and pacific only here on cnn. remember, you can always follow us on twitter. go ahead, tweet me @wolfblitzer. @cnnsitroom. watch us live. dvr the show so you won't miss a moment. that's it for me. thanks very much for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." let's step into the "crossfire" with stephanie cutter and newt gingrich. we're debating a crisis that's making bigger headlines every day. >> bigger headlines, what's president obama doing about it today? visiting the baseball hall of fame and attending a fund-raiser in chicago. in his absence, the debate starts right now. tonight on "crossfire," getting control of the va scandal. the revelations keep onlying. >> this is just the tip of the iceberg. >> the pressure keeps building. >> we can't just let them down. we've let them die. this is awful stuff. >> on the left, stephanie cutter. on the right, newt gingrich. in the "crossfire,"

representative joe crowley, a new york democrat, and representative tom cole, an oklahoma republican. is washington playing scandal politics? or looking for solutions? tonight on "crossfire." welcome to "crossfire." i'm newt gingrich on the right. >> i'm stephanie cutter on the left. in the "crossfire" tonight, congressmen from both parties. veterans affairs secretary eric shinseki was on capitol hill today briefing lawmakers on the investigation into reports of delayed care and cover-ups. sh shinseki released a message to the nation's veterans saying if any of the allegations are true, "we will act." that hasn't stopped some republicans from rushing to judgment and trying to score cheap political points, newt. i suggest they follow the lead of john boehner. today in effect he told everyone to chill out. >> this isn't about the

secretary. it's about the entire system underneath him. and so i don't want people to get confused about what the shiny ball is here. the shiny ball is a systemic failure of this agency. >> this isn't about president obama or cheap political shots. this isn't about secretary shinseki. it's about fixing a system for decades has been failing men and women who put their lives on the line for our country. some of the backlog problems we're discussing today go back more than 20 years which means we all bear responsibility. so political grandstanding is unacceptable and republicans should be called on it. newt? >> well, as speaker boehner said, we are going to, in fact, follow the shiny ball tonight in the "crossfire" tonight, new york congressman joe crowley, a member of the house democrat leadership team and oklahoma republican congressman tom cole. we are delighted to have you. let me start with the challenge that the president has. you know, he is up in

cooperstown and maybe at the hall of fame he'll learn a little bit about scoring runs and hitting the ball because today a leading democratic columnist described him as president passive. if you saw yesterday's press conference, in a little bit of what shinseki said today which is after all that stuff, gee, if we find something, we will act. aren't you a little concerned at the pace at how far behind the news media the administration has been in trying to understand the scandal? >> i think the president is acting appropriately. he has dispatched his deputy white house chief of staff, rob neighbors, to arizona to demonstrate his personal involvement in getting to the root of this problem. finding out what took place, what happened and as he said, let the chips fall where they may and wherever this leads, action will be taken whether it's criminal action that needs to be taken, legislative action that needs to be taken that i think we really to need to address. and that is the fact that we have almost 2 million more men and women who have served their

country, come back to the united states, who need help and assistance from the va and we the congress need to make sure they have every resource they possibly need to take care of those men and women coming home. >> congressman cole, i want to go back for one second to that political grandstanding that newt was discussing and actually took some shots on. and take a look at senator thune who said this. >> this va issue is a national embarrassment, and the president's response to it is an embarrassment. >> we just heard speaker boehner say this isn't about the president, this is about shin s shinseki. we need to keep our eye on the ball basically. where do you stand? do you stand with making the political pot shots or stand with speaker boehner where everybody should just remained focused on this investigation so we can actually fix the problem? >> well, i think the speaker also is pretty emphatic, look, we have potential criminal wrongdoing, people who have died.

