security. hillary clinton says he ll s s her best to answer questions from lawmakers. i ve already testified about benghazi. i testified to the best of my ability before the senate and the house. i will do my best to answer their questions, but i don t really know what their objective is right now. the benghazi attack is one of the many hot-button issues lawmakers are expected to tackle this week now that congress is back in session. cue the bickering over the budget. first thing s first, lawmakers have two weeks to raise the debt ce ceiling. the white house says it won t negotiate over the increase and wants congress to raise the borrowing limit. lawmakers need to pass a new government funding plan which expires in december. one of the areas bound to come up, of course, the defense budget. my next guest is senior member
of the armed house committee. republican congressman mike of ohio joins me right now. thank you, congressman, for coming in. appreciate it. thank you for having me. you wrote a letter urging lawmakers to stop kicking the can down the road when it comes to defense spending. is that possible? probably not many americans think it is. certainly, we are somewhat having a showdown on capitol hill. as the president is asking for the debt limit to be raised, he s not in agreement as to what we should be spending. if you don t know what to spend, it s harder. the president made an announcement he s going to keep troops in afghanistan. as we look to next year for 2016, he s not yet agreed to sign the national defense authorization act that would fund the troops in 2016. the men and women in uniform need to know they ll have the equipment and funding necessary. we have a bipartisan bill headed toward his desk he says he ll veto. yet, he has committed that troops will be staying in afghanist
based. and i think it s playing amateur and i think so the connection between saudi arabia and the terrorists, it s living in an alternative universe. it doesn t work that way in international relations. just a fennel question because i don t want to leave the democrats out. is there anyone on the democratic side you think has a great plan to solve our country s military problems at the moment? well, i m not sure what military problems we have. we certainly are being challenged in different parts of the world but that s those are all global issues and different everywhere you look. this takes a depth of knowledge and understanding of the patterns of what s going on globally. you can t just say one solution will solve all problems. truthfully, i think our military is in relatively good shape except for the fact the congress has not passed a budget to help them out.
in complete chaos right now, with the speaker situation and all that. how can there be any agreement between the parties while that s still going on? there can be agreement. the white house hasn t even appointed negotiators with a congress, as the president said he s not even going to negotiate. it doesn t matter what condition congress is in? are republicans willing to negotiate with the president? are you? we have to. in order for the system to work, all three parties have to come together. when the president says he s not going to negotiate it, he means he s not going to do anything. in order for us to come to a deal, in order for us to fund the troops he s going to keep in afghanistan and fund national defense, we have to have negotiations and get a deal. it s difficult to believe anybody is willing to negotiate with anybody. it s a big game right now. it s sad because, you re right, we have men and women fighting overseas that we need to pay attention to. people need to