Health problems and live coverage of that on cspan3 at 10 00 a. M. This morning. We will be here with the 2016 president ial contenders and the expanding field. Democrats, 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. And independents, 2027488002. With Mike Huckabee becoming the sixth republican, a fourth line for evangelical voters 2027488003. Join the conversation on twitter, cspanwj or facebook. Or you can send us an email. Usa today saying that with my car could be with Mike Huckabee in the race, they are vying for the christian vote. Huckabee launches his bid for the white house, 59 years old he won the iowa caucus in 2008 when he ran the first time. They say he will spend today and thursday in iowa and then head to South Carolina where evangelical voters are more prevalent than in new hampshire. That is usa today. the wall street Journal Editorial Board article of his bid. They say his campaign economic populace is making a comeback on the right and not always in a good way. Mike huckabee wants to ride this wave and is standing with social conservatives to the gop president ial nomination, he is a Big Government conservative in an era of reform is what the wall street journal says. It is hard to see the logic of a huckabee campaign, but if anyone can sell the government to republicans, it is probably him. Take a look at what he had to say yesterday when he launched his campaign from his hometown of hope, arkansas. It is not because people want to be in poverty, it is because they are part of the bottom 90 of this country of American Workers whose wages have been stagnant for the past 40 years. [applause] the war on poverty has not ended poverty, it has prolonged it. I do not judge the success of how many people are in government assistance as to the success of government. I judge how many people have good jobs and do not need government assistance. [applause] and we do not create good jobs for americans by entering into unbalanced trade deals that forgo congressional scrutiny and then looking the other way when the law is ignored so that we can import lowwage labor undercut American Workers, and drive wages lower than the dead sea that is unacceptable. Host the former governor of arkansas announcing his second bid for the white house, as many of you remember, he won the iowa caucus in 2008 and then could not keep up with the fundraising of the other candidates. He left the race. He is back in now, making a bid for the white house we are getting your thoughts on expanding president ial field six republicans and 2 democrats in the race. We get your take your view on the field so far. Democrats, 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. Independence, 2027488002. With the evangelical vote, especially in iowa, a fourth line for those voters 2027488003. Anthony in massachusetts, an independent. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am very discouraged by what i see right now in the potential candidates on the republican side. You only have one of the six declared candidate saying that they believe in manmade Climate Change. Which is unanimous among scientists and the great defining issue of our generation, especially for people my age i am 25 and it will just get worse as i get older, i see a threatening my future. To see people like ted cruz flat out denying it, it is very upsetting. I do not see a good choice on the republican side. On the democratic side, i like hillary, i like some of her positions. But, i would like more of a contest more of a choice. I think she is too close to big business, big banks, i do not see her as a true progressive. That is why you see such a dispirited electorate. We feel it every 4 years, it is the lesser of two evils. Somebody like Bernie Sanders saying he has to run as a democrat because it is virtually impossible to get on the ballot as an independent. Until we fix this election system and gerrymandering, get corporate money out of politics you are going to see more and more people dropping out of the system, the cause they feel they have no voice. The special interest and the billionaires have all the influence. Nobody cares about the little guy. Host let me ask you about your views on immigration Hillary Clinton was in nevada, under early primary state, she was talking to a Latino High School yesterday and she said, she has made a forceful comment in support for paths to citizenship for Illegal Immigrants. What is your position on that and what you think of her saying that . Caller i agree with her. It makes common sense. The vast majority of people in the country illegally are hardworking americans, just like everyone else. They might not technically be american citizens yet but to say to suggest, as mitt romney did, that all these people should self deport is ridiculous, our economy depends on them. I think it is wrong and against what we stand for to suggest splitting families up. So yes, a path to citizenship is prudent and make sense. I hope secretary clinton means that and will fight for that. Host listen to what she had to say yesterday. Hillary clinton i will fight for comprehensive Immigration Reform and a path to citizenship for you and your family across our country. I will fight to stop partisan attacks on the executive actions that would put dreamers including those with us today, at risk for deportation. And, if Congress Continues to refuse to act, as president , i would do Everything Possible under the law to go further. There are more people, like many parents of dreamers and others, with the ties and contributions to our communities who deserve a chance to stay and i will fight for them. Host Hillary Clinton in the about it yesterday, the Washington Post it chief spoke forcefully to a path to citizenship and know it puts her on the left side of her party and a shift from a position she took as a senator from new york and a 2008 president ial candidate, then our support for comprehensive Immigration Reform was tempered with opposition to the granting of drivers licenses to Illegal Immigrants, she held other positions unpopular with many hispanic. They also report that tuesday the Democratic National committee announced the parties primary election season will feature six officially sanctioned debates, a light schedule for a thin democratic field, contrasting strikingly to the crowded race for the gop nomination. The small field has fueled speculation that the party might go for that forgo debates altogether even many credits ralph in new york democrat. What do you think of this president ial field . Caller i am a proud uaw member from new york and i think Mike Huckabee talks a good game, but none of the republican candidates will support the american worker. They all support states right to work laws and impose a minimum wage and the right to the freedom to form a union. None of them will bring anything to the table to release the wages of the american worker. Host would you vote for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders . They are the only two democrats. Caller i would vote for Bernie Sanders. Host what is his appeal to you . Caller he is the only one bringing up the american worker, the other ones, the American Workers are invisible to the other candidates. They want to have more tax cuts for the ones at the top. Host do you think he can get enough attention . Yesterday, he was at a town hall leading, 45 minutes outside of washington d. C. , and most of the National News media did not take the 45 minute drive from their washington bureaus to cover the event. Caller i think he will raise enough money, he already has run enough money and will get enough attention to force Hillary Clinton to talk more about the working class in this country. Host canton, ohio, independent. Caller this is about john kasich. I have a lot of information here. This whole state is corrupted. In canton, ohio, we have the state senator here that state representative investigators have been to the house, and you will not see john kasich run because he is up against all of the stuff we have. I wish cspan would call me back and let me get this on the air. This is very important. We have proved it to the investigators that have been to our house. John kasich is not running because he knows he is up against this. Host we will leave it there, fellas in tennessee, a democrat. Caller i was calling about Bernie Sanders, i wish Elizabeth Warren would get in. It is time for clinton and the bushes to step aside, they have made enough money. They took enough money from lobbyists. People want jobs. Republicans keep saying jobs everybody says jobs, why do not they bring back the jobs . I remember one when our win our country was wonderful we had working class people. They put our labor overseas for cheap labor we get tainted goods to come back. No nobody is talking about the crime and poverty here. They will tell us anything be Koch Brothers with all of their money, but it is up to the people to get out there and vote. They can talk all they want to and say whatever they want to, but if the people the people need to get out there and take back our system. Host did you vote for bill clinton . Caller i did vote for him. Host did you vote for obama both times . Caller yes. I remember, they said appeared like they are trying to do now with the jobs, telling us the trade would help us it will not help america. Host what if you hear you are ready said you do not want to vote for another clinton, what if you hear Hillary Clinton say she is for these trade deals. She has not said yet, she wants to see the details. Caller that is what she is holding out for in the end she will be for it, just like her husband. Host democratic caller. A republican, scottsdale arizona. Good morning. Caller good morning. It is kind of early in the morning. I am on. I cannot believe that you allow these people to go on and on regarding the total lying that the Democratic Party has allowed obama to perpetrate to the American People. The amount of constitutional trashing of our constitution. Host what are you referencing this morning . Caller your last callers. You let this man go on and on regarding the Democratic Party being this most wonderful thing and we have scandal after scandal after scandal from the Democratic Party. The last election should have told everybody that we are fed up with the Democratic Party to the extent that nobody can have a decent wage. I own a business for 27 years, i am proud to go out and serve my country and deal with my customers and make them happy. It is the most wonderful thing we have ever had. Host as a republican, what you think about this current field of eop contenders you have six . Gop contenders. Caller you could have 12 that would be fine. I am going to look at each one. I really believe that the washington, d. C. Bureaucracy with all of these multiple layers of departments, doing the same thing, they should be in limited. Eliminated. Host thats what the governor of arkansas was talking about, abolishing the irs caller can i say this. Are you going to come you cut me off . Host we are listening. Caller i could not hear you. Think about this there is so many buildings that the government owns, the gfa has empty and they are leasing buildings when we own millions of square feet of buildings. Host i am going to move on to terry in south river, new jersey excuse me, tom, in pittsburgh, a republican. Caller good morning. I would like to vote for any of the republicans in the field. Or any that have not announced. We need a change badly. I agree with everything the previous caller just said. I want to add, regarding immigration, if the Illegal Immigrants in this country work going to vote republican, do you think hillary or president obama would be pushing for them so much to try and help them . Absolutely not. That is the main reason why they are on their side. Host let me ask you about the republicans Mike Huckabee got what you make of him . Caller i do not care for him i think he is a Big Government individual and we need to scale back the government. Too many programs. Too many layers of government. It has to be redundant committees and so forth. The other problem i think is we have to get rid of the entitlement society. That is what is keeping these people down in the big cities. Host we will be talking about innercity poverty coming up in at the top of the hour, we will spend an hour discussing that. The poverty we are seeing in places like baltimore and detroit and other places across the country. Worst, we will keep getting your thoughts on this tweet 16 president ial field 2016 president ial field. The caller was just talking about Mike Huckabee and that he says he believes Mike Huckabee is for bigger government, Mike Huckabee said yesterday he wants to do away with part of the government. Club for growth, an activist group here advocates for lower taxes came out with a add against Mike Huckabee yesterday. Here is what they put together. Why do conservatives oppose Mike Huckabee . Americans for tax form said state spending during her first eight years as governor increased by 65 . Your record on taxes the arkansas democrat claims you finished your term as governor of arkansas with a net tax increase of 500 and 5 million. The tax burden went up while youre governor. An overall increase by a million dollars. Qwest became ill institute analyzed your performance the Cato Institute analyzed your performance, he received an f for his current term nad for his entire tenure a d for his entire tenure. Host conservative group club for growth putting out that advertisement yesterday, the same date the arkansas governor launched his bid he won iowa in 2008. The des moines register, front page, activists say huckaby will need a new focus. He made it official tuesday. If he wants to win iowa, gop activists say he will have to adapt to Higher Expectations that he faced as a relative unknown ahead of his 2008 victory. He will have to outlast a crowded field of candidates looking for a child in the conservative bloc that carried him to victory in 2008. A onetime fox news host is back and i went for several campaign stops, today and thursday. First page of the des moines register. saying he will need a new focus if he wants to win. Cbsnew york times poll, Hillary Clintons appeal survives scrutiny. She appears to have initially weathered a barrage of news about her use of her private email account when she was secretary of state and the practices of her Family Foundation, an indication she is starting her second bid with an unusual durability among democratic voters. Americans view mrs. Clinton favorably and as a strong leader detonated earlier. Nearly nine in 10 regrets a nine in 10 democrats say america is ready to elect a woman. Your views on the candidates. Caller hillary is on the right track. Stop nitpicking. Do you know how much money we could take in if every illegal was given a Social Security number . It will be like money in the bank for them. Help us out. Vote for hillary. Host floyd in virginia, evangelical voter. Who are you leaning toward and what issues are important to you . Caller i am leading towards Mike Huckabee. He is a nice fellow who had the right ideas for this country. Who will be elected is to god wants elected. For the end to come, there are a couple i would not vote for, one is ron paul, he would stand up for drugs. You talk about hillary being a good person she has lied about so much that there is no way she does not need to be president. [on the mexicans being good people, if they were such good people, why wouldnt they stay there and fight for their own country and make their own country a good country. When you have mr. Bush, i would not vote for him. He said that there were other ways to get the help he sides jesus christ, get to heaven besides jesus christ. Hes is christ is the only way to get guest jesus christ is the only way to get to heaven. The top issues are smaller government. They talk about Mike Huckabee being a Big Government person, that is not so, when he was governor in arkansas, everybody was a democrat. The congress and senate or democrat. They make they nailed his door shut so they could not oh he could not get into his office. When people say he is Big Government, they are lying. It is not so. Just check a record. Host what about ted cruz. Ps talked about his christian views and appealing to the christian voter. Caller i like ted cruz. Mike huckabee he changed his views. He has not changed his views. I hope he can win. I hope he gets information where we can donate to him. Host melissa, brandon, florida good morning. Caller i like ted cruz. I do not like have he does not vote. I feel like him saying things in debate, he gets a whatever he wants, but if he does not vote for anything, he can say whatever he wants. I hope sarah palin announces her president ial run. I think she would be a good republican candidate. Everyone saying we are ready for a women president , she would be