both parties, we want to begin with your comments on third- party politics in america. is the country ready for a third-party? what type of third-party would you support and would you vote for a third-party? our phone lines -- let's begin with some of the headlines beginning with the l.a. times. the front page story -- that is the story courtesy of the museum. there's is this from "the ," good care,icle bad debts. coming up in just a couple of minutes we are going to turn our attention to third-party politics. we want to begin with news from our news acre's best news anchors program. -- from our news anchors program. inairs at 10:00 eastern time three hours. just how far will congress go in investigating the affordable care act? here's a portion from that interview. [video clip] >>, to should we expect -- preview what it will look like. ofthere are a couple committees that have jurisdictions, it is not just us. they are not going to have cms, testify on tuesday. we have darrell issa, the government form committee. we are going to continue our oversight role. we have two subcommittees with jurisdiction. a lot of questions are raised relating to the security of the individuals information that they put into the system, they are changing the lines to try to make it work. there are a lot of issues that are out there. i don't know if we will do a hearing every week just on this. there's is only so much time in the day. did contractors have responsibility to warn cms that more testing was needed? >> that is a good question. offeredsure they really -- remember they were under oath. so they were a little careful in terms of how they answer the question. clearly there was a communication breakdown between the contractors and the administration in terms of where they were. one of my questions, and i didn't get a straight answer , was did you know it was not going to work? what is the answer? , we thought their little section of it worked but no one was in charge of the holes train. -- whole strain. newsmakers with fred upton, 10:00 eastern time here on c-span and on c-span radio, heard nationwide on xm channel 120. we want to hear from you on third party politics. you can weigh in on social oura, send us a tweet, facebook pages facebook.com/c- span, or you can send us an e- mail at [email protected]. joining us is the editor in chief at the gallup organization. thank you for being with us. guest: i'm right here. host: we talk about this every four years. if you look at the last 20 or 25 years, ross perot was the only credible third-party candidate that made any significant difference in terms of gathering votes. some argue ralph nader did change the equation in 2000. is the mood in the country different today? guest: it is different. we have periodically asked if you think the republican party is doing a good shot or if there is a third-party needed to the this year we are a slight margin higher since we have been asking this format. that leaves only a quarter who say the current parties are doing a adequate job. did not ask this question in 1992, when ross perot ran. in the early it part of the last century when teddy roosevelt was running. six in 10 americans say a third- party would be welcome. part of that reflects the fact that people are so down on congress at this point. people say on that, they want another alternative, they want another choice. we have had to party politics in this country for well over a century. it seems like there is a lot of talk but nothing really behind that in terms of a movement. couple ofre are a points. the machinery is so entrenched now state-by-state in how you get nominated in the primary system and how you run for office, all the way from the presidency down to more statewide offices. it is very difficult for somebody in the third-party to actually get involved to get through all that process. second, it takes money. the aforementioned ross perot had one thing come a which is nice and politics, and that is money. he was a billionaire and was able to spend his own money. look atwhy some people michael bloomberg of new york city. what's he to decide to amount of third-party campaign, talking of presidency for the third part that for the most part, he would be more credible. if you win me were to run, that would be our biggest problem right off the bat. -- you and me were to run that would be our biggest problem right off the bat. 60% calling for a third- party, and you have been doing polling for a long time. how significant is that number? up and downunces when people are really happy with what is going on elsewhere. after 9/11 in the last decade, only 40%. i think it is significant. i will put it in the context of america general the satisfaction. -- general dissatisfaction. i think some of the reason now is -- we will see what happens. certainly you have to have several things to have a third- party challenge. to see if they are candidates in money. waging a third-party candidacy, one of the biggest challenges on a national level. even if you want to run on a statewide level, and have to get on the ballot and there are 50 different states with 50 different sets of rules. guest: that's right. being president is very difficult. anybody who runs nationally has to have money. you have to spend a lot of time looking into the arcane requirements of every state on how you get on the ballot. that takes personnel and money right off the bat. it is a difficult process. current system has many roadblocks in the way of those who would want to run a third- party candidate. i am in new jersey and i am looking at the gubernatorial ballot. there are all kinds of third- party people listed on the ballot. ly it's easier to get on the ballot. there is a third-party libertarian candidate who is on the ballot but what the biggest problems he has faced is that he has not been out loud -- not been allowed to participate in the forums. it was one of the few times where the libertarian candidate was in attendance. to attend.invited how does that generate another set of problems or any third party candidate -- for any third-party candidate. guest: we ran into that last year. at the national level the commission on presidential debates, which runs those debates, has set it up so they have a set of criteria that they use, you have to have a certain percent of the popular vote to be in the debates. third-party candidates do not like that, they want to be on stage. that is a trade-off. if you have a stage full of 10 people up there, the two people who are prineville -- who are highly probable to win, the voter would not be able to hear enough of what they have to say. that is a very difficult trade- off for those who run the debates. merit inhere is some the idea that you cannot let people show up on the state and -- show up on the state. the latest gallup poll on , storiesdable care act related to the trouble of the rollout of their website. the survey shows americans are having a slightly more favorable view of the affordable care act. guest: other polls have shown it the overallme -- attitude toward the affordable care act actually picked up in our gallup survey by a few points. still by negative because half the country is disapproving. that negative margin on the aca is less. there was a reaction, maybe a pushback from what happened during the shutdown, that made it more popular. we are going to be measuring again this weekend and by the end of the coming week we will have a new number. publiclusion is the still feels more negative than positive towards the aca. paradoxically, not as much as they did prior to the shutdown. host: frank newport is the editor-in-chief of the gallup poll. thank you for being with us on the sunday morning. guest: as always, my pleasure. host: we are going to ask our audience whether or not you support a third-party. are you among those 60% in the gallup poll that says country needs a major third-party? there is this from one of our viewers -- don is joining us from polaski, tennessee. good morning. caller: the suggestion i have is --t you all should have starting at 7:00 eastern time, 7:00 p.m. eastern time for a couple of hours. my suggestion on the third- party, i would like to see -- i was a member of ibew for a while. i am a retired member now. i think a labour party would do real good. i guess that is all i would have to say. host: thank you for being such a loyal viewer and listener. kevin from massachusetts on the republican line, good morning. caller: that less general and made a lot of sense, if a labour party came to power they would have the unions with all their money backing up the candidate. it seems in the past the third- party candidates do not seem to get the funding or the respect from the media -- they are kind of bypassed from the media. i think that is a great idea. host: would you support a labour party? caller: yes, i would. host: let's go to raymond joining us from river falls, wisconsin on the independent line. caller: good morning creed we have had third parties for a long time, it is just a well kept secret in the united states. democracydebates go, now managed to hold a debate with candidates who weren't democrats or republicans. it seemed to go off just fine. host: we cover that debate, too. caller: i think you for that. this media blackout of people who are not democrats or republicans is ridiculous and if you look -- is ridiculous. if you look at the number of eligible voters who actually , the man who sits in the white house has a tiny fraction. i supported barack obama the first time around and then he turned out to be just like everybody else. we need a different system. as far as i'm concerned, you can put them all under one party because they all actually they are in the same party, this little skirmish they are having now. i liken it to professional wessling -- professional wrestling. people pretending to hurt each other. idea behindwhole this debt ceiling and the sequester and the government shutdown and all that. it is to take more money away from the public while not worrying about raising taxes on the well see that's raising taxes on the wealthy or adding a cap on social security. -- raising taxes on the wealthy or adding cap on social security. a cover story -- host: next up is the democrats line. good morning. obama wasen barack born, he was born in this world to be the president of the united states for you -- for eight years. why they keep coming back with he lies, he does that. a third party would only bring together a bunch of people that are haters. why don't they get him a boat, so back to where they came from, go back to their own country echo -- their own country? this country belongs to everybody. whoave people in office will not do things they were elected to do. all -- it has been said it is all because of the man in the white house and i think that is just sick. he artie had the advantage that the supreme court gave the republicans -- already had the advantage that the supreme court gave the republicans. he is going to walk away, like sarah palin, with a whole backpack full of money. they are not going to do anything with this country. the third-party that these people are talking about would kill this country. and senatethe house are in session this week. the senate takes last week off. a couple of issues to keep in mind, the conference will be meeting on the budget negotiations led by senator patty murray for washington state and the congressman paul ryan from wisconsin, chair of the house budget committee. later we are going to be focusing on the "farmville" and one aspect of the farm bill is the food stamp program, or the snap program, the second a mental -- the supplemental nutritious assistance program. millions of people are in for a shot at the end of the week when their food stamp benefits will be cut across the board. there is little chance that congress will act to avert the food stamp cliff. it will affect some 47 million beneficiaries, including children and the elderly. the cuts will take effect on friday and will bring an end to the funding increase the democrats wrapped into the 2009 stimulus. for a family of four, it will be $36 per month. single adults will see their for ay benefits reduced cut of $11. on the cover of cq weekly -- jodi has this point -- the cover story of the national review, the health care marketplace headline -- alan is joining us next from new york city on the democrats line. caller: thank you for your great program. i don't work for democrats anymore. i don't work for republicans, not democrats, not a third- party. history shows us that our country is not based on they only have to choose between democrat or republican. they have no more options. for many years the american people have only worked for republicans or democrats. it is not true democracy. america needs a big change and it needs democracy. think the results of the election set forth a conviction -- notnational community does trust us in the market democracy is in -- anymore. democracy is not fair. arethe american people forced to choose between democrat or independent or republican. host: thank you for the call. johnnie has this point, there is a third-party, it is called local government. it is where single voters have the most impact. you can send us a tweet. we are monitoring your comments on our facebook page, facebook.com/c-span. this for michael -- next call is richard, calling from florida on the independent line. i agreegood morning, with one of your previous callers who said that a third- party has a hard time getting finances to run their campaigns. stressed thef they fact that the first thing we have to do in this country is ban lobbyists from bringing any money whatsoever to congress, that would have a big jump. that is the cause of our down slide, the money that is given to politicians for