thing. they rushed the guide to the beginning of the line and they knew what the question would be. let's not be disingenuous and dishonest. secondly, you foment some things you are hearing like the colors in front of me who said that lindsey gramm and john mccain -- they are american citizens. you are pushing one side against the other and you need to stop it, ok? guest: on the first point, john mccain and linseed graham said it was a step in the right direction, not that they accepted the stigma. so, we disagree there. on embracing the new media, and meant that generally. i was talking about the first prime time press conference. . .

i think it has become often too personal in this country in recent years, but this is a policy debate. there have not been personal attacks made by lindsey gramm and john mccain against president obama, and president obama can as he said yesterday, respects john mccain's passion on this issue. this to me feels like what washington does. host: scott wilson for "the washinton post," thank you for being with us. coming up next, congressman akin will join us.

now a news update from c-span radio. >> president obama focuses on health issues when he meets this afternoon with several governors and hosts a town hall meeting later today at the white house carried by a c dot carried by abc news. later, kathleen sebelius says the president is willing to listen on how to pay for health- care overhaul as long as they do not increase the deficit. the senate received articles of impeachment from the house this morning in the case against judge samuel kent, a federal judge in texas who has been convicted of sexual assault in his home state. the senate has not held such a trial since the impeachment of president bill clinton in 1999. the federal reserve board continues their two-day meeting today. members are considering whether some programs intended to drive down rates on mortgages and other consumer debt to be slow down. most economists predict fed

chairman ben bernanke will not raise interest rates. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> as this year's supreme court term comes to an end, here chief justice roberts talk about the court tossed work. as well as some court watchers, including linda greenhouse, gen crawford greenberg, and ted olson. live coverage at 9:00 eastern on c-span, saturday. >> join our 3 our conversation sunday, july 5, live on in depth on c-span-2's book tv. >> how is c-span funded?

>> through donations crac? >> my guess is government funding. >> the viewers? >> how with c-span funded? 30 years ago america pause cable companies greeted c-span as a public service, a private business initiative. no government mandate, no government money. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our guest is representative todd akin. good morning. >guest: good morning, a pleasure to join you. host: tell us what is happening on your committee. guest: the armed services committee looks over all the military needs of the entire country. i iman see, power, there are others on the land and air. there is a $600 million budget for the new year. that is maybe a 1% increase, so

maybe with inflation is a little bit of a cut perhaps. it is a pretty bipartisan committee. people get along pretty well on it because everybody wants to see our nation properly defended. but there are some points where there is disagreement on party lines, and then there are some disagreements between the administrative branch and legislative branch. host: what are your areas of concerns with the defense budget? guest: the biggest one in terms of the party line separation is the middle -- the missile defense issue. there has always been a republican-democrat disagreement, but that has been moderated some in past years because missile defense was built and does work. so, consequently, there are not as severe cuts as the could have been as there were eight years ago when i arrived. but the type of missile defense that is being cut in this budget

is what is called ground-based defense. these are very large missiles. most of them in alaska, some in california. they are designed to stop the very longest-range what is called intercontinental ballistic missile. those go a really long way, and those are the times of -- those are the types of missiles being developed by north korea and iran. once they are launched, we have no defense against that missile other than these ground-based systems, and that is being cut. that is where there is some disagreement. we are very strongly supportive as a republican. that was one area of missile defense. another one is a little more high-tech kind of a program which is called the airborne laser. this is a very large aircraft that has the capability of

developing a very powerful laser that is focused through mirrors, and it can range a couple of hundred miles even, potentially to burn a hole in a missile that is taking off. missiles that are taking off, or what they call boost phase, are very fragile. if you burn a hole through them, they tend to disintegrate right over the country that launched it, which is very -- which is a very nice place to put the waste, over the people that were going to launch it at you. it is a very high-tech thing, a very powerful laser focused with different mirrors and different lenses to guide it exactly where you want to hit. and then to hold it right on a missile at a certain same spot, so the missile is not going by it, but you are holding it on the same place as the missile is moving very rapidly. missile defense would be the

