitted that he pays less taxes. Its note really questionable that Corporate Executives have an option of paying themselves as income or dividends and they are two different tax rates. One that most pay hand one that others pay. Thats not a disputed fact. That capital gapes are taxed less than income. So you shouldnt be arguing these points. And i dont think you should be defending the prop position that wall street banks that break the law and pay penalties or fines should be able to detuct hundreds of billions of dollars after they pay their fine. Thats crazy. And you shouldnt defend that many corporations pay. You will find many studies and articles that just make this fact clear. On Public University misguess is most people in america disagree with you. Some public universities my home state walkers university are some of the best universities in the country. The question is are they affordable . The question is when these universities which used to be close to free helped some of the current rich people get an education back in the day are we going to lift the ladder up bow hind us or are we going to pay it forward . The fact that some went to Public University shouldnt pay taxes and decrease the cost for the coal of dealt free college for the next generation is absurd and going to fringe. I hope jeb wins that. Host good morning, rick. Caller i have two quick questions. Back in 2012 in the democratic platform, you all voted christianity and got it out of jour platform i think three or four times. What religion did you replace it with . And the thing is out of the rio trio which will have to answer for the acts of these two videos and the sustainment development of the peru deal . Who is going to have to answer guest host well get a response. Guest i dont have much of a response to that. Keep reading. Host debt get your reaction to the Washington Post this week. Host the total representing cash and pledges in tax filings includes 262 million that was raised in 2013. The year that Hillary Clinton stepped as secretary of state and devoted her energies to the foundation and a likely run for the white house. Guest i feel like they have pretty clean hands with affecting things like this. Not trying to draft anyone person for president , but we are hoping they run a competitive campaign. We have to hold them accountable when questions need to be asked. In this case, at the same time clinton was giving speeches about holding wall street accountable, this was happening. They were funding this foundation. That is not necessarily a critique, it is more of a burden. A burden on Hillary Clinton to get around this ive been even more populist and backing up words with actions. People have a right, particularly on this issue, of Corporate Power to hold secretary clinton to a very High Standard and words will not be enough. Another area is like expanding Social Security benefits. Words might actually be enough. It would be an entire National Debate if hillary adopted some of these positions. We will be working on her campaign with intense advising her and her people to think about these issues. One has every fair right in the world to ask russians about how her speeches were funded and how the Clinton Foundation was funded. Hopefully she has a powerful answer. Host it sounds like Bernie Sanders 2016. Again, there are multiple things that could happen in this president ial race that i think move in the same direction. We are not part of any dropped effort, but it is visible proof that they love the message, that incentivizes the entire president ial package. Guest if he decides to run which is overwhelmingly popular great, let him do it. We probably will not be there but it can flow in the same direction. That goal is a Democratic Party that mixes Economic Issues in regular people possible lives essential to National Debate in 2016. Host what about Martin Omalley of maryland . Guest i think there are a lot of people out there who want to see a competitive democratic primary. Again, our organizational posture will be if any of these candidates are willing to campaign on populist ideas, we are happy to it knowledge that only will ask other candidates to see something national. That is what the topic is all about. It will also allow former nominees. Host from robina, ohio, next caller is mike on the mine. Thank you for waiting period caller i am a democrat and my grandfather and father were democrat and they voted for eisenhower who told American People, beware of the military Industrial Complex. Eisenhower knew, he came back and rebuild the country with our roads and bridges and everything, and actually our deficit is starting to drop. What people do not realize is that the afghan war and iraq war are not paid for yet. They are part of the deficit. We keep going over bombing all these other countries and putting boots on the ground and our country is failing. Rudy giuliani saying what he did about the president he turned around with romney, bush, and cheney who never fought in the vietnam war when my two democratic cousins went to vietnam war and fought for the country. That is patriotism, thank you. Guest first, worth noting that militaryIndustrial Complex is gotten to mentions, i guess, three mentions on the show. Salute to cspan for allowing this open conversation and these issues to be brought up. If part of your point is that we need to have corporate accountability, you are right. If part of your point is that we should rally around good ideas you are right. If part of your point is that we should hold democrats accountable when they vote the wrong way, you are right. Thank you. Host i guess it is a veteran of Democratic Party politics who served on the hill working with senator tim johnson as his press secretary, the cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign committee, senator graduate of George Washington university and we are talking about the Progressive Agenda 2016. Larry in North Carolina, republican line, good morning. Caller i watched the past election and there were a lot of accusations made of the mr. Romney and a lot of them are truly false, such as the floor of the u. S. Senate saying that he knew to men that mr. Romney had never filed taxes. A while ago mr. Green said that mr. Romney has paid less taxes than you and i. Mr. Green, can you tell me the exact percent that mr. Romney paid . In a year. Guest 14 . People can pay 14 on income not on income, on basically loophole money that the executives can pay themselves. That is the current rate. Host we will vote to james in new new jersey. Good morning, jim. Caller i am very happy to see you. I am very happy to cash i am an independent and i work with all sides of the fence. 20 tax for all people, i have been trying to get that since 2011 with all sides of the fence. He made a joke. Wall street is only paying 12 in tax and they are not paying 20 . If everybody pay 20 in order to get the country to rolling we cannot spend more than that we make. Host what about that idea . Guest first look, thank you for your support of Elizabeth Warren. If you would like to join Elizabeth Warren it you can join us. I agree with you in spirit, but not the outcome. It sounds a we are saying the rich should pay their fair share of the corporation should pay their fair share. We are proposing a flat tax. The progressive change actually tested a proposal by a member of the proposal caucus who represents illinois. It basically says we can go beyond the current rates and on income from 1 million in number, it should be 45 . For 20 million and over, four 1 billion and over, 49 . That is below the 50 rate that was under president reagan right . This would bring in nearly 1 trillion in the next 10 years to Fund Important priorities, it including bringing down the cost of college. 20 seems a little bit low compared to where we are now but your point is those who nominally should pay the rate now and are paying 0 , should at least be there 20 in. This represents one dozen of the only have been tracking. Host cspan talking about elections and voting is a total waste of time and wall street picks we must vote for. This is a tweet from big guns. Host guest there was a lot of talk about the invisible money primary. I heard a question about marco rubio running and the main knock on him is that he cannot run because jeb bush will take his voters. If he cannot run because jeb bush is taking of donors, it really is a problem. It is one of the problem of our time. It is part of the issue of Corporate Power in this country. How the Supreme Court rightwing Supreme Court activist Supreme Court, has allowed corporations and big money donors to buyer democracy. And really create a challenged hurdle for regular people to jump into the profits. What do we do about a question mark what do we do about it . We had to actually get to the poll and vote for people who are willing to vote against that. On a policy level, we have to overturn some systems. A lot of congress is bought and for as well. We need public money for elections. Matching funds are the most modern proposal. It is a donation from a teacher has the same as a lobbyist because it would be matching small donations, 61. We need candidates to actually give voice to these proposals. It is a little bit funky, but if we never address it, it is a systemic issue that can impact all other issues and we will never make progress on wall street reform, climate change, and bring down the cost of education or perception does or anything else. Host chris who lives in alabama was making this point on her twitter page. I would love to see Elizabeth Warren run but i think hillary has worked out a deal to keep her on the sidelines. Lets go to shirley in pennsylvania. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. And also my opinion. First of all, i am a republican, but i do not want to see another bush in the white house. I think two is enough. The second thing is, Hillary Clinton. We definitely do not need her. After benghazi, i cannot understand who in the world would go to the voting poll and vote for her. I mean, if she was that bad back then, how bad would she be now is our president . We do not need her. There are too many good people running. I am just praying and lets just face it, our country is in such bad shape right now at the democratic resident that we have. We better get a republican in there to change it. That is my opinion. Thank you very much. Guest again i want people to listen carefully to that. This is somebody who was saying there was a critique of jeb bush and Hillary Clinton. That stands for certain openmindedness. I do actually want to reflect on an experience i had in south dakota when i was working on the first Election Campaign is press secretary. There was a big moment that speaks to the last question, as well. A big outofstate corporation came into the state and took out fullpage ads in every single local newspaper here it a were attacking tim johnson that would stick up for little guy family farmers against big corporations that want to take over the family farms. This was way before and unheard of. It was the talk of the town and everybody was talking about it during our campaign was in paralysis. We had three options. We could reverse course and hope to use the tax. We could do nothing and hope that it would run away. Or we could fight back. Senator johnson decided to fight back. We pulled together a press conference to announce the decision and the farmers and ranchers drove from as far as four hours away to be there. This one guy gets up to the podium and he