the reelections to pass the laws for their constituents and not for the good for the country. next onn is joining us the democrats line -- tim is joining us next on the democrats line. caller: i was good to say to the people that want a third-party, i don't think there'll ever be a majority of the population. host: why is that? it is swings way off to the right. host: for those that benefit --m the two major parties those who benefit from two major parties mama like the competition from third parties. kathy is up next. caller: i don't think we need a third-party. ross perot was the third candidate running. we need to honor the constitution. what we did need to do is people we elect, the reason we elect them, they need to honor us photos -- us voters. we need to start getting politicians that don't want to serve themselves and what is good for them instead of what is good for the nation. we need to stop voting for our personal gain and our personal bills. host: alicia, thank you for the call. another viewer says -- we are asking you about third- party politics based on the latest gallup poll. frank newport said 60% of those surveyed is ready for a major third-party. phone lines are open. next is betty joining us from albuquerque, new mexico, democrats line. caller: good morning, steve. we are in such desperate need of a third-party. naderusiness about ralph -- the ignorance is alive and well in america. lame the supreme court. the supreme -- blame the supreme court. the supreme court intervened in that election. had they not florida would have given the count to al gore and al gore would have been president. it was the supreme court that intervened. it had nothing to do with ralph nader. enough,der, ironically has been rallying for third, fourth, and fifth parties for years. we should be behind that. the democratic party is not the democratic party that my family belonged to years ago. the democratic party used to represent the working class of america. no longer. the right has gone so far to the right that it is absolutely ridiculous. we need third parties, we need to stop these dynastic brings -- dynastic reigns. people like to see elizabeth warren of running for president, bernie sanders. if only we had 535 bernie sanders in congress. we need heard parties. we need to stop both parties from intervening to the president's election fund, which disallows people from sitting at the table such as candidates getting their views out. a progressive third, labour party, thank you very much. host: in case you missed it yesterday, i want to share with you a story that could have some longtime legal ramifications. this is the headline -- you can read more details online at and why times.com. -- at nytimes.com kathy says -- next call is joining us from , massachusetts. good morning. caller: it seems like the democrats and republicans are ruining this country. it's like if you have one statement does not have the -- one state that does not have social security and medicaid, the other state does, which state is going to get the job c e -- is going to get the jobs? i don't understand what everybody is calling in and saying we need to prepare our friends -- bottom of thee hour. we are asking if you would support or vote for a third party. we have moved down the dial to xm channel 120 this week. in the weekend edition of the wall street journal -- she makes a comparison to the titanic and then has this point -- here's more with the president. [video clip] >> the easiest place to buy insurance is a new website. as you may have heard, the site is not working the way it is supposed to yet. it is frustrating for all of us that has worked so hard to make sure that everybody who needs it gets health care. it is especially frustrating for the americans who are trying to get covered. the site has been visited more than 20 million times so far. nearly 700,000 people have applied for coverage already. that proves just how much demand there is for this new policy health care choices. weekss why in the coming we are going to get it working as smoothly as it is supposed to. we have people working overtime to boost capacity and address these problems every single day. -- even as werove improve the website to my know that it is not the only way to apply for coverage. offerated the website to information on how to enroll over the phone, by mail, or in person with a specially trained navigator who can help it to your questions. 1-800-ll one 800 -- 298--- these plans will not sell out. we are only a few weeks into a open enrollment. everyone who wants insurance will get it. some people have poked fun at me for sounding like an insurance salesman, and that is ok. i would still be out there championing this law even if the website were perfect. toill never stop fighting help more hard-working americans know the economic security of health care. that is something we should all want. that is why it is also interesting to see republicans in congress express so much concern that people are having trouble buying health insurance through the new website, especially considering they have spent the last few years assessed and nine those -- few years obsessed with denying those people coverage. host: fred upton delivered the republican address. he joins us at 10:00 eastern time here on c-span. a couple of headlines from "the washington post" -- that is from inside "the washington post close quote -- "washington post." he is a republican from california, he comes from a heavily hispanic district. he is the first and only loan gop member to join democrats to cosponsor a plan that would give millions of unauthorized americans a chance to obtain citizenship here in the u.s.. details in the a section of "the washington post." back to your calls. third-party politics in america. there is this from steve, who says -- don from greenville ohio, good morning. i believe in a third- party. i have been talking third-party for probably 10 years. i voted for ross perot twice. i thought this was a chance to straighten this all up in washington. i think basically the republican and democratic party is the one that threatened his family. i think they both were involved in it. they do not like to see a third- party. it is like taking the government back from the british. i also agree with the lady from new mexico. i believe in bernie sanders, i believe he should be president. i think maybe his vice president should be angus cain of maine and -- angus king of maine. . don't know a lot about him , getnk these extra parties your act together and have a party called "we the people of the united states," and i think we could have a third-party easy if they all get together. you cannot fight these two parties when you have five or six extra parties running. our twitter page has this comment -- senator ted cruz making his third visit to iowa in three months. the story from "the washington post," as he cast himself as the leading crusader against the president's health-care law. this from "the des moines register" as well. his speech is available on our website at c-span.org. james is joining us from anderson, california, democrat line. good morning. caller: jean. jean, i'm sorry. we are glad to hear from you. caller: i am a little bit of a democrat -- radical democrats here in northern california. when i was in high school in 1962, one day a group of men walked in with boxes full of books on the john birch society. that was the third wave. i refused to read their books. i think the john birch society is kind of a compilation of the radical kind of right. i think there needs to be a forthright, progressive kind of togetherthat brings the united states. i am a mayflower descendent, my family came here for peace and freedom and love and faith. relatede that what with -- what we really need to do is give the red states back to mexico. america does not need all this dissension. that is my radical thought. thank you guys for doing such a terrific job of producing television. host: where is anderson, california, by the way? caller: a couple of miles south of reading, 20 miles from the oregon border. inland from eureka. it is beautiful here. i am really blessed. host: you are up early, too. thank you. caller: my cats wake me up. that gets me up with you guys. host: thank you. gary says this. there is a country with bernie sanders as president, it is called greece and it is in great shape, right? this is from timothy in chicago, who says -- brian says -- -- ryan says -- our next call is martin joining us from indiana. would you vote or support a third-party? good morning. i don't think we need a third .arty other than what we have the tea party is not such a bad thing in our politics, it is not trying to divide the party. i will be real quick. what i really think is the republicans need to quit listening to all of the negative flack from the democrats who wanted to divide the republican party and just stand their ground. we didn't lose by that much the last time. if we can get 10% of the democrats or even five, i think we can win every time. thank you. come arom politico former secretary of state and perspective 2016 residential candidate hillary clinton called was a robustcalled discussion. said at colgate university, we need to have a full comprehensive discussion about that balance. she also stressed that u.s. allies rely on american intelligence for their security and sometimes to serve as partners. the german government said the nsa, the national security agency, appeared to be monitoring their calls. the white house says those concerns are being discussed but do not offer a detailed response to that allegation. another story we want to bring , a front-pageion story below the fold is this from susan rice, offering a more modest strategy for the mid east and -- for the mid east -- that is an interview from -- from an interview with susan rice. joining us next from chattanooga, tennessee on the independent line. caller: good morning. it has been a great show this morning. i enjoyed so much. i think we overthink things too much. sometimes simplicity is the best way. give the power back to the people, allow them to have a no vote. the congress and everyone else makes all these rules. give the american people a chance to vote no and all of this will stop. you give them back the power. the old adage of i am tired of fighting for the left or right, it doesn't matter if they are democrat or republican. theou give the people ability to actually put somebody out of office, they will go vote. so many people get disgruntled and they do not vote because they feel like their vote does not make a difference. put a no box next to these names. they don't need a third-party. we just need to have a clear choice and the power to make a difference. host: thank you for the call. this tweet -- another headline we want to share for you to share with you --m "the washington times" reverend sharpton says we are going to stop the frisk and shop. we are not going to live in a town where our money is considered suspect and everybody else's money is respect. it is from the washington times. tony is joining us next -- actually curtis is next from memphis, tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. i support the idea of a third- party. unfortunately i would not vote for a third-party. up for twois set parties, that is the way it is. two, split one party into you will have a democratic win every time. what they will do is -- the democrats have the upper hand because we have the dlp and the tea party fighting -- the gop and the tea party fighting. host: james makes this point -- we are coming up on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of our presidents john f. kennedy. we will have extensive programming on american history tv. the president was assassinated in dallas texas and the outlook section of "the washington post photo looks at some of the latest books focusing on john f. below the fold is another book by larry sabatino. there is this from "the new york times" -- joule is joining us on the independent line from new jersey. -- joule is joining us from the independent line -- joel is join ing us on the independent line from new jersey. caller: when a caller said it would be like a part of entry that ii disagreed and disagree. we need to stop that rumor that it is a waste of a vote. we have this libertarian party. we had a ron paul, but he has the joint the gop to stay relevant. yet the corporate media, who is -- it isridicule him the same in local politics. it should be fair coverage among all the candidates. a third-party would help in so many ways. it is hard to describe. your audience is either watching msnbc or fox news and then you have your people that watch c- span. there is other options. host: a final comment on our twitter page -- you can continue the conversation online at facebook.com/c-span. we will have two pollsters here as we talk about the politics of the shutdown and the impacts on the democrats and republicans moving ahead to the midterm elections. later in the program we will turn our attention to foreign- policy issues and we will preview the farm bill as congress takes up negotiations on that very important piece of legislation. in the c-span radio studio, keeping track of the sunday guests. the sunday morning. >> good sunday morning. on today's sunday tv talk shows, some of the topics include health care website glitches, and essays by in -- nsa spying, and the use of drones. you can hear that at noon eastern with nbc's "meet the press." today's guest is john kasich and kentucky democratic governor steve bashir. also new york republican congressman peter king and the chairman and ceo of blue cross blue shield of florida, after rarity. .