Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20151122

It is sunday morning, november to a second. The president beginning his long trip back to washington after wrapping up a nine day trip that included the g 20 in turkey, and visits to the philippines and indonesia. We want to begin with your calls and comments on whether you support or oppose the use of Ground Troops to fight isis. 202 7488000 if you support the idea. 202 7488001 if you oppose. We are also getting your tweets at cspanwj. Or you can share your thoughts on our Facebook Page at facebook. Com cspan. Good sunday morning to you. Thank you very much for being with us on a busy weekend, especially in europe with new fears and brussels, parts of the capital city on lockdown. I want to share with you from the hill newspaper, one poll on the issue of americans favoring Ground Troops against isis. Large majorities of americans favor military action, including troops in iraq and syria. 73 support increased american airstrikes against isis and 50 back more ground forces, which is double the level of support in summer of 2014. Say the u. S. Is at war with radical islam, and the was higher only once, after the 9 11 terrorist attacks. The president , in turkey this last week, was asked about what options are on the table to fight isis. Here is more of what he had to say. [video clip] not because our ch in an could not margi temporarily clear out isil, but we would see a repetition of what we have seen before, which is, if you do not have local populations that are committed to inclusive governance, and who are pushing back against ideological extremes, that they resurface. Unless we are prepared to have a permanent occupation of these countries. Lets assume we were to send 50,000 troops into syria. What happens when there is a terrorist attack generated from yemen . Do we then send more troops into there. Or, libya, perhaps. Or if there is a terrorist Network Operating anywhere else in north africa or southeast asia. Host the president s comments at the g 20 summit and turkey this past week. Like we said, the president will be back at the white house tomorrow for the thanksgiving holiday. Recess thiso on week. Says, cut the money off. Larry is joining us in washington, d. C. , you support Ground Troops. Hitler became more aggressive, now you have the terrorists, they are becoming more and more aggressive. Weakness. If you do not do anything, and in, your family is dead. You have to use Excessive Force to kill them. They are decapitating people, so forth, the assault on france, belgium, israel. They will not stop unless you force. Essive president obama, he is a muslim. That is why he is making these asinine statements. The terrorists are not going to stop. Only thing they understand is force. The president is not a muslim, he is a christian, but thank you for your call and comment. , Available Online at time. Com. John is joining us from spring, texas. You oppose Ground Troops, why . Caller i think the president is doing a good job and that guy is nouts. [indiscernible] these whit rightwing extremists in our country are driving this country down. Host thank you for the call. We will go next to ed joining us from georgia. What is your view on this . Caller i feel like this. If you are going to bake a cake, you have to put all the ingredients and it here in that is the bottom line. If you are going to bake a cake, for all the ingredients and it. Host what is your point . Caller i mean, you have to have Ground Troops. We have been using, for 2000 years, you used Ground Troops. Nothing has changed. No matter how much time has gone by, you have to have Ground Troops. This point. Has according to the generals, you cannot defeat isis without Ground Troops. Malissault anin reverses gains on extremism. More from the guardian as the president of mali took place three days of National Mourning for those People Killed in the hotel siege, including at least one american. Want toin, terrorists make their barbaric presence felt everywhere. Rom french president hollande onlydent obama say, that confirms the resolve against terrorism. Next is tony, joining us from district heights, indiana. Good morning to you. Caller district heights, maryland. Host good morning. Caller what i am trying to when did shootings become terrorist attacks . We have shootings every day in this country. I guess we have terrorist attacks every day. Let me tell you something, terrorism benefits the republican party. They love terrorism. You know why . They are supporting contractors, providing counterterrorism operations. Most of them either give to the , and that isrty why republicans love terrorism. Im tired of hearing about socalled terrorist attacks. These are shootings. We have some a shootings in this country every weekend, probably every day. It is only a terrorism attack when a muslim does it. Let me tell you something. Saudi arabia has terrorists. Jane,we will go next to joining us from michigan. We are asking whether you support or oppose Ground Troops. Caller i oppose sending the troops and because congress has not done its job and authorized president obama to do anything. All he is asking is for them to update what he needs. How are they going to know who they are fighting . They are not in uniform. I think our troops would be massacred over there. I just oppose them going in. From thanks for the call michigan. This is from steve who says, that area will never have peace, we would be much better off if outet them fight it themselves. The chair of the Armed Services committee is john mccain of arizona. This is what he had to say. [video clip] senator Dianne Feinstein was popping off when she said that isil was not contain, and we needed new strategies. I guess jack, one of my heroes, architect of the successful surge strategy in iraq was just popping off when he said, we are in fact losing this war, moreover, i can say with certainty that the strategy will not defeat isis. That comes from the author of the surge, which succeeded, which the president , by withdrawing all troops allowed to go completely to waste, and allow lives of brave Young Americans to be wasted. I guess Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and desired successor was popping off when she declared her support for a nofly zone in syria. Petraeuseneral david was just popping off when he testified that the present strategy has failed to create military conditions to end the conflict in syria, and isil will not be defeated until we do so. Jeffrey, thejames president s ambassador to iraq was just popping off when he wrote in the Washington Post that he needs to send thousands of Ground Troops to fight isil. Host tell us whether or not you Ground Troopsose to fight isis. If you support, 202 7488000. If you oppose, 202 7488001. One of our viewers says, those shoulding Ground Troops also suggest how many deployments they are willing to send their loved ones. You support Ground Troops, why . Caller i support Ground Troops because of and clinton have totally screwed up the middle east so badly that there is no way we are going to get out of it without sending some guys over there. Im not saying it has to be all of our men, but we have to have a coalition to actually works. Obama screwed up when he started with syria. Remember, he said, if we find out they use any kind of gas, we will do this. If they do this, we will do that. He does not follow up. After a while, people know when you are hot air, and nothing else. Also, they screwed up with egypt. All of these countries have always been led by strongmen. Look outside arabia. Then guys pay for it, and run and hide, and use us to support them. Why, i do not think a lot of folks, in your particular trumpss, understand why has an affinity to the American People. He is talking the way we want to hear people talk. I have one problem with you, sir. A person called in to say he that obama was a muslim. You corrected him. That is not your way. The United States constitution says we can say what we want. We can have our opinions. That might be our opinion. If it is not yours, that is fine. You cannot correct him and say that obama is a christian. We do not know what the heck he is. Host you can follow up, by respectfully disagree. The president has said he is a christian. Not an opinion. When facts are wrong, we want to correct that, no matter who is involved. Caller his name is Barack Hussein obama, that does not sound like a gaelic name to me. I would like to ask you one question. Have any of you folks ever voted in a republican primary . Have you ever done that, or are you mostly like the rest of the press, liberals . Host what do you think . Caller i dont think most of the people on cspan are of my particular background. I do not think you are conservative republicans at all. Host i respect your opinion, thank you for phoning in. Do you want to follow up on anything else . Caller someone should check on Hillary Clinton. Maybe she could tell which video got the isis people all excited about the paris attacks. French should look to hillary for some advice. Host this is the photograph from time magazine, this past week in paris. We show you that because it is a morningmilar this across many french capitals. Loren thompson has this piece on reasons bootsive on the ground will backfire, she said, injecting boots on the ground is an invitation to military fiascoes in the middle before resorting to that strategy, the white house should try to use of air power aid forcefully, and expand and deprived jihadist of financing. David is joining us from florida. Caller good morning. As a vietnam veteran, i would like to say this. Is two different answers to the question you are asking this morning. One, as a vietnam veteran would sendr the United States to in 500,000 troops, and litter they take care of the job. That would be option number one. Option number two would be take 500,000 troops of their own people, and let them do the job, put advisers and there. I do not see any other option, other than those two, as a person who has been in war myself. I do not understand why we have not literally made one of the two choices. If syria, turkey, jordan, and saudi arabia do not want to be involved, then we really dont have a choice any longer. What we have here is sent in 500,000 troops, which is totally unbelievable, that we would have to do Something Like that. Whereas reached a point it is time to make a decision, either they do it, and we advise them, or i believe that we do what we have to do. We do have an Armed Services, it is a shame we have to use it in this way, but that is the way i see it. I apologize to everyone else who has a problem with it. We knew, in the very beginning, when we started this war that it would take 400,000 troops. We also knew we were thrown out of iraq. Real choicese any here. Those are the two choices i see, as a vietnam veteran. If anybody sees any different than that, i would like to hear their comments on this. Host when did you serve in vietnam and how many tours of duty . Caller 1978 and 1979. Host thank you for your service. We are getting your comment on Ground Troops, whether or not they are needed to fight isis. On the cover of the New York Times sunday magazine, the women of hollywood speaking out brian fromt up, maryland. Good morning, brian. Caller and to have an opportunity to speak to you. Wasgentleman just before me actually right on point. Let me go back a little bit and overwhelming force if we are going to get involved, that is what we need. Right now, unfortunately president obama seems conflicted. That is ok, but there needs to to talk to him. What i would say, to make a point, is that if we are going to get involved, overwhelming force, not them out, and we are done. We have to use something, which we have. I support cspan, and you. Host thank you. Jaclyn smith replying to an earlier comment saying, phil from maine is an ignorant fool he does not know the difference between an opinion and a fact. Hamburger will be joining us to drill downur the written network. Bobby joining us from georgia. Good morning to you, bobby. My name is bobby. I just wanted to say first off, i dont know whether president obama is christian or muslim, but he certainly seems to be a muslim sympathizer. I just want to say that i am a veteran. Think that i oppose Ground Troops, but only because our forces need a commander in chief. I do not think there should be any major decisions made and the country until barack obama gets out of office. I think we collectively need to hold our breath until the next election. Let the people decide. If they want Hillary Clinton, this country will know which way they want to go. If they do someone else, that will also be an indication. Another thing that needs to happen is the country needs to make a declaration of war, get those senators on board before because we need to back up this country before we put our troops in harms way again. Our troops need to know they have a commander in chief who will put them in the right get in, andwin, and get the job done, and come home. No more nationbuilding, things of that nature. Practiceneeds to due diligence, be alert, be aware, and understand when past president s sent our troops over there, it was so we could fight them over there, and not over here. That is the only reason i oppose. This guy getsil out of office, and then we will have somebody up there that does not just play politics all the time. We need more than that. That is all i have to say. Has this point of view. He says, do we expect reluctant the sunni states to join fight against isis what we have been supporting israel for years . Good morning. My opinion is that we cannot politicize the entire issue, for one. Two, we are not fighting the state. We are fighting people that, as the lady mentioned earlier, do not wear any uniforms. Weese individuals are not can obviously see them. It is a matter of strategizing. Coming from a military veteran, sending troops blindly to attack someone that we do not know, per se, is just completely ignorant. This is a matter that has to be handled carefully. Sending troops out at this time without knowing who we are fighting is obviously wrong. That is my opinion. Host thanks for the call. Also, another viewer saying, war and fear is big is this. Your calls and comments on at cspanwj. Also, on facebook, your comments. Kurds, and arm the step of the bombing, no need for Ground Troops. At the citadel, jeb bush outlined his foreignpolicy agenda and how to fight isis. The full speech is available on our website as part of our road to the white house coverage. Here is a portion. [video clip] enforce a nofly zone, create safe zones in syria. Allow our special Operations Forces to target terrorist networks and arm the kurdish forces. Since the attacks and pears, the demand for action to stamp out isis has rightly grown. The u. S. Should not delay in leading a Global Coalition to take a isis with overwhelming force. As the words of french president hollande have been clear, we need to intensify our efforts in the air and on the ground. While air power is essential, it cannot bring the results we seek. The United States, in conjunction with our nato allies, and more arab partners will need to increase our presence on the ground. The scope of which should be in line with what the military generals recommend, not politicians. Host