says, look around this room. Look at all these cowboy hats. Pretty much all of us are republicans. But we are standing with democrat tim johnson because he is fighting for economic interests. He is fighting for our families against the corporations. That was honestly a moment in my political thinking. The way to win openminded people like yourself. The way to win is to specifically be on old economic populism. My guess is that why your last part is we need a republican in the white house, it sounds to me like you are actually looking for someone to announce issues you believe in. That is what Hillary Clinton needs to speak to. They need and Elizabeth Warren message that appeals across the country. Host adam green was part of moveon. Org. Victoria from organ, good morning. Welcome to the program. Caller i just wonder why the income tax on Social Security taxes is not more in the forefront . That would be something that would help the trust fund. My husband is a retired cpa with an mba in taxation. Before everybody in the country had an mba. Basically, he has been talking about this for years. How it is so unfair. The average person i talked to is not aware of this. Host thank you for the call. Guest i am really glad you brought that up. I tip my hat to cspan for allowing things like this. I have been talking about the idea of expanding Social Security benefits and this seems a great opportunity to explain what that means. There was a proposal that was advanced from the red state of alaska and from the first president ial state of iowa. They unfortunately retired. They wanted to expand Social Security benefits. What that basically means is there a proposal about one year ago or two years ago that would reduce the cost ability adjustment for seniors. This would go in the opposite direction and increased during senator harkin would add about 50 more month for core benefits for seniors. By the age of 75, there were get about more in Social Security. The question has come how do you pay for . You pay for it by scrapping the cap on Social Security. Right now, they only pay taxes on about the first hundred 13,000 of their income that goes up every year. It has gone up since faster. They are done paying after the first couple of weeks of january. If you track that, it would bring trillions of dollars into the system. That is enough to expand benefits to keep up with the cost. And it would allow us to have Social Security for decades. Those people called in and said, you are wrong about taxes. Google it again. Do you believe a billionaire should only pay and Social Security that helps so many seniors at out of poverty the first parts of their income question mark again, please advise jeb bush if so. This would allow us to make a Game Changing policy change and expand Social Security. Host our last call is from jerry from indiana on the democrat line. Good morning. Caller it is good talking to you. Ill make this quick. I want to tell you right now to this progressivism that if you do not have a good middleclass to balance things out and make them good, it is all going to bust up, man. I just want to put in my support for Bernie Sanders. Thats all i want to say. You all have a good day. Host thank you. Guest that was a great last call. I want to ask you personally to join us. Bold, progressive, that works. There is no doubt that what you are saying is accurate. We need to really, you know, the main thing i think that you need to be aware of is that out of the country, republicans are on our side. The polling backs it up. If it is Social Security or the public option back of a day or making college more affordable, republican voters, moms and as an veterans and ranchers, they want these things. It is republicans in d. C. , here who are the problem. The question is, how do we break through question mark again, the big money that often dictates who wins the primary is part of this. If we partake in groups like ours or others and actively go to the polls and our activists for the next two beers and at the final days, we can actually change where d. C. Goes. Two years and not the final days, we can actually change where d. C. Goes. Host complete the senates critic warren will run for president if Elizabeth Warren will run for president if guest guest if Hillary Clinton does not run and if she feels that she is the only person who can run ahead of the big i. She will run. Host can you envision a scenario where they would both run . Guest it is 4 chance or less and it would take something extraordinary, such as Hillary Clinton campaigning to run against the banks. That would change the calculus little bit. I think the challenge right now is that Hillary Clinton knows this and she is moving rhetorically in the right direction. The question is, can groups like ours, convince Hillary Clinton to surround or sub with good economic populism anchors and make economic populism fighting against the little guy against the big guy. Guest the website is bold progressive. Org. He is the cofounder. Thank you for being with us. When we come back, we will turn our attention to terrorism and the violent extremism summit as the white house called. One of the participants will be joining us trade William Braniff who was an expert on terrorism. First, we want to go back to our look at greensboro, North Carolina. A preview of our focus on former first lady, Dolly Madison. And after months and months of cleaning the house of charles tauber, who had been given that task was making one more walks through. In the attic, he looked over and saw an envelope with the green seal on it. He walked over and noticed that they was in 1832 document. He removed a single mail from a pen in an upstairs attic room and discovered a trunk, books, and portraits. This was this treasure of Dolly Madison;s