Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20130913

Here is a little bit from the speaker yesterday. There is all this speculation about these deadlines coming up. I am well aware of the deadlines. We are working with our colleagues to work our way through these issues. I think there is a way to get there. Im going to be continuing to work with my fellow leaders and our members to address those concerns. Right, as september comes to a close in 17 days, we want to hear in this first segment of journal this morning. Thathe different issues are being played out in washington right now, but we want to hear from republicans only, particularly we want to know what you think about a potential Government Shutdown. Do you think it is worth it to defund health care . To think it is worth it to cut spending, or do you think it is not worth the . That is where we are going in this first segment and we will go through more articles that relate to it trade you can see the numbers up there on the screen. Republicans only in this first segment. By the end of this show we will do democrats only for another segment. If youre republican and you live in the eastern and central time zones. Here is an article from the hill from the hill. 43 House Republicans backed this bill to defund obamacare. 42 republicans endorsed legislation that would keep the government open while defunding obamacare. The sponsorship total reveals that there are significant block of opposition to plan from june plea leaders from gop leaders. Thats in the hill. From politico. And finally one more article from the hill before we take your calls. Bill is a republican calling from buzzards day, massachusetts. What is your thought on all of this legislation and politics whirling around . Whole bunch of them, but we dont have the time. Let me put things into perspective. We have got to stop the spending. For the low information voters out there, this is so terrible. Takesomebody goes out and that ebt card or food stamps or whatever you want to call it and go to your local store to buy a gallon of milk, thats just a gallon of milk costs 3. 50. So you take out your ebt card or you take out your food stamps, whatever it is and to by the town of milk using your obama box, obama has to borrow one dollar tested bar one dollar 63 cents from somebody so that you can buy your 3. 50 gallon of milk. Hell, you have given that example, what do think the strategy for republicans in washington has to be . A Government Shutdown . Shutdown. That his bill in massachusetts. Next up is deborah in houston. Byi am very offended buzzards bay bill. I am a cancerd patient calling from a hospital in Houston Medical Center and i make 710 a month on ssi. I have worked all my life and i need those obama box to eat. That is very offensive. It is not just liberals that are eating up food stamps. I have to have that. We are not borrowing that from anybody. We got plenty of corporate welfare. Does bill question them every time they get about . Its about time we stop worrying about looking stupid and trying to unfunded obamacare when the Supreme Court says that it is constitutional . How about how much money they waste every time they run the lights in that hall and the two people are in there talking just killing time because they cant agree because the tea party is taking over the Republican Party . I think they are just looking stupid up there because the Republican Party, ok, we lost an election or two, but we still have the house. So why does it have to be divided into with the tea party and the republicans . How come we cant just have the Republican Party and they go in there and get something done . They run the house. What you think of Speaker Boehner . I think he is a fine man and i think just proven his mettle. I think what is missing up there is like some of our kids today dont have respect. Young people are younger people that go into Congress Just because they can get a pocket constitution and walk around a think they are constitutional scholars. Speaker boehner has proved his mettle. Let him do his job, just like i said when the obamacare law was the law of the land and party republicans, we are getting tired of these Tea Party People slashing the pan flash in the pan people. The guy just like paul revere, a lady just like the statue of liberty. I am very offended that a man we get on there and say that about me. Thank you for calling in this morning. By the way, of course, our social media sites are open as well. You can tweak in your thoughts handle. N wj that is our lots of comments already. Lots of conversation going on there. And our em cspan mail address journal cspan. Org. Republicans have the next move in the fight over how to prevent a Government Shutdown. The lead story this morning in. E New York Times geez, portage, indiana. If they connected docs of the dots of all the recent events, the nsa, the irs and even the other ones, benghazi and the chain of events leading up to this, and before that, you connect the dots and you will see what is going on, all right . Someone has got to do something to stop this spending, all that needple assistance deserve assistance act deserve assistance. Think about a you Government Shutdown . If they have to do it, they have to do it. The spending has to stop. The waste us to stop. That is keys keith in portage, indiana. Hello,ert robert. We have a president at this point who just cannot get both sides to come to an agreement. Unless we can do that, the republicans keep putting stuff out on the table, im not saying that democrats dont, but the republicans keep putting stuff on the table and they are just not going to get their way. That is what we are having that is why we are having a stalemate. I dont think the government should shut down, but sometimes you have to do what will get peoples attention and get them to make a different decision. Esides their own ideas that is the problem. Pelosi came out the other day and she was nothing but sarcasm. Everything was being sarcastic about what republicans had to say. Editing your boehner said anything bad about her or the democrats. Stalemate and i think one side will completely not banned, and get us as we will vent but no spending. Meadowstative mark was on this program this week. Heres what he had to say. On the continuing resolution, the bill to keep the government running, your leadership yesterday said we will tie a votes to defund obamacare to an to continuingeep resolution. Three agree with. Leadership . I can say that what we have found is not only leadership, but most republicans are in agreement on one thing. That is that we want to find the best way to make sure that this law is not ready for prime time does not get implemented starting october 1 and going into effect in january of 2014. We are united in that. We may differ on strategy of the best way to accomplish that particular resolution. I do not believe the majority of the board in terms of members of the republican conference including myself. I think we need something that has a little more teeth to it. It is not ready for prime time. Im willing to look at a number of other options, but this law is not ready for prime time. It is not fair the way we are about to implement it. Afrom the New York Times little bit more. Republicans only will this first segment of the washington journal. George, hello. Good morning. You just quoted treasury secretary lew from his recent the New York Timesarticle. In effect is saying it is the duty of the party in power and the house to raise the debt ceiling to accommodate the payment of bills already incurred and so on, which has been the president lost position. Which has been the president s position. Duty ofe house has a course to look at the spending that might ensue as the result of raising the debt ceiling. It is a two edged sword, so to speak. Congressman meadows of North Carolina you just showed from and i believe he is part of the tea party, there is an enormous debate going on with respect to the healthcare , even the the gop Heritage Foundation has taken a unconservative approach in my view, a dont rock the boat approach that this different from what the tea partiers wish to do. They wish to defund the obamacare law and political plank by plank. The issue of whether to try to pull it apart plank by plank or in a wholesale fashion is critical. To be pulled apart plank by plank because the president has the power of veto. The good folks at the Heritage Foundation seems to be ignoring that third some of the others who are thinking in the same fashion at the Heritage Foundation that it can be done away with. George, bring this to a conclusion. Has to be pulled apart plank by plank and congressman meadows is going in the same direction. That is george in normal, illinois. Patty in north branford, connecticut. What you think about all of this . I say shut it down. He changed it to a tax bill with his tyranny. It was voted twice in congress not to be a tax bill. Congressare paying for to go without healthcare. Out, 14ivers given changes have been made, suspensions. Losing jobs, parttime jobs, hidden taxes. , this isur doctors disgusting. With a grassroots tea party, they are the only ones with common sense. Theyre going to save this country. That is patty in connecticut. The Washington Times has an editorial. Nadine, you are on the washington journal, from largo, florida. Down. Ote to shut it that article you quoted is exactly correct. If a law were to be applied evenly for every citizen i would almost be in favor of it. But it was won by hook or crook. It is not fair. That is my point heard dan from elk creek, nebraska. They have to stop the wars and they have to stop saying senator grassley from iowa 800 and some thousand dollars subsidies for farmers. When i was a farmer many years ago we never got a dime from the government. We rotated our crops, we didnt ruin the soil with all these , and it was a half hour call from that senator , he startsnebraska off with a story that a lady under obamacare the tent cancel you because of preexisting conditions. He lied to the people about that is the thing that is good about obamacare. If they want to crash stock think theyll ever shut the government down because you know what happens. Would you be in favor of a Government Shutdown to cut Government Spending . Absolutely not. Ive got some bonds and who is whos going to buy another bond from the United States if they shut the government down . Most of them are stupid. That is been in nebraska. This is gary. Taran, norman, oklahoma. You are on the washington journal. We are talking to republicans only for this first segment. I am not a hardhearted person. Stamps,comes to food were not talking about delaying the lady who has cancer. Kids. E woman who has 13 if youre on welfare and you have three or four kids and you cant support them, there should be a cap on how many benefits you receive and not be rewarded for having more and more. That is why our young people are just getting lazier and they have no drive. The government will take care of them. Taxpayers are tired, we are broke. The government is broke. We cant do it anymore. Esther president obama up there talking about the babies that were dying on the concrete in. Yria when he was a senator and voted time and time again when he did not just sit present and he voted that if the baby survived the horrific allies. S and their hows that a different . This is sharon in kingston, illinois. I guess i am a republican. Thenrents grandparents both sides are all republicans. I dont think you want to be republican anymore. I agree with your caller from nebraska about senator grassley. I agree with what youre saying. I know he was a farmer, but im thinking about switching parties because he is right. I just see obstruction and he was right about his opinion and i know you said he was a farmer and a republican, too. I dont want to be an independent, thats for sure. He is right about senator grassley. When they have the iowa state fair he couldnt even make chicken. The people who are working there were trying to help him, he wasnt cooking them right, they were undercooked. He is the epitome of a guy who spends more time in restaurants. Right, they shouldnt be republicans anymore. That is all i want to state, thank you. Didi tweets in. Heres an article from usa today this morning. Totally using your suggestion about not when the Supreme Court returns to session in october we will be keeping an eye on that. Joe from pensacola, florida. Were talking about government shut down and Health Care Battles in congress. What do you think . Does anybody remember we have to pass a bill to see within it . Is anybody remember you can keep your plan if you like your plan and keep your doctor if you like your doctor . I want everybody to get a little more information. That is about all they know about obamacare. Storyth sides of the regardless of your political affiliation. Theok at the movie dominators and go to the complete life system. As far as the government shutting down, i dont know if i agree with that. Essential services are still is what for but that you elected officials for. So i urge everybody to go to the dominators movie. Com. Is don from scranton, pennsylvania. I have two topics. The governor from louisiana wants to cut the insurance for the house and senate. I think he is in the right spot and i think he should push for it. The second is the pipeline. Theyre pushing to get the pipeline to get the jobs, but at the end of the pipeline where not going to get any money for that. What they are saying and i dont think it is right is if the government has to shut down, then let it be. I dont think it should be, but if it has to be then let it be. Gym in schaumburg, illinois. You are on the washington journal. I am actually old enough to remember the clinton era and what was going on at that time. I do know the democrats are very and point tofact president clintons success in balancing the budget. To the Gingrich Congress and a Government Shutdown, when you looked at the budgets that president clinton ,s presenting, the fiveyear 10 yearbudgets, none of them complain none of them contained a budget surplus. A Government Shutdown is what it took to bring the democrats to the table to actually address the issue of spending and to consider cutting growth in government. So i dont want to see a Government Shutdown, however, what scares me much more is the unfettered growth of our debt because there will come a point in time in the future at which Interest Rates will increase. If at that point the cost of servicing the debt is going to greatly increase, that will really hinder the governments onlity to spend money important programs. Jim, weve got 17 days until the end of september. There talking about the debt limit increase in middle october, how would you like to see this play out . I wish the democrats would come to their senses and realize that for the longterm health of the