biggest partisan difference in the bill. host: you have a regional concern that is economic as well. guest: these tend to be a little bit more of a disagreement between the administration and the legislative branch. in my particular situation, i am from the st. louis area. we build a lot of the f-18's that go on aircraft carriers. there is a very big shortage that the navy has of the aircraft, and the f-18 is the only fighter coming off aircraft carriers. we make the argument that aircraft carriers are very -- are not very useful if they do not have airplanes on them. four or five carriers may not have any airplanes on them all. so there's quite a shortage of the f-18's, and we continue to ask the administration about this problem and they continue to say, well, we are going to take a look at in this

quadrennial review. then the question comes, it is not that complicated. we have 44 plainsboro carrier, and you are going to be short four or five -- with the 44 planes -- we have 44 planes per carrier, and you are going to be short for four or five carriers. we want to know what they're thinking in terms of giving us the data so that we can analyze what the needs are. making the general signs that they will not say anything other than the party line, or not so, -- we are not so comfortable with that approach. we think we can make better decisions working as a team rather than us/them. host: you can call york -- you can call for questions or comments for senatorepresentatie

akin. there is a shift from the long- range focus to more of a short- range, mid range. he has defended the planned cuts for the long-range missile defense plan. guest: is his job to defend what the pentagon tells him to defend. the longest range are called intercontinental ballistic missiles, or icbm. we have no other defense other than those ground-based systems. a somewhat shorter missile would be called a ballistic missile. that is particularly a threat if, for instance, in the pacific, to an aircraft carrier or a fleet of ships, and they would be used perhaps by china to force us not to have ships close to taiwan, for instance.

so the ballistic missile is also a type of threat, and we addressed those with a ship- based defensive missile, which comes off of our cruisers, but particularly a new breed of destroyer. the japanese also have destroyers, a defense against these ballistic missiles. it is important to stop ballistic missiles. that is being funded, so there originally was not any controversy there. we are saying it is not an either/or, but a both/and. host: next call, republican line. guescaller: we call ourselves te moose herder's. teddy roosevelt is our hero. the bull moose party of 1912.

i have a request into question, congressman. my question is that would you join our moose herder's and designate bill cohen as the spokesperson and keep him in mind for president for 2012. my question about palestinians -- why can't they join the surrounding countries? you know, jordan, syria, egypt, instead of being their own country? guest: well, i am not sure any of the countries want the palestinians. they like them as an arguing point, but i am not really sure that jordanians really want the palestinians. i am not sure exactly what would be the position that they take when you ask that very simple question because the palestinians are problematic, i think, for a number of the

countries over there. i am not an expert on the details of that, but i do know the palestinians, while all the muslim nations say look how bad the palestinians are, they are not so quick to jump in and help them either. host: defense secretary gates has raised some concerns about the history of testing and the reliability of the system. do you feel like testing has been adequate and that the system has proven itself? guest: well, they have run quite a number of different tests. to my knowledge, all of the tests have been successful, with the exception of a couple of times. one time they loaded the wrong software and it was a test software as opposed to the real software that shoots the missile, so it was in this loading of a desk. another place where a test was unsuccessful was because the missiles they were testing against failed. it was not the defense missile that failed, but it was the offense missile that failed, so that did not work.

really the level of success is very high, but we need to continue to test because the geometry of how the missiles come together, the closing speeds, the working of the different radars, integration of the software -- it is one of those things that you continue to work on and you continue to have better and better results. it was originally thought that we would hit a missile with a missile. we are not there at this point. we are hitting a spot on a missile with a missile. we are not targeting just a missile, but a spot on a missile. you can see the video clips of these two missiles colliding in the air. there is an x on the side of the missile that we are trying to hit, exactly where we want to hit it. from the physics point of view, there is no warhead on the missile that we shoot. it is just a piece of metal that is going, and they are going together at such tremendous velocity that it looks like a

