Dial. If you are considering after hardy, call us. Host you can also send us your thoughts on social media. Now, we will be airing the Libertarian Convention live right after washington journal this morning. Cigarette for that. Gary johnson will be on the program on tuesday. Be sure to tune in. Enemy time, lets take a look at this poll that looks at exactly how tight is racist become. It shows a decreasing spread in the polls between Hillary Clinton and donald trump. 46 of registered voters say that they would prefer hillary 43 sayingpared to that they would prefer donald trump. Donald trump pulling ahead hit their since the spring with Hillary Clinton declining in the polls at the same time. In the meantime many people are saying that they would also consider thirdParty Candidate. This survey also shows that the number of people who say that they would consider independent or Third Party Candidates are growing. Americans6, 40 of say that they would consider someone from a third arty compared to just about 40 in april of 2012 and less than 40 in january of 2008. So, definitely a larger number of people looking to consider an outsider there. Lets also take a look at the survey from Morning Consult. It shows that Hillary Clinton has worrying percent of the vote compared to donald trump with 35 of the vote. This poll also shows that gary johnson, the likely libertarian president ial nominee, polling with 10 of the vote there as well. The story and politico asks this question does the Libertarian Party finally have a chance . Here is a little bit from that article. A quote from their national quoted asdirector, saying we are seeing record interest in the party. Membership has spiked. It has gone up 30 in the last few months. We are also seeing recordsetting media the party is host we are taking your phone calls this morning on whether you are can sitter in a thirdParty Candidate in this unprecedented and Historic Campaign cycle. Lets talk to sam, from north pole, arkansas. Considering a thirdParty Candidate. Are you in arkansas or alaska, sam . Caller alaska. To see was so surprised alaska, i wasnt sure i was correct. Go ahead, sam. Caller absolutely. Its 3 00 in the morning here. I was so juiced from watching the Libertarian Party last night, it was fantastic. A lot of truth got put out, especially on the libertarian on the militaryindustrial complex and how dangerous that institution is to our country. I do hope they make the right decision and go with john mcafee or one of the other candidates. I think that gary johnson is not a great representation of the party. Hes a decent man but he does ability to take on the militaryindustrial complex and nsa, like so many other candidates do. That is the most important issue. I hope that all americans can understand that. The survival of our country thends on the seating of militaryindustrial complex. How do you feel about bill weld . Caller hes an infiltrator, not to be trusted. I might consider voting for johnson if you were paid up with peterson or mcafee. Or the doctor. Even darryl that a great job last night. But johnson is a no go. That is sam, calling all the way from alaska. Turning to the phone lines, dave wigle is on the phone. He is a Washington Post political reporter in orlando, florida, covering the Libertarian National convention. David wigle, good morning to you. Thank you so much for joining us. The headline of your story this morning says proving up tough sell to libertarians. We just heard from a caller who said that bill weld is an infiltrator to the party. What is the mood down there . Caller the most passionate and the most readily speaking people of the ones with the party. Theres a radical faction of the Libertarian Party that makes up about one third of the party that believed what he believes. That the party should exist to present something completely different. There is no point to the party if it doesnt. Another sense of it i have heard is that the party is so guaranteed to have a good year that they should nominate somebody hardcore, not someone with more appeal. I dont think its a majority opinion. I think that whats happened is that unlike 2012, when governor johnson chose jim gray, he chose somebody who he thought would expand their credibility and more. Its definitely backfired. They admitted it. Probably not in a way that will end his candidacy, but in a way that hes had to work hard to overcome. Who else is among the nominees for the libertarian nomination . Thatr well, the people get the most support, as venture last night when they had to use their delegate tokens to get people in the debate, Austin Peterson, who is Party Activist. He speaks through the ron paul and kane and bounce through Libertarian Party and fox news. He is not actually the ultimate challenger, because he wants to the rid of what they call the nonaggression principle. The Libertarian Party is on record against initiating force for any reason. He wants the rid of that, radicals do not. Is running an almost kind of philosophical trying to think of a nonpejorative word a campaign that says attitude and philosophical openness. Israelite on policy and very big on how libertarians should be the sort of place that spreads the philosophy of self actualization and individualism. There is darrell parry, the caller mentioned, a libertarian Free State Party activist. Who is absolutely a radical and wants government eliminated in every way that it can be eliminated. I would say that the problem for those guys is that no one has the perfect combination of factors to overcome some like johnson. There are also libertarians a member 2004 . The party did not have someone like johnson. They didnt have a former republican prep coming in promising to expand the base. They went with a activist who had no money or National Appeal and had terrible results. There are still people that we remember that drove out the internal numbers. It is difficult to get a media foothold. Aboutdavid wigle, what the choice of ill wells . How is that playing out amongst the Party Delegates . It has not won over anyone who didnt like gary johnson already. He won the nomination in 2012 on the first alec, close to 70 support. Against the fairly weak field. What has changed this year is tot there are more delegates bring more people to the convention itself. Delegates300 more than last time. Years sinceeen 12 the party didnt nominate a republican to join the party. Just as i was saying that they were people who remember there are people who dont remember that or who have put that aside and come to resent how public former republican politicians come to the party and promise to expand, which they do with dont seem to leave a lasting legacy. Ofre is and also kind johnsonsmpaign about campaign spending. When people consider all bar in 2008, he spent money and went into debt. Johnson has stuck around to build the party, but still has the debt from that campaign. George philly is a Party Activist who has run for president , although not this year, and has been spreading around the reports of how much Money Johnson spends on consultants. , isof what he has raised not atypical for a campaign, but he is trying to put it out there that johnson is an affable and ace guy who is going to run deadend partisan looking campaign. Wells does not help that. One rumor that i hear when i talk to people is that wells is going to raise money for johnson and failed to communicate the partys message, but hes been out of practice. You last ran for office in 2006. Hes gotten better in the few areas ive seen in the hallways, but hes kind of patrician and not terribly up to speed a libertarian dogma. If i had to boil it down, jeb bush when running for president invented a very kind of phrase,ally eloquent that he was willing to lose the primary to win the general election. Be more centrist than the party electorate. Thats kind of a johnson and wells are doing. This sounds a get tough road even amongst libertarians themselves. How much of an influence do you think the candidacy, if they are nominated, will have on the general election . Caller they are at the moment polling around 10 . Far better than theyve ever done before. One question is whether voters that dont like Hillary Clinton and donald trump, because most just hear about the Libertarian Party, poke around and find they are good enough there is this assumption that voters that aret like the two parties natural libertarians. I think i will be tested. Before the moment one thing that is helping them is that when asked about the twoParty Candidates who want to go for someone else, johnson and wells seemed like the people most interested in reaching out to them. Again, unless you already believe what they believe, its easy to imagine the country glomming onto to former governors who seem to have the right level of experience. That was a fun last day. John mcafee specifically argued the party couldnt win the white house, so they should have someone were alec around their principles. Who were more eloquent around the rents. Peterson was angry around winning, trump supporting people like rand paul. Johnson strategy is more and it has caused skepticism just because people feel like well, on the one hand there is an opening for them. Thehe other do they exploit opening by going for something familiar or Something Different . Was dave right, that wigle from the Washington Post. Stakes for taking time out of your day to join us. Caller i appreciate it. Thank you. Host cspan will be covering the Libertarian Convention live and have the likely nominee, gary johnson, on tuesday morning. Jamessgton journal calling. Good morning, james. Caller how are you this morning . Host good. Caller happy memorial day. Host what is your thought . Voting for Hillary Clinton. Shes had the most experience, has been around all of this, secretary of state, senator and ill let. I encourage everybody who is to throw their support behind hillary. We cannot allow this hotheaded crazy man, donald trump, to be the president of the United States. He will wind up getting us in some pet of war or something or other. The people out there thinking about a third party, they need to go ahead and get behind hillary. All the democrats that havent been voting, i urge you to get registered and get her elected president. Shes going to be the best that. I hope that hillary picks was that the that hillary picks Elizabeth Warren as a running mate. Host go ahead, you are on the air. Caller yes. I am looking at someone different. An outsider, like johnson. Looking forward to the convention. I mean, i have talked about hillary who, you know, just look at her record. Look at sanders and look at trump. Three bad choices. Where are the women libertarians . I havent seen one come out. So, i am considering johnson. You know, and also i think he has like around 20 support . To be on aneed 30 general election ballot for president . Randy, did you consider yourself libertarian before this Campaign Season . Caller independent. Host ok. Thats randy from clearwater, florida. Gary johnson, the likely nominee for the libertarian residential pick, he released this video entitled make american sane again. As governor [video clip] as governor i was labeled the most dangerous politician in america. Government is too big. It tries to do too much and it spends too much. 20 trillion in debt and rising is unsustainable. Money is freedom. Its the ability to do what i want, when i want. When government takes away my money, they are taking away my freedom. My ability to spend my money the way i want to spend my money. Government is for sale. Crony capitalism is alive and well. Democrats and republicans are both responsible for this unsustainable debt. Im planning to ride the divide. The Libertarian Party will be on the ballot in all 50 states. I applaud all of you for your activism. All ofe a difference in our lives. A difference in your communities. To you for guidance. Im running for president of the United States. I am a fierce competitor. Im a fierce defender of Civil Liberties. I advocate balancing the federal budget now. I heard from many that they didnt want to waste their vote. Wasting your vote is voting for somebody that you dont believe in. I think that people need to be able to make their own choices in their own lives. The reward will be 100 fold. You will never read it. Take whatever it is that you know and apply at y. Trepreneurial its amazing when you share in the profit how the pie gets so much bigger. Host we are taking your phone calls this morning and whether you are considering if a whether candidate you are considering a thirdParty Candidate. Veryone else, you can call tommy, go ahead, good morning. Tommy i have voted libertarian for a long time. When ron paul was running in 1988, i voted for him and nancy lord on the libertarian ticket. To fourringing in close dollar trillion 4 trillion in revenue. I live on a fixed income and i have managed to stay within budget. Can do it, than i know that these brainiacs in d. C. Can do the same thing. Women whoe need is know how to manage money. Who will take the libertarian cause and promulgated to a efficient system of government. Host how do you feel about gary johnson . Hes all right. His vp choice is the granddaughter of his vp choice is married to the granddaughter of teddy roosevelt. In my opinion, he was the greatest president this country has ever had. The Gary Johnson William Weld Administration will get this country fiscally under control. It wont wipe out the debt that it will get it under control to the point where we can see a