ms. cantwell: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to consideration of s. res. 406 submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 406, designating april 4, 2014, as national association of junior auxiliaries day. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. a senator: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of s. res. 407, submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 407, honoring former senator and rear admiral jeremiah andrew denton jr.

the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. ms. cantwell: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed tosh the preamble be agreed torque the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes it' its business todat adjourn until 10:00 a.m. tuesday, april 1, 2014. that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. that following any leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business for one hour, with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the republicans controlling the final half. and that following morning business, the senate resume consideration of h.r. 3979, the vehicle for the unemployment insurance extension. further, the senate recess from

12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucuses. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the provisions of s. res. 407, as a further mark of respect in memory of the senator late jeremiah denton of alabama. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow and does so as a mark of further respect to the memory of the honorable jeremiah andrew denton jr. work towns co

>> a conversation with david co cohan from comcast and then a look at the u.s. roll tax policy and later senator deeds talk about mental health care. i thi

very good story there as well. lots of procompetitive impact aas a result of the increased scale and investment.

wireless is beginning to be a com p competitor for broadband and national share and broadband. the issue is local share. and in no local market will there be any less choice after the transaction than there is before the transaction. >> host: i want to get you to respond to what david carr wrote after the announcement of the merger. for consumers, cable sent television any more. it is where the internet comes from and should this go through more people that want to cut the cable cord will have to get broadband from a company that only goes up. >> guest: in terms of buying

broadband today, consumers will have the same choices before and after this. the theory that this transaction is going to reduce choice for the purchase of broadband isn't true at all. number two, according to the fcc 93% of americans have access to broadband and 97% of them have a choice of at least two broadband providers. so it isn't a single-choice market as mr. carr represents. and last the prices on broadband only go one direction, which is up, is only true if you look at sticker price. but with promotions, prices for broadband have been stable and when you realize the speed and capacity built-in, comcast

consumers pay less for what was delivered a day ago. so sharply declining prices. >> host: howard bus is here on the panel. >> you have yet to file your merger application at the fcc. what is the time table and what seem to be taking the time to get it in? >> the current plan, there is no definitive date, but the current plan is to do the filing and our public interest statements and license transfer in the early week of april. roughly the second period of april and that is the time period we thought this would take. public interest statement is a major, major filing.

it takes a considerable amount of time to prepare and prepare thoroughly. it is part of the mechanics to get the process started at the fcc and the justice department. >> one transaction i spent a lot of time covering was at&t and t-mobile. i realize it is different. but we are seeing the opposition on social media to this. i am wondering are you concerned about the level of opposition you are starting to see? >> guest: there is cleary opposition expressed but i think it safe to say that in any media transaction that has been -- media or telecom transaction -- there has been opposition prom from a group of people that a

argues any time there is merging the sky is falling and the internet is going to end as we know it. those predictions have been discredited and disproven in multiple transactions and i think they are equally untrue today. and i think i have been struck by the absence of rationale, knowledgeable voices in this space raising serious questions. unlike at&t-t mobile where you had lawyers from the outset saying what is at&t thinking? number four competitor and number one competitor reducing consumers choice and you have not heard those weigh in. >> you know the psychological

problem of taking one of the four competitors but you would control 40% of the broadband market and there are questions about when is too big and is there a limit to the size of how big one operator can get. >> great question. a lot of the opposition from this group of people who oppose everything is based upon big is bad. and whenever you get bad, that is a bad thing. and sometimes big is bad. i will acknowledge that. but sometimes big is important and necessary and really good. and that would tend to be in high capital industries, in industries where innovation is

fast moving and that is your industry. so the rationale for this transaction is all about scale. we are going to get bigger but the critical benefits of this transaction will be the ability to invest more and spread the investment across a large customer base and allow us to compete against competitors. time warner isn't a competitor, the real ones are direct tv. dish, national company. at&t, global company. verizon, global company. increasingly netflix, national a. and most are bigger than we are. they have a larger geoographical reach and by customers.