jeb bush, republican president ial candidate outlining his foreignpolicy agenda at the city dealt. By the way, we welcome our listeners on cspan radio. This program is heard nationwide and also on channel our website. Dorky, you oppose Ground Troops, why . Oppose Ground Troops because first of all, im sick republicansd of the talking about the president being weak. Where are the constitutionalists who always think about the president not going by the constitution. Today we invade a country . I would like to know, what to be get from invading iraq except for 3000 coming back with their mbs cut off, we dont know how many have ptsd, and 20 committing suicide every single day. And you want to put Ground Troops in a country that does not want to fight for themselves. Why should we go and fight . Fight on our own ground. We have terrorists in this country. Timothy mcveigh, people killing in the movies. Also, in churches. Those are terrorists. You have skinheads, the ku klux nation rea area yian nation. Tell this country to enact the draft so everybody can go. I dont care if you are in college, get out of college. You want to go to war, said everyone to war. That is my comment. Ist agreeing with you another viewer saying, listing this morning with complete discussed. You want another war, put on a uniform, and get on the boat. We are joined next from chicago. Good morning. Caller hello. Steve, you are my favorite person. I love to talk to you. Disagree. I do not want them to send. Roops to fight that war a lot of people have a strange way of remembering how all this mess started. Was bush. Half of the world did not want us to go into iraq, and he sent us anyway. One thing i want to add, and then i will get off the line, when those 47 republicans went over to the enemy country, and told them not to listen to the deal that president obama was trying to get with other countries, why didnt they raise up and say that is treason. Own went against their president. Thingk that was an awful for you to go against her governor. [indiscernible] host we posted it on our website on cspan. Org. Thank you for the call. We appreciate it from chicago. You got a storm over the weekend, didnt you . Caller yes. Host it is too early for that. Lets go to joe, joining us from las cruces, new mexico. You support Ground Troops, why . Caller we need to arm the kurds and arm our allies over there. And train them. Host when you say takeover, what do you mean by that . How do you take over . Assad, i dont know if we could agree with him on certain things. Im not sure what kind of ally he would be. Take it over. Yeah, i mean, take over the whole country. Give assad part of the country, and we take over the rest of it. Host thank you for the call from new mexico. Another viewer saying, no Ground Troops. That is why we have drones and planes. The u. S. Has not won a war in 50 years. Donald trump on the campaign inil, last week massachusetts, talking about his plan to combat isis. Here is a portion. [video clip] trump i would bomb the l out of isis. We have a president that things isis has been contained. We have a president that does not know what is happening. We are not bombing, we are doing very little. When you look at russia, france, and other places, there are a lot of bombs being dropped, but we are doing relatively little compared to others. I would increase the frequency, like you would not believe. I would start working on the internet because they are recruiting through the internet. Look, the internet was our baby, and yet, they are taking over the internet. They are recruiting from the internet. Anybody who goes to fight with isis, they are gone, theyre not coming back. We have people who go over, they fight isis, and then we let them back. In newsnald trump at conference this past week. The Guardian Newspaper writing on Hillary Clinton, distancing strategy,om obama ruling out deploying tens of thousands of troops. The former secretary of state made clear that she would take a notably more hawkish approach than the current administration, if she is elected president. Carol has this point saying, remind folks that no one needs to join the military, tell us how many in congress have served. Ron is joining us from new hampshire. You support Ground Troops, why . Caller i support Ground Troops under some really strict conditions. Number one, i would not put a Ground Troops in syria, unless alassad was completely gone. Putin, heith apported alassad, which was monster. Before i put anyone in syria, alassad would have to go. The next thing is where is the u. N. In all of this . If there are no syrians on the ground to hold the ground, be will need a Multinational Force to hold the land until they can get their own government going. That is where the u. N. Would come in. As far as president obama, he has had legislation, trying to get authorization to fight isis, and all of these other terrorist groups, and he cannot get congress to do anything. Whates not matter president obama wants, congress will want the exact opposite. He cannot get anything done. I cannot blame him for much of this. If we are in the middle of a war , i suggest we get serious about it. If we do not go over there, just like 9 11, they will come over here. New you are from hampshire. Who is your preferred candidate at this moment . Caller im voting for Bernie Sanders. I think this country could use a socialism. The bottom 90 is withering away while the top percent is kings and queens. You cannot have a country like that. At least, not a very well functioning one. There has to be somewhat of a revolution. People cannot live like kings and queens while everyone else like we are. That is what i am doing, and what many others, like me, who. Ork very hard every day thank you very much. We appreciate it. From twitter, saying, another nation building idiot. From the wall street journal, russell headline remains on lockdown amid terror attack fears. Joining us on the phone is natalia, following the story from brussels for wall street is now earlygo it afternoon, what can you tell us . Guest exactly what you said. We are now on the second day of the government raising it to the threat level, the terror , just in the capital, in brussels. It means they have sent on the metro, they have deployed troops around town, and also encourage people to close down their stores. This is something people are saying they have never seen before. They have not seen this kind of lockdown since world war ii. Now, this is going into day two. The real question that people are wondering is whether or not this will carry on into the work if ittomorrow, which, does, it could have a serious impact on the economy. We should find out more in a few hours. The authorities are meeting now, and they will discuss they are discussing whether they want to keep the Terror Threat at the same level, or they might change it, reduce it. Host what is the u. S. Embassy telling those americans who may be in the capital of brussels . Think, given the history with the u. S. Involvement in the middle east, i think theres probably concern from u. S. Authorities that american citizens could be targets of certain attacks. From people we have been speaking to, we do not have any concrete information pointing to concrete attacks against americans, specifically. I think it is just a precautionary measure. Host we are talking with natalia, who is covering the story for wall street journal. Why has belgium become such a hotbed for terrorist activities and for many involved in the terrorist attacks living in brussels, or the greater brussels area . Think one aspect is certainly its location. Belgium is located in the middle of europe. There are open borders among european countries, so to say easy for all planning attacks in other countries, as was the case last week in paris. It seems like they were planning a here, and carried it out in paris. Is very easy for them to move across these borders. That is one main reason. Another main reason is it seems that it is quite easy for terrorists who acquire weapons, another reason for the. Ost what can you tell us, the sense on the street . It is an important question because it is quieter than most sundays, that is sure. The markets are not open. Open, the opene air markets, and people are outside, Walking Around. It is true that unlike in the states, a lot of stores are generally close on sundays anyway. While it was certainly discernible yesterday, that there was an increased Terror Threat, it is maybe less so today, on a sunday. As you indicated, authorities will be assessing whether or not that Terror Threat will remain in place. For beingvery much with us. More of your calls and comments on whether or not you support or oppose Ground Troops to combat isis. From ohio, mike is next. Good morning. Caller how are you . Host fine, thank you. Is like au know, this disney production, based on fear of the unknown. When i think back to the election in florida when jeb win, it for his brother to access of evil speech. I wonder where his evils are, when it comes to the fact that he said they would like to create chaos in the middle east. This is all blown back, after you blow innocent people out. What we need is a butler like that marine general who came forth and spilled the beans. These guys are signing up. There is that 60 billion that we give to saudi arabia and military equipment, sometime ago. I wonder what that is being used for. This corporate, international profiteering of the military, it looks like we have been dumbed down. It does not take a brainwashing anymore, it just takes a light rents. From 1968,quote is mitt romneys dad talking about his experience dealing with the vietnam war. Saying, jonesment and airstrikes, as much as possible. From this past week, at the council on Foreign Relations in new york city, Hillary Clinton had this to say. Guest we need to move simultaneously towards a political solution that paves the way for a new government with new leadership, and to encourage more syrians to take on isis as well. To support them, we should immediately deploy the special Operations Force president obama has already authorized, and be prepared to deploy more, as more syrians get into the fight. We should retool and ramp up our efforts to support adequate viable Syrian Opposition units. Our increased support should go handinhand with increased support from our arab and european partners, including special forces, who can contribute to the fight on the ground. We should also work with the coalition and the neighbors to impose nofly zones that will stop beside. With Material Support from the coalition, we could help create safe areas where syrians could remain in the country, rather than fling towards europe. This combined approach would help enable the opposition to take the remaining stretch of the Turkish Border from isis, choking off their supply lines. Host Hillary Clinton, her foreignpolicy speech this past thursday in new york city. You can check out the road to the white house coverage anytime online at cspan. Org. The street from jodi says, we have a paris like attack, every time we have a sandy hook like attack, we should fear the nra more than isis, but we dont. Robin from missouri, you oppose troops, why . Caller yes, i am kind of torn. The only reason i would say boots on the ground is that we we have an and endgame. We never have an endgame. , wee supposed to be so bad should go in there and do it in five years, and get out. And on, no. Oing on we need the strategy, and it should not be that long. America, no boots on the ground until it is a draft. Host our next call is from jacksonville, florida, steve, good morning. Caller good morning. Im from illinois, actually. Host i read that wrong, my mistake. Good morning. Caller im just shocked with peoples reaction when half the states in the country are going against what the president wants to do. He wants to bring, over time, 10,000 more people. I went to my Representatives Office and got a copy of that letter, and read it. I did not like it. I got it, the wording was perfect. I dont know. The society has been dumbed down so much. You have kids at Missouri State acting like we are inconveniencing them. It is mind blowing. Host thank you for the call from jacksonville, illinois. One must comment from another russia,ay, just let us, iran, and kurds fight isis, not one more drop of american bloodshed should be shed in the middle east. We will turn to politics. There was an election in louisiana to elect bobby jindal elect Bobby Jindals replacement. He will be replaced by a democrat. Senator vitter says he will step down at the end of his term. Heres more from the victory speech from the governor elect. [video clip] this election shows us that the people of louisiana have scorn,hope over distrusttity, and the of others. I did not create this breeze of hope, by did catch it. I think god i did. [applause] roots in theas its songs of the louisiana hayride, the food of our cajun ancestors, the spirituals of our churches, thean energy of native americans and hispanic immigrants. No, i did not start the breeze but i didnt catch it. So did you. [applause] that is why i am here tonight, we all caught that breeze. Host john edwards winning as a democrat. Of wl wt ofourtesy new orleans. What about soft targets here in washington and around the country and what threat to week face in the homeland . We will be focusing on that in just a few minutes with rick nelson, director of the office combating terrorism. In the front page of the Washington Post, 4 billion over four decades. More details coming up as the washington journal continues on the sunday. Cspan has the best access to congress with the house on cspan and the senate on cspan two. Weekend, the only pharmacist in congress. Friday, representative mark the from california. And thursday, a baptist minister and his first elected office. California. Ters of your best access to congress is on cspan, cspan radio, and cspan. Org. All persons having business before the Honorable Supreme Court of the United States are among us to draw near and admonished to draw near. Coming up on landmark cases, brown versus board of education. The schoolsued board, and her case along with four other similar cases made it all the way to the Supreme Court. We will examine this case and explore racial tensions at the time, the personal stories of the individuals involved. That is coming up on the next landmark cases, live monday night at 9 00 eastern on cspan, cspan radio, and cspan. Org. ,or background on the case while you watch, order your copy of the landmark cases companion book. It is available for 8. 