- patrick former vice president dick manchin, a west virginia democrat. at 2 p.m. it is fox news sunday, guests include louisiana governor hobby jindal. -- bobby jindal. also xavier becerra, he is chairman of the house democrat caucus. cnn's state of the union follows at 3 p.m. with candy crowley talking with the chairman of the house intelligence committee mike rogers. also dr. ec keel emanuel cleaver -- dr. ezekiel emanuel. then at 4 p.m. it is faced the nation from cbs, host bob schieffer welcomes the chairman of the oversight and government reform committee, congressman darrell issa. tv talk showswork are on c-span radio and they are brought to you as a public service by the network and c- span. that rebroadcast again at noon eastern with the press, 1:00 abc's this week, at 2:00, fox news sunday. 3:00 p.m., state of the union. four eastern, face the nation from cbs. us into all of them on c-span radio on 91 point f m. on xm the country satellite radio, find us now on channel 120. you can download a free app for your smart phone or listen online. them as each generation goes on we have less and less god, less and less morals in our society. what are we becoming? >> america needs to remain on the offense. >> in the end i am trying to change to become a better person and create a better place for all of us. them a they are three teenaged upper-middle-class white boys, which i know is really quite striking for a lot of people. what we wanted to do in the film is really explore the baseline political realities in the country by looking at what is happening for boys who are avatars for traditional leaders in america. people come to any film about young leaders and they expect to see a multicultural tapestry of what america really looks like. i think our country is still really run elliptically largely by upper-middle-class, relatively privileged, white men. i think reacting to that is really what i am trying to do. levitt leadsoodman a coming of age story in "follow the leader." tonight on q&a. >> c-span, we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, readings, and conferences area and offering complete gavel-to- gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. we are c-span, created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. and now you can watch is in hd. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us is republican pollster kellyanne conway. here on the table is sefan hankin, democratic strategist. -- story from cq weekly kellyanne, let me begin with you. guest: yes. host: is there a course change in the gop? guest: slightly. were member now that the aca is back in the crosshairs and americans are focused on that and the many glitches in its implementation. it would behoove the republican party to remind americans that aca did not have a single republican vote in the house. three years ago they had a difficulty of corralling sony resources into one -- so many resources. really look at what some of the governors have done in setting up exchanges. there is no question that the shutdown did cost republican party some local currency. -- some political currency. the goal was to bring attention to the affordable care act. the timing is very fortuitous in that many americans are focused on why there are so many glitches, whether it is computer glitches and why you are asking -- why you are accessing health care in a different way than what you shop. andou are on amazon.com, at the end it asks you to input your personal information, your address, your credit card, the affordable care act is the opposite. it gets people to buy in in the beginning with lots of private information and then you can change the order at the end. it doesn't even function the way most americans are accustomed to doing transactions on the computer. i think the republican party should get to spending, taxing, and giving visibility to what many americans are talking about, health care and education. host: we talked to frank newport about his gallup poll. this was in the weekly edition of cq weekly. let me share the two numbers. we have seen these numbers before and no third-party has been created yet. guest: exactly. and it is going to be tough for a third party function on the national level just given the infrastructure advantages that the two parties have. since it is a zero-sum game it and bothfor moderates parties to go the way of independence. is impossible how to map out -- if you are voting for an independent you're taking votes away from a democrat and putting a republican in office or vice versa -- on the presidential level it is hard to imagine we will be seeing an independent candidate be successful and do anything other than be a spoiler in the future. host: did you want to respond? i agree very much. we are seeing that play out in the gubernatorial race in virginia. even if he gets past that number appetite for the some type of third-party option becauseause -- comes both candidates have incredibly high negatives. of their doesn't to be -- there does seem to be an appetite there. only young people would favor and libertarian or third-party candidate. there are many people who say they refuse to pledge allegiance to either party. they declare their independence. what my colleague said is spot on. --n at congressional laces, congressional races, i think what is difficult for third- party formation is that often you are necessarily against something. if americans do not want one more thing, it is negativity. if i start a third party because i am sick at the republican party and that the democratic party, and it is going to be part of my platform. they do not get it, i am negative. look at jesse inter outcome of who one the governorship of minnesota who won the governorship of minnesota. -- who won the governorship of minnesota. he went on to the governor. it is a very rare occurrence and it means you have a critical mass of people taking a chance is with lyanne conway us from new york and stefan -- hankin is re here with us in d.c. kellyanne, you are keeping a eye on the virginia governor's race. this is in the "washington post" gift probe puts bob mcdonald on race's sideline and he was supposed to be in the thick of the race to succeed him. host: kellyanne conway, what is going on? important s such an fact. and not only what a popular with a pretty solid economic record be able in ormal circumstances to be out there and say vote for this guy, can say i'm going to carry forward the mcdonnell legacy. virginia has a very low nemployment rate compared to other areas and it is not that he is not out there as a and pushing the same voters that favored him, it is ken himself can also be out there saying if you want four economic boom time vote for me. i also would point out just this you had a parade of aspirants.d-be you had a number of folks who are rumored to be looking at presidentially. and bob mcdonnell would have been looking at that as well. he's effectively been taken out of presidential contention. as the "washington post" pointed a different article earlier this week it is true ken suffered a string of bad luck but he was the first sue over the nation to obama care years ago and basically lost his voice box on until recently. he could have been talking about riding his week been high saying told you so, look at all the problems. host: we should point out former president bill clinton mccolonelng with terry huff today and tomorrow and rand ken will be with cuccinelli. we will have some of the latest governor's irginia race. [video clip] sponsored this ad. 50,000 virginians could be furloughed. 3,600 will receive furlough notices. he is supposed to campaign with ted cruz and ted cruz is seen as an architect of what is in the house and that could really upset a lot of voters. > i would go right over the ridge. > for governor who could you trust to create jobs? one of virginia's most important pacts said their pick is condition cuccinelli. reports they st" found him preciseers serious and why terry nt ed unemployed, s superficial. serious deserves a governor. >> i'm ken cuccinelli candidate or governor and i sponsored this ad. host: those two ads encapsulate negative tone in this race. guest: i agree with what ellyanne said before and i'm trying to remember a race where the two candidates were so unpopular with just about everyone. it is interesting. tepping back further, what the republicans did here is they put cuccinelli basically anointed candidate through the caucusing versus a the ry and i think if lieutenant governor were on the ballot he would be mop being the floor. with the ppening current governor is he is sidelined and what he could be or g as a popular governor was before all of these problems surfaced is that he could have out there talking about an unpopular person putting his arm him saying this is a good guy, he will keep doing what i'm doing and ultimately that would helped him. but both candidates are not very the fact that we have a libertarian candidate on the ballot even if he gets half getting in the polling, 5% or 6% that is out of cuccinelli's pocket. host: election day is on november 5. phone from us on the new york city. our line for independents. re you in support of a third party, brian? caller: no, i'm not. ost: go ahead with your question. i was just curious because you called on the independent line. yours.um is caller: i consider myself an independent because i'm in the nted establishment. i'm a ted cruz supporter. you, i think ll that you remember me. inwood andbrian from i called in for 26 years to and after 26 years i was anned by the woman -- i forget her name -- susan, i believe -- to thebecause i objected everend al sharpton as a race profite profiteer. if you ban conservatives you program. a liberal host: we don't ban our listeners. we are glad to hear from you and please continue. caller: for years i i could not get through. gone rang but they either hung up or didn't answer. banned. host: we didn't hang up today. please continue. you r: all right, thank very much. i hope i'm not banned in the fort. i think a lot of sters do republic poll not ask the correct questions. ask all voters when you call there is a shutdown, the negotiation was between both ted by the o was smeared left wing news media, and etween ted cruz and the tea party on the one side, on the other side you had the president the administration. they were in negotiation. equally true, they say the republicans stkhoupbt the government. equally true in that negotiation the question could have been asked if president had agreed to delay obama would the government remain open? because the answer to that question is yes. so, the president refuses to negotiate even though we see terrible mistake that was, and then the republicans are blamed for shutting down the government. two sides are negotiating. how come the side that refuses negotiate is not blamed for the problem? i hope i can get back on next month. signing off.wood host: and the only thing we tolerate are racial slurs r profanity or derogatory comments about religion or racial issues but otherwise it so nobody is um banned. we will turn ay, to you. . i'm most struck by the fact you ave a man calling himself independent from new york city who is a ted cruz support terror. hat is very telling because it is the idea in is just the caricature of ted cruz put forth ho tried to do a faux filibuster 21 hours but he has also witho a vein and lived like brian who have in new york city for 12 years mayor inan independent michael bloomberg. let me answer his question. been on record whether bill clinton is president, george w. bush, president obama, the wrong question to ask is who do you blame as we the fiscal cliff or shut down the government, something that is truly washington and not just one party or the other like affordable care act for example. american people are usually looking for solutions and what is the best way to make sure doesn't happen again. but brian is right, that although the republicans are the shutdown r than the tkpls it is on -- on president s obama and the democrats. i can't look at the poll numbers claim a huge victory that will bring a majority in 2014 ecause they share some of the blame. i think the republicans have a tremendous opportunity if they for the g to be blamed shutdown they should have taken credit for reopening the government. we own the say shutdown so we own reopen being he government and they didn't do this. yet looking toward 2014 it is ough for me to see how the shutdown of the government translates into some big sweep for the democrats in the house. end by saying this. what americans do not like and reject many call for a third party, they do not like overreach. they think either party is reaching too far and back.dically they slap it that is what 1994 was about, could be and 2014 that way. share two points on that. this is a tweet from one our viewers, doug kane. for whatever party can get the job done. keep american freedom, hold spending down. of this has happened the last six years. i want to follow up on your ted because he was in iowa over the weekend and we covered his speech friday in des moines. the piece by ed o'keefe points week politician spends a in iowa on a chilly day with bring olitical visitors did, their spouse but he his wife heidi with him. but he did say this. [video clip] fight is worth it. worth it because path to hing it is the victory. ou know, the media loves a false dichotomy. they love talking about republican civil war. you have well-meaning folks like giving advice " on how the republican party itself.ave that is a little bit like taking healthcare advice from dr. kevorkian. desiring the same end outcome that you are desiring. we need to unify. together and let me tell you growth and freedom and ideals that unify the entire republican party. and ideals nciples evangelical e community with the liberty movement. community.siness growth and freedom are rinciples that bring