Midterm election. That means there could be a serious shift in power in washington. And yet were all confused about what the American People really have their pulse on. What are we really concerned about . Lets start with war. I think one of the qualities that this country has developed is that we can consume a lot of things. Yet our Attention Span sometimes i think is about 25 seconds if we dont like the subject. So lets put how long does it take to you reu you to read a t . 20, 25 seconds. Well, i read Richard Engels twitter account and he wrote now the kurds are upset with us. The people in Northern Iraq who are a big limpg pip to all of this defeating isis, now kurds are upset because were not hitting isis hard enough. So its militarily confusing, its budget taker carc confusin cant get a vote from congress, and were 35 days away from an election and who knows what will happen if the neo cons get control of the senate. Its not the america that we want right now as i see it. What can fix all of this is if Congress Actually goes back and works for a living. Thats what can start to fix all of this will. If we can get everybody with skin in the game including this guy, john boehner, if he can get his caucus together and find out exactly what they want to do, do they want to wipe out isis . Well, the best way to wipe them out is to probably just nuke them, right . We cant do that. There might be a chain reaction. Well, hes now talking about boots on the ground. Why didnt he talk about that before we had a vote not too long ago is this everybody goes home. Well, now we wont talk about it until next year. Home. Well, now we wont talk about it until next year. Long ago is thi home. Well, now we wont talk about it until next year. And well is budget taker concerns. Do you feel confident about where were going . You get to vote in 35 days. Let me start with some number wills. 72 according to a brand new nbc news wall street journal poll things that the United States will use Ground Troops against isis. Three quarters of the country thinks well be on the ground. In a separate poll, 75 think its very likely or somewhat likely that the United States will send Ground Troops in. Does this mean weve been sold that were going to get right in this thing is what were going to do . The cnn poll also shows that 60 b b60 of the American People oppose boots on the ground. Only 45 favor using troops if military commanders thinks thats the best way to defeat isis. 37 of americans oppose all of this. Now, this is where the American People are right now and i think there is a tremendous amount of confusing numbers out there. These numbers havent stopped republicans from talking about boots on the ground. Theyre all home now. Its interesting. Theyre all home. And now they can blame obama. Because this is setting up to be a political rats nest. House Speaker John Boehner said americans have no choice when it comes to Ground Troops. The other day i think its going to take more than air strikes. At some point, somebodys bats have to be on the ground. American . Listen, the president doesnt want to do that. If i were the president , i probably wouldnt have talked about what i wouldnt do. Maybe we can get enough of these forces trained and get them on the battlefield, but somebodys boots have to be there. And if no one else will step up, american boots . We have no choice. These are barbarians. If we dont destroy them first, well pay the price. Well, im curious to know who John Boehners military advice is coming from. Who is his expert in his ear that tells him that we cant get this done unless we have boot on the ground yet he wont even vote on it . The guy who wants to put a vote off on isis until 2015 is calling for boots on the ground, says there is no way we can do it without them. Speak aer boehner needs to Call Congress back. He tried to pin all the blame to president obama to not calling back congress. You want to have a vote on your resolution. Why not now . Id be happy to. Last night on my orders the president typically in a situation like this would call for an authorization vote and go sell that to the American People. Send a resolution to the hill. The president hasnt done that. He believes he has the authority under existing resolutions to do what hes doing. I think he does have the authority to do it, but the point ive been mading is that this is a proposal that the congress ought to consider. The point youve been makes is that the president is wrong no whatever what he does. J John Boehners job is to Call Congress back, not the president s. The man who was in charge of the least Productive Congress in American History looks to me like he wants for keep it that way. There is one thing john boehner did get right. Isis does pose a threat to americans. But we as a country have to decide how were going to deal with it. If he thinks that air strikes arent enough, hes doing a little monday morning quarterbacking and heckling from the stands. So sunday, president obama admitted u. S. Intelligence underestimated isis. How did they end up where they are in control of so much territory . Surprise to you . I think the head of the Intelligence Community jim clapper acknowledged they had underestimated what had been taking place in syria. He didnt say just say that we underestimated isil. He said we overestimated the ability and the will of our allies, the iraqi army, to fight. Thats true. Thats absolutely true. And thats not good. And of course what a great opportunity for senator john mccain to jump in. He couldnt find a tv camera fast enough and went right after the president. We predicted this and watched it. It was like watching a train wreck and warning every step of the way that this was happening because a residual force would have stabilized the situation and of course maybe had a break on maliki. It is a direct result of our failure to leave a residual force behind couldnt, theyre g the truth. I was there and we know it for a fact. This idea that somehow we didnt know this was happening . Of course we knew it. We saw it happening. Its another great i told you so moment for the republicans. We knew a lot more than the president but we didnt step in and say anything. John mccain needs to remember his intelligence vote on iraq back in 2003 was all bogus, wasnt it . Mccain voted on a war that got us in this mess in the first place. To mccains credit, he is calling for congress to get a vote on military action in syria and iraq. On friday chairman of the joints chiefs of staff was predicting they will have budget problems here pretty soon. Isnt that something we should talk about . Not really because republicans love budget prisooblems when co to war because they get to cut other stuff. Boehner hasnt addressed this budget problem and is waiting until 2015 and basically is playing politics with national security, monday morning quarterbacking every place he can go. Its called incompetence. As a country, as i see it, were all over the map. And the president is trying to navigate through in as best he can. And all hands dont seem to be on deck. Because you see, we have an election coming up and the republicans just cant get enough of failure. Sad commentary, i know. Get your cell phones out. Tonights question, do you think bringing in Ground Troops will end the conflict faster . A for yes, b for no. Well bring you the results later in the show. For more, let me bring in congressman from california, sits on the House Armed Services