United States we have to and start actually paying down the debt instead of just running up the nations credit card. What you think of your partys strategy of bringing healthcare funding along with continuing resolution on the government . As i recall, during the initial debates over the health care, the overriding concern was the total cost of health care to the system. It wasnt just about the cost of health care to the individual. All the concern was that as a system we spend more on health care than any other nation per. Erson however, i think what the studies that have been done subsequent to that, they are pointing at increases in the system cost of health care there a lot of things in the bill that are going to raise the cost of health care. It is not achieving one of the basic thomases that have been made. To see both sides issues. On these the bottom line is coming to an agreement as to how to get federal spending under control. All right, thank you. Jim in schaumburg illinois. If you more news articles this morning. Martins mom to testify on the hill. Also from e this morning. Also from politico this morning. Fred from auburn, new york. I think this is the worst leadership we have had in my lifetime. Republicans, democrats . Both are responsible for the situation we are in today. A republican, fred, how would you like to see the situation play out . We are a country that is 16 trillion in debt. We are a debtor nation and we have been told that Social Security cant be taken care of much longer. We have been told that medicare expensive and now they want to put obamacare and try to cover everybodys health problems. It is not going to work. It is just going to be another boondoggle. We cant seem to understand that. If we have to shut it down in one area then we better do it indebted in order. Thanks for calling in. Gary in tampa. What do you think of all of this . My favorite story about health care is a story from after world war ii. The government asked the people what would you like your government to do for you . The people said we would like to coverage from the time we are born to the time we die and the government said yeah, we can do that. So professionals from the Insurance Companies here in america went to germany and put together a Healthcare Plan that keeps Insurance Companies, private sector insurance 15 , you have to live on the total of 15 that you have coming in. They have something we dont dont have here which is called cost containment. To dont sell a 70 walker old people for 255 dollars. You sell it to them for 85 and make 15 above the cost. What we have given on in this over a plan fight that this country instituted under the Marshall Plan after world war ii in germany. It is funny that Newt Gingrich a while back, one of our faves, was talking about the Health Care System in germany. It is funny that some people asked why he was talking about that. We started and implemented the Health Care System in germany after world war ii. To this day it still takes care of its citizens quite well. Wake up, america. Virginia. Om suffolk, good morning to you. Yes sir. About the waste in the government. It seems like we would have plenty of money to run the government and they are talking about a shut down. My wife went to hospital in virginia and she last two days of a pay. Payperiod. Just throwing money away just to use it up so they can get more than next year. Then your congress and senate, they are running the country. Why are we any different than they are . With health be, care . Anything. They are exempt from these things. It just gets on my nerves when they talk about it thank you very much. Thank you for calling in. Heres a front page of the Orange County register those quote this morning. This is two men falling up a flag in front of a see17. Of a c17 nearly the end of an era for the California Military aviation industry. Is the last military aircraft built in california. Back to your calls on the potential Government Shutdown and funding of healthcare areas debt limit increase, politics in washington, republicans only just during this first segment. Port wing,alan in wisconsin. Allen you are on the washington journal. Address i would like to the problem with drilling for oil in this country. Number one, we need the jobs. This would dramatically increase jobs in the country. Actually the oil actually belongs to the country. Drill, we have to give the company some kind of incentive. But we also need a pact with the people of the country. What i would suggest is let them drill on federal lands. Get from whatan 40 ifard, around 35 or they join federal lands. Number one, it would give us gas for about one dollar 50 about a gallon. We could have a pact with the Oil Companies where they keep it here in this country. If the big Oil Companies dont want to do it, maybe we should offer some kind of a deal with some independent Oil Companies or companies from overseas. Allen, tied into our topic this morning. You are talking about the debt limit, i mean, for goodness sakes, the country is broke. We dont have any money, we dont have good jobs, and if we would drill and provide oil for this country, on federal land, which seek public owns, at a decent price, it would certainly help economically. Mail from larry in richmond, virginia. Barack obamas second cousin once removed is laying the groundwork for potential republican primary challenge against kansas senator Pat Robertson next year. I knnew something was off. Drat good morning, how are you . Caller all they care about our contributions. What, they only pay off wake up republicans. It is not about obamacare. It is about the Insurance Campaign contributions that theyre losing. That is what theyre fighting for and theyre not telling you this. Host what you think about a potential Government Shutdown . Caller they better not. On having a press conference the steps of the capitol and i thoseng to call up members of the Republican Party and im going to put their names in the sandbox. Host what group are you with . Caller i am not with any group. I am going to all the press conference and tell the press what liars they are. Host have you arranged for your press conference in advance . Good luck rate see you next week. , whom. Lake astin says well, we have a couple of guests coming up today. Of the issues that are swirling around here in washington. William kristol the weekly from standard. We will be right back with mr. Kristol. What he doesnt want americans to contemplate is that we dont know how to win wars. Spend more on our military than basically the rest of the world put together. But we dont know how to win wars. It seems to me that there ought to be a Serious National Conversation, why is that the case . Is it thel politicians are too stupid or our generals are inept . Is the size of our forces too small . Is it the fact that by its very nature, war is unprinted bowl . To go to war is to roll the dice. You might win and you might not. More with retired army sundayAndrew Bacevich night at 8 00. On cspans q a. It wasnt ever a commercial venture. They did not try to be self sufficient. What edith wanted from sagamore hill is basically to offset the expense of living there. So they did raise hay and alfalfa and wry. Grains that they could feed their horses and reduce the cost of having horses here. They did have a Lovely Garden that produced everything from corn to strawberries. He had an arbor that had eight different types of grapes heard they had strawberry and blueberry fields. The idea was to both feed the family and staff who lived on site but also to reduce the cost of maintaining a property like this. Watch our program on edith. Oosevelt see it saturday on cspan at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. We continue our series live next monday as we look at first lady helen taft. Washington journal continues. Weekly standard founder and editor William Kristol. How do you think the republicans should play this . Caller i dont think they can defund the whole thing. We will stagger along there will be a debt ceiling fight, probably a short shutdown in september. It is slightly crazy way to run the government but i think voters have decided to divide and control the government. They elected obama by a big margin and the house by a very big margin. They decided to keep government in 2012. It iseople think dysfunctional and messy, but spending has been kept under control. Conservatives like me havent got much of our agenda advanced, but we got to stop liberals in the last two or three years. Obamacare will be the center of the fight, but i think we will keep the government open. Have the ted cruzs and the rand pauls been helpful . Ts www. Cspan. Org it is his fingers they go singleon it is a biggest government expansion. Parts of it that dont seem ready to be implemented anyway, parts of it obama himself has delayed. Why not delay other analogous parts like the individual mandate . I think they have been very useful in raising the issue. Shouldnt the house use what toerage it has to look delay obamacare . Control, the republicans only control one half of congress and president obama did get elected. To a not going to accede complete stop of his signature legislative achievement. The tactics are not so helpful. Withu happen to disagree them on their tactics youre somehow a traitor to conservatives, a sellout. Coverage, itut could be in some cases, but in many cases it is a genuine disagreement on how to advance a conservative policy agenda. Host the Washington Times has that the defund is a bamboozle meant of voters. I told a member of the leadership that i thought it would collapse. Sometimes in politics it is better to be straightforward than clever. I think the house should pass what he thinks is right. May the exchanges or make sure that the least security or privacy concerns are verified to be working before they are opened. You can say look, we are funding the government. We are not picking a fight with president obama. He himself suspended the employer mandate. These exchanges are incredibly complex. Lots of serious people, bipartisan expert types say they are very uncertain that the Privacy Security concerns can be addressed heard lets at least make sure they can be addressed before we open these exchanges. Go with some targeted things that you can get on the continued resolution. I think some democrats in the senate would say that is not a bad deal. We believe in this, we voted for this legislation, but they dont in seeingerest this delivered any hamhanded way. Host what do you think of mr. Boehner . People arethese always saying hes weak and he cant keep his guys in line. I think some of the debate has been healthy for republicans. We will end up next week with a onter strategy and tactics the continuing resolution than if leadership had simply lay down the law this week or conversely if they were simply theowing senator cruz and hardline activist line. Some of this debate can be healthy. My only criticism would be that they focus too much on unanimity in the caucus. To havent been as many proposalsve house he advanced. Those arent going to become law. Higher education, healthcare, million different issues. They could make more progress over the next year or two in getting some draft pieces of legislation out there, having some hearings, arcing legislation. It would be very helpful for republicans in 2014 and 2016 to say we do have an agenda in areas a, b, c, d. We are not just for freezing the status quo or going back to the way things were in 2008. Publicationr sister , the wall street journal, this morning. Guest i think that is partly due to some reasonable performance by republicans. If you live in michigan or indiana or ohio. You wake up and think these republicans in the media are bunch of lunatics. They seem to be doing a pretty good job governing is pretty conservative republican governors. Obviously the drop in president obamas popularity. If you look at at the popularity of these measures, the leader of the party is the leader. Leader of the party is responsible. Since then, it has been all downhill for him. I think he has made some tactical mistakes in terms of the guncontrol fight which he ,nded up losing, immigration then of course the world is getting more dangerous. The commonly the economy is not doing particularly well. Achievement, the more you see it getting rolled out, looks much more problematic. I think people who were ready were skeptical about it. The public is getting more and more skeptical. I think he is not off to a good start. I would say you cannot count on your opponents always making mistakes. You cannot count on them what if my old boss like to quote . No one becomes a saint because of other peoples sense. Republicans sins. Republicans cannot become saint anyway. I think it is a practical matter. Republicans are in good shape for 2014 and 2016. Host the topic of your last two editorials in the weekly syria, mark twain said history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Civil war rhyme with spanish civil war . Guest that is sort of an esoteric allusion, but some people have made that comparison tiered the spanish civil war was comparison. Or the spanish civil war was a precursor, the religion cause, which was not aided by the democracy, taken over by communist. You ended up with two sides fighting, but they let it get to that point. They were not into meeting anywhere. Mussolinihat one invaded ethiopia and used poison gas, incidentally. They nations did not do it. The depression was going on. Then hitler, that is too difficult. Not to the bear obviously, syria and iran with germany or for that matter and puerile imperial japan, but that makes it more frustrating that we are not to use our ,olitical and military clouds the Syrian Civil War did not have to kill 100,000 people. Itd not have to feature the use of chemical weapons. It is not now have to sustain a situation where we have backed out, putin is now empowered, assad is in powdered, empo wered, al qaeda is in powdered empowered. I ran a stronger than ever. It is a very dangerous situation. Everan is stronger than. We obviously cannot let the middle east get to that situation, which is why i ran well, front and center in come front iran will and center in politics. Host your editorial, a yes vote on in syria is the easy vote. It is actually close to risk free. Guest i would first argue that i think we should have used force to punish assad. I think we should have used its a long time ago indirectly to get rid of assad. Once he began using chemical weapons, i would have accelerated that pressure and that effort. As the president said, that is a red line. I would at least punish assad in a serious way. The president backed off from that. Aat i wrote the editorial had ago, the president asked for congressional authorization. I set it with the right thing for republicans to do. They did not trust the way he would use force. I did not trust the