the administration has been there five years. five years. this actually isn't a congressional problem. when president bush was president we increased funding by about 100%, the veterans and we've continued to do that under president obama. in other words, congress will write the check. republican or democrat. it's actually never been a flashpoint. we added $1.8 billion more to the budget than what we passed in the house a couple weeks ago. this is a failure of administrative oversight. i'm a big admirer of general shinseki. i served on house armed services committee when he was army chief of staff. this guy that left a piece of himself in vietnam fighting for this country. this is a guy what was right about iraq. so i have a lot of admiration. but five years, and we're now finding what looks like systemic criminal -- you got to hold -- >> get to the bottom of this. look, there's an investigation in place. >> when you're padding -- >> there's also some suggestion this goes back beyond the five years that president obama's been in place. so, and to say it's not a congressional issue, it certainly is a congressional issue as to whether or not we're giving the resources to the va

to carry out the mandate that congress has set for them. that is to take care of the men and women who come back who leave a piece of them, physically or mentally, back in the country where they served. i disagree with the sense if we're giving them enough money, why are these backlogs taking place? why is it 125 days? >> we've been giving them the money they asked for. that's the point. >> that's not exactly true. >> that actually is exactly true. you don't increase an agency by 100% under one president and continue on essentially the same clip. the idea, again, i'm not suggesting we shouldn't do more. if the answer came back, we need more, i think the congress in a bipartisan sense would do it. >> wait a second. you guys yesterday had a bipartisan vote. you two voted together. that said that shinseki will now have the authority to fire 435 senior executives. that would certainly imply that prior to yesterday he didn't have the -- senator, of course, is leaving today without having picked this up. but certainly there seems to be

some belief that there's a structural problem as well as a financial problem. and that the structure may well be incapable in this current form. do you expect a significant -- are you comfortable if a significant number of those 435 don't have their jobs at the end of the summer? >> what i'm comfortable in, newt, is that the men and women who deserve the care that they need get that care. no matter whether you fire folks or not. at the end of the day, if it doesn't get the men and women who need their help that they need, then you're really not accomplishing anything. why i voted for the bill was to gi the authority to the secretary to make the changes that he thinks he needs to make in order to make it a more effective and more efficient va and get the help to the people that need it. >> let me have a specific example. senator heller was here from nevada last night. he said the head of the reno va, a layer below the ones who would be fired, refuses to answer any call by members of the

delegation. now, isn't there some point at which there ought to be some ability to reassert control? >> there's no we that something went wrong here. there's no doubt about it. even the president said that. general shinseki has said that. and we want to get to the root of this. i think calling for heads to roll without knowing who's responsible, and i tell you this, if there was criminal activity, they need to face criminal charges. >> and secretary shinseki did send out a message to veterans tonight on the eve of memorial day, and he repeated the details of the investigation that's under way. 200 senior members of the va are going through every single major facility. they're independent of these facilities, to get to the bottom of what's going on so they can take action to fix it. are you satisfied with that? >> i think it's a step in the right direction. look, i also have to look at -- this is the fit yefth year. i don't recall the authority we

gave general shinseki has been asked for before. this is a congressional initiative to let's give you more tools. >> where's the congressional oversight? he's been there for five years. this problem goes way back. where's congressional oversight? >> there's a lot of congressional oversight but you can only deal with the information you're given by an agency that's now producing statistics that we know aren't true. you have to hold people in the agency accountable. i'm glad we gave them the tool. glad we did that in a bipartisan fashion. politically, i think it's going to be very hard to sustain the current leadership that's been there for five years and didn't discover the problem is now reacting after the facts. >> listen, to be clear for a second, a lot of the stuff we're unearthing is about lying. so when you have oversight with people who are lying, it's a little tricky. >> isn't that the same -- you're making the point on both the administration's point and kochkoch congress' point. if somebody's lying there's no way for anybody to have advanced warning on this. there are facts here we need to remember. congressman crowley, you talked about the 2 million people added

to the system. just in the last couple of years. that's a significant need in resources to deal with the health care. >> let me offer a little bit different view of this which is i think a real secret here in washington, which causes massive problems at every federal agec y agency. not just the veterans administration. next, i will tell you what it is and tell you who agrees with me. i think you're going to be surprised. first, today's "crossfire" quiz. which agency has the largest workforce? is it the department of the army? veterans affairs? or homeland security? we'll have the answer when we get back. passion...

