Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20150906

Opinion. Our phone lines are open. Democrats can call and in at 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independence, 202 7458002. Ndependents, 202 7458002 you can also find us on social media. Twitter, cspanwj. Facebook, facebook. Com cspan. A very good sunday to you. Here are the headlines today. Again, the third night that davis has been in jail. A headline, jailed kentucky Clerk Kim Davis keeps stance against gay marriage. The headline in the new york ms. Davis helped ,nravel an uneasy detente declaring a constitutional right to samesex marriage in june. Some republicans rushed to the , aense of miss davis democrat, and other Public Employees who say sanctioning samesex marriage undermines their religion. Those who have come to her defense, mike huckabee. He is holding a rally on tuesday outside the jail where davis is being held. That is happening at 3 00 on tuesday, along with tony perkins of the Family Research council and other supporters of campaign. His kim davis others who have been vocal about this, senator ted cruz of texas. In part, from his statement, i call on every lover of liberty kimstand with cam davis davis. Here he is from an appearance on fox news on thursday. [video clip] let me put out to all those who say that kim davis should resign from her office. What happened those voices to declare the mayor of San Francisco to leave office. Have beenitizens murdered because of the mayors violation of law. Where are those voices calling for president obama to resign for 6. 5 years he has defied the welfareigration law, reform law, and his own obamacare. When the mayor of San Francisco and president obama resign, then we can talk about kim davis. Ted cruz also taking on the Supreme Court in his statement, calling it judicial lawlessness, crossing into tyranny. In Washington Post taking on part specifically. It,gh cruz does not like , the Court Ordered states to grant marriage licenses. If you want to read more on that, it is in the Washington Post. Were taking your calls this morning. Should Public Officials he allowed to refuse participating in samesex marriage, due to their religious beliefs fear that is our question this morning. Democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Ndependents, 202 7458002 lena is up first from kentucky. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you this morning . Host good, go ahead. Davis. I am behind kim i think all of our religious freedoms have been taken away from us. I think it is time that someone stood up for christians. Thats my comment. Thank you. Host before you go, there is a comment from someone who wrote in on facebook. I want to see if you want to respond to it. Patrick mitchell is one of our first commenters on this topic. He says, religious freedom equals you dont have to get married to a gay person. Not issuing a marriage license to gay people means forcing people to follow your religion. What do you think about that statement . Caller i think people have gotten away from the bible. Religion and this country needs to get back to where was at one time. I totally disagree with the gentleman. I still back kim davis. Host how close is ransom, kentucky to ronwan . Caller maybe one hour. Host there will be a rally there on tuesday. Any plans to show up to the rally . Caller not at this time. It is one hour away from me. Host i appreciate the call from ransom, kentucky. Terry is up next from maryland, line for republicans. Caller good morning. Absolutely, this woman should be able to invoke a religious beliefs. Unfortunately, this is the way liberals operate. The Supreme Court imposed gay marriage on a majority of the states. I think only a handful actually voted for it. Bow,liberalism, you must and if you disagree, youre compared to the talent down. Liberals are destroying christianity. Christians are now a target for them. I have not seen anything in the media, maybe you can correct me, kers have refuseder wedding cakes for gay marriages. If anyone disagrees, they are targeted as a bigot. Host danny is in West Virginia, line for democrats. You are on the washington journal. Caller it is not the Supreme Court imposing their personal opinion. They are implying that all men and women have equal rights and are created equal. If christian evangelicals dont really think they are religion, they are a joke if they think they are allowed to discriminate against gay people, especially if they are in government employment, we should be allowed to, for instance, discriminate against people from kentucky. West virginia is right next to what kentuckynow wh people are like. Host on thursday at a White House Press briefing, press secretary josh earnest took on this topic. Here is a bit. [video clip] ultimately, iest think this is something to court will weigh in on. The b2 has already been expressed by a federal judge. Is subjectc official to the rule of law, that applies to the president of the United States and the county clerk in rome, kentucky. In terms of how that applies to this particular case, the judge will have to decide. I would not second guess it from here. Host White House Press secretary josh earnest on thursday. Here is yesterdays front page headline from the courier journal. Licenses at last. Under the threat of jail time or find by deputies from kim davis in rowing county. Here is the lexington herald leader, with a similar story about the gay couples who brought this issue to the forefront in rowing county. Rebecca is up next in alabama. Good morning. Caller good morning. I think she is an elected oath, andand took an should apply the law to the Supreme Court. Not that i agree with the ruling, i just think you have to have a society that obeys the law. Booksare some laws on our that i dont agree with. Whatnt they can choose laws we agree with and which ones we dont. About kim davis being in jail for the last three days. You can see her there before her hearing on thursday, in which she was held in contempt of court and put in jail. On fox news, late last week, rand pl said, i think it is ridiculous to incarcerate someone for their religious believes. What are your thoughts about the escalation of this . Caller i felt the sameay. I thought the penalty for going to jail was excessive. She could have been find, reprimanded in some way, but to put her in jail for her religious release is a little overboard by the federal judge. Taking the like mayor from San Francisco and putting him in jail because he hasnt thanks ray city he has a sanctuary city. We had people who break the laws, and i think you have to look at the degree that they are raking them. Host i should note that a u. S. Had offeredrt judge to release davis is she promised to not interfere with their employees issuing licenses. John is up next from virginia, line for democrats. Caller good morning. Personally, with this matter, i will say this. Sides. Thize with both i tried to be fair when i look at the argument. I think that religious people can disagree with the gay agenda and still coexist peacefully and respectfully. You dont have to agree with them to coexist. Lets look at, the elections going on today and the type of issues people are voting for. So much at the agenda and whatnot. I tried to avoid all of that. I care more about the fiscal problems with this country and economic problems. I think all these social problems have kind of taken away from that matter. I am still at odds. Im still thinking, how did building number seven go down . Building number seven just dropped down. We will move on to margie, line for republicans. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Imler i wonder if there sure there are a lot of people, as old as i am, the remember during world war ii, there were mish i thinkl m they were. They did not believe in fighting or killing. If im not mistaken, i think our d them. Ent excuse im just wondering why the same thing could not be applied to this woman from kentucky. Thank you. Tweetedllary clinton about this debate. She wrote, Marriage Equality is the law of the land, official should be held to their duty to uphold the law, and of story. Several Editorial Boards and major papers around the country taking this issue on, including the Washington Post. The Editorial Board writing, davis has every right to oppose samesex marriage as a private citizen or if she were part of a clergy, she could oppose marrying gays and lesbians. Rejected legislators to say no is asked. Her religious convictions not excuse her from her official duties, a commitment she made when she took office. Mary is up next from washington. Caller good morning. I want to explain to all the yourle who are haters question sometimes comes up like a hay question. First of all, marriage is a civil rights. I dont know anyone who can go out in the woods and say, lord, im ready to get married, bless my marriage. It is not recognized. The lady in kentucky, she can stay in jail until her hair looks like rapunzel. We have laws and she is in contempt of the law. She had every opportunity to save herself from going in jail, hope she stays in there. Stay in jail, that is where you belong. To people who do not understand, marriage is a civil right. You cannot do anything about it because the courts have said, yes, gay people get married every day because that is what the law says. Please have a good day. Host do you think those on the other side of the today are confusing civil marriage with religious marriage . Caller yes, they are. That is why the forefathers said do not put the state into church or church into state because you will have people like mrs. Whats her name, kim . I believe in a lot of things too religious life, by dont want to interfere with anyones rights, unless you are breaking the law where youre hurting a child, or those kinds of things. When you want to get married, you have to go downtown and pay a fee. You can say, lord, the lord will bless you manage all you want, but it is not recognized. It is wrong for people to keep doing this. Gay peoples will get their , and all of you haters will be able to do anything but sit back and look like. Fools. Host host the other law at issue here is the religious freedom restoration act. Host we are asking our viewers this morning to weigh in. Should Public Officials be able to oppose samesex marriage because of their religious fs . Ie if you want to weigh in, democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Ndependents, 202 7458002 michael is in pensacola, florida. Good morning. Caller yes, good morning. That i do not believe it is the governments job or the Supreme Court struck to marry anyone supreme job to marry anyone. The only reason the Gay Community wants marriage in the first place is to get tax breaks withe perceived as equal heterosexual marriage, which they are not. It is interesting how there is this talk of the woman violating the law. The Gay Community filings the laws of god. You cant change that. Let me say one last thing. They want to be perceived as equal, but they are not equal. They are completely dismissing the other gender. Host what was your reaction back in june . Were you surprised by the Supreme Court decision that allowed gay marriage in this country . I am a bit surprised that they are even involved in it. Mica said, is not our considerts job to that. It is a personal matter. They can have their marriage, their mind, be free, and left in peace. I think now, if we are allowing gay marriage that is a busy gay marriage legitimacy, should be allowed polygamy . Host michael in florida. A little bit more from a New York Times story. Host you can read more on that in the New York Times story this morning. Were taking her calls, thoughts for the next half hour or so. Chuck is in West Virginia, line for democrats. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Washington journal is part of my morning ritual everything will day. The previous caller from florida, it is not the job of our government or courts to uphold gods law. It is up to our government to whiche the constitution, obviously many times conflicts with the bible. As for kim davis in kentucky, lets say that they give her a religious exception to deny marriage licenses to some of the her salary,elps pay by the way. All of a sudden, you have all these other judges in kentucky saying, if they are going to let kim davis turn her back on gay n i think we should all rally behind her and nullify the law that is not the way work. Her religious freedom has not been affected at all of your cheek and go to church twice a week, conduct bible study classes. On her own time, she can preach against gay people to her hearts content, but when she is in that office and paid by the taxpayers of all different religions, gay and straight, she does not have the right to deny services to the people that they her salary. Host is there a matter that she should not accept this job or position if she did not they she can fulfill the obligation . Whatever the obligations may be or change during the course of Supreme Court rulings. Caller laws change all the time. Our laws constantly being made. Laws occasionally get overturned in the courts. She has to apply the law as it is. Said, she has every right to observe her own religious beliefs, but what happens if, for instance, if they allow somebody to turn their back on gay couples because of religion what about somebody who wants to discriminate against muslims,. Or instance if you have a judge that says they will not give a marriage license to a muslim couple because to do that would be an adjustment of islam you just cant do that. We are a nation of laws. Host the conversation is happening on twitter as well. It is cspanwj if you want to follow along. Jodi says, i do not like her using the government to make me practice their religion. Steve says, this could have been avoided if gays accepted civil unions by the state, instead of marriage. And, freedom of religion is just. If you members of congress weighing in on this as well. Degette, out of colorado, rights, im proud to live in a community where the county clerk willingly and probably issues all coloradans marriage licenses. Hartzler says that. He stands with kim davis bill is in michigan, line for democrats, calling in. Caller good morning. I think that last caller from West Virginia was spot on. For those of you who support this woman, consider if you walked into a restaurant or a grocery store, and the wages, coke, or cashier said, im sorry, i cannot take your order, or the cook says, i cannot cook this, or the clerk says, i cannot sell you this. And thissh or muslim, is i guess my religion. Would you then say, i respect your religious views . I dont think so. Like is that, the guy from West Virginia was spot on. This woman, she is wrong. She is not in jail because of her religious views. She is in jail because of abusing a judges order to do her job. Host how do you expect this will play out . Caller i dont know. I think this woman will eventually get tired of being in prison and say, im either going to resign, or say, since i will not do it, my clerks can do it. One of the two. Otherwise, as far as im concerned, she can stay in jail until she is an old lady. Host do you have something more to say . Caller her religious views are based on the bible, which is really a collection of tales, written on the order of the yearsconstantine, 300 after the death of a guy named jesus christ. Other stories in todays paper about this topic. Re is the