95 on cspan. Org. Washington journal continues. We want to welcome rick nelson, formerly of the National Security council, one of the directors in the office of combating terrorism. Thank you very much for being with us. We want to talk about soft targets. Let me ask you to define what that is. Guest a soft target is any entity that a terrorist group can easily access. Free, open,re in a and Democratic Society, we have a lot of soft targets. Soft targets are things we use every day like a mall, transport station, or stadium. Host brussels is essentially on lockdown for a second day in the assessingrities whether or not that will be lifted. What does that tell you about the threat that europe is facing an what we are facing in the u. S. . Inst what is happening europe is very different from the United States. Veryituation in belgium is different. It woul has been a hotbed for terrorism. Security forces are outnumbered in many ways. I thinkgence forces they are tracking about a hundred, and they have about 1000 in intelligence. The threat to europe is very different than the one we are facing in the United States. Comey was asked about that. Let me share what he said. [video clip] we are not aware of any threat here like a paris attack. Out and its supporters put all sorts of propaganda like videos and nine scenes, but that is not credible intelligence. Of course, we investigate all of those propaganda threats. Focuses the threat here primarily on troubled souls and america who are being inspired or enabled online to do something violent for isil. Be have stopped a lot of those people this year, especially leading up to july 4. There are others that we were covery about and using our tools. What are we doing about the threat . Taxpayers of this country have invested a lot of money in creating a National Terrorism capability since 9 11. Something veryd strong. We are not perfect, but we are good. Starting minutes after the paris attacks on friday, we did for things here at first, we started looking for connections between paris and here. Second, we made sure we were tightly connected with our partners, that they knew everything we knew, and were as energized as we were. That arehave made sure over 100 joint Terrorism Task onces are focused intensely investigations. That is very hard work, but we are very fortunate that we have the help of our local and state partners around the country. Together, we are watching people, using all of our lawful tools. If we see something, we will work to disrupt it. Last, what should you, the people of the United States, do in response to this threat . The most important thing, do not let fear become disabling. That is what the terroris ists one. Instead, we hope you turn fear into healthy awareness around you. If you see something, tell law enforcement. A newshe fbi director in conference. That is what he could say publicly. What else is happening that he could not talk about, and how does that compare to what is happening across europe . Of what he cannot talk about is the intelligence relationships we have with our partners overseas, and the kind of information being exchanged between the fbi, cia, and department of Homeland Security. In many ways, monday details of information sharing that would not be very interesting to the average person, but it is going on on a significant level. This is very different, what is happening in the United States, and what is happening in europe. One of the reasons europe is struggling to track these identify them is they do not have the same information sharing across europe. They are not bouncing their data likest watch lists interpol. When there is a hit from someone who crosses the border, sometimes all they get is a phone number to call and check on that individual. Whereas, in the United States, system,a very robust and ultimately, that is the difference between what is happening in europe and what is happening in the United States. Host our guest, a veteran of , one of administration the directors of the office of combating terrorism. Our phone lines are open. 202 7488000 is the line for democrats. 202 7488001 for republicans. You can also send us a tweet at cspanwj, or share your comments o online at facebook. Com cspan. Thai square, a lot of attention for the thanksgiving parade, one of the traditions, and other soft targets. What was your reaction to the ice is linked video . Guest the threat is always real. As a free and open society, we will always be affordable. A specific attacks, im highly suspect about that. They have a fullfledged advertising campaign, and it has been extremely effective, and it is important to their success. They will continue to put out videos like this, and and the date that airwaves to strike fear in our hearts and minds. The specific threat, im not very concerned about it. Host steve from illinois, independent line. Steve. Yes, my name is a muslim religion that started in saudi arabia in 1754, and the 9 11 attacks were all from saudi arabia. They were trained in afghanistan. We did not need to go into iraq. If we stop the oil flow from saudi arabia, and ramped up our Oil Production in the United States, and we cut off the money machine in the whole middle east, it was stop a lot of the soft targets. Economicstrengthen our way, and we could protect a lot of things over there. , and iraq,a and iran and syria, would not have these refugees flowing in there. We took down all the libya,rships in iraq, and controlled everything. Host thank you for the call. Let me take one point of what he said, and that is the flow of money. Has anerg magazine extensive piece on how isishow . It is difficult because, how do you track all the money down . On the other hand, there are certain things that we can do and we have recently been doing. That a convoyut of fuel tankers was destroyed by airstrikes. These types of activities will certainly put isis in a bind where they would have to look for alternatives, but going after that is critical but not nearly as critical as getting them out of the territory they currently own as well as curtailing their media campaign. A number of leading Intelligence Experts point to arias around washington dc, including the building behind you, Union Station, as a potential target. Can you elaborate . In a democracy we have two challenges. We have to protect our citizens but we also have to protect the ideals and the basics of who we are as a society. We are going to continue always to have these socalled soft targets. We want to be able to go to Union Station and move about freely and not have a Security State surrounding us. That would make us vulnerable. We dont want to over correct and go to the point where every time we enter a mall we have to have through a metal detector and we are under constant surveillance. That is not the kind of society we want to pursue. But at the same time it will at risk. As as the director pointed out, the forefront of those risks will be the first responders, or citizens like you and me in the street, seeing or saying something once only looks amiss, being aware of their surroundings. Being on guard is the best thing reconnect the do. Host lake from alabama, republican line. Good morning. Im a little bit sick and tired of listening to her cap to saying that we have been watching these people all over the country who have intentions to mow down and kill people who are going to the stadium to watch a game or sitting in a restaurant to eat something, or going to a concert. Just watching and watching. And once they have killed as then they willn, have the machinery to do stupid things. I am just thinking as i am looking at this, this thing that happened in missouri recently with the tension over there, and i read there is a guy who made a comment online somewhere that he was intending to kill or do some harm to some black students and he was arrested immediately. Within seconds. People, theseese maniac muslims all over the world, including this country, they are declaring their intentions to kill nonmuslims, and they are roaming around free , just waiting for them to kill us, and then we bring in the experts to mop up. This is insane. We will get a response. Thank you for the call from alabama. Guest i think it is a little bit of an overstatement. And our lawence enforcement are actively pursuing all of these individuals. Hours that itman takes to track an individual under 24hour surveillance is Something Like 20 to 60 people. Activelye actually monitoring and tracking those are the that are the greatest risk. The problem with this homegrown extremism is that individuals who are susceptible to this radical ideology, they decide to cross that line from violent rhetoric to violent action, it is very difficult to determine. You can never know when someone is going to wake up in their basement and go out and pick up a gun and start killing hundreds of people. It is impossible to ask lawenforcement. You will lead intelligence to determine exactly when that is going to happen. But at the same time i think the number of attacks is had in the United States which is very few compared to what our european allies are experiencing is a testimony to what the fbi director pointed out about our efforts over the last 10 to 15 years. Host we had literally hundreds of comments over the last hour on our Facebook Page. I want to share one with you. Says, werom bed, who need to let europe handle the Ground Troops. We we just went through 14 years of fighting. I dont want our troops to be in the middle east forever. So on that effort in terms of dealing with threats we face here at home, your reaction . Guest again, we have to disaggregate the problem were trying to deal with. We have to protect the homeland and i would argue we are doing a good job of that. The layers we have the layers of defense we have in place are very significant. The second issue which is touching upon is what are we going to do about the problem in the middle east, in the levant area where this is all unfolding . We are seeing a catholic clash between sunni and shia islam, one week in the United States are never going to really understand. And on top of that you have the layer of regional conflicts, iran, saudi arabia, syria, turkey. On top of all that you have this rivalry between russia and the United States. So ultimately it is going to retire requires some ground activity to eradicate isis and remove them from their land. We are pretty good that. It probably needs to be a u. N. Operation, preferably with regional partners, saudi arabia, united arab emirates, turkey. A solo u. S. Ground presence is not going to solve the problem. Host lets get scott from nevada, democrat line, good morning. Caller good morning. Americans need to understand that in a free and open Democratic Society we are vulnerable that way. What we need to do as a country is to develop a policy that if we are attacked, if some idiot goes into a restaurant and sprays bullets all around, we do drone strikes over that area, but we do not need to send in Ground Troops in a war. Are an obtuse sort of weapon. In the surgical war that we are trying to fight what we do need to do is instruct the pentagon tostart recruiting people make up the special forces. That would be the way to fight these guys. Game with anhess opponent that is very lethal, and this is not a game of waccamaw lacrimal whackamole. Once they cross over mentally they dont care, they just want to die. 40,000 weaponsve of mass destruction running around. Host thank you for the call. Guest there are some key points to what was stated there. 40,000, some estimates have been as high as 100,000 for the isis troops, robert you want to categorize them. You want to be careful. Putting the u. S. Army in there is not going to get us where we need to be. At the same time, the key to that theyis caliphate are building from where they currently hold lands and currently exist, and removing them from that land is going to be necessary in order for us to ultimately see success in this region and to reduce the threat of isis. The question is who is going to do that . I would suggest that we continue to say they committed to the plan we have in place, and that is through our special forces providing the equipment and stewing it robustly. To your point, by utilizing our special forces more frequently. But ultimately, again, it is going to have come from greater involvement from those countries that are in the region and it cannot come from syria given that they are in a situation they are currently in. It will have to be from the other partners, from saudi arabia, the united arab emirates, and even from iran. That is really hard for us to deal with that opposition. Some of the things are going to have to do are not things that we are used to. Tweet, soft this targets . In a free society everywhere you. O can be soft who wakes up saying dont go there were there. Crazy. Guest she is exactly right. We have to protect our ideals. That is who we are and that is what the enemy, the adversary, want us to jeopardize. They want to take the things that make a special and take them from us. We have to resist that. But also we have to understand that there is going to be some risk of we go about our daily lives. The last few years unfortunately that risk is not just from extremists coming out of the middle east. It is from sometimes our own citizens. The best thing we can do is just be prepared and be aware of our surroundings, be aware of anything that does not look right. Soft targets is our topic on this sunday morning. Rick nelson is our guest, he is one of the directors of the office of combating terrorism. We welcome our listeners on xmpan radio and on sirius channel 124. Wanted to call are there refugees that are old enough to buy . We ought to train them and send them back and let them fight for their own country. , they get a oneyear right to your citizenship. Until theback situation is strained out in their own country. Other one is [indiscernible] the president of france, at least they had the guts to step them. Face host thank you, we will get a response. Guest one of the most disheartening things that has unfolded in the american dialog has been this issue of refugees. I think that trying to fix or address this refugee problem that has somehow been out in the public is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Our refugee vetting process is the most rigorous process that anybody coming into the united through. Es to goes multiple checks are multiple agencies including the department of defense, the intelligence community, the state department. They go through a rigorous screening process. I think that curtailing the refugee process goes against some of our core ideals of who we are as a nation. Terrorists, well we often say, are like electricity. They will go to the path of least resistance. One are not going to wait or two years to get into the United States when they can exploit other vehicles such as sneaking into the country or perhaps exploiting the visa reachingogram, or even out to u. S. Citizens and radicalizing them online and having them committing the act of violence. Saying, absente perfect intelligence, we dont know where they may strike. For me, life must go on. Lets go to a caller from maryland, good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. Winston churchill once said, people will only your flourish is good people refuse to do bad things. This has been premature over and over again. Whether during the second world somalia, where i came from. , will this ever be stopped without American Leadership . I dont think so. Winston churchill said people will only flourish when good people refuse to do anything, he meant america. Merica is the good people if we refuse to do anything or take down this evil, this evil will flourish. Host appreciate the call. Guest i think we are in a generational conflict. Some people say this is jihad or al qaeda 2. 0. We are still at 1. 