perfect for that position. She has benefited for the past eight years been vetted for the past eight years. I do not know how people can be on the hillary bandwagon, since they are about greed and money and to support their i dont even know they are not good. Be watching your show and hearing these people on their bandwagon is amazing to me. It feels like they are not being a true american because they are not digging, researching these candidates not seeing what they are voting for, not seeing the big picture, getting our country straight, letting rid of common core, allowing parents to choose how their children are educated. Allowing people to have freedom of expression and freedom of speech. That is going away. You cannot bring up certain things on facebook or when youre out in public. These are the big issue our freedoms, getting the Big Government out of our churches, out of our schools, and it is like people are burying their head in the sand and not approaching the issue. Host the cbsyork times poll, Republican Voters show the most openness to considering senator marco rubio and former governor Mike Huckabee and jeb bush of florida among their contenders. That according to this new poll. An independent, then, oregon what do you think . Caller i am amazed to be on the air. At least the republicans have a contest. It has bothered me since the president was reelected in 2012, that the democrats and hillary seem to think she is entitled to that nomination and it is almost like she has been anointed. I would have preferred more of a contest among the democrats so i have somebody to two choose from. I am an independent so i do not get to vote in the primaries. I like hillary, joe biden, and Bernie Sanders. Another concern of mine is, if she is elected, when she takes office, she will be 70, joe will be 73 and i think Bernie Sanders is 68. Democrats need to have been grooming the next generation of candidates and leaders. Host that is bill talking about the eight candidates and who he would vote for. We will keep getting your thoughts on this field, the current contenders, there could be more to jump in as many of you know, there could be as many as 12 gop candidates. More democrats eying a president ial bid as well. Bernie sanders is 73 years old our producer just told me. For all of you looking at the age of the candidates. In other news, front page of the Washington Post no sign that the Islamic State led that texas plot. It says, the gunman were likely inspired by online propaganda, but they do not see a connection between the Islamic State who is trying to take credit for that and what happened in texas. Also, across from that headline, secret flights above west baltimore, infrared technology and drones were used to track movements of the protesters a lengthy piece for those of you tracking this issue and interested in it. Front page of the usa today cameras on cops are raising privacy questions some are looking to limit what the public actually sees from the cameras that are on these Police Officers. In baltimore yesterday, the new attorney general, Loretta Lynch was there she had a lot of private meetings, she met with a variety of people in baltimore. Her brief, Public Comments were long on it the and promises of help, linking all sides and the shared cause of improving relationships, but they were short on specifics. Loretta lynch meeting with many different factions, police as well as freddie grays family. Talking about a way forward. On capitol hill, the house is out this week, but the senate is in session and yesterday republicans were some writing passing the first joint budget resolution in more it is the start of a difficult path of funding the government. The leader of the Republican Party, the majority leader mitch mcconnell, saying there will be a test vote possibly thursday on legislation that will allow members of congress to review any Iran Nuclear Deal that the instruction puts forward that the minister asian puts forward. Joseph dunford has been nominated to be the next chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. There he is pictured with the president. Walking with the Vice President. Making their way to that announcement yesterday. The Washington Times with that picture. The current joint chiefs will be continuing his duties, up on capitol hill today at 10 30 am eastern time to talk about the pentagon budget along with ashton carter, the defense secretary. We will have coverage of that at 10 30 this morning on cspan. Washington post Justice Stevens backs reparations for some guantanamo detainees. Back to your calls on the field. Cookeville tennessee, a republican. Caller good morning. Anybody that Hillary Clinton. But Hillary Clinton. We do not need her. She is out for herself, not the American People. There is an old saying you can. People all the time, all of the people sometime, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. She is out for herself. The same thing back to arkansas when they had that land scheme called whitewater. She did all that stuff host we got your point. You are a republican. Which republican the you think that is in the race or contemplating it can give her a run for the money . Caller possibly i would like to see john kasich. He is very successful in ohio. That is the way i look at it. Host new york, a democrat, dave. Caller good morning. I am focused on Bernie Sanders. I think he has brought a lot to the table, a lot of great logic to the cable. One thing i would think people should take a look at before they go jumping up and down about Immigration Reform, there is a special on tv called alabama. It is about how they created such strong antiimmigration laws, and now, they have nobody to harvest their melons, work the fields. They have tried prison labor, they cannot get it done. The price of eating will go up. Everybody should take a good, honest, hard look at that. There is no one in america that wants to do that work. You can go pick fruits. You host nick, maryland, an independent. Caller i wanted to talk about irony. A caller was talking about an emphasis on research. Considering she cannot explain the opposition to her thoughts and it extends past her and into these candidates. As you see with these couple that come out crews and rand paul individuals that seem to be contagious among the Republican Party is the denial of the Scientific Method the previous caller was discussing Climate Change and they are still working on evolution. I do not know how people can justify individuals like this and see them as somebody who represents them and the nation as a whole. That is my thoughts on that. A shout out for Bernie Sanders check out something on him on youtube. Check out a debate of him. Regardless of party, i think his message carries out. Host this is nbcs website yesterday. The poll jeb bush, marco rubio win the top gop spot in their latest survey. We will keep getting your thoughts on this current field this morning. Our lines divided a fourth line for evangelicals. The paper noting that with Mike Huckabee in the race, the six republicans in it right now are going for the christian evangelical vote with iowa having many of those voters and the one of the first the first caucus in the 2016 race. Many candidates have gone there, are hitting the, Mike Huckabee will be there today and tomorrow. We will be live from the u. S. Armys Asymmetric Warfare Training Center outside of richmond, virginia to learn how soldiers are preparing for a different kind of fighting, pedro visited the center and talked with a Lieutenant Colonel about the weapons training that soldiers receive. Take a look. What you see is soldiers preparing to occupy the range and do training. They will put on protective masks like gas mask and do training out to about 50 meters. That is the focus for this mornings event, and they have done other training pistol and rifle. Why is this type of skill training important to the overall nature of asymmetric warfare . We are an operational advisory group. An army unit that advises army and joint force units throughout the world. Some of those areas are conflict zones, like iraq and afghanistan. It is important your skills combat skills, defensive or offense of our well honed. This is part of any units preparation. We happen to focus on the pistol and rifle marksmanship than your average unit because we do not know what situation our advisor will encounter, especially when embedded in other units, whether a army unit or joint force unit. Host fourrt ap fill about 45 minutes away. Richmond, virginia, close to washington, d. C. , just outside of that area. We will be there for the last hour of washington journal talking about that Training Center at what is happening and how soldiers are preparing for a different kind of war fighting. Back to our question your view on the current 2016 president ial field. Virginia beach, a republican. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have two major things to say a lotta subject a lot of subjects. We need to start savings account to cover deductibles and copays for Health Insurance so we can afford these deductibles and copays. It should be a lifetime account. The second account would be for younger people the retirement accounts, in place of Social Security. Both will help save the government a lot of money and we will be able to pay off, not only the interest, but paying down this massive debt. Host lets talk about these president ial candidates. Who reflects that . Caller ben carson came up with the idea of the medical savings account starting at birth. I like ben carson for a lot of things, that is one of the. My cup of the Mike Huckabee i will vote conservatively, not democrat. Host a republican. Caller good morning. Great colors in there. Two of them stated that it was a done deal that manmade Global Warming that is not true. When i was in graduate school in the 1970s, the consensus was that we were going to have mobile freezing. It is amazing global freezing. It is amazing he was out doing something. These young guys need to learn and see that the world is not what you learn in academia. I go to the colleges in claremont, i recommend anybody visiting them, they have great programs. They blackball people from having american sniper shows any conservative person i do not know if they say bush is a conservative, he is a 1 or just like hillary. Why are we talking about solutions in 2016, we should be talking about the economy. We have radical cells across the country and nothing going on. I want to add the freedom of speech, i highly recommend that you call in and get involved. Host we want that also here at port arthur, texas, independent. Caller you need a fifth line, you added an evangelical line, i am a political atheist. The people that run for office run for office for one reason to make money. President s are selected. They are not elected. This lie has been going on for a hundreds of years. You might get obama in office again he cannot run, but there could be some kind of emergency where he has to stay in office. I tell you what will probably happen Hillary Clinton, you cannot have a woman with a ton of buttons with jeb bush. You will probably get this clintonbush think that has been going on. Host hold on. Some women might be wondering why you say you cannot have a woman with a finger on the button. Caller i dont want to be blunt women have that time of year and she is already known as being an angry woman. Host in texas. With his views on this president ial field. Here is what the candidates are saying on twitter. Mike huckabee tweeting this abolished the irs, part of his fight. Part of his campaign to become president. Hillary clinton saying it is time to fix our broken immigration system. Bernie sanders saying, thank you, manchester, for a great weekend. Lets keep the momentum going. Senator ted cruz, we must up a bad iran deal that jeopardizes u. S. National security. Marco rubio saying, click here to state with israel and stop a nuclear iran. Dr. Ben carson saying he was in iowa, he said it was great thank you to the crowd. Rand paul saying, endorse my campaign and help defeat the washington machine. Carly fiorina this week pulled out her campaign, a series of interviews, one of them was on cnn. That is some of the tweets from the candidates. Marco rubio and ted cruz seeing about the iran deal reference to a test vote that will happen this week in the senate, as early as tomorrow. That would give congress the ability to review and amend any deal this administration comes up with and the other countries working on it. On some sort of nuclear agreement. David in georgia independent. Caller good morning. Thank you for washington journal. I am still laughing at the guy from texas. Even subjects i will watch just to get a good chuckle. It is my opinion i think Mike Huckabees time has come. He pulled eight states last time, he came out of iowa. People do not understand why his record in arkansas he came into a Democratic State run for so many years. When he first got elected, his door was hammered shut. He had to overcome a lot of obstacles. If he passed overnighted percent of what he pushed through, what his vision was for arkansas, it was a success. I think, as a smalltown elected official in my own community, i think human nature has a lot to do with it. If you start rumors to get things going if you can get a rumor started Carly Fiorina or carson to the site and say put the word out, you might want to run on the ticket with me. He pulls in one or two demographics the elusive i think Mike Huckabees time has come. Host houston texas, a republican gene. Caller i have one question my comment is like the other german gentleman, my main thing is i am a republican. Only thing i am asking is to take care of the Immigration Reform that is first and foremost. We have a big problem in texas. The other question i have how come there is just a couple of democrats running for president and we have it seems like 20 republicans . Can anyone answer that . Host asheville, North Carolina a democrat. What do you think about only two democrats in this race . Caller i hope there will be more. Hillary clinton, as far as i am concerned, is the best for the job. When george bush senior was in there, he made a mess of the country, here comes bill clinton, he straightened it out he put more money in the economy, got more people back to work. I think that is one of the biggest issues we need right now. As far as jeb bush, marco rubio and rand paul, and ted cruz, i do not think they should be in the dog race. Let alone the president ial race. If i had to vote for a republican, i would vote for whichever one best for the job. Mike huckabee would be the man. He has done he has a lot of morals we need in this country. Host thank you for the call. On the first clinton presidency, this is the Washington Post in africa, the Clinton Foundation acis rooney over donors. Faces scrutiny. They firm help pay for a gathering in morocco, a lush golf resort to showcase their foundations charitable work. A Human Rights Organization and republican lawmakers are criticizing the foundation for accepting donations from moroccan government owned mining companies. The sponsorship of this gathering came and growing scrutiny of Foreign Government contributions to the charity. Bluechip companies that have long provided large durations are pulling back or recessing their support, one of them is exxonmobile. Chelsea clinton defended its work and suggested that scrutiny was politically motivated. My family is no when you mix together the high level of scrutiny around the foundation and the political dimension, i am not surprised. Bill clinton the former president , talking about the Family Foundation and the speeches he gets any money he gets for them. He sat down with Cynthia Mcfadden and here is what he told her. You know there is a perception that the clintons play by their own rules. Email account the mistakes on the tax forms for the foundation. Bill clinton tell your viewers the facts. Tell them what the mistakes were. Where Foreign Government contributions were supposed to be, they were put in a different location. Bill clinton the guy who filled out the forms made an error, he put it on the wrong line. It was a mistake. It was all in their. I cannot expire in why they did not do it. It is his own. 11 speeches for 500,000 or more , while his wife was secretary of state. If your wife is present will you continue to give speeches . Yes. I have to make a living. I also donated to the foundation. Host Cindy Mcfadden from monday. This is ruth marcuss column shiny new baguettes, she says this about the last part, that you heard from the former president. Oh, my, god, as if the former president had not reagan more than 100 million on the speaking service. Not rate in. Host that is ruth marcuspiece. An independent, what do you think about the field of candidates . Caller good morning. I would love to see donald trump