way he would use force, but some forces better than simply walking away from it. Acting lake is often better than acting not at all. Arguments about doing something inadequate its even worse than doing something then doing nothing. I do not agree with it. I regret that so many republicans came out against the president. I must say on the other hand the president , he it easy for tokens to support them. He did not make it easy for republicans to support him. The obama effort became so comically incompetent that at that point you cannot even really go to republicans and say described the authorization, and in fact it all fell apart on the hill. Host hello, i must be going. Was justy standard put on my last night. Guest thursday. In here, use two words marxist and munich. Guest that is a groucho marx routine and animal crackers, hello, i must be going, which a friend of mine pointed out to me that that is what obamas speech was like, we have got to do some the about assad, redline a must make ross. But you know what, im not going to do anything, and putin is going to take care of this, and im sending john kerry to geneva. I talk a little bit about the groucho marx routine. I do quote karl marx, also, who historical events recur, happen twice, the first of the tragedy, the second time is farce. John kerry said this is our munich moment, the moment we stand up to dictators. Unfortunately, it turns out that it was kind of a munich moment to a much lower scale where we did not stand up to a dictator. I think that is worrisome because as we were saying about werepanish civil war, we led to war, 9, 10 months later, munich was fought too late to avoid a major war. I think that is still the moment i dont think things have generated have degenerated to but it wasf 1948, ironic that john kerry said munich moment when he thought the president was behind him, and he ended up having a president who did not have the will maybe that is not fair should not make the judgment that it was right to use force. Now we are in a ridiculous situation where we will have endless discussions with the u. N. No one really think that i thought can get rid of all of the chemical weapons. No one thinks we know where they all are. It is the middle of a civil war. You and forces are not going to be able to go in there and find them all. Russia is in the drivers seat. To draw a redad line, to call the worlds attention to this, schedule a speech to the nation, and then sort of walk away, kind of a never mind moment, you know . Host bill kristol is our guest, founder and editor of the Weekly Standard. James from louisiana, your first caller, good morning. Good morning, peter, mr. Kristol, since you are in washington, i was just curious if you were to tell us what percentage of the calls to the congressional switchboard are coming in for an attack on syria , and maybe what percent of the calls are saying dont attack syria. Host how do you feel about it, james . Caller im against it. I think we ought to let them settle their own disputes, and maybe if the saudis have gas under three dollars a gallon, but right now i am not prepared to do that. Thank you a lot. Guest i think elites for republicans, more than 90 , sometimes 99 are against intervening in what they see as a Syrian Civil War. I would subtly point out that it is a Syrian Civil War in which iran and russia have been meeting aggressively on the side of assad, who has now used chemical weapons. There were people two years ago demonstrating that they were decent people who wanted a Decent Society and we did not help them. Now the rebel forces are more mixed, but there are still decent rebel forces. But president obama has not made the case. He has been 4. 5 years and saying the title for his receding, we are war weary, we have got to focus on our own programs, nation building begins on, etc. Of course the public is going to is the one whont is supposed to be alerting us to these foreign threats, and if he things we are entitled, he cannot show up and say this guy, assad, we do not do anything about him except an occasional, that we did not like what he was doing, but hey, this guy have got to go. Obama did not even have the clarity to say this. He does not have to go, but we should use force against them, it should not be too much force, incredible a small force, actually. And im going to do it, oh, i will go to congress. I do not blame the public for blame look, i do not individual commerce for deciding that it was such a mess that they wanted to stay out. Not a mess on the ground, but really mf in terms of the administrations ability to execute the mission. I do think to these agree degree of people generalize, it would be a huge estate for america and the world to draw a lesson that we can just let all of the guys kill each other and it will not affect us. I do not think that is the lesson of history, that is not the lesson of 9 11. Host on the democrats like him graham in birmingham, alabama. Caller yes, good morning. I am a little offended as a black woman with determine knowledge. What, it is said some of the words that the republicans use against this resident. Like bob parker. He is uncomfortable being commander intake in chief. I had to call his office and let him know that as a taxpaying citizen, we own the house. We are taxpaying citizens. Marsha blackburn owns cnn. She is not acting like a leader. You all need to stop using terminology. Host how is that racial . Caller it is not racial, it is offensive. And i am offended as a black woman because certain terms you do not use against the president. You do not say certain things. I gained a lot of respect for president bush during his term. It is not easy being president. What a these people step up . It is not easy. They go through a lot of stuff. I mean certain terminology, yes, as a black person, we have all been there, we talk in our community, we hear things, we have words, we have terminology i mean, it needs to stop. This man is president of the United States. He is not president of a city. He is the president of all of us. Hispanics, asians, african americans, white, everybody. We need to give him more respect. Host all right, gwen, we got the point. Bill kristol. Guest i supported the president in this case, and i would have been happy to see follow through on what he said he was going to do. Im very individual cases where there is offensive terminology, i do not think most of it is racial. President bush, as the caller pointed out, was the subject of unbelievable attacks. I think more so probably then president obama. But pretty much everything i have written i think we probably wouldve said about president john kerry, president nancy pelosi, or any other liberal who follows the same policy. Its not personal about president obama. Those who offer their judgments about the president as a human being, if the a commanding presence, nca week presents is he a week presence, if the a strong leader, a weeak leader . The general dignity with which he has purported himself. But, look, it would be nice if we had a slightly less harsh public rhetoric, but as you know and you show on cspan with your storable studies and shows, this goes way back in american history. George washington, Thomas Jefferson were in victory viciously attack. I am not sure it is that much worse now with resident bush and president obama. Host have you met president obama . Guest a couple of times as senator. One time when he was president elect with a small group of conservative columnists. The one time i met him when he was president was in spring 2011 when i was supporting his intervention in libya. He had a bunch of columnists types, Foreign Policy commentators and the like into the white house the white house had us in for a little session in a room where they pertained to listen to some of your thoughts but basically are just telling you thank you for being on board and giving you their analysis of things. And the president spent about 45 minutes with us. He came out in the room the way the president really does when it comes into a group and shakes hands with each of us. I assume had been given a list of who was to come. He was a little startled by me being there. He made a joke about you are buying the, now i am a little world worried. Something must be wrong. Fortunately, he did actually iter intervening with libya, and the Weekly Standard became critics of what he did not do after the international invention, which i am afraid lead to benghazi, and now he is giving speeches saying not only this not going to be iraq, august the we are not putting troops on the ground, this is not even going to be libya. The president of the United States constantly reassuring citizens that we do have military action, but let me read sure you it is not going to be this, that, not serious, not longterm. No boots on the ground. I think that is wrong. First thing, one thing template to another. One thing can lead to another. You can just go into something and be assured that you are not going to have to do further things. So i think you do have to be ready to do that, prepare to do it militarily, and you need to prepare the country for that. Once military intervention is a the president has taken the lesson from history, i suppose, he just think that either it is not necessary for us to or we just cant support, we are not economically Strong Enough of a not ready for that. I think that is a misreading really. If the president says, here is what we need to do, this is what a nuclear iran looks like, and this is what helps stop that, and heres what the consequence of that would be, i think the American People historically have been ready to step up. But they do need leadership and have not gotten as much as they should have from this president appeared to be fair, they have not gotten as much as they should have from the republicans. They are not in the same position at the president , obviously, they do not have the bully pulpit of the president. But a Republican Leadership in the house and senate has been pretty happy to criticize the print the president. Not that many have that step forward and say this is what we need to be doing in the world. Former chief of staff to Vice President inkwell, former Vice President dan quayle, do you stay in touch with him . Guest i do. I have a very high opinion of him. He was a good Vice President. We did not do a very good job of helping him repair the damage that was done to his reputation in the 1988 campaign before i joined him in the white house. Some of that damage was unfair, too. He was not helped as much as he could have been by the bush campaign. Being thrown into the Vice President ial spot. He taught me early on when i was in washington you cannot trust the media, which is a good lesson to learn. They did manage to give him a certain image that was three difficult to shake. When there were three networks, and i was a really, cnn was for a small, that just began, rush began around 1988, 19 89, but he was the only one for most of the administration feared no fox news, no internet obviously. Harder for a few newspapers, the new york post, the washington there is a fight on a certain narrative about a politician. With a cover story that is online at today, it will be out monday, really, in print by Andy Ferguson on ted cruz, who is now the conservative republican who the liberal media love to demonize. I can easily go through some of the epithets that have been thrown on him. It is not a tough piece by any means on ted. His strengths and limitations perhaps a far as a leader. It is hard to do that these days. Ted cruz can go around and around the Mainstream Media and make his case and people can go online and say i just saw ted cruz speak here and he is very impressive. Of course, there are so many news outlets that people can make up their own mind watching cable news each night, watching cspan, everybody else, about ted cruz. Almost 25 years ago now with inkwell. With the dan 12. Quayle. A lot of people complained about in washington. Im a big fan of cable news. People get all kinds of crazy ideas. I think on the whole, it has been a good thing. Host next call for bill kristol comes from brenda in montana, democrats line. Caller good morning. Boy, i am with that other woman. You know, the people from the geta that call and just their poison pens out and start writing all this bad stuff about president obama, they dont even want to call him president. It is pretty nasty. I dont know you, bill kristol, want to do that. You talk like you were in the war room, you talk like you were in the secret meeting with putin. You do not know what is the exec am a what is being done. You disguise you guys just want to armchair quarterback the whole thing. It is ridiculous. I supported the president or request for authorization of force. Im not going to comment on events that have not happened. We have russia acknowledged on the outside of people in the president s staff meeting or sitting in with kerry and love avrov. I dont think the president has had a very hostile media. He had a incredibly favorable media in 2007, 2008. If you have a candid conversation, they will acknowledge it and take credit for working the media very hard. They made him the night in shining armor, the insurgent against Hillary Clinton. If you talk to the clinton people, they are still a bit it or maybe bidder is not quite right, but envious of the ability of obamas to work the media. The president himself as good of good at that. If you are the biggest is the risen america and look at network tv, the president has gotten more than a fair chance to make his case. Villas in in host reading, pa, republican line. Ive been watching you for many years. You are a smart man. I heard you the other day on fox, i was listening to you, and you are 100 right. Syria is a dangerous place right now. Five president s that won war, and what it we h and what did we accomplish . Nothing. At least 55 years ago, i had to work to make a living, and i had money because i worked. Thats what this country gets you. It gives you the opportunity to work so you can be successful. But these people dont want to work. Dont like this country, i will pay for the first been boat to shipnana them back guest we can afford to have a strong country at home. I am very in favor regarding the war. We do have programs at the federal level which probably should be reformed because they more thanonwork relative to work. Moving up, 30, 40, 50 years ago, one of the worries republicans have addresses the slowdown of social mobility and upward opportunity over the last 10, 20 years. That is up and under republican and democratic president s. Important policy agenda for the Republican Party. But we do not spend that much on defense. Even the recent wars on their height was 1 to gdp, our totally signatures now, is less than 5 of our gross domestic product. It is well worth to spend a , seven centsents on the dollar. If we can stop economic