together main street and the tea party. we get back to our core principles, that is how you strong le and keep ronald reagan's three-legged stool. o, host: kellyanne conway, where cruz take this? and is it a movement? guest: it is a movement. let me say this about ted cruz. it is important to remember how he is.where he not unlike barack obama beat getestablishment handily to to be the junior senator from texas. how? for was a crowded primary he seat for kay bailey hutchinson in 2012 and he likes to tell the story was 2% in the first poll taken and that is than the margin of error. so he worried about that. same thingsd on the you are hear him talk about in beat a sitting lieutenant governor and two people that were forced into the runoff and beat him in the and the spite dewhurst establishment throwing over $40 and he at ted cruz overcame it. so the possibility i'm making is otherwise the ho establishment nothing. he got there because he beat them not up like barack obama the clinton machine to be president. a window into the freedom to take the case to the people. to find every ng politician, every governor who may think of running or other that type of freedom. folks movement in that look for somebody who they believe is acting out of willing to take on a hit in the polls and take on water. am of senator cruz and many things he says on the adherence eally his to the constitutional conservatism, it is tough for me how anybody from washington will have as much of for americanssage in 2016 than a lot of the executives he chief who are really presiding over liberties and pocketbook issues. you have governors in the and here in new jersey doing things like cutting up their own ing independent health exchanges. they will have more to say than some of the folks in washington. senator cruz is getting ahead of that by establishing ofself as the guy acting out principle. stefan llyanne and hankin. you want to follow up. sure of m not really exactly what to make of ted cruz and exactly what his end game is. shutdown was very good for him because he got a lot of attention and raised a lot of money. terrible for the republican party when you look at the numbers favorability for healthcare act went up about five points during the shutdown, republicans went down it is something like 20's.0's or high democrats aren't doing that much better but they are doing better. and we are seeing a majority of young people supporting the act.dable health care so, basically the numbers are opposite at it is the of what technically the republicans were going for although it was very good for cruz. what i don't quite see is when ou look at where obama won in 2008, 2012, where the country is oing democrat graphically i don't see how ted cruz has an argument that he could get to 270 electoral votes in 2016. for him.ee a path if his advisors can do some math it doesn't add up. i'm not sure if he is running for president or wants to be texas in four to six years. respond?ay i host: let me ask yes, no or i don't know. do you think he is going to run for president? . i don't know. he could. and i think he's been public bout perhaps thinking that which. but i think the way you build he blocks toward running for presidency is you basically do what ronald reagan did between lost and 1980 when he won which is you take it which is o the people whether senator cruz seems to be doing. so he may be. say i slightly disagree with stefan saying he sheer sure looking at the demographics how ted cruz gets 270. romney hink of governor and senator cruz representing the republican party as the you that is tell going to be a difference because whether it is senator cruz's in his early 40's or the fact that he is hispanic and spoken on panels and alongside of his father rafael is about as big a story that came here as anybody else you will ever find. if s an amazing story senator cruz did run for president would be a household the democrats are doing something really smart. they are trying to turn texas blue. blue the next 10 to 20 years that is tough for the republican party to make the electoral college given how large texas is. if you have ted cruz on the republican party ticket in 2016 thereafter, i do think it would awaken plenty of young people that call themselves independents and h hispanics hispanics or appreciate the mmigrant story his father's which is truly incredible. hankin and kellyanne conway with us. oan is on the phone from nashville, tennessee, on the independent line. caller: yes. agree with g that i kellyanne is the fact that if either party goes too far to the left or to the right, speaking and republicans espectively, the voters will turn against them because they have just gone too far from the center. the a.c.a. is concerned, i think that the epublicans don't have an alternative because the a.c.a. health plan.icans' it started at the heritage foundation. during the orth clinton administration. so, they are really fighting own plan.eir if you think of the individual of the that was one things that newt gingrich nsisted upon because he didn't want any free loaders. hankin, your response. guest: this is where the democrats have lost the messa war is we took what now republican plan and that a democrat has pushed it forward it is this piece of evil that is wrong with america. nd, so, i find it also interesting basically conservatives should be doing victory license around the fact this was a conservative idea and same with a lot of what is doing on education. he fact that we are tphnot doig sequester cuts any more obama ame down to about $20 billion off where paul ryan's budget is. the conservatives should be around the mall with a big victory flag but we are not because sort of the hatred for man in the white house is overshadowing everything that is going on, which i find a little odd. host: ann joins us from greensboro, north carolina, democrats' line. morning. caller: organgood morning. want to remind one of your guests who said that the republicans did not vote to shut down the government. does the guest remember that 144 republicans voted to not reopen it was rnment and reopened with about 80 republicans and the rest of the .umber were democrats so the majority of republicans voted against reopening. her comment doesn't make sense. guest: i actually didn't say that. i said they didn't vote for it. voted ingle republican for the affordable care act. tkpdidn't comment on who voted for the shutdown. it is clear they voted to shut delay or overnment to decontinued obama care and 10 a ocrat senators said was good idea. the comment was no republican 2010 for rch of affordable care act, not shutting down the government. caller: as the other caller said with the affordable care act i there were about 100 amendments that republicans put then pretended that they were going to vote for it and in the end they did not on purpose. also, the other thing is that the republicans essentially down the hut government the night of the president's first term. top ber 15 republicans, republicans, met to try to determine how to throw out his that is well documented that people who were there have talked about that. other point i wanted to make was no, i don't think we need a third party. and, also, is the gallup poll poll that said the president was not going to win? -- thanksufpbgs for for the call. models allup got their wrong in 2012 but they have done years.eat work over many i think that certainly a lot of we are hearing from callers is pointing to the dysfunction we have in washington right now this is why we are seeing when you ask congress overall like 10 orl level is 9 which john mccain said we are and to family members friends at this point in time. close to 60% ek saying they would like to vote he entire congress out including their own member of congress which is completely -- there is a new phenomenon ecause usually people like their own member and hate everyone else but now we are seeing this majority of folks get rid of them all and start over. ost: let me follow with this headline the comments of a florida democratic of the tative the chair d.n.c. she said democrats will run on and we rdable care act will win. guest: a, i think we have to. this is sort of the news of the day. this is the major piece of i think we have a winning argument here at the end of the day if we do it right. now, i think it is a nice thing to hear because one thing we arguing is democrats need a positive vision of what is going on. been running on how bad republicans are. 'm not sure how much lower republican numbers can low and while they are like 30% approval only who 40's, high 30's. o we have a slightly better score and it is time to focus on the positive side and that is winning back seats although i agree with whether don't ne said earlier, i quite see a path to the the howuse.king off there are 234 republicans in the are in solid to safe republican seats. democrats, the anything can happen, we pick up handful but not to the 218 to take over the majority. con whi way how ong are the memories of the people with regard to the shutdown year from now? probably not that long because we vote on here and now even if we are holding a grudge. the affordable care act will be the here and now and hope she if god i follows through on her promise hey run on the affordable health care act and they said they will win. lost.ran on it in 2010 and it is why and how the republicans retook the congress. incontrovertible. the spending and stimulus and bailouts were the tip of the but rg in the beginning obama care was the tip of the iceberg. voted republican than 2010 yet they favored president obama in 2008 and 2012. not hen president obama is on the bantamweight but obama are is women who are the chief health care aofrls officers of they recoil and recoil long before we had computer long before saturday nightlife was skewering act and long before john stewart was saying even the work.lator doesn't people can laugh that off but it is no loving matter. think they are going to sail to majority victory on the affordable care misread.is a huge let me also comment on something about have been talking throughout and stefan mentioned, in is an abc "washington post" showing this insight that i haven't seen. i have been polling 25 years says for the it first time in 24 years more americans disapprove than of their own member in congress. that really is a remarkable solid, because the old oh, hate the whole congress but love my member of congress, that the case.ger be the fact is that so many are districts in safe that will be difficult to uproot hem notwithstanding disapproval. host: ronald says this on our tea party all the way! prospective. probably 2016 candidate is former secretary of state hillary clinton. spoke this past week at the center for american progress and e showed this earlier from politico at colonel tkpwaeugate to be a ere needs robust discussion on the ballot etween privacy and security with respect to what was reported about u.s. avesdropping on phone conversations including of the german chancellor. last week she commemorated the anniversary for the center of american progress. i will show an excerpt and ask c.a.p. has become the think tank for democratic (2) 014-2016. here is a portion. [video clip] and well remember when john sarah first came to see me about his new idea they were working on, a progressive think tank and fight stand up back in a city that had a lot of ofnk tanks on the other side the aisle, that would champion our values, develop smart based on sound research then with ship, and advocate and engage in the public debate. we had been ime, talking about how we could see this happen. working on the very same idea and at the end of the linton administration i knew that if we didn't have an infrastructure in place to on what had uild been accomplished and to hold efforts at any retrenchment, we would not be doing our job. host: stefan, much like the has been oundation part of that foundation for republicans is center for progress the counterpart for democrats and how so? large it is a very organization and they are putting out a lot of thoughtful pieces. sort of the view of the left. there are other groups out there a moderate think tank putting out great ideas. them e done some work for but not just a plug for a client. and i think both groups are out some very interesting pieces. and this is sort of a on what was the infrastructure on the republican ide with the heritage and a.e. the i. although i find it interesting in my opinion find was a sed to very thoughtful place. i disagreed with a lot of what but it was very thoughtful and they have moved frame.re to a political nd putting jim demint in involved they have changed their stripes and a lot of the big hinkers whether conservative, libertarian, have left or been pushed out the door. on heritage is really taking sort of a whole new look. into seems to be moving sort of the more by thinkers on the republican side. we have c.a.p., third way for the democrats, both putting from a slightly different angle within the democratic coalition. conway lly i don't know -- kellyanne conway george will on former senator rick santorum who ran in 2012 and won primary states. it is called "rick santorum is there."ut does he have a viable path to be considered a serious candidate 2016? guest: he is out there in that in 2014 ee how he does and how many want his endoctorsment. is he helpful to them. said that should cite dry teen.ve here were you when others needed your help. you would have to get on the plane in the dead of night or a and go help somebody else out. a t he did in 2012 is really cautiona cautionary tale for anyone. he had lost south carolina and new hampshire and too owa but was a little late and decided florida was win or take all so there was a battle between newt ingrich and romney and