run for president. I look forward to watching him on monday mornings on fox news, because he is so intelligent. He knows what is going on in the world. He knows how to straighten out this country and he knows what to do about isis. I would love to see him run. If he does not run, i will probably go for ted cruz. Host why is that . Caller i like the way he thinks, he is a libertarian. He believes in smaller government. We need fresh faces. These politicians that have been on for years and years and years , they just follow the same path. We need a new. Host savannah, tennessee, a republican keith. Caller i think ben carson would be the one. He has a lot of common sense intelligence, and not just for certain people, he is for everybody. He is very brilliant. He knows what it takes to get this country going. He does make it as a candidate for president. A successful pick a strong Vice President , some of the like Louie Gohmert from texas, a could team up together and get the ball rolling again. As far as hillary, she has no chance, her toughest opponent would be Bernie Sanders. Democrats have no chance. Host jeb bush is hitting a rough patch, a headline, in his outreach to evangelical voters. Host that is the Washington Times. Rick perry, the former governor of texas and candidate for president , who maybe throwing his hat into the ring again, he is writing in the wall street journal, why i am changing my mind and opposing the exportimport bank. He was for it as governor of texas, because it helps companies in the state, but now he is against it. I have been deeply disturbed about corruption and bribery. That is rick perry writing. Maryland democrat, ed. Caller i want to make two very important points. Listen carefully. This is important. They need to stop negative attacks against hillary. They are doing a great disservice this rightwing media. Benghazi benghazi, negative email. I read three important books. That lady is incredible. I am an africanamerican scientist, a phd scientist. Our country is doing a Great Service when you allow this negative stuff. The lady has run this countrys foreign policy, she knows heads of state all of the world. She managed to bring this country back into focus. She has lifted us up and working for barack obama and making this country wealthy again. She is the only one the gop media [indiscernible] they are not doing the country a service. When you look at his at what is happening in ferguson and baltimore, hillary takes small groups of people going from place to place. Host i have to run so i can get in a couple more phone calls. Front page of usa today has this story british candidates get american advice. The two men fighting to be britains next promised her have hired a former political advisor to president obama to carry them to victory in what is shaping up as a tight election for thursday. He led obamas 2012 elected election is host watertown, new york independent. Good morning. Caller i am calling because my vote goes to Bernie Sanders. The only candidate that is not pay for, he speaks for the American People. All these republican candidates, what are they running on benghazi benghazi, and ghazi it is old. Educate yourself with socialism and the different types. A vote for a republican is not in your own best interest. Look at the budget, a perfect example, Bernie Sanders has one million plus mikes likes on facebook. I have seen it grow in the past year. That is it. Host an independent calling thank you for the call we will leave it there. Up next, our focus on innercity poverty, a roundtable discussion on that, getting different perspectives and how to improve Economic Opportunities in cities like baltimore. Later, you will learn how u. S. Soldiers are training for a new kind of warfare, one a cup play out in the city streets of foreign lands rather than on the battlefields. We will visit the Asymmetric Warfare Training Center in virginia and talk with the commander of that unit. We will be right back. This sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Our original series first ladies. We will look into the lives of two first ladies. Elizabeth minogue broke the tradition of making social cost washingtons political society. She spoke french inside the white house and gained the reputation for being cleanly by her critics. Louisa Catherine Adams is the only first lady today to born outside of the u. S. She played an Important Role in her husband 1824 president ial campaign that had difficulty winning the approval of her motherinlaw. Former first lady abigail adams, elizabeth monroe, and louisa Catherine Adams. Sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans original series first ladies influence and image. Examining the private lives of women who filled the position of first ladies and influence on the presidency. Sundays at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History to be on cspan3. On cspans q a, former Bloomberg News reported Kate Anderson blatt Kate Anderson bauer on the world of the white house through the eyes of the people who work there. From the kennedys to the obamas. Who are the thick lens . An incredible family who worked at the white house. I interviewed james jeffrey, the only parttime butler who i got to interview. He might be there right now. He works every week at the white house. Nine members of his family worked there. His uncles john and charles. They were the head butlers. He told me that his uncles ran the white house. They brought him in when he was 17 years old in 1959 during the eisenhower administration. He is still working there and he describes having to used to work in the kitchen and he was such a skinny little guy they kept giving him ice cream to eat. It is incredible that he remembers what the eisenhowers were like. A person who remembers that, that is what i wanted to do, pay to be to these people. Sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and spit and pacific on cspans q a. Washington journal continues. Host we are back. Roundtable discussion for the next hour about innercity poverty. I am joined by Michael Tanner and Ross Eisenbrey, Vice President of the Economic Policy institute to talk about the issue. Ross eisenbrey let me begin with you. Lets look back a little bit before we talk about what is happening today. What happened to inner cities in the country . Guest there are two things that are very important. One is the industrialization and the other is racial segregation. Because we really have two different stories within most American Cities, a story about what has happened to africanamericans and what has happened to the rest of the population. Let me start with housing and how that affected lack people. We black people. We have a long history and baltimore is a great example where they have, in the 1920s, the mayor set up a council and segregation committee, a Neighborhood Association set up to keep black people out of white neighborhoods and to keep them in pockets of very dense poor black population. They were segregated into essentially a ghetto. Because they were in that situation when the great wealth expansion in the United States occurred after world war ii, they were left out of it. They could not get mortgages because they were redlined. They were exclusionary zoning practices in the suburbs that kept them out of the suburbs. They couldnt get federal insured mortgages because the federal government actually told Mortgage Companies and realtors that they could not give them to black people. They were absolutely excluded. Their ability to buy a home and get the wealth that goes with Home Ownership was blocked. That continues today. The impact in that. The children of those people in the 1940s and 1950s, did not acquire wealth. They they did not inherit wealth and they are still in very segregated neighborhoods where they are poor. Host we will dive into that a little more, but Michael Tanner, what do you think . Guest i agree with most of that, but i also think we have to include the fact that there was an enormous fight of the middle class out of the city that the ways in the 1960s and 1970s. Particularly in the wake of the right on the art with the kings assassination. The white middle class largely fled and the black middle class followed the not too much longer and you ended up with higher taxes in the city and it drove the middle class to the suburbs where they found less crime, lower taxes and a better quality of life in terms of schools. What you ended up with in cities like baltimore is a concentration of a small group of people in the tourist and wealthy areas and large segments of poverty, which are sort of walled off the rest of the community. Host Ross Eisenbrey, what did the government do and how has the government responded . What has worked and failed in your opinion . Guest what michael said about white flight is right, but i used to think it was a question of whites on their own got up and left the city partly because the cities were increasingly black and white people did not want to be with lack people and they left. I grew up in the detroit area, which lost almost all of its white population and was losing it long before the riots in detroit. It was a huge decline in the white population because they were able to move to the suburbs where jobs are being created. Factories were being built not in the inner cities but out in the suburbs where land was cheap. And the federal government was financing their mortgages. Was ensuring their mortgages and making it possible for them impossible for them to buy out possible for them to buy out there but not possible for black people. The federal government encourage the segregation and it has never done anything to track it. All of the programs you can think of, if they dont address that core problem of poor people without any wealth being segregated into a tight area of the city, if you dont deal with that problem, you will never solve the problem. Guest the one thing this government do date is there a lot of money at the problem. At the start of 1965, we poured money into the inner cities and finding it generally. We spent some 22 trillion since 1965. Last year alone, the federal government spent about 120 plus different antipoverty programs, state and federal government spent about 300 billion more. Between 2003 and 2013, baltimore got 6 billion in federal funding, plus an additional 1. 8 billion in stimulus money, plus the individual welfare payments that went into People Living in those communities. We have known money at the problem. We have made poverty of bit less uncomfortable. We have given people food, done away with now nutrition. We have not enabled people to get out of poverty. What we have not been able to do is allow people to rise up the economic ladder. What we found is that simply giving people money is not the answer to those types of solutions. Host why not . Why is there not Economic Opportunity you are talking about . Guest number one, no jobs. If you look at unemployment in baltimore and areas of low income, where freddie gray was arrested, the Unemployment Rate there is around 50 . That is an area that does not have a grocery store. There is not the restaurant, not even a fast food joint in the entire area. We no jobs are the number one way to get out of poverty. Less than 3 who work fulltime living below poverty level. Host huber what is to blame for not having jobs of these areas . Guest maryland has one of the worst Business Rates in the areas. One of the highest business tax rates, huge regulatory burden. Property taxes are very high in maryland. What youve got is essentially a government climate that is not nice to the creation of business. Guest i could not disagree more. Maryland is actually the wealthiest state in the nation. Their precapita income is number one in the United States, so people there generally are doing well. Baltimore is not doing well and the poor people in baltimore are not doing well. The war on poverty did reduce poverty. It was successful until poverty rates declined drastically they fell to 11 at one point and the National Poverty rate is back up to 15 now. Many things changed in the late 1970s. Most important links are they stopped rewarding we stopped rewarding work the way we used to. The minimum wage is has lost 30 of its value. It is much harder for somebody to make a living on minimum wage. People used to actually senator warren tells the story of her father losing his job and her mother being able to support the family and keep their house because she took a minimum wage job. That is impossible now where the minimum wage is that, well below poverty wage. If we rewarded work and raised the minimum wage members of congress are calling for a 12 minimum hourly wage, that would lift millions and millions of people out of poverty. They would be paid for their work in a way that allows them to take care of themselves and their families. Host before we get to calls, Michael Tanner, you are shaking your head. I want you to respond. Guest minimum wage increase would help a few people in poverty. Only about 30 of people in poverty live below the poverty level. By and large, the idea we have of people trying to support the family on a minimum wage is a myth. Only about 5 of people on minimum wage are single mothers supporting children. What you would do is wipe out a lot of entrylevel jobs, the first run on the ladder to get out of poverty. The suggestions are you would help the number of people in the middle class with an increase in the minimum wage but you and her people who are poor. Host lets get viewers involved. We will come back to this. Guest i disagree with that. Host i will let you jump in. We will hear from randy first in clearwater, florida. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am calling about this disaster for decades between u. S. Citizens taxpayer money between 17 and 22 trillion on the war on poverty. Nothing has uplifted people. They get housing. They get help with their electric bills. Their phone bills. This is all racist. And you cant get money single mothers host randy, you disagree with those policies . Caller after, you know, you know, all these decades, yes. There is a safety net, but my family took an onthejob training apprentices to help install carpeting or painting host so having some sort of training to go along with these exciting it these safety net programs. Ross eisenberg, i want you to respond to him. Guest i agree with Michael Tanner that the problems are there are no fundamental jobs for these people in baltimore. The Unemployment Rate at 8. 4 is that when out of 12 people is looking for work and cant find it. Ok . There are enough jobs for people in baltimore. It is just not true that people all these poor people there and the Unemployed People are living on welfare. Only 5 get cash Welfare Benefits. 25 of baltimore citys residents live below the poverty line and only 5 get cash Welfare Benefits. You ask what are the policies that work and dont work . The clearest policy the biggest policy failure in the United States over the last 30 years is cutting taxes as the way to solve these problems. He cut these top marginal tax rates from 90 to 70 and their administration down to 50 and then down to 28 percent. We have had 30 years for that to magically create jobs. It has been a complete failure. The results are there for everybody to see. Host we will hear from grade next. We divided the lines regionally, eastern and central dialing in at 202 7848000. Mountain pacific, you can dowling at 202 7848001. We have a third line for innercity residents at 202 7488002. Greg in columbus, ohio, you are next. Caller thank you. I think it really is all about segregation. If we can admit i believe that one point in america that there was forced to your graphical segregation and we say when does it and . If it did and, why are people still primarily segregated . My second part would be when we talk about jobs and job training, it is a structure. There are so many infrastructure jobs that need to be done everywhere in the United States. A jobtraining program would be to train these people anybody to work and to do these jobs. I think that this is tenuous. Oh, my god. Sometimes you have people saying these guys are so lazy and nobody wants to work, but when you look at the fact that it is hard to get a job as a black man with a College Degree than it is to be a white man with a felony. Are you crazy or you dont want action . Host Michael Tanner, want to jump in . Guest thats a very good point. It is largely a problem of jobs. I disagree on i dont think the government i disagree that the government does not do a good job creating jobs. Baltimore got 1. 8 billion dollars in stimulus funds and they spent 1. 