and fought, nowadays 50 some odd years later, are very proud of what they did, proud of their service, and they represent we represent an entire generation that made a contribution to the defense of the republic in a very difficult time. nowadays we love the troops. we have a very small number of young men and women who are out there defending a country of 325, 350 million people. to all of us, both of that generation and this generation, particularly of fighting men and women, john mccain represents the best that this nation can produce. among his many virtues was the fact that though he never took himself seriously, he took what he was doing seriously. he joked often about being very near the end, the last guy, at
martha: one last question. when you look at the situation on a hole, with syria, iraq and afghanistan, is it fair to say that the efforts of these fighting men and women, that without what they did, isis and the taliban would be a stronger force and that they have succeeded in at least holding them back and changing the course of what s happening in the country? isis didn t exist before the wars so we can t really credit ourselves with defeating isis when it actually incubated and formed in occupied iraq. i would say this, the soldiers and the marines and air force force personnel, everyone who went over there tried to give a good account of themselves. in the main, that s what i observed over the years. politics doesn t exist much in the war fighters mind, when they are fighting the war. your bandwidth is taken up by fighting the war and by looking at people on the right and the left. the level that i write about, the people i encountered and came to know, i gave it their
home speaking to friends and family and my wife, my children, life goes on, most americans arthel: now we see senator rubio taking the floor there as negotiations continue there on capitol hill. strong words from senate majority leader mitch mcconnell earlier telling the american people that we will be right back at this tomorrow and as long as it takes. notable in his address there on the senate floor mitch mcconnell, senator mcconnell mentioned the words illegal immigration quite a bit saying that until we finish negotiations over illegal immigration, chuck schumer wants to keep the government shut down. so it seems that the name calling, the blaming, if you will, has they have doubled down on it. but hopefully there will be some sort of resolution there in d.c. before monday morning. we will see. meanwhile we just heard the senate majority leader talk about the u.s. military and the effects that the shutdown does have on the military on our fighting men and women. he said this
of the affordable care act. that provides new health care coverage for 20 million americans. that s not a trivial fight. that is huge. it s historic. last night the president called for a tremendous increase in defense spending in our country. $54 billion, but he also called for a $54 billion cut in health care, in education, in the environmental protection agency, protection for clean air and clean water and the $54 billion for defense spending, yes, we need funding for our fighting men and women. but he s also calling for a massive increase in our nuclear weapons in our country. nuclear weapons in a large way against health care, education and environment in our country. i think that s not trivial. that s a huge historic debate. again, the specifics here do matter. we do want to talk about them. but the tone is important here as well. because a lot of people, critics, democrats, have noted that the president has had an
there s no good answer here. i mean, he condemned himself out of his own mouth. then the women came forward and said, it happened. there s no way out for him. bob shrum, steve schmidt. gentlemen, we could do this all night. thanks for joining us tonight. coming up we will show you where american fighting men and women are once again in harm s way and a battle now underway. this is the 11th hour only on msnbc. many sleep-aids have pain medicine