islamic instruments of the as long make extremism from taking over the middle east. I think it is a very sound investment. I think it is a mistake to say lets not involve because we cannot afford to. Host bill kristol, september 30 is coming, and the Government Shutdown, how will you feel about that, and should republicans take some action . Guest i suppose. We will have to see what those conditions are. Usually we talk about a Government Shutdown, and in 1995, that is not what it was. There were parts of the governments that were funded, prorated, and i have got to assume that what up again, medicare, all that. I think the sequester, which was a pretty striking series of cuts in defense spending, they are republican that were dedicated. He went out said this would be a disaster, the white house will rise up in arms. There really are a lot of government workers, government workers who indirectly depend on government contracts. The effects were pretty minimal. Cut 3 , 5 from a lot of programs in the short term and not see much effect. In any eventual individual case, someone might have been furloughed, but in general, not a huge social turmoil and unhappiness during the sequester. I dont know that that means that you could do that does not mean you can do a whole Government Shutdown. It is not many can cut spending 40 , which is what you have to cut probably to get the debt ceiling, but it does mean there is plenty of money plenty of room to save money. I am worried about defense. Sequester is fine, you get domestic saving, spending, i am for that, but you are giving up a lot of defense cuts. And we are now stretched very thin. If we dont intervene anywhere, if you think the world is going to be peaceful, though chemical weapons are within reach of al qaeda and we are not going to do anything, if that is your view, that is fine, we just bomb a few people and that is not expensive. But if you think we need to have Forward Deployed navy bases and soldiers, marines ready to go ashore if need be, if you think there are threats around the world, and if you think it is good for us and for the world to be able to keep these threats from getting to deter these threats before they get severe, we need to have a pretty substantial defense establishment. These cuts are serious there. Im told the navy is really straining to even do with the president ordered it to do just to prepare for a possible serious intervention and also prepare for things getting out of control there. Ton if we chose not intervene. Theyre going through the sequester money now faster than seven van sequester levels. Were cutting that to close. It is not worth it. It is too risky. Ofawful lot of it comes out defense it i am not a big fan of sequester. Host jessica in florida, thank you for holding, calling on our independent line. Caller im glad to be on. The congressith not doing anything. If i dont do my job, i get fired, so they dont do their job, they ought to be able to be fired. Checks and balances, it is not balancing out. We have all this clinical polarization going on when our country the infrastructure is crumbling dirt we have got no jobs. We need to spend money to make money. If the rich dont want to create the jobs, they can go and get out of the country completely. That is all i have to say. Well, i think you can say voters are able to fire members of congress and they have done it quite a lot in recent years. In 2006, 2008, they fired a lot of provoking, in 2007, they fired a lot of progress. A lot of democrats. A lot of the new programs that are being prevented, perhaps, are programs that deserve to be prevented from coming into being. The government does good and often does that. So i am less pessimistic than the caller is about the current situation. Said four years ago after the financial chrysler would be where we are, that is not as bad as people expected. I think obamas policies are hurting the regulatory policies, obamacare. We have reduce unemployment. Im very worried about the long term unemployment of both the young and middleaged workers who have lost their jobs and are having trouble getting back. I think that is important policy. I cannot say honestly that either party had that many good ideas what to do about that. Obamacare will hurt the country. I will be happy if they get delayed and then repealed. Is not the country suffering as much as some people say from gridlock in washington. Host bill kristol, Vladimir Putin does not think we should call ourselves exceptional anymore. Be a maybe you should regular contributor to the New York Times. If youvery well written, like to be dictators. It was humiliating. It looks for media day there that putin was going to give president obama the easy way out of the serious crisis syria and give him the diplomatic fig leaf and not rub salt in the and he clearly is interested now in humiliating be president. I am not happy about that. Im not happy about the democrat president being humiliated by a foreign dictator. There is something bizarre about publishing it. Here is another conservator giving his opinion. Yes, he does not like the idea of americans saying that there is something exceptional or impressive about our combination of bureaucracy and Self Government and limited government and rule of law and the like. And of course he would not like that because he does not believe in most of those things. So, i am happy one of the that is apparently is suspect it will mute whatever criticisms we were making towards what putin has been , murderingme journalists and suppressing political criticism and freedom of speech and antigay legislation and the like. I am worried that now we will be so invested in hoping that putin is nice to us that we will mute our support for our principles in russia and elsewhere. Kate on our democrat line in california. Caller i am very concerned about the people who are advising the president. Yesterday, i saw were Henry Kissinger was talking to the president how he should deal with russia. Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the chilean coup that kissinger and nixon instigated, killing thousands of people and subjecting them to a 17 years. T for Henry Kissinger should have been tried with nixon for war crimes, and he should already have been executed. People were absolutely surprised that Henry Kissinger is still going into the white house and getting advice to the president. It is truly disgusting. Host bill kristol, do you know mr. Kissinger . Guest i do know him. Ive had my criticisms of him. He came from the Ronald Reagan school of Foreign Policy. Ofcertainly was a favor detente. Kissinger andixon administration supported the chilean coup. I do not think they were responsible for it. Maybe they could put more pressure not to commit human rights abuses he committed. At the end of the day, that didnt yield to a democratic government. Yield to aat did democratic government hurt i was down there, it was a nice occasion. Who do badictators things, and we should try to prevent them from doing so, but also dont destroy their countries and do lay the groundwork work for the country and enough got in a good place. It is a competent decision. At the time, the choice was not distracted attractive in chile. I do not know if Henry Kissinger did the right thing or not. He is not a word criminal war criminal. It would be interesting to be in the meeting. Kissinger, he has said this publicly, has been very worried about the decline of american prestige in the world. Typeer you are a kissinger or a reagan aggressive Foreign Policy guy, you do believe that the u. S. Is in a dissent. Descent. Ago, was of course the Nixon Administration helped israel and we supplied israel and turned the tide of the war, which then led to egypt switching sides from the soviet union to the u. S. , which really began a long period in the middle east where the u. S. Had the upper hand, and for all the troubles in the middle east, did lead to a fair amount of peace, at least lead to some progress in certain areas, can including an is reallyegyptian israelijordann peace accord. We had invited the russians back in, the russians were the biggest suppliers of a run of , letting the russians come into the center of the action in the middle east. Kissinger dealt with the soviets because he thought he had to. He thought we were in a relatively weak position after vietnam. But bringing russia back in, that is a whole different story. Host what is your opinion of the jimmy carter middle east Peace Agreement that he worked on . Critic ofwas a carters middle east agreement. I do not think he had a problem of the Peace Agreement. It is not that different today. And initiatedael that pete stark out of fear that the u. S. Was backing out, ironically. Then carter sort of stepped back up and helped make the peace treaty a reality, but we were sending all kinds of signals of weakness. He was very worried about soviet resurgence and thought maybe we could get peace now with israel. That will stop the ability of soviets to fish in troubled waters there. Jimmyt want to begrudge harder credit for diligently working on a campaign, but i honestly think henry nixon and Henry Kissinger deserve more credit for laying the groundwork for that peace treaty than jimmy carter. Please go ahead with your comments. Caller on putin, i think he is suffering from delusions of adequacy. Homew up in dan quayles town until i graduate from college. I spent 28 years in the United States air force as a pilot. I started my career in vietnam, and i have flown combat missions. Desert storm, i helped plan conduct message. Missions. If were going to use military power, we have to have a Compelling National Interest, and that interest must be made known to the American People. George h w these did that bush did that with desert storm. You the americans going, cannot say it is not a war just because you do not have troops on the ground. I was in the air force. I know what airpower can do. Trust me, the people on the receiving end of that airpower think is a war, even if there are no troops. I am opposed into going into syria on two fronts. One, there is no t been Compelling National Interest that we need to go in there and we cannot do it just makes me feel good. The other thing, you cannot do what has been called a pimp week a handbrake a pinprick. I also spent time in a nuclear war business. War is war is war. It if they were both anchored you cannot just have a little war or a nice war or a war just because some he wants to do it. It is just not right. That comes from 28 years in the United States air force. Host all right, i think we got your point. Lets get a response from mr. Kristol. Guest thank you for your service. As i said earlier, i think you need to be prepared for escalation and prepared for a unforeseen eventualities. The enemy is a vote, other third parties like boots and gets putin gets a vote. John kerrys and the president s rhetoric are very close to that. Re arehink they Compelling National Interest there, not letting a dictator getting away with using chemical weapons. Especially with the president of the United States said that is onyx not accept the will and it is a redline line. Other people think we can live and it is not lead to anything happening here or happening to close allies or where iranalation can get nuclear weapons, and that would lead to threats against us o. I know war is war and it should not be lighthearted, but we intervened and bosnia, kosovo, panama, and those interventions were successful and could be limited. I think it helped stabilize situations, helped prevent ethnic cleansing, helped get rid of a dictator in the case of milosevic. It could have fallen apart in southeastern europe. I think you have to make it is a tough judgment and alicia be cavalier about it, but i do andthink we should be you should not be cavalier about it. But i do not wish to paralyze ourselves. President bush did an excellent job laying the groundwork and we do not have the whole country with this. If it intervened in january of 1991. We had already gotten the Security Council authorization. None the less, the vote in the senate was 5247. 85 probably of the Democratic Senators voted against it. It was not because they did not like president bush. They thought it was unwise. There was no need to get saddam out of kuwait. See you can have honest differences of opinion. You sometimes do go to war with a pretty divided country, i think americans tend to rally once you were engaged in combat. Airpower is powerful, but im sure there are limits, as im sure the caller would agree. Which is why i am nervous when he says president obama says over and over and many others do too, no boots on the ground, no boots on the ground. It is just irresponsible. If you are going to start summit, you need to be ready. Get if al qaeda is about to a hold of chemical weapon somewhere in syria or for that matter somewhere in pakistan . Are they so convinced that we would not want to deploy marines if we had a reasonable shot of preventing al qaeda from getting a hold of those weapons . You cannot just a ploy 300 of them. Or then have to have 3000 30,000, etc. , so what you do need to be serious about war. We need a reasonable size defense establishment. These days with cruise missiles and drones and airpower, you do not need lots of soldiers and marines, you dont need lots of backup, you do not need the chips it is not right. If you are serious about maintaining some modicum of force order, you need adequate offenses. We are already getting close to the position that we are undercutting our ability simply to do what minimally we need to be able to do in the world. Host 10 years out from the start of the iraq war, what is your inspected today . He waswere wrong wrong about his thought process of weapons of mass destruction. Had of course use chemical weapons before. I think it was a roller coaster, obviously. There were too few troops on the ground in the beginning. We were crinkle of rumsfeld and president bush for the contact with the war. I think they were unfortunately right that they did not adjust until the end of 2006. So i really regret the 2004 to where weiod analytically had it right, but the world was not adjusted well, and it was unnecessarily it did not go well for us and for our soldiers and marines and the iraq he people. Tragically, that was that the search worked. General petraeus, soldiers on the ground in iraq, something that will be in the history books. By the end of 2008, it was for a peaceful, quiet peaceful. Civil government in place there, the communities were living sidebyside, and then to sort of not negotiate a force agreement that allowed us to give some troops there and have some leverage, and i was beginning to degenerate into civil war. If theres a connection between the i caught al qaeda strength in syria and the resurgent in iraq, that becomes we gotly dangerous, and so the president s cabinet against the iraq war, fine. He