5 billion of that. They created 67 permanent jobs. That is not a very good bang for your buck if you will in terms of government spending. There are things we can do to make it easier for young black men, in particular, to get jobs. For example, we should not require or business as it should not be asking whether or felony on their record for example. The fact that we overcommit allies and arrest young black men for all sorts of absurd crimes, thereby giving them it almost impossible to get a job in the future or become legible is a huge process problem. Those are issues we can deal with right away. In the terms of long creation of jobs i disagree. You cant expect businesses to operate at a loss. If youre going to tax and regulate them and required they pay excess benefits and so on, they simply are not going to hire. Host 1. 5 million black men missing, touching on what you were saying, for every there are only 83 black men for every 100 women not in jail. Among cities of the sizable black populations, the largest single gap is in ferguson, missouri. North charleston, South Carolina, has a gap larger than 70 of the city. The gap driven mostly by early death and it barely exists among whites. Guest that is a gigantic problem. We have a National Policy. It is implemented at the state level of counting black men into jail. Criminalizing things that should not be criminal. Harassing them, the police in the freddie gray case, what was he chased for . He looked at a cop and ran. That is not a crime, yet, it led to his death. There is a really interesting study in baltimore following for 25 years, 800 Public School students starting when they were in elementary school. Here is one of the many conclusions. Having an arrest record or failing to complete high school were less consequential for white men than for africanamerican men. 84 of whites without a High School Degree or employed at age 22. Among African Americans, just 40 . The consequences of having an arrest record are much more serious for africanamericans. This is one of the things that has kept them off of the job. Host let me ask both of you what leads to having an arrest record . And that being predominantly among africanamericans what role does government play in helping or hurting this statistic that you are telling us about . Guest the Police Harassment children or teenagers for these things and they dont police white children in suburban places at the same way. I grew up in a suburb were kids openly drank alcohol or they used marijuana, drove fast, you know, they did all the things kids do. Those things are criminalized for black teenagers. They are not for white teenagers. The result of that is for the rest of their lives these blacks, especially men, are discriminated against in the job market. Guest and the war on drugs as well. The fact is that we arrest people particularly black young men, for possession of small amounts of marijuana and things of that nature. The fact that we create crime areas and police go in and looking for problems and trouble. If you are hanging out in a corner, they will go up and assume you are dealing drugs which may or may not be correct in this case. That leads to the problems on the road and that is what leads to the sort of abuses we are saying going on. Baltimore has paid out some 6 million and Police Brutality claims over the last decade. This sort of harassment sort of policing leads to the trouble we are seeing. Host what about the Public Institutions of these kids are supposed to be in or part of growing up . Education . Guest the wall street journal was quote is not a place i turn for inspiration, but in yesterdays wall street journal, there was a story well, i dont see it in my papers, but there was a businessman jay steinman saying he had his kids in a baltimore Public School where there were not toilet seats on the toilet, the heat went off in the winter, the lighting was poor. The schools are crumbling. And he said, how can you expect kids to value their education Pay Attention and learn in that kind of an environment . The federal government, among others, could do something about this. That is an infrastructure problem. There was legislation that was kicked out of the Stimulus Program a 30 billion dollar program, to fix the schools around the country. It would have made a huge difference in baltimore. Guest but baltimore spends the biggest u. S. City, they are for the rfid in the nation in terms of per capita spending they are fourth or fifth in the nation in terms of per capita spending. Some of it is wasted and they are having to pay back a state grant because they ended up using the money for dinner cruises rather than fixing schools. A lot of it is simply not been effectively used and part of that reason is because the Teachers Union in maryland is very strong. It has one of the weakest Charter School laws in the nation, in fact, there are a lot more charters was in washington d. C. , then the entire state of ireland entire state of maryland. Even Public School choice is limited. You cant remove your children to a different district and Different School, so what you have is very little parental control, very little monitoring and requirements for the teachers, and a lot of waste in terms of the money being spent. Host lets get back to cause. Dennis has been waiting in west palm beach, florida. Thank you very much for waiting on the line. Caller my pleasure. If they just talked upon education which is what i wanted to discuss. To me, if we are going to talk about poverty in the innercity, it seems like there are two extended problems. Number one is Everybody Knows the family is broken up and the other is the education issue. As one of your guests just said baltimore does spend the third and highest amount in the nation per capita on spending per child. As i was listening to the comments regarding the baltimore riot, a lot of the people on air said we need more money for spending on education in baltimore which is absurd. Then i heard other people saying the quality of education in baltimore is bad, forget the money. That is wonderful, but the people that are saying this. When the kids to have an option to get out of the Public School system and go to private or religious affiliated which the Supreme Court said was totally constitutional. I saw a graph on cspan this past weekend that had statistics on the screen. One of which was that in baltimore, there is a daily 46 truancy rate but there is 50 unemployment among locks. Well, isnt it kind of interesting that 50 of black people cant get a job and 46 of go to school . I wonder if there is a coincidence there or what. Host im going to have brought eisenberg jump in. Guest i am going to say i hear something that sounds a little bit racist going on but the fact of the matter is, that the schools in baltimore are just overwhelmingly high poverty schools. The white people left the baltimore School System 30 years ago or more. The private schools, the white kids are in private schools and their pain 25,000 or 30,000 a year for that school. They have taken their resources out of the Public Schools. Host we are talking about taxes, property taxes . Guest property taxes and personal resources that families pay be successful or better off family has time to spend in the schools. They bring their expertise, they participate in the classroom. They do extracurricular activities. The Public School my children went to had a parentteacher budget of 150,000 a year. The parents put that in apart from the taxes they pay. That kind of resource is not available to the high poverty kids in the Baltimore Schools. Guest that just highlights unfairness of the current system. You are right. The white children had gone to the suburbs or private schools so what we are not seeing are the black children well, you are stuck in these lousy Public Schools and we are not going to let you out. Why dont we give them the options to take their money and that the money followed the child instead of the school . And let them take that money and go to the private schools are go to the suburbs or go to a Better School district within baltimore . Why do we lock them into a lousy school because they are poor or black . Host daniel is next in grand rapids, michigan. Go ahead, daniel. Daniel, good morning to you. You are on the air. One last call for daniel. There you are. Go ahead. Caller my question is in terms of the gentleman from the Cato Institute, about what makes him an expert on the innercity. The only thing he has done out our numbers thrown out our numbers which tend to not reflect the reality of the situation. The gentleman from mr. Eisenberg, he is talking about some of the realities versus what mr. Tanner is doing in terms of the miss making of what is occurring in the country. Host lets give Michael Tanner a chance to respond. Guest you are right. I grew up in a middleclass and working class family in lily white, western massachusetts. I have not lived in the innercity other than washington d. C. In my life. I cant say i experienced anything like what the young black man experiences today and i wont pretend i had the same experience. But i have worked for years on inner cities and poverty issues. I have written several books met with people in the innercity, talked to them traveled and worked as many areas as i can. I think i have some expertise. If the question is that they disagree with my facts and figures and numbers, i would like to know which ones they disagree with because of those are generally accepted figures coming from the federal government, coming from legitimate sources. Host we will go on to maurice in memphis, tennessee, on a line for innercity residents. You are on the air. Caller first of all, mr. Tanner , he referenced the wall of poverty. From the very beginning, the conservative movement that has swept the nation was a direct reaction to the fact that the war on poverty was working. These ideas and these notions of africanamericans of those as the most dire need is another problem. You are stereotyping all individuals. If the war on poverty had been allowed to progress, we would have seen a much more aggressive push back against poverty. To go back to the war on poverty and say it is a failure, that is why you started the whole conservative movement. Starting with next and Reagan N Nixon reagan and the use of these buzzwords to say failed politics but you have 50 of the population that are pushing back on these progressive ideas. Host that is maurice and memphis, tennessee. Ross eisenberg. Guest there is a lot of truth in what he is insane. There is no question that Ronald Reagan ran on the notion of Welfare Benefits and driving catalogs at the same time. He is famous for that. Driving cadillacs at the same time. He is famous for that. If you step back and see what happened and what changed in 1980 and coming forward, the biggest change in america is the nation cap growing. The economy kept growing, but working people white and black stopped being paid. Stopped seeing wage increases and competition that tracked the growing productivity of the economy and the overall growth of the economy. If the growth that we had from 1945 to 1980 had continued to today, the average household in the 19 in the 20 to 80 of the Income Distribution range would have 18,000 income per year that they have now. That is a transfer of wealth that they did not get. Where did that will go . It went to the top 1 and the annual amount that is lost to that middle 60 is 1. 3 trillion a year. That is the big change in our economy. Host we will go to nelson in st. Louis, missouri. You are up next. You are on the air. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Mr. Eisenberg is right on point with a lot of what he is saying. He mentioned the fact that when the whites fled the city and moved out to the suburbs, the federal government stepped in and assisted them financially. Mr. Tanner, on the other hand, talks about all of the money being spent in the Public School systems, but he failed to point out that a lot of that money is spent for nutritional programs, security, and other type of programs that they dont have to have in the suburbs. Not only that, the city schools all of the people who could afford to move out, moved away and it took a lot of that revenue with them as mr. Eisenberg was talking about. You have a different climate. You have a different climate in the inner schools. He is talking about kids can go to private schools in Charter Schools that live in the innercity the kids in the suburbs are restricted to a School District just like the kids in the innercity are. They have to go to the schools that are in their district and you have a parent out there who can afford to send their kids to private schools or Charter Schools if they want to, but the innercity kids, they have to go to schools in their district and they dont have an option like that. Host Michael Tanner . Guest look, certainly, children growing up in the innercity and going to school there faced his challenges that children growing up in the suburbs dont base. It is going to cost more money to educate them. We recognize that. On the other hand, simply saying we need to spend more money on education does not play out in terms of educational results. Studies generally showed there is no direct correlation between the amount of money spent per child and that amount of educational outcome that is there. What we do know is that in maryland schools, we see their little competition. We see very little innovation, very little reform going on in the schools in terms of trying new things and you approaches in terms of educating those children. We know that if you drop out of school, you are going to end up being poor. About 25 of the children in baltimore dont graduate. They are going to end of the poor their entire life. We know that the sat scores and baltimore are 100 points lower than the statewide average or National Average and that the majority about half the students dont pass assessment test every year. We know they are not getting the education. What we need to do is try Something Different. The definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting the same results. Maybe we should try Something Different . Host how to give parents who are poor or single moms or single dads, 184 of the kids in this Baltimore Neighborhood when 84 of the kids in this Baltimore Neighborhood could receive eligible for the preschool Lunch Program . We had a parent last week from cambridge, maryland, saying i want to get my kid into a Different School but i cant possibly afford to travel to get my kid into another Public School. Not even a private school. Everything that goes into trying to get your kid, if you are poor, out of that neighborhood and into a better neighborhood with a Better School. Guest we start with trying to create more schools within their neighborhood. Washington, d. C. , for example, has an anonymous number of Charter Schools because we have a fairly open Charter School law. Ireland has one of the most restricted Charter School laws in the nation. There are only 70 Charter Schools in the entire state. If we open it up to make it possible for people and communities to create schools within that community the way the parents wanted to be taught, we could start there. Second, we are already spending that money per child. Lets just let the money follow the child in some way rather than make the money go to a specific school. Host ross, jumping on that. Guest that sounds good except the truck, i know two cities pretty well. Detroit and washington d. C. Detroit is more like baltimore. A very poor city. It is like 85 to 80 black, so it 288 percent black, so it has high poverty, lots of problems, and Charter Schools that are failures. Charter schools are not solutions. Nationwide, Charter Schools are no better. They dont produce better results than Public Schools. In detroit they are producing worse results. In washington, d. C. , the results are no better. Charter schools are not a solution. You can nibble around the edges and try different things, but they are not working and i think we need micah says we have thrown all this money we have not really dont very much money at that is the problem. We dont provide Wraparound Services before and after care for the kids. What do we do for the mothers . The single mothers people have mentioned today . What do we do to make it possible to make their lives something other than just an enduring hardship . We dont provide child care for them, we ought to have universal childcare that the government provides for everybody especially for these people. We have Work Schedules for them that make it impossible for them to plan. They are lowwage workers adjusting time scheduling, that makes it just impossible for them to keep a job, arrange childcare for the kid, to be home with them when they need to. They cant plan their lives when an employer can tell them the day of, you have to be in at this time or i have you scheduled for 8 00 but now i want to in at noon . Their lives are made very hard. Host boulder, colorado, marie. Good morning to you. Caller good morning, cspan. Thank