he went to states where nobody else feels and was able to win them. of the that again is out 2008 barack obama playbook where e competed in these non-iowa caucus states where the clinton machine didn't have as much of a took the case directly to the people. i actually think there will be a crowded field of true social conservatives in the race and i hope whoever runs takes an opportunity to expose as the cratic party extreme party on aworks. it is about time we had that conversation. missed in virginia altogether in past year which is shame because terry mcall live must believe what the d. tphfplt rfpn.c. believes which is a, about any time anywhere. most pro-choice americans there should be selections for sex-election fetal pain perhaps or eighth or ninth month without the mother.for ed to a nton ascend leadership position and to the presidency of the united states hrough the leadership coalition. it was d.l.c. it no longer exists. hey were the moderate democratic center left been atic organ and has replaced by the likes of the center for american progress and you have bill clinton running a p moderate democrat and hillary clint there is this progressive outlet and that will be difficult as she tries to run appealing to progressives, she will have a lot of cuomo and by andrew martin o'malley and elizabeth warren. differentou about the democratic party in the early 1990's and 2013. conway and nne stefan hankin. you are weighing in on the initial question about third party politics and there is this you support a third party, absolutely not. i voted for green one time and cheney, i mean bush-cheney. financed elections is the answer. get the money out. e go to john from west haven, connecticut, republican line. caller: my question for the billratic pollster is this was passed four years ago. here are basic things to rolling out an effective website or talking about the website. in charge,dy that is that rules an regulations early test and program and my question is why didn't president obama know that and years at in place four ago? why are we talking about what should have been done four years today? guest: first of all, there is no fact that this has been a bit of a disaster of a rollout and i think kellyanne this earlier. an i.t. guy but it is surprising it wasn't set up similar to when you get a put in your e you basic information to get an approximate percentage rate of what you are going to have to for and only when you actually are signing up for it are you starting to give your and if you mation have the shutdown the numbers favor ufacturing in the of -- moving in the favor of the deposition, if this had again would be emocrats flying high. now anything they tkpwaeupbld from the shut -- gained from the shutdown is probably taking a few checks back. we have to wait another week to on the numbers there. also remember this isn't four years ago. four years ago but the states had to decide they were going to be part of ownfederal plan or do their plan. a lot of states with republican governors dragged their feet and long time to decide whether or not they would be part of the federal plan or not and what we are seeing is the plans are working well. california, here in d.c. any ned up my firm without problem. it took about 15 minutes and we $1,500 or more on healthcare and that is great for a small business. personally tickled pink. but what is happening on the level needs to be addressed. the white house knows it and they better get on top of it worked out by is the end of november like they aid or else it will be a hrolog 2014. host: kellyanne conway pointed poll, we test on the want to is he you other numbers. hen looking at midterm elections next year would you vote to re-elect your 2014?entative in 24% said yes. around.d they would look 4% said it depends. 6% had no opinion. we go to barry from cover i think -- coventry england england. caller: i think a third party is desperately needed in america. quoted 66% would look around. the advantage of a viable third is it would take support from both the republicans and sitting and the members wouldn't feel so safe. the call.ks for let me go to the other part of the abc poll. which party do you blame for the government shutdown as you look at the numbers, 29% blame the republicans, 12% blame the democrats and kellyanne con say both are responsible. guest: that is the thing. is an indictment of washington more than anything, which also goes to my point 2016. the people that we didn't hear uch from during the shutdown were the governors. 30 of them are republicans. in the states go to elect a chief executive of their state where most of the action hat affects them is occurring they are by and large going to golvernors. and that is causation. of e is an indictment washington where voters say i blame all of them for not negotiating e table, acting like it didn't are some really strong able anecdotes that will whether the world war ii veterans trying to get to their memorial, you have other examples. so, those will be more ersistent in the american consciousness than taking the government shutdown and having 2014. a huge issue in i think what will persist clearly is the affordable care head of the d.n.c. has said as much. but we are going to get back to the perfect storm that was created before the government president ich is obama is, like a lot of presidents, republican or democrat, is finding himself in a little bit of a pickle over syria, over the n.s.a., i.r.s. targeting of the awayarties, those won't go soon, especially angela merkel woman the most powerful in the world, herself said this is a real compromise of german german-u.s. relations if it is true that this administration been eavesdropping on her calls. we don't know it is true right now. president obama is seen as just another politician profile in the world that will cut right against -- frankly whether has all his brand distinction along. hank-in, this is from brett. guest: i agree but with a caveat f and this is what i was talking about where the democrats need a positive vision of what they stand for. f you look at the republican party broadly, you sort of tend groups.three ou have the evangelical, tea party and moderate -- i'm gentlizing but democrats are not winning the evangelicals or tea party who they will pull the and establishment republicans. they need a place to land. if they don't feel comfortable with voting for a democrat in this sort of negativity toward the tea party with a lot of re democratic voters and voters in general i think their like 30%, it re doesn't do much good. like to see the democrats doing more reaching out to the business community standpoint of not look how bad the tea party is for you with you ando work be creating jobs and we are oing to be much friendlier to your needs and get you buckets that go out 10 years, not three make plans foran future hiring. ut until they make that safe landing spot i don't see a large enough number of model arithmetic republicans coming make a difference in 2014. our facebook on passenger. some people are confusing the for a third party. host: kellyanne you brought up is happening in new jersey a governor's race showing chris lead but getting some flack for the possibility by his ng for president democratic challenger. here is the latest on the air. [video clip] they said it couldn't be done. new jersey was too broken, too never met t they chris christie. working with both parties he made tough decisions. balanced budgets, no new taxes for anyone. cap on property taxes that is working. the best job growth in a decade funding ever.tion and when tragedy struck he was way. every step of the chris christie. the governor. actually running for governor, chris christie has republican t on the presidential primary. hat is why he defunded planned parenthood and stands with the gun lobby on background checks. 400,000 new jerseyans out of work and our poverty rate at 50-year high he raised taxes on the working poor but won't another onaires to pay dime. he wants to be president. i want to be your governor. stefan hankin a summary of and ads?e guest: i would be shocked to see christie winning handily in the mid 50's. he is incredibly popular and for on a state he clearly local level has been threading he needle nicely of making people feel comfortable with him. s the ads points out he has a solid record to run on. this isn't the first time a governor has ever been hit on thinking hey might be of running for president. 35 have e 50 governors those thoughts. it at others just do home talking to their wives or husbands. what happens in 2016 if he kellyanne think as said if we have a lot of people unning on the strong social conservative side it will be interesting to see if christie tries to do a little bit whrf but does it better which is say look, if we are a crowded primary i can keep the marylaoderate established won't try to t i beco ecome far right conservative for people who won't vote for me in the primary. that would position him well for election although i think the math is difficult for going ublican running forward unless the republicans way the e the demographics are trending which oesn't seem to be happening soon. host: let me conclude with this note. ellyanne you brought up "s.n.l." and the president's health care law. "saturday night sebilius.s h n [video clip] >> hello secretary of health president obama. now a lot of folks have been talking about our new healthcare website.nt how it has been crashing and freezing and shutting down and working and not breaking and sucking. well, tonight i have a number of friendly at this points to help you deal with those technical problems. tried mple, have you restarting your computer? the imes it helps to turn computer off and then turn it back on. does.'t know why, it just if our website still isn't we are probably just overloaded with traffic. millions of americans are health care.gov which is great. nfortunately the site was only designed to handle six users at a time. rush, ou are in a consider using our low res which simpler fonts and graphics. or it is the regular english not working try signing up in a different say, icelandic. then choose one of four simple plans plans. now, that is fun! and if our site keeps freezing we have provided links to other websites such as kayak.com. where you can purchase airline to canada and buy cheaper prescription drugs. host: kellyanne conway, you talked about that. your reaction. if president obama has talk show te night hosts all these places that have comfortable for him then it ells you that folks are really concerned and i will use the ord again, astonished by the complete failure. i'm so appreciative of my honest khraeg colleague the complete failure. it is the same young people 18 35-year-olds who kwraodz r "u.s.a. today" said won't need older ensate for the people who may be in the system. f those are the same people watching the characterizations f obama care and kathleen sebil sebilus. the governor will have my vote in new jersey. he has been a great governor and any problem with running the ad he is running. it is a very positive ad. can end his who campaign on a positive note with up ad is riding high. sense, she talks pbs about abortion and gun lobby. all of those together and added them up in ew jersey you don't get to 15% of the top priorities in new jersey. a person ed including who ran a similar ad with his doug will protect woman's right to choose. men, lls show women, like care most about the economy, care and education. can we stop insulting women thinking all they can do is vote "women's issues." i have never heard the term issues. guest: a lot of things i agree with what kellyanne is saying. note end on a positive and your opponent ends on a negative note you probably will shocked to uld be see anything other than about christie. for host: stefan hankin and to both of youy, thank you very much for being with always. when we come back we will turn becameention to the farm as house and senate negotiators try to hammer out a compromise. alan bjerga will be with us from bloomberg news. you are watching "washington journal." it is sunday morning october 27. a moment.k in courtship of bess wallace and harry truman began here at in independence, missouri. >> when my grand father visited independence which is 26 miles where he lived in 1910, he eastern stayed across the -- he stayed across the street where his aunt and two cousins lived. with hiswas over there cousins with the family and his aunt brought in a cake plate my great grandmother imagimadge wallace, had given her a cake nolan had given the cake plate and asked would mybody take it back over and grand father moved with something approaching the speed and ran and grabbed it over here and rang the bell on the front door in the hope that grandmother with answer the door and she did. and she invited him in and that beginning of their formal courtship in 1910. we continue n as our series on first ladies monday night live at 9:00 and c-span 3, an also on c-span radio and c-span.org. america's call for scientists and engineers. too nasa's future goes so does that of america. youif nasa is healthy, then don't need a program to convince people that science and engineering is good to do they will see it written large on the paper. jurors ll be calls for to help us go ice fishing where here is an ocean of word that has been liquid for billions of years. the e going to dig through soil of mars and look for life. look at the nasa portfolio today. it has biology, chemistry, physics, geology. aerospace >> mechanical engineers. electrical engineers. stem fields. science technology, engineering, ath represented in the nasa portfolio. a healthy nasa pumps that. wheel that society caps for inknow vision. 