took over a situation where a minimal effort could have preserved the gates remain in iraq, but he was so concerned just to be able to say i got us out of iraq that he frittered away very hardwon gains. Host would you advocate going in today knowing what you know anything situation . Guest that is hard to say because so much arguing for the word came because of the weapons for mass destruction. I certainly would have advocated i did want to get rid of saddam. By leaving him in power, we left a dictator who used chemical weapons and power. Clinton had to deal with that in 1998, bush wouldve had to do something. Huge pressure to remove the sanctions. I think of we had backed off, even knowing they do not have the weapons of mass destruction, i think that would have been a horrible signal to dictators elsewhere in the middle east. I remain a defender of that war. I thought the intelligence was was bad. E will for me, again, the tragedy of i frack of iraq is having done a pretty extraordinary thing, i think ordering the surge against Public Opinion in the end of 2006, i give soldiers, marines, the rest of the armed forces a huge amount of credit for carrying it out in 2007, 2008, to respond to those gains. Eric, new york city, independent line, you are the last call. Caller im calling about the intelligence about the chemical weapons that you set aside used. Used. D assad where is the specific evidence . Is it going to be like iraq 10 years from now, finding out that if i did not use chemical weapons, that it was staged . Ed part byt op president putin, they say the truth hurts. Christians,l of the why are we concerned about the christians in syria . Those poor people will be destroyed. Host bill kristol, final word. Guest i think the gathering of evidence is overwhelming. The chemical weapons. The opposition does not. The weapons of mass secretary kerry said, were used in ways that we have a lot of intelligence that the regime knew about their use, condones their use, they were used against Opposition Forces that were making progress in a suburbs of damascus. If people want to believe that president obama, secretary kerry, the entire u. S. Intelligence apparatus is lying, they can do that. The left wants to support president obama here, president was should not lowing lee knowingly lie about the intelligence on iraq. More speculative. This is actual use of weapons of mass destruction. I do not think the entire u. S. Ernment would be making up describing responsibility being fiction about who was responsible for such use. The christian is accused throughout the middle east is a terrible thing. It has been happening for a long time unfortunately. There is a limit to what the u. S. Can do about that. I thought had protected the christians to some degree. Had protected the christians to some degree. To my friends is a we should not weervene against assad have not intervened against a thought for the last two years, which has been a time of great thetion for the civil civil war caused by assad as much of anything. You can put on the opposition, but these were people rising up against the dictator. I think ultimately the best bet for any community in the middle east is obviously peace and obviously a decent government that somewhat representative of the public, and i dont think wite,ill see forever an ala sectarian government, which is a dictatorship. Alawites are what, 90 of the population . Governing everyone else. The majority will not be nice to minority, they do not have a reputation for that in the middle east, unfortunately. If everyone else is to be strong and engaged, i think the fact that if we withdraw it is not going to get better for them, it will get worse. Host bill kristol, finder founder and editor of the Weekly Standard, the new edition is online, weeklystandard. Com. Thank you so much for being on the washington journal. The next up is to kornacki of msnbc is Steve Kornacki of msnbc. We will be right back. Cspan student cam video competition is underway. It is open to all middle and high school students, and this year we are doubling the number of winners and prize money. Create a five to seven minute documentary on what Issue Congress should focus on in 2014. They are due by june or 20, 2014. For more permission, that the studentcam. Org. Cspan, we bring Public Affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and conferences, and offering complete gaveltogavel coverage of the u. S. House of all is a Public Service of private industry. We are cspan, created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. And now, you can watch us in hd. This was different from earlier president to homes because it was never a commercial venture. They did not try to be self sufficient. What edith wanted was basically to offset the expense of living there, and so they did raise pay and alfalfa and grant that they could feed their horses. And reduce the cost of having horses here. They did have a Lovely Garden, not produced everything from corn to strawberrys. Had eightn arbor that different kinds of grapes, they had strawberry and blueberry fields, but the idea was to both feed the family and the staff that live on site, but also to reduce the cost of maintaining a property like this. Watch our program on Edith Roosevelt ever was a, c span. Org firstladies, or watch it live on cspan. We looked we look at first lady helen taft. Washington journal continues. Host now joining us from new york city is Steve Kornacki, host of msnbcs up with Steve Kornacki, and he also writes for salon. Com. We will be taking some calls in a little while, but we want to get a few issues out there first. Mr. Kornacki, are we a sexual nation . An exceptional nation . Vladimir putin does not think so, but i think the majority of people in this country would certainly disagree with that, and i think that that wasr the reaction generated in the last few days. Host do you disagree with that . Guest do i disagree with host mr. Putins assessment. Guest yeah, i completely disagree with latimer putins assessment. I kind of question august the come it was not designed, it is not something that will sway American Opinion to his side. I think that is an oped that was written by a guy who is feeling very confident, sort of in the moment, very confident in terms of his own domestic politics, in terms of what this will do to him and for him within the confines of russian politics. Americagoing into through the New York Times, the leading National Newspaper in america, sort of poking a stick in the eye of americans like that, the leadership of this country. I think within the world of russian politics, that is the best way to understand it, and possibly enhances his standing there. He is probably enjoying it. But i do not think in terms of the american audience it is having much effect. Host politically, you do not think it was damaging to the president . Or to any efforts moving forward on syria . Think putins op ed is particularly damaging to obama. It would be embarrassing for any leader, any president of this country to have a foreign leader like that taking to the oped pages of a major newspaper and make a be kind of claims and making the kind of statements he did. I assume that the white house was not too happy with that. I assume that lenny white house would not be too happy with that. In terms of the discussions that are playing out, it might tell us something about the position that Vladimir Putin seasons of them, especially a position that he sees himself in within his own country, which i think will affect how he negotiate it tells like this, something about his own political standing. But i dont think it will end up ,ffecting this administration the american administrations ability to negotiate here. Host what is your position on syria and military action . Guest i think i am like a lot of people. I think im very conflicted on it. Like a lot of people, i look back at the last decade, the last 10 years, and my instincts confronted with any argument for military action of any type anywhere is to be externally cautious, asked a lot of questions, and really think through what i dont think we fought through when it came to iraq and would not fit through think through what it comes to afghanistan, and that is the what happens next question. We established in the case of syria and iraq, there is a dictator in power that does terrible things about we have this instinct to intervene, this instinct in the case of hussein to remove him from power, in the right now to punish him for using chemical weapons, but ok, so we try, we come up with some kind of plan, and what happens next. Syria, i expect the argument that are being made here by the administration that this is not iraq all over again and that we are not amassing an army to invade, were not looking to launch strikes that are going to immediately overthrow the governments and leave the u. S. In charge of rebuilding a country and creating a new government from scratch. The whole nobles on the ground thing, i accept that and understand that, but when i start thinking about it, looking at the other angle of what is the point. I do not think we should be doing nationbuilding, i do not think we should be overthrowing the government and doing anything like we did in iraq, but if we decided that assad has already been responsible for tens of thousands, hundred thousand of his own civilians, then we are going to draw a line when it comes to the other to whatever the final number is, were going to draw the line and act in a way that ensures no troops from the United States are involved, that the assad regime stays in power, that there is no goal to force him from power, theres no goal to get into the negotiating table, we are just going to launch a couple of missiles designed to send a message. I start to wonder then what is the message that is being sent by that . If a thought can look at that assad can look at and think, they decided to hold me accountable, i still hold power, i still hold sway in this country, i am not sure what message that is sending to him or anywhere else. And if he were then to turn around and launch further Chemical Attacks on his civilians, what is the response been from the United States . Are we supposed to go back and do it again, do we get sucked in, do we start escalating . Ofin, it is a question obviously i am as appalled as anybody and horrified as anybody by the pictures you see from the Chemical Attacks, but it is also appalling and horrifying to hear about the tens of thousands of other people who have been killed, other innocent people who have been killed in syria over the last couple of years. So we stopped in the chemical weapon attack him if there are no further chemical weapons attacks but there are still thousands of people being slaughtered in syria, again, what have we really accomplished their . Of torn on it. I understand the instinct to intervene. I understand the instinct to say chemical weapons go way too far into the needs to be done. But i wonder realistically and honestly if there is anything we that is sort of clean in this situation. Host is there a split in the Democrat Party on this issue . Guest i think there is. I think probably the reaction of most democrats, not all, but a lot of democrats in congress is probably relief with the developments this week with the potential diplomatic development, but they will not have to go on the record on this because at least for now, that obviously changed. Could obviously change. You have some democrats, there is an old liberal intervention strain in the Democratic Party particularly pronounced in the clinton years. There were a number of military interventions in the clinton years. Bosnia, close okosovo. That strain was for 11 prominent then. There is also an antiwar strain in the Democratic Party, even though it using the way back and think of George Mcgovern in 1972, and that wing of the party was sort of became a lot more prominent in the wake of iraq and the wake of a lot of liberal interventionist in the Democratic Party siding with president bush, giving him authorization for iraq in 2002, and this backlash in the Democratic Party the giver as that gave rise to howard dean in 2004, gave rise to barack obama, that movement kind of coalesced around him in 2008, and it was a big reason he was able to defeat Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Hillary clinton voted for, obviously, the Iraq Resolution in 2002. What cant locate that sort of split right now as well is that this what complicates that split right now is this is a democrat who is nominated with a lot of support from the antiwar wing, that antiiraq we knew. Now his administration is out there pushing for intervention. Be critical ofto this. I think there is a natural tendency in politics when it is your party in power, your party in the white house, that partys members in congress are going to be a lot more willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the administration when it comes to some big like this. They will have a lot more trust in that administration, a lot more trust in the assurances like in this case that the administration gives that hey, this is going to be limited, no boots on the ground, all that. Conversely, the out of power party, the Opposition Party, its going to be a lot more skeptical and its going to be a lot less willing to trust those assurances that it would if the roles were reversed. I kind of ads into it where i think there are probably democrats again, we cannot fully test this because of the congressional debate and the policy on that was cut off this week. But i was curious to see how my democrats would alternately be presented persuaded by the bottomline appeal peer hey, this is our partners that its this is our president , he needs you, we need you on our team for this. I was wondering and curious to see how many yes. Ultimately produce. Kornacki is the host of up with Steve Kornacki on msnbc, if youd would like to dial in and talk to regrets,53880 for the 202 5853881 f four democrats, 202 5853881 for republicans, and 202 5853882 for independents. cspanwj is our twitter handle. 