things. A local group and greensboro formed the Dolly Madison association. On her birthday, may 20 19 63 they donated the collection to the greensboro historical museum. Some of the items we currently have on display, a carved ivory calling card case that has a card enclosed with dollys signature as well as her knees anna. Neice,iece anna. The two dresses are the reproductions of a silk peach gallon that she wore earliest in life and the red velvet gown which is intrigued that it has lasted and part of the collection. There is a legend that accompanies this dress. Our local vehicle has been traveling around the country and this weekend, we feature greensboro, North Carolina. You can check out the full city tour online at cspan. Org cities ttour. Cspan twos with tv. The study of terrorism and response to terrorism. Part of the university of maryland and a participant of the summit that took us this past week great good morning. Thank you for being with us. What did you like . Guest i learned that there are room full of charge people who were excited to be recognized domestically for pushing this agenda forward and in upheld by the way. There was still a lot of excitement over the issue. Host if you look at the title, which was the white house summit on counterterrorism extremism where is the word terrorism question mark was it mislabeled . Guest this was a nuanced debate and it usually does not get that kind of attention. They have this idea of the twolevel game. Any administration is speaking to an audience internationally and domestically. That forces them to often dont often jump through some rhetorical hoops. The idea is that you want to enlist support of nations sunni muslim nations and if you use terms that alienate those allies, you will not get far in your strategy. There is a bit of talking around some of these issues. At the same time, i think people the practitioners in the room understand what is going on and try not to be hindered by the vocabulary. Host if you talk to others who are experts in this area, what should we be doing that we are not doing right now . Guest the one critique that came out of the summit, which i think is largely wellfounded, is that we do not spend enough time talking about ideology. At the summit, there was a lot of discussion about the root causes of terrorism and much larger macrolevel issues. Things like poor governance or poor Economic Performance and how that can drive people into the arms of extremism during while that is certainly part of the story and certainly the longterm gain, in the short term, we have to understand the roadmap to the action. The thing that takes people with grievances and convinces them it is their individual duty to engage in violent extremism. There is a desire for greater focus on the specific ideology host . Host senator ted cruz had this reaction this past week at the summit. Let me put on the screen exactly what he said. And that is dangerous. Agree or disagree . Guest i think it depends on who what the format is and who the audience is. Terrorism is a political phenomenon, right . It is about individuals trying to change the way society is organized. After terrorism therefore whether we like it or not very it is a political phenomenon. You are dealing with and trying to get people to see the world in a certain way and throw the legitimacy behind the government in this case. Let me take that one point because the president host the president did outline that you need to get to these folks at an early age so they are not brainwashed by the terrorists or isil, or isis. How do you do that . What is the mechanism in place to help people with jobs, cultural issues, what can be done and how do you do it . Guest it would have to be very comprehensive. Jobs in those kinds of things matter. You have to push back on violent extremist ideas. Marginalizing extremist ideologies has to be part of the solution. Communities are the ones who lead in those efforts, typically. Not the government. If the government tries to talk about things that are within its jurisdiction jobs, the sorts of issues, the communities step forward and counter the ideologies where they prop up. Host William Braniff, a graduate of the u. S. Military academy at west point. Earned his masters at Johns Hopkins university and one of the participants at the white house summit on violent extremism. We will get to your phone calls in a moment or you can also send us a tweet at cspan wj. Within the muslim world, do we have credibility . Guest we have large a credibility gap with the sunni majority countries and communities. The reason is that there is a huge degree of antiassad sentiments. The United States has not done much to support the sunni insurgency trying to overthrow the assad regime. We are seen as increasing our dialogue with iran on the shia side. When many sunnis look at us they say the United States does not have the back of the sunni majority community, and therefore, their desire and ability to marginalize sunni extremists in their midstt is limited. They would say we have the sunni problem, not that we have a problem with the sunnis, but that we have a problem in the level in which our trust the level of our trust we have there. Host when you look at the pictures, really the most violent and gruesome horrible ways of killing is the beheadings and fires that are taking place to burn somebody alive. What motivates these people . Guest iso is an organization that fundamentally understands the theater, the spectacle of terrorist violence. They have an escalation strategy. They want a more resources to pour into this site because they believe they are the Strongest Party in the fight and therefore, they will benefit most from the resources that pour in. They are antagonizing people, very specifically. They are actively trying to get people to react emotionally and violently because again, they feel that works into their strategic goals, which is escalation and destabilizing entire regimes. It is provocation. Host jeffrey is joining us from johnson city, tennessee, good morning. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. I was actually calling more on domestic policy. I was wondering with the boston terrorist that happened at the boston marathon, i know that i think one of those citizens here came here on a student visa studying. I was wondering what your opinion or what your views would be on on how we could is one of the goals of government is to protect us as american citizens, how do you think we should go about screening and keeping closer track of people who are coming here from Foreign Countries on student visa and coming into the universities and how do we screened them better so that we do not have more situations like that occurred us thank you for your time. Guest thank you for the question. I think there are a few things that play into this. I agree that the primary role of the government is to protect the citizens. That has to be taken seriously but one of the ways that you look after your National Interest is to look after economy and the idea of bringing in the best talent from around the world to study at your universities and participate in your economies. This is what happens in most cases, people do not go back to their home countries. They stay and they were cured and they help to create a positive economic growth. And they work here and they help to create a positive economic growth. This is a great question and a great challenge. I will tell you that i work at the university of maryland, a Great Research university. Many of our brightest students are foreign nationals who study and many of them helped start the organization that i work for and try to inform terrorism policy and practice with objective and rigorous data. These folks are often a larger part of this of solution than they are as a threat or problem. That doesnt mean that we dont need screening for people who up threats in the country, but there are organizations in the u. S. Government that try to conduct that screening. Host our guest has been a consultant at the fbi, National Security staff and at west point, he was part of the ctc the west point combating terrorism center. Lets go to tom in san jose, california. Good morning. Caller good morning. I wanted to ask, what do you think about fox news trying to get us into war by bill oreilly saying we need to start a holy war . What does that mean to the muslims, particularly . Host there is a related tweet on that. Saying, is entire media saturation of isis helping to fuel its fear . Your reaction . Guest let me frame the question a little bit. Thank you for those comments and questions. Terrorism is meant to be very polarizing phenomenon. It is the application of violence on these issues that force people to react. They try to force people to take a side in some binary sourceful way. As to the issue of freedom of speech, we saw in the paris attacks on the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo attacking these institutions of freedom of speech should we be muffled . Should we not talk about these things . Should we not bring in diverse opinions to discuss how to handle these kinds of things question mark should we be signed on the issue . Or should we engage in an open discussion and allow for the fact that they are going to be some polarizing ideas that come forward . I think it is problematic that a media personality would call for a holy war in response to a set of organizations that are actively trying to foster a holy war. I think that is not in anyones best interest. While i do think that there are there is a place for the application of military force, unfortunately. When you have a group like isil these are the most dangerous terrorist groups in history, by a longshot. Sometimes they have to be dealt with by force, but the idea of trying to help them escalate civilizational conflict, i think that is a port strategy. Host we welcome our listeners on cspan radio. We are focusing on terrorism in the white house summit on violent extremism. We are with William Braniff. Jim, on the republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. You showed the quotes from senator cruz. I believe it deserves a yes or no answer from mr. Braniff. The president did not use the term . Guest no, i do not think the president should use the phrase when trying to create an International Alliance of sunni majority countries who really are the best and only communities who can marginalize groups like al qaeda or groups like i sold. I think it is like isil. I think they use the most specific vocabulary possible when dealing with the issues so we can do find a threat and understand the important roles that ideology plays. When i talk about this in my professional realm, i talk about jihadism and ism. It is part of the islamic tradition and you cannot separate islam from the conversation about a group like al qaeda or isil. At the same time, you try not to make a mistake suggesting that they somehow represent islam which they do not. They are part of the two fishing, but they are not representative of the tradition. Specific vocabulary has to be used to make the distinction. Host william is next. Independent line, good morning. Caller good morning. Sometimes during your program i will switch over and do what i call sure. F. One of the major channels this morning, johnson from Homeland Security was on there. The company said that they just found a video showing one of the groups has targeted the malls in the United States at mall of america, in particular. I do not know. I hate conspiracy