you for taking my call. I have a couple comments in agreement with mr. Ice there mr. Isa braid their mr. Ross eisenbrey when it comes to School Poverty level and minimum wage. I am a single mother and in order to provide my children with a scholastic environment both at home but to put them in school where they could gain opportunities for merit scholarships, both of them, we needed to move to an affluent area. I did my research and was successful. They both were schooled in Public Schools. In a fluid areas where, yes, he is right. N affluent areas, where yes he is right, a lot of parents do a lot of work at the schools and put in a lot of extra money than the federal government gives in order to provide children with students with a good education, so he is right about that. After School Programs are necessary, boys and girls clubs, things like that. There has not been enough money, i would disagree with the person from cato, there has not been enough money put into the Public School systems that we really need. Particularly in the innercity. My final comment, now that my children are in college and i am degreed College Degreed and i have many certificates because i was able to go back thanks to the federal government [laughter] i still work a minimum wage job which im happy to have. I love to work but it does not provide me for food and housing so i have to, on a minimum wage job, even though i am collegeeducated, i have two rely on a safety net from the government in order to not be on the streets. Those are my two comments. Thank you very much. I will take it off the line. Host i will go on to john in milwaukee, and innercity residents and i will have the two guests respond. John, go ahead. Caller it is interesting to have three white people sit up and talk about the innercity black problems of jobs and none of them have ignore the fact that the real problem with society is stealing. Africans were stolen from African People were stolen and made slaves in the United States and their labor was stolen. Then there were changes. The manufacturing jobs that came along and allowed a lot of like people to achieve middleclass. Guess what . They stole good jobs from a black people and give them to and sent them to china. How can you and do you want to tell me that this is not intentional . That it would trouble a lot of white people about black people were achieving middleclass, doing much better . I know for a fact, i am 79 years old, and i know that this was rather in the 1960s, 1940s, 1950s. There were jobs there as soon as black people were in the middle class, they did away with it. If you want to tell me that this is not intentional, how can you trust people that will kill children and justify that . Thank you. Host john, before you go, are you retired now . We lost them. Guest hes 79, i hope he is. Host let me tell john and others that this is not the first conversation we have had in baltimore. The race issues there, the policing, the Economic Opportunities, education etc. We had a conversation on saturday morning on washington journal and if you missed it, we talk to to African Americans the indictments that came down in baltimore on writing and the situation baltimore on friday and the situation across the country. Two different perspectives, so go to our website at www. Cspan. Org to watch it there. Ross eisenbrey, what did you hear from him . Guest what he said about the loss of jobs, im not going to say it was intentional. General electric started moving jobs overseas in the 1970s. I think they were doing it as a way to get cheap labor. That was their motivation and that is the motivation of most of the jobs lost that way. We do have an industrial policy and trade policy that has created huge deficits and are costing the nation of millions of jobs. If we closed our trade deficit and got back into balance and it can be done. We can do that by attacking manipulation by china and other countries. We could create millions of jobs in the United States. Good manufacturing jobs. He is right. We lost arrows point and General Motors plants in baltimore and lots of other good industrial jobs. We need a National Policy that keeps work in the United States rather than sending it abroad. Host on trade, Financial Times this morning, trade figures raised fears of a contraction in u. S. Economy because of the strong dollar, exports from u. S. Companies have gone down, imports have gone up. The trade deficit number is larger right at a time when the president is arguing for more trade deals and authority. Michael tanner, go ahead. Guest imports are very good for poor people because they allow them to purchase products that they otherwise could not afford. You are talking about a lot of trade restrictions and protectionism which is attack on the lowcost goods poor people live on. Poor people cannot shop at a walmart or cvs or places and get lowcost goods. They would have to do without those goods. The fact is that we are not necessarily sending as many jobs abroad as people think. We produce more manufacturing goods now than we ever have. We are just doing them more efficiently and with more automation in ways that use less labor, so less people are involved in the Manufacturing Industry but we are producing goods. Host are we not doing them in cities anymore . Guest many of the jobs have gone to the suburbs. Botox suburbs as opposed to high tax cities. Host ive got to get in more calls. We will come back to you. Frank in virginia, frank in virginia beach, good morning. Caller im sorry. Host you are on the air, please go ahead. Frank, ive got to move on. Youve got to be ready. Go ahead not, in baltimore. Go ahead matt. Caller you can tell from my accent i am innercity new yorker and product of their Public Schools before the government decided they wanted to control it. We used to say in science there are liars, damn liars and statisticians. I think i would like to add ultra lives like one of your guests. 5 of baltimore residents are on welfare, cash welfare. Neglect the fact that 75 are on noncash welfare such as food stamps and subsidies. The problems are not anything that were spoken of today. The problems lead to our very clearly is the destruction in the family destruction and respect for teachers. I went to school, i went in new york, i went to school with the guy who destroyed education. His name was paul shanker, he started that any eight and some of the other teachers associations which are completely undermined the teachers welfare. Host weve got your point. Ross eisenbrey. Guest what are the other kinds of benefits that people get in baltimore . Food stamps, food supplements, as they call them in maryland, the average benefit is 32 a week. No one is getting rich off of these benefits. These are to keep people alive. As you said, to people who are in poverty. To keep them from starting. You can be to keep them from starving. You can be against that. I am not against that. The section eight housing vouchers people get are available to one in four people in poverty. One in four people who need them. A landlord in a suburb or in a white part of baltimore can refuse to accept the housing voucher. This is a federal policy allowing them to refuse it is essentially saying i can refuse to have a black person, a poor black person living here, even though i am being paid as the landlord. I can refuse them. That is a policy that enforces the segregation that we have had for so long. The same thing is true of the low Income Housing tax credit, which goes to developers. They cant develop in places that wont have them. In my communities that wont have them. It reinforces the segregation that we have had all these years, so the federal housing programs are actually in many ways, they are too small i would say and they are working against the very people that they should be helping by blocking their opportunity to move, as a caller said, to a higher income, more affluent place where the schools are better. They cant move. They are stuck where they are because of our housing policy. Host Michael Tanner, i will give you the next call. We will go to mason in ohio. Caller good morning. I almost said might own name. I used to travel quite a bit for three is for work and would end up in three states in a week. I saw a lot of americans and types of america that is out there. One thing you were talking about on the innercity, we have to broaden our perception on what that means. It is not just lack. It is hispanic, white. A lot of different types of people fall into the poverty guidelines and we have had more people fall into poverty just in the past year from the meltdown eight years ago eight years from the meltdown that we ever have in history. When we Start Talking about what type of money needs to go into these locations, we are not talking about what is really needed. Like Community Centers to bridge the gap between police and the people that live there. Green spaces where they can have fresh fruit planted or just a nice space to congregate. Also, we are not importing or allowing programs like head start to be in these programs. Court new books. A lot of the schools in the innercity do not get the money that the city or the state debts. Because they are not top of the list. They are poverty and at the low end of the list. When it comes to cuts, the people in poverty suffer the most. Host i will have Michael Tanner jump in. Guest we spend almost we spent almost 1 trillion at the federal and state level on antipoverty programs. That does not sound like neglect to me. How much more than 1 trillion do you really want to spend . We have been spending more every year when it comes to antipoverty programs, but we are not in the results in terms of decreasing poverty, so the question is just more money at the bat. I think to have an egg. I think to have an area of agreement on housing vouchers landlords can get the concentration of poverty in these areas which could magnify many of the problems that go with it. I think we should be moving away from the benefits to cash benefits that people can use however they want to use rather than we should not be in centralizing the ports, treating them like they are threeyearolds and giving them an allowance and saying here is your money for housing food, lets give them money and expect them to behave like any other adult, budget and take care of themselves. Host woodbridge, virginia. Go ahead. Caller the reason i am calling it today, i am really enjoying the program but i wanted to let you know that i have worked in new york city in a very poor neighborhood for three years. Twice a year, we were given some catalogs and we were told that we could order supplies from this catalog. In the spring, we could order 800 worth of supplies and in the fall, we could order 300 worth of supplies. Well we ordered because we were very excited. Lo and behold, when the goods came in, we got 20 worth of things in the springtime host what was this program . Guest is she a teacher . Caller i was a teacher in the Public School for three years and the government at that time was aimed they were giving about 60,000 to the Public Schools. I was a teacher and we were so disappointed each year, for the three years. It was just a trick. They gave us a catalog and there was no money. The kids did not have all this things they are talking about. All this money, all these were lies, so the rich kids, im pretty sure, they got because in my classroom, i had like 33 kids. It is very difficult for one person to teach 33 kids. Host what grade . Caller first graders. Host we will talk about teacher resources and class sizes. Do you want to talk about that . Guest i am in favor of lowering class sizes which is an expensive thing. You need more teachers and have to pay more teachers to do that. Sometimes you hear people say, classic size does not matter that much but if you know this private schools all have very low teacher to student ratios. The number of students in the classes is much less than the 30 day that she was facing. The 33 that she was facing. I think we could put a lot more money into education than we do now. Just for the record, cbo said we spent 588 billion on poverty programs. Not one trillion, guest federal. Guest federal budget, right. And it is not going up. The amount of money we are spending is no more a share of the economy than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. It is actually smaller than it was. These are real problems that these kids face that their parents tend to be unemployed, they moved a lot. The needs are so much greater than they are in a suburban school. I think we should be spending more on them rather than less. Host michael, do you want to jump in very quick . Guest we spent 13,500 dollars per child in the Baltimore School district. Clearly, we are spending money on the School System there. We just have not gotten results from it. Host chris you are next in baltimore. Go ahead. Caller how are you doing . The education is important, but i think we do spend enough money on education. Throwing money at a problem and not fixing it, i think we just need to try and get some jobs and in baltimore city. Our Unemployment Rate is over 30 between 18 and 35 years old. Host what kind of jobs are there and what kind of jobs are needed . Caller manufacturing jobs are definitely needed in baltimore. The kind of jobs, fast food restaurants, home depot, stuff like that. Host Service Sector jobs. How much did they pay, chris . Caller probably like eight dollars or nine dollars. Host Michael Tanner . Guest a huge problem. We know that people that work even parttime, are far likely to be in poverty than people that dont work. Common sense. Only about 3 of people who work fulltime are below the poverty level. Need to look at policies that will bring jobs back to the innercity. You cant do that in a state that has the seventh highest marginal tax rate on Small Business in the nation or has one of the top 10 most unpleasant Business Climates in terms of taxes and regulation. Host Ross Eisenbrey . Guest i think the Business Community has had 30, 35 years of their taxes being reduced and reduced and reduced to make the Business Climate writer. Guest not in maryland. Guest even in maryland, the tax rate on corporations is less today. If only because of the federal tax rate being so much lower than it was 25, 30 years ago. They share of the state revenues and federal revenues that are paid by corporation is much lower than it used to be. That is not the solution. I think that the federal government needs to step in and be the employer of last resort. There are one million things that need to be done, as what i said childcare, before and after School Programs. If you have been to baltimore, you see miles and miles of empty houses, boardedup houses. They could be rebuilt, torn down. Something needs to be done about them. They are an eyesore and applied. People could be put to work doing that. As i said, the schools need all of this work. We should have a program that puts people to work preparing all of those schools. Host what about the responsibilities of the private sector . Some people point at Johns Hopkins university in baltimore, what are they doing to help the city . Michael tanner, what are your thoughts . Guest the private sector has a responsibility to create jobs that enable the business to thrive and prosper. They cant operate at a loss. You cant tell businesses they need to spend money they dont have. Businesses are profitmaking operations. We already have a tremendous involvement in the government with maryland. The government already is providing all these jobs. What we miss is the fact that there is a seen and unseen. We see government jobs provided. What we dont see is the fact that to pay for those government jobs, you have to tax private businesses in order to get the money to the folks that are working for the government. That means less money available for businesses to create private sector jobs. It is the private sector jobs that will ultimately lift people out of poverty. Host let me go to janelle in tallahassee and i will come back to you, ross. Yes, we can. Caller [indiscernible] politicians and unions and administrators [indiscernible] host actually very difficult time hearing you. You are breaking up, my apologies. I will have to move on to baltimore. You are on the air. Caller good morning. I just want to make a couple quick points. I worked in a School District and one of the things i learned is that the children are going home to the exact issues they are faced with. Some of the programs are going to be out there but they need to be supporting the parents as well so that they can actually be a reliable resource to the children. From a business perspective, what i dont see anyone discussing is the fact that how they have come in and allowed and a lot of businesses are eliminating positions for people to actually work. It needs to be looked at from both sides but