70 days until the government funding needs to be renewed. How do you see this playing out . Ultimately to it me comes back to the question that i have been looking after the last couple of years, really since the republicans took control of the house at the start of 2011, and that is what is john boehner going to be able to get away with this year . What is he willing to get away with . Is he willing to take that final and that marks him once for all at the betrayer of the tea party cause . The route is that john boehner of course is a long time fixture of washington. He has been there for basically a generation now. He preceded the tea party. When he was elected, the only tea party when he was elected, the only Tea Party People knew about was from their history books, the colonial days. He was next in the line to become speaker when the Tea Party Wave hit in 2010 and the Tea Party Gets its energy from several different sources, but one of them is opposing what they see as the party establishment, washington establishment, and that entrenched power. In a lot of ways, john boehner did hed exactly what party defined itself against. It was simultaneously a war against democrats, all democrats, and the republican establishment. The republican establishment front of that tea party war, that is what boehner embodied. Is there a point where the tea party basically says this is it, this is the action he has taken, he is the sellout artist we always thought he was, he has never been one of us, and now we will go after him . So many teams he seemed to be walking up to the brink of that happening and at least in terms of the politics he has been artfully able to maneuver his way around it. When i look at the posturing 2oing on right now, you have landmines. One is the Government Shutdown, the other is the debt ceiling fight. We saw this week that the Republican Leadership had its plan to get around this, to the continuing resolution to fund the government and attach these obamacare provisions that the senate would be able to nor and the House Republicans would be able to go on record as saying, yes, we voted to get rid of obamacare, but simultaneously boehner would be able to get what he wants and keep the government funded and pushed that battle aside. The conservatives are saying absolutely no to that, building up this idea of obamacare defunding into a bottomline netmus test issue, a bottomli litmus test issue that somebody like john boehner has to be on their side to prove that he is one of them and not the sellout guy they always thought he was. You have for the shutdown, you have the debt ceiling. That there is a way boehner can ultimately wrangle the republicans and convince them to go along with the continuing resolution deal like the one that was voted on earlier this week and they have pullback since then. The only way i can see him doing that, though, to get this through with all the republican votes remember, he does not have much margin for ever. The only way i can see it getting it through is making a promise to them that, ok, you vote for this right now, we are going to turn around and we are going to make this real fight on obamacare, this real fight on obamacare defunding that you are all agitating for. We will make a commitment to you on the debt ceiling, right now. Think this is what i cant understand. I dont see how boehner gets out of that, because he has made the game occasions that he does not see that she has made public and occasions that he does not he has made public indications that he does not see default as an acceptable outcome, but if you have committed to the tea party making this stand to defund obamacare, something is going to have to give there. He will have to abandon the tea party on that to avoid the catastrophe of a debt ceiling default, or it is almost unfathomable to me, but maybe there is a debt ceiling default because he does not want to give up the conservatives, doesnt want to give up the tea party. First of all, you are talking about a potentially ghastly economic rent the patient but actually ghastly economic ramifications, and then in 2014, midterm democrat in the white house, we should be gaining seats this year, but if you have a debt ceiling default, you could see substantial fallout for them in 2014, a year that otherwise sets up as a good year for them electorally. Host lets work the callers in. Felix in North Carolina, democrats line. , cspan,r. Kornacki how are you on this Beautiful Day . Guest i am in the studio so i cant see the Beautiful Day. Caller take my word for it, it is a Beautiful Day in america. Im a vietnam veteran. We have a special love for america that most people dont back then because the war protesters and stuff. But if cspan allows me three quick questions. Based on the constitution first of all, i was under the impression that the 14th amendment, sentence one, says that the dead shall not be questioned. The question one real quick here unemployment is being affected by all this to government jobs lost, 700,000 or automation, because the economy is boosting back up. But if you compare reagans unemployment number is an time, takinge same effect in there is only 3 10 of a percent difference. The last one here republicans claim the government is bad, and when they get elected, they do whatever they can to prove it. 2 wars unpaid, eliminating pay go, wrecking the economy. Is theng that gets me post office is listed under article one, section eight, clause one. What business do you know, ronnie bea or anybody in america would know of, funding retirement 75 years in advance, 2 generations not born yet . Host all right, felix, thank you. Mr. Kornacki, a lot of the varied topics. Anything you want to address . Guest i will take a couple of them. He started by raising the issue of the 14th amendment and how it relates to the debt ceiling, and that is an argument you hear a lot. A lot of people particularly on the left, from the Democratic Party, you look at that and say why is the president even bothering leaving this issue out there . Therefore, in the summer of 2011, there were actual negotiations between the white house and republicans over the debt ceiling, and that is how we got the sequester on all the stuff. Position offficial the white house is that we are not negotiating on this. But is part of the broad fiscal discussions that are taking place between the two parties in washington. The frustration that a lot of people feel is why not just andke the 14th amendment why not just say that the government is obligated to honor and pay for the debt that it racks up . Re are other suggestions this trillion dollar coin idea that was floated earlier this year and with the idea of why not just mint a coin that is worth a trillion dollars and put it in the treasury and now we dont have to worry about the debt ceiling. There are interesting philosophical questions, interesting questions about the constitutional interpretation. The bottomline is that the white house has made absolutely clear, the democratic leadership and commerce has made absolutely clear come and that it is not a direction they are going to go in, and they really believe, especially it comes to the current negotiations we were talking about a minute ago, they really believe that on this one, this posture of the obligation of congress, it is the obligation of republicans obligation of the senate, to extend the debt ceiling, to raise the debt ceiling. And that is not negotiable. They really believe that ultimately on this issue they might get ugly but it is a winning position for them to have and they dont need to resort to these other options. Steve kornacki is a graduate of boston university. This next call is from massachusetts, republican line. Caller good morning. Im calling about the word exceptional, or exceptionalism. Im an old guy. My parents, right after they taught me right from wrong and then table manners and things like that, these are my earliest memories i got into Little League and i had a good game when i was five or six or seven years old, and i started posting boasting. I was immediately put down by my father and had it explained to me that bragging or boasting is just not called for. It is up to other people to brag or boast about how well i was doing or how well i did. I can remember jim brown when jimmy brown would get a touchdown, he would run into the end zone and he would just drop the football and run back to the sidelines. Now if somebody in a football game, three touchdowns behind, makes reasonable plate, they start running around and making all kinds of dances. Host ed can you bring this to a conclusion . Caller huh . Host can you bring this to a conclusion, please . Caller absolutely. It is not our job. Putin is right. It is what other countries think of us. Host thank you very much. Mr. Kornacki . Guest i mean, that is the first time i have heard a republican say putin was right. That tells you something i guess about our politics of the moment , and the politics of the Republican Party right now. I dont know exactly what the caller things of rand paul, but in what i was just hearing from is anller, from ed there, increasingly prominent strain of republican is in an conservative nonht, this idea for interventionism, this idea of the United States can feel good about itself and proud about itself but has no business going around the world and in the case of syria, stepping in, in the case of iraq, stepping in. I am trying to piece together myself exactly, looking at the Republican Party, exactly what the breakdown is, because you think that during the bush years and in a lot of ways historically, you think of the Republican Party has maybe the more hawkish party, the more militarily aggressive party. But i think that in the current era, i think that because of george w. Bush and everything that we have had in the last decade. When you look back before george w. Bush and the 1990s, i talked earlier about the liberal interventionism that defined the Clinton White house and the Democratic Party of the 1990s. Do not have ayou lot of republican mdc has them in the 1990s when clinton was president for the interventions he proposed. A lot of the rhetoric you hear from republicans opposing what obama wants to do on syria you heard with what clinton wanted to do in bosnia, kosovo. Ive heard them talk about how syria is a great distraction from id Obama Administration, i guess because of obamacare or because of government funding, whatever the particular issue is. But ive heard the argument that this is some kind of distraction, and the irs and benghazi proposed, too. I think back to the 1990s when clinton ordered missile strikes on iraq operation desert fox, i think it was called, in 1998 the republican line was that it was a distraction from impeachment, that bill clinton was engaging in these things to distract from domestic turmoil. When i am trying to figure out is how much this for present a consistent strain of thought on the right, a consistent strain of thought within the conservative movement and Republican Party, largely non interventionist, that got interrupted because george w. Line when with that he became president , and out of loyalty, republicans and conservatives rallied around him. How much of this is just a reaction to a democratic president . Bill clinton was president in the 1990s. You remember how republicans treated bill clinton. It wasnt that different from how republicans treated barack obama. Again, they impeached him. Is it just a function of a democratic president where they him from to drive office by any means necessary . The 1990s wanted to do interventions and therefore republicans and conservatives were against it. The energy in the conservative movement is to oppose it. Or how much of this is a more consistent philosophical strain . I am trying to sort that out. I dont want to suggest that every republican who has spoken out against syria is just motivated by partisan animus. You look at somebody like justin nosh in the house and i have problem concluding that the guy is 100 sincere. He is coming at this from an ideological, philosophical standpoint. This is not somebody who will be adjusting his principles depending on which party is in the white house. There is plenty of that on the republican side. My question i have not seen a satisfying answer to this how much of that how many of the republicans opposing this are how many ares and just, well, obamas for it and therefore we are against it . Host independent line. Talking with Steve Kornacki of msnbc. Morning, gentlemen. Listening to this discussion on exceptionalism, i dont think anyone has a clear notion of what makes this country exceptional and what made it exceptional. What differentiates america from every other country in the whatry of the world is made us exceptional. We were the first country to translate the ideology of individual liberty into a governing creed. That is what made us exceptional. Of are in part dictatorship, we werent part of a totalitarian government we were not part of a dictatorship, we werent part of a t totalitarian government, and it was the subservience to the individual. We are losing that today through the notion of what it was in, and the gentleman in the white house is the chief collectivist of all time to that is why i am a libertarian, that is why i am a tea party member, and that is why i support senator ron paul. I dont give a dam about syria. Im talking about what this country was based on, a philosophy that came out of john , and and the enlightenment we translate that philosophy into a governing creed and we are losing it today. Host all right, bill, thank you. Steve kornacki. Guest i mean, that might be going a bit far. The idea of obama as the chief collectivist, i think the term was lets take a look at where the marginal tax rates, marginal income tax rates are in the country right now, the great achievement, i guess you could say, at this point of the Obama Administration on taxes, getting it to 39 . You can look back at couple generations ago, to the eisenhower years, where the top marginal rate was 90 . It is a big tax cut under john f. Kennedy, d tax cut that john f. Kennedy championed, bringing it down from 90 to 70 . I dont think we were a socialist, collectivist country back then. I think it is important to put in perspective that there is been so much overheated rhetoric, like we just heard, from the caller there a minute ago, these past few years since obama came into office. If we take a step back and apply context to it and maybe take a breath, i honestly think barack obama represents a sort of centerleft brand of liberalism. I think there are plenty of really compelling arguments to be made against him from the left, that the guy hasnt done come from the standpoint of somebody on the left, that the guy hasnt done nearly enough, hasnt gone nearly far enough, any match that up against the idea that he is the chief chief collectivist, the greatest collectivist we have ever had. Look at the health care plan. If you are on the left, if you are a true believer liberal, you probably believe in single payer reallyinsurance, you should have a government takeover of health care, government takeover of health insurance, you should have the Medicare Program extended for everybody. What president obama pushed for an and limited was something that was very fit push for and implemented it was something that was very friendly to the private Insurance Companies. 