15 years book t tv has aired over 40,000 programs about nonfiction books authors. weekend on c-span 2. farm our topic is the bill. lanberg go follows that for bloomberg news. thanks for being with us. a otiations resume this week big difference between the house and senate plan. i want to get to the politics first of all why is this important? guest: the farm bill is somewhat misnomer. it is more comprehensive than agriculture subsidies. all the funding for the forest service and scientific blew ch for better berries. and the food stamp program. which is now responsible for more than half the budget. it is the largest social in the united m states and 47 million americans rely on it so it is a piece of ive legislation that touches everyone in some way. food stamp program we will see changes starting november 1 because of congress's to reach a compromise. what will happen and to whom? plan when you have the pass in 2009 the stimulus going to be was giving extra spending for the bumpmy you had a temporary in food stamp payments. that will expire and you see benefits for people. some could leave the rolls as conditions change. of a backdrop rt to the debate where you have both the house and senate to the program but how severe. $30 : that could mean up it to $40 a family which is significant? guest: it is. look at the average benefit you are looking at $133 a month of particular a chunk out household does crimp food budgets. host: if you live in an urban area and want to discuss the bill 202-585-3880. in rural areas. 202-585-3881. 202-585-3882. the big difference in terms of cuts. he stat plan has roughly -- senate plan has roughly $4 billion in cuts the next 10 machiplan $39se billion to $40 billion. guest: if i had the answer i would be called to the hill. this will be a difficult gap to bridge. closure nate you see a of a couple of loopholes feel on he house side you are seeing real changes to how the program is administered and who is eligible for it. to ier there was an attempt pass a bill that failed in the house of representatives. 10was a $20 billion cut over years. democrats abandoned it en masse. now the republicans came back a stand-alone food stamp bill merged with the farm they doubled the food stamp cut which is not the direction the democrats wanted. becomes how does the conference committee reconcile what seems to be differences.e host: we will look at the overall cost of the program. supplemental nutrition snap.ance program or it is about $75 billion 46 million ust over americans and the average monthly benefit as you indicated $133 per person per $278 per and household feel that is a big chunk. host: in terms of coming to the agreement walk us through the players. who will be doing the negotiations? guest: it will be a house-senate conference committee. you have the democratic led chamber with the senator from michigan. house it is frank lucas from oklahoma. the senate conference committee up of much made traditional agricultural constituencies very much from committee.ture in the house where if is more problematic you have an large conference group in part because there have been actual appointments from representing other committees on the farm bill. once again this is much more han agricultural constituencies. the house appointments reflect this. the representative from florida sent by house leadership amendment to an the snap program that was very controversial among the democrats. n the democratic side you have she is a at from ohio member of the agricultural committee but this is an urban constituency. there to be a watch dog for the snap program and it is nderscoring some tensions here before you even go to this conference once it comes up with to the full goes congress and what has been happening there is unpredictable how itr and nobody knows will play out. ost: our guest is alan bjerga of blog news. as we listen to this call jenny georgia we will let you look at the house bill senate bill. good morning. you live in cannon, georgia, what part of the state? athens.near what i want to know is people in look to see eed to how many people are in the house and senate that is getting money them or the spouses on this farm bill. of the farm bill committee thing, he gets over for their farm and it is a success farm. ain't nothing but corporate welfare. they need to look into that. in the house ople and senate, 12 in the house and hree in the senate getting money out of the farm bill. -- it ain't nothing but stupid. they are not helping poor farmers much. helping occupy the big corporate farms. ost: jimmy, thanks for the call. guest: the caller raises some interesting points about the subsidies.farm ne reason in a budget austerryy comment you have a challenge defending it. agricultural profits were reaching record levels and records are expected this year. when you have that going on in farm economy which is the house and senate plans include a cut to the direct payment program. programs, on these which farmers a benefit and how -- contract these programs this becomes very problematic want to get outside of bond constituencies. host: our guest is the author. ons tweet, why do we insist putting the food stamp and other appropriations in the farm bill? guest: this goes back to the 1970's. you had lawmakers such as bob who saw george mcgovern that rural population as declining and they needed other allies to pass the farm bill. urban constituencies care about the food stamp program. a connection between the two. when you take a look at food purchases, the rural morert helps create support for lawmakers. it becomes a divide and .onquer strategy from a budget-cutting standpoint, you can deal with the more effectively. caller: i have a microform outside of nashville. farm outside of nashville. it sounds like it makes sense until you start breaking down the finer points. people don't realize what's , and the politicians goingenefit, they're not to tell the american people the truth. the only way is to start this over. you have a conglomeration of things that don't seem particularly related. if you're trying to tear apart the entire establishment in washington, you could tear apart the entire farm bill. you have one constituency that needs this, another that has that. you put it all together and create something that has enough for every lawmaker to pass congress. when you have an unraveling in the budget in a situation where you're trying to cut back, the situations become more difficult to hold together and you see a threatened unraveling in the farm bill. host: rita is on the phone. good morning. when i was working, my income counted against what my children and i could eat. i have been able to work. now that my husband has to pay for my medicines off his disability income, the money he has to spend on me does not count against our household because i'm not working. i was just wanted to know what washington intends to do about that. the people who no longer has any income, why don't we count? impressed -- i'm impressed by our viewership in tennessee this morning. on aaller is talking larger issue dealing with the social safety net. some ofa proxy toward these issues about income inequality. since welfare reform in 1990 six, there have been fewer programs available for individuals to take advantage of. food stamps is the biggest aim left in town -- game left in town. host: we will move from tennessee to michigan. i have observed people that use food stamps for many years. i'm 66. i observe that they buy anything but good food. they buy potato chips, soda pop, all kinds of sweet goods. it's kind of ironic that they that helps money support the farmers, i'm sure, to buy the bad foods. they are all really heavyset. and then we have obama care, that has preventive care. should food stamps not be regulated to the point that you're not able to buy cigarettes and alcohol with food stamps? why should you be able to buy junk food that will just make you sick? of thosend baskets things going out the door, you can ask any walmart, any kroger person what they're buying. they will tell you quickly, nothing good for them. she illuminated how much is in this farm bill and the politics behind it. there is a general question dealing with nutrition whatood policy as far as should the farm bill be promoting. is it promoting the healthiest diet? are the foods allowed to be purchased under the food stamp program foods that people should be eating? the caller alludes to restrictions on alcohol, cigarettes. and somee been moves state legislatures to restrict things further. has projects dealing with farmers markets, organic foods. what point does the food become healthy versus unhealthy? from a regulatory standpoint, the government has not wanted to go there. host: why is the farm bill all about the takers? i assume the farmers would be the takers rather than the makers. i think that's the direction we're going. a lot of the farm subsidies have encouraged farmers to produce more. that helps some of the makers. there's a lot of business interest involved in this. the farm bill includes economic development in rural areas. you can characterize people taking food stamps as takers, but a lot of people on food stamps are working. farmers would not call themselves takers. in --s a character race characterization that if you look at the bill holistically, a can break down in a few levels. the comprehensive nature of this bill makes it more complex than that. host: we welcome our viewers across the pond in great britain, and welcome our listeners on c-span radio, heard nationwide on xm channel 120. us, calling for massachusetts. my question is, does the government keep figures on how many people graduate from the food stamp program? i'm not talking about people that are thrown off, i'm talking about people who graduate. if those figures are available, where can i find them? talking, there is somebody who is going food shopping for some milk. let's say that milk is $3.50 a gallon. $.67 is borrowing a dollar -- $1.67 to pay for that gallon of milk. when is it going to stop? in the amount of time i've been talking, obama will have $1,800,000.ut we can't afford this. guest: the government does put out an annual report on the food stamp program, looking at issues such as waste, fraud, and abuse. i believe the average amount of time the person stays on the cycle is 10 months. i don't know about repeats on the food stamp program. regarding the issue of borrowing and government spending, this is where a lot of support for the cutbacks and food stamp program come from, as well as for farm subsidies. there is frustration with government spending. in an environment of greater austerity -- the previous model will give this subsidy, maybe this for conservation programs -- it doesn't work as well anymore. ron has this on our twitter page. join the conversation @s cspanwj. he says, true makers don't need a subsidy. it's hard to find an throughal who interaction with the government isn't some sort of influence one way or another. anybody who takes out a home loan in the u.s. with their mortgage gets a tax benefit. biggest benefits are interacting with the government. the question is, what is the scope of that government role, what is the relationship between the individual, the business, and the government? how do you encourage the makers without over balancing things towards the takers? in the farm bill, it becomes an especially pertinent question given the environment we're in. host: negotiations begin wednesday, correct? guest: correct. host: where will they be meeting? guest: 1100 longworth. members in the senate, and 29 from the house. they don't expect to come up with a final farm bill on wednesday. battle lines are being drawn. host: you can watch the hearing www.c-span.org. during the government shutdown, 75,000 cattle died in south dakota because they had a blizzard early in the year. my in-laws grow a garden every year. chickens. have i would love getting the purple onions and red potatoes from the ground because you don't know what's going in our food nowadays anyway. from west call in virginia and say, i saw somebody buying a bag of cookies, i saw pop -- westng some virginia is 95% white. stand at the supermarket all day long to catch five black people in a supermarket. when west virginians call in, saying they saw someone getting -- a piece of candy or a snack, people can hate each other all they want to, but you can't get into heaven hating people. i don't think -- know what the makers think they are winning in the end. guest: the caller makes some points about demographics of the food stamp program. the majority of snap participants are white. they have low incomes. the majority of them have jobs. this speaks towards a larger issue. getting to the south dakota issue, i'm glad the caller brought that up. i was in south dakota last week. the livestock situation is part of why farmers are calling to have a farm bill. livestock producers don't have the same mechanisms of support. new farm bill would have helped out those producers that lost that cattle. without a farm bill, they don't have that program. the ranchers don't receive any sort of aid. that is a concern to rural lawmakers. it's a concern to the country. lou, this e-mail from where does the food go? where does the money go? guest: it's interesting, transitioning from south dakota. there was a court case going on with the largest paper in south dakota. they're trying to find out what stores are getting the money from the snap program. is not turning over this information. this is a stimulus to the retail grocery industry. convenience stores gain a lot of income from this. these are questions people have, where their tax dollars are being spent. the answers are not as clear as some would like them to be. host: what does a typical midsize farm or get in terms of subsidies? you get to the large grain producing states in the midwest, you see a