0, and this is the threat we are going to continue to phase in the coming years. This is something some of the terrorists we saw in the paris attacks were 10 or 11 years old when 9 11 happened. This is not a conflict that is going to go at go away anytime soon. Again, i went back to the rift the rift between the she is in the cities, and there are regional alliances that we have out there. We will figure it out, that is going to take many decades. But there are a lot of good people in the world, and i think a lot of countries are trying to solve this problem. Again, it is an extraordinarily competent problem. In this region you have not only the sunnis and the she is but you have the iranians, the syrians, the turks, the kurds. You have a melting pot of so many different religious and and securityounds interests on an international level, finding a solution that everyone is going a solution for everyone is going to be very difficult and challenging. I would argue the point that the United States is not taking a leadership role. We certainly are, and we have to work with other partners such as , which is going to be adjusting. What i think isis may have miscalculated is with downing the russian plane they have now pulled russia into a different perspective. Initially there were focused mainly on preserving the assad regime but now they have to take the isis threat during quickly. Host it is almost reminiscent of the two front war that hitler faced in world war ii. Guest you could go that far. It is unlikely that well find a solution without russias support. If russia get started in on this that it might be that that is what takes for russia to say as over the longo go term, because the beating isis is now a primary for both of us. That maybe what we need host . Host host this is a poll that was released just about a week ago from reuters saying that one third of americans are concerned about their safety and public venues, and most, specifically, concert at public rallies. 3 announcing that they are concerned. 40 announcing they are concerned. Our next caller, kimberly, welcome to the program. Caller good morning. How are you guys . Host fine. Caller i had a comment and a question. I comment was since i have been watching when i can a lot of the hearings with congress and all that as far as the vetting process, the main concern is that most of these people do not have a record, it cannot even be traced, they dont really know. The fbi agrees with this. My question is, with all the terrorist attacks in things going on, are these other countries most of us have the right to bear arms. I dont think any of us would let anybody stand up and just mass murder anyone if they can stop it. Host thank you. We will get a response. Again, the iraqi population and the syrian population are some of the most documented people in that area. They actually do have passports. But youre right, there are a number of individuals that dont have any documentation. That is why it takes 18 to 24 months for someone to go through this screening process. The problem were facing is that if refugees are not resettled they are stuck in these cant these tent camps with these people that do nothing but potentially produce more terrorism or extremist activity. These things dont solve problems. 11 Million People have been displaced. That is the population of the country of sweden. That population has been displaced and we in the International Community have to figure out what we are going to do with them. If they remain in this kind of purgatory under the u. N. Amber alert and dont get resettled in a way that is productive, that i think we are going to be facing a larger problem later on. Host scott is joining us from maine, our line for independents. Go ahead. Caller hi. In reference to what this fellow was just saying about sweden being so big and whatnot, i remember vietnam, and that was no bigger than california. My point is, we dont need to be there. America needs to stop and ask itself, what are we doing there . We dont go to war anymore to win because there is no profit in winning. We go there to stretch it out and milk it for every dimes. Orth if we get involved we will be there for 15 or 20 years. Look at afghanistan, look at iraq. Same thing. We dont go to win. We go primarily for profit. It gives nato a reason to exist. Host thank you. Guest the caller is right. We are going to be dealing with this problem for decades to come. To unravel this problem and get some ofoot causes, but it is well outside the u. S. Interests. We will not get to the sunni shia spats and longstanding historical rivalry. We are not going to get in the middle of some of the regional issues. That goes back to the french and british drive borders in that region. We are not. But at the same time we have very specific interests in making sure that the middle east is safe and secure. First and foremost, to protect the homeland. You dont want isis reaching into the United States and converting our citizens to pursue a radical ideology. Second, it is important for us that we have a stable and secure europe, not only economically but politically, and right now this crisis is putting europe it is testing the eu, it is testing nato. If there was a potential fisher to the point where they go a potential fissure to the point where they go back to individual nations, it is not going to serve our interests. I agree with you, wholesale involvement is probably not the answer. But to say that we dont have any interests i would argue will come to bite us later. So you have been saying if you see something, Say Something. I know it is an obvious question, but Say Something to him, and see what Say Something to whom and say what . Guest thats a great question. Anything that looks unusual. T is not Rocket Science if youre at a mall and you see an unattended package, tell the security guard. If you are on the object plane and you see someone who is acting suspiciously, they are Walking Around and not making eye contact or sweating, reported. The worst thing that is going to happen is that they are going to be interviewed by a Security Officer and theyre going to determine if they can go about their way. The worst thing we can do is if 10 or 15 people walk past a backpack sitting in an entrance way of a mall and no one says it does anything. That is where we have to be more vigilant and adhere to that campaign. And tomorrow at 8 30 eastern time our guest will be the head of amtrak to talk about the security concerns he has for the rail service here in the u. S. We got a richer, republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Mr. Nelson has touched on the fact that we have National Interest and we are going to be involved, but i came in late or , we need tot hear have an underlying policy or strategy. If not then congress in its foreign policymaking role needs to set it. I think it would be advantageous to america to have an absolute for us to have learned the lessons of the prior conflicts since world war ii. George h. W. Bush when he went , he iraq to recover kuwait did those lessons that we needed overwhelming force, public support, approval, and so forth. An indication of what we were going to do afterwards in world war ii. Aftere other war conflict world war ii, those principles have not been followed. And today nobody seems to realize, yes, we are at war. How do we follow our interests . And Everything Else has failed how do we use force and when do we use force . Had we make sure that has a good effect . Host thank you. Guest great points. We have struggled over the last couple of years. I would argue that it has been a policy of half measures because it is complicated. On the other hand, what do full measures look like . Your point is correct. We have struggled with our syrian policy. Fighting withves the Free Syrian Army against the sad regime while al qaeda is also fighting against them. Putin took the chance to note that the United States with exley fighting with the al qaeda affiliate in syria. That is not true, but it is very competent. Again, this conflict is something that is not going to go away anytime soon. We had to figure out what were going to fund, what we are going research, what were going to do. What are we going to have the support of American People to do jacket . Guest, he nelson our attended the naval war college. He was a team member in deep blue which was the Naval Operational think tank created after september 11, 2001. Laura is joining us from massachusetts, independent line, good morning. Caller i would just like to start out by saying when we shiites were the sunnis were ruling shiite likeity, but now it seems they are all mad. But the thing is, as soon as we leave they are not going to be a democracy. We have to stay out of their they should be separate countries. That is the only way it is going to end. Host it is guest it is a very good point. Eventually the United States is going to have to learn that these countries have second and third order effect that we are not capable of handling, and perhaps they are really not our issue to deal with. We saw that would egypt. Be careful you ask for. The Muslim Brotherhood party was actually put in power there. A form of democracy is actually not what we want. You had a strong authoritarian leader, you said he needed to go. He went. But now what do the government look like . What does that country look like Going Forward . Some have suggested that maybe it is a federated model. Aybe that is the answer, but more stable iraq and figuring out the civil war in syria are going to be critical to finding any sold solution or success. Host i mentioned the loop, jan and jan says,lue did i know about that before . Guest it was created by the u. S. Navy following september 11. We call that an operational to help the navy figure out how best to fight and engage in the war on terrorism. It was built and designed primarily to fight a large the changing face of the enemy. That is what our charter was. You for that tweet. Well go to tom, pennsylvania. Caller i am a democrat and a proud isolationist. When is the last time you heard of a terror attack in china . I disagree. I think on am scale there are less thats in the world. My question is, i think the soft see the video of people waiting to shop on black friday. Host thank you. Guest i mean sure. I take a little bit of an issue. From amarket value machiavellian perspective, maybe it would have been better if Saddam Hussein was still in power but we cant play that out. As a democratic nation that supports those type of deals that are so dear to us, i would disagree with that point. With china as well, china does have its own internal problems. As a population it is under serious pressure from the chinese government. There have been a number of attacks in china. We dont hear about these pressures mainly because we dont understand it. Also china clamps down very heavy handedly to make sure these attacks dont come forward. As these saw recently, a Chinese National was killed in the , and china will be dragged into this slowly. It is a growing global power and they have a role as well. Host a former member of the National Security council and an expert on terrorism and Homeland Security, they can bury much for stopping by. We appreciate your expertise. We want to share with you the front page story of todays Washington Post. This is what it looks like. An investigation revealing how bill and Hillary Clinton have methodically cultivated donors from little rock to washington dc and across the globe. Tom hamburger was one of the reporters that worked on this extensive piece and he will be joining us in just a couple of minutes when washington journal continues. Chapterr, the michigan to talk about Muslim Americans and its impact around the country, but first, congressman tom price is our guest on newsmakers. He is the chair of the House Budget Committee on the decision to block syrian and iraqi refugees from entering the u. S. That vote took place last thursday before the house went into recent recess for the thanks giving holiday. Terrorism,act of which we just seem to have one after another. The unitedallenges states does not have a strategy they refused to engage in this issue in a way that would make it so that we actually defeat isis and stop terrorism coming from that and. What the house did this week was to say that because the Homeland Security secretary and the director of the fbi says we are unable to be certain if folks coming in are actually coming in and not having any association with terrorist groups, they are not able to say that. Stop the program right now and put it in a posture of making certain that we are able to do that these individuals and a thorough way. Obama has said he will be for this. What would be the next step . What the American People need to ask themselves is what does it mean when a president vetoes a piece of legislation that is solely for the purpose of protecting the American People . It is a very troubling time. I call on the president to recognize the concern of the American People have about this issue. This is not childs play. This is a very serious issue. To have the president say that in spite of his Homeland Security secretary saying that they are not able to appropriately that these individuals that is not the republican counsel in the house, that his Homeland Security. Is not going to listen to them and he is going to continue to allow people in. He cannot with any degree of certainty no that they dont have ties to terrorism. This is a very troubling event. Tom price is the chair of the House Budget Committee, republican from georgia. He joins us on newsmakers attack on eastern time, 7 00 for those of you on the west coast. We are joined by Tom Hamburger , a team ofon post reporters working on todays front page story. Clintons, 41 years, 3 billion. This is an extensive story, but what is the headline . What did you learn . Guest we tried to go back to the very first donors to bill clinton, looking at the clintons as a historical phenomenon, a couple who has both husband and ,ife running for president looking for and finding more money accumulated under their name and their requests for donation than any other global family in history. 3 from your piece, billion amassed by one couple working in tandem for more than four decades has no equal. By comparison, three generations of the bush family, american other contemporaneous little dynasty, have raise about 2. 