Bright Future for grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. Right tommy, we hear your opinion this morning. Our next caller is phyllis. Phyllis, you say you are set on the thirdParty Candidate . Caller good morning, good morning, thank you. Yes, i am considering a third party. I support Bernie Sanders, but if he doesnt become the nominee for the democrats i am can sitter in the green party. With jill stein as president. Consider uld you would you consider writing in yes, iandidates . Caller am considering that as well. I want to see the next few weeks play out to see how the support for sanders continues or dissipates, but hopefully it continues. , i am he doesnt make it considering jill stein and the green party. That is phyllis, from florida. Yes,er person writes jill stein is the perfect candidate. Our Foreign Policy should be based on human rights. Another person right not considering a thirdParty Candidate, but its time for the Republican Party to break three ways based on libertarian, fiscal, evangelical, and Foreign Policy platforms. Veryer person tweets few women in the audience of the libertarian debate. They dont have a future. And yes feel the burn, write him in bernie or bust. Tony is up next from boston, massachusetts. What do you think . Caller happy memorial day, everybody. Ive been in this country for a long time. Dont let it full you, all these people who are card who are calling about these different parties. We are good with two parties here. The best in the United States. We dont need a third party. We need donald trump in my own personal opinion. I have been in this country for 50 years. America,e, wake up, donald trump can stretch out this country. President ry, after john kennedy, we know have a president. Hillary clinton, in my own personal opinion, shes a liar. You this morning. Next up is ron, from hammond, indiana. Go ahead, ron. Caller yes, thank you. People who are thinking about the thirdparty, this is supposed to be the land of the free and the opportunity for those who seek the best to get the best. We are at a point in time where we are free and going down. How can you vote for a person like donald trump, with no political person at all . He will be president of the united takes . Think this over. Host which party are you considering . Caller you looking at . Anyone who is going to help us as a people and quit playing politics. Ron. All right, that was heres a little bit this morning from the Washington Post. Is proving a tough sell for libertarians. A five fold increase, camera for camera crews have followed bill been hit with a scornful heckling by the radicals who represent one third of the party. Libertarians hold no Party Primaries host we are taking her phone calls this morning. Are you considering a third arty candidate . We are taking her thoughts on social media and we are taking our calls. Turning now to philadelphia, pennsylvania. John is calling on the line for all others. You are not considering a thirdParty Candidate . Caller no. Thank you for having me. Good morning. The 21st president and backwards, there were multiple parties within one candidate. Lets just say the candidate would be republican, democrat, party, all ofriot it wrapped into one candidate. After that we broke into the republican and democrat system. What we need to do is fix the system. As someone just said, donald trump has no experience. He is arrogant and all of that. But we have had people with no experience. President obama had very little experience. He came in and he did a fantastic first term. And then the second term . Senate wiped the him out. If we only had a house we have like a million politicians for arent doing much country where we dont need these to house systems. The putdowns, the stuff, we need to fix it. Here is work for everybody we dont need to build the wall, we need to fix the system. Society and emotions. Are wrong. Ings but that is still the challenge of america. Fix the system. Right. Ll the next caller is also john. The stein from florida. You are looking outside the twoparty system. I voted for caller hillary in 2008. I did not vote for obama in 2008 or 2012. I voted no party in reference to the general election 2008 as well. This time i voted for sanders in the florida primary. I like sanders. What all, im a democrat, been one my whole life. This time im definitely going with the Libertarian Party. I dont like to candidate for the green party. I think she is way out there to much and what all. Last night with the debate and what all, im glad you broadcasted and what all. I will go with Austin Peterson and whoever they nominate. I dont think that johnson is the right candidate for the Libertarian Party, but i will go with him. Right. Ll that was john. Rusty, good morning. Caller i just wanted to say im not considering a thirdParty Candidate. Im going to choose the lesser of two evils and go with donald trump. I think that he can help reunite america. I just want to say that im getting kind of tired of hearing people bash americans. Especially as his memorial day allomorrow, we are americans. Doesnt matter, color, creed, race, sexual orientation, we are all americans and i thank god for the United States of america. Like i said, im choosing the lesser of two evils and i will be voting for donald trump. I voted for him here in the primary caucus in kentucky and thats who i am going to be supporting for president. Thank you for taking my call, have a good day. We hear you there in kentucky. We will be bringing you live coverage of the libertarian program,n after our washington journal, this morning. Gary johnson, the likely nominee Libertarian Party will be on washington journal on tuesday. We turn now to terre haute, indiana. I get that right, lee . Caller yeah, hello . Host good morning. Caller how are you . I will be voting for whoever the libertarian nominee is. Probably it is going to be gary johnson. Host ok, why are you supporting gary johnson . Well, because i stand for freedom and liberty and i in theeel im a free man United States of america anymore. The other two parties stand for tyranny. Id i love liberty. So. Theres been a lot of debate this morning over bill weld, his potential Vice President ial pick. What you think about him . Does that give you pause . It does. Caller i didnt like his comment about how he kind of like Hillary Clinton, you know . I have some reservations about that. Just hold your breath, i guess. All right. That was lee. The next callers michael, from baton rouge. Michael, good morning. Hello, you are on the air. Caller thank you for taking my call. I dont think that there should be a thirdparty in the race, really. The United States has been. Ealing with republicans i have heard them talk about the lesser of two evils. Concerned, there is one evil and the donald trump. I feel that anyone that would vote for donald trump, they really need to look at themselves. Since some people be talking. Bout religion i dont feel that anyone who is particularly that disgraced should even be thinking about donald trump. Host all right, we hear you over there in baton rouge, louisiana. A few thoughts from twitter. Host there is still some time to get your thoughts in this morning. Are you considering a thirdParty Candidate . If you are considering a thirdParty Candidate, you can call us. The hill newspaper put together this information on five things the Libertarian Party stands for. Some of the main principles include individual freedom and the ideal of individual freedom to find limited government and all forms, libertarians are social liberals. It pushes them towards the left side of the political spectrum on many of the major social issues. Host turning back to the phone lines. Harriet is next and is considering a thirdParty Candidate. . Ho are you supporting caller im sorry, i missed so much of the debate. I havent seen this. But i came in on the drivers licenses. I personally believe that we do have to have drivers licenses. Some kind of qualification to drive, just to keep everybody safe. Independent. Times andr obama both id like to thank him for doing what i consider a wonderful job. This time because of the tariffs and the trade and the , up until now i have definitely been for donald trump. I theres something of every party that i like. Im glad that may be we will have more choices, but i think the media donald doesnt get along with the newspapers, we know that. Theyre going to push this party to dilute his vote. I want people to really think about it. ,e need good trade policies need to be smart and make the country great again. Host we hear you. The next up, from indianapolis, indiana, go ahead. The green party is that in all 50 states. There are independence in all 50 states. Lets split the republican and democratic vote. Gary johnson on the libertarian side. Bernie sanders on the independent ticket. Or chills time or jill stein. Lets do that political experiment to see how it works. Split the republicans and split the democrats. , the dnc thirdparty or rnc will win. To do a political experiment you have to split both tickets. Here is the story in about the Libertarian Party so far. They could reject the twoterm Massachusetts Governor as republican might. It was supposed to be a stroke of genius, gary johnson and the parties leading contender in 2016, announcing william weld serving as his running mate. The idea was clear and apealing, comprise the powerful to governor ticket. The hope was that they could emerge as a true thirdparty alternative. But here in the corridors of the hotel here at the not Libertarian National convention, it could all fall apart as antiauthority antiauthoritarian activists loathed to be called republican might are increasingly loudly critical of wells. We are taking your phone calls on whether youre considering a thirdParty Candidate. Sandy is on the line. Good morning, sandy. [echo] turn on your tv, you are on the air. Caller sorry, thanks to take my call. Host good morning. Caller well, i was going to vote for Bernie Sanders. I know im not going to vote for hillary. I guess im going to vote for gary johnson now if Bernie Sanders doesnt get the nominee. I will either vote for gary sand gary johnson or right in bernies name. Host what dont you like about Hillary Clinton . Caller that she remains status quo, that she doesnt stand up for the american people. I dont like that shes a millionaire and going to try to tell us workingclass what were going to have to do. I just dont agree with her at all. Host all right. , callingcaller is tom on the line for all others. Go ahead, tom. There is no candidate i would vote for because there is no candidate that is speaking what the need for leadership to address the problems with the legal system. The dishonesty, the leg the negligence. We need someone to vote for constitutional amendments. Probate and guardianship abuses. Abuses of the rules of the courts so as to keep people for having the right. I could go on and on. Ill the victims need to be given more of a voice i know the victims need to be given more of a voice. Theres just a lot of problems and none of the people in the media or the candidate forums are talking about it. Operating asrs elite managers of these candidate. They have usurped the power in this country and made a terrible mess of it. Host all right, tom. We hear you this morning. Has aeekly standard story about a possible. Hirdparty run for been sassy the end the recently put this out they are just host our next caller is dell, from bethlehem, pennsylvania, considering a thirdparty this Campaign Season. Go ahead. That bernieink theers breakaway and given thirdparty system. Hes really a socialist anyway. He represents the youth and the people, the imagination of this country. Many countries in europe have free college for many, for just about anybody. This is nothing new. Its not that expensive. Its not anywhere near the cost and song these awards forth. Jesus christ himself was a socialist. Look at what he had to say in the bible. Thats the socialist party. Host are you planning to write in Bernie Sanders . What do you think you will do in november . Caller at this point, im thinking about writing and. I know he could be the other two. Here stake is the perfect example. Hillary has one million vote. Sanders had two quarters of a million. Guess what . Tro is third in new york in his 23rd and a lot of other places as well. The sky, he pretends hes going to raise money through people . Wheres the money go . No one knows. He changes his mind and on and on. We will have to leave it there because we are out of time. That is it for this part of washington journal, but stay tuned, we will be taking you live to the Libertarian National convention in orlando, continuing our coverage of this topic there. Next up we will be talking about the long lines at airports the summer. Members of Congress Called ahead of the Transportation Security Administration to ask how he planned on shortening those and he will be joining us and we will hear what he has to say. Later on we will be discussing Veterans Issues with jerry butler, of iraqi and afghanistan veterans of america. Washington journal will be opening up phones to talk to viewers about the legacy of the vietnam war and we will be showing interviews from this past week regarding the visitors here in d. C. Here is one story from a visitor making her first visit to the memorial. My name is catherine. My father was united at the minister. I live in rhode island and mine and im a nurse a nurse anesthetist this. This is my first time in washington. I