throwing money at a problem and eliminating jobs and we have people with degrees, etc. , that cant work because companies are leaning out their process and calling it a calling it efficiency, but they are still making more money. I just wanted to present that. Host Ross Eisenbrey. Guest i would like to go back to the trade deficit for a second. Mike says that these imports are good because they are cheaper, but if you dont have a job, you cant pay for those imports. The net effect on working people of the trade deals that we have made over the last 20 years or so since nafta has been cost millions of jobs and to lower the average wage and the average income of a working family by about 1800, even after taking into effect inflation and the cost of consumer goods. The net effect on most working people has been negative. I think it is worth pointing out that in baltimore, where we have this tremendous unemployment everybody agreed, we select people, employers bring in guest workers to do jobs that those people could do. We let employers go to mexico Central America to bring in people as landscapers and gardeners and hotel workers. Jobs that clearly a person with a High School Education can do. The Unemployed People in baltimore can do yet, we let them bring people from thousands of miles away to work in his stead of going instead of going to baltimore in hiring the Unemployed People in baltimore. To me, that is a crazy policy. Host caller this would be for mr. Tanner. I am not poor and i am not black. But when you sprinkle poverty and despair in any community, i dont care what color you are you are going to get the same results. If you transparent of the blacks in baltimore with white you would get the exactly the same results. When people say blacks need to get with it and try harder, history shows that when you take everything away from people, native americans who are very proud people before we came here, and they never recovered. It is not quite that simplistic when you make the statements you do. 2 i dont think i said it anytime today the black people need to get together. If i was living in baltimore i would be facing many of the same challenges that young black men face today and i would probably react the same way. Not that it is an excuse for the writing or violence going on but the despair and hopelessness is understandable. But we need to do is look at the policies that will raise people out of poverty. Those have to do with education. It means reforming the education system. They have to do with restoring the family. Which is missing in baltimore in many ways. It has to do with saving and investing. It does not having to do with sibley throwing money at the problem. Host we are talking about innercity poverty today, but there is poverty in rural areas where it is predominantly white. Appalachian mountains, etc. And people say we put money into those areas and they are still today poverty. Guest there are about 19 million white people in poverty and 10 million black people in poverty. This is a problem that crosses races. The amazing thing is that working is not enough in america anymore to get you out of poverty. We have 28 of the workforce working and still having an income that is less and the poverty line. That is the fundamental think we need to change. We need to make work pay. There are several ways we can do that. One is lifting the minimum wage. Raising it to 12 an hour would help 38 Million People. 38 Million People would get a raise and the average raise for those 38 Million People would be 2000 a year. This is something significant. We are not talking teenagers here in the average person who would be helped is 36 years old. Guest let me go to gabby in atlanta. Caller how are you . Good morning. I grew up in atlanta in the innercity. My mom had three kids. One thing she did was that she exposed us. We were always traveling into the city for opportunity. One thing im noticing now in the city i grew up in which has the highest africanamerican voter turnout is that a lot of the trade programs that were in the high schools, they have taken them out and they have become these technical colleges. So that students cannot afford to go to the technical colleges because they cannot take out loans. Another thing is the state wants to take over certain schools and they want to turn them into i forgot the name is. The thing with Charter Schools is that Charter Schools dont pay for facilities. In atlanta, theyve done a renovation of all the schools. Millions and millions of dollars in renovations. Host we are running short on time. I will ask you both to give us your final thoughts. Idle tanner Michael Tanner. Guest the fact is that the poverty rate by the official numbers today is about as high as it was when we started the war on party. Even with alternative measures we are no longer gaining in terms of getting people out of poverty despite spending more money. We have tried throwing money at the problem. We spend nearly 1 trillion a year fighting poverty. We need to try Something Different and that means job creation, education reform, and restoring the family unit for innercity areas. Guest i think full employment is one of the most important things we can do. What we need is jobs. We need policies that will lead to full employment. When he trade policies that will stop shipping jobs overseas and keep them in the United States. We need the federal government to invest in infrastructure and create jobs in fixing sewer systems, fixing roads and bridges. All of these things were not spending money on that we should. And to make sure that people are paid for the work they do in a way that allows them to have a decent living. Host ross is the Vice President gentlemen, thank you for the conversation this morning. Guest it has been a pleasure. Host coming up in our last hour, we will head to fort ap help military base in virginia where pager will pick it up from here. Host the reason we are on this base, it is about an hour and a half south of washington dc. The reason we are here is a is it is the site of asymmetrical warfare training. Complete with multilevel buildings, a subway, a train station, even underground tunnel. The purpose is to have u. S. Troops develop skills needed to fight in urban conflict zones. Here to join us about the center and its mission is colonel John Petkosek. He is the commander of the u. S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Group. Thank you for joining us. Guest thank you for having me. Host can you tell us about these buildings behind us . Guest what id like to do is just put it into context in terms of why we have the Training Center here. The Asymmetric Warfare Group provides operational advisory support for the army and joint force commanders. What that means is for things for the service here we provide operational advisers around the world where u. S. Forces are deployed. We do that too identify capability gaps. We develop solutions for those gaps and then integrate them into the army system. That is what the facility is designed for. It is a place to develop solutions for the army. It serves a secondary role as an army Training Center. Host these buildings are lifesized in realistic, but they are fake and a sense and used for training . Guest exactly. The army has always looked at the need to have a diverse place to train. In the past we had training areas that were simple concrete buildings but they did not provide the text sure that you need to get that our soldiers soldiers need today. The buildings of glass, windows, doors, all the things that a soldier would encounter. Host give us a feel of what we will find. This is an embassy behind us but we have some other structures as well. Guest what we do see is the place is designed to be able to change to adapt to whatever environment our soldiers might be in. There is a six Story Building out there that might be and never see one day and maybe a hotel on another and eight warehouse on another. We can change the settings to meet the kind of environment our soldiers are going to face. We are trying to provide a place that can a variety of training areas so we get the most utility for it. Host you are going to see video of soldiers at a been here at the Asymmetric Warfare Training Center, running scenarios in these various types of buildings. You will see a lot of examples that we will get the kernel to talk about. We will talk more about the purpose of the center. The mission of the group. If you have questions about this kind of training that goes on, about the center, about how it is used worldwide, nows your chance to do so would john colonel John Petkosek. Heres how you can call. On the eastern and central time 202 7488000. In the central and pacific time zones you can call 202 7488001. Other areas of the world can call 202 7488002. Tell us a little about the places where once they are trained, where the soldiers go . What kind of involvement are the and worldwide . Guest soldiers today are employed all over the world. When you look at with the u. S. Army is doing and the u. S. Military, we are doing different things. The recent Ebola Outbreak in africa. There were Army Soldiers helping beers we can nepal. Earthquake in nepal. They can be anywhere around the world. The facility is designed for us to replicate the kind of environments we may face around the world. When you talked about the subterranean portion of it, that is a big thing. We have to look at something if they have to go in to a subterranean environment. The first time they are doing it should not be the first of a try to save a life. These are the types of equipment i need to the commerce these missions. It supports soldiers deployed all around the world. That is what it is built for and it is tailorable so that we can replicate any environment. Host give some examples of recent training is gone in here and areas of the world where they have been involved . Guest i think one of the best ones you talked about was the tunnels and subterranean pieces. What we realized early on is you see the environment around the world. Sometimes you see continuity there. When we originally designed the facility, we were heavily engaged in afghanistan. At that time, the soldiers faced these water draining systems. They had to understand how to go down into those. How to fight in those things. It started out that way. Only look at the subterranean threat in other places around the world with economic plight you look at where that can apply, you look at bunkers were chemical weapons i be stored in a country like syria where they took them out and destroyed them. They have to be able to go and do that. This is a threat you might see anywhere around the world. Host in fact, we shot video of people in 1500 feet of tunnels. We have video of it of soldiers and training. That is what goes on here the Asymmetric Warfare Training Center. We are here to take your call and talk to colonel John Petkosek, the commander of the Asymmetric Warfare Group. The first call is from herbie in mississippi. Go ahead. Caller good morning. These buildings look like United States buildings. The way the police are throwing back black people in the inner cities in the uprising here in america, it looks like we are getting to fight against her own people here. It looks like you guys are trading to invade the innercity. It is mighty strange because everyone is training to do some thing overseas. It does not look like overseas training. It looks like this is right here in america and that is kind of scary because of the situation where he can i get Police Locked up for what they are doing to civilians. And the stuff that is going on here in america. It is kind of damaging. You all are doing so they secretly here, i think. Guest herbie, that is not really true. What we are doing is training u. S. Soldiers to operate in any contingency around the world. When you look at what the u. S. Army soldiers do, they have to be able to operate from Disaster Relief to highend military conflict. That is what the center is designed for. To be able to replicate any environment we might have to fight in. As we said, we are in virginia and that is where we live. We are stationed in the United States. The center is located here, so it is convenient and easy to train on. Really what you said is far from the truth. We want to be able to replicate any environment where our soldiers might be able to fight. As a said earlier, we used to train very rudimentary Training Facilities with simple concrete buildings and our soldiers were not prepared as well as they could of been by just adding a little bit of texture. This facility is designed to increase soldier survivability and save lives in combat. That is what it is for. I think if we put it in that context, that is what the u. S. Army is doing with this facility. 202 7488000 for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. For mountain and pacific, 202 7488001. For active military, 202 7488002. Our guest is colonel John Petkosek. John from pennsylvania, you are up next. Caller hi. I am concerned like the last caller. I sell your facility on the internet. I saw someone in john deere caps saying please is a my guns. Ive seen your videotape. What safety, or what do we have to guarantee us that these Training Facilities are not being used to confiscate our guns in case of another economic meltdown like we had in 2008 . Like the gun confiscation that went on during katrina. U. S. Troops in afghanistan walk the streets of new orleans and confiscated every gun that was there. What do we have to guarantee that we will be protected from that nonhappening in mass like it did in katrina. Thousands of guns were confiscated by regular army and National Guard units. Guest i cannot speak about what happened in katrina, but i can say i do know everything on the internet is not necessarily true as we see it. You come back to what the facility is designed for, we shared very openly. There are no secrets to be had. The United States constitution is what protects us and that is what the u. S. Army is for, to support and defend the constitution. And i would hope that all of us our listeners and viewers out there would appreciate what our soldiers are doing for this on a daytoday basis. It is the opposite of what you articulated. Host if the idea is to come up with solutions for situations across the world, how are the solutions . Developed who comes up with the strategies . Guest when you talk about the subterranean piece, i think that is a great example. When they realized we had difficulty whether it was operating in afghanistan or in bunkers or how are your gun get into these places, what we were able to do is look at some the historical samples examples in the past. The last on the u. S. Army faced a threat like this was in the tunnels of vietnam. We looked at howard that our soldiers fight their. How do they fight in open our. Open our okinawa. We use the facility to build underground bunkers and realize if there is a metal door, how will we breach the door . Once we do that, how will we get in there . What if we have to evacuate casualties . We develop material and nonmaterial solutions. A particular way to carry your kit. Or we realized he might need a different kind of get to operate in an environment. How are you going to brief . One of their fire and smoke . How are you going to operate . That is one of the great things we do here. Once we do that, what is really special about this particular organization and what we do for the armys we have the ability to take that we werent and institutionalize it. That is what we it is about. How quickly can the army learn. When we talk about what is special about the u. S. Army, it is not about the tanks of the ships or the things that we have. It is the people. And our ability to adapt rapidly , more rapidly than our adversary is really what is special. I think this is a location where we can adapt quickly and you can see change happen right here. Host before we go too far in this topic of asymmetric warfare, defined what it is in english. It defines a change in nature as far of those that would use this type of warfare and cant conflict zones. Guest what i think about is there are two dissimilar forces. The way that they approach a fight with equipment they have. You dont attack an enemys strength, you attack his weakness. The best way to articulate is the way world war i was fought. That was asymmetric conflict. It was all about who of the most guns and him and hammy soldiers you can get on the ground. The armies were essentially the same and it was whoever could get there the fastest with the most. You had to similar forces clashing. At a point during that war summit he came over the idea and said what we put a machine gun under the cover of armor and we called it a tank. That is an asymmetric approach to try to overcome your adversary by attacking his weaker point. That would be able to attack with a tank. That