theories. But considering that they are going to debate the budget next week, do you find anything curious about that . Thank you and take care. Guest cnn has this story, as well. They are linking all shabbat to a number of malls, not only here, but also in canada and in Great Britain. No, i do not find anything conspiratorial about the timing. Unfortunately, it was the most lethal Terrorism Organization in the world based in our preliminary data from the first nine months of 2014. This is an organization that conducted a very brutal attack on the Westgate Mall in kenya. One of the things we know about terrorist organizations is that like many other organizations, they tended to repeat successes. They try to reinforce or revisit that have worked for them in the past. Alshabaab successful attack against the Westgate Mall in nairobi has probably given that the inclination that they can attack a mall and north america and u. K. Would also be an effective tactic. This is something that analysts have been concerned about and they often ask this question why have we not see more attacks question mark eventually, you talk about that long enough and terrorist organizations get enough fixed variance and they may come to a similar conclusion. I do not find a conspiratorial. It does not come out of left field, at all. Unfortunately. Host gerald, good morning. From lynchburg, tennessee. Caller thank you for taking my call. I was wondering if someone could explain to me about the threat to the mall of minneapolis and the population there in minnesota. We know we have terrorists Training Camps and groups in this country and we allow them to go and do their training you know, we are training our enemy here in the United States. That makes no sense at all to me. Host thank you, gerald. Guest certainly the government is aware of terrorist organizations and Training Camps in the United States. There was historical occurrence when there was a group in the United States that did try to set up these compounds in carious locations around the countyr. I think that is one of the most prominent incidents being established in the United States. The Somali Community in minneapolis is actually one of the more active communities in the United States. In terms of participating in this countering island extremism of policies and programs. There is a lot of youth organizations that are really inspiring in minneapolis and st. Paul. One for example is called hasnt young men and women trying to tackle the issue headon and they try to fight what they call, a cyclical pattern in their community. As opposed to putting their head in the sand and pretending it is not an issue, they are actively trying to create Civil Society structures, mentorship programs with youth help people get more engaged with the Law Enforcement community and local governments, as opposed to less engaged. There is some pushback on this violent extremism which is unfortunately, been a problem in minneapolis and st. Paul over the last decade. Host if you are on twitter, you can follow billion braniff. William braniff. He is an educator at the university of maryland. Dan is joining us from mckinley bill california on the republican line. Good morning. Caller i have a question. If these islamic terrorists represent a small fraction of the islamic world, why did the government of pakistan shelton them accent shelter them for all those years after 9 11 . Guest that is a great question. Bin laden found safe haven in what we call connie country. It is part of the borderlands between afghanistan and pakistan and this group led by an individual offered bin laden safe haven before and after 9 11. He had given his allegiance to the taliban. More specifically, it was a group in the network and pakistan the nation, has a long history of engaging with this group for its own geostrategic reasons. Pakistan is most concerned about in this world is india. The idea of india coming across the border into pakistan, which is a narrow state. Pakistan wants strategic depth. It was the ability to retreat to counterattack should india advance during in order to do that, you have to partner with organizations control border crossings between pakistan. For its National Interest pakistan has partnered with groups like that network and it turned a blind eye to violent extremist movements. That hasnt changed over the last few years. We have seen not 100 , but more aggressive actions in these tribal regions to try and eliminate some of these groups and their safe havens because his groups have turned the guns on pakistan. Their National Interest is starting to change. Host our guest will be with us until the top of the hour. He was one of the people at the white house summit this week. Howard from california, good morning. Caller good morning. I have a question for the gentleman. I wonder what he would think about encouraging Prime Minister to rollout that neutron bomb we gave them and take care of those free targets in the middle east iran iraq, and syria . Host your reaction russian mark your reaction. Guest i would not encourage the Prime Minister to use any weapon of mass instruction in this case. I think it isnt a tactical problem and i understand the desire to solve the problem around the issue, and in fact, you can either look at the surrender of japan in world war ii and say perhaps, when you are facing conflicts, may be something really drastic has to occur. I would not encourage it. Host the middle east will be part of the debate this week and next week as their israeli Prime Minister prepares to deliver his speech in a joint meeting of congress. A speech he will carry live on cspan. Michael from pennsylvania, democrats line. Good morning. Caller good morning. My question to mr. Braniff recently we heard a comment on