correspondent for homeland security today will discuss the president's proposed $36 billion in cuts for the federal air marshal service and how the program has evolved since 9/11. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] "washington journal" ♪ ♪ host: good morning. it is presidents day monday, february 20, 2012. congress is on recess. the campaign for the republican nomination for president is heated and in full swing. our question for you is about occupants of the white house. who do you think has been america's most influential first lady? here are the numbers to call.

host: you can also e-mail in your comments. you can also find us on twitter. we can share that on the air. you can join the conversation on facebook. let's take a look at comments that have been coming in on our c-span page talking about who the most influential first lady was. paul writes -- barry says --

"the white house host: here is a comment on twitter. we are talking about the first ladies in honor of presidents day on c-span. let's take a look the clip of the tour of the first ladyies.

[video clip] >> why are we interested in what the first lady wears? we look to her clothing for clues about what she is like as a person, about what the administration may be like, both in its style -- is it extravagant? is it simple? possibly something about her politics. is it american made. do you proudly say that you only wear american designers? carolyn harrison made a point of only wearing american fabrics and american-made closing. if you look to the back, you'll see a beautiful dress of eleanor roosevelt. it is her first inaugural gown. she had a busy life. she made a point of saying --

busy women also like to buy their clothes of the rack. she also said you should not buy clothes made in sweatshops. host: you can watch it on c-span at 11:00 25:30 this evening and the full program will be archived on c-span.org/history. you can find that later on. we have a full lineup on c- span3's "american history tv." we will be looking at abraham and mary lincoln at 4:00 this afternoon. later today, eleanor roosevelt. also, laura bush. jacqueline kennedy at 5:30. michelle obama at 9:30.

half an hour later, barbara and laura bush, and then hillary clinton at 11:30 this evening. our question for you this morning, who was the most influential first lady to serve? fred joins us, republican in fairfax, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. [inaudible] michelle obama but there is one point that want to make. it is eleanor roosevelt -- we always say she was the best. over here in the united states immigrants -- what do call it?

[inaudible] the big republican presidents that we're all talking about right now. at that time, nobody talked about it. it was not that important. host: we will focus today on the most influential first ladies. that is the question for our viewers. you mentioned eleanor roosevelt and michelle obama. john writes in on twitter -- matt says on twitter --

host: paul, a democratic caller. caller: i definitely think michelle obama is the most influential first lady. she is our first african american first lady. i think she is a very active first lady as far as her health care and trying to get people to eat healthy. she is definitely physically fit. i think she is an excellent first lady. i would say the second most influential first lady, i would say is hillary clinton. host: how come? caller: she is such a smart

lady. she is secretary of state now. her intellect is remarkable. hillary clinton is probably one of the smartest woman who ever lived, i think. host: let's hear from james, a democrat in wilmington delaware. caller: eleanor roosevelt without a doubt. host: how come? caller: she brought her husband into the 21st century. i do not study it that much, but i read quite a bit about it. her husband was a foot dragger. she took him by the arm and brought him right into the 21st century. as far as michelle obama goes, the jury is not in on her yet. she is good, but apparently she is going to get another four years to show her stuff.

host: we will be talking politics a little bit later on, looking at the race for the presidency. here is a picture michelle obama on the "ellen degeneres show" promoting her let's move campaign on daytime tv. john twitter writes twitterin on twitter. greg independent caller. caller: in texas, ladybird johnson was the most influential. each spring, she had a wild flowers thing that still goes on today. a lot of things that she started around here in texas are still running. host: she did the highway campaign. caller: yeah, where they put

wildflowers out. host: and she worked on billboard issues on highways. do people still talk about her? caller: oh, yeah. we love her here in texas. host: let's look at a few more facebook comments.