4 billion. Also pointing out that the halfdozens a charitable organizations. We emphasize in this piece that the largest category of donations to clinton enterprises, if you will, has gone to the Clinton Foundation. It is a family charity, a philanthropy. That charity has received about 2 billion. Host i want to go through parts of the story. You say hillary is drawing on endorsements from Silicon Valley , one of the First Industries to rally around her husband nearly a quarter century ago. There is a photograph of former , noe ceo john scully relation, with Hillary Clinton and the fed chair Alan Greenspan sitting next to tiverton tipper gore. Explain this connection. Guest one of the things that we found is that the clintons and bill clinton in particular, this is in the 1980s and 1990s recognizing the terrific growth of Silicon Valley, they reach out to Key Executives and personalities and potential donors, and the clintons started relationships and maintain them. Helly was an important was then at the ceo of apple and he was an important donor to the earlier campaigns. Today we find another Silicon Valley resident, eric schmidt, ceo of alphabet, the Parent Company of google, is close to Hillary Clinton. He has invested in a company that is helping the Clinton Campaign develop its digital infrastructure. Host this is what you write about with regard to eric schmidt. His next company is called ground works, which has developed Cutting Edge Technology to help engage Hillary Clinton supporters. Can you elaborate . Guest one of the things that the clintons learned a couple of obamas ago, that the campaign really picked up on and that republican candidates understand as well and i think are struggling to keep up with, is the importance of Digital Technology in a modern president ial campaign. Both in developing and targeting voters and potential supporters, and reaching out to them through social media. Silicon valley support is wasl to helping critical to helping barack obama developed his winning campaigns in 2008 and 2012, and this year they had Silicon Valley icons like eric schmidt supporting Hillary Clinton. It is potentially an important asset for her campaign as well. Ost hillarys sixday money during a trip in late september raising more than 4. 4 million with stops in los angeles, san francisco, new york, new jersey, connecticut, and charlotte north carolina. What did you learn . Guest in just one short week Hillary Clinton had gone from coasttocoast raising funds from longtime supporters and some from a new generation. Some were actually children of families who had supported the clintons in the past. One of the events that was held saqqara,rk was john the son of former Vice President ial candidate for ferrero, hosted an event for hillary at his home. Host one of the photographs, i have to ask you why you included this, explain this 1979 picture of bill and Hillary Clinton entering the white house and meeting with thenpresident jimmy carter. Guest this was the very young governor of arkansas entering the white house. You can see from the looks on their face that they are both kind of scanning the room, maybe a bit nervous. There is apparently a white house usher standing to the side as they enter the room. We can tell that this is thought the picture was iconic. The young couple, entering the white house, their future home, looking about with some evident nervous excitement. Host what reaction have the ties to wall street had among their traditional supporters, especially organized labor . Guest one of the themes we develop in this piece is the tension between labor support and wall street support that the clintons ethics that the clintons have experienced throughout their political career, going back to the first fundraising effort of 1974. The clintons we think the takeaway is two things. One is that bill clinton has brought the Democratic Party closer to wall street than any president any democratic president in modern history. At the same time, bill and Hillary Clinton were able to maintain ties with labor and labor support. This is true for all Democratic National candidates. It has been critical. Host and in terms of juggling all this, you and your calling for the following. The clintons cap big contributors in their orbit for decades by methodically ruling groups,g interest toggling between their liberal base and powerful constituencies that according to donors, friends, and aid to the couples and their arkansas days. He grew up in hope, arkansas. Childhood friend of the clinton. He stays close to president clinton their entire lives. Mccarty goes on to become the ceo of the largest gas utility. N the state, arcagas he supports bill clinton and eventually moves to washington when he is elected. Contributed to your account about 366 thousand dollars. Guest that number is correct. It also understates his contribution and others in arkansas who really provided the personal fuel, the energy, for bill and hillary and their rise from arkansas to national prominence. Host before we get the calls i wanted to share with you bill clinton was asked about the connection between the money that Clinton Foundation raised and sector estate clintons role as the chief diplomat in the first four years of the obama administration. This is courtesy of cnn. Lets watch. [video clip] the foundation for years, before she was ever secretary of state. They do this, they do philanthropy too. No one has ever asked me for anything. Let me ask you about that. Isaac a lot of people might say, ok. You say there is no evidence anything was done for them. But can you really say that these companies, these wealthy individuals, none of them sought anything to echo some of them did have business before the state department. I dont know. You never know what anyones motive are, but im pretty sure after the Haiti Earthquake they saw what they saw on television and wanted to make a difference. You dont know. You say that you dont know if anyone saw any favor, just that you dont know. Hillary was pretty busy. Her study a list of my contributors, and i had no idea who is doing business before the state department. Is this. Ll say she believes that part of the job of the secretary of state is to advance americas economic interest around the world. If she had not been doing this economic diplomacy work, nobody would have been doing it. I never thought about whether there was any overlap. Host that conversation back in june of this year. Tom hamburger, your response . Guest including the Clinton Foundation donations in our study of the clinton fundraising through the years was going to be controversial. After all, the current invention is a charity. It does good works around the world. Our decision, journalistically and editorially, was that the this very fastgrowing foundation which is raise 2 billion in a very short time span is something extraordinary to have associated with a former president and secretary of state and possibly a future president , the spouse of the initial candidate. Our we felt that our job was to look at those who might have contributed to clinton causes across the board, those who might have fought to gain , one of those things that the former president was just addressing. We thought it was important to note who these major donors were , so that our readers and voters would be aware to the extent of which the clintons had reached out to potential interest, whether they were about the u. S. Entrepreneurs, heirs to fortunes, or Foreign Governments. We thought it was important to develop that dust and offer to our readers. Host our guest is Tom Hamburger , he is a reporter for Washington Post. He began his career in arkansas when bill clinton was first elected governor. Guest thats correct. Bill clinton was attorney when i gotn i was there and was on his way, very clearly, to the next high office. Host he has also worked in the past were the wall street journal, the los angeles times, and the minneapolis star tribune. Were talking about the clinton financial network. It is the front page story today, also Available Online. Pauls from appleton, wisconsin. Good morning. Democrats line. Caller this seems to me to be a hit job on the clintons. A lot of that money went to the foundation to help poor people around the world. They make it sound like they are. Ust pocketing all this money bill clinton has done more to help poor people than trunk could ever imagine doing than trump could ever imagine doing. It just seems like another murdoch tapered doing a hit job on the clintons. Baby should do a frontpage article on trunks bankruptcy trumps bigotries and then i will believe your paper is not biased. Guest we think that reporting ,n both the sources of wealth interest groups, and individuals that are retreating to candidates is an important part of the job we do and weve taken a look at the clintons and have done in the past with donald trump. All i can say in response is sort of watch this space. Will beon post looking at candidates regardless of party or ideology. Two the headline, clintons, 41 years, 3 billion. The piece begins with these words. Over four decades of public life, bill and Hillary Clinton have built an unrivaled network wellnors a pioneering pioneering a fundraising technique that has transformed modern politics. The grand total raised for all of their political campaigns and their Families Charity foundation reaches 3 billion. Posted if i donations from roughly 336,000 individuals, corporations, unions, and Foreign Governments. Anthony calling from new york, also on the democrats line. Caller thank you for doing an outstanding job. I would like to ask your guest, i read an article some time ago involving governor clinton when he was in arkansas. There was some involvement with cia smuggling drugs and i believe there was some connection to oliver north and irancontra. I believe they were transferring weapons and drugs and laundering money. Benton was part of the operation, as was the elder bush and oliver north. I just wonder if your guest has any information on that, and if not, perhaps he could do some research on it and get back to us in his paper. Think you so much. Host thank you. Are you familiar with the struggle are you familiar with this . Guest i am familiar with a claim. It is one of many that occurred and are associated with the clintons and their long rides in american politics. He wase suggesting involved in the transport of narcotics into the united. There was an incident at an airport in rural arkansas. The clintons were tied to it by some accounts. My limited familiarity with that s that there were not concrete signs of the clintons were tied to this particular incident, but i appreciate the caller reminding us of that and we will take another look. Host in response to the story a Clinton Campaign spokeswoman said the following. It should be noted that a would be misleading at best to conflate donations to philanthropy with clinical theng, and regarding campaign contributions, the breadth and depth of their anport, he says, gives indication of the fact that they have both dedicate their lives to public service, fighting to make this country stronger. Respondtons did not directly to your reporting, did they not . Guest we asked to interview them for this story, and that request was denied. We did talk with the campaign and the foundation for this story. We had some extended backandforth with them and we were aware of their objections to our including the philanthropy is part of the story the total that the couple had raised in an article that would really be part of Hillary Clintons ongoing provincial campaign. Host i am curious as a reporter, what was their pitch to . What did they tell you . Guest what they suggested is what you just quoted. The philanthropy is really separate from our political enterprises, and we think conflating them was the word , is reallysed inappropriate. On the one hand we are seeking problems to solve global problems, open dimensions the earthquake in haiti, and , andids around the globe to suggest that people might be contributing to these funds to curry favor with us future political candidate is not right. How much money will Hillary Clinton raise if she is the democratic nominee in total . What is the estimate . Guest we are expecting that the candidates from the two Major Political parties will each raise 1 billion or more. Host lets go to ricky joining us from jacksonville, florida, republican line with Tom Hamburger. Caller what is what do you think the purpose of the Clinton Global Initiative is, and did you find anyone that could say anything bad about it, like they were not giving the money to where was supposed to go . Guest that is a very interesting question and an important one. I have worked on other stories this one does not really Look Foundation andn its operations. Generally the foundation is both highly regarded and is considered to have done a great deal of good around the world. As to whether some funds were not used properly, there are occasional questions or allegations about this that occurs with this charity as with others. Atdid not find in our look the Washington Post that there was, in the case of one entity you just mentioned, the Clinton Global Initiative, that there was a misuse of funds. What is the things that interested us was the extent to which the Foundation Provided a platform, both internationally and domestically, for bill and Hillary Clinton. It became particularly interesting because Hillary Clinton was at one time secretary of state, and then a candidate for president. This platform and the way that it provides both access to donors, world leaders, and the u. S. Electorate, was something that we thought was important to note. Host bill clinton first ran for the house were presented as, losing, in 1974. Was attorney general and then governor, last reelection, came back to serve as governor. All the money he raised dating back to his first race for the house is outlined in the Washington Post. You attract that his First Campaign for governor, raising about 174,000. Now of course Hillary Clinton to eventually raise as much as 1 billion in her bid for the white house. Joining us susan, from fort myers, florida. Independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I wanted to ask it is not the much about the donors and the clintons, i am just wondering i really have a lot of respect for the clintons and i think there has been a lot of a rational talk about them and what not. I am just wondering if this country will elect a woman as president , because she should of had it last time. The instant they put a neophyte woman neophyte mail in charge of the country as opposed to the more qualified woman im just wondering if the voters will actually vote for a woman this time. Host thank you. Tom hamburger . Guest of course that is difficult if possible really to predict the what the voters will do. In the race you just referred to, she appeared to be very much ,n the lead for the nomination and from all of the polling we see early on she will be a very competitive candidate going into the fall. How much time did you and your colleagues spend on the story. Guest we began looking at it as Hillary Clinton became a candidate and left the secretary of state. We realized one of our editors suggested to us, wouldnt it be interesting to trace all of the funds of the clintons have raised over time . It was in the context of talking about what a remarkable political couple they are. Wife to seek and the white house and potentially potentially claim it. For extraordinaire decades of service. It was also 18 months ago that the idea was originally raised. We did not work on it fulltime, but it has been a long process. Host among the top 10 political patrons, who is number one . Guest we have different categories, as you know, because we are combining both the Political Support and the philanthropic support. On the political side, one of thevery top people is rangerswn as the power saban who is known as the creator of Power Rangers and is now the head of univision. He and his wife have given over 2. 