a talk show that perhaps the source of violent extremism is this the people involved in violent extremism today are mainly from less advanced technique chilly technically societies. It is simply driving people insane. They are people who cannot cope with this change and the resort to things like this as an outlet and they are not rational anymore and working on emotions and can cause a mental state. I know that sounds like a kind of wishywashy source of problems, but if people were crazy to start off with, and they are working through emotions, how do we get to some logical or rational way to solve the problem . Guest thank you, michael. This is a pretty wellestablished theory. The idea that in a globalizing world, there are winners and losers. There are individuals who gain from the free flow of information and goods and labor more so than others. While in general, most people benefit, the losers lose more quickly over time. That creates the reaction. A reactionary movement that tries to fight back and often times, looks back to what they believe is a more ideal time. Where they were on top and more wellrespected or they were somehow better off. I think it is fair to say that there are reactionary tendencies within the groups like al qaeda and isil. They look back to a interpretation of the Arabian Peninsula when islam was organizing the society as opposed to just something you did at the mosque on friday. I think at the macro level, it holds some explanatory value. I would like to disagree on the idea that it causes people to become crazy or that it is irrational or rational response. Or an irrational response. There are sociopaths and terrorist movements and other kinds of folks within the movements, but by large, the vast majority appear to have a normal psychological profile. When you think about counterterrorism, if there is a rationality at play and the Strategic Logic at play, you can devise strategies to contend against them and there is some degree of predictability or manageability. If it is an irrational phenomenon, you have no idea what is going to happen tomorrow and planning becomes about impossible. I would pushback against the idea that this is irrational behavior. I think it is certainly ideologically motivated behavior and that the ideological does speed on some of these grievances you outlined. Host i just want to share with our audiences as i take this next call, the level of terrorist attacks. This is from 2013. It is not isolated to the middle east, but also africa, south america. The darker the color, the higher the intensity. Lets go to george in hudson florida. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. This is interesting. I did not really get a straight answer from you, sir. I am going to ask you a question and no answer. The Islamic State in iraq and syria, are they in fact, islamic question mark islamic . Guest yes. Caller so they are islamic terrorists . Guest yes. Caller why was the president admit that . Guest well again, well, again, they draw on it on text that is not traditional or mainstream and the concern politically, if you use the word islamic extremism, people may believe that the president or the government thinks that these groups represent all of islam. They are not representative of all of islam. In fact, they are the best chance at marginalizing this very extreme contingent within the muslim contingent. Host another question, guest we do not always appreciate that. When we are looking at someone outside of our political boundaries, we tend to centralized rings. Centralize things. When we look at our own national history, we look at the nuance and complicated history and come up with maybe more nuanced explanations. What i am referring to, in the 1920s, there were millions of members of the ku klux klan, kkk, and they targeted catholics, jews, and africanamericans as a religious terrorist organization. They had 4 million members. 4 million members of isil, we would have a different conversation on how to deal with them. A very massive number. We do not think about it in terms of christianity when they burned across. It is something we have marginalized as a society. Religious factors were part of the story. They are looking at it and saying there are other reasons in addition to islamic ideology that are behind this group motivating this group. They have a very nuanced understanding, use islamic extremism. It found that we are talking about one factor, and politicians choose to avoid doing that. Host lonnie is next. From juneau, alaska. Good morning. Caller good morning. These are muslim extremists and i know they have their own beliefs, but basically, isnt the point of their believe that they want to be with all her . With allah . Why dont we provide a very respectful euthanasia for people who do not want to be on the planet and want to be with allah . Guest no comment. Host we will go to adrian from california. Good morning. Caller actually, i am in san diego. Host go ahead. Caller i just wanted to say that i appreciate the summit that happened and i think ank you, william. For the initiative is that the president came up with for people of color and thank you for the work that you are doing and thank you to cspan. Host let me take his point and ask you about the terrorist organizations. They had success in recruiting young people. Why and how . Guest if we are talking about isil it is an organization that has successfully inscribe the largest fighters into iraq and syria when compared to any other modern terrorist organization so they have done a better job at reaching out and recruiting individuals. I think it is because they actually stand in contrast to much of al qaedas rhetoric. 