Washington Post, college and Kentucky Town are on collision course your co moorehead, kentucky, a population of 10,000 that swells during the school year, and an lgbt community. Also in the Washington Post today, a story about gay marriage in australia. The story noted that last month, tony abbott, the Prime Minister of australia declared that lawmakers in his conservative coalition would have to stick to the party line and i oppose a bill to legalize samesex marriage. We are secure causes money on this topic. Gay marriage, religious freedom. Give us your views on this. Tim is an alabama, line for republicans. Caller hello. Yes. The Supreme Court has the decision passed the decision to allow samesex couples to marry. The Supreme Court is perverted in their view of marriage. It is against nature. It is perverted. It is unnatural. Im for standing up for her beliefs. It is against all the laws of nature. When i see this, it dis gusts made. Host it is now the law the land. What has been your reaction . Course ofeen the action for folks who feel like you do . Passed the Supreme Court a perverted decision. It is against nature. It is against the laws of nature. Yet, because the Supreme Court passed it does not make it right humanly rights. It is not right for a man to marry a man. Everything i see Something Like that, it just turns my stomach. Host what is the course of action that you take . Is it now individuals like kim davis using the religious freedom restoration act . Is that the path to go to fight this ruling . Sheler you look at it stood up for what she felt was her religious beliefs. If ministers across this country choose to stand up and speak out on their religious practices and you would throw half of these ministers in the country in jail. It is not right because the Supreme Court says so. It is unnatural. That is simple. It is not complicated. You can come up with all of these comparisons about food, other things, and it is not a comparison. You cannot compare it to white men marrying black women. It is not a comparison. This act of sex, you might as well go and look at the bible and see where it says man shall animals, with men or or their own mother or father. It is clear. And you want to pick out something that you want . Ok, we want to pick out the part that says men marry men and women marry women. There for the welfare and existence of the human being. You cannot separate what you want out of it and choose it, and then make it legal. Host support for samesex marriage in this country has grown steadily, according to polling. Based on polling and 2015, a majority of americans supported samesex marriage, compared to 39 , who oppose it. You can see the polling numbers since 2001 on this issue, starting to take a turn in 2004. Lets go to tracy and maryland. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would just like to make a couple of comments. People talk about which way this country is going the morals, values going away, no one knows what to do , this,eir kids, school that, and the third. We can pray anymore in school. Our children cant say think about god because everybody wants to protested. Protesting has always been a liberal thing. If you dont like something, you protested, and tried to make change. Woman, and just because of her beliefs, she is being incarcerated, like we are in china or russia. Dont they incarcerate christians in north korea because of their christian believes . I just cant believe that people eeing what is going on. It took religion out of schools, but when the president or anybody makes a speech, they say, God Bless America. Everybody is so much on the opposite end of the spectrum that nobody can see each other . Everybody has their own agenda and is just face forward. The people are destroying this country themselves. John what do you say to who says on twitter, one cannot bring religious views into a public secular job. Caller exactly, why does the president say God Bless America . Who created this . Host did you have something more to say . Aller no, sir it is puzzling. The question can be asked all day. I honestly dont think there is an answer to it. Host we will keep take your calls. Democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Ndependents, 202 7458002 we will take your calls for the next 1520 minutes or so on this topic. I want to go over some other headlines and news in the newspapers this morning. From the Washington Post ben cardin talks about his decision to not support the Iranian Nuclear deal. He writes, in part, throughout the process of evaluating the deal, i returned to to fundamental questions. Host also, in the New York Times this morning, several stories about the ongoing migrant crisis in europe. The headline, germany welcomes thousands of where a migrants eary migrants. Times has aw york story about pope francis coming to america, after avoiding it for 78 years. He will be speaking before a joint meeting of congress. Speaker John Boehners office releasing a frequently asked question page about the popes visit. He will address congress on september tway fourth, 2015 september tway fourth, 2015 at 10 00 a. M. Of note, he is expected to speak in english when he addresses the United States congress. More information expected to come from the speakers office, as it is available on the popes visit. Back to this question. Gay marriage versus religious freedom. Itwant to hear your views on this morning. Bill is in maine. Good morning. Showss the cspans when you put on about a president breaking his own laws. [indiscernible] this lady, down in kentucky, has that tells more putting numbers you are up this morning. I wonder if it is the same Polling Company that says Hillary Clinton lies 75 of the tied to the public. Host it is the pew research center. Pew and gallup, two of the bestknown pollsters in this country, and to that we use a lot here on the washington journal. The Supreme Court has made other mistakes. They allowed mr. Obama to change his, the obamacare law. They allowed him to tell us, you can keep your own doctor. It is the chief justice of the Supreme Court who capitulated. The Supreme Court is not supposed to have political pressure because they are not elected by the people, they are appointed. There are some flaws in our constitution to have to be checked out. One other thing. I am a hunter. For 50 years, i have never seen ucks walk out of the woods, holding each other. Host deborah is up next in richmond, virginia. Caller good morning. Im that old,r i want to you how old i can remember when cara lee lewis and were together, and religion approved of it. There is nowhere in the bible where grown men marry children. By religiousd people. Notice, you cannot put religion and truth together. Whos written by stupid men want to do what they want to do. That is crazy. Host deborah and virginia this morning. We will head up to new york, where carl is waiting on the line for independents. Good morning. Caller how are you doing . Thank you for taking my call. That was an interesting comments there. Briefly, ms. Davis could have protested better by. Uitting her job saying she should be in jail. Host because she was elected county clerk, it is not as easy as firing her. After go through a whole process. Go ahead. Caller they should have gone through the process and done it that way. Jail, im not sure that is a good punishment for her. Anyway, what she probably fails to realize is she has probably handed out a number of marriage licenses to gay people. She thought she was making a heterosexual marriage, but actually she was marrying a lot of heterosexual s because they gave could not get married and had two keep up with the social status, and so on. She should not be in jail. Thank you very much. Host ben is up next in springfield, massachusetts, line for democrats. Good morning. Caller hello. Obama and thend mayor of San Francisco the people who have been using those as an example of this lady in kentucky need to understand that no court issued an order against obama or the gentleman who is the mayor of San Francisco. Aey are not fire leading court order. This woman is violating a court order, therefore she is in contempt of court. That gentleman who gave us a little brief example of the content of the bible, i dont remember where he was calling from, but i appreciate his , explaining what the contents of the bible consist of. Who talked about the whole violation of nature, that does not have anything to do with this court case. He talks about the bible. The bible that most of these people are dealing with is king james thi version of the bible. E was king of scotland he was also a gay gentleman. His cousin was a significant other. His cousin was the duke of york. He gave him new york state, the settlement of new york state. He gave it to his cousin. Host fastforward to 2015 for us. Caller right. So, when people Start Talking about the bible and wanted to be used as because a church of the United States of america, they are completely wrong. Use the bible for their thoughts and thinking, but not impose it on other people. Other religions have different ways of dealing with their faiths and how they perceive it. People who keep coming back to what the bible says what all of by their degree, and that is not what the world is about or the country is about. Host we have been talking a lot about kim davis. As we said, three nights in jail, still in jail in kentucky today. Before she went to jail, she met with protesters and her Clerks Office. Here is a little bit of the videotape from that backandforth, in which she addresses some of the protesters concerns [video clip] issuing marriage licenses today. Why . Under what authority . , gods authority. I have asked you all to leave. You are interrupting you can call the police. I pay your salary. You are discriminating against me right now. That is what i am paying for. Memoryying for this with my partner, who i been with for 30 years. What is the longest you have been with someone . With kim davis meeting protesters and her county Clerks Office prior to being. Ailed diana is in connecticut, line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to correct the man about the king james bible. In the original hebrew and arabic, it does condemn homosexual marriage. I would also like to comment on the polls you keep referring two. I am 61 and was born in 1953. If the state schools did not brainwashed the kids, you would not be getting those numbers. Recently, the psychiatrist listed homosexuality as a deviance. Nowhere does it say that the practice of deviance, even if they are out of that classification, has rights. I feel that the homosexual portion is allowing them to be married, it does violate people that have religious beliefs that do believe in the words of the original hebrew and arabic, which state that a couple the man who years called was simply incorrect. St how closely did you follow the Supreme Court case on gay marriage . What was your reaction when it decided in favor of gay marriage . Caller again, i call it homosexual marriage. I dont think they have a right. Appropriate the word gay i cant use that word any longer because if i say im having a gay day, it means Something Different now. Reallyot follow it closely. I know it was in the courts. I was quite surprised. Our constitution says that matters such as that are left to the state. More and more, the federal government is taking the rights of what should be decided by the states. Constitutionthe that many men have lived and died for. I had a couple other points, by cant read my own writing this morning. Host thats all right. Brooklyn, connecticut, diana. Pat is up next in maryland. Caller good morning. , byree with other lady teaching it to put itself in a situation where she is not forced to do something. I do not believe in blood transfusions, not because of religious reasons, but because i do not believe in them. That is a lifeanddeath situation. I think people need to look a little further. There are a lot of people that religious beliefs that are certainly not in sync, it could cost them their lives. Host you would be a good person to bounce this question off of. Should a pharmacist refused to sell contraceptives to the public because of her religious police . That is a question from our twitter page. What do you think . Caller no. Your believe that your beliefs. If you really feel that way about it, use not be yourself in that situation. Im not going to put including contraceptives, i do in abortion. Guess what, i got out of the delivery room when they started doing abortions that situation. Host on twitter, Rick Santorum writes last week, we should not b have to choose between and practicings our faith. Congress and states must pass First Amendment laws now. Frome is up next calling pennsylvania. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. Lets get one thing straight. Issue with theht Supreme Court. A gay man had the same rights to marry as i did to marry a woman. The same with a lesbian couple. The lesbian have the same right to marry a man they just change the definition. Thats all they did. They did not get rights. They did get a special right of changing a definition, and what marriage consists of. That is pretty heavy duty, just changing the english language like this. To the second point it is one thing to tolerate homosexual marriage. If you tolerate it, thats good. Its another thing when you have to sign your name to a document. That is pretty heavy. Clerksre plenty of other that were willing to sign a document. These people pick on this poor lady, and this lady is basically camp. Reeducation last i heard, she is in solitary or isolated. What are we doing here . Just because she believes in a certain thing. Are we now going to say that christians cant be court clerks and follow their conscience . They did not get any rights, they always had the same rights. They had rights. My solution would be, since we are now recognizing this new human relationship between partners of the same sex, lets give it its own unique name. That would resolve all of this. Ho ba no, they will not stop. I believe youre right about her status in prison. The wall street journal reporting last night that she is spending her Labor Day Holiday in isolation in jail in kentucky. Were showing you some of the reaction from the republican candidates president ial candidates, especially those on the republican side of the aisle. Here is jeb bush. Host kevin is next in akron, ohio. Amazed at allust of this. This is a simple. We all have a right to our religion, but we should not impose our religion on others. This lady and pose her religion on other people. Do i like seeing her in jail . Absolutely not. However, the people that she to,ed the marriage license they have been in jail because they have not been able to be married for a little over two months. Is that fair . Problem,s a religious that she may be needs to think about getting a different job. Those people have the right. And it is a civil right. It should not be voted upon, nothing. It is very simple. It is civil, get out of the way. Who broughtcouples the issue to the forefront, as we noted on friday, receive their licenses in rome county. Here is the headline from the courierjournal yesterday licenses at last. Up next we will discuss the Iranian Nuclear deal after a bbying. Ek of lo later, Michael Obrien will join us to talk over the iraq war, reconstruction, and the rise of isis. All we can long, we will be exploring the history and literary