2 million to the campaign and 10 million to campaign Clinton Foundation. Host other donors include terry mcauliffe, jeffrey katzenberg, and steven spielberg. Lets take a look at the list as we listen to just joining us from fayetteville, north caroline a. Republican line. Caller we need to be careful what we are saying over the phone. I am sure Hillary Clinton is monitoring our phone calls. She got that comedian out of his job for making fun of her. My question is, have there been any foundations are charities set up for the victims of bill clinton . Paula jones. We know that bill clinton sexually assaulted these women. Guest i was just taking it would not take an elaborate Security Apparatus just to each of honor call, we are talking on television before tens of thousands of people right now. Im not familiar with any of the charities that the caller was suggesting. Springfieldis next, vermont, independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I just had a couple, the russians. Comments had a couple and questions. The person mentioned the dealings of the hurricanes in haiti and how the foundation helped their and i heard some about the illorts use of money in haiti with the contractors and some kind of shady reports, something going on there with the Clinton Foundation. Number two, one thing i wanted to say was i noticed their foundation is not called help or anything. D it is called the Clinton Foundation for a reason. Because it is a foundation for the clintons. That is how they make their money. I think anybody from the Clinton Group would say to anybody investigating it that it is illegitimate to associate their political ideology with their foundation. It is just regular. Basically it just obfuscates the issue to get it off the table some notable take a good look at it to see if theres any impropriety there. Bill clintons speeches and Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, doing favors for people. I think it is deathly worth looking into. It needs to be looked further into since they have amended their taxes a couple of times and have not reported some money. There are plenty of things to look at. Host thank you. And you mentioned bill clintons speeches, and Hillary Clinton, both making millions in making private speeches before she announced her candidacy. Guest it is one of the things that he refer to that cause us to decide this was a legitimate, important area to look into. There is overlap in the foundation. Theyll bill and Hillary Clinton have race close to 150 million speeches. Bill clinton raising most of that money. Often, not always, they are corporations who also contribute to the foundation. We also found out that above among the largest donors to the foundation, those giving over 1 million, about one third of them, or a good percentage of them, were also donors to the campaign. There is a great deal of overlap. The caller asked specifically about haiti. My colleagues at the Washington Post actually took a pretty deep dive into the Clinton Foundations work in haiti. As the caller suggested, not everything went privately there. There are ongoing questions among haitians and others about what happened to what was, at the time, one of the worlds most ambitious postdisaster relief effort. Host where their Foreign Government guest yes, they were Foreign Government contributions. Also contributions from foreign comp is foreign contributions, individuals overseas and it is legal. They were reported, the reason we found it was important to note this is that foreign entities and foreign individuals cannot have two u. S. Campaigns, so one of the things weve got important to note, who is giving to the clintons overtime . If i can go back to haiti for a while there is some controversy about the recovery effort and Disaster Response in haiti, people who were closely palmer, including dr. Defended the Clinton Foundation strongly and the motivation in haiti. I wanted to add that, too, it remains a controversy but there is not a sense that the foundation had a difficult and that there are people who strongly defend the foundation efforts. Years,wo clintons, 41 billions of dollars. Today, Tom Hamburger, focusing on the topic and we go to paul rhode island. Democrat line. Good morning. Are you with us . Caller could you please tell me what the connection is with the Uranium Mines throughout the world, primarily canada, and the russians and the clintons buying. Nd selling the Uranium Mines host that is kind of a vague area. Are you familiar with that . Guest i am. There has been some reporting in the Washington Post and the New York Times looking at the interest of an individual who was perhaps the largest donor to the clinton causes over time, certainly one of the largest, frank, a canadian mining magnate in vancouver who had an interest, which he has been sold, in Uranium Mines and pened to have completely completed one of the deals why he was in kazakhstan in central asia trapping with bill clinton. With bill clinton. They provided not only his contributions to the foundation financially but use of an aircraft that bill clinton made use of. Withimes, the aircraft frank on board, would land in places where he had mining interests, including interest in uranium. The goods or the question that was raised about the uranium purchase in kazakhstan is whether there was any impropriety in the fallout from that transaction. Eventually, Uranium Mines in kazakhstan and elsewhere were purchased by the company that has been tied to russia. The deal needed to be approved by a federal agency that reviews the sale of a potentially strategic mills to make sure that it is in the interest of the United States. The deal was approved. The secretary of state is a number of people who sit on the board at that review organization, so there was some controversy suggesting perhaps there was a conflict of interest having accepted so much money from someone who was initially a part of the uranium deal and then approving the deal. Host this is from jim who says, does the 200 50,000 that Hillary Clinton gets for her paid speeches, is that considered income to the foundation or bill and hillary . Guest that is a good question and it requires, as questions in this realm often do, complicated answers. The person i would say that the fees run from a range. It is not just 200 50,000. Some are accepted by the clintons as personal income and some are donated or given to the foundation. That particular gifting to the foundation or speeches donated to the foundation is one of the ing somehat is require adjustments to the clintons tax filings, but some are kept as personal income and some end up in the foundation. Host our friend norma joining us from england. Good to hear from you from hastings, england. Go ahead. Caller i would like to push something to the gentleman because he is a journalist and i have written something, about for every day, and i put it on a postcard. I am going to post it to one of our broad sheets for the journalists working on the sheets to read. It goes if the first castle of war of politics, philosophy, and economics is true, then the second must be the reason of the masses not seeking out the first. I would like to listen to your journalist talk about all the things he is questioning and researching. I think it is probably relevant to what is going on now. Thank you for your program and asked the americans say, have a nice day. Host thank you, norma. Guest thank you. Yourok forward to seeing postcard. Let me share a headline in the New York Times, image ofnton battles being soft on wall street. She was asked about her connection to wall street and heres a portion. Me, it isinton for looking at what works and what we need to do to try to move past what happened in 2008. I will go back and say again, aig was not a big bank. In had to be bailed out and it nearly destroyed us. Lehman brothers was not the big bang, but an Investment Bank and its failure nearly destroyed us. So, i have said at the big banks do not play by the rules, i will break them up and i will also go after executives who are responsible for the decisions that have bad consequences for our country. The charge and Bernie Sanders and Martin Omalley is that she has received a lot of money from wall street and how can she be tough . Guest looking up with clintons wall street, including securities, investment houses and thanks, have provided over 60 million to both clintons overtime. Depending on how you cut it, it was one of the largest single sectors donating to the clintons, and that has been to for bill clinton and it was equally true and maybe more so for Hillary Clinton, who, as you know, was the senator from new york and the home. It is a problem for Hillary Clinton because and the home of wall street. It is a problem for Hillary Clinton because, to reasons, Hillary Clinton has been close to wall street and the iconic institutions, and number two, this is the year work wall street is being questioned by people experiencing some economic unease and worrying about the power. Host if you are joining us on cspan radio or coasttocoast the potusisting on channel, 124, our guest is tom a National Reporter for the Washington Post, and george grace mengs from tennessee as we focus on the front page story of the Washington Post. 41intons, 43 years years, 3 billion. Good morning, george. Caller good morning. I have been reading and some of the media about the various security questions and handling of National Security information and classified information. I have worked in the Nuclear Field my whole life, and i am 80 retired, but i have a good appreciation for the importance of National Security probably a clearance 450 of the last years. The last years. I noticed a number of republican people, general petraeus, and others, have been indicted by the Justice Department. Does your guest what is his opinion on whether or not the various investigations going on in the Justice Department and the fbi will result in some type of action against hillary . I will take your answer offline. Ost george, thank you from knoxville, tennessee. s were tryingler to something we have heard a great deal about since Hillary Clinton launched a president ial bid, and that is what the her use of a private email system and to conduct in using that breached National Security requirements of the United States and the rules of the state department. The caller suggested it is under investigation still, but it is not approving investigation at this point. We know that the fbis National Security division has been asking questions about it. As they do, routinely, when there is the possibility of a spill, as they call it, of classified or sensitive information. Looking at it, whether it leads to enforcement action of any kind, we still do not know. Host some of the numbers in terms of wall street, courtesy of the Washington Post back in 1992 and bill clinton was running for resume, he raised over 11 million, more than doubling that for his reelection bid, raising an nexus of 20 billion. Hillary clinton ended up raising 2. 13 million and then in 2006, anded six point 2 million then 2008, raced for 2. 61 million and then raising so far, this year, 6. 5 in dollars. Briscoe to ann lets go to ann in tennessee. About or theyalk show the amount given to administration and the amount given to charity. How does the navigator rate the Clinton Foundation and its work in charity . Thank you very much. Host two r. Guest host thank you. Guest thank you very much for that question. We did look at the ratings of the Clinton Foundation from outside independent organizations. There is one called charity navigator, that you mentioned, and there are a couple that are wellknown. One of the things we found, first of all, it is difficult to rate charities in philanthropy and we noted that the Clinton Foundation is unusual in not only are they selecting collecting money and disturbing it, they also have a large stance on the ground, thousands of employees and one of the things they were doing at the very start of the foundation was this to beating was vaccines andaids other drugs to lessdeveloped parts of the world that required huge infrastructure, so that there was and if you contrast spending by the organizations to the amount donated you would see a high correlation. There is a large overhead at the Clinton Foundation, but that is necessary, arguably, to the work they are doing in the areas such as this to be shot of aids drugs. There is one of the Major Charity organizations that put the Clinton Foundation on the watch list this year. We looked into that. The watch list was really based as a warning flag went the foundation or Charity Comes under scrutiny from news organizations. Because questions have been raised by mainstream news organizations and also online critics and so forth, there was a warning that questions have been raised. We did not find that independent organizations were creating warnings that felt substantively with the work of the Clinton Foundation. Host in case you are interested, Tom Hamburger has been checking facts, and on sundays post, theyre looking at something she has talked about not only on the campaign trail but dating back 20 years ago. It is Available Online at washingtonpost. Com. Is from new york city. Kelly. Democrat line. Welcome. Caller yes, i drank the lenten koolaid the clinton koolaid but here are two littleknown facts. In 2007 when hillary was campaigning against obama, her daughter chelsea, who was still in college, was working for a hedge fund and making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. I think the company name was boutique. Also, when hillary was on the board of walmart, this is a company that encouraged manufacturers to make their products overseas to sell them cheaper, i do not remember her being concerned back then about the poor women that were working for walmart and what little salaries they were getting. You. thank the piece we have been theyssing this morning, were discussing Hillary Clintons invitation to join the board of walmart when she was first lady of arkansas. Some altman, the founder of walmart, likes Hillary Clinton very much. While she was on the board and one of the reasons she was named is because of her interest in looking out and him for issues and concerns of women employees and also consumers. Was on thenton walmart board for several years and received about 100,000 in stock as a board member. Other important point, the fundraising landscape has changed and you write about that in your piece. Can you explain . Guest one of the things we note in the piece is that both clintons have been in the postwatergate era and at the forefront of developing and taking advantage of techniques and fundraising. 