host: jason in santa barbara california is on the line for independents. who was the most influential first lady to serve? caller: it is probably a lot tougher than people give them credit for because they are constantly in the spotlight. they did not ask to be. as for the most influential, i would definitely say hillary clinton, not as first lady but as secretary of state. in our everyday life, betty ford because of the betty ford clinic. eleanor roosevelt, because of the way she has influenced a lot of people and a lot of women. host: do you consider the spouses of candidates when they run for president? caller: not really. host: dennis, democratic caller. florence ky. caller: with all the talk on birth control and contraception i would like to hear what betty ford has to say. host: let's talk a little bit

about some other stories in the news right now. the presidential race. still getting a lot of attention, even though it is a recess week in congress. in the caucus section of "the new york times" -- host: looking ahead of the article, it says --

"focus on health care, look presidential, rattle romney, be authentic, and avoid gingrich and paul." are question for you is, who was the most influential first lady to serve? we'll talk more about presidential politics in a few minutes. we are looking at first ladies in history, either from one and her -- there from modern times

-- we've heard michelle obama and hillary clinton. we've heard dolley madison eleanor roosevelt. who was the most influential first lady to serve? host: barbara is a republican in brooklyn. good morning. caller: good morning. i think nancy reagan and laura bush were the most influential in my lifetime. host: why? caller: why? classy. they did a lot of things that the press never gave them credit for like they do michelle obama about obesity, which is a big thing, but laura bush was also very with women's rights in afghanistan and she really did not give the credit because of her husband's and popularity with the war'ss.

i honestly believe michelle obama is a nice woman but she is overblown. thank you. host: let's go to alex, a democratic caller in allen texas. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to say there -- i like to say nancy reagan, just because she said back in the 1980's "just say no to drugs." that is the reason why. i remember that. host: did it have an influence on your life? caller: yes it did. i was a teenager back then and i was very -- that was very influential for me. nancy reagan. host: let's hear from mary, independent. alexandria, virginia, not too far from washington. good morning. caller: good morning. i think all of you have been

neglecting our first first lady, martha washington. i have the honor to portray her at mount vernon. without her, we would not even know what a first lady was or should be doing. remember there had never been a country such as ours when she became our first first lady. that term even comes from her being called the general's lady during war. she set the tone for being a first lady and many said that she was the most remarkable person. even abigail adams was amazed and impressed. martha washington, our first first lady. host: what is it like to portray her? caller: it is a wonderful honor. our visitors are fascinated with their story. their 40-year marriage. they raised their two- young

grandchildren. there was not the white house then. they're living in new york and philadelphia. she had to make borrowed homes into president's houses. it's a great honor. i hope there will be some programming on mrs. washington. host: i will take a look at the lineup and share with withyou what we have coming up. we are profiling a lot of the first lady's. one last question. what is the most surprising thing visitors hear from you? what's the biggest reaction? caller: i think it is the fact that she traveled at every single one of the windsor captains during the war. she was known as their best friend. she was not a young woman when this happened. she was in her 40's.

i also see their mouths drop open. the portraits make her look rather serious. people do not seem to be as interested. when they hear about their life together, then they are quite amazed. host: that is mary, who called us from alexandria, who has the honor of portraying the first first lady at mount vernon. as i mentioned earlier, on american history tv at 7:00 this evening and earlier today, a 30- minute tour of the smithsonian's newly opened exhibit. you can see inaugural and evening gowns. the curator was telling c-span what they wear is also very reflective of the time and their influential role. we have a series of shows profiling first -- first ladies

including hearing for eleanor roosevelt in a 1953 tv interview. a conversation with barbara bush and laurel bush who lived in the white house for a combined dozen years. totucson, arizona. go ahead. caller: i find that each first lady has contributed a great deal to us as a society in how they hold themselves up and how they stood by each presidential election and all the campaigning, which i feel is very stressful for any woman and also to raise their children and to maintain a dignity that is very hard, because you are scrutinized all the time.