is how warfare evolved. If youre going to succeed in conflict, you dont want to attack your enemies strength. When you going to a config like that anyone soldiers to survive and come home, you want to make sure it is not a fair fight in that u. S. Soldiers are equipped as best they can and best repair for that type of conflict. Host our urban centers the new battleground . Guest when you look at what is happening in the world today there is a Huge Population growth. You look at the growth of the megacities all of the world where there are millions of people in very close quarters. If conflict is going to occur in regions like that, we want our soldiers to be able to understand what they have to apply in those environments. You want to do it here in virginia the first time we call on her shoulder to have to figure out how youre going to get to the top of that fiveStory Building with no elevator, no rope. Host lenny from arizona you are next. Ahead. Caller good morning, colonel. I went to alert our citizens and get an excellent nation if we could for jade helm 15 which is all over the internet. It involves 10 states and there will be civilians participating in towns like big spring, texas. Could you explain the magnitude of that and what the purpose that is . Apparently they have Crisis Actors in their enemy soldiers dressed in uniform and nonuniform. Critics when it to us . Thank you very much. Guest unfortunately it is not selling i am familiar with. I cannot really explain that. I do know that those type of things are things that we do here. We give our soldiers the opportunity to work in an environment where there are civilians and soldiers. One of the things i could talk about, unfortunately, i dont know about that particular exercise, but when you talk about soldiers operating in an environment with civilians one of the things were looking at here is a program of using autonomous robots. We take a number of robots that can operate independently and walk up and down the streets. We can dress them up and uniforms or a civilians and we can use it as a chance here to trainer soldiers how to discriminate between primitive Friendly Forces and those that need to be evacuated. That is one of the great things we can do here at ap hill. Host tim in florida, your next. Caller good morning. I wanted to do differentiate the people between the politicians and the patriotic individuals like the kernel there. I am wondering when we are doing International Foreign warfare urban warfare, where be going around the world and getting involved in International Urban warfare . We are hated everywhere. People come here to do things i could do in texas. There is only one of you were that. Why cant people mind their own business . I thought we were broken only have this ongoing military in parts of the country. A lot of the people i speak for, we support people in the military. We do not support peoples formulae these wacko policies by overthrowing the government of ukraine and putting in people who were not elected because theres trouble with russia and they are in the crimea and they are interfering with the u. S. Starting problems in the middle east. Thank you. Guest you bring up a good point. The world it has changed quite a bit in just a short time that ive been in the military. When i first came into the army what really drove the military strategy was something called airland battle. We had to win against an enemy. I was a lieutenant in the cold war was still going on. That was the war we faced. It was a math problem. We had have better tanks and aircraft and we had to be able to fight a force that we know in a very symmetric way. The world has changed. The army has changed with it. The army has change their operating concept to say what we want our soldiers to be able to do now . That is fight in a conflict complex world were asymmetric threats are out there. This facility that you see here today is meant to replicate that so we can prepare our soldiers to do things where we might not know theyre going to operate in the future. I really think that the facility itself here is designed to serve our army and help our soldiers face the challenges they are going to face in the future. We really do not know what that is going to be. It is a very, gated world of their and things have changed. We want our soldiers to be agile and adaptive leaders and soldiers so we can do, is what our nation asks host . Host host ford ap hill in virginia. 300 acres devoted to these buildings reaction you this morning. Also, tunnels underneath and very structures on the campus. Justin from petaluma california. Go ahead. Guest caller i have to reflect what a lot of the colors have said today. This is just very scary stuff. This looks almost like American Cities rather than being prepared for what we are going to face in other countries. As the colonel said, we have be prepared for this and all of that. This is almost almost every caller and i think everyone understands this is a very scary and new thing that the military looks like it is going to be taking on. They could be against its very own people. The American People. Everything i have seen except for the one mosque has been in english, main street. Main street. Host but our guest respond. Guest what i would say is that it is a very, gated world out there and you should not find it scary or frightening. It is reassuring that we are fighting our soldiers to be able to operate across a Broad Spectrum of facilities. As i said, i have been in the army a little bit of time and we walked through the woods learning how to fight in the would like and how to navigate with a map and compass and areas like that. And then came to realize that when we were called by our nation to perform a mission, we were operating in an urban center. And how we did that, whether it was us helping soldiers operating in the current conflicts that we must recently operated in, all of those were it in an urban environment. We had to learn how to operate in and among were people are. The u. S. Military as we operate across the world, there are enemy forces and they makes themselves and with Family Forces all the time. The robot example i gave. We need to be able to have her soldiers discriminate between what is friendly and what is enemy. When i was growing up in the army, one of the things he used to say about our soldiers is no soldier is doing the right thing when they do the right thing when nobody is watching them. Our soldiers are disciplined in doing the right thing. As the world changed, we have to build ask her soldiers to do the right thing when the whole world is watching because there are a lot of things out there on the internet. Whatever we do is going to be out there and broadcast. We dont have any secrets to hide. This is a great opportunity for us to showcase what are people our soldiers are doing for the iraqi people. American people. Host you do have a church in a mosque. What are the relevance of the structures . Guest it could be a church today and a town hall tomorrow in a store the next day. What is important about the environment as we replicated, we wonder soldiers to be sensitive to the fact that all these things are going to be encountered when they are out operating around the world. We all know the media reports of soldiers causing harm to our cause by being insensitive to those things. I havent is located here, we can sensitizer soldiers to the fact that you will be operating around places that are since sensitive. That is the kind of thing people will be emotional about how we want them comfortable operating in an environment here in virginia because for they go forward. Before they go forward. An earlier commander of the group used to say you have to become double being uncomfortable. The comfortable being uncomfortable. We have to not only become double in these and be comparable in these situations, our soldiers have to be able to thrive. That is what we are doing here at fort ap hill. We are providing all these cues thatll make them think because that is what we want our soldiers today. Our motto is think, adapt, and participate. That is what we want our soldiers to do in virginia before they go into harms way. Host you are hearing from colonel John Petkosek, talking about this Training Center and asymmetric warfare. Next is vincent in dayton, ohio. Go ahead. Caller sir, my question is for the National Guard units and domestic Law Enforcement authorities also using the center for their training. Guest vincent, all different types of units use this facility. It is a national asset, a military asset. It is used all different times. Even this afternoon it will be used by a unit coming in as a Law Enforcement unit to understand how to operate in these environments. It is not just the army. It is the joint force. We use this facility by the army navy, air force, marines, other Government Agencies use it, and they use it to come here so they can train to do what were going to ask them to do, wherever that might be around the world. It is used by a number of organizations and all of those organizations are able to benefit from the investment that the American People made here in virginia. That is what we are trying to do here. We built this facility and it is great. It is one of those places where you can broaden the possibilities for training the things we might not even have thought of. That is what we are trying to achieve here. Sometimes we learn from our partners in that respect. We might work with other organizations that say here is a way that you can go down into a tunnel and be able to brief that we might not have explored. This is one of those places where we can share information. Host are there International Partners a coming train . Guest they have come here periodically. For example, one of the things we might do is typically what we do in the Asymmetric Warfare Group is we work by, with, and through other u. S. Organizations. We might not necessarily work with foreign forces, but other elements do. One of the things we look at his what soldiers, upon a facility and it might be an ied making facility or a lab are one of those kind of facilities, we replicate them here. A can see it firsthand here before they are faced with that in reality. It comes to mind because one of our recent partners here as weve been working with is the mexicans. They have come to look at the facility to differentiate between a drug lab and in ied lab. If you break this glass jar and some kind of gas comes out and it injures either soldiers a Law Enforcement, that is the kind of think we want them to do here before their face with that challenge reallife. Host susan from arizona, good morning. Caller it is so nice to hear you. Colonel, i want to thank you. I want to thank you and all the military. Because if anything ever happens to the United States, i hope to god that you guys are standing next to us to protect me and my family. For the last seven years i feel i have not been safe here in the United States. Me and a whole bunch of people. I want to thank you. Keep doing what you are doing here train those military is because when they will need them to save us. So thank you and god bless you. Guest thank you, susan. I really appreciate that. I thank you for this opportunity because the chance for us to showcase what our soldiers are doing for the nation is really our obligation. There is not a lot of chances where we get to interact with the people we come from. The soldiers that are here from every state in the nation and it is us. We are a reflection of our society. And a chance for us to highlight what great things are soldiers are doing for our nation and around the world, it is always a pleasure. I do for your call. Host rebecca from virginia, go ahead. Guest thank you so much for all that you all are doing and the soldiers that are training their and are deployed. I know you work hard everyday to prepare them and thank her that. How long does it typically take a unit to stay there and be trained before they are deployed or send out into the field . Guest rebecca, it really depends on the unit and the mission they are being called on to do. I cannot answer that specifically. Units that rotate through here typically are here for short periods of time. Its not a place where stations are place where soldiers are stationed. When i was younger i was stationed at fort drum, new york. We came down to forta ap hill to train for several weeks. As i reflect back on this, it was a couple of years before this was built. I wouldve been able to really benefit from these facilities. Typically it is a couple of weeks that soldiers, go here to train. , and go here to train. It typically takes about a twoweek amount of time is help our soldiers become agile and adaptive. A lot of people talk about when you look at soldiers and what you want them to be and how you want unveiled to react . You want them to be confident responsible, trustworthy. All those intangible things that you wanted soldiers and good citizens. Those things are hard to train. If you ask someone how to make them responsible and adaptable that is a huge part of our effort here. We bring them through and pedro saw some of our soldiers training. We build scenarios to challenge our soldiers and put them in the uncomfortable situations so they can make the right decisions. As i said, we send our soldiers around the world and everyone is watching. We want them to make the right decisions. Host 202 7488000 for the eastern and central time zone. 202 7488001 for mountain and pacific. And for active military if you want to give her thoughts as well, 202 7488002. We have showed you the buildings and some of the scenarios they go on here at the Asymmetric Warfare Training Center. One of the things we got to expense was some of the shooting skills training that the soldiers receive. We had a chance to talk with a Lieutenant Colonel about the weapons training and white is important. What you see is individual soldiers from Asymmetric Warfare Group preparing to occupy the range and do some training. What theyre going to do specifically is put on some protective masks, like gas masks , and they will do marksmanship training up to about 50 meters in the near future. That is the focus for this mornings event. In the recent past, theyve done some other trainings with pistols and rifles. Host why is this site type of skills many important . Quacks we are by we go out and advise army and joint force units around the world. Some of those areas are conflict zones like iraq and afghanistan. It is important that your skills, your combat skills defensive or offensive are well honed. It is part of any units preparation for this kind of eventualities. We happen to focus on the pistol and rifle marksmanship more than probably your average unit because we do not know what sort of situation our divisors our divisors are going to encounter especially when embedded with other units. Host again, that was Lieutenant Colonel justin sapp. Regina from virginia, you are on with colonel John Petkosek. Caller good morning, sir. I would like to know how this urban training conflicts with the posse, taught us act. I will take my answer out there. Guest thank you very much for your call. It does not conflict with the posse cometatus act. The army does not engage in Law Enforcement activities. We do operate in environments where there are civil years and soldiers operating together. To answer your question directly, it does not. But it really does is provide us with an opportunity to become accustomed to operating in areas where civilians and from these are operating. Its a makes them able to better perform their mission. As A Justin Sapp talked about there is a number of basic skills that we want our soldiers to be able to do. We want them to able to shoot and hit a target. They want them to be able to maneuver in environments. Those are the essentials of any military operation. When you overlay that on top of the complex world we live in, we want our soldiers to be able to operate and decide it is not whether youre going to hit the target, it is whether you should shoot or not shoot. The able to make decisions rapidly in a complex environment. That is what we are trying to achieve. Host you talked about civilian and military together. One of the replicas here is a metro station. Why is it important to have that and how do you account for civilian dealing with civilians in the sky situations . Guest our soldiers have to be able to operate in all kinds of environments. What you saw it on their looks like a metro station and weve used it in the past for other things. We blow a better cars and of role in a flatbed railcar and it is a hidden gun that are said our soldiers a going to go after. The next a we put tanks on it and chemical weapons that are soldiers what to go after. We are able to tailor it to the mission set were going to face. When you look at underground rail systems, those