2010,the citizens united, corporations, individuals, unions to affiliated super pacs, and there arent super pacs associated with Hillary Clintons president ial campaign and she has taken advantage of that opportunity. For Campaign Finance reform at the same time, but she says she is not going to tie a seekbehind my back as we to take on a National Political fight. Host did you do a word count on this piece . [laughter] guest our editors did. Even what you are seeing in the paper, four pages inside the Washington Post, did not include the extensive graphics and videos that accompanied the story. I encourage readers to take a look at that. Our Graphics Team did a great job. Host looking at how bill and Hillary Clinton have had done this in little rock to washington and across the globe. On hamburger joins us sunday. Thank you for your time. You can find the story online at Washington Post. Com. Coming up, we will talk about islamophobia and muslims in the u. S. Series concerns continued to grow in light of the attacks and paris. We will talk to a representative of the michigan chapter of the council of americanislamic relations. This weekend, we travel outside of syracuse in new york as part of cspan2s book tv and cspan3s american tour. One of the locations, the home of Harriet Tubman in rural new york outside of syracuse, and here is a portion. Harriet tubman is probably one of the most iconic american women that i know. Of heru look at the arc life, it is incredible. Going from slavery to freedom and then continuing on for complete life of service for nearly 92 years. Most people know her affectionately as the moses of her people. That is related to all of her activities with the underground railroad. She was fearless. Aat is the thing that is constant of her life, her fearlessness. Tubman, just outside of syracuse, new york, this weekend. Check it out this afternoon on cspan twos book tv and cspan threes American History tv. All of it is Available Online at any time at www. Cspan. Org citiestour. You are listening to washington journal and we are back in the moment. Yes, i really did. First of all, i was not elected, so this did not make that much difference. I did notice the difference the train being the Vice President s wife and the president s wife. It was huge because the Vice President s wife can say anything and the minute you say one thing as residents wife, you made the news. That was a lesson i had to learn. During george h. W. Bushs presidency, barbara bush promoted literacy, raised awareness about aids and homelessness. She also learned to into the history books by becoming only the second first lady, besides abigail items, to be the wife and mother of a president. Harper bush tonight at 8 00 barbara bush tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on first ladies influence an image. Firsting the lives of ladies from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama tonight at 8 00 p. M. Houston on American History tv on cspan3. American history tv on cspan3. Host we went to welcome dawud walid, the executive director of the council on americanislamic relations from detroit, thank you for being with us. Guest thank you. Host let me begin with news. Front page of the Washington Post, on an area you are familiar with in the first majority muslim u. S. City, Culture Shock and fears of loss was the piece. It includes a Majority City Council in michigan which is not too far from you. When you see this story and reaction, or thoughts . Guest in our locality, it is no big deal. Is story of michigan actually an american story. This hamlet, as you stated, was a majoritypolish american at one time because polish americans were not welcomed into the political process of detroit. Anticatholic sentiment, they settled into the area and became basically a politically dominant majority. Likewise, a metropolitan detroit, hamlet it has become muslims, including bangladeshi, africanamerican descent, and they have made this into a neighborhood when people moving to a neighborhood seek the local politics seek to shift the local politics. It is not surprising that hamtramck, michigan, has a majority muslimcity Council Majority have to muslim city council. And probably in the near future, well have a muslim mayor. Host in dearborn, michigan, outside of detroit, a group ofnificantly in part because the Ford Motor Company now being viewed as the arab capital of north america. Explain the evolution of dearborn, michigan. Guest dearborn, michigan, is the most highly concentrated area of arabs in the United States of america. All of those arab americans are not all muslim and there are christians. When we look back one century ago, the reason there are so many arabamericans in detroit automobileof the industry. Just like cap africanamericans migrated to michigan from the jim crow south, looking for job opportunities, arabamericans sameto this area for the reason. That is in part because henry ford was the first industrialist to offer a nonwhite man hourly wage on the assembly line. We do know that henry ford had some issues regarding race. It was not like he was a Martin Luther king, junior, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was this policy that helped the state ofs to michigan working in the automobile industry. South dearborn, michigan, it boarded a majorityyemen community to this day and it goes back to decades and decades ago with henry ford. Host lets look at some democratic information with regards to michigan, courtesy of the American Immigration council, which includes the overall population in michigan just under 2 of error are dearborn,cans but in they have the largest proportion, accounting for about half of the population, just over 44,000 residents according to the 2013 senses. I also want to ask about the political rhetoric in regards to muslims in the country. I would to share a story with times. The new york the headlines focusing on donald trump saying, he heard cheers on 9 11 and is urging the surveillance of some mosque. Let me share with he told reporters over the weekend. Hey, i watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down, and i watched in new jersey where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as it was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering. Something is going on. Weve got to find out what it is. What mr. Trump was referring to. There were cheers of support in some middle Eastern Countries that day, which are broadcasted on television, but a persistent of muslimsmor celebrating in paterson, new jersey, was discounted by Police Officials at the time. They show no reports of massive cheering in jersey city. Your reaction . To be donald trump seems the political leader of false information and lies these days. Keep in mind that he is still a person who championed were at least he was very vocal in terms the book of and questioned Barack Obamas citizen ship. That he invokes false narratives to gain cheap political points is nothing new. Will have to we have watches over mosques in the country as a way to keep america safe. What do you think . Guest what he is putting forward is not only unconstitutional, but it runs counter to the American Values that we, as a nation, not only uphold for ourselves but the values that we project for the rest of the world. A first country has amendment, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, but also freedom of religion. There is no religious test for any group of people in these United States of america ready for political office, but likewise, there is no legal justification for any house worship to be monitored simply because of their faith affiliation or dem nomination. Host we are talking about muslims and islamophobia. Our phone lines are open for democrat, 202 7848000. Republicans, 202 7848001. We have a line for independents or send us a tweet at cspanwj. Harsh rhetoric toward muslims, what is it like for arabamericans to be a muslim in America Today following events in paris . For clarification purposes, i am an african theican, but in terms of Syrian Community and also being an american muslim, this time is an extremely difficult time. Muslims that american are being used as a political football right now. In our political discourse, perhaps, the most accepted form of bigotry can be labeled or can be pushed upon muslims with very little political pushback. In our political discourse, unfortunately, a native detroiter like myself, dr. Ben carson has made outrageous comments that he does not citizenthat an american with their faith being islam is not suitable to sit on the Supreme Court of the the president. We have nonsensical comments from donald trump about not only moderate muslims, but putting sque type ofere thought. If this were jewishamerican, mormonamerican, it would be unacceptable in our political discourse, but when it comes to muslims, it is used as a fundraising strategy where they go out and make antimuslim comments. In the case of dr. Ben carson, they do record fundraising in the process. Host is there a parallel to what happened in world war ii, certainly after the events of december; 1941, as japan attacked pearl harbor, and that resulted in internment camps of japaneseamericans in the u. S. . Not that we are getting to that point, but the attitude that americans had back in 1941 and where we are today 19 in 2015. Guest i do not believe we are at that point yet, but god for bid there is an attack on our soil. What you are saying is not out of the realm. There are people who have said these things out now. s mayor virginia backtracked but he said last week and put forth the notion that americanmuslims could be placed into internment camps. So there are people in the political establishment in city states as well as in the Broader Society who actually believe and think that american muslims could be dealt with the same way that japanese americans were unjustly dealt with after the attack of pearl harbor, in which japaneseamericans had nothing to do with the attack of pearl harbor, just like american muslims have zero to do with what took place in paris. ,ost our guest is dawud walid the executive director of the michigan chapter of the council of American Islamic relations. Join us live from detroit,. Ej is on the phone from arkansas. Good morning. Caller you know, you do not assimilate, you speak your own language when youre in your own over and youme dress in your own customs. You just when i see an others, i knowy they cannot come over with good intentions because they have kill yelled we want to you. You are the only religious people that say they want to belief ise, and your that you can get and have been beengh get in have through those atrocities, where every other religion says he will go to hell if you kill, steal, lie, cheat. The other religions are all useful. Saved andither be adhere to some sort of good work. I want to jump in because you make strong accusations. I want to make sure that our audience knows that that is not the police on the council of the islamic relations but we will get the guest a chance to respond. Guest a lot was said in that statement. My family has been in the United States of america for about 400 years. I am speaking pretty good english, i think, and wearing a suit and tie and i have no idea what she is talking about in terms of this otherization with muslims, but even the mention of irish. This plays into a long narrative and views inon america and how different groups of people are made to be seen as other. There is an interesting book called how the irish became white, and they were not classified as being white. Catholicism was seen as a nonwhite religion and they were the same type of sentiments that were put forth that somehow catholics were not assimilating and they had a secret plan to take over the United States of kennedy,and john f. Who was assassinated on this day, november 22, even when he was running for the president of the United States of america, there was a movement and framework that try to otherize him outside of the american experience. The majority of victims of interNational Terrorism, according to a recent study done by the university of maryland, in which our state department commissioned the study, up to 97 of victims of global terrorism are actually muslims who are the ones who are victims of terrorism, so we have the greatest state of speaking out against extremism and we are the number one victims of extremism, be it from al qaeda, the taliban, or from christian from Central African republics or in ramona, where buddhist terrorists are killing muslims. This coping about the rest of preach peaceigions but islam does not, what islam is derived from a word that means piece. Muslims, notll to the exception. The only time we are allowed to even fight isnt so defense or as a means is in selfdefense or as a means to bring about peace, but what the caller said is very inaccurate and actually extreme. Host dan is calling the caller of the getter and says muslims are born in the u. S. As well. Bigtoedng the caller and says muslims are born in the u. S. As well. If you could explain when you served in the army. Guest yes, i earned to Achievement Medals and was part of the United States navy and i an assistant at a mosque for quite a bit of time, actually, the first mosque established in america for africanamericans. At thelso temporarily bosnianAmerican Islamic center, which is located in michigan, so i have a very close connection to the Muslim Community in michigan, particularly to my bosnian american brothers and sisters. ,ost from thinkprogress. Com the headline quoting one individual that we have to constantly prove that we are not terrorists. Lets go to helen from new york. Good morning. Caller good morning. I just wanted to make a simple comment and it is not all or nothing. I feel that the speaker is disregarding some of the core elements of previous speakers. It is true that we cannot lump everyone into one category. As a teacher in new york city, i have worked with wonderful muslim families and prior to 9 11 and post9 11 and post on 11, but i have to say to you that when i went back with the teachers on the third day, i had students running into my classroom crying and saying that there were parties being held in their apartment buildings. Host well get a response. Ofst i have never heard parties being thrown after 9 11. I do know that there were muslims who were killed and 9 11, including first responders. I do know that in the city of detroit, we were in fault in peace schedules and prayer vigils, and we were you are involved in peace vigils and prayer vigils, and we were standing guard at our mosques ere in fear of blowback. Including myself, i received Death Threats after 9 11, so i do not know anything about parties, but i can say that for the overwhelming majority of the americanMuslim Community, we felt hurt and doubly demised. One because our country was attacked and then two, we knew that there would be a referendum on islam in america and worldwide that our faith would be portrayed in a negative light unjustly. Host let me go back to New York Times, and the acquisition made by donald trump and that they were cheers taking place in jersey city. A story that has not been confirmed by any accounts. The spokesperson for donald trump was asked about this accusation and she would not elaborate on the comments. His aides have repeatedly declined to make them available to address the controversy over saidstatements and they only that he had drawn an unprecedented crowd of 10,000 of birmingham, and adding that his speech was great and unbelievably well received. Lets go to bill in pennsylvania, democrat line, good morning. Caller good morning. I want to thank this gentleman for his service, first of all. I do not think it is so much fear as we do not trust this government to keep us safe. All you have to do is go back to the boston bombings and look at that whole scenario out there. One brother can go back and forth to chechnya or kazakhstan and how they ever pulled that off up there, i remember the we1 Commission Reports that have to knock down these walls between the fbi and the cia, and it did not happen again. We see over and over again where the government is the problem. Not the refugees. By the way, good sentiment was speaking about pearl harbor. There were four japanese or five japanese spies that