426 or 27 years, al qaeda has been talking about bringing individuals in. It is not time for a fullscale war establishing and going on the defensive. We are at a weak moment where we have to defend ourselves and go to these certain places and active france and may be active fronts and maybe go to certain individuals who can pinpoint the attacks. Isil, by contrast is rash and bold. They are picking fights with stronger parties. Instead of compromising on their interpretation of islam they are fully living up to their interpretation of islamic law and not compromising at all. There is this success and bravado associated with that. If you are killing under empowered and feeling like you are Larger Community if you are feeling under empowered and feeling like your Larger Community is bold and strong and successful, and i think that al qaeda has done 15 or 20 years of intellectual table setting and isil is the destination that makes the most sense. It is easy to get to because you can travel through turkey and there was something inspiring for some unfortunate reasons. Host had we stayed in iraq, would isil or isis have moved there . Guest al qaeda and i rock was led by this in iraq was led by this and al qaeda was a multicommander. He changed the name to al qaeda in iraq and fight against the u. S. Occupation and Coalition Forces in iraq. It was logically strategically defeated by the combination of the surge. It was not in iraq that i sil found the manifestation. They were treated across the border to syria and it was in the context of the Syrian Civil War that the reconstituted themselves to what we know today as isil. It gave them the breathing room to reconstitute itself. It is the fact that we are not engaged in syria and the civil war really fueled by sentiment and a lot of resources are pouring in there. Host lets go to maryland, good morning. Caller two quick questions. I have two comments about isis. Wouldnt it be more productive to have someone to address the psychopath in this country question mark and you have a policy in place to determine whether these psychopaths my two statements about isis, i feel that isis is mostly made up of people from israel and the only difference i see what isis is doing and what the government is doing, is that isis does not have drones. Host how would you respond . Guest i would say that the various programs that we talked about at the white house summit were meant to address different forms of violent extremism. The focus is primarily on extremism given the high degree of violence coming out those groups. Any kind of extremism in the united could potentially be addressed by the various programs that make up cdv. Host lets go to new york. The republican line, good morning. Caller good morning. By the nature, i have studied islam. There are about 1. 2 million 1. 3 million muslims in the world. A few million of them are saudi arabia and outside of saudi arabia. Why dont we hear about saudi arabia in this conversation . Guest that is a great question. He is correct. Saudi arabia has an interpretation of islam. There is an interpretation of islam in the arabian and insula. Peninsula. It supports as part of its soft power diplomacy. It will provide funding and comes with a certain curriculum and provide that curriculum. They are exporting and conservative curriculum. They could spare the solecism in terms of their interpretation of islam. They use of violence to advance them instead of other means to advance them. There is this connection that is important to understand in a dress. Host carol, you get the last call. Caller thank you for taking my call. I just moved back and in the Apartment Building across from me, there are also 25 working arab man that just hang out. They did not work or do anything, but they were very angry. One of them wanted to run into the crowd and i am wondering, isnt the government or somebody monitoring people that are young, healthy, welltrained i do not understand why they are not back in their own country and helping their own country and why they are here . Guest this is the first time that this is brought up. This is a challenging point in the United States. It is a constitutional right to engage in extremist dots and radical thoughts and the problem is that when they cross the threshold from radical beliefs to criminal behaviors. When people are engaging in these types of things, and that is why Community Led efforts are so important. They can determine whether somebody is at risk and engage in byron extremist crimes. Host William Braniff, graduate of west point, thank you for being with us. We will of course continue the conversation as we do every day at 7 00 eastern time. 4 00 for those of you at the west coast. This week is the deadline for people to act for the congress to act on funding. Congressional reporter for political will be joining us. The Economic Outlook for the u. S. Will be joining us and beth akers to talk about the cost of Student Loans increasing more than 22 billion. Newsmakers is coming up next. Check out our Schedule Information online at cspan. Org. Thank you for joining us on this sunday and enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great week ahead. Susan our guest on newsmakers this week is utahs governor, gary herbert. The nations governors are meeting in washington this week for their semiannual confab and the governor is the vicechair of the organization. This summer you will be taking over the gavel. Before i introduce our two reporters, you announced to your reporters at home that your focus, when you take over the chairmanship, is going to be federalism. Can you tell us what that concept means to you in 2015 . Gov. Herbert well, we are partners in carrying the responsibilities of government. The federal government with the states. It has always been envisioned that they were equal partners. States should not be subser