26 hundred pages one of the reasons it was so long and complex is because there was a decision, a calculated decision by the administration and by people trying to push this through congress, that this had to be friendly to the insurance industry. They wanted to protect the idea of private insurance, they wanted to protect the idf competition. Ofprotect the idea competition. When i hear the rhetoric of elective is a man socialism, of collectivism and socialism and then i listen to the grievances of liberals who say, look we are forcing a pair health care and this is what we got, and where the president fits into that mix, i see him more in the middle than somebody who is way out there and warrants the kind of rhetoric we just heard. Twee Steve Kornacki, marie ts in guest well, you know, it is changing, and the vote on funding that they had in the house what is it now, six weeks ago whenever that was, again, the defunding measure offered gavemash you a sense of it. The fact that it nearly passed is significant. The fact that you have these funky bipartisan coalitions around it tells you that the Political Leadership class in this country isnt quite sure how to handle this one yet. Theyre hearing complaints about this, they are hearing an outcry against a lot of the revelations weve had this year from unexpected quarters, people who dont typically agree, where you can have civil libertarians on the left unite with folks like amash ind justin am going to set a record for saying Justin Amashs name this morning. It is not something right now that has been filtered through the sort of we have this way of taking an issue and it gets filtered through the partisan media, partisan noise machine, partisan political machine, whatever you want to call it, and everybody in the blue, democratic right has this position, and everybody in the has thisn, red tribe position on it, and it ends up sort of devolving into tribalism. That is what so much american politics is these days. This is one of those issues that just hasnt gone through that process yet. A bit eventually well, but i think that right now, what is so interesting maybe it eventually will, but i think right now, what is so interesting is that the coalitions on this are so makes at this point and we dont see that too much in politics these days. Host next call for Steve Kornacki is from don in michigan and democrat. Caller thank you, cspan. Hear hear, that man from kentucky. He is talking about the supreme law of the land, steve. , he is to act that way talking too much on the supreme law of the land . That is what the country was founded on. The bottom line is, obama is s dying, butsyrian how about the drone strikes in now, is thatct, anything with the free law of the land, obama, and democrats and republicans . The loyalties to the party, not to the people anymore. Americans dont want no war were sick of it host all right, got the point, don. Mr. Kornacki. Guest the basic proposition there is that people dont want war anymore and are sick of it could that is apparent. Imagine the debate over syria right now playing out impossible to imagine this, but lets try it if there had never been in iraq, afghanistan, never been 9 11, if we just had a continuation of what we had in the 1990s, where you had the targeted intervention in kosovo and the intervention in bosnia that brought the warring factions to the table if we had a continuation of that, i imagine hypothetical, you can never prove it but i imagine that Something Like what is being proposed in syria right now would not be that hard of a cell. He would not have been very intense you would not have the very intense and pronounced backlash that forced the president it was amazing, a force the president of the United States to walk up to the brink of an attack and double back and to pull back and say i am going to go to congress on this. What obama and the white house has proposed on this in a lot of with the sorttent of interventions we had in the 1990s, and the history playing out a lot differently, i dont think this would have been so contentious and what makes this so can then this is that this country is absolutely fed up soh war what makes this contentious is that this country is absolutely fed up with war. We had the anniversary of 9 11, it has been 12 years now, and i will be interested to see how long this lasts for. Curious how long this lasts for, because it is having the afghanistanr, the hangover is having a profound effect on our politics right now. In to you, mr. Kornacki. To get intostarted this earlier. Do i see any hope that they will take back the house in 2014 . The answer is no. They need a gain of 17 seats. If you look at the nature of the election, a midterm election, the inpower party, the White House Party, does not have a good track record of picking up seats in midterm elections. We tend to think of elections as almost like a sporting event, where you wipe the slate clean, the scoreboard is 00, you throw the ball in the air and we see where it comes down and now we have ourselves a game. That is not really the reality of it. Election, the Opposition Party starts with a significant advantage, and the range of possible outcomes usually varies somewhere from huge, endorsements, seismic gains for the Opposition Party to, like, stalemate. It is not huge enormous, seismic gains for the Opposition Party to huge, enormous, seismic gains party. Inpower there are are only to a campbells of the White House Party defying that history, and sks thate clear asteri go with it. The first was 1998, the second midterm of bill clintons presidency, and republicans walked into that election thinking they would have a good year. That was the year that the republicans had the impeachment drive. They impeached bill clinton that year, and polls show that 65, 70 of the country did not want impeachment. They thought it was impeached esch they thought was ridiculous, they thought it they thought it was ridiculous that republicans cap owing on this road. Thats unusual enough the republicans had a backlash. Up seats ied believe it was five in the house. I dont think this had happened since 1822 with james monroe, and it was a gain of five seats, and again, democrats need 17 next year, so put that in perspective. The second time we had gains for the White House Party in midterm elections, george w. Bush in 2002. Again, a pretty clear asterisk there 9 11. We were 14 months past 9 11 on election day in 2002, and this country was in a condition and mood and state that, thank god, we had not been in before and have not fully been in since. Again, that created a really unusual situation for republicans able to make gains. Even the gains the republicans made in 2002, you gave democrats those same gains next year, they would not win back the house. If republicans really vastly overreach on a Government Shutdown, on a debt ceiling default, it raises the possibility that you might have 02 condition x year. It raises the possibility of democrats picking up a handful of seats in the house. That is probably the limit of what they would be able to do. The other question is if they could somehow pick up a few seats in the house or minimize losses and a house, it potentially leaves them in a position for 2016, when the climate is different. Lets say the democratsominate Hillary Clinton, the most likely scenario now they could nominate someone else and the country is feeling better economically, the economic anxiety is down a bit, and there is an instinct on the part of the country, a, because they like Hillary Clinton lets theyf that last and b, like the economy and there is an instinct for continuity, so Hillary Clinton or whoever the democratic nominee is in 2016 is able to win a comfortable victory in 2016, and on the coattails of that, democrats are then in a position to win back a dozen, two dozen house seats, and maybe give themselves control of the house. I think it is a long again. This is a long way of saying that when it comes to house democrats, you think of 2016 and 2014 as the set up your. Setup year. Make it winnable for 2016. Host up with Steve Kornacki airs on msnbc from 8 00 a. M. To 10 a clock a. M. Saturday and sunday. Thank you, sir. Please come back when you are in washington. We have half an hour left on andhington journal something we have not really talked about is syria. Our guest talked about syria a little bit, but we have not really talked about it with you today. Heres a headline in the Washington Post this morning. , we want tofhour hear from democrats only, we want to get your view on the president s handling of the syria situation. Again, democrats only for this last half hour of the journa ist and of course, twitter open as well, and we will be right back to begin taking your calls. World is changing. No, we cant control every event. But america remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs, and as long as i am president , i intend to keep it that way. When the president in nearly a clip is talking about the indispensable nation, what he doesnt want us to talk about, what he doesnt want americans to contemplate is we dont know how to win wars. We have by virtually any measure best military in the world. We certainly spend more on our military that basically the rest of the world put together. But we dont know how to win wars. It seems to me that there ought to be a very Serious National Conversation on why is that the case. Where is the fault line . Is that our politicians are too stupid, our generals are inept, or is it the fact that by its , war isure unpredictable . To go to war is to roll the dice. You might win, you might not. More with retired army colonel and princeton professor Andrew Bacevich sunday night at q a. On differente hill was from other president ial homes because was not a commercial venture. They did not try to be self sufficient. Wanted from sagamore hill was to offset the expense of living there. Hay,did raise pay raise grain that they could feed their horses to reduce the cost of having horses here. They did have a Lovely Garden that produced everything from corn to strawberries. They had an arbor that had eight different kinds of grapes, strawberries and blueberries feels. Strawberry and blueberry fields. The idea was defeated family and the staff who lived on site and to reduce the cost. Watch the program on Edith Roosevelt on our website, itan. Org firstladies, or see saturday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. We continue our series with first lady helen taft. Washington journal continues. Host on the front page of the Financial Times this morning is secretary of state john kerry, forward Russian Foreign minister lavrov. Lock horns over needed to maintain military threat on syria. And russia laid out sharply different positions on the syrian conflict yesterday as they began a twoday meeting on moscows proposal to place serious chemical weapons under international control. John kerry said the administration had High Expectations for a diplomatic solution but that only the credible threat of force had pushed syria to consider giving up its weapons. Should diplomacy fail, force might be necessary. know what this issue is about, you have seen it play out over the last several weeks, and we want to get your view on how the president has handled the syria crisis. Democrats only for this last segment of the washington journal. Lawrence in a new york. Please go ahead, lawrence. Caller listen, i think the messages being sent by the arket people to not only by the American People to not only the Democratic Party but to the government that we have had to take care of the war here at home, which is a war waged against the working man in this country. Host first, go to our question how do you think the president , as a democrat, has handled the syria situation. Caller first of all, i think he is the best president weve had since john f. Kennedy. Too bad he is wasted on a reactionary congress in the house. At the tved to scream set at these right wing republicans. I was never a left winger, i was moderate. But i used to scream at the tv set, and then i realized that a good segment of the market revolution has elected these men to be the representatives that segment of the american opposition has elected these men to be their representatives. Melville in bartleby the scrivener the story boils down to this, a story of wall street them and do we care about our fellow citizens . We have to decide, do we care about our fellow citizens . There is a war being waged on the working people host all right, lawrence, we got your point. Janice in washington, remember that the question is about the president s handling of the Syrian Crisis. Caller hi i think president obama has done a good job handling the Syrian Crisis. I believe without the forces being in an off the coast of syria, i dont think we would have seen this offering by russia to syria. I just think it has gone very well i think obama has done just the right thing. Host would you support military intervention if necessary . Caller yes, i would. Host thank you for calling in. Andy is in flagstaff, arizona. You are on washington journal. Morning. Ood ive been a lifelong democrat and a huge supporter of president obama. However, i feel like there is definitely some loss of communication in what exactly is going on in syria. This is an issue that has gone since the late 1920s, when they drew the lines to make it syria. What we are seeing now is a huge uprising of civil war between i chargey a minority in against a majority not in charge, much like we see in iraq and anywhere else in the middle lines,he westerncreated and ignoring tribal issues. What is happening now with the hopefully the eradication of the weapons of mass destruction and the gas, i think it is a good thing to get rid of that. We should stay out of it. At the end of the day, he was going down the wrong path in trying to maybe level the playing field, because that would have just gotten us into a civil war we dont belong in. Host thank you, andy. Milton in philadelphia. What is your opinion of the president s handling of the syria situation . Caller i hope you let me make my point. Good morning. I applaud president obama. This is accommodated situation but i remember a year ago they had former defense secretary gates on television and they asked him, what should the u. S. Do about syria, and he said why should we do it . Why dont other countries in the middle east step up to the situation . Syria is a very complicated situation, and it kills me when i hear these neocons get on tv and criticize president obama Foreign Policy, and look what they did when they was in power. Bush took out saddam hussein. Saddam hussein was a counterbalance to iran. Nuclear right be now had we not gone in and took out iraq. They totally messed up the middle east but then they are ready to criticize president obama and he is trying to clean up that mess. Kristol early on you ask them, have they ever served in the military . Nine out of 10 they never say look at dick cheney. Neocon father. He had the option to serve in the military and he got a deferment. He never served. And they have the nerve to criticize president obamas politics when they have the option to serve and they chickened out . Host