were caught pearlolulu that spied on harbor and give that information to the japanese when they did the bombing, so if you look back at history, especially the last six years or seven years, we just do not trust the government to do the writing. The problem. As far as religion, what i cant understand about religion is when mohammed was able to have 14 wives and most of them were teenagers, from what i understand, and one was even, at the age of nine years old, now if that happened in america is a, if you go out, there sect out there somewhere in the west, jeffers is the guys name, but he is in jail or the same thing that mohammed did when he was here on her. Host well get a response. Guest again, they were so many things said in that statement. Thing deal with the one he mentioned about resources and trusting the government. How the fbi and cia deal with security on the homeland, i think it needs there is overhaul. There are a lot of misplaced resources in terms of the use of confidential informants and also with mask surveillance. We know what the nsa has done in recent years due to the eric snowden breaks, and because there is so much information being collected and there is so much mask surveillance, that the actual people and actual threats that need to be watched more carefully are actually slipping through the. Through the cracks, cracks, but let us look at who was committing terrorism on the homeland and how it is discussed here it if you go on the fbis website and look at the last 20 years or 25 years of terrorism inting the United States of america, you will see there are about 94 of terrorism attacks that take place in america and committed by people that are not islamic faith, predominately they are white males and claim christian faith, so in we look at one end really talk about the Boston Marathon bombing, which was a renders and reprehensible, they were six human souls taken that day. Withe talk about terrorism bada bing, there were three more souls, nine individuals killed earlier this year in South Carolina and a black church and they cant call that an act of terrorism when a white supremacist big it goes into a black church and commits mass murder in the church that is not labeled terrorism. It also goes back to how we label and look at who are terrorists and whether threats to our domestic tranquility in these United States of america. Host we are talking with dawud walid, the executive director of the michigan chapter of americanislamic relations. Our next caller from london. Paul, good afternoon. Caller how are you doing . Host thank you for your question. Caller no worries. I just wanted to ask this question, how can any american be happy having very cheap gas, homes,eap food in their around their places of work because of the mechanism to the dollar, and yet, the antiislamic . I am a christian and i have plenty of muslim friends, i work with muslims every day. Come to the pub with me, they did coffee, i will drink beer drink coffee, i will drink beer, i have jewish friends and i just would like to know how can we move forward to get rid of the terrorist threats . I think perhaps one of the major mechanisms is causing a lot of the problems because a lot of europeans want to give it up the saudi arabia regime which is making money out of terrorism, but because you guys rely on that economically in the states so much, that mechanism is basically meaning that you are shielding the saudis from military or economic sanctions, which it actually get rid of the terrorism and would return us back to a time where we did not need to be continuously building up militaries to deal with threats which could be dealt economy whichthe is the threat itself. Host well get a response. Guest thank you for that question. It is ironic because the caller s country, britain, is one of the keys behind the of ishment of the world in saudi arabia. There was a family who made the compact with the british, it was during world war i, and when wase arabs and that family armed by the british, sponsored by the british, they then brutally went and killed and put down the people within the Arabian Peninsula and later the kingdom of saudi arabia it was established and oil was found there. Part of the justification that was used is that that family was fighting and killing other muslims and they did something which is pronouncing them to be heretics and heathens. This is the ideological roots or basis for these extremist groups like al qaeda, in which the primary target for muslims and a pronounced other muslims as being deviance, innovators, and heretics which then makes them, according to them, lawful to be killed. In terms of the old oil , asstry, the United Kingdom well as the United States of america, we defend our economy based on oil, particularly saudi oil. At the end of the day, it is not our people, but the policymakers care more about capitalistic urges. To make sense and this is part of our National Security interest. On the American Government or British Government holding the saudi government accountable as long as we are dependent on saudi oil and as long as we use them as a Strategic Partner in the socalled middle east to push back the influence of iran in the region. Says,this is a tweet that my issue is muslims trying to change our way of life, our laws, our values and traditions to suit their beliefs. That is the subject of todays front page story in the Washington Post. Coulter shock and loss as muslims cultural and political growth put some on edge. On amtrak,sing michigan, outside of detroit, where our guest joins us. From is our next caller florida. Good morning. Caller good morning. Ask, why a question to scholarst when we have or represent the of them was the community, we are not [indiscernible] because we understand what the Public Perception is of islam when they had these questions. I do a lot of work with nonmuslims, and when we talk to when they had these derogative statements and we give them the facts of islam and give them the way of our life, they are appreciated and educated. Are ignorantpeople of what islam is. Secondly, i challenge all my Christian Brothers and sisters and let them find where in the koran it says to kill christians and jews, and let us where it shows and says that. Ms it says unless it says that, we need to caution our brothers and sisters because we it isreading hate and within the society. It is the same exact method that was used in europe against the jewish people, and im surprised that more of the jewish do not come up against this. Host thank you. Guest thank you very much for that comment. I would like to go back to the tweet and it has been mentioned twice with the statement about muslims not assimilating and as supposedly wanting to change the american way of life. Nober one, there is responsibility on any group of people immigrating to the United States of america to assimilate into american whiteness. Will we talk about assimilating to america, that is pegged off of whiteness as being the standard of what it means to be american. Muslims or any other group of people have no responsibility to do that, and that does not mean that someone is not been a good citizening, tax paying to not assimilate or use that as a standard of american this. Number two is, america is the work in progress and is evolving. Muslim, haveican the right to try to shape america more into the vision that i think america should be in order to make it a more perfect union, and that is really what the american project is about. Really, i think it speaks to a greater fear that a lot of americans have that there are changing demographics in america. Within the next few decades, america is going to be a majorityminority country, meaning there will be more people of color in america than white americans, and i think and really scares the mess of people. The same talking points they use with latino immigration and lets build a wall in the southern border, and the same people against Syrian Refugees coming here, even though there was not a single syrian refugee that had to do it to paris attacks, are the same people who are condemning muslims in america and saying that we do not have the right to speak arabic we should alter our dressed to look more anglosaxon, and i think this comes of big Eurocentric White mentality and i do not accept that. Rick snyder, in michigan, say they do not want Syrian Refugees in their respective state. Here is what the governor said at a recent event in the past few weeks, including the violence in paris and over the skies in egypt, remind us of the dangers our world faces from extremist who are becoming extremely sophisticated in their methods of doing is carmen. My primary responsibility is to keep the people of michigan safe. Dad is what i have asked deposit efforts to bring more refugees to michigan and requested the u. S. Department of state and the u. S. Department of Homeland Security of Homeland Security to take full review of our security procedures for all refugees who have the potential to be placed in michigan. Guest for about the last three michigan toffice in our senior staff has processed syrians who have received either tps, protected status, or asylum. Or these syrians who fled from the violence in syria have been acclimating themselves to the american way of life. I would say that Governor Snyder , look back in history and tell me one time in any muslim in the state of michigan committed an act of terrorism in the past century. He will not find a single one. The department of Homeland Security has very rigorous screening process is to let refugees in the country. It takes a couple of years for the united here in states of america, and in our community, we have been preparing to find suitable families working in conjunction with Family Services for 400 orphans. What type of National Security threat to 400 orphans pose the state of michigan and Governor Snyder . He does not have an answer and i think it is a shameful period of history that we are living in right now. When we look at this issue, it has become a partisan issue because the overwhelming majority of these governors who are turning away Syrian Refugees happen to come from the gop, and that is the reality. Host a few more minutes with our guest dawud walid from detroit. Darrell from missouri, good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to agree with your gust 100 . The way i look at it with your guest 100 . Haveay i look at it is we been destabilized in the middle east for years now, if you look at iraq, syria, we have bombed more people dont we can think of any wonder why we have refugees coming to america. They would not have to come if we were not over their bombing their countries. We have a terrorist organization in america and no one speaks of it. That would be the cia. Look what they do. They assassinate people, overthrow governments, destabilize governments, they do it all, they torture, they have last sites all over the world. What are we talking . We are talking foreign policy. Host thank you. Guest what is interesting about the callers comments is that we have a policy right now as being against the assad regime. Administrations talked about the crimes of the regime, well, during the bush administration, he was working along with the regime, the syrian regime, where they were blast sites and where they would torture on behalf of they were ourd socalled adversary, but we were working with them in using him to torture people on our behalf. Let us not get into this american exceptionalism type of mentality and think that the rest of the world is involved in barbarism and savagery and not look at the crimes that we have been committing as a nation or our government and the destabilization and killing that our country has been involved in, which has helped make the soil fertile for antimuslim or antiamerican sentiments and antiwestern sentiments and has the unfortunate effect of inually fueling terrorism the socalled middle east. Keep in mind that before we invaded iraq off of false aformation, there is not single suicide bombing. Suicide bombings were not taking place in iraq. One reason ofr casualties are in iraq. Host our last palace is mohammed from new york. Good morning. Caller good morning. The whole issue of terrorism is ironic. Most of the terrorists attacks happen all over the world, europe, the same area of the country where they find them, areright now, people creating fear. You go arrest people, put them islam is a contradiction. It is peace, and the koran, you do not kill any. Thank you. Guest thank you. This goes back to the double standard that we have in labeling who gets labeled a terrorist. If we look at the European Union statistics, we see that the majority of people who have been committing terrorism in the past decade in europe are actually White Nationalists. If we look back a few years before paris, he had this tragic and horrible attack in paris that took around 169 souls, if we go back a few years back, the next worst terrorism attack in recent history that has taken place in europe wasnt your way and committed by a White Nationalist christian. Of wantingot or plan to start a war, a race war and the war against muslims. Over 100 people were killed in norway. Peoplei would say to the who are listening, who are watching, that, yes, there is a problem of terrorism going on in the muslim world. Number one the beneficiaries of being killed by the terrorism, but terrorism is not only something that is antiislam, but something committed by people of different creeds and people of different ethnic backgrounds. It is not something that is most specific. Minute left,lf a we do not condone some of the harsh words that we have been hearing and seeing, but do you understand the sentiment . Guest i understand that people are enemies or scared of what they do not know. I believe that as american muslims have continuously condemned terrorism on the council and have been in the front line in doing that, i think we need more spots ability from our more responsibility from our policy makers and elected officials do not speak about islam and terrorism always in the same breadth. If you are truly trying to make the United States safer, we need to deal with terrorism in a holistic sense to eradicate the roots of global terrorism but also to deal with terrorism in the homeland and the number one perpetrators of terrorism here in the United States of america are not muslims but they are white men. Chapterwud walid, the executive director on the council of americanislamic relations, thank you for being with us. He continued the conversation tomorrow morning. Come at our guest will be Joseph Gordon to talk about amtrak safety. He is the ceo and we will check in with Patrick Tucker on the ice is use of encryption and the dark web to communicate. Some of our guest and topics on the washington journal. Tune in tonight at 9 35 eastern time for the conversation with ben carson, as part of our road to the white house series. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Have a great week ahead. Happy thanksgiving. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this morning,pan newsmakers is next with republican congressman tom price of georgia. Then, a house hearing on the resettlemente program. Later, some recent road to the white house coverage with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Host