have always wanted to be here and experience all the sites. The Vietnam Memorial means a lot to me. Without war. W up that i knew. My father was very much a pacifist. Even though he served in world war ii, in the navy and in the war. Pacific, he mourned he hated what it did. My mother and i had pow breakfast. We followed the war very much. Bracelets we followed the war very much. They were little bracelets made out of metal. They had the name of the person and that they had gone missing. They were either mia or pow. They went missing and the idea was that you were to wear them until they came home. Neither person that my mother had, nor i, came home. I believe i found them both today and took pictures of the names on the wall. It was a constant reminder of sacrifice that people were making. Interestingly, i remember when the war ended. My gosh, how will we with with how will we live without war . What will we focus on . Its been so much of my existence. Then the thought came over me my gosh, that you would even consider that. It was an interesting thing to live with. I, like many people, always thought that that would be the end. Because of everything we experience in vietnam, i thought we would never have another war. But that has not been true. T think about the vietnam conflict . Really did define. Anything i see, if its a documentary or Something Like that, i watch it because i dont want to forget. It was so much a part of my life. I just remember so much of the sadness in the conflict. Oth there and here it just really is a part of my experience and who i am. So, coming here today, seeing the Vietnam Memorial for the first time was very emotional for me. Journalngton continues. Host we are here with bart jansen, whos here to talk to us about those long lines at the airports. Thanks for being here. People are traveling millions over the holiday weekend. No one is looking forward to these long lines. Why are they so long . Combination of three things happened. There are fewer tsa officers doing the screening. More people traveling. And the screeners are taking a next her close look at luggage, as they were criticized last year for not catching enough contraband. Its a combination of things that has left thousands missing flight so far. Host what did last years report find . The inspector generals report was undercover travelers going to the lines and the results with the. Andnews, i believe, had it, 67 out of 70 times where there was a weapon or a mock, the screeners did not catch it. Those were such bad results that they stopped the tests and the tsa ordered an overhaul, retraining all of their screeners to do a better job catching that stuff. The test will be repeated sometime this summer and we will see if they are doing better at catching contraband. Peter never injure have said they are doing a better job and we are waiting to see that confirmed by the inspector general. Host we wanted to make sure that we included the comment the failures in the report include failures in the technology and tsa procedures and human error, with layers simply missing and misleading host our flights safe right now . Guest i would say that they are safer than they have ever been. It used to be a private screening before september 11 attacks in 2001. The Screening Service was federalized to get a single standard system for the country. The system has grown in fits and starts. There was this concern through this test and other tests that perhaps they werent doing their best job. The problem is that the screeners sit at the same xray machine they have to look at with a chaotic bunch of materials in each bag and have to determine if there is something strange or something they should take a second look at. Its a difficult, tense job. The problem is that if you sit machine for too long, it gets boring and repetitive. The trick is to keep it fresh. Keep looking for the unusual thing in the back. ,ost our guest is bart jansen transportation reporter at usa. You are the numbers for you. Here are the numbers for you. Host so, the head of the tsa was called before congress recently to answer for these long wait times. What did he have to say . Guest they have taken a series of steps. He said that one of the first things they did to try to combat the problem was they asked congress for position and were able to shift earlier this month 34 million to hire 768 new screeners nationwide. Try to fill in some of the gaps where they thought the crowds were largest. In addition theys acknowledged that know how many passengers will be coming to the airports on a given day. He has acknowledged that part of the problem is anticipating the jump and scheduling appropriately. For instance, ohare two weeks 450 peopleot stranded overnight because they had missed her flights. He acknowledged that there were more travelers. There were 78,000 travelers on that monday and 88,000 the following monday. They knew that a glut of travelers was coming and they should have provided better. He says there will be 96,000 traveling to tomorrow. They are bulking up and trying to meet this that are. Where they have field these extra staffers are places like seattle, chicago, atlanta, tweeting over the weekend that the tweets seven reduced to 50 minutes or less. For this high travel weekend some of the step in taking seems to seem to be working. They are expecting a Record Number of travelers between now and the end of august. Host the tsa has made some recent personnel changes, at the chicago airport and personally. Tell us about those. Guest the head of Security Operations, the guy that oversaw the screeners, has been removed from that post. Kelly hogan had been criticized not just for the ig report the previous summer, but also house members found that he had been granted 90,000 in bonuses during 13 months in the november 2014. Harsh criticism that he had received bonuses during the time when the agency was failure. Those are the words of jason chaffetz. Hogan has been removed. He has not left the agency yet. Mr. Never injure has says has said he wants to find a different place where his talents. Hogan personally do anything wrong, but not injure want to different but nothing are r hasjure neffinge4r said he once a different strategy. Host david, go ahead. Caller good morning. Ive got a question for you, if you can maybe just give me your insight on whether you think this would be a worthy strategy. To help me fly next week, were flying to las vegas for a wedding. We were thinking rather than taking luggage, we could decide to ship ups or fedex and it would arrive the day after. Give me your thoughts on that. Guest anything that reduces the amount of luggage will reduce the amount of screening and the hassle you might encounter at the screening checkpoint at your airport. It would maybe be unrealistic and costly for everyone to mail their luggage ahead of time to her ever they were traveling. The more important thing is to make sure that if you pack more into checked baggage, that would possible chokepoints at the checkpoint in the airport. Another important thing when bringing children, if you are not a frequent flyer, to make sure the keep out the things that are going to cause problems, such as large bottles of liquids. A standard line, keep all the bottles of small liquids in a clear plastic that i can be separate. Precheck, theo or peopleent flyers to join the expedited program, part of the advantage is that you can leave your shoes and light jacket on and leave those. Ottles and liquids in the bag thats why the people are able to breeze through a bit faster. Nef lets hear from peter himself, who addressed on capitol hill how they would think fix staffing shortages. [video clip] we are looking to see the kinds of efficiencies we can gain in the ways that we deploy people. For instance, in chicago week converted 100 parttimers to fulltime, the instant gain of the workforce, using overtime hours to effectively convert additional ones. We are adding a total of 252 officers over the summer. In conjunction with operational junctions weve made genetically improved the situation in chicago. I dont have an exact number for you. We are reworking the staffing models completely. But i do know that we need a higher staffing level than we currently have. Are talking with the transportation reporter from. Usa today, bart jansen here are the lines for you this morning we have a special line open for those of you who are frequent flyers. 2027488003. You can send us your thoughts on twitter. Lets turn back to the phone lines now. , alaska, republican line. You are our second color from alaska this morning. Caller from alaska this morning. Caller wonderful. I am very honored to be able to join this time. I want to make a point that we are doing it from state to state, screening. If we had the airlines bringing passengers in from out of the country responsible for returning the same passengers, they should have the that the airlines should have the the airlines should have the bounty on passengers that do not have return tickets. We would not need to be at the airport like this. We are held hostage by individuals that are not supposed to be here. Host i hear you this morning. Lets turn now to tony from maryland. Go ahead, tony. Caller good morning. Can you hear me . I am my cell phone. Host we can hear you just fine. Caller i believe the department of Homeland Security along with tsa is a joke. Ok . Truth, i think it is a joke because if somebody really wanted to do something, they dont have to get on a plane to do it. Around luggage, they can go through the airport. If you dont have any type of screen to get into the airport itself, it is a joke. You can do it at a mall, anywhere. It is a joke. This is about making money. Host bart jansen, your thoughts. Guest there are concerns about bringing weapons or explosives into just the airport areas. That is the problem we saw in brussels, where 16 people were killed in the airport and 16 people in a nearby subway station. Bulking upition to the number of officers at the tockpoint, is also trying Pay Attention to the entire airport area. They have behavior detection officers, k9 teams that secondly through the areas of the airport that are outside of the checkpoints. Theoretically, the nonsecure, the less secure areas of the airport. Administrators have found that it would be difficult to push checkpoint all the way to the doors of an airport because you would have the assembly outside. Aside from the weather, you would have crowd assembly and perhaps it would be even easier if something were to happen inside the airport. Security officials are aware of the concerns about what might happen in an airport w between the curb and the checkpoint and are taking steps. Host what does it take to be a tca screener . Are there certain qualifications they have to meet . What does their job look like on a daytoday basis . Guest they are now trained at the tsa began a standardized training this year down in georgia to bring everyone through the same program. There are a variety of different sorts of tsa people. Some handle the dogs. Some are behavior detection officers. At checkpoints, the important thing is to inspect the luggage, keep a track of whether the passenger looks fidgety, whether there are clues that might be going on. What is in the carryon bags to see if there is anything suspicious. They find many hidden things such as hidden knives or forgotten dguns. As bad as the inspector generals review was last summer, the tsa last year in 2015 discovered more guns, 2653 guns that people have forgotten about in a carryon bags. That was a 20 increase from the previous year, 2200 or so. People are forgetful. The earlier caller asked about what tips, leave the gun outside the carryon does. Thei guns. There are special rules. There are concerns about what is found in the baggage and that is their primary concern at the check. Host is there a larger philosophical debate within the organization over the role of screeners . Whether they are intelligence gatherers versus frontline employees . Guest yes. The agency is very large. There are some are in the debris of 60,000 people that work for tsa. 42,500 of them are screeners, the people you see in blue shirts at the checkpoints. Employees. Are civil they do not carry guns. If there is a problem at a checkpoint, a challenge from a fromr in los angeles a passenger, in los angeles a couple years ago a passenger came in shooting, and they are not designed for that. Will also seeou local police, local sheriffs with guns in uniform patrolling airports. Does do intelligence gathering or they rely on the intelligence gathering networks of the rest of the government, the fbi, the cia, who share intelligence daily. They meet in the morning here in washington and hear about what threats there are in the United States and worldwide because we have seen these problems with planes in egypt, over europe. Does have intelligence liaisons to hear the best and most uptodate situations and decide what they are looking for a checkpoints. They have about six people dedicated to intelligence gathering. Host lets hear now from someone listeners. Go ahead. Caller hello . Host morning. Caller good morning. Mr. Jansen, i have a question for you. I believe this whole thing is a big smokescreen, like a mass control of the public. You put up all of these things for a regular citizen to go to the airport for hours and hours of you know and so concerned about this. The smokescreen is you are clamping down on the american citizens from having free movement, ok . The other side