life of grand junction, colorado as i sees density store as our cspans city tour continues. [video clip] right now, were looking at a bone that is halfway through being cleaned up. It is not quite through to be flipped over. This was pulled out of a quarry last july. You are looking here at the head of the femur. This is where would attach into the hip socket. The average dinosaur would have been 6575 feet long. We have done some side comparisons and some math, it should have been about 90 feet long. This is a very very large individual. Not only is a large individual, you can see, there we are still cleaning it up. It has some unusual markings on it. You can see, these punctures here, these are not normally here. These are punctures from clause, probably from the toes of a dinosaur. You can see over here, 1, 2, 3 scratch marks. These are from some index finger second finger of a three fingered hand coming this way. Predatoryommon dinosaur had a three fingered hand. Make sure to tune in this weekend to booktv and American History tv as we travel to grand junction, colorado. To watch videos from that and s, gof our cspan city tour to our website. Now, we are talking about the. Ranian nuclear deal we will be doing that for the next 45 minutes, discussing what is going on with the deal and the lobbying efforts, and where the deal stands. First, for a view on the ground from iran, we will turn to thomas erdbrink, the Tehran Bureau chief of the New York Times. Good afternoon. As maneuvering for congressional support and opposition plays out in the u. S. , what is happening in iran . Is there a parliamentary approval process that this is going through in that country . Guest for the past month, president rouhani and negotiators have been wrangling over who needs to do the review of this Nuclear Agreement. Only this week, in the final days, the Supreme Leader actually stated that, in his opinion, which is law in iran, the parliament should review the nuclear deal. How they will review this in an internal commission or vote is not clear. Im pretty sure they will wait for the u. S. To come out with a clear stance, and then follow suit. That means that if Congress Approves the deal, the iranians will probably do the same. That is there any chance the Iranian Parliament can make changes . Is there anything that can still be up for negotiation with this deal . Guest im sure some of the parliamentarians would very much like that. Either the whole deal is excepted, or no deal. Despite the fact that several hardline parliamentarians have said that it what parts of the deal to be changed more in irans favor, ultimately this cannot happen. We cannot forget the iran is not a country like the u. S. , obviously. That means that other powers and inrliament actually parliament actually get to decide on this deal. In this case, it is the Supreme Leader ayatollah, the architect of the negotiations with the United States. He has supported the nuclear deal until now, and even though to the outside world, he will keep up antiamerican stances, i do not think he will turn down this deal in the final stages using the parliament as instrument. Host that was my question. Is there any daylight between president rouhani and the Supreme Leader when it comes to this deal . Guest it is hard to judge. You get into the realm of criminology, as we would call it in the cold war. I do not know what is going on in the backdoor meetings between the president and the Supreme Leader. There is nothing in iranian media indicating that they do not see i die on this. I think what they differ on is something that might be a consequence out of this deal. President rouhani has won an election on a platform of promising better relations with the United States, and the Supreme Leader, in several speeches, has made clear that for him, the nuclear deal is a oneoff, and should not lead to any form of relations with the United States. He was everything to remain as it is. I think the tension between the two will be the subject of the coming years. Host before we let you go, how much of iranians been following on backandforth of efforts capitol hill . Guest i think a lot of iranians have believed in something they call a lobby. There are people outside of the the zionist are very influential in the United States. I think he was surprised that this deal is going through. In their world, which is dominated by conspiracy and expectations that everything is pretty decided, a lot of people may be overestimating the power of the Republican Party and the affiliated lobbying groups because they thought they would be able to stop this, and this is not happen. Host we appreciate your time this afternoon from iran. Guest thank you. Host and if you have questions or comments, as we talk about the iran nuclear deal, you can start calling in now. Democrats can call at 202 7488000, republicans 202 7488001, independence 202 7488002. Our viewers are looking at congress coming back in session this week. Just remind us about where the iranian deal was when Congress Left town and where it is today. Guest when Congress Left town it was by no means clear that president obama would be able to potentially override the veto. So in other words, it was not clear that the deal would actually get through. This week, the most significant things that have happened, are on wednesday senator Barbara Mikulski of maryland announced that she would support the deal. That counted 234 senators, the vast majority democrats, plus two independents to vote with them, favor the deal. That means there is no way now or congress to stop the deal from going through. Friday, the support of the deal had gotten them to 38 votes in the senate. Obama and the white house are comfortably ahead of where they need to be to make sure the deal gets done. That said, if they dont get , it is possible the deal will get these are excuse me, that congress will vote to disapprove the deal, the president would then veto that and then he would survive the override vote. The deal is going to happen. Host are there enough both out there to get to 41, that filibuster number . Guest there are but it is unlikely that it will get there. At least what our reporting suggests. There are five democrats who have not announced where they are. One of those democrats, senator joe manchins office said this week that he had not decided whether he would support a deal or not, but that he would not vote to filibuster the deal. That means that that is one vote that is not there. View, at least now, seems to be the 41 is unlikely. Host one vote not there, senator ben cardin of maryland and nothing in a column he wrote for the Washington Post, that he will not be supporting the deal. Is this happening now would it make more of a difference if the Ranking Member on the Foreign Relations committee on tuesday, or monday, and said he would not be supporting the deal . Guest it might have. He is the ranking democrat, although he rose to the position essentially because of the difficulties that senator bob menendez of new jersey has had. Host he is also not supporting the deal. Guest he is also not supporting the deal. So yes, it probably wouldve had more of an impact if he announced before they got to 34. That said, he is still an influential vote and it is possible he will influence the last five democrats. Host you traveled with secretary kerry and were reporting on the negotiations. Does the state department feel of the hardest part on this deal has now passed . Guest i think the administration as a whole, in some ways, we feel that the hardest part has passed, at least in terms of the diplomacy and the domestic politics. Really meansrubber the road on the deal in terms of whether the iranian will hear to its provisions. So in a certain sense you could argue that the hardest part is really ahead of them, because if the iranians cheat on the deal then you are in a whole other ball game. The hardest part in some ways is still ahead. Is ourrshad mohammed guest for about the next 40 minutes or so here at washington journal. We are taking your calls, line for democrats, republicans, and independence. Here is ill coming from preston, bill calling from preston, connecticut, independents. Caller i would like to make a comment that i would like to see the pope make a speech in favor of the deal. I want to know what would happen then. Host has the pope said anything about this . Guest the pope has not said anything about this that i recall, although i dont watch everything that he says. I think it is probably unlikely that he would comment, but i suppose it is conceivable that he might. Propeace, as are it were, so is he thought the deal was more likely to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and therefore more likely to preserve peace or prevent an american or an israeli strike against iran, he might favorite. But i genuinely dont know what is his position on the deal. And we want to talk about some of the other allies who supported the deal. Why did the United Kingdom signed a deal . Is it true that the u. S. Course of the u. K. Into signing . Either side deals that were not disclosed . I am not aware of any coercion. The deal was essentially negotiated although the primary negotiators were United States and iran, the deal was really negotiated by the group called the p5 1. That is the United Kingdom, france, germany, china, russia, and the United States. Im not aware of any side deals between the United States and any of its p5 1 partners. From my talking to diplomats from many of this country, i think they signed the deal because they think it is a good deal, not because they felt that it is better than the alternative, not because they felt that they are being strongarmed or pushed into it by washington. Host are any of the allies facing anywhere near the legislative disagreements in other countries that president obama is sinking here on capitol hill . Guest definitely not. This is a deal that had a lot more support a broad, at least in those other five countries, then in the United States. So no, there are not the same kind of legislative issues in any of the other countries. Host and from bear creek, alabama, line for republicans. Caller yes. That nobody can trust it. Why are these people making the deal . Is ridiculous. Host this issue of trust. Can we trust iran. How has the Obama Administration and secretary kerry adjustment . Guest their basic argument is kind of a version of the ronald of Ronald Reagans favorite famous line about the soviet union, trust but verify. They say look, we are not trusting. We have all these provisions designed to allow us to verify, to monitor. All that monitoring is done by the United Nations Nuclear Watchdog, the International Atomic energy agency. Their point is that it is not really about trust. It is not monitoring and tracking whether iran keeps its word or not. Fundamentally secretary kerry this week gave a speech in philadelphia on wednesday, and that was one of the crux of his arguments. It is not about trust, it is about making sure that we have the ability or that the United States government has the ability to see what the iranians are doing. His argument is that there is a much greater ability to see what they are doing with this deal than without it. John glenn and illinois in illinois is next, lie for democrats. Good morning. I have a question about potential nuclear. On the left one of the most frequent arguments against justifying why Nuclear Weapons hashat they say is, israel Nuclear Weapons. Everyone knows that, so why is it fair for other people not to have them . Isquestion is, since i ran getting closer and closer to the ball, this is the first time we have heard of most of the other sunni arab nations say if they get one, we are going to get a bomb. People have known israel has had a bomb it has been assumed since the 70s and early 80s. I have looked through newspaper accounts. In theas been no outrage sense of we have to have one because israel has one. My question is my question is not, why are they so afraid of iran. My question is about what is different in a situation between iran that the level of urgency the level of fear and trepidation over iran getting a bomb is so different . They have never been raising this issue well we have to have one, egypt, saudi arabia, kuwait , we have to have one if iran has led. They have not raised that issue with israel. Clearly there is a big different. What is a . Guest that is a great question. Thing that iain might point to hear is that ist might point to here that the iranians are believed by the gulf countries to be undertaking what they see as destabilizing activities all across the middle east, that certainly includes syria, where they support the regime of the sought. Nt assad. Of a sod that is the case in yemen. It has certainly been the case in lebanon with their support for hezbollah. And so the arab nations see a very proximate, direct threat from irans current activities in a way that they dont quite see with israel. The other thing would be the presumption that israel has a Nuclear Arsenal has been there , and in a long time certain sense perhaps they have learned to live with that. I think the concern with the case of iran is that nuclear a nuclear iran might feel much free to try to project its power throughout the arab world. The arabs the gulf arabs are particularly afraid that iran would be even more disruptive. Great question. Host and that color was talking about proliferation throughout the region. It would be the next closest . Guest i dont know the specific answer to that, but if you look at countries that have expressed ,ven unofficially some interest you have to imagine that saudi arabia, this country that has the resources to pursue this kind of technology if they wish to. Egypt has far fewer resources, but does have has expressed an interest in a Nuclear Program. I guess those would be kind of toward the top of the list, but u. S. t know what detail intel or other communities cap about who might because this. Plainfield, new york is is waiting on our line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to know if mr. Mohammed is aware of the side deals that were made between the u. N. And iran, and he could elaborate on what they are . It is my understanding that one of the side deals, iran can do their own and soil samples. I am wondering if the other side deals i dont know how many there are would also contain information that would certainly be negative in terms of approving the steel. Deal. Roving this i dont know how congress can vote for a deal when they dont know the content of all the other deal. I would like you to elaborate. Thank you. Guest thinking for the question. This refers to the mechanism by which the deal is going to be monitored. That mechanism, as i said before, is through the International Atomic energy agency, the United Nations Nuclear Watchdog that is based in vienna. Iaeagreements that the makes with individual countries on verifying their Nuclear Programs are all secret. Here is of the matter that the iaea says they cant make all the details public because, just like they have an agreement with the United States or germany or any other country, like iran, they have to keep those secrets. I have not seen those protocols, or those agreements. Publiclyhat has been released was released i the associated press. And as the caller said, that is exactly on the question of a site where the u. S. Intelligence committee believes that iran had pursued research