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welcome back. now, the answer to our "crossfire" quiz, veterans affairs has the largest workforce accounting for 15% of

all federal civilian employees. next comes the army, the navy, homeland security, and the air force. but no matter which agency you work for, washington's real secret is that congress has piled up so many rules and so many regulations it is nearly impossible to do anything innovative. even if the people at google and facebook took over veterans affairs, they could not clean up the information mess. if you won't take my word for it, listen to this man. you may have heard, he had a few problems setting up a federal website for his favorite project. >> how we purchase technology in the federal government is cumbersome, complicated, and outdated. you're going through, wroyou kn 40 pages and there are all kinds of laws involved and it makes it more difficult. >> i agree with president obama. if congress really wants to fix the veterans administration, it needs to change the law about

buying information technology. and that is congress' job. not the president's or secretary shinseki's. in the crossfire tonight, congressman joe crowley and tom cole. i want to share, i was very struck by this, there was a poll today -- i want to put up this for a second, congressman crowley -- that asked the question, who do you blame most? i was fascinated when i saw it because it has secretary shinseki in the national va, the local va hospitals, or president obama. it didn't have the congress. and it struck me, and again, i'm a big, as you know as speaker of the house, i deeply believe in this. in all fairness, when you look at the systemic changes, when you look at this universal problem with information technology, doesn't congress need to take a really big bite at trying to figure out how to fix these things on a big scale? >> i think looking for the rainbow here because it's a dark period right now. people have died because of denial of care where they ought to have gotten that care. we need to find out why that

happened. the end of the day, how can we make this system a better system? that's what it's about. getting the men and women who deserve the system to deliver the health care they deserve is what it's about. in the end we need to find a way to simplify it, make it work in more efficient ways. i thing that's something the democrats and republicans would both agree upon is this is not about politics. this ought to be about getting these men and women -- adding to this the fact that you now take for granted if you're exposed in vietnam to agent orange -- >> that's right. >> -- you come with certain predisposed notions about how to take care of them. that's also adding to them. we have to give them the resources, give them the doctors, real nurses they need to take care of these folks. >> there's another piece of this poll, congressman cole, they did poll some veterans and here's what veterans said the problem at the va hospitals are. not having adequate resources, 44%. not properly managing those resources, 43%. so it's pretty even in terms of

resources and reform. do you agree with that? >> actually i do. again, i point out the resources here actually have grown much faster than almost any other area of government. they've done it under a republican and democrat president alike. they've done it in republican and democratic congresses alike. so i think getting a handle on this thing in an executive sense is really critical. i think congress is prepared to do its part in oversight and we clearly, again, the tools that secretary shinseki just got were given to him by the congress. i mean, this is something, okay, we want you to have this. >> one piece of follow-up on that. you know, the va makes a budget request every year. the house underfunded that budget request $50 million for information technology and $368 million for services. so that's 0 for 2. go back to newt's baseball analogy, you're 0 for 2. you know, they have an increase demand because of the 2 million

vets brought into the system. >> yes and no, look -- >> and you're cutting their funding by hundreds of billions. >> quite frankly, what's happening here, and it's actually paradoxical, the va has expanded -- we put enough money in, more people that are eligible are using it now which is a good thing, but it does create an add mministrative prom in terms of catch-up. there's more people using it because the facilities in many cases are better. >> yes, 2 million more. >> believe me, i understand. that's about 7 million. about 25 million in terms of veterans populations and people that actually use it. but, again, congress has been willing to do this. presidents have been willing to do this. but there are a whole layers of protection for the bureaucracy. there are whole impediments here that frankly largely democratic built in many cases from a labor standpoint that need to be gotten out of the way. >> what about the funding? >> we're winding down two wars. i mean, it's not as if these people aren't coming home. they are coming home. thankfully so. they're going to need additional help. people who have been exposed to

roadside bombs and have traumatic brain injuries and have been exposed to they're going to need help. we need to continue that and make sure they have every resource they need. >> let me give you an example of why i talked about reform. we spent $2.1 billion in the defense department on health information technology and failed totally. they spent a billion $200 million trying to fix the v.a. defense department interface and announced in february they were giving up because they just couldn't figure it out. now, it takes 183 days to transfer from the defense department to the v.a. it takes 11 seconds to get money out of your atm. this is why -- i can't tell you if we have enough people or not enough people because the system is so totally screwed up right now. i have no idea. >> it may not be just about money. i'll be willing to say that i'll