so this is about increase competition and creating more consumers benefit. that should not be scary to people. and knowledgeable people look at the transaction and say this is a good thing for consumers to create a near-national cable and broadband competitor to compete against the national and global players that are shaping the market place. in terms of broadband marketshare, i want to reiterate, if you only look at wire line broadband we would have a market share of less than 4 40%. 20% when you factor in wire lpless. the relevant market here isn't national. it is for you or peter or anything watching the show, what are my broadband choices where i live and there is nothing in

this transaction that is going to reduce broadband choice for any consumer in america. >> host: what conditions would comcast accept to get the deal done? >> guest: other than extending the conditions including the commitment to abide by the opening internet rules and that makes us the only isp in the country that is legally bound by those rules. and other than extending those, we need to wait and see what the regilato regilators say. we are respectful of process. but we have not been able to

start the process. but when the time is right we will have discussions with the justice department and the fcc. >> the fcc has a psychological thing where they have been clear they want four national carriers. do you think that psychologically they will have a respective on how big is too big and i know what you were saying about overall market share, but don't you think they will draw the line at some point? >> so, again, i have huge respect for the fcc. for the career folks, tom wheeler the current commissioner and all four members and i think they will look at this on the law and not emotional. but specifically the good news, i think for american consumers, for this transaction, is that fcc spent a lot of time working on the question of how big is

too big in the multi channel video market place. there have been two proceedings about a question on how big a share can one company have on the market place. they concluded they wanted to set a 30% horizontal cap. no higher than 30% of the multi channel video place. the washington, d.c. circuit struck down the ownership cap finding the fcc's conclusion were not supported by the facts or the law. and in fact, a single company could have a much higher market share than what the fcc had determined and still not have adverse impacts on the market. not withstanding that rule which is had the law of the land today. we agree we will have 3 million people to be under the 30%

horizontal cap that the fcc tried to put in place. the extent there is an emotional attachment to how big is too big. i think we are coming in underneath the level of which that emotional attachment exist. >> after the meeting, wheeler was asked about the meeting with the sprint officials and the acquiring of t-mobile. he said at least they came in and comcast never did. was that a mistake not to go see the chairman before? >> guest: i don't think he said at least they came in. >> comcast never did come in. >> guest: we don't believe the fcc is in the business of issueing advisory opinions. i think it was out of respect for the fcc and the long history

we had with the fcc that it is never in our interest to put an fcc chairman or as an institution on the spot to act for advisory panel without the review of the transaction. i didn't perceiver tom wheeler as being critical. i can he is making a factual comment. i took it as a compliment that we under the way the process works and print and t-mobile might not have. >> host: another factor in this is congress. will you be testifying before? >> guest: we have a hearing on april 9th and i will be the

comcast witness at that hearing. we have been to this rodeo a few times. we respect there fcc and congress. and we look forward to the publ public's hearing as an opportunity, like appearing here is, to make the case and spell out the strong, pro-competitive and pro-consumers benefits and the absence of material risk of any competitive activity as a result of it. >> so many of the articles after the merger were about you and your political influence. what did you think about those articles? >> guest: i am always humored by

them. it isn't my favorite thing in the morning to wake up and see an article about me. but i like government and i like politic and i have been involved in politics and government for 25 years and that old classic line some of my best friends are elected officials and they really really. i respect the work that is done and enjoy my relationships with them. but having been involved in the arena, there are no quid pro, and i would like to think the great elected officials will make decisions on the merits based on what they believe is the facts in the law at the time they look at it. at the end of the day, if an

elected official has a problem with this, they will oppose the transaction and that is their job. and i will respect that judgment just as much as i would respect the favor in favor of a vote. >> how many data are we talking? box loads? >> the files at the justice department isn't public. we file at the fcc and that is largely public. although certain things and elements are filled that are not part of the public record. so, you know, in connection with our public interest statements, we will be filing applications for license transfer and there