of the border, we have criminals, drug dealers, murderers, rapists coming in from the other end, and nobody is stopping them from coming in, but you are concerned about people leaving this country. There are concerns about whether tsa is security theater. Critics of the agencies say it is theater. Feelsica from florida like the agency does not live up to what we expect of it, that results are not trained well enough and do not perform well enough, but the idea after september 11 was to try to limit weapons and bad people from getting onto planes. The notion Congress Approved is to have a federal course that handles that force that handles that, to have a closer watch over what may be coming on planes. Most people would agree i think that is more secure now. There have not been subsequent attacks in the u. S. Similar to september 11, whether bombing or hijackings. The administration would say we have not had similar problems in the last 15 years. That is a measure of success, but they say we want to do better. They say to themselves the lines are unacceptable. To do better,g but i think most people would agree that it is more secure now than it was as if the relevant. Host jacksonville beach, florida, now on the republican line. Good morning, june. Caller yes. Good morning, cspan. Withgetting on an airplane a clear bottle, clear plastic, what would a screener see in that bottle that would give them reason to wonder what is wrong with that liquid . I dont understand that. Thank you. Guest sure. The problem is that they cannot tell what might be wrong with the fluid. Basically, they are worried about the fluid carrying an explosives or competition affluence that can be mixed on the plane to be combined into an explosive. The idea is that if the amount of material is as small as three ounces, it would be small enough that it would not make a big enough difference to be a catastrophe with the plane. The problem is that if you had a large or standard sized bottle shampoo, that might be big enough to cause a more serious problem. They cannot say whether there was gasoline or some other explosive in that bottle. They are in the midst of trying to test new machines. There are machines that you can test. It is a machine that looks like a slot machine with a pullout handle. You put the bottle into it, and it can detect whether there are certain prohibited materials, fuel, or other types of explosives. At one bottle project, that would gum up the lines. If everybody had a bottle of shampoo, the line would go back. They are experimenting in europe right now with allowing people to larger bottles because these getting machines we do a better job scanning what is in the bottle, but at this point, we are not yet there. Host from kodiak, arkansas, your next. Are you from alaska as well . Caller yes. Lers fromee color alaska. Might be a record. Caller i remember when september 11 came in the whole state shutdown. It is not the peoples fault that want to get on the plane generally. The tsa should be done away with, and it should be privatized. Jobines will do a better than the tsa ever will because it is a government run agents. Agency. Government run agencies never do as well as privatized ones. This talk about collective firearms and weapons that go on the planes, if you look at the people going on the plane that forgot them, they are not criminals. Portray him astrai all idiot criminals, but they are not. Guest thank you for your comment. There are moves to privatize airports, airport screening, but there is a hitch with it i will tell you about. Their is a program called the Screening Partnership program with 22 airports participating. The largest our San Francisco and kansas city. Als ands secondary airport a bunch of smaller airports. They are airports that tend to have unusual arrangements because of this writing this that in a more creative way distributing the staff in a more creative way. This program has been available since the start with the lines this spring, more airports have threatened to go this path. The airport in new jersey has threatened to take a look. More are considering this. The reason there is one hurdle. They have to show that they will still do a good job at screening the passengers. Application, lawmakers criticized tsa for so long as application, that it is not get off the fast enough. They are reviewing the basis. Tions in 120 larger airports are threatening to go through the process, but the extra hurdle is that at this point, they would still have to be tsa standards for screening the passengers, so yes, you would have a private contractor, yes, you can maybe shift the focus around, you could treat them more flexibly, but you would still be meeting tsa standards. That is not really what people have in my i dont think when mind i dont think when they talk about privatizing. They think about getting rid of tsa completely and that is not being debated in congress. It would be difficult. It would be a big step for congress to abolish the tsa and go back to private screening. Host what are some measures being debated in congress for improving or changing tsa . Tsa just thishe week asked for earlier chunk of money, 34 million, to shift between accounts so they can bring in some new staffers. Thursday evening, the department of Homeland Security announced they will ask for another 28 million to shift between accounts with tsa to be able to 2784 on or to expand screeners from parttime to fulltime and also to hire 50 new k9 units. Im sorry, the k9 units is not part of this. I will get to that in a second. 82,000en additional passengers a day at the 20 largest airports. That is a request pending in congres. The Senate Approved immediately. The house took a week to look at it and make sure it was ok for them. You may see those people moved fulltime. Ime to that is an advantage because there is a lot of turnover in the parttime folks. The how is Something Like 70 fulltime to 30 parttime. He would like to get them mixed up to 85 and 15 . There is much higher turnover, approaching 25 turnover a year in the parttime employers because they are looking for fulltime job. They may have to wait a full year for a fulltime spot to open up. Converting more slots to fulltime is one of the strategies the tsa and lawmakers are getting together on. Something else that is percolating is the Senate Appropriations committee moved its spending bill this week for the department of Homeland Security. 228 million more for the agency, a total of 7. 70 billion. That would allow the hiring of 1334 screeners and the 50 dog teams i spoke earlier. That is the senate position. We have to go to the full senate and see if the house agrees that the budget should go up that much. That is for the year starting october 1 so that is not to deal with this summers crowd, but they are thinking of returning more screeners to the checkpoints because the number of screeners now is down about 5800 screeners from the peak in 2011. That is part of the reason why you are seeing lines. There are fewer screeners now because of the budget cuts and tsa expected more people to join precheck with expedited screenings and to go through the lines faster. Host let us hear now from bill in california. What are the lines looking like for you . Flyer, being a frequent a quarter million miles a year, my home airport is ontario, california, which is a pretty moderate airport. I hit all the major airports quite often. When i have noticed prior to 9 11 and the transition was i think overall, the tsa has been a great done a great job. You can ask any frequent flyer overall, the little delays were not too bad. I am seeing all of these major crowds turn to holidays. People have to understand this is relatively isolated situation. We dont experience this all the time. Another big factor is the travel day. 0 i dont understand why everyone shows up on one day when they can change their day. Overall, a give a boost to the tsa as a whole with the exception of the holiday ,retches, which is rushes which is expected to happened. Host are you part of the tsa precheck . Caller that is a good point. Over the years, i have been selected at times unknowingly when i checked in as a precheck express line. Now i have coworkers that somehow got only project list without every signing up. All years i have been doing this, if it was in your face or maybe the airlines headed out a little card on the plane like upy do other stuff or sign for a credit card that will get you started on the project list, it really should be done. Not only that, i use my regular departure airport and a couple major airports many times a year. You would think there might be some kind of record of frequent flyers through the airport that they might be able to generate a regular frequent flyer. If you are associated with the company or Something Like that, these things would be major major ways of expediting and clearing a lot of that. Host that is built from california. Guest yes, you bring up a couple points about trying to expand precheck, which they definitely want to do. E is is criticism ther criticism among lawmakers that perhaps they have no marketed it or advertised it to get enough. Their goal is to 25 Million People participating in some sort of expedited screening. There is somewhere around 10 billion now. That, 2. 7 million our project people. Are precheck people. With precheck, if you apply, it is 85 for five years. They run a background check on you. Because they have a little bit more information about you, then you become a trusted traveler, and those folks get precheck almost every time. They can theoretically plea offer rate of extra screening, but it is trying to get more people into the precheck lanes that would speed up all lines and then focus the most attention on folks in the standard lines who they know the least about. They would like to get frequent flyers like yourself into that program. Ofouple weeks ago, the head the department of Homeland Security i believe wrote a letter to the 100 largest corporations saying while you try recruiting your business travelers in this program . Perhaps cover the fee as a business expense to get your workers into this program. In addition, tsa is looking at trying to expand one company that runs the applications. They have Something Like 300 facilities to take applications to enroll people in precheck. Tsa is looking at perhaps hiring as many as three other private companies to increase marketing, increase the recruitment into this program to try to get more people signed up, so you may be hearing more of that in the coming months. From open,caller california, is also a frequent flyer. What do you think, richard . Caller hello. Good morning. It is a fantastic information you are giving. Iron retired now for the last i am retired now for the last few years but i travel greatly. Comments and a question because of your expertise. The first comment is, i really disagree with those who have political criticisms against the tsa. These are very diligent public servants. You can see that. How soon we forget before 9 11, you probably remember the privatization the airlines with the lowest common denominator. Many times, people barely spoke english. They were in a class where they were intimidated by most of the people who travel. It was a terrible system and we had terrorist attacks before that we needed a good system, and it was not well done. We need to have public serva nts. The second thing, this is the question. Showed a hearing where there was individual line officers, line tsa officers, to our three weeks ago who 3 weeks ago 2 or who complained that there is management badly misbehaving. I dont get if they were taking bribes or after power and running things inefficiently. It sounds like you are inside enough to know. Resources duean process issues, they cannot get into much detail of what these people were doing. Host we will have to leave it there to make time for other collers. Guest there was a congressional hearing on whistleblowers, and their complaints focused on two major areas. One was the idea that our administrators giving themselves bonuses that perhaps they did not deserve. That we saw play out last week with kelly hogan getting removed as head of the Security Operations piece of the agency. He may still work in another part of the agency. He is still weighing his options. In addition, they said that sometimes whistleblowers or other people who complain within the organization were punished by involuntary reassignment. Basically, you work in minneapolis, and you might get and just to florida all of a sudden have to move and of your family, which they retaliations against whistleblowers, not fair, and something that should not be allowed, that it was punishment against workers trying to improve security and improved tsa. Who only took control of the agency last july, he has been getting his arms around the problem. He has been learning more about how things have been organized. He said the bonuses as they were carried out were unjustified, unacceptable. Did not blain blame he did not blame hogan personally, but he said the situation was an accessible and has changed it to be reviewed by top administrators now limited to 10,000 a year. Host kelly hogans was 90,000. Guest they had been overhauled. In addition, the assignments have been greatly overhauled so now if a person is reassigned, they are supposed to get greater notice. They are supposed to be taught to about it in the decision is supposed to be overseen by Human Resources so it was not used as a bludgeon. For theed as a tool