into weaponization, how you would actually take physical material and make it into a bomb. Iran wouldd say that theake soil samples under i dont remember the exact iaea. Under the that has picked up a huge number of questions about how appropriate it is for a country that is supposed to be monitored to be taking their own samples. Howout knowing precisely that process is going to run in other words, is an going to be taken by an Iranian Nuclear an iaeat with inspectors any right next to him . That is one thing. Is it going to be done with realtime, 20 47 cameras 24 7ing it being done cameras watching . I personally dont know the details of those protocols. The four opponents of deal, do you think that was one of the most potent arguments they made over the course of the setting some are lobbying efforts . You are asking us to vote on a deal that we dont know all the elements of. Guest well, two things. I think most of the members had already made up their minds when it came to that. Secondly, the administration has repeatedly argued that they, the top members of the administration, has been briefed have been briefed on o,t and that a motto aman the chief inspector of the iaea, has come to congress and talked about it. It is not as though it is totally secret. Yes, it is classified and all this was done in classified sessions, but the administration has argued it is not like this is totally secret. We understand the key provisions. The brief congress in a classified setting. This is not and should not be a surprise. Host do you think the fact that congress is a way for the august recess helped or hurt those who are trying to oppose the deal . Guest i suspect it probably helps them. More time you have to try to kill something, the better. Youthe amount of time may recall that the socalled rker bill,l co laying out how the agreement would make its way through congress, said that there would be a 30 day review. If it was done during the recess, it would be a 60 day review date so that the opponents of the deal or both sides would have more time to do it. I think it clearly benefits opponents because they can make their case. As everybody who is watching the show notes, it is a lot easier to kill something in washington than it is to give birth to something. Noted, the white house achieving that all important 34 bookmark and the senate that would allow 34 thatmark in the senate would allow it to be sustained in the senate. We are taking your calls and questions for about the next 20 minutes here. Providence, rhode island, life for independents. Len, good morning. Areyou with the stucco you with us . Caller can you hear me . Host yes. Caller i have a question and a comment. My question is, iran already went to russia to make a deal that violates this agreement. Why is congress not taking that into account and mixing nixing this entire sanction of thing . Willingongress is so not to read obamacare and now they are not willing to read all the agreements, and that includes the u. N. Agreements that were made on the side before this passage, what makes them think that iran isnt going to start a war with us and that they say this agreement is going to stop . We know better. We have dealt with these people for 40 years. Understand how any senator in their right mind can pass this. It all goes my mind. Have a good day. Thank you. . Ost Arshad Mohammed guest thanks for your question. I dont know what deal you are referring to the you say iran has struck with russia that already violates the deal. So i cant really comment on that. On the other question, which is to say the agreements between the iaea and iran, particularly about potential past military dimensions, the administration pause fundamental the Administration Path final arguments is that we have explained it and talked about in classified sessions, they should understand it. The fundamental argument that the administration makes is, ask yourself if you think that the United States is going to be more secure with Greater Transparency and monitoring mechanisms that we have with this deal then it is going to be without it . So i guess that is the crux of their argument. We talked a little bit already about how this deal is being received in the countrys 5 1. He p richard is calling in from plymouth, england. Good morning. Your thoughts and questions . Caller good morning. I hope you are well. Host we appreciate the call. Go ahead. Caller i just wanted to provide a european perspective. We have we look at the situation with iran very differently. A lot of my family are jewish, and arguing this situation with iran with a bit of skepticism but also a bit of hope. Comes through the media from your side of the atlantic, and also obviously with israel, is orthodox ideology. The orthodox ideology is just as bad as any christian extremist ideology or islamic extremist ideology. Firstly, do you think it might be time to kind of get the American People fully educated . And also, militarily speaking the militarily speaking, do you think it might be a good idea for iran to be invited to some coalition to formally help fight isis . Because of isis gets any foothold more than they have got in the middle east, even though israel has a very strong gets the if isis ground that they are continuously getting, israel is going to be facing one hell of a fight. And you actually have to include europe. We are going to end up having a massive regional war, it might even push us into a sort of more global conflict. I think that we have got to take this time to be sensible, tell the truth, tell the newspapers, tell the media stop selling opinion and actually tell the facts. Caller justprevious came across as somebody who did not truly understand the facts. Richard, where do you go to hear the facts and not just the opinions . What are your news sources . I dont justly, trust my own countries media. I will look at the bbc, igs, cnn. Abc. Russia today. Al jazeera. I will go to numerous newspapers. I will use a Translation Service to actually translate what they , or a hebrew version, a Translation Service. Google, yahoo , msn, they all do it. That is just to get the facts. If you are just reading something from the same newspapers in the u. K. We have a newspaper called the daily mail here cap it is a conservative newspaper and it has been accused of basically being this sound piece for antieuropean union sentiment many times. A lot of people read it like it is a bible. You have the same in america with certain outlets and Certain Television stations. It is all about fact and gaining knowledge. The only thing that iran did wrong it did not like israel and it went against the popular ideology. Those are the only two things that really did wrong. And the Orthodox Jewish community in america is a massive power base. Host we are going to let Arshad Mohammed jump in. Guest thanks for the question. A couple things. I worked for reuters. We see ourselves as being part of the media a quarter of the media space that focuses on fact. Our slogan is accuracy comes first. As in ourselves very much the corner of trying to provide unbiased coverage of whatever issues there may be. So on that, we are all for facts. The second thing i would say is, one of the things about this particular deal is that all 159 pages of it are available and online. Anybody who wants to read it can easily find it online and read it. The third thing is, their article series of fairly independent think tanks that have also done their analyses of the deal, so you can look at say, brookings the Brookings Institution website and get a sense of what the deal is. Like what you said about looking at a wide range of media, i think that is a great thing. Rely noteople need to just on what source but on multiple sources, and not just the media at the underlying documents or transcripts. Because that is another way in which you can get a grasp of what is really going on. In this sense the internet has made a huge difference, it is volumes offf huge documents are available for everyone to look at and form their own judgments. Host you can also follow the reporters themselves on twitter as they cover these stories in real time. Reporters put information out there. Rshadreuters is people want to , thew Arshad Mohammed International Correspondent for reuters. One of our viewers wants to know what will happen on january 20, 2017. Obamas iran deal is not a law and will never be a law. It is just a piece of paper that will be torn up. Guest a couple of things. You are absolutely right, it is not a law and it is not a treaty. Technically it is not a legally binding agreement. You will notice that the deal is always referred to as a comprehensive plan of action, but it is not actually an agreement or a legally binding agreement. That said, what happens in washington is always a function of politics, and if there were to be a republican president who in 2017, that president would have to ask themselves whether they thought the country was better off with the deal or without the deal. You can make your own judgment about that, but tearing up the couldent at that point lead to a number of conferences. One, all the transparency mechanisms would presumably be gone. In other words, if the United States or any other party for of the deal, the iranians are hardly going to welcome inspectors. Second, all the stuff that the iranians are supposed to do in terms of curbing their Nuclear Program in exchange for 1anctions relief that the p5 countries are offering, for the movie it would stop doing it. So the extent to which iran is required to produce and stockpiled of enriched uranium, to the extent to which it is supposed to stop running centrifuges, it is quite conceivable that it would start. Oing all those things again the conventional wisdom in the Analytical Community about this is that any successful successor successor president is unlikely to tear up the deal if they believe that iran is adhering to it. It is betters that to have the limitations on the iranian Clear Program than to tear it up. But all of this assumes that the iranians are adhering to the terms of the deal. Host people say that a republican president host time for a few more calls. Maryland marilyn has been waiting on the line for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to find out why news media like reuters would not make sure that they report that 150 billion that iran will get it is their money. It is there frozen assets. But all you hear about is oh, they are going to get this amount of money and sponsor more terrorism. It is their money. Why doesnt the media point that out . My second point is, i know they are saying we cant trust iran, but we can just israel. Last time they had inspections of their Nuclear Facilities . Those are my two concerns. , do youshad mohammed want to start with the money . Have you been covering where this money would be coming from . Guest the caller is absolutely right. The money is the iranians money. The administration argues that 150 billion figure is kind of an urban legend. That in fact the real figure is much lower, like 56 billion. Still, that is a lot of money, but the caller is right. This is a lot of money. This is essentially money that iran has earned by selling its oil. That money has gone into account that are essentially frozen. The big purchases purchasers of iranian oil, like china and india, when they have paid iranians for that oil it goes into an account in india, in china. That account is unfrozen and iranians are only able to use it for very specific purposes, like humanitarian goods. Host frozen by the individual countries where the accounts are . Guest correct. They are frozen essentially at the behest of the United States which is able to get other yountries and particularl other countries banks to do what it wants with the threat of cutting off those countries from the u. S. Banking system. If you want to do business with citibank then you have to do what the u. S. Treasury says you should do. You are right. That is a fact that people should understand. People should also understand what the amount is. And yes, it is the iranians money. That somee concern people have about this deal and about the iranians getting access to that money is, what will they do with that money . Will they use it to try to prop assad . Lid will they use it to funnel money to hezbollah, or will they use it to meet the needs of their own people . That is how i would look that question. Me, but i have blanks on the second question. Host she wanted inspections in israel. Guest yes. Rely israels inspections on a country having signed the nonproliferation Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty. If you are a signatory to that treaty, the central bargain of civilng is you can pursue Nuclear Power and Civil Nuclear uses of Nuclear Power. However, an exchange, you have to commit not to seek Nuclear Weapons and you have to commit to allow inspection. Israel is not a signatory, so the legal basis for going in and doing inspections simply is not there. Host kathleen is up next in south holland, illinois. Line for democrats. Good morning. Caller hi. How are you doing. Neede ask you something, i to get these points out. The only reason why this deal is so bad in this country is because president obama is signing onto it. If any other present president signed onto this it would not be a bad deal. We keep talking about israel as our strongest ally. What has israel done to help the United States . Are they helping us with isis . What has israel done . When have they ever stood with us . And with iran please let me finish this. When those other countries came to the bargaining table today say, if you want us to strip naked and give up all those Nuclear Weapons, you also. Since you cant trust us what makes you think we can trust you . The United States has done some stuff. Stoodhen the republicans in the chamber and is respected the president , sent a letter over there and said dont trust president obama. How can you trust people . The them the United States is not trustworthy. Host a couple questions there. Well, israel is a longstanding ally of the United States. Successive u. S. Government steel that there is a genuine affinity between the United States and israel in terms of democratic principles and values. That i guess partly addresses the first part of the question. Host the trust issue seems to come up again. Guest sure. One of the things that has the iraniane u. S. Relationship for well over half a century is that there really is not a lot of trust. One fact that often does not get mentioned in contemporary media reporting is that in 1953 the u. S. Cia sponsored a coup in iran that toppled mohammed most that toppled their elected Prime Minister. That got the shot shah of iran back to power. Partly as a result of that historical fact and there is doubt about this. Hascia has this closed disclosed and made public a lot of their documents, as has the u. S. State department. The iranians dont trust the United States much at all. Another factor that the hostage crisis in iran after the islamic revolution, where american citizens were held, ultimately, for 444 days before they were released just after Ronald Reagan came took office. Supplyt is not in high on anybodys side here. Essentially what administrations are trying to do one thing that is useful is to try to look at this in terms of probabilities. If you dont trust the person sitting across the table from you, whether they are a soviet negotiator or