milton in philadelphia. Jan in arizona. As a democrat, how do you think he has handled the syrian situation . Caller i think he has taken way too much time deciding what to do. I know he has a gun to his head by someone i dont know who. I feel like his hands are tied. I respect the man. Im sorry for the position he is in. But i think he is taking way too much time. Host what do you think the policy and syria should be . Caller honestly, i feel like we ought to leave them alone. I feel coldhearted saying that, but i feel like we are to leave them alone. We have too many problems in our own country that need to be dealt with. Jan. R thankhost thank you, inck tweets host another democrat calling in. Larry in chesapeake, virginia. Caller i think the president is correct in trying to do something in syria because of what happened with the use of gas. But another point i want to make about mr. Bacevich when he said we dont know how to win wars we went into some awards because it was in the countrys National Best interest, but these wars they are having right now in the , in my opinion these will never be solved because they have been going on forever. But we have to do something when it comes to casting people gassing people. We cannot just sit down and let this happen, because it will spread. North korea is sitting there watching, iran is sitting there watching, israel sitting there watching, other countries sitting there watching. We have to do something. I hope it comes to some diplomatic inclusion on this, but i doubt there will, because of who mr. Putin is and the republicans praising him right now, saying he should win the Nobel Peace Prize because of statements he made, is ridiculous. Host larry, who said that . Limbau if you watch rush gh and those types of guys, they have this machinists mushines s about mr. Putin. Host Rush Limbaugh said he should win the Nobel Peace Prize . Caller i didnt hear him say that, but glenn beck did say that, that he should win the peace prize because of statements he is making some that he put himself up front to make and sell for good for this make himself look good for this syria thing when he is the one supplying syria for everything they have. It is in his best interest to look good. Host larry in chesapeake, va. Lawrence in san diego. Caller i think the president is doing a great job. Anytime you have to do a police i think it needs to be looked at from all angles. People criticize the president for not just going in and bombing syria. They were criticizing him for going to congress. But anytime there is going to be loss of life, all options need to be looked at. I commend the president for taking his time and not rushing to do anything, looking at ways to solve these problems without doing Police Action or bombing a country. Host would you be supportive if the president said we are going in militarily, or would you be supportive if he said we are not . I would. Yeah, i would like to know where the actual American Interest is in this country. Im not really quite sure why or what is our interest, what interest do we have in that country. But if the president said we need to go in there, i believe and i think he needs to look at all angles so it is not something he just rushes in to do. Host thank you for calling in. Isnt iow is in iowa. The president s handling of the syria crisis, eddie. Caller he is doing a wonderful job. He is on the ball, especially when it comes to murdering children all over the world come he has been wonderful, with the drone program. We want more host i think eddie is being a little bit sarcastic there. If you want to call back and try again, we would love to hear from you. Ruth in pa. Hi, ruth. Caller i think the president is doing the right thing we saw what happened with other countries that have used this kind of terror on people. I just wish that we could get congress to act on other things besides this, but i know you dont want to talk about anything but this. I agree with him 100 , and i thank you very much for taking my call host ruth, would you be supportive of military action . Caller yeah, i would. We cant let kids and people die like that. War. Thank god we have always been able to keep our country safe. This is just to do the right thing. Excuse me. Im glad we have a president that understands that. Thank you for taking my call. Host mary in wisconsin, you are on washington journal. Caller hi. As an american, i am sort of embarrassed with the diplomacy when president obama would actually say that president putin looked like a board school boys laughing in his chair. Slouching inolboy his chair. That is no way to get diplomacy. Pointa bully to get a across is not how to be commanderinchief and get some success and have like ability to work across the aisle. Host did you vote for president obama . Caller no. Host are you a democrat . Caller yes. Host who was the last democrat you voted for for president . Caller carter. Host you still consider yourself a democrat . Caller yes. Host okiedokie. Is for democrats only, how you feel about the president s handling of the syria crisis. If you arent a democrat, try to stick by the rules. It makes it more interesting than when we play these sneaky games and i try to figure out if you are really a democrat and you try to sneak it in. Thats no fun. Oregon. Good morning. Caller im a democrat, and yes, i voted for obama. Host lets start there. Now you can say whatever the heck you want. Caller you are so kind. Thank you. There ought to be a little bit of attention, this not a good. Hing to do, to president assad however, i dont think that going in and bombing the country is the way to do it. There are two people in a bar that get into a fight, the police are called, but the police dont come in and start beating up of people who are beating each other, right . Host we are all with you. We are all listening. Caller so, yes, let us do. Iplomacy how about quit selling them weapons . The poison gas came from other countries like russia could ok, i guess i will go back to why we are even producing this stuff. You dont create something and give it to someone and expect them not to use it. Why are we still making these things . What do you think about the fact that our cia is a supplying weapons caller i think that is a good idea. It would be like the Police Coming to the guys having to fight in the bar and giving them guns. Its a stupid. You dont do stupid things like that. And i understand it is corporate greed that drives all this because people pay a lot of money to have the biggest, shiniest gun. But its not right. Im sorry, weve got a start taking a moral stand. Greed is not good for anybody. Like the old hippie poster, war is not good for children and other living things. Host kelly, what do you do up there in oregon . Caller im happily retired. Host are you an activist . Caller yes, i go to the occupy meetings. I attempted to be. Im not quite at the point where im willing to go to jail or be killed, but i might get there pretty soon, being older and having not much to lose. Host why . What gets your dander up . I want to say stupidity, people being inhumane to one another, all the money we spend on these foreign wars. We couldve bought everybody a Beautiful House and a garden and had a whole lot more money left to buy everybody in this country a Beautiful House and the garden. I mean, i know that sounds host what are you retired from . Caller legal secretary. Host kelly in cottage grove. Helen is in washington. How do you think the president has handled the Syrian Crisis . Caller im totally against having any kind of war in syria. Im totally against our cia arming the terrorists over there. We have our pictures on tv of the jihad flag being flown there, snipers christians there. We were a christian country, we are still mostly a christian country, and yet our government is backing going in and leaders taking out who are protecting the christians and their countries. We did it in iraq and now were doing it in syria. Where is the outcry . We are a christian country, right . Host so do you think there should be military strikes you dont think there should be military strikes against the Syrian Government at this point . Caller military strikes . No, im against military strikes, and im also against the cia going in there and arming the nusra front, the iraq he all of the different mujahedin that have come out of libya and different places, where we shipped them out and ship them in their to run the proxy war for the saudis helen, is there a split when you talk your democratic friends about this issue . Caller i imagine there is, because there is generally two kinds of people, or two kinds of politicians the light hawk and then the heart hawk. Hard hawk. Light hawks back off if they think we are taking care of the chemical weapons problem, and then there is the hard hawks who backed the saudis and the Oil Interests there and they want to depose assad. Well, that is not right, because they are going to take the christians out again. They are butchering them. They come in there and they tell them, ok, if you dont become a muslim, we are going to kill you. Thats what they do. Thats a holocaust against christians. Host helen in washington state. David is in new york. We are talking to democrats about the president s handling of syria. Caller how are you . I believe obama is doing the right thing as far as handling the Syrian Crisis to this point. Host why . Caller well, when you think about it, i hear a lot of people talking about how they dont war, that theyo are tired of it. But i believe that it is the right thing to do. Yes, a lot of people here in america are tired of always having to send our boys, our children how to war our children out to war, and some of them will come back maimed or line of being killed or wind up being killed. But sometimes things have to be done, regardless of the consequences. , heical use assad actually dropped chemical weapons on his own people. That is a fact. All the country so far countries so far, they have seen the reports and come to the conclusion. Somebody has to do something about that. Proposed, he i him and the joint chiefs have come up with the idea of doing a military strike, which would be able to degrade as Delivery Systems. But people are taking that and saying that that is war. It is not a war. Theyre degrading those military Delivery Systems, which are missiles, planes, and helicopters. That is the proposal. I think it is the right thing when it comes to that. He is trying to take in what the as far asthis nation sending our guys out there onto the battlefield. You dont have to use any boots on the ground. We do not doubt the Delivery Systems and it is we do not knock out the Delivery Systems one, missiles, helicopters, and planes, the same Delivery Systems used for the rebels host we will leave it there. Appreciate your calling in this morning. Host and maverick says host ann, springtown, texas, good morning. Caller good morning, and yes, i am a democrat, and proud of it. Part of the blue underground here in texas. President obama got exactly what he was after. If anyone has ever read the art of war, when you are facing annihilation, you will do things. When glenn beck or one of these draftdodgers is taking out a fullpage ad in pravda in moscow, i wonder if that would fly over there. Third, im old enough to remember the consequences of dictator to run the whole continent of europe. I think we should stand for something. You know the old adage, if you dont stand for something, you will fall for anything. I am fully behind president obama, who is very smart and getting exactly what he wanted. When you are staring down a gun, and you are about to lose your biggest customer, you will change your tune. Thank you very much. Host ann, thank you for calling in. Oscar tweets in michigan, mountain, up in the north part of that state. Caller hello. I just wanted to say that there are 2 different factions in the progressive and the Democratic Party. There is the progressive faction , which i belong to, and the moderate faction, which barack obama and bill clinton along to. They consider themselves new democrats, which comes from the democratic leadership council, which is founded by a foundation that William Kristol got his money from. Bama follows the dlc host a selfdescribed progressive liberal, how has the president handled the syrian situation from your perspective . Caller i take the perspective of fdr and those types of democrats. From my perspective, we should bring the troops home, and im an oldtime fdrtype democrat. I see barack obama as a conservative. December, he said he was a 1980s moderate republican, which is like the bush older fdrs, not the progressive democrats. Factions, different one of every rightwing faction, compared was progressive liberals. Host which one is the majority, do you think . Caller the majority would be the progressive liberals. Unfortunately, a lot of them are dumbed down and dont understand the different factions within the Democratic Party. Host what kind of work do you do . Caller im a retired military officer. Host how long were you in the military . Caller 30 years. Host why are you in Iron Mountain . Caller enjoying my retirement. Host how many progressive liberals are there in the military . Caller i have no clue, couldnt tell you. Host thank you for taking your time this money. Henry in santa fe, new mexico. Caller the answer of do i support the president is two components. I think the president is a cunning and complex leader. In the commentary cents i mean that in the complementary sense. The second part of my response of do i support the president is i have no idea, because there is insufficient and corrupted information. That is my perspective. Exposure e my is this in italics insufficient and corrupted, but i have respect for the president as a cunning and complex leader, and that is a compliment. I have the impression that i am sitting in a National Arena being asked to put thumbs up or thumbs down on this matter. And that is not that is disturbing to me. Host why is that disturbing to you . Caller because on one hand, Public Opinion is very important, the expression of Public Opinion is very important. On the other hand, we are talking about an issue that is extremely complex and is andied in terms of regional, and beyond regional, but mostly regional. It is way beyond and theres too much information that i am unaware of to have an absolute decision on the matter of should we or should we not, period. Thats my thoughts on the matter. Host thanks to all our callers and viewers for being with us. We will see you tomorrow morning. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] there is a look at our live events today. Join us at noon eastern for a 2000 eighton the financial crisis five years later. The American Action forum is the host of the program with former congressman barney frank among others. On cspan two, its a look at tele