huge explosion. but it is really like a head-on car wreck, only sped up 1000 times. host: what do you think -- why do you think the secretary has brought up concerns about missile testing? guest: i think that is a standard deal. ever since ronald reagan talked about missile defense, there's always been the argument that it is too expensive, it will not work, we will be destabilized. first of all, the "don't work" is something that people hid behind for quite awhile. well, they do work, very well, and quite sophisticated from the point of view of protecting our nation. you actually are hitting an incoming missile out over the pacific, so the trash does not fall -- you do not want that trash falling over our country, especially if it is a nuclear warhead. first of all, they do work, and that is causing the democrats to shift over where they are

supporting it to some degree. he used to be when i came in in 2001, it was a straight party vote. not one democrats supported it, nl over the period of time we have seen it, there has been much greater levels of support. you have the testing element. you have to continue to test systems. when of the things they have to test will be the enemy, and shed of shooting one missile, they shoot 10 missiles that break into pieces. now we have to come up with a missile that breaks into 10 pieces, or that his it early enough before it breaks apart. host: our next caller is from atlanta, georgia. eric joins us from the democrats' line. caller: yes, the average person is not -- the point that i would like to make is this. john mccain has been in force

from the bottom. his father and grandfather helped him get admitted to the naval academy. this person, why is he considered a leader? why is his point of view so important? why should obama listen to him? this is what happens with a president who is not too bright. like george bush, he is manipulative. guest: it seems like the caller does not like any of the republicans at all. i do not know that mccain is that influential within the republican party, per se, but he has a long history of being in the defense business and knows something about it. as far as the bogeyman, you could say something about the boogeyman of radical islamic

terrorists after september 11. if you consider -- if you continue to see the launches of north korea and iran, i guess you could say it is the boogeyman. it is clear they are refining uranium and in reaching it. there is only one reason to do that in their case, and it appears they have the attention of -- they have the intent of making nuclear weapons. and we have a leadership that is not doing their job. if there is one thing that the federal government should be doing, it is defending america. there are many, many things that could be done at state and local levels whereby individuals -- or by individuals or by private industry, and we are meddling in all those different things. what we should do is major in the things that cannot be done at the federal level, and that is taking care of defense.

calling defense the boogeyman it i think is a little bit naive. host: from okeechobee, florida, james joins us on the independent life. good morning, are you with us? caller: this is chuck miller from sun prairie, wisconsin. caller: chuck, we are delighted to have you. caller: i am wondering what ever happened to the a abl program. the abl's were supposed to be operative by 2007, but we have never heard about it. we have come along way from when i was involved in missile programs. the accuracy is unbelievable. we missed half the time when we shot at the drone. the drone was launched upper range, and we had in this -- and

we had a miss distance. what has ever happened to the abl program. guest: the abl is airborne laser. that is one of the programs that is to be cut, and republicans are opposed to cutting that. is a huge, huge jet like air force one. the whole center carbone -- the whole center of the plane is housing the chemicals that create the laser. with reflecting mirrors and fenty lenses, it goes to a big cyclops eye on the front of the airplane which can direct the laser. there are three lasers that operate on the plane. the first one is a little tiny

spotting laser that looks out in the distance and see is the enemy missile, and it says, ok, i see it and i know where it is. the second laser then takes an measures the atmosphere between the aircraft that has the airborne laser and the enemy missile and checks basically the optic of the atmosphere that the laser is going through in order to tune this very powerful laser, and then they punched the third one. the third one is held on target, and because the optics have been straightened out in such a way it directs tremendous energy to a spot about 6 inches in diameter and can burn a hole through a great numbers of materials, at least probably up to 100-mile range. that is obviously the potential technology that has other applications, but the idea being that you may be able to catch a missile near the beginning of its ascent when it is much more

fragile and to destroy it early on before it becomes a problem that you have to use the other missiles to get it on the midcourt section. -- on the mid-course section. this summer it is to have the laser fired through the marriage, and it should be tested this summer. we hope that the funding -- through the mirrors, and it should be tested this summer. we hope the funding will not be cut. host: so many republicans are calling for fiscal restraint. do you see a place where there is room for budget cuts in defense? guest: there is always a problem with the federal government spending money. we are sloppy, and the federal government is not very good at spending money in general. no matter where you go with the federal government spending money, you will always find waste and not very good ways of handling that. we do worse when we have large amounts of money that we try to spend in a hurry.