an iranian, or anybody else, how do you increase the probability that you get an outcome that you can live with . That the question is, how do you devise an agreement like iran nuclear deal, or any other one, that gives you a slightly higher probability that your interests are protected . I tend not to look at this in terms of absolutes. Or notrust the soandso trust them. I think the administration tends to look at it as what can we do to improve our odds in any given circumstance. You are never really going to get to 100 certainty or absolute trust except with your oldest and closest allies, and even they disagree with you sometimes. Host Arshad Mohammed has been covering these issues for writers as the u. S. Foreignpolicy correspondent there. You can follow him arshadreuters. Up next we will be joined by Michael Obrien, author of americas destruction of iraq. He joins us to talk about the rise of isis. And later we will talk about what it might mean when it comes to a possible hike in the shortterm Interest Rates. But first, for newsmakers this week we interviewed Archbishop Joseph Kurtz about the popes first visit to the United States , which includes his first ever speech to congress. Here is part of the interview. [video clip] my understanding is that john boehner wrote on the behalf of the house of representatives, and i guess together with senator mitch mcconnell, they agreed to make this open invitation. It is my understanding that it is the first time that our holy father has been invited to this joint session. Of course it is a great privilege. We are like at thanksgiving time when you welcome a special guest in your home. We are really happy that he will also be on that he will be in the public state. We are eager for him to come. I would love to hear just a little bit about the overall tone you think you will strike. I guess one of the questions is how much of his address will be interpreted in the political this is happening as Congress Returns from a long summer break later this month. How much will politics they seem to play in his address, and what you expect we will hear in general . First of all, good question. I think we have to make room so that we can hear the message of our holy father. I dont have a text of what he is going to say, but we can certainly no on other visits he has had where he has talked inut where he has talked the public square. I think it is a good direction. I believe his primary comment is for families, he will be there saturday and sunday and philadelphia. However, this joint meeting of congress, i suspect he will focus on themes of the common good, of what it means to see the dignity of every human person. The great gift of our home, which we call the earth. I suspect he will also take up what he calls the throwaway temptation, the sensation for us to become so involved in consumerism that we miss the site of the person outside of ourselves. Newsmakers airs today at thad cochran a. M. After washington journal, again today at 6 p. M. On cspan. Michael obrien is our guest, he wrote the book americas destruction of iraq, from the unique perspective of being a former member of the bush admin decision. He spent working months in iraq. I want to start by showing the cover of the book, americas destruction of iraq. Can you describe the picture on the cover of your book . Guest thanks a lot. The photograph on the cover was photographer, and i purchased the rights to the photograph to put it on the book. To be more specific, i was about a mile away from that when it went off. I was walking from my one job at the ministry of defense building rate at the end of the green zone the International Zone we called it when i was there and i was walking down a barricaded walkway back towards the phoenix is, the ux u. S. Base where the commander of ,ultinational security command back to my office there, when this went off. Honestly, the earth the ground shook. I thought a rocket had landed on the other side of the wall. We found out about an hour later that that had gone off. It was about a ton, attended a half of explosives a time and on and of explosives t a house of explicit, and about 34 iraqis were essentially vaporized. About 360 were seriously injured. When i saw that photograph on the cover of stars and stripes two days later, i had already thought about writing my book. At that moment i looked at that and i said i want that picture on the cover on my book. It describes you know, a picture is worth 1000 words, the destruction that has been going on since we invaded in 2003. With so what happens here the security of that market is an example of the sort of lack of landing that you are so critical of in this book. Explain that. Invaded andnow, we all that. Then we disbanded the iraq he army and the National Police. So the whole thing was creating an army, a National Police from nothing, which is one of the reasons i was there. But the story in the stars and stripes, which i cited in my book, the guard is just an iraqi guy trying to feed his family. He lived and he was interviewed the truck pulled up with the explosives and he was told, dont let anybody in. No vehicles, just pedestrians. And the insurgents pulled up with the truck and he said the guard said, no, these are iraq is talking to each other. He says no trucks. Then the insurgent said, according to the guard, i really have to get in. I really have to deliver my stuff. And the guard wes, ok. And that was that. And all those people died. It was the biggest single attack in that that was was in 2007, i cant rubber the exact dates. It is just a snapshot of the situation over there. Host Michael Obrien, author of perspective on the warof iraq and the rise of sizes. If you want to join in, democrats 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. A special line for iraq war veterans, 202 7488003. Toward the end of the book you write, i did not write this book because i hate my country. I love my country. However i hate what my countrys leadership has done in iraq and what it has done to the iraqi people. Unfortunately it is still going on. Who do you blame more here . The military or the political leaders in this country . Course everybody has a hand in it, but in our country it all starts at the top with the president. Really itk at iraq started with getting out of kuwait in 1991. 12 years, and then we go in in 2003. And i need to say this before i forget to say it my book is about ,ccountability, or i should say the complete lack of accountability. And we went in in 2003 for your viewers, i have a west point graduate. I know a little bit about the military. 2003,e went into iraq in why did we go . That is the political thing. Why did we go. Executed,way it was with rumsfeld and the military, tommy franks. If you are going to go, have a good reason. We did not, in my opinion. The whole slamdunk. Wmd. Resident, saddam has a other thing is we executed Donald Rumsfeld wanted to go in with about 30 30,000 to 35,000 soldiers, to invade a country the size of the eastern seaboard of the United States. We had nowhere near enough to execute the most execute the mission and get the job done. Andisarming the iraqi Army National police, we fueled the fire of the insurgency. All of these guys were out of a job. Host you are especially critical in the rebuilding part of the book about the contractors the u. S. Used. You were a contractor . Guest i was. And of course when people hear the word contractor and iraq in the same sentence, they think of mercenaries. Security contractors. I call them mercenaries because if it walks the conduct, quacking duck, it is probably a duck. We had contractors doing the job of soldiers. That is a mercenary. But i was a contractor over there. I am a real estate guy. Help ther there to rebuilding and debris creation of the new iraqi army. You have to recruit soldiers. You have to arm soldiers. You have to equip them. You have to house them. I was involved in the group in the construction of barracks and facilities. But the contractors over in iraq were making a windfall. The money that was being made the money that was being lost, the total lack of accountability on the part of contractors. There are 200 photographs in my book, photographs of the base , where 118 million was spent to build literally notwere fit for an animal to live in. The stuff youre looking at, if the audience can see these photographs, those facilities were not even 18 months old. They were not quite 18 months old when his photos were taken. And the four American Construction companies over there making that money, they were pay one they were paid 118 million to build the product. I zero in on that because i am a real estate guy. That is my profession, the one that pays the bills. I am not a career author or a career policy guide. This is just the tip of the iceberg. This is just one tiny example of the slipshod accountability of sincebeing spent in iraq 2003. Page 253 of your books, it suddenly started to sink in what being a contractor in iraq was about. I was just a warm body for my company to collect fees from the government. We are talking with Michael Obrien, author of the book americas destruction of iraq. Lesko go to teresa, life for independents. Good morning. Caller i just wanted to say the whole reason the u. S. Went into iraq in the first place was not because of Nuclear Weapons. It was the same thing with libya. It was because of currency. The United States has been invading country for their own purpose, not to make the country better. But for their own selfie cup selfish, greedy reasons. Look at every country they had invaded. What country has really benefited from what the United States has done . Not one country. The u. S. Invaded libya. You have all of these refugees dying at sea, trying to get to europe, and now europe does not want them but they participated in destroying their countries. The United States is the reason why isis exists today. They dont talk about the part that saudi arabia is playing and it, and that is their ally. They brag about saudi arabia, israel. Guest you are bringing up a really good point. The whole point is, why are we atading countries, as look what happens after we invade them. I say this in my book. A one country, if country invade country b, it could be because country b is an ally being invaded by a neighbor, b is not aor country friend of ours and is invading a neighbor. That happened in 1991. That was not happening in 2003. Lets face it. Even if you get the weapons of mass destruction thing, even if you get down to the currency versus oil, whatever. We invaded a sovereign country again, i love the United States of america, but we invaded a sovereign country led by a bad guy. There are a lot of countries led by bad guys today. We invaded a sovereign country led by a bad guy, and they were notsatisfying saddam was invading a neighbor and was not being invaded by anybody. Why did we do this . You bring up a good point. Ast we have a good look special line this morning for iraq war veterans. Curtis is on the line from georgia. Caller good morning. I just wanted to make a few comments. Your iraq, its about invading a sovereign nation. Five twoto thousand 2006 i went in 2005 to when the insurgency was out of control. You have to realize how these people were living under Saddam Hussein. Death was an everyday thing for the iraqi people. Still is today. Createdon isis has been is because our president hold american soldiers out of iraq , afterinning the victory calling the situation down. These people are going to be fighting each other forever. Refugeesave all these going to europe, and it is because we were through our troops from iraq. And, just to make my last point, it will happen in afghanistan. What has happened, these people know that we are going to leave. We have soldiers in japan. We have soldiers still in europe. We have them all over the world. But the president decided to , andthem out of iraq afghanistan would be twice as worse. Is,t the thing about it the point youre making are very valid. But heres the thing. They can about it this way. I am not trying to belittle anything that you have said. Youre making really good points. The whole thing about pulling out should obama have pulled out of iraq, and so on and so forth. But we were there because we invaded in 2003. He would not have been pulling anybody out of iraq in 2011 if we had not invaded in 2003. You cant look at anything related to iraq, right now, 2011, whatever, without going, why are we there in the first lace . My point, weck to disbanded the iraqi army and the National Police, so then we had to take the job over ourselves and we did not have enough manpower to do it. Host to that point, as you know, or Vice President dick cheney and his wife are out with whyw book, exceptional the world needs a powerful america. A review of a book is coming out this weekend, and the former Vice President talking about the invasion of iraq in 2003, writing those who say the invasion of iraq in 2003 are essentially saying we would be better off if Saddam Hussein was still in power. The closest thing the book comes contrition, is acknowledging the difficulty of the x execution. The war to liberate iraq was indisputably difficult, but the difficult he did not detract from our cause. Guest ok. I would say that the former Vice President is suffering from a really serious case of denial. Ok,ay that the rationale lets look at the rationale for going into the war. Second to last chapter from my book, a desire for war. I8 site a former cia to i agent cite a former cia talking about what was going on in langley leading up to the invasion. George w. Bush had a handful of advisors who wanted to invade iraq. What was saddam doing . Sanctions and all that. The caller talking about the life of the iraqis under saddam. I never said it was great. No way. , to ourould say to that caller who is a veteran, i would say this. How many iraqis are dead because of our invasion in 2003 . How many are done . Ay half a million lets just throw out a number. I feel very comfortable saying half a million. How many have left their country since our invasion . Three and a half million. How many u. S. Soldiers are dead and maimed for life . 