tell you, i have a bill that would require any doctor that when a person comes in and they ask this one question, have you ever served in our nation's military. because some vets don't want to go to v.a. for whatever reason. that one question in and of itself can direct the doctor towards diagnosing what the problem may be and really saving us all money and having a better system. one little simple bill. so i think there are things we can do to help make it a better system. but i think getting bogged down in the politics and the blame game isn't going to help anyone. >> i don't think we are bogged down in the politics. >> i don't know. if you look what is going on. >> you have you democrats calling for shinseki. it's not like it's just a republican there are lat of members. listening to john barrow earlier today talking about some of his constituents that he think died as a result of this. you know, you're going to be pretty upset. making this into a republican witch-hunt, it's just not. you have bipartisan outrage about what has happened. you have an administration that frankly has been sort of caught napping here. this came up on them. they didn't see it.

we've been willing to write checks. so, again, i think at some point, and look, i don't think this is general shinseki. but clearly, we've got a whole layer of people between him and the truth. ought to get fired. >> i didn't say it was a partisan issue. i say dpurlg the secretary's resignation and thinking it's going to solve the problem, it's not. >> i agree with you. >> we're both outraged. >> okay. stay here. we want you at home to weigh in on today's fireback question. who do you blame most for the v.a. scandal? we have added that missing category. tweet sin saeki, obama or congress. we'll have results after the break. we also have the outrages of the day. i'm outraged at a florida republican who thinks that good education will make your child gay.

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and get two wifi networks included. comcast business built for business. welcome back to "crossfire." now it's time for our outrages of the day. experts and teachers in 44 states plus washington, d.c. have come up with a set of standards that are supposed to ensure students are prepared for a college level entry careers or job training programs. it's called common core. and whether or not you agree with it, i'm outraged by a florida state lawmaker's objection to it. republican charles vanzandt says the people implementing common core have a hidden agenda, to, quote, every one of your children to become as homosexual as they, end quote. if basic education and intelligence is what makes you

gay, then this guy has nothing to worry about. mr. vanzandt, you are safely heterosexual. >> i'm outraged because obamacare's so-called glitches aren't limited to computers. federal bureaucrats would not let a south carolina woman get the medicine she needs because their website keeps telling them she is man. shelby says she called healthcare.gov eight times and talked with what she believed were real people. and she called the insurance company and talked to what she was sure were real people because they started hanging up on her. she could not get her medicine for three weeks because they kept saying she was a man. finally she called a tv station which called the bureaucrats who claim they have now fixed the problem with obamacare. so you don't have to be a veteran to be abused by bureaucrats. let's check on our fireback results. who do you blame most for the v.a. scandal? we add tweet shinseki, obama or congress. 38% say obama and 53% say

congress. >> hardly a surprise. but it does reveal why the president attacks congress when he thinks something goes wrong in his administration. because we're the easy guys to kick around. the reality is here two administrations have gotten almost everything they requested in terms of dollars from congress. congress actually preemptively gave this week additional tools on a bipartisan basis, by the way. this is an executive failure of the first magnitude. probably was under bush. certainly is under this president. and frankly, i think at the end of the day, that's the way it will play out. >> i think the congress has a role to play here, obviously. i'm not totally shocked by the results. we have been so focused on make-believe crises like the irs scandal and benghazi. here is something we really should be delving into in terms of our oversight responsibilities. and congress has failed in this particular case. >> thanks to representatives joe crowley and tom cole. the debate continues at cnn.com/crossfire as well as facebook and twitter. from the left, i'm stephanie

cutter. >> from the right, i'm newt gingrich. join us next time for another edition of "crossfire." "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. next, breaking news. tornadoes threatening millions tonight. dramatic damage and extreme weather from coast-to-coast. plus a california girl missing for ten years suddenly found. she is now married to her alleged abductor and has a child with him. and another nba owner in hot water today over comments about race. why mark cuban says he is a bigot. let's go "outfront." good evening. i'm brianna keilar in for erin burnett. dangerous weather threatening