i think every first lady has contributed something in her own way to society through the drugs, through say no, through the fact that there is diabetes, cancer awareness. each one has selected an area of interest that they felt good about and wanted everybody else to feel good about. not to single out just one, but i think they all contribute to us. host: on twitter -- philadelphia, pennsylvania. mike democrat, greetings. caller: i want to give a shout out to laura bush. i am a democrat.

what she did for libraries trying to fight for libraries through the bush administration s, was amazing. she continues to fund libraries through a grant program that is still very active. it is sad to say that i just do not know how much influence she had overall, as she looked at the dissolution of libraries particularly school libraries -- i think it's really a tragedy. i know she was in there. i hope she was in there at least fighting for school libraries and libraries throughout the country. thank you. host: let's go to seattle washington. j. independent caller. who was the most influential first lady to serve? caller: i think it was woodrow wilson's wife. host: why? caller: i believe when woodrow

wilson had gotten really sick, his wife had basically signed things and taken over pretty much until he died in office, i guess. of course, eleanor roosevelt. host: our last caller says edith called wilson. in the meantime, let's take a look at the gop race for the presidential nomination. rick santorum defense remarks on obama. he says he has a world view that elevates the earth among man. here is the "l.a. times" story. host: us take a listen to bring

santorum on "face the nation." [video clip] >> when you have a world view that elevates the earth among man and says we cannot take those resources because we're going to harm the earth by things that are frankly not scientifically proven. for example, the politicization of the whole global warming debate. it's all an attempt to centralize power to give more power to the government. it's not questioning the president's believe in christianity. i'm talking about his belief that man that should be in charge of the earth and should be good stewards of it. host: that is rick santorum on cbs's "face the nation." yesterday. robert gibbs weighed in.

caller: -- [video clip] >> need to get rid of this mind set that if we disagree we have to disqualify each other. i cannot help but think those remarks are well over the line. it is wrong. it is destructive. it makes it virtually impossible to solve the problems we all face together as americans. host: robert gibbs, adviser to the president's reelection campaign on abc yesterday. rick santorum calling into question the president's theology or belief system. there is a new poll out from gallup looking at who is in the lead for president. let's take a look at that right now. rick santorum ahead, 36% to mitt romney's 28%. newt gingrich at 13%.

ron paul, 11%. this poll is getting a lot of attention. it does show rick santorum in the lead. "the washington post" looks at his campaign for the presidency. it says -- host: we just heard some reactions to that. host: "the washington post" also has a lineup of what is to come in the next few weeks. in a week and one day tuesday

february 28, arizona has its primary. michigan does, as well. then we look to march. then we see more contests next month. our question to you is about america's first ladies. who was the most influential first lady? do you think that they are influential? let's go to delaware. democrat. caller: i am independent. i have one of my two winners of those -- mrs. wilson, for sure, but also, dolley madison who faced a terrible crisis when the white house was burned in 1814. she had a lot of influence on how the president himself was viewed. she started "hail to the chief" to be played when the president entered the room. thank you very much.

host: bill believes lady bird was the first to use tv and radio to do public service. daniel, democratic caller. good morning. caller: good morning to you. i think it is hillary clinton. when her husband was in the controversy, she stayed focused. she kept a straight ahead about everything. i think hillary clinton is the woman i would choose. host: did you feel that way when she was in office? does this take a little while for history to reflect on? caller: when she was in office, she stayed focused. even though the media was slamming her husband she stayed focused. that's why i am happy she is the secretary of state.

like other young girls, i think they should follow her as an example. despite anything that goes on in her life she is still serving your country. host: looking at more stories from the presidential campaign. growing calls for an alternative to mitt romney as the republican standard bearer. this is a story in "politico" today.

host: that is a story from "politico." we mentioned the gallup poll that showed rick santorum with an 02-point lead over mitt romney. other stories looking at how things are playing out there. also how mitt romney is doing. this is the cover story of usa today -- of "usa today."

host: our question for you this morning is, who was the most influential first lady? nick, independent line. good morning. caller: eleanor roosevelt, by far. eleanor roosevelt fought for civil rights before civil rights was a