4500 dead. The point is, what is worse . Life under saddam and i work with iraqis. I was with iraqis everyday. , but ifd it was not fun you stayed out of trouble and did not stand on a Street Corner and go, down with saddam, if you do that you disappeared. But if you did not do that you just live your life. That changed when we invaded in 2003. Host lets bring in another iraq war vet. Mike is calling in from bethesda, maryland. Caller yes. I take exception to mr. O briens comments about weapons of mass destruction. Even though they did not find any, all the intelligence agencies said there were weapons of mass destruction that saddam had, and that was one of the. Asis of entering the iraq war even though they did not find any, how could all these intelligence agencies bungle that type of information . I truly feelrst there were weapons of mass destruction in iraq at that time, however he moved to them out to syria, or wherever, because he has used them before host if i may, the whole weapons of mass distraction thing, in that argument, and you are talking about syria and all that it is a stretch. Lets they said. Weapons of mass Destruction Program, you know, you have to the facilities. You have to have the infrastructure. You have to have an infrastructure to build it. Said, mr. President , it is a slamdunk that saddam has the weapons of mass Destruction Program for the director of Central Intelligence to have said that he would have had to have had absolute, irrefutable evidence. Irrefutable. People on the ground, human intelligence which bill clinton drastically watered down, people who have physically gone and touched the stuff, we invaded. Where was it . We still have not found it. We found a whole bunch of used artillery rounds. The other thing i want to address the caller on, a defector, the iraqi that the president referred to in his speech and then one week later, colin powell at midnight, 1 00 in the morning at the cia, trying to find something credible to say to the u. N. The next day. Why is he doing that . One week before, the president had said this was the deal, so it turns out curveball made it all up. Made it all up. A guy named allergan obligor. That was our main source of intelligence. He was in german custody and george tenet never even said his own guys over to interrogate the guy and asking questions before the invasion. Why would he not do that . Because he did not want to. Host bill is waiting on the line for democrat. You are on with Michael Obrien, author of americas destruction of iraq. Caller i just wanted to remind everybody that george tenet, i believe the cia director under clinton for about four years before he made those announcements, and george bush was in office for eight months when they knocked down the buildings in new york city and clinton was in office for eight years before that, so anything that happened up to 9 11 was planned under blank clintons clintonsnder bill watch, knox george w. Bushs watch. George tenet, the cia, and everybody else, everybody in europe kept saying, saddam still s, and i just heard colin powell about eight months stick by interview what he said. He said yes, we thought they had , so that is one reason i think it made up the president s mind, i believe. Guest good point. Bill clinton though clinton was handed Osama Bin Laden on a platter. He was handed Osama Bin Laden on a silver platter after the. Ttack on the uss cole now to let Madeline Albright said we should not go after him, what with the muslim world think . Nobody wanted to go after them except for Richard Clarke and my west point classmate who was, at the time, clintons ambassador at large for counterterrorism mike shane. He was there. Dick clark, Richard Clarke was the only one who said, mr. President , ive got a plan. Lets take this guy out, lets take after this guy lets go after the factory and albright said no, we dont want to do that and the rest is history. My classmate, like sheen, apparently after the meeting was over, what do we have to do . Wait until they bombed the pentagon . Totally agree with the caller when 9 11 have happened if bill clinton had taken out Osama Bin Laden . I will state the critical that it would not have. Lets put it this way ahead with have been cut off of the organization. It mighthave happen, have, but somebody else would have been running the show. Are, it never would have happened and as we all know, it has changed our lives. George w. Bush, yes, only in office for about eight months when that occurred and he was handed a ok, he was pig in a poke because bill clinton dropped the ball. Host part of the recount effort in florida that ended up andy that election. Guest i was part of the recount election in florida. I was there in miami in the miami day county Office Building in downtown miami. I can tell you i was there. I was in the room where they chadsunting the because al gore was 1000 votes shy of george w. Bush. The democrats, this will raise their hair, but it was al gore who tried to steal the election. Not the other way around. Because what happened was the county election staff, any ballot that could not be determined, they made their own determination of who the vote was for. How do you do that in america . If the card was mangled or marked up, they determined that the vote was for. Trust me, because gore only selected the most heavily democrat counties in the state. It was going way into gores favor. Did notitnessed we count them. We observed counting employees doing it where they would go gore, gore, gore and all of a sudden gore. And it was not for poor. They were just so used to going gore because it was the most heavily democrat county in the state, so it was all leaving his way. It was orchestrated al gore to get those thousands of votes and it did not work. Host the first one or two chapters of the book, americas monti who of iraq, is been on twitter christ that the destruction of that iraq infrastructure of social and political topics are the main reasons underlying the current mideast problems. Lets go to albert do is been waiting in delaware. On the line for independent. Caller i appreciate you writing a book and all and i apologize for those veterans who are still in denial. They just want the past the buck onto something and they were fighting for something that was honest and just, and it was really a situation that just got out of control. I wanted to ask my question is the destruction of iraq to the neocons the neoconservatives who advised president bush at the time, thank you . Guest absolutely. The question about it. Neocon, neoconservative, whatever. George w. Bush, i have met the man, i have shaken his hand, a couple of photographs of me in the president in the book. He is a nice guy. So was jimmy carter. The fact of the matter is he had people in his close inner circle , dick cheney, who by the way had Better Things to do in the 1960s and the military service when he was being nominated for secretary of defense, and donald , andeld, Condoleezza Rice they hid it they had agendas. The day after 9 11 when the president had his powwow with his 56 five or six principal advisories at camp david, Paul Wolfowitz sneaks in and the president said, what are you doing here . Oh, mr. President , i need to be here. And the president said, ok, instead of saying you are not a cabinet secretary, are you . Call for this was one of the key Paul Wolfowitz was one of the key people pushing for the invasion of iraq the day after, the weeks after 9 11 and nobody said what are you talking about iraq for . You will read in my book, afghanistan after 9 11, no problem. Not for me, but then leaving and going to iraq pardon me, and afghanistan, what happens when you do not maintain it, it turns out where it is right now. So the neocons were calling the shots in the Bush Administration and it is a real shame and i agree with the caller completely. Again, lack of accountability and lack of the president to be able to say we are not going to do that. Why would we do that . Why would go to iraq . They were most likely playing on a threat to his father and saddams supposed effect to his father and this that in the next thing, but saddam was not invading anybody and he was not being invaded and it was a sovereign country. We invaded a sovereign country and where not supposed to do that. The nazis did that when they went into poland. Why did we do that . Were supposed to be the good guys. Host tracy has been waiting on the line from republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning. Think, in our, i country right now is the state cannot the council Foreign Relations, the project for new american century, they are ofside any scrutiny unelected officials and they hold so much power i think they went both sides of the Political Parties in these key positions. They intimidate or whatever for they threatened that they cannot get reelected, but when they make decisions, they all caps gather and they have financial issues. We are left ear to deal with this, scratching our heads, and nobody is held accountable and we dont do after action. Just everything is outside. Everything of the typical american scrutiny. We are unable to hold anybody accountable. Guest you know, i will tell you no offense to my over no offense to my other callers, but that was a great question. I know conspiracy theorists, no way at all, but you are right. They are all organizations and these are people who are either or way too much political power than they deserve. And you go who is running the show . The thing about it is, why are we here right now . Why did i read my book . Why did i write my book . Why was i fortunate enough to be invited by cspan and john onto show . It is to educate the American People. People need to be educated. Hey, this is what happening here. I book is not the only one, of course, highly recommended, but i took information from a lot of different sources plus my own firsthand information. You are right. The militaryindustrial complex. Well, during the second world war, a gets to your point. Companies were starting to build boats, planes, bullets, rifles. Great, we needed that stuff. The United States government did not have the ability to do it all. The war ends and the companies are going especially if they were owned by shareholders where is my return . What are you going to make and sell for me today . And then you go, is the tail walking the dog . What is the real need for a lot of this stuff . Host because you do not believe in conspiracies, why did you feel the need to reargue whether president obama was born in the United States or not in your book . Guest you know, the reason i brought that up is because, again, accountability. We are debating and for the readers, i talk about a lot of things in my book. This is one of them. You might say what does that have to do with iraq war . Starts at theng top. As i said earlier in my interview. Who are reelecting as president s . Just because somebody gets elected president doesnt mean he is right for the job. Im not saying that just about barack obama, im saying that about george w. Bush, im saying about a lot of people. We need to elect by the president s. And now they are saying the whole debate about the 14th amendment, well, it is open for interpretation. When i when obama was elected, the fact to me was that he was not able to prove that he was born in the United States. There is no question on whether he was american. Now they are saying they do not need that proof. All you need is an american parent. At the time i wrote that, the the guy evenwas for here in the United States . That would be a topic of discussion between you could call me whatever you want i have not been, me, personally, i have not been convinced that he was. Host and youre not convinced by the birth certificate that the administration has put on whitehouse. Gov . Guest no, that only makes it more doubtful because his birth on thecate a hospital birth certificate first of all, it is a facsimile of a birth certificate. It is not, and no one has ever said this and i will it is not a copy of the actual birth certificate. If i were to go diamond falls new york cash to Highland Falls, new york i was born at west point, my dad was a professor, i would have done it because Highland Falls has the records of everyone born at the hospital at west point. Papera copy of this obviously, that is not it. I had to go to the secretary of york of the state of new who sent me an actual copy of the birth certificate with the signature of the doctor who delivered me. I have never seen that. Also, the hospital on his birth certificate didnt exist. It was a different name when he was born. That is its current name today. I dont know how you do that. Host Michael Obrien is author of americas destruction of iraq. You can check out his website. We appreciate your time. Guest thank you, john. We will review fridays job report and talk about what it might mean to a possible hike in the shortterm Interest Rates high the Federal Reserve. We will be right back. This labor day weekend, three days of politics, books, and American History. On a full day of special programs on cspan. Here are a few of the features for labor day monday. Beginning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, a town hall event in seattle discusses the pros and cons of big data and civil liberties. At 6 30 that evening, a debate on how to reduce poverty between president obama and the president of the American Enterprise institute arthur brooks. At 8 00, mark cuban and former president s bill clinton and george w. Bush on leadership skills. On cspan2s book tv at noon, a lack three our conversation on indepth, with ferc former second lady and senior fellow and then cheney who will take phone calls, emails, and tweets. On afterwards, Catherine Eden talks about how families from chicago cap elation and the mississippi delta are surviving on no income. Ator day monday beginning is, on political issues on American History to be on cspan3, today at 4 00, on out,america, crowded addressing overcrowded schools following the postworld war ii baby boom. On labor day monday, our interview with alien a philanthropist david rubenstein. Philanthropistth david rubenstein. Kit apple schedule at www. Cspan. Org. Get our full schedule at www. Cspan. Org. Joins usson schwartz after fridays release of the jobs numbers. Leading up to that report being released, it is the last major piece of data that the Federal Reserve is taking into account before they make or they could make this decision to raise shortterm Interest Rates at the september meeting later this month. Did we get any clarity from the numbers . Guest actually, there was kind of fodder for both sides of the debate. Whether to raise Interest Rates are not. On the one hand, the Unemployment Rate fell. 2 to 5. 1 which is the lowest before the financial crisis since april 2008. That was good news. The not so good news was that the total number of jobs added was about 173,000, which is 40,000he most 50,000 and people less expected and a bit less in the trend over the last two months. There is a question of whether that is quite Strong Enough to justify them raising rates in september. It actually did not clarify things. It was an interesting report, one of the most anticipated reports and years, but it did not necessarily make it clear either way. It actually heightened suspense in a lot of ways. T give us a oneonone give us a oneonone on how the reports work. How can the Unemployment Rate dropped 5. 2 when job gains were a lot less than originally predicted . Guest actually, great question. The monthly unemployment consists of really two surveys. People like you and me, census workers go around saying, do you have a job . Do you work . To work as long as you want to . That kind of thing. That report is called the household survey. That is what establishes the Unemployment Rate, the one that went to 5. 