then we really make a lot of mistakes, and that will go on with just the nature of the federal government. the concern that we have is that the federal government really should be focused on doing a few tasks well instead of trying to meddle in every part of the economy, deciding what auto dealers should be closed and deciding whether or not we're going to fire the president of an automaker, whether we are going to get into the insurance business, the banking business. host: but do you see specific places for potential cuts? guest: well, first of all, there was a cruiser that was designed for the mission of the ship changed. so we did not really need that. they were building a couple of them, but the need for that ship is no longer there. the ship was changed into some super destroyer instead. another example would be we have a combat ship. the government was sloppy, the navy was sloppy in trying to press too fast in building the

ships. they are smaller ships used independently of a big fleet. they are used to go after pirates or clearing minefields from harbors and things like that, or submarines. these contracts were done rather poorly. there were two prototype shops that were built -- there were two prototype ships that were built. i think the temptation to buy both of them, probably we should not do that. we should probably just stick to one ship. so there are places that we need to be very careful of our spending. host: from newsstand, pennsylvania, democrats like. larry joins us. caller: i appreciate the chance to get through. as you know, it is not easy to get through. i am kind of astounded by this man. he talks with the cadence of a banker, like he is so sure that all of these things are going to work. that they are definitely, surely needed.

it reminds me of eisenhower's farewell speech, and he knows it, and he says beware of the military-industrial complex. i was taking economics when i came out of the service in the vietnam era, and the gentleman said this war, vietnam, along with some programs that johnson is getting through, it is going to cost us a lot inflationary because we cannot have the budget. -- we cannot have guns and butter, meaning you cannot have social programs along with building up large budget. who knows how much the cost overrun is going to be on this new laser plane he is talking about? this is scary to me because we need -- europe has medical care for everybody and also free tuition at their colleges.

guest: well, i think what you see here, and this is fairly typical of the difference between the two political parties in america, and that is the perspective of what the federal government should be doing. i think the caller is making a case for the socialize medicine that they have in england. a lot of the european countries and canada -- as a republican and conservative, i do not think it should be the job of the federal government to run the medical system. i do not want to get sick and have to run into a medical system with the compassion of the irs and the efficiency of the post office. we have at least partly privately run health care system now which, in spite of all the trouble with cost shifting and how we pay for it, still provides a better quality of medicine than anything you can find anywhere in the world. it is not so much guns and butter, it is what is the federal government designed to do? and the one thing that it must do is defend our nation.

the percent of money that we spend of gross domestic product has remained fairly stable. it has been gone down. we are at about 4% or so, and that is probably not of line. if you really want the federal government to take care of everybody, then you really adopt the same philosophy that the former soviet union did -- the government is going to provide you with a job and health care. the government is going to provide you with an education. the government is going to tell you when to get up in the morning. we saw how well that system worked. why would it be that we would do the exact same thing to ourselves and get the government involved in health care, running insurance, running the car companies, telling everybody how to do everything? i just do nothing that is the proper function of the federal government. the amount of money that was spent just at the beginning of this year, $800 billion, was enough money to buy 250 aircraft

carriers with that money, which we did not have. and which our grandchildren will have to repay. what was the money used for? i suppose butter, but not really bother. it was used to support nancy pelosi's district, and there is more important things that we should be spending federal government money on. host: good morning, richard. caller: thank you for c-span. i was in the south pacific. i have a question. first, i was wondering if you were aboard with ron paul's idea of auditing the federal reserve, which is a pretty big issue. if you want more information, go to infowars.com. it is like a giant ponzi scheme

run by bernie madoff. guest: i have a co-sponsor of that bill. the federal reserve system ais a private bank. they have been doing some amazing things lately. i think it is extremely a proper for the federal government and those of us in congress to know what the federal reserve is doing. so i think it is a very good bill that ron paul has, with a lot of co-sponsors, and it is basic transparency. the federal reserve is doing things on the up and up, and they should be willing to share that information with us because they do control our money supply. there was an article that appeared two weeks ago on a thursday in the editorial page of "it will street journal" which shows what they have done with m1, which is the supply of money. you go back from 1960, van de graaff