are probably in most major cities today. I cannot think of another place where i can train where i would have the opportunity to understand what would happen if i encountered a facility like that. What decisions to we want our soldiers to make . When you good on their and you turn off the lights and its filled with smoke and youre trying to recover somewhat that might be injured or trying to fight her through it, let us do that here at fort ap hill and provider soldiers with that kind of complex environment for they have to do it elsewhere. Host rhonda for massachusetts. Caller thank you. I came across Police Officers training of a closed store at the mall. My question is what terminologies like one world government and the patriot act being in place and barack o is using the rustic terrorism, is there a time this asymmetrical army can be used in the United States against the people . Guest the short answer is no. There is not an asymmetrical army per se. You see training in a facility where they have to close off a mall so they can train and what are they going to do if they have to react to an incident by what happened in kenya just a short time ago. Instead of shutting down the mall for lawenforcement to train on those things, what you ring them here or they can replicated here and exley get those techniques down so we can do what we are going to ask them to do without being annexed or imposition on the environment we live in. When you talk about the metro station, that is another great example. We have a commute to work each day. I would be pretty disappointed if the measure was not working on time because someone else was training there. We can do the kind of thing here and not inconvenience our daytoday lives. Host talking about training taking place in international areas, is there and its a plan for if an incident happens in the United States . Guest one of the missions of the National Guard is to react in case of a national emergency. If there was an emergency but we had have soldier sent in to provide relief as they have a numerous occasions when number of floods or hurricanes, this is the kind of thing they could do. They could get an opportunity to do this kind of tasks. I know with the recent hurricane we had a few years ago in new york, there were metro stations that were flooded. Is the be the kind of place for you can figure out those techniques if the military is a recalled on. You want to make sure they are ready to perform this missions. The army does not have a lot of luxury when we are called on. We are expected to be there and be ready to do whatever we are asked to do. If the army is called on to help but in a situation, one would not effect is to be ready tos disable be ready in a few weeks. Now, when the American People the military to perform a mission we expect them to be ready. We are able to look at some of these unconventional things that we might ask our soldiers to do and make them ready for this. Host david from texas. Caller i am retired military. And the late 80s we did some training at fort hood at some all caps stations. Me being an armored crew member and thank you matter, it helped our troops to actually learn how to fight in urban warfare so when we went overseas we do it to do. Everybody knew they had to do. As a tanker, you never get off your tankless you have to. Now if something cap us your vehicle if youre on foot you know what to do to help out the infantry or the medics or whoever to survive. And the training itself is worth it. All of our soldiers and airmen and marine corps need to go to some kind of Training Like this because they need when they go overseas. Guest i really appreciate that comment. I myself served in a number of types of units. A few years ago when everyone everyone is familiar with the battle falluja, and i participated. You talked about Armored Vehicles operating in an urban environment, that was not something we trained on when i was training at before going to iraq. We trained on large ranges in germany. We looked at how we were going to engage enemy tanks and 2000 meters. But when we were called upon to do it in before moving on the streets of falluja with m1 tanks and engaging the enemy at close range, i wish i wouldve had that kind of training before we were called to do live in combat. Host the Asymmetric Warfare Group had a start dealing with ieds, is that correct . Guest as a conflict evolved about 10 years ago the enemy engaged us and an ace magic weight. They used asymmetric ways. These improvised explosive device is and they were a threats to our lightskinned vehicles. Born of that was the Asymmetric Warfare Group. What we were charted with doing was lets look at these threats identify these gaps before we face them so we can be prepared for them beforehand. Exactly as you talked about, the world is changed in the last 10 years since before the when you look at what weird seeing on television. These small, unmanned aerial systems. You see these quad copters and our member during the super bowl that put out a thing that said no quad copters. Everyone is flying them around. We see them all over the world. Even in washington dc, you see them landing an unexpected areas. This is an asymmetric threat. That is one of the missions of the Asymmetric Warfare Group. We look at this and say how can we use this . How can the enemy uses . Use this . We can prepare our soldiers how to react to that. This is one of those places we have done that. In just a very short time ago at this very train center, we would run a platoon through this area and bring in this small little quad copters and see how they react to them. Then we could say if youre encountered with that threat how should you deal with it . Haddie stop it . What you watching . We develop the tactics techniques, and procedures to counter the smart counter these emerging threats. Host john in buffalo. Caller let us not get ourselves. This country is never again going to send its troops into mass urban warfare. That is all gone. If we get into a situation where someone is going to ask us to take out a whole city of people or a bunch of terrorists, we are going to lighted up or new from. Nuke them. This facility is to train soldiers to frighten americans an urban cities. It is coming. 25 years ago host what convinces you of that . Caller let me finish please. After they dropped the wall, i went into poland and i was appalled to find that people were required to carry identification with them at all times and let the government know where they were. I was appalled at that being an american citizen. That was 25 years ago. The other thing, one less comment, i live in buffalo, new york. I see in South Buffalo there is a large military Storage Center that has suddenly popped up just off the highway where there is all kinds of military equipment being stored there for some reason. I cannot imagine why. I will take your comment off the year. Host colonel . Guest john, you really cannot predict what the future is going to do. To say we are never going to do anything in the future in terms of the army would be shortsighted. When you talk about urban fighting, fighting an urban area, we talked vietnam in the battle of way city, that was a huge fight. They said there is a lot going on there and to say that we will never do it again was not correct. We as soldiers do not know what the future will hold in we cannot predict it. But to say we are not going to fight in a particular way, well our enemy has a vote in that. They will determine how we fight in the future. We cannot exclude any possibilities. As an army we have to be prepared for those possibilities. As a seven the previous color, i have been called on to do a lot of things i never thought i would have to do in the military. You always think about how could you have better prepared for that with time and facilities. That is what we are trying to achieve here. Provide our soldiers the best chances of not only surviving, but thriving in combat. Everything we do at this location is designed to increase our soldier survivability. I have no idea what the future is going to hold and we spent a lot of time talking about what the threat could be. As soon as you decide what the threat could be will never fight , and an asymmetric warfare way our enemy will say the u. S. Is not prepared for that and that is where we need to draw the men. We need to be prepared for a Broad Spectrum of operations and that is what we are trying to do. Host weve heard a lot of people interesting concern. Is there concern about the training you do here, do you think . Guest when people see what is available in the media, the media is much more open in terms of what is available on the internet and in print and tv media. There are a lot of different opinions out there. You will feel a larger, broader scope of opinions. Some people might gravitate to a certain opinion that might suit their preconceived notions. An interview like this is important because were opening up to not only to the United States, but the world to say this is what we have here. There is nothing to hide. We are trying to say here are the american soldiers, your soldiers. These are the soldiers that are charted with protecting and defending United States of america. They are fantastic. Any chance we get to highlight what they are doing, where their training, we want to share that we reckon people. Host stephen from connecticut, go ahead. Caller first, they would have to sign up for pta. This asymmetrical warfare we have Vladimir Putin over there marching across crimea, georgia chechnya. He wants poland. He wants estonia. He was lucky a. Lot via. Latvia. We have to get all of our friends from nato how do we bleed his army . These kooky callers, i would love to have the u. S. Army in my town. Build a basic connecticut. Thank you. Host thank you for your call and your confidence in our soldiers. That is something we are try to share here. You bring up an interesting point when you talk about the complex things that are going on in the world. You brought up a specific scenario. What we tried to do at the Asymmetric Warfare Training Center is not look so much at the who of what is going on, but the what that is going on. We look at the techniques being employed and we may see a different kind of warfare that is being waged in a particular scenario. Maybe that is the type of scenario where soldiers are in combat and they are not wearing a uniform. Or there is a Cyber Component or an Electronic Warfare component. We are able to look across the world and say we solve this in this area. We see it also played in this area and this area. How do we develop tactics techniques, and procedures to operate in a kind of environment. You talked about some great points to talk about the nature of warfare and how it is changed. That is what we charge our soldier city. I relish the old days where i knew what else can be called on to do. I would get in my tank or armored personnel carrier and face an enemy to kill him before he killed me. But now the world has changed and operating in a complex environment. Our soldiers have to be prepared to do numerous missions. I would hope you find confidence to say that there is someone looking out at what is going on in the world today and preparing her soldiers for the unknown. Host george from conroe, texas. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. First, i want to thank colonel petkosek for his service. There are three things ive been hearing here and seeing here that impressed me very much. The first is that citizens are asking questions. The second is colonel petkoseks first responses questions is that his loyalty is to the constitution of United States and that is what circumscribes his actions. The third thing is that in this world today, we cannot afford to ignore the fact that we may be forced to fight on our own soil. If that were to occur i, from what i am seeing, i am quite certain that colonel petkosek and his men will be able to handle that situation completely within the law and the laws of our country and with the intent that the constitution intended. I would want to thank you for your kind servicing your call. Guest i really do appreciate your call and your comment. It is always aweinspiring to see what our soldiers are doing. Any chance we get to share that with the American People is really a great opportunity. The country is large and soldiers are spread across it at different bases. He do not get a chance to see what your soldiers are doing. Anytime we have an opportunity to highlight for the American People that this is your army your military, it is something you should be proud of and you can rest assured that you have the right people doing the right things for our nation. It is always a good thing. Thank you. Host mike from alabama. Caller colonel, i would to congratulate you and your facility there. It is remarkable. It is obviously stateoftheart. My son just left the active army after three tours in iraq and one in afghanistan. I want to say i am with you and plato who says, only the dead have seen the end of war. I think we do hearing in the voices the people that call you today is the suspicion that the National Command authority is in the hand of domestic enemies of the constitution. What do you do when faced with an unconstitutional order . Guest we have an obligation to support and defend the constitution of United States. Fortunately i have not had to face that moral dilemma and say what choice do i make between some order and the parameters that are outlined by the constitution. Again, i raise my hand and said i would support and defend the constitution. That is what i am charge to do. As you talked about, that is what our soldier sign up for. Im glad to hear that you had a son that served and you should be very proud that he made the choice and raised his hand just as i did to do exact for that. I am sure that he could tell you that a lot of the things that even discussed of this program today maybe falls perceptives perceptions about what we are here to do. Thats why take the opportunity to share with you and the American People that this is what the army is here for. Nothing has changed. This is the same army. United states army existed before there was a United States of america. It is the Oldest Institution we have in terms of our nation. Weve been doing the same thing for 200 plus years. The nature of what the army does for the wrecking people has not changed and it has only become stronger. Host cape coral, florida. Go ahead. Guest i would like to ask the kernel if you would care to comment on operation j helm jade help m 2015 and an operation going on in canada right now. I was also wondering about host im sorry. Guest the first exercise im unfamiliar with. But i am familiar with the maple exercise in canada. That is one of those great opportunities and i dont know the details of the exercise and what they are trying to accomplish. I cannot speak intelligently about that but it is an opportunity for us to work with our partners, specifically our canadian partners. That is important to us as an army. We all see what is going on in the world today. Different army said different experiences. We are looking for it asked packages. We are looking for if working with the canadians reveal something that says that is a great way to do that. What we do have that and the u. S. Army . That is what began from working with our partners. I cannot speak intelligently about the nature of it, but i know we are working with them to identify best practices. Host how do you know if what you are doing a successful . Guest that is the difficult part. How many lives doesnt say for how does it work. Getting ahead of the thread is really the hardest part of it. We note it is successful when the go forward. We have soldiers and we asked them to do a lot of things here at when we see the soldiers and say i was at fort ap hill, and we did some adaptability training or we were in the tunnels and i prepare me for my mission, that is how we measure success. When we get feedback that says what you are doing is important. Everybody wants to feel that what theyre doing has value and is important. Particularly our soldiers in the u. S. Army. They sacrifice a lot. They spent sometimes and some hostile conditions and they want to know it makes a difference. And it makes a difference when you know you are helping soldiers on the battlefield. Youre helping make soldiers better prepare for their mission. Ultimately, there are some son daughter, wife, husband of a gun safe because of the things you did at fort ap hill. Host colonel John Petkosek is commander of the Asymmetric Warfare Group. Thank you for your time. Guest we also want to thank fort ap hill for hosting us. The video work we want to thank them as well. That is it for washington journal today. Another episode comes 7 00 a. M. Tomorrow morning. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org]