1 . At the same time, the Labor Department gets reports from companies and establishments about their payrolls. Do they go up, do they go down . By Different Industries and different companies. That forms that number of the payroll gains of hiring or haveg, so basically you two separate surveys. Over time, they tend to correlate, but you can have different results monthtomonth. Host as we talking about this jobs report, and the important decision about raising the Interest Rates, our viewers can join in, democrats 202 7848000. Republicans 202 7848001. Independent 202 7488002. We are talking with nelson timesz, new york economic reporter. Take us through the argument for not raising the Interest Rates. What our opponents of raising the Interest Rates they will happen if they are raised . Guest the folks who pay for what they call and accommodated or looser monetary policy, i. E. Not raising rates they are known as does in terms of the Federal Reserve policymaking committee, the odves argue doves Unemployment Rates have fallen but namely the people in 40 workforce is actually at or low, so a lot of people have given up searching for work so they are not counted as unemployed which has the effect of lowering Unemployment Rate. They say there are a lot of people not working and they note that wage gains have been very, very small, mainly yes, more people are working but they are 94 , 95 who have jobs and they have not gotten raises or got small raises. Finally, they say there is little evidence of inflation pressures building, so why not keep rates low until you are the jobonvinced that market and labor market is as healthy as it could be, especially given the volatility overseas recently in china and also wall street. That is the argument against raising rates. I think most of them would favor a rate hike soon, they just feel like we do not need to do it this month. We could wait until even october or they could wait until december. Something like that. Wet so if we have doves, ase talks as well hawks well . Guest right. Hawks say that the economy, by other measures by gdp growth and industrial production, is doing fine. They worry about inflation and pressures building down the road and they say it is time to kind of return Interest Rates to the kind of long pattern of normality before the financial crisis and great recession, so we understand the economy maybe not as strong as he would like it to be but they feel like it is time to kind of get back on that path to normal monetary policy. Keep in mind, shortterm Interest Rates have been near zero since the late fall of 2008. A couple months after the Lehman Brothers collapsed, and we have not had an Interest Rate hike since 2000 six. I must a decade. I do not think anyone wants to raise shortterm Interest Rates rapidly. It is more a matter of saying, ok, we want to get back on a trajectory to something consistent with historical patterns. Host interested in hearing our viewers thoughts and questions in this last segment of , newngton journal. York times washington monetary economic reporter. Kenny is on the line for republicans. Good morning. Caller i think we have market manipulation by the guys that run the market, particularly to try keep Interest Rates down. I do not believe it all happened the way it showed on the boards. Something is wrong. They may take money the next day. I mean, explain that. Host why do you think that, kenny . Why dont you trust it . Caller i dont trust nothing that happens of the business market. All of the time they are liars and no one has any trouble from what happens. Anything with the stock market seems to be false. It does not affect the regular folks at all. Host do you invest in the stock market . No. Er id. If give nobody my money. That is crazy. Host Nelson Schwartz, this lack of trust for the wall Street Market . Guest a couple of interesting points that you can kind of get s comments. E caller first of all, people on the left and right are wary sometimes of free markets. Particularly of stock markets. Keep in mind that in china, which is a sensibly a communist regime, the government is trying to prop up the stock market and as for been a people from selling in some cases. There are people on the left in china who are nervous about the stock markets going down and theres the long tradition of people on the right in america, populist, wary of wall street, so i think that is part of politics. I think the other part of it is, and this is may be more relevant to the United States, we focus a lot on wall street, focus a lot on the stock market. Really, more than half of americans have no exposure to stocks and the money in the stock market. Including pension funds, retirement plans, 401 k s, the portion of the population that owns individual stocks or mutual funds is pretty small. Only about 20 . The stock market has done very well since the recession. It has been a great investment over the long term for peoples retirements, say like mutual funds, but many, Many Americans are not benefiting from that. Actually, the saving rate for americans is very low, so i think people are kind of confused by what they see in terms of those swing on wall street. Host for those folks and people like kenny who say theyre not involved at all in the stock market, how does he get impacted by raising the shortterm Interest Rate, if the fed goes ahead with this decision . Guest the irony is that while the shortterm while the hike in shortterm rates may not be so good for stocks, it may not be so bad. It is where there is volatility and it is a change for people with savings like seniors or people relying on savings accounts, interestbearing accounts, they may actually see a rise in yields on savings. Not a big one, but lets say you 1 in savings of accounting and that rate might go up a little bit, so that will benefit savers. Im saying people who do not have stocks and are just keeping the money in the bank the copeland of under the mattress. Host lets go to patricia in florida. Client for democrat. Good morning. Caller thank you for having me. Mr. Schwartz, i have to say there is a group of people who in this United States today are considered the longterm unemployed. Unless we do something to help this generation of people and create a job that can at least put food on the table beside a public benefit, what happens to this country . Going nowhere. I do not see it. Yes, you talk about the markets and you talk about stocks and. Onds and anything else if people do not have money to put food on the table, they cannot invest in the markets. At least that was my case always. The think is is that we have to help the people here in this country. Not just the markets, not the 1 , not the 20 , all of us. We stand united. We need help. Any suggestions . T host also explore we are with longterm unemployment as well. Guest the caller makes some very good points. That the number of longterm unemployed, that is people without a job for more than 26 weeks or so, has been elevated since the recession. It has come down very, very slowly. A lot of the people who have lost their jobs in recessions never found jobs. Vote many drop. Of workforce entirely and stopped looking for work. This is after theyre counted as a longterm unemployed. In the survey, they drop out entirely. Maybe they are are on Social Security disability or Something Like that, maybe they are in the informal economy working here and there for cash. That is a real problem and it is a real problem also because that ofe word has not sort what they call rescaling it is not reskilled, so their skills have deteriorated and it is a problem for the longterm. Often the people losing their jobs today and up getting jobs more quickly, but you still have that group that has never found work. That is one reason why those doves we talked about do not want to raise Interest Rates too soon because they want the labor market to get tight enough so employers turn to some of those people who have been out of work and kind of get them back in the workforce. Host what does the term full employment domain . Full employment mean . Basically, economists and the Federal Reserve considerable employment around 5 on the Unemployment Rate. The traditional concern is that if unemployment falls below 5 , the labor market would get so tight that employers would be forced to raise wages and you would have kind of an inflationary cycle building up. Inflation is sort of part of the fed has two mandates, one is goodted kind of create conditions for economic employment and the other part of the mandate is to make sure inflation does not get out of hand and to keep the economy stable. That right now we are kind of on the knife edge of that. We do not know what is traditional full employment 5 or below is the threshold or is it a little lower than that because you have all of this slack in the labor market, namely the people who dropped out. The question is whether the fed has a little more headroom, a little more wiggle room in terms of raising rates. Host august Unemployment Rate 5. 1 , 173,000 jobs created in the month of august. That is the report that came out friday. We are talking about it with Nelson Schwartz of york times, and economics reporter there and how it impacts the decision to raise shortterm Interest Rates. Ernest has been waiting. Life for independent. Caller first of all, i do not know your name, but you are an awesome presenter and cspan is awesome, so thank you. Im always calling in and listening to cspan. My question is for mr. Swartz beut what other tools can used to help main street get access to the capital of the lower Interest Rates . You are saying that Interest Rates have been though since 2006 and main street has not had any account, especially entrepreneurs who would need money to create jobs and help the economy. Toy do not get access capital. What other tools can be used to help small and Medium Enterprises to get access to capital so they can create jobs for the middle class in america . That is the question. Host Nelson Schwartz . Guest i think there is access to capital for many companies. I think the small and Mediumsized Companies that the caller refers to is more of an issue. One reason why the Federal Reserve lowers Interest Rates to near zero and even longterm Interest Rates for like mortgage or Something Like that are historically quite low is to encourage people to borrow. And make it cheaper for people to borrow. There is still an issue of after the financial crisis and banks lost tens of billions for mortgages going south, there still is hesitancy to land in many cases in this small to mediumsized businesses. A lot of companies are doing ipos, that is one means of access to capital. Banks are lending. One issue in terms of main that democrats and many liberals propose is for the governments invest more in infrastructure. The Infrastructure Investments like highways, bridges. We have to 2nd avenue subway under construction in my house in new york. There has been talk about tunnels under the hudson river, if anyone has taken amtrak lately, it is certainly needed. And more liberal economists would say, hey, the government should invest hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure. That would promote employment and provide more capital. That is one theory. Im not endorsing it as a journalist. I describe, i do not prescribe. That is for politicians, but that is one of the economic arguments. Who hasts go to day been waiting in mckinley bill, california. Line for republicans. Good morning. You are on. Caller thank you. Imagine all, i cannot the fed raising Interest Rates at a time when Commodity Prices are plunging and the rest of the world is our verge of a deflationary recession. The strong dollar is already hurting our exports. I just cannot imagine the fed raising Interest Rates. I want quick comment on the low wages in this country because we have had an influx of millions of Illegal Immigrants into the country who are willing to work for low wages. Every other commodity, is subject to the loss of supply and demand to the laws of supply and demand. When you have a supply of any product, including labor, increases relative to the demand for that product, the price of that product is pushed down. In this case, wages. This is not rocket science. Andsimple laws of supply demand. Unfortunately, we continue to have an influx of Illegal Immigrants and our president has not only failed to enforce our immigration laws, he has made it our official government policy not to enforce our immigration laws. He actually issued an executive order that essentially said that anybody who enters this country illegally can stay. He did stipulate that people would be required to have been in the country for five years but it has become obvious that our government does not have the resources to enforce our borders. Investigate whether millions of people have illegally been here five years or longer, so the message has gone out that if you can get into this country, you can stay. Schwartz, lets talk wages. The topic you have been talking about recently at the New York Times. Guest it is clear that wage very, verybeen very, slow. Stagnant in some fields. Actually declining in others. Real wages, namely wages after inflation is taken into account, have actually declined, especially in the lower paid fields. Saint restaurant workers, home health aides, nurses, those kind of lower paid and sometimes. Luecollar skills type jobs wages have declined. There is a tremendous amount of debate among very good economists about the world that immigration plays. That is hotly debated. It is not as clear as the caller suggests, although there is evidence obviously that a lot of onigration can affect wages lower skilled jobs. Save for those lower paid restaurant workers. On the other hand, keep in mind that there are a lot of other factors affecting the wages beyond immigration, legal or illegal, mainly globalization. The company has the option of moving that factory or moving that call center to china or where workers are paid a lot less, so that is going to affect wages. The other thing is automation. If anybody has driven recently, there are many fewer toll takers , there is easy pass in new york, there are fewer tellers at the bank, they are atms. As those type of jobs are placed replaced by automation, you have downward pressure on wages. Is a hotlyation debated issue, no question, but it is too simple to blame stagnant wages on that. Host from the august report from the bureau of labor statistics, in august, the average Hourly Earnings for all employees on private payrolls rose by eight cents and 25 and nine cents following a 6 gain in july. Hourly earnings have risen by two point 2 over the course of this year. We are talking about the jobs report and talking about this decision i the fed to raise shortterm Interest Rates with nelson shorts of the New York Times. We have about 20 minutes left. Gregory is up next on the line for democrats. Caller good morning. Im glad you took my call. Time beensome listening to political discussions on the internet and television. I have heard no one on the mentioningside ever the word multipliers having any real effect on anything. They do not seem to understand what the multiplier is. The multiplier is essentially it have onee this if i dollar and i spend a dollar, and the dollar is respent by the person i spent it with, then that person in turn spends it again. The number of times that that happens within a year is called the multiplier. If nobody is spending any money because they are hoarding the that will prevent jobs or anything else like that. In fact, [indiscernible] that our government did in particular in 2008, and a few earlier years and of the years, and they are still at it. Host what is the best way to get the multiplier working . Caller the best way to get the multiplier working is to raise import to the levels where they used to be in the 1990s and reimposed that import duty or foreign goods. Ed that way it will be an additional incentive to u. S. Manufacturers to outsource the jobs. Host do you want to talk trade policy question mark . Guest im to play Multiplier Effect. That is the relevant point, however, raising duties would not benefit the economy necessarily. It might benefit some domestic manufacturers, but there is a lot of criticism of cheap goods being imported from china. Those goods are actually