discussion, i think the political anxiety that people feel has -- you know, is bound to go down. there are a whole lot of conclusions coming out of a three-way race in new york a year before the election. i do not want to put you down, but that is kind of foolish. a lot will happen between now and the fall of 2012. >> just to clarify, if this group comes up with trillions of dollars worth of cuts but without substantially changing medicare, it will not get your vote? >> right. >> other republicans have introduced legislation basically saying that if congress does not vote to increase the debt ceiling that would not lead to a default. do you agree with that? >> what i think is that this is actually a great opportunity.

one of the problems of the complex legislative system like the one we have -- which i am all in favor of -- checks and balances -- i think the founders did a good job. but the problem is, how you get something done? nothing focuses the attention of both branches of government on -- in one place like the decision to raise the debt ceiling. it puts everybody at the table. it puts everybody at the table on a bipartisan basis. and everybody knows something must be done. so this is why this is the critical moment -- actually an opportunity to come together. what i do not understand is all the hand-wringing about the politics of it. let me remind you that after reagan and tip o'neill came together and authored the trajectory on social security in 1983, ronald reagan eked out

the next election carrying only 49 of 50 states. anything we agree to do together will not be an issue in next year's election. the public will look at that and they will conclude that if both sides felt this was necessary -- i might not have liked this part of it or that part of it, but if both parts thought this was something we needed to do, i do not think either side will have to worry about political fallout next year. >> on medicare, do you favor the premium support plan for medicare, or do you favor some kind of other change to curb the growth of maymedicare? >> i'm not going to tell you what i think we should do in here. i expect that to come out of the discussions going on with the vice president. >> speaker boehner said he is

only going to allow the debt ceiling will vote if the cuts are more than the debt ceiling rate. they are only at one trillion dollars now. >> you ask me to put a number on it earlier. i am not going to put a number on it. i have a sense of what i think is significant, and i'm not going to get more specific than what i told you. i think we need a top line for 2012 and 2013 that continues to push discretionary spending downward, and we need significant entitlement reform, but i'm not going to put in any numbers. i'm not going to put a number on it for myself. i am just telling you what it would take to get my vote. not irrelevant will be the market reaction to this,

standard and poor's and others. they need to look at this and conclude that this is not smoke and mirrors. this is not maybe do something some day. this is real. this is guys who came together, understood that admiral mollen and erskine bowles were correct and that we're doing something important and sustainable to get our house in order. that is what it will take to get my vote. the details of it, i am not going to share with you guys. i love you all, but i'm not going to share the details of this deal with you so i would encourage you to ask your question in a different way. >> legislation is always some form of compromise. your insistence on putting medicare on the table --

>> it is on the table. >> why not [inaudible] >> i am confident the taxes are not going to be a part of this. medicare is on the table. that has been the knowledge by the people who are participating -- acknowledged by the people who are participating in the talks. it is going to be a part of any final agreement. >> on a different subject, you spent a lot of time this week pushing the patriot act extension down the pipeline. you sent it to the white house and they decided to audit it. are you comfortable with it? are you concerned a judge could jeopardize it? >> that is a better question to ask of them. they did the research and their lawyers apparently advised them that this is permissible. i have looked at the legality of it and ttherefore do not have

any objection. >> on recess appointments, could you say that elizabeth warren's name is no longer on the table? >> i could not say that. our talks were about the issue of recess appointments this week and i'm confident they're not going to happen. >> that is the one you talked about the most. >> we did not talk about a particular individual. >> yousuf if you do this together, there will not be a political fallout, but senators sununu, gordon smith, norm coleman might disagree with you. you yourself had ads against you for taking a lead role before.

how is the environment different today? >> i have been talking about entitlement reform, and i think the 1983-1984 elections are pretty close analogy to what we are in the process of considering here. there was entitled reform. it could clearly have been argued that it impacted benefits because this jury -- the social security age went up under that agreement over time. no question it impacted beneficiaries long-term -- not short term, but long term. i think that is a clear analogy to what we are involved in right now, which is an immediate financial meltdown, which is what we were confronted with in 2008. >> do you believe the defense of military -- the defense of

marriage act applies to the military across the board? >> i supported the defense of marriage act. i have not given any thought to the question you ask, so i will not respond. >> i am wondering why you voted for the rand paul budget. >> i believe my kentucky colleague is extremely serious about reducing government spending. he has made that his issue. i think he is serious about it. he has my respect for continuing to press us to do more. he did a lot of work on the budget, and i think it deserved my support. >> valley have a version of the defense authorization bill -- now that you have a version of

the defense authorization bill coming your way, there is the issue of authority over guantanamo detainees and provisions of nuclear weapons. what is the bill going to look like when it is all said and done? >> gosh, i have no idea. i have not even looked at the details of the house-passed a version, nor have we crafted one in the senate. that has too many moving parts. >> you are willing to say medicare is on the table. are higher taxes or new revenue raises on or off the table? >> as i have said repeatedly, we do not have a tax problem. we have a spending problem. everybody knows that, and that is what we need to be talking about, how to get spending down. >> are taxes on or off the table? >> yes.

>> if there is tax reform, if there are any revenues used to go to debt reduction, is that something -- >> in my never ending quest to frustrate all of you [laughter] i'm not going to negotiate the deal with you. what i have said is, to get my vote -- i am not trying to exaggerate my own importance here, i'm just not going to speak for anybody else. to get my vote, we have to do significant time in reform -- significant entitlement reform. the president does not want to address social security, so i am assuming we will not do that. we should, but i am assuming we will not. everyone has conceded, including president clinton and congressman hoyer that medicare is on the table. all i am saying now is that to get my vote we would have to do

something long term to make sure that people on medicare still have a program. own trustees of medicare and social security, which include two of his cabinet members, maybe more, at least two of them, declared last week -- this is the president's own cabinet, just last week, that medicare is in trouble -- sen. to suggest that it is not part of the discussion -- i'm just saying it is part of the discussion. >> the vice-president says tax revenues are on the table. >> the vice president can speak for himself. i am saying what it would take to get my vote. how many more? [laughter]

>> when it comes to fema, would you suggest cuts to that? >> the house has found a way to pay for it. thank you very much everybody. >> tomorrow on "washington journal," town hall.com political editor and thinkprogress.org editor discuss politics. we discuss political action committees that could affect the 2012 election. that is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> follow c-span's "washington journal" on twitter, and get the

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communicator's," and discussion on how freedom of speech is changing freedom of expression. our guest is rebecca mccann and of the new america foundation. >> -- rebecca mckinnon of the new america foundation. >> what is the chinese self discipline award? >> that is an award given out every year by the internet society of china. it is for the top 20 companies that do the best job of censoring content. what goes on in china -- china has a system where there is not only censoring at the network level, so that when you try to access the web site you suddenly get an error message or something like that, but most people in china are using chinese internet platforms. they are using a chinese version of youtube. they are using a chinese social networking