lot of your big program crops. they will benefit a lot from traditional farm subsidies. in the south, you have cotton and rice growers. midsize definition changes to radically. a lot of farm subsidy issues are a battle between northern and southern crops. then you get to the west. midsize farms will get very little in terms of income programs arearm not structured towards those products. some people say because of changes in the american diet, that they should. illinois.y in go ahead. i was wondering how long it would take for the race issue to come into this conversation. she slammed the so-called makers. here is what the makers don't like about benefit cards. when i go into the chicago area and there is a nice door that sells nothing but products for the home -- the word home is in its name -- it sells crystal stemware.nd when they display banners in their window, saying we now , it makes cards people out here outraged. one is not going to put cash -- money is not going to put food into the mouths of hungry people. when i can go into a store with my cash and someone can go in with their benefit card and by i wante crystal platter to buy, that is where i say there is fraud. we are all being bamboozled. guest: getting to the question as far as restrictions, i don't know the full range of products. the caller sounds very frustrated in terms of what would be allowable under this program. as soon as you have a government intervention that is subsidizing some sort of issue, the question becomes where do you draw the line? our next caller is a farmer from longview, texas. good morning. i do recovery from drug and alcohol addicts. we support 100 meals a day. come into thet center have food stamps. a lot of people use them to sell. they get $.50 for the dollar. some people from out of town will actually have a cash value. they will get cashed, and the rest is food. a lot of people really need help. and then there are others who want to use them to get what they want. all of them have a pack of cigarettes, even though they're homeless. there needs to be a way to check them, if they go to sell these things, there needs to be a way to check their id. is there any estimate on how much waste and abuse there is in the snap program? guest: the waste rates have been going down in recent years. there's something around 4%. program that administers $77 billion -- that may be a historical rate. the emotion on the food stamp program is interesting. if people are seeing cases of waste, fraud, and abuse, it should be reported to everyone available. the second issue, i commend c- span for dividing the callers into rural, urban, and farmers -- it touches main constituencies involved into this bill. even though we have rural, urban, and farmers, even farmers are calling in with questions. this is a hot button issue. host: walk us through this week and the rest of the year. the first have meeting of the conference committee on wednesday. technically, we don't have a farm bill right now. the previous law passed expired on september 30. we are under a permanent program passed in 1949. provisions of it start to take effect early next year. there was a problem with this bill a year ago. they passed an extension that lasted until september 30. law, beginning january 1, the government has to start implementing programs that could double the price of milk because of the way the programs work. people are saying that might be the spur to get an agreement this time. on the agriculture beat for bloomberg news and the farm bill that is front and center. thank you for being with us. alan bjerga. we will welcome back michael o'hanlon. healthcare.gov is front and center on the sunday programs. c-span radio is now on xm channel 120 on the dial. >> on today's sunday television talk shows, healthcare.gov is front and center, as well as nsa spying and the use of drones. you can hear rebroadcasts of all the programs beginning at noon eastern with "meet the press." casey --clude john john casey and steve bashir -- john kasich and steve bashir. week," with, "this dick cheney. joe manchin as well. 2:00 p.m., "fox news sunday." guests include bobby jindal. , and marshara blackburn. "state of the union" follows at 3:00 p.m. candy crowley sits down with mike rogers, and dr. ezekiel emanuel. and john fleming. 4:00 p.m., "face the nation." bob schieffer welcomes darrell issa and jeanne shaheen. talk showsnetwork tv are on c-span radio and brought to you as a public service by the networks and c-span. the rebroadcasts of the shows begin at noon eastern with "meet the press." 1:00, "this week." 2:00 p.m., "fox news sunday." at 4:00 p.m., "face the nation." you can listen to them all on c- span radio, 90.1 fm in the washington, d.c. area. across the country on xm satellite radio channel 120. download our free apps for your smart phone, or listen online at c-span radio.org. >> was the most important issue congress should consider in 2014 -- what's the most important issue congress should consider in 2014? make a five to seven minute documentary that shows ferrying points of view and includes c- span video for your chance -- varying points of view and includes c-span video for your chance to win. entries must be in by january 20, 2014. for more information, go to studentcam.org. >> we are in the middle of a sociological revolution. young women are told that they have to have a great career, they have to be great mothers, they have to be thin, they have there is alooking, sense of entitlement. i can do everything a young man does. that includes having a glass of wine or two after work, drinking to wind down. to medicate depression and anxiety and loneliness. there is a lot of anxiety in this generation in terms of, how do i manage it all? what may look at who is drinking the most, we are seeing professional and educated women. i don't think this is what gloria steinem had in mind. >> the closing gender gap in the world of risky drinking. tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern time. our booktv bookclub, joined other viewers reading "walking with the wind," by john lewis. at the website on your screen. to welcome back michael o'hanlon, who is the author of more than a dozen books. he's a senior fellow at brookings institution in washington, d.c. i want to bring with an essay you wrote that was published in the "washington post." you pointed out that the u.s. commitment to afghanistan has been considerable. have never waged a war against fornation with a common foe 12 years. tend to have a fairly negative impression of this year. it has been way too long and frustrating. almost 2300 americans. the whole narrative is about frustration. then we see these governments having a difficult time figuring out their long-term relationship. because of this association of fighting together for so long, there's a more positive story that both countries should be telling themselves about the other and the alliance. when i meet these young afghans there manningt checkpoints and risking their lives for their country, or who went to afghanistan after 9/11 to rebuild a new state when they had a chance. it is a shame that we do not view this more as something we have tried to build together, which has a real chance of surviving. the main purpose of writing this article, to remind .eople of the positives here i host: you write, afghanistan main far more pro-american -- polling,blic opinion it tends to show pro-american sentiment at 50% to 60%. it is quite high when you consider that this war has been frustrating for everyone. you compare that to our popularity in most of the other countries you mentioned. even with president obama and the new era of american leadership he represented, there was a blip in positive sentiment towards the united states. it has gone away in most arts of the world. the entire political class i'm familiar with really wants us to stay. karzai wants us to stay, too. when i talk to all the other afghans i've ever met in the political class, i have not met a single one who wants us to leave. they know they need us, and they're trying to preserve what we have built together so far. bring inre going to patrick quinn from the associated press in a moment where i. u.s.: we are at 50,000 troops in afghanistan today. we're going down to 34,000 by wintertime. numberll be about the that president obama inherited from president bush when he came to the white house in 2009. we stayed very low for a long time. for much of that period, we were in iraq. towards 30,000 as obama was coming into office. obama tripled the forces. we are halfway down from that number. we don't know what's going to happen at the end of next year. we will probably try to keep 6000 or 8000 u.s. troops. we have not yet worked out the deal with the afghans that would allow us to do that. host: patrick quinn is joining us on skype. i'm going to ask you to follow up on michael o'hanlon's point. what is the current u.s. role in afghanistan? what will the country look like a year from now? guest: michael and i don't disagree on many issues. we tend to see afghanistan through the same prism. a lot of afghans do not want to see the u.s. in the international community leave. ,hey are generally pro-american pro-the international development. 87,000 troops here. 50 are from the u.s. there are an awful lot of contributing nations. to theations are looking u.s. and its strategic relationship with afghanistan to see what will come after 2014. if we sign a bilateral security agreement with afghanistan, we will see international partners will also stay. go, that entire international support network could just vanish. i think most afghans do not want us to leave. they do not want the u.s. to leave afghanistan. this is one of few countries that despite the fact there is an insurgency that does not like the international community, the majority of the afghan people do not want us to go. there is an entire new hereation that flourished 2001. -- you know, late afghan lead, the it's the afghan middle class. if we go, things will change. i don't think they want us to go. host: let me underscore the point we made with michael o'hanlon. in his piece he cowrote, he makes a point that the u.s. has never had a 12 year commitment in a war with a common foe. often the foe is largely from within afghanistan. do we sense that on the ground in kabul? guest: michael is right. the fight has been against the insurgency for the past 12 years. it started growing again after we lost sight of the ball here u.s.03 and 2004, when the committed its military might, its focus on iraq. i think that commitment is still here. the insurgency has not managed, after an entire fighting season, to meet any of their stated territory,in intimidate afghans into changing their mind. they have not achieved any of this. it is now afghans fighting afghans. insurgency, at least the domestic part of the afghan insurgency, is fracturing. they say, we are not fighting foreigners now. this has changed the perception. patrick. guest: the insurgents have managed to kill a lot of afghans this year. they continue to kill the police and the army, which is under a lot of stress. this is an accomplishment of the 12 year effort. they're much better than they were. uniform,and strong in and taking these kinds of onualties and continuing when there are a lot of problems with attrition. they are doing the job, and holding onto the territory. there's good news in that they have held on, bad news in that they are under a great deal of stress from an insurgency that remains very strong. the insurgents also have sanctuary in pakistan, as i'm sure many of your viewers know. to the extent they have a command-and-control network across the border that we cannot easily get that, it makes it difficult to really take them and put them into a compromise or weakened position. i will be an enduring challenge for the years to come. they have a place to resupply, re-shelter, rearm. iny have had some success the campaign of assassination and intimidation, which was one of their stated goals at the beginning of the year. their spring offensive stated they would go after government officials. last week they killed the very influential government -- governor of a local province. they have not managed to do anything successful tactically on the battlefield. if we look at the classic example of a battle, they have not taken any territory. they have not been able to take any population centers. there are very few afghan national security forces. the latest metrics and statistics we have, afghans are in the lead for 95% of operations around the country. there are no u.s. boots fighting now in the conventional sense. there are special operations forces. the afghan national security forces are fighting on their own . they're holding their ground. if we look at it from the afghantive of, can they national security forces defend their country, yes they can. can they stop the taliban? probably not. you cannot stop five guys who want to blow somebody up. however, they have tactical overmatch around the country. ,hey control the battlefield which makes a significant difference. host: how long have you been in afghanistan, and where is home originally? day.: 37 months to the i'm from boston. i was just going to make a point. everyone is anxiously waiting to see what the red sox will do. [laughter] host: we will not even talk about last night's game. thank you for joining us from afghanistan. our guest in washington is michael o'hanlon. our phone lines are open. we will go to tom, joining us on the independent line from iowa. can [indiscernible] when the election -- win the ele ction? is a very distinguished, sophisticated former world bank official who was one of the afghan the aspera the move back after 9/11. he was a finance minister -- the ora that movedp back after 9/11. he