getting cheaper because the u. S. Dollar is getting stronger and the chinese has devalued their currency. However, for all the complaints about cheap chinese imports, go to walmart and most consumer goods are made in china and most American Consumers like those cheap chinese or foreignmade goods because that is where everything comes from now, at least in terms of consumer goods , for better or worse. I do not know that the import issue is really where it is at. It is true that manufacturing has a higher Multiplier Effect than other industries. In terms of kind of consumers are spending. Consumer spending is healthy. That has been something keeping the economy strong lately gasuse as everybody knows, prices are down so they have more money to spend. In terms of improving economic growth, i think liberals and democrats would say we need to kind of have more Government Spending like the infrastructure approach i mentioned. The conservative or republican approach would probably be, hey, lets reduce regulation and there would be more money in the economy. Businesses could act more freely on the regulatory front and consumers without more money if you cut taxs. Im not endorsing either approach, but you know, those are the two kind of philosophies right now that you here in washington and elsewhere. Host in our wage conversation, dee dee on twitter voting, it takes to workers to have a standard of living that one worker gave us 50 years ago. Dont we want rages to wise . You can follow the conversation on cspan wj, but we will go to ralph who is the wash waiting in washington, d. C. I for democrats. Browse, you with us . Ralph, you would this . We will go to pat on a line for democrats. Caller hello, i am calling because i get really upset when they keep referring to people as dropping out of the labor market. They have not dropped out of the labor market. They have run out of unemployment. Once they run out of unemployment, they have no way to be counted and then they cannot afford funds, they have trouble getting transportation to and from anywhere because a lot of them have to give up their cars. I have personally been contact phones for people that have been unemployed and had no phones. It angers me to say that they dropped out. They are just not being counted anymore. They are making it seem like a choice to drop out is what you are saying . Caller they are saying they dropped out. They have not dropped out. A are still looking but they are not counted. Host nelson shorts, do you want to pick this up . Nelson schwartz do you want to pick this up . Guest im not an expert to determine in the household, but i do know that in some cases to go doortodoor and they knock on doors, so it is not strictly a matter of phones. The other thing i would add is beat, talked for my economics, i talked to a lot of unemployed people, people looking for work, some of whom have dropped out, and most still have phones. They may have given up other things like an automobile, a great point because you need to get to where your job is, especially if you dont live in the state of new york, but phones are pretty low on the list of things to go in people lose their jobs. To theo get back discussion of shortterm Interest Rates, there is a question from twitter. Isnt there a concern that the low fund rate is inflating stock prices . What would be the effect of a stock market collapse . Guest it would not be good, thats for sure. I dont think anyone in the mainstream thanks even. 25 4. 5 percentage point of increase rate would stop would prompt a stock market collapse. Yes, low Interest Rates have benefited stocks and benefited wall street. It makes it cheaper to borrow money to invest and makes it easier and cheaper for companies to borrow, so that improves profit margins. You could have a negative impact on stock prices. Most mainstream observers do not collapse ifill rates are hyped. Is on our libel republicans. Good morning, shirley. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Jobsr i think that our have been taken to Foreign Countries and that they need to be brought back to america, American Workers. And china, i have heard several reports of our toys and stuff that is being made over there that it is filled with lead. Yet, maybe it is cheaper of it oute, but we need to look for our country. America. Our american dollars, our american jobs over here. To this ong taxed every level, and we need somebody in that will put a stop to some of that. And the fed rate across the board, and a fair rate across the board for everybody to pay. I live on a fixed income and i cannot even made my bills me to my bills. It is very hard for me to meet my bills. Life and i doy not get enough to pay my bills. For the people that are coming up now, ive got the granddaughter. I want her to have the same opportunity in life that i had when i was younger. A job market for the American People. That is not here now. When you see that the Unemployment Rate is at the lowest in has been in years, coming down to about 5. 1 number, close to what is described as full employment at 5 , you are saying it is not really being seen where you are . Caller right, right. And people are having to work two or three jobs because the andis like mcdonalds hardees and waitresses and stuff like that they do not make that much money. Want Nelson Schwartz, i you to jump it because in one of your stories recently, you talked about a former u. S. Member of the military who is back working at wendys, job he had before he went into the military. He workedually, yeah, 20 years ago when he was in high school. He made the equivalent of more after inflation that he is making now. Namely, he was working as a cook 20 years ago, spent couple years in college, did the couple jobs, serve to tours in iraq and his back working in fast food and making the equivalent of less. Raises the point. I sympathize with their because i have a twoyearold daughter and i want her to have opportunities that i have and that my parents had and that we all worry for the future. I think what is he is skills and education. That is the only way in this economy that you are going to have a shot at a decent paying job. It does not always mean a Fouryear College degree, but it could mean an apprenticeship were you get skills as a plumber, electrician, welder, it could be college, going to professional school like medical school or law school. The problem is only one third of American Workers have College Degrees and only even in the from 25 to 35, it is only about half. If you do not have a College Degree or specific skills that i mentioned, it is a very tough job market. On the other hand, i talked to employers who are trying to Hire Software coders, website developers, and they cannot find people with those skills. The salaries for those jobs have gone up. Starting salary, so when i talk to for my story in yesterdays paper, the starting salary has toe up from 45,000 to 50,000 155,000 to 60,000 simply because there are not as many available. The key is skills. If you do not have skills, it is a tough economy and that is really hard for middle age to older workers. That is why i want my daughter to get really good with what they called stem skills science, technology, engineering, mathematics. Lunatic, butve a people need those skills to drive more in the future. Host the first part of that callers question was outsourcing. I dont think there is an outsourcing part of the jobs report. Way to go to get the best information on how many jobs get outsourced . Look at different fields where the job has occurred and where it has not occurred. Took a tremendous hit between 2008 and lets say 2010. Some of those jobs were automated, many of those jobs were sent overseas and actually theg back to 2000 or even 1990s after nafta. A lot of manufacturers moved their manufacturing to northern mexico. What is really interesting is that americans like everything in economics, it cuts costs and there are benefits. I mentioned my daughter. When we have to shop for a crib, the made in american groups were much more expensive. The made in china once were cheap. Call mentioned lead, we were concerned about stuff made overseas, is it safe . The thing is that if you cannot afford a more expensive crib, people are going to make going to buy those cheaper ones because they are cheaper. That is the tension that exists, consumers and manufacturers have to contend with it. Host if you want to follow his work on the New York Times website, it is at Nelson Schwartz on twitter. Tesco to anthony in colorado. Line for independent. Thank you for waiting period are waiting. Caller i have two questions. You just said something i want to comment about. You talked about your daughter. I have two daughters and there may 20s, married, both her and her husband got engineering degrees were hired in the Food Industry in management positions. An engineering degree all based on math at the tip for middle school on and it enabled them to get those degrees and then theyre making 200,000 between them. That the couple had business degrees and they are making 70,000 between them. To your point, if you could move your kids down that path, it will serve you well. Now, my two questions. The Recovery Plan obama put in place, right after taking office, how much of that went to tax breaks . First is how much of that actually went to Building Infrastructure . If you followed the fdr model were infrastructure was building outdoor eisenhower building the highway system and then employment created from the jobs lifestyles,ncome one question is specifically around that patch issue versus infrastructure. The second one, to the best of your ability, something i have a hard time getting my hands around, is an you explain to the best of your ability the valuation of currency and have the daughter how the dollar floats and what that means versus other currencies . Hard something i have a time grasping, so i look forward to your answers on both fronts. Thank you. Could devoteics we entire segments to, but take them in whichever or do you would like. Guest im going to talk about the currency briefly because it is so complicated but in the shortest possible way, currencies and do not trade according to Gold Standard anymore. President may or drop that in the early all caps on and the supposed way to put it is that currencies trade terms of a longterm view of investors in the market on these economic stability and future our country. The stability of harm also economicmerican challenges and gridlock in washington but not, the butte is that is more stable and has a more secure future than many other. That is why the dollar stronger. Of the site, because as you said, we are not just for show but a week of shows that. In terms of the stimulus package, the majority of the stimulus package was in actual infrastructure, however, a substantial portion was tax breaks and some economists criticize that because they say there is nothing wrong with tax breaks, but when people have a tax break, they tend to save that money rather than spend it, so you do not get as big of a bank for the buck or Multiplier Effects, as one of the other callers mentioned, so there was a big chunk of spending but they were tax rates. Host lets go to robin. A few minutes left. Forer i want to apologize calling at this hour. I called at 6 22 to make the comment because i am the one who seeks Marriage Equality in california and she told me i cannot comment on that issue and i could only comment on the work issue, so if you do not want to comment on a previous issue, i will not. Host weve got Nelson Schwartz on now, an expert in economics, lets use his knowledge. Caller all right, im sorry. Thank you. Host all right, landon is waiting in oregon. Good morning. Line for republicans. Theer hi, i am amazed at mendacity that you are showing and the fact that you are not even talking about youth unemployment or black youth unemployment for that matter. If you think we have a serious problem with black youth unemployment in this country . Guest i dont think mendacity is the right term in this case. Obviously, we have a problem with minority unemployment, a problem with youth unemployment, i do not think anyone disputes or disagrees that unemployment for those groups is too high. Thes more than double ordinary Unemployment Rate and the general Unemployment Rate. I think the question and policymakers and what they contend with is how to improve that. That is a big challenge for policymakers in the years ahead. Go,host before we let you take us to the schedule of the Federal Reserve meetings in the months ahead and went to expect a decision, if a decision does come, on raising Interest Rates. Basically, the Federal Reserve is going to meet on september 16 and september 17. A couple of weeks, a wednesday and thursday. On thursday afternoon, they will issue a statement on whether they intend to raise rates are not. There will be a press conference with janet yellen, the chair of the Federal Reserve, to follow. That is on thursday, the 17th. If they do not raise rates or even if they do, there is another meeting in october, although, the view is that there is not a press conference scheduled for that session. They could schedule one, but there is not one scheduled by now. Because of that, wall street rings that if you put out a hike in october, thanks that if he put out a hike in october, theyre looking in december, the last meeting of the year. They do not if raise rates in september, we could get a hike in october or december. Host you can read all about it in the are times the New York Times, with Nelson Schwartz. Thank you for your time. Guest great to be here. Host make sure to tune in tomorrow on labor day. Special labor day show. We will have mark makes of the right to Work Foundation and Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution on a discussion on the right to work laws and unions. We will also be joined by the ceo of the National Association for the selfemployed for discussion on selfemployment in america. To thewill talk president of the black chamber of commerce who will join us for conversation on minority owned businesses in this country. That is tomorrow on washington journal. Have a great sunday. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] next, newsmakers, with joseph kurtz. Then, Cardinal Donald wuerl talks about the pope policy upcoming visit to the u. S. Then, a discussion on the around Nuclear Agreement with defense secretary ashton carter. Newsmakersuest on this week is the archbishop of the legal, kentucky, joseph kurtz. Youll be surprised to hear that our topic is the preparation of the United States for the upcoming visit of pope francis. Thank you so much for being our guest this week. My pleasure, happy to be with you. Diamond covers politics for the. Stephen, youre up first. Take you for joining us. Several popes have visited the u. S. Before. The previous two popes of been out of washington. None of them have done what we are going to see this time around. Im curious, what took so long . Why now . What took so long to do this . Great question. The pope responded once the invitation was given. My understanding is that john boehner wrote on behalf of the house of representatives. Together with senator mitch mcconnell, they agreed to make this an open invitation. It is my understanding that this is the first time he has been invited. It is a special privilege. We are happy that he will be on the public square. We are eager for him to come. Ild