committee. Great to have you with us. Good to be with you. Your reaction to boehners comment all of a sudden that we cant get this done without Ground Troops. First of all, hes dancing around his responsibility. Hes the man that has the power to Bring Congress back so that we can debate this and get the facts about whats happened about we need to know about whether we knew or at the present time know. Thats how you do it through hearings. But he hasnt called us back and basically said hes going to ignore taking this issue up in the lame duck session following the elections. Thats wrong. What about the timing of that . How troublesome is that . Personally, very troublesome. This war ingoes on, december 11 we run out of money. At that point, yeah, gates has a problem. So we have to take this issue up. And in taking up the money issue, we must take up the issue of this war. So we could be in the midst of a major conflict not knowing how to pay for it and there might be shut down the government talk again. Absolutely could happen. Do you think the president should say congress get back to work . Its not his place. Should he, yes. We need to talk about this. We need to talk about paying for this thing. How much will it cost . How much will the deficit increase . We spent a trillion already in iraq. Here we go again. What about the kurds and theyre our allies as far as Ground Troops and resources. Now theyre upset because were not hitting isis hard enough in Northern Iraq. We should expect that. We should expect that from every side because there is not enough that we could do to save them, to advance their military. If we bombed every day, there still wouldnt be enough. Thats just the way this will work out. What do you make of three quarters of the American People think that eventually well have boots on the ground here. I pray theyre wrong. I dont want those boots on the ground. Weve been down this path. Weve seen lives lost. Weve seen hundreds of billions of dollars spent. To a continuation of something that has gone on for 1400 years. Congressman, stay with us. I want to bring in michael owe hanlon and heather holbrook. Great to have you with us. Michael, what is the danger in putting this up for a vote . Clearly boehner wont address it until 2015. Where does that take us . Well, i guess what i worry about is that the vote could be no. And i dont see any alternative but to address this threat and i think thats the main worry. Im putting it very simply, but it really boils down to that. I Guess Congress is already voting as the congressman well knows on the funding for the syrian opposition. Its already done so. That amounts to a partial endorsement of part of the strategy. For those of us who were nervous about the possibility of a no vote, one could argue thats already adequate role for congress at this jupgs chur especially since the 2001 and 2002 votes arguably apply. I think thats the counterargument. I admit to being torn on this subject, but the danger is that Congress Might vote no and stop an operation in its tracks that is essential i think for our broader security. What about that, congressman . Could happen. And you think boehner is afraid of that . Im not sure what hes afraid of, but i know he has the responsibility for us. The constitution of the United States says we have the responsibility to declare war. This is a new war are. Syria is new. You can get legal arguments here. Most dont come to the arlt that this is a proceed foundly important issue. How can the speaker say we wont have a vote until 2015, eventually boots get involved. He doesnt control his open party. Hes afraid of enembarrassed by his open party. So hes trying to shift embarrassment and attention to the president while avoiding the discussion that as both my colleagues have said we should be having. And what is noteworthy, a number of members of congress mostly democrats, a couple republicans, have put forward different proposals for how should Congress Vote on this, how can the American People understand what were doing. What should the limits of what were doing be. And that boehner is afraid that one of our two parties in this two party system we have cant show up responsibly to have that conversation, you know, thats a pretty terrible commenar terrib. Was it wrong for the president to say we underestimated the power, the ability of isis . No, i greatly appreciated that comment. I think this is a very difficult situation and were all worried about it. And none of us can fully forecast middle eastern politics and what they will spawn. So i appreciated the president s honesty. And i think its always good to look forward in these debates and say what is the right next step. Thats part of why im also glad there is a little bit of murkiness around the expression boots on the ground. Youve mentioned the polls youve been discussing. I dont think there is any clear definition of what it means to have boots on the ground or if there is, we already have 1500 americans in iraq. So that is an example of where i would like to see some flexibilities. My feeling on boots on the ground that means we do iraq the way we did iraq before. An overwhelming force. Thats what int think the amern people understand. I think the intermediate option, American Special forces and advisory fields oforces not to fight, but to advise. Im not sure where it fits in your framework. Ac and i think the language tends to overlook the middle ground. If there is a resolution tightly following what the president said in his four point thats made about a month ago, i think that will pass. But if youre looking at an openended option in which could you have infantry, artillery, armor on the ground, i dont think it will pass nor should it pass. We should have a very limited role in this. We cannot win this war. Weve already tried to win it once. You need to have iraq, you need to have the neighboring countries win this war. We can supcan support them. We can debate where that number is. And finally, there has to be an end point. You cant go back to the 2001 afghanistan resolution and say it applies here. Candidate obama would never have said that the president could do Something Like this. Heather, what about that . We can pull out the old tape. He never would have said the president would be authorized to do Something Like this. Hed have to get congress on board. First point is the reason that we shouldnt be authorizing Ground Troops at this point is we didnt know Ground Troops for what. If we learned anything from the last ten years, its that were much better at breaking things than we are at building things. And until there is something on the ground that you could say we are securing this, we are helping this functioning government, there is no role for u. S. Ground troops. So that is point one. Point two, candidate obama in his Worst Nightmares didnt imagine a congress that would be afraid to debate an authorization for the u. S. Of military information. Congress in his Worst Nightmare didnt imagine a congress where you would have members come in and say the whole world is the battlefield, who would introduce resolution saying the u. S. Should be able to use any kind of force anyplace innocenat thet time. So a lot of that has changed. Congressman, michael, health her, great to have you with us. Appreciate your time. Remember to answer tonights question. Share your thoughts with us on twitter and like us on facebook. 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