was a finance minister. he came in way behind president karzai. he reminds me much more of a professor than presidential candidate in the classic american sense of the word. i don't mean that for good or for bad. he's an impressive guy in many ways. i assumed you may have had a hard time getting enough votes based on his professor real demeanor. demeanor.orial for viewers who don't know as much about afghanistan, that population is mostly in the north and northwestern part of the country. it's an important part of the vote. putting all that together, the answer is yes, there is a chance that they would win. whether we want to see him when is a more -- win is a more debatable proposition. contender in terms would appear to be abdullah abdullah. covers both bases, and was the runner-up to karzai in 2009. top two candidates in terms of polling that i have seen done by the so-called moby group, the top independent afghan media group right now. host: james says, we have to stay to make it safe china to exploit their natural resources. i would say, god bless the chinese if they want to help develop the afghan economy. nobody else does. it's a risky proposition for obvious reasons. --re's a lot of cop corruption in the country. there are not a lot of american companies looking to invest at the moment, even though afghanistan's mineral resources are estimated well over $3 trillion. it will take people a while to be confident enough to have companies going. if the chinese are the first to go in, i say that's fine. a caller is joining us on the independent line. you are an expert on afghanistan, i would assume, on how we got into this war in the first place? guest: i try to follow the history. put together the department of justice inspector general's office on the intelligence at the fbi prior to 9/11 and combine that with the defense exhibits from the messiah we trial -- masawi trial. i'm sure you're familiar with all those documents, right? guest: yes. host: those documents proved that the c.i. had allowed the attacks to take place on 9/11. why have not -- why haven't your books put any of this together so the american people are aware of this? trial,ense exhibits, the and the account of the fbi agent. guest: that's not true. you can believe that if you want. that's a conspiracy theory that has no basis in fact and is clearly incorrect. host: we're going to go back to this piece. posed aessay, you couple of questions. will u.s. forces be liable in afghan court for any crimes they commit against afghans? guest: no. have had a hard time being willing to accept this issue. you recall the tragedy of sergeant bales, who killed 17 innocent afghan villagers some time ago, essentially went in militarynow is custody. that kind of case is the only case where it might be willing to deliberate or converse about what proper protocol would be. even there, we're going to insist that we take care of our troops. requested to are help with the internal security of afghanistan, they have to accept that we are going to insist on protecting our own troops. we will hold them accountable for any individual criminal acts. we're not confident that the afghan court system will be up to the task. for going to insist on immunity, partly because of the president are we cannot afford -- we going to insist on immunity, partly because of the precedent. statesill the united promised to help protect afghanistan from its neighbors? we are not going to be lured into a pakistan-afghan incident. some afghans want us to take traditional sides between these two states. they become increasingly negative about pakistan. we're not going to go to war against pakistan on behalf of afghanistan. the answer is no. were not going to give some advanced promise that any time they have a border dispute, we will go in on their side. we will help them protect their own territory by training their own army and police. there are these common insurgent foes coming from pakistani territory into afghanistan. common treat that as our enemy, as we have for the last 12 years. there's enough basis for compromise on this issue. i think we can have a pretty good agreement. ,ost: finally, from this essay rescuing the u.s.-afghan partnership -- will u.s. forces be authorized by cabell to strike at al qaeda affiliates in afghanistan or pakistan? don't mind ifhans we attack in pakistan. in terms of the so-called night raids or use of air support against insurgents, president karzai has been clear that he doesn't like this because every so often they go awry and people are hurt. has been trying to get us to stop these kinds of raids for years. but he also understands that we need them to go after some of the extremists. if there really is an acute imminent all caps threat or a serious television -- al-qaeda threat.r a serious president regard to karzai and the afghan government, what a helplessness of corruption. -- hopeless mess of corruption. some of the corruption we essentially encouraged. in 2001, we basically gave karzai bag. cashin said, go buy off your warlords. -- we said,ing to go buy off your warlords. we fed into the problem. we wound up five years later surprised that there was still corruption in afghanistan. and not try to exonerate president karzai. believed to be personally corrupt, but a lot of his friends and relatives have been. we have to remember the history of this as well. when you put it all together, i'm frustrated by the corruption, but american policy has inadvertently contributed to it at times. is a michael o'hanlon graduate of princeton, and among " andooks, "bending history "the wounded giant." when is your newest book coming out? springtime. he dealt a lot with the chinese sawhat period of time, and these budding rivalries. there's a concern that we have to look for ways on the american and chinese side to dampen them and keep this potential rivalry within check. the book is an effort to explore how we do that, while staying committed to the region and our allies in the western pacific. host: we have covered many of michael o'hanlon's events. you can check them out on our booktv website. a caller on the democratic line. three brilliant irish- americans here. all handling, scully, and quinn -- o'hanlon, scully, and quinn. cost of our involvement in afghanistan? saudi arabia, are they helping us with the finances? guest: thanks for the nice words about our heritage. the saudis are not helping a lot at this point in the case of afghanistan. there is a big national coalition, 50 countries fighting together in this war. the saudi's are not one of those 50. i would not describe the saudis as a key ally in this particular effort. in terms of what it is costing us, it has been very expensive. we are spending more than $1 million per year per troop deployed. we're are still spending over $50 billion per year on the military side, and another $7 billion on the economic and security assistance. those very high numbers are coming down fast. 2015, if we keep 6000 to 8000 u.s. troops, we will be spending $12 billion to $15 billion a year, which is 1/10 what it had been at its peak. is it not time that we stop using our brave soldiers as targets for them? not find itso could on a map on 9/11, and that is where the hijackers came from. we do not have the luxury of deciding we're-- not going to worry about what happens there. in 1989, we pulled up stakes and left after we helped defeat the soviet role in afghanistan. look what we got 12 years later. i would submit that given the investment we have so far, we should be willing to have a comparatively small investment , less than 10% of what we have risked and lost to hold onto the level of stability that has developed in afghanistan. there are probably 100 al qaeda fighters in afghanistan today, and i would like to keep it that way. if there are any big efforts to move it in the future by al qaeda, to make sure we have enough capability to go after them quickly prevents a return to what we saw in the period before 9/11. host: and is on the republican line. is on the republican line. caller: you dismissed a caller earlier, and you're talking about 9/11. building seven was in a freefall when it was destroyed. that means you have to erase eight stories. can you please use your own common sense and tell the audience how that is physically possible? or are you just going to tell them that physics is a conspiracy theory and show more disrespect for their intelligence? guest: it is disrespect to think that the people i know at the cia would be complicit. the headline, hunger disease spread in syria. i want to read a paragraph or two. more than 5 million people now displaced, an outbreak is being seen throughout syria. guest: i think this syria war has not gone the way we expected, not gone the way that is acceptable. i'm generally a supporter of much of obama administration foreign-policy. in syria, is not working very well at all. we have tried the hands-off approach. or 7 millionn six people displaced from their homes, over 100,000 killed. assad is still in power. we're going to have to be more active in this conflict for humanitarian reasons, and for our strategic reasons. i hope the obama administration will do a major review on that. negotiations will resume next month. one of the key issues is whether or not the modern opposition groups only part of these talks in geneva. guest: they have not been willing to, and it's a mistake on their part. i hope they show up. there is simply no other way to show the world that they are trying to work towards and except double outcome here. otherwise, it's easy for assad to blame them for the war, and americans are probably confused about who is more to blame. up insurgents have to show and begin to piece them selves together as a more serious movement. the weekends from edition of the "wall street journal." the president clearly trying some rapprochement with iran. obama clashes. guest: we have a lot of sanctions on iran. president rouhani, whether you think of him as a wolf in sheep's clothing or a guy looking for a deal, he's only been in power for three-month. it makes sense to explore negotiations. we have to be attuned to the possibility that he's trying to dupe us. the idea that we should be further penalized in the justice moment does not make a lot of sense to me. it's good to the administration to be able to point out that there is this bad cop, the congress. betweenmic is healthy the executive branch and the congress. i hope congress will be patient and hold off for a little while. host: mark wendler said down with susan rice. rice outlined the three pillars of the president's approach in the middle east. iran is one. syra is another. broadening the peace between the israelis and palestinians. egypt is not part of those priorities. guest: right. things, onewo supportive and one critical of obama administration thinking. egypt has a lot of criticism. tried to push for mubarak to step down once it became obvious he stayed too long. they tried to work with this muslim brotherhood government as long as it seems to be trying to be inclusive and moderate. that did not play out. they tried to tolerate this military coup, until the military killed their fellow citizens in egypt this summer. the administration penalized the group to an extent, but kept some of the aid flowing as a way of establishing future leverage. every step along the way has been reasonable. i don't have any big criticism on that. to treat egypt as a secondary priority does not make sense to me. create aeed to do is concept, a vision, and then have some money in waiting that if the egyptian government does go ahead and hold elections and work towards an inclusive future government in which the military is not running the show a longer, they should be willing to help the new government in a serious way and hold out that ther and try to incentivize military in egypt to have those elections, support that kind of inclusive, democratic process. and to realize that our leverage is crucial. otherwise, these folks will do what their hardliners counsel and keep abusing the muslim brotherhood and other movements like that, which i don't believe serves our long-term interests. host: can you summarize what will happen in afghanistan in the year ahead? guest: we are going down to 34,000 troops by midwinter, and will keep that level through the summer. the afghans will have their big presidential election in april. runoff,'s no need for a that will be it. president karzai will step down. i think that will happen. we will probably get a leader who is roughly comparable inability, but at least it will be a fresh face, a person who has some strengths to go along with some limits. it will signify hopefulness. elections don't guarantee successful democracies, but the afghan political movement is doing a pretty good job so far from what we can expect. we should help them through that election. as the year winds down, we go u.s. troops down to who knows what. we do not yet have a long-term policy in place. afghans are getting very nervous about what is coming next. host: we will conclude on that note. michael o'hanlon, author and research director of the foreign-policy area at parking's. -- perkings. we will continue the conversation tomorrow morning, every day at 7:00 eastern time. we will wrap up what to expect in "cq roll call." our monday series, with kaiser health news. mary agnes carey will be joining us. ofliam mcbride, on the issue earned income tax credit. the topics and guest tomorrow morning on "washington journal." i hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. have a great week ahead. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> coming up on c-span, with representative fred upton of michigan. he talks about the health care law's implementation and his committee's role in oversight.