are hundreds of licenses involved here. so those will be voluminous and it will be the public interest statement itself. several affidavits are attached to the public interest statements. so you will have hundreds of pages of public filing on day one. in term of what follows, that goes to what the commission asks us to file and supplement. >> and the fcc will take a broader view and seek information from competitors and do a market snapshop. do you anticipate that? >> guest: i think the justice

department will. but with the fcc we will file the application and public interest statement and some amount of time the commission issues an order and puts the public statement on what is called public notice. they will set a schedule and there is some amount of time time for people to file at the fcc and some amount of people to reply to the filings. so you will see the positions and people will come in and meet with the fcc staff and individual fcc commissioners and they will be ex-party letters filled that disclose the existence of those net meetings and what was said in the meetings. bl >> sometimes they will go beyond that because that is the questions about how big is too

big. >> guest: maybe. remember a lot of entities the fcc doesn't have jurisdiction over. so most of what happens at the fcc is built off a report that is created of putting the public interest on notice and creating a process for anyone with interest to make filings. i will not say they will not solicit additional comments, but it is so public and unlike the doj process in that anything they do they will want to make part of the public record. >> host: david cohen is here with us. mr. cohen, how long has comcast had their eye on time warner

cable? >> guest: that is easy to answer because we filled the s-4 with the proxy. it is safe to say we are always interested in possible acq acquisitons. there was talk on if this made sense and over the course of the year there was discussions among multiple players in the industry with comcast and others about cable consolidation. and charter and comcast, time warner and charter and then the deal was struck between time warner and comcast ultimately. we are very disciplined in the way in which we think about

financial transactions. we want to make sure anything we do benefits shareholders and it is suggestional under oprationale sense. we would never want to take away from the operational team we have at comcast. but focused on the future of the company, and our balance sheet and brian loves to ask, we are comfortable where we have are today, but five and ten years from now what will the landscape look like? the additional scale that comes from this transaction gives us the ability to continue to invest in innovation and rnd to

stay ahead and deliver a high quality, appropriate priced video, high-speed data and telephone services to residential and business customers and brian keeps our eyes focused on that ball in a great way. it is that frame of how do we continue to be competitive and impactful with the balance sheet and operational excellance on both sides of the table. >> host: i want to ask you about other questions. pairing grements that the the wave of the future? >> -- >> guest: it is the way of the past for sure. they have been in exsistence

since the beginning of the internet. there are 40 content networks compete to sell access to the comcast network. we have 8,000 internet edge providers when access the internet mostly derivatives through the 40 wholesalers of access. they are settlement-free and they are free connections to the internet. it how the internet was built up and it is impossible to imagine an internet that doesn't continue to rely on the web of agreements in a competitive market and one that is working well from a competitive and

financial perspective. >> reed hastings, the ceo of netflix says if this leverage is effective against netflix which is small, imagine the future outcomes. and i wonder if you expect the fcc to look more into this? and how do you respond to hastings comment? >> guest: i think the fcc is looking into this and they were before hastings spoke. i think we will bay be able to make a case along the lines of peter's question where this isn't a place where government intervention is needed. i have huge respect for hastings and he is a great partner of

comcast and i think he would say comcast is a great partner of his. because if it wasn't for our investments, net flix wouldn't be as poplar. but his argument is hog wash on this. it has nothing to do with internet or net neutrality. there are 40 companies selling access to our pipe and broadband and the history, if it ever becomes known, will be that it was netflix that was the moving party making the deal and they want to cut out the wholesaler, and deal with us and control 30% of the internet.

>> host: and "the wall street journal" had a headline that apple and comcast are exploring a tv deal. what is your response to that he headline and what is the advantage of working with apple ? >> guest: you didn't see anyone from a comcast or apple in that. i will just say that is another example of how intense the competitive. we have the most valuable company in the world, generates $40-$50-billion a year in cash flow and they are working hard to figure out how to enter the market and it