agency. He is addressing those things that we will have to see in the coming months if the same whistleblowers think things are improving. Host next is joe in new york on the independent line. Caller good morning. Bart, i have a comment into questions and two questions. No one has said why we have this dysfunctional tsa. It is because of our enemy. The islamist terrorists. Right now, due to the incompetence of president obama and his administration, the islamist terrorists are winning. I have two questions. When are we going to begin profiling as they do in israel, which apparently from what i hear is quite successful . The second question is who is doing the checking for trains and bus terminals . Guest yes, thanks for the questions. The israeli review of Airline Passengers is considered one of the most thorough in the world. The concern in adopting their strategy here is twofold. One is they dont deal with nearly as many passengers as we do here in the u. S. The concern is if you are taking a personal interview and scrutinizing every traveler as thoroughly as they do there, he would have longer life than you do now so there is a concern that becoming that thorough when we have so many people with a very small minority who might be trying to do bad things that it would be unworkable. There is also concerns here from the Civil Liberties standpoint might treatng people unfairly. There are already concerns about the behavior officers we have within tsa. Looking fornt for peopl people who are acting suspiciously. To the trained eye, they look suspicious so that these behavior detection officers can find potential terrorists. There are complaints among members of congress, representative bennie thompson, he is the top democrat on the Homeland Security committee. He has raised concerns on many occasions that these behavior detections can be used as an excuse to focus on minorities who would not otherwise be focused upon, so we will have to keep talking about whether to get closer or adopt the israeli system, and i have forgotten the second question. Host we will move on to the last caller because were just about out of time. Guest sorry. Host that is ok. It is greg, who is a democrat. Go ahead, greg. , i believe, bart your tsa system is a big joke. T just amazes me when america was great in the past, we allowed citizens to protect their selves. In case of flying on the airline, i remember in the 1960s, people flew at their own risk. If they were so fearful, they would not purchase insurance. As far as protecting all of us, the previous caller talked about they are not protecting us on the they are not protecting us on the buses and they are not protecting motorists on motorcycles. Not making them wear seatbelts. It is just crazy. Host almost out of time. Guest thanks for the reminder about with the second question was, does tsa guard bus and train stations. They do have a very small force. So did like 2 of the workforce called viper units. Used on the on what viper stands for but it is visible officers who are armed. They often have dog teams with them and they walk up and down train platforms or through the biggest bust stations. They tend to be focused on Holiday Travel or when large numbers of people are moving they dont have the numbers that you see in airports but there are people at surface transportation stations. Overall,sa is a joke everyone would like them to run more smoothly. The airlines try to draw more attention to this starting a i hate the way. American Airlines Says they have 70,000 people missed flights so far this year because of screaming taking too long. Everybody wants to fix this. Tsa has made steps that have smoothed things out for this weekend and we will have the sea summer when 230 million passengers are expected to travel before the end of august. Host transportation reporter for usa today. Thank you for joining us. Next up, we will be talking with Jeremy Butler of the iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. We will be discussing the recent criticism at the head that the head of Veterans Affairs has received comparing wait times at the va to wait times at disney world. This memorial day weekend cspan will enter an interview with the u. S. Chief of Naval Operations admiral John Richardson. On newsmakers he talks with us about a resurgence of Competition Among great powers like russia and china with u. S. On the seas. [video clip] in the last 25 years since the end of the cold war the u. S. Navy has had freedom of navigation around the world. Now it is starting to see some pushback. Strongers from a chinese navy, russian navy and important strategic waters. Speaking broadly, in the years ahead how do you see that changing . I think one of the great things that the fines a great power is that they can be competitive, be a player across a wide spectrum of National Power. Powers think about great , i would say russia and china, they are able to participate and compete only militarily, which sometimes we get focused on, but also economically. From a diplomatic perspective. They can compete in the information domain. There is a much broader spectrum of engagement with these great powers. , certainlyy element there is a security aspect toward we do. Me too defend america and protect vital interests around the world. One of those is protecting our access to market. Access to see lines of communication. Those maritime superhighways over which 90 of our trade thrives. We are a maritime nation. Our consistent policy for the navy to protect our access to those markets so that we can continue to prosper on a global scale. As we move forward the reason the South China Sea is so important, but one third of the worlds trade travels through that body of water. Includes a lot of American Goods tell american trade. Critical 12 prosperity critical to our prosperity. I think youll see that competition across Broad Spectrum of National Power continues, it would be my goal as the chief of Naval Operations that our navy would provide more options for our national decisionmakers, particularly in other areas of National Power. We allow the military element to guarantee our security but also enable our prosperity. Host you will be able to see the entire interview with admiral John Richardson on sunday tonight at its clock p. M. On cspan. You can hear it on cspan radio and newsmakers is Available Online at cspan. Org. Our guest is Jeremy Butler, senior military fellow with iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. Hes here to talk about the challenges that veterans of those wars are facing. Jeremy butler is also a graduate of the u. S. Naval war college where he received a masters and is a surfeit by masters in strategic studies. Jeremy butler is joining us from new york area thanks for being here. Guest thank you. Host start by telling us what you hear from veterans. What is the number one challenge you hear veterans tell you they are facing . Guest if you dont mind i will give you more than one. We at iraq and afghanistan veterans of america we do a member survey. We try to survey them to get firsthand sponsors from them on just exactly responses to your questions. What are some of the primary issues they are dealing with . What we found in our seventh annual survey is that the top three issues they are noting our access to Mental Health care, housing and the third is employment. Employment is probably the number one issue their dealing with today. ,hen they join the military more often than not the primary thing theyre looking to do is serve a bigger purpose than themselves. When they come out of the military they are looking to continue to be able to do that just at a different point. They are not just looking for a job come other looking for a career. Theyre finding it is hard to find that same level of fulfillment that they found in the military and the civilian world. I would say that employment is number one. Host is that something that is unique to veterans of the iraq and Afghanistan War or is that something you hear as a struggle for veterans from all wars . Guest i think it is a struggle for everyone from the factual standpoint. One of the things i can say is it does seem to be a bigger struggle for post9 11 veterans. Rate forloyment veterans has dropped. It was at a peak several years ago and has continued to drop for a number of positive reasons. But we do find that while the overall employment rate Unemployment Rate for veterans is now below the national Unemployment Rate, the Unemployment Rate for post9 11 veterans is actually still above the national average. I think there are some unique challenges that post 9 11 veterans face when it comes to employment. Ful host you also mention access to Mental Health care. Tell us about what they are struggling with on that front. Guest i think one of the biggest issues is finding the right people to talk to. Veterans more often than not come back from the struggles. They were in very tightknit, cohesive military units. 24 7, around people who knew the struggles they faced and the issues they were having and when the come off active duty and go home they find that they just dont have that same sort of support system easily accessible. Less than 1 of our country has served in the post9 11 military so when you come back and you may be go back to your hometown or go to a new town to find a new job all of a sudden youve lost all of those connections you had to people who really understood what you been through and could talk to. Replacesomeone that can a cohesive structure that you had when you were on active duty. Host do you think there is growing awareness or acceptance of Mental Health disorders within the military community . Guest i think there is. Its been changing over the last few years. There is more of an acceptance. More of an understanding that this is a normal thing. To go through the trauma that is involved in combat deployments, thats not unusual. What is the bigger issue is when the trauma cannot be resolved after a year or two. Thats when it is getting to be a bigger issue. A normal reaction to the stress of combat or any other thing that may be a traumatic event in your life is to deal with posttraumatic stress issues. The problem is when they dont go away or they are not able to be handled. Getting that access to people that understand what youre going through and understand there is a normal healing process to this reaction. That is a challenge. Host we are talking to Jeremy Butler of the iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. Here are the phone lines for you to call in. 202 7488000 is the line for those who are iraq and afghanistan veterans. All of us can dial in at 202 7488001. Also taking tweets. Wj. Handle is at cspan Jeremy Butler. Veterans Affairs Secretary has been receiving criticism lately over his comparison of wait times at va hospitals to the wait times at disney world. Guest i dont think anyone is going to defend the remark in and of itself. It was not the smartest remark. That said it is a small remark and theres little comparison to the good that we have seen secretary mcdonald do throughout the years of his being secretary of the Veterans Affairs administration. Day in day out we do feel he is making positive changes. Fighting against a very difficult was that he has here. There has been a lot of fallout from his comment that we think it is a little disingenuous. This is a man that has been doing really hard work. He listens very closely. Ive been there firsthand when hes been in a room full of veterans, all who have issues with the treatment they received at the various be a hospitals and he is in there taking notes. His staff is taking notes, following up on all of the complaint they hear. If this is a man that listens more than he talks which is not something i think you get out of a lot of leaders and its very refreshing. I think the focus on this one comment is missing the forest for the trees. Hes done a lot of good. Thats a lot more to be outraged about than this one comment. Host heres the statement from mcdonald. It was never to suggest that i dont take the mission seriously. Improving access to care is my number one priority ive set for the department. The last two years the huge majority of va employees have improve theessly to benefits and care we provide to veterans. Our first caller will be todd from chicago, illinois. Caller good morning. I wanted to ask improve the benefits and about the v. A. Issue when it comes to waiting times. I understand that to improve the public reception regarding waiting times for veterans particularly for Mental Health that instead of fixing the problem they changed the measurement criteria and that is instead of measuring from the time a veteran requests care that they began the clock when the v. A. Calls them to schedule care thereby giving the impression that they are actually reducing waiting times area i wanted to see if that is correct and if so if they should be more upfront about it. Guest thanks for the call. I could not answer specifically on the measurement of wait times but i think what i could say is they are trying to improve the situation. I think this a lot of misinformation that gets put out about the process by which changes are trying to be put in place. Sometimes things are done with good intentions dont pan out quite the way they did. You see that with the Choice Program congress implemented a ton to try and allow access veterans that dont have easy access to the va hospital to go to something closer to where they live. While that was done with the best intentions it was to be rushed out a timeframe that did not quite work. More often than not what youre seeing is good intentioned programs that may be dont quite work it off the bat and there are changes that need to be made in those changes usually are being made. Its a trial by fire sort of thing. You see what works and what doesnt work and continue to make changes. I think it overall is good people try to make changes and we need to continue to find what works better. Host jim is on the line spartanburg, north carolina. Chuck fromng on to auburn hills, michigan. Youre on the air. Caller good morning. Can you hear me . Host go ahead. Caller i finished disabled veteran for the most half a year. A combat veteran from vietnam. The v. A. Employees, i go va. Ann arbor be a lot of them confided in me, you get a handout. Nothing. Omething for its not like you are paying for insurances to go to beaumont or henry ford or something in the detroit area. As a general attitude like your something for nothing. I have yet to see people look into that attitude and work at. A. T level at the v one of the going to get down to the personal level of the va and the veterans . Guest thank you for your call and your surface. Service. Iraq and afghanistan veterans of america was built on the backs of the struggles of our Vietnam Veterans facing when the came home. That is something we as a country we as a country realized that was wrong in so many ways and we want to make sure that does not happen again. Is open to military members and supporters and family members of any conflict that any american is taken part in. Thank you again for your service iava can helpyway you i think there has been an attempt to look into that. I think what you find is more often than not most va employees are trying to do the best i can. Hopefully direct interactions you have had have been positive for the most part. I believebers we have a hotline. V. A. U do have issues with th hospital employees i would say that is not something secretary mcdonald is going to support. Host the line to call to join in the conversation, 202 7488000 is the line for iraq and afghanistan veterans. The line for all others is 202 7488001. We are also going to read your tweets and our total our guest is Jeremy Butler. You guys have taken a stance on some changes to the debt proposed changes to the g. I. Bill. Guest the g. I. Bill is one of the most successful veterans support programs that has ever been implemented by the u. S. Congress. It has resulted in the building of the american middle class, yet world war ii and continues to be not only an extremely popular benefit to all Service Members that frankly is a very. Ood recruiting tool this is something if any of your listeners are not aware, great program, you put in a little bit of money when you first join and after more or less four years of service you are able to use those benefits to go back school fulltime, parttime, the traditional route, vocational schools. A lot of options you can take and this is hands down one of the most popular benefits Service Members know about. I joined the navy 16 years ago knowing very little about the military. I just was looking forward to some adventure. The one thing i did know about was the g. I. Bill and i knew as soon as i joined one of the best things i could do was sign up for the g. I. Bill. Unfortunately for about the first time in history the ash thes is looking to sl benefits that go to Service Members using the g. I. Bill. Its not just the fact that this kind is being proposed. A related cut passed in the house. Up in the senate, was of for vote earlier this month in the senate. It is how its being done. Its not a wellknown cut. Of, a backroom deal that was pushed out probably in the hopes that no one would notice. And this isnoticed something we are raising the flag on because we think it is trying to be pushed through with as little fanfare as possible. Host how would the cuts impact your members . Guest specifically what they would do is cut the housing benefits that comes along with the g. I. Bill. The g. I. Bill will pay for up to a certain amount of money for your tuition for school and along with that it also at housing stipend. T stipend will bury a more expensive place like here in new york or washington dc is going to be higher than if you are in springfield, illinois. Its very similar to the Housing Allowance that Service Members get on active duty. You can your salary and you also get a Housing Allowance. This would cut across the board everyone that uses the g. I. Bill. It would cut their Housing Allowance which is something Service Members rely on and veterans rely on when choosing where to go to school. If you want to go to top right school in a large city this could be the difference between whether or not thats affordable to you as a veteran. Host here now from we will hear now from william who is a veteran of the iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Wanted to turn on the tv this morning and so are you guys discussing these veterans. I wanted to say 100 disabled veteran. Despite the scheduling problems, the v. A. Has been on the up and up. I would like to make one comment about some of the care that occurs. Recently i had an outpatient event, a cardiac event that occurred may push me to a Regional Hospital in the same area and when i returned i had to go through somebody loopholes to get the medicine. They would not do the refills. It was not automatically in the system. I did go to the emergency room just to get my prescriptions refilled. I think the v. A. , the government stood up for me and they are standing up for me now. Host that is liam from harrison, arkansas. What do you think . Guest thank you very much for the call. I appreciate not only the call but what you have to say. That is something that often is overlooked. A lot of veterans have received tremendous care from the v. A. It varies from hospital to hospital. Almost more sewed onto patient as to what level of care in the satisfaction they had with that care. I appreciate you making that comment. The positive stories often do get overlooked by any single negative story. I think its important to highlight those. Going into the second part of your comment that is something that we do support. Trying to make it easier for when veterans you have to move and an the v. A. System civilian practice or even from one be a hospital to another to make it easier for records to move with them and make it seamless. Thats the way it works in the real world. You dont always go to the exact same provider for every treatment you need. It needs to be made easier for Service Members to do that when situations like yours arise. Host jim is calling on the line for iraq and afghanistan veterans. Go ahead. Caller thank you for cspan. The v. A. Has taken pretty good care of me. The bureaucracy is really bad. Even though the air force medically discharged me because i got blown up in iraq. Some stuff going on. Guest jim, i understand the struggles youre going through. I appreciate your service frankly when you come back you should not have the fighting harder just to get the care than you did when you were in iraq. We have a hotline, the Rapid Response Referral Program. A number you can call. If you are facing these kinds of difficulties we can help you get through those challenges. It should not have to be that hard and should not require reaching out to a third party to help you. We are available for that. I want to make sure i give you the right number. Our Rapid Response Referral Program and thats exactly what they did was to make sure that vets are getting the care they need and not having to fight harder to get these things taken care of. Were going to provide you with health. Lp. , whatone person writes drives the decision to for a vet to remain in the service or go out into private industry . Guest ive been in the military for about 16 years. Duty. Years of active left active duty to going to the reserves primarily because i got married and new that if i stayed in it would mean going back to sea, spending two out of three years on a ship deploying and away from my duty. Left active duty to going to the wife. I chose to come off activeduty affiliated with the reserves are mobilized and put with dessert with the reserves several times. For other people, it is career. Maybe there is something that they learned in the military that they now want to transition those skills to the civilian sector and try and use them there. Others feel they have done their time. They may have been 4, 8, maybe a full 20 years. They want to take what they have learned and move on. It really is an individual decision based on the person. Based on their experiences and based on what they want to do. Host lets hear from lee. Danville, virginia. Good morning. Caller i think theres a lot of a lot ofin the people need treatments or whatever, so backed up. They need to allow some of these patients on the waiting lists to receive surgeries or treatment to see the local hospitals versus going directly to the veterans hospitals. Because the caseloads are so backed up there should be an alternative because a lot of people get overlooked over years. Might never received the treatment. This Jeremy Butler, is sort of similar to the Choice Program you are mentioning earlier . Guest it is a little bit. The Choice Program is based more on geography than just trying to speed things up. The idea of sending veterans to civilian providers is one that has been floated several times. Butkly i think its an idea it may be not the best idea. I think what we need is to keep this we need to improve the wait times and we need to improve the backlog. If that is done i think its going to result in better care for veterans by an organization that understands what theyve been through. Connectionsands the between the physical wounds and some of the mental and psychological issues. By keeping it within the v. A. System i think we can result in better care. We need to make some fixes so that you dont have to start looking outside the system in order to get the support you need. Host you guys are not a political organization. When you look at the candidates who are running for election this year, is there one that you feel would best represent and best addressed the needs of veterans . Guest you said it right with your question, we are a nonpartisan organization. What we are trying to do is not tell anyone what the best candidate is. Were trying to let the candidates know where veterans stand on a number of issues. We annually put out the policy agenda which lays out in vast detail the majority of the issues we find that are andrtant to veterans important to us as a country that wants to continue to support our volunteer military. Have moresh for is to concrete, deep discussions with those that do want to serve either in the white house or in congress or even at the state level. To get them to rise above some of the political posturing that happens and really get into the substantive work of discussing what is best for veterans. See too often veterans are used as an applause line and the politicians are not getting into the details of what needs to be done. We would encourage your listeners to hold politicians and those running for office accountable. Ask them what theyre actually going to do you dont just let them get away with saying we supportthe details of what neede done. We would encourage your vets and leaving it at that. Host have you presented those proposals to donald trump or Hillary Clintons campaigns . Guest they are available on our website. We pushed them to everyone running for office. They are out there for the world. You can go to our website yourself and you them. Calling from idaho. Caller good morning. Retired Gunnery Sergeant in the United States marine corps. Idea. An its not a complaint. I know the Veterans Administration and other communities of congress are against a budget crunch. Agospan about three months , he said he came up short 3 billion for his Veterans Administration is going to create more problems overall a. Daily and many monthly needs. But theres a crs report put out by congress in 2004 and its 98916. Ode the president s first four years of office, we got 66 years involved in foreign spending. Annual average, 26 billion. Ets reduce our spending funding and redirect those and put it in the Veterans Administration. Going to end up reinventing the wheel again. A long story short, lets put it in the bottom of the pile the hands of the committees in congress so we can 100 . Ur committees at much. You very ost thank you for that great call. Guest impressive question or statement i guess rather. Totally agree. To fix there are ways this system that doesnt involve increasing taxes. A matter of just putting smart money where it should go and reducing it from other areas. The problem is when thats done in an arbitrary manner and debate open and honest about what makes sense. So love the proposal. Of definitely the type thing that i think our congressional members need to take heart on and act on. Alicia from colombia, maryland is our next caller. Good morning to you. Morning. You wonderful to talk with guest thank you caller and i want to thank you and all the people who are military and those who have served, god bless all of you. To make a comment. Familiar ow if youre with native americans who have navajos per capita, they in all the ghest forces. Armed is so far ealthcare in between as far as having to travel so far. From my reservation, they have to if theyre going to good care at all, they hours to about six phoenix and then another is in tucson. E and thats another two hours six hours. E new hen those who live in albuquerque. Ravel make hope that when you your reports, you would bring these things out. Where the people who are out in the rural areas. Would ont think necessarily be just the indians. You know, other military people in the rural areas eally dont get that really dont have the availability to, healthcare. And also i would like to ask you john mccaine support you, and how much does the military in any way help the families who are left behind . Host Jeremy Butler . Guest yeah. For the call and for raising that important issue. Right. Exactly its a variety of our Service Veterans that dont live within close access to va hospitals. That is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed. Youre spot on with your comment. Its our imes, veterans that are in rural areas that have the most difficulty access for care. That is something that needs to be addressed. Your call. Im sorry. I believe the last question was about families of veterans families of veterans. Absolutely. Overlooked n often area. Im glad that was raised. Veteran, ocus on the him or herself. And what we forget is that a eployment to a veteran affects many more people beyond just that veteran. Its the families that are left for d that are caring children, holding down the jobs, and just are worried constantly no idea whats going on with that service member. Imperative that we remember its not just the veterans but its their families well. Host recently in the wall street journal, Anthony Principi who was formerly secretary of Veterans Affairs to 2005 wrote this oped with the title money cant affairs. Ails veterans he proposed several measures for eforming the system including realigning the separate va and Defense Department healthcare systems. The system that needs to close unneeded focus the , re system. Ation do you have any thoughts about some of the suggestions . Basically, overall, i thought on it, that those types proposals are exactly what need to be looked at. We need to look at really the whole system and making the smart trade offs. Hats what i was trying to get at before. Its not a matter of adding more money to the system. Making smart of choices and realigning funds to where theyre going to work best. Really smart t of ideas that probably should be looked at. Hat is how i think ultimately were going to solve the problem. Host already. Jack is calling now from north carolina. Good morning to you, jack. Go ahead caller yes. I golike to say that to the va and humana doctors. My va care is by car superior to all the others. Extremely happy with it. To say is one t time i was talking to my primary are va doctor and she said she had a quota of how many patients that she was supposed to see in a day. Going to mention the number here just in case i misremembered it but i think at. T should be looked because i thought it was awfully low. Thats it. Guest again, i appreciate that call. Another caller pointing out that there is a lot of great care being provided by the va. Frankly, the va has a hisstory of leading health and ition in this country think thats something that often gets overlooked. Positive comments about the support that youre receiving at the va. S to the number, thats of. Ething im not aware maybe they want to keep it low you can get the quality care you need. Ive been going to civilian for a number of years. The complaint is usually the reverse. Ou get zero time with your doctor. They come in, ask you a couple of questions. Dont really listen to you. Way. Ove on your my thought is probably the number that you heard is an attempt to actually have an with the veteran patients to find out really what the issues are to try to get to them. Ttom of edith is up next. Good morning to you. Ahead. Caller yes. Thank you so much. So much r, thank you for being there for your service. Veteran. Etnamera first i want to just say im very happy with my services that va. Ceived at the privatized. T the va i have recently found out about called concerned veterans of america, and it ppears that this group is actually funded by certain interests and people who want to privatize the va. Like all the information they send out is anti the va. I think veterans need to be that. Of i dont know if you can speak on that or not. Guest my first comment will be service and, your again, to go back to the vietnam era veterans, you know, thats the formation of the va. Along with that, i appreciate because one thing we dont hear often enough from is our Women Veterans. That were also raising, its often overlooked hat Women Veterans make up a larger and increasingly large umber of our military members and frankly their needs are often overlooked in the iscussion of whats important for Veterans Affairs. Appreciate that call. Only your last point, i know what ive also read and asically it mirrors the comments that you made. Host all right. Ur next phone call comes from james from wrightsville, pennsylvania. James, you say that youre a of the iraq and Afghanistan Wars caller i am. Y question is ive been deployed twice now and im going again soon. When i came back, the second got i was, you know, we our va brief and the va really tative which was short. Basically it was, like, okay. Theres the information. Do you have any questions . Me. Know, talk to that was it. Secondto the va after my deployment to register like we were told we could get up to two deployment for care. In, they said ed that the only thing they could o was give me my yearly physical and that was it. Ive had ptsd before. I still talk about it. Which i believe everybody should. Feel i should have had more help. Yeah. Thanks for the call. I appreciate you being honest ptsd. Your dealings with totally agree that talking about t is step one and that is definitely the right move. Starting back with your original yes, ive returned from deployment myself and i often go. Hose briefs sometimes theyre more detailed, sometimes less. Know exactly what you mean. But there are definitely some important ones that they need to take their time with and make sure we understand. S for the details of the care that you received after, i believe that there is a push to period of available care longer than it currently is. I dont have the details but you raise a good point and thats something were at. King host i want to ask you about the incidents of suicide among veterans. A recent report that the Veterans Crisis line set up y the va had more than 2 million callers since it was established in 2007 and nearly a quarter of those calls came in last year. Concerned are you about this issue and how much of a challenge is it in talking with this about Service Members . Absolutely. Were very concerned about it. Its definitely a priority. Statistics like that, you realize that it continues to be an issue. I think what people need to realize is that its an example leads over to at many other issues. Its usually not one single leading to the suicide. Its the Holistic Care that when they ans need come back from deployment when recovering from traumatic injury, things they may have seen on deployment. Tied into y is all everything. Its getting employment. Its getting housing. The treatment that you need for whatever you may have dealt with while you were deployment. Those statistics show that there continues to be a need to treat holistically for everything that they dealt with, and it is a high concern for us host all right. Caller is ken from michigan. Good morning to you. Caller yeah. Hi. Cspan. For im a veteran from desert storm. Wanted to bring up the oint about why are there charitable organizations asking to help veterans when they when they ust should be helped period. Question. Guest thats a fair question. Of truth is that the idea charitable organizations veterans charitable organizations rising from the nations conflicts go all the ay back to the civil war and even before that. Its nothing new. And it would be great if there not a need for them. I think we got to be honest with ourselves though and realize that frankly this is not we can always rely on the government to fix 100 . Sometimes its things just out their purview. Sometimes its because we just need help cutting through some bureaucracy. But theres a lot of veterans organizations out there that are that would hings never be within the governments purview in terms of trying to upport veterans when they come back and looking for ways to society. Ate and assess looking for new paths for employment. And then others are strictly veterans trying to cut through the bureaucracy of the government system. Those are the ones where i think to focus on trying to reduce the need for them but i dont think thats going to any time soon. So a lot of times, these just much morere effective at achieving the goals the veterans have. So im 100 with you. Im just trying to be a little realistic and thinking that its not going to happen any time soon. Comes, were day going to dont need these veterans and the support and employment organizations much for k you so joining us, jeremy. Guest thank you. Appreciate you having us. Host up next, well be turning our attention back to politics and getting your thoughts on vote for a would Third Party Candidate. Well be right back. Host welcome back. Later on this morning, well be coverage of live Libertarian National convention in orlando, florida. Question ing this are you considering a thirdParty Candidate. A look at this recent poll in the wall street journal showing that the race tightening between Hillary Clinton and donald trump. Is at clinton support about 46 compared to 43 of there. T for donald trump you can see that their spread has narrowed since march. And that has meant that more are considering a thirdParty Candidate for the house. The journal finds that more than 40 of people said that they an independent candidate and that compares to than 40 in january, 2008. Now, earlier this morning, i with Washington Post repo who is live in orlando for the convention and heres say. He had to reporter well, in most situations, the most passionate readily speaking people are the ones with the problem. O theres a radical party that makes up about a third of the delegates that believe what he believes. The party should exist to present something completely different. The party ifint to it doesnt. He party is so guaranteed to have a good year given whats appened with the democrats and republicans that it should nominate someone hard core and not someone with more appeal. I dont think thats the majority opinion. Happened ats whats johnsone 2012, governor chose someone he thought would expand their credibility and it is ven more and definitely backfired. Theyve admitted that. Probably not the way that it end candidacy but probably to work y that he has to overcome it host who else is among the libertarian the nomination . People as well, the measured last night when people delegate tokens is Austin Peterson who is a life long Party Activist. Hes 35. Got involved in politics through pauls campaign. Actually the ultimate challenger because he wants to calls of what the party the nonaggression principle which is that the libertarian record against initiating force against any reason. He wants to get rid of that. Dont. Icals theres john mcphee who is almost a philosophical im trying to a nonpejorative word with his attitude of philosophical openness. Very light on policy. On how libertarians should be the sort of place that philosophy of selfactualization and individualism. Daryl perry who he caller mentioned who is a ibertarian activist who is absolutely a radical and wants government eliminated in every be eliminated. I would say the problem for guys is that no one has the perfect combination of someone likeercome johnson. There are also also libertarians remember 2004 when the party didnt have johnson, the last year they didnt have a former promising coming in to expand the base. But they went with a party had no money and no National Appeal and he had terrible results. Out the rty throws interlopers, theyve learned ts difficult to get a media foothold host what about the choice of choice of viceis president ial pick playing out among the delegates . Johnson when he con in 2012 won it on the first ballot. Won close to 70 of support field. A fairly weak what has changed this year is that there are more delegates working to bring more people to the convention itself. O there are about 300 more delegates than there were last time. Two, that its been now 12 ears since the party didnt nominate a republican who joined the party. So just as i was saying there are people 12 years is a while. There are people who dont remember that or have kind of that aside and come to resent how former republican jump into the party and promise to expand the reach. Theres also kind of a Whisper Campaign although its been in major johnsons bout campaign spending. Made a ther thing that lot of people bitter about bob bar in 2008. Money, went into debt. Didnt seem to help build the party. Still has a debt from there is ampaign and a george philly is a party ctivist who has been spreading around the reports of how much Money Johnson spends on consultants. Its about 70 of what hes raised which is not very much. For a campaignal but hes trying to put it out that johnson an affable, to run a ho is going ead end partisanlooking campaign. Wells is not helping that. Wells is going to raise money and ohnson is the rumor failed to communicate the partys message. Of practice. D out he ran hes also been out of practice. Last ran for office in 2006. A patrician and not speed on p to libertarian dogma. It down, jeb oil bush invented an accidentally phase that he was willing to lose the primary to election. Eneral host it p sounds like theyre a tough road even amongst libertarians themselves. A final question for you, dave. Know, how much of an influence do you think their andidacy if they are indeed nominated will have on the general election . Have on donald trump and Hillary Clinton . Reporter well, at the moment, they are polling when people about them, polling at about 10 which is by far higher ever ibertarians have polled before. There were times in 1980 when they did okay but not 10 . And so a question is whether voters who dont like hillary and donald trump because most voters just hear about the poke around, rty, find theyre good enough. Theres the assumption that the two o do not like parties are natural libertarians. Thats going to be tested. But for a moment, one thing helping johnson and wells is that when asked twoParty Candidates like hnson and wells seem the people most interested. You already believe verything it is easier to imagine the country grabbing with wo former governors the right level of experience saying im going to go for that instead. The last t been fun year. Ohn mcphee specifically argues the party cant win the white house so they should have about more eloquent their principles. Peterson argues the way to win republicans angry about trump winning. Johnson, wells strategy bit more moderate caused skepticism just feel like host all right. The is dave weigel from Washington Post. Hank you so much for joining us. Reporter i appreciate it. Thank you this morning r on cspan will bring you live to libertarianrida for National Convention coverage. Well also have on gary johnson is the likely libertarian nominee for president. Hell be on washington journal on tuesday. You can listen to both of those on cspan radio. Now were taking your phone call as and whether or not youre considering a Third Party Candidate. Here are the numbers to dial. {202}7488001. Well go right to florida where is waiting. Good morning, barbara. Go ahead. Morning. Good i have a question. If the Third Party Candidate votes away from the two major candidates, couldnt election into the house of representatives which would guarantee donald nomination the election . Host barbara. Look up. St i have one article here for you which you might be interested in. His was an article that appeared in red state recently. Heres what it says. Referring to ly ross perot but gives a little historical background saying his mistake is that he tried to run a 50state campaign. With the crazy in this election, almost anything is possible. Therefore, if a candidate is going to try to make this need to hey would only focus on some key states in order to make it so that neither donald trump or Hillary Clinton could reach 270 electoral votes. He election would then be decided by the house of representatives. It is not unheard of. Legislated adams was president in 18 elected president in 1824 after the decided the election. There is a presence precedent happening but its a and window of opportunity its closing. From e have janet tennessee. Good morning. Caller hello. How are you, madame . Caller i would not excuse my oice i just got out of the hospital. Im 60 years old. Ive got five uncles that were and, no, i ar ii would not vote for a lib tarn party. They might just pull from trump hillary. Besides that, i want tl only 7 onvinced of all the income spent they dont want us to have nothing. Is gregorycaller from portsmouth, ohio. Caller good morning. This is my first time to see the libertarian candidates other than gary johnson. I have to say, my first gut reaction is these guys look like a radical group of people that are disturbing, to state a least to say the least. They make Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, which is also frightening. This is the group of people that are running against a twoparty system that we have. Think we have a twoparty system. Here is a story in politico. The headline was does the Libertarian Party finally have a chance . Carla howell saying we are seeing a record interest in the party. Membership has gone up 30 in the last few months. The Libertarian Party has been locked into 32 ballots for november so the signature deadlines still lie ahead. The party is on track tonight them all. The Libertarian Party is coming out of its highest raw vote total ever. Johnson receiving even slightly less than 1 of the boat. Johnson believes the only way to avoid a repeat is getting into a nationally televised president ial debate with donald trump and Hillary Clinton. That is the story in politico magazine. We will go back to the phone lines now to minnesota where grace is calling from new product. New prague. I would write in my own candidate. I wouldnt vote for a third party but i would write in the one that i think should be the president. Which would be Bernie Sanders. Host why write him in verses supporting another party member . Caller i think he is the right person. Common, ordinary man, not a multimillionaire and i am tired of multimillionaires running for Office Especially in the president s office. I support Bernie Sanders and i will write him in when i vote this november. Host next up is david from illinois. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host why are you considering a thirdParty Candidate . Caller i have mostly voted for thirdParty Candidates because the parties do not represent my interests. I believe they dont represent the interests of america. And havent for a long time. They differ on cosmetic issues. I have voted for libertarians or grains. At times i have voted for a conservative Party Candidate and what really encourages me this time around is the news that a majority, or almost a majority of americans now consider themselves independents. We are seeing the bankruptcy of the oneparty system, oneparty with two wings system. This could be the year that for independent candidates. That theencouraged libertarians and greens and independent parties would have the opportunity to fully explain their positions to americans, that is my concern, that the messages are not allowed to get out there. I do have one interesting possibility that i wonder about. A combination ticket, a Coalition Ticket of president ial candidates from the green or libertarian parties and a Vice President ial candidate from the other party. I am wondering how a ticket like that would do. They could easily agree on a few things such as getting rid of all the overseas wars, bringing home the troops, they could agree on aspects of stopping corporate welfare, they could agree on aspects of criminal justice and rolling back the police state. I would be interested to see one from each of those parties get together and i am not sure of how all the rules work in various states, but that is one thing that would intrigue me. Watching to journal has interviewed jill stein of the green party in the past and will be interviewing gary johnson of the Libertarian Party on tuesday. Our next caller is joe from deer park, washington. Good morning to you. Caller you need to get that cough taken care of. Host thank you. I find it fascinating as a lifelong libertarian that now that the children are acting up, they didnt want a bush or clinton or clinton and bush, all of a sudden, there is a Libertarian Party. Ron paul was a libertarian and they crafted rules in the Republican Party to keep him out. Now we are seeing there are four parties. Establisheds and democrats, new republican and established republicans, all of a sudden there are third parties. Hillary clinton cannot beat donald trump. She is too dirty. There is too much of a risk history on her. All of a sudden, libertarians are valid. All of a sudden, we make a point. All of a sudden, we are viable. Our whole thing is mind your own business. That is enough my comments. Host from deer park, washington. Cspan will be bringing you live to orlando to cover the libertarian president ial convention. We will have gary johnson on the program on tuesday, being interviewed there. We will tune in to see what he has to say. Lets look at this poll from Morning Consult that shows the level of support that gary johnson is receiving now. He pulled that 10 , received 10 of voter support when compared to a matchup against Hillary Clinton and donald trump. The retention would receive 38 and donald trump would receive 35 . 17 of voters say they are still not sure who they would support but that 10 number for gary johnson is one that is causing many people to think the Libertarian Party may have a chance at the National Stage this fall. Lets turn back to your phone calls. Jeremy from michigan is on the line and he is considering a thirdParty Candidate. Caller Austin Peterson is my guy. Myselfformer republican conservative to be more my views fall more in line with the conservative views of the Republican Party, but they have failed me in the past several years. Ron paul was the best candidate we had in a long time and they marginalized him. I am looking at the Libertarian Party because i dont agree with in more than 75 or 80 of their positions, but they represent what the republic of this country stands for. Constitution, the right to pursue our own goals and our own means, and to not be so dependent on the federal government. It is a radical group of people because weve become so accustomed to being spoonfed by the federal government for everything that we need. We are overtaxed. We have all these wars that we are constantly getting involved in, and i want to encourage your listeners to go to Austin Peterson 2016. Com and realize that i believe he will win the nomination today. If he doesnt, he is the man for the job in the next cycle. He is energized but more than anyone else, he represents a very vibrant movement that started with ron paul. He is articulate and he is the one that can change the twoparty system. Host that is jeremys opinion in howell. We are showing you some live photos, live video from the Libertarian National convention in orlando, florida. You there anding streaming all of the days events for you to watch. We are taking your phone calls on whether you are considering a thirdParty Candidate. Joanna from indiana is our next caller. Ive been watching very allely, the difference of the candidates and the only one that i see that has the same words, the same meaning is mr. Sanders and he has been doing the same thing for the last 34 years. More. T him i dont trust hillary, i dont trust trump, he is one of the 1 . Hillary is one of the 1 . Mr. Sanders will be written in if he is not our candidate. I will not have my records chosen as me voting for mr. Trump or ms. Clinton. Here is david wigle story in the Washington Post. Proving a tough sell to libertarians. 250 reporters have been credentialed to cover the election, a fivefold increase on the 2012 convention. He has courted 907 delegates. Self identified radicals represent a third of the party. He goes on to say that libertarians who hold no primary parties passed their infighting in two months of online chatter. Johnsons opponent, austin , and interloper who wanted to make the party a make work program for failed republicans and governors. He briefly ran for governor of new york as a libertarian. There is lingering will lingering ill will about how he backed off. The former republican congressman from georgia pledged to build a party that eventually rejoined the gop. A few more minutes for your phone calls. Carrie from auburn, maine, is up next. Caller good morning. Host are you considering somebody outside the twoparty system . Time ever, the first i actually started looking at politics this year. The whole thing has been crazy with trump and clinton. I cant vote for them. I went looking and said maybe ill vote for bernie. I like to take care of people and the whole deal. As i amealized, watching the thing last night and i have a friend on facebook whos been talking about the libertarians forever and i finally decided that the best look at them. After watching this, everything they said just makes more sense to me and even in the sense of i have always believed in welfare. We should take care of the people who cant take care of themselves. With that being said, the way they talked about it is look at st. Judes. I can or member who that guy was. How they support themselves, they dont make the poor people pay anything, they just taken donations. I feel like it could happen with other things and this whole thing open my mind to the Libertarian Party and i have a lot more research to do. I could tell other people out ,here what to do, but for me there is no way ever i could put down hillary or trump. Host we are almost out of time. Our last caller will be mike from merritt island, florida. Caller good morning. A little levity here this morning, i believe the Libertarian Party is like a vessel at sea with no anchor and johnny depps the captain. Im going to extend them the courtesy of welcoming them by going fishing. That is my comment. Host we will leave it there and that will be the final word on our program this morning. We will be discussing for the entire show the legacy of the vietnam war. We will be opening up the phone lines. We will be opening up to Vietnam Veterans, their family members, and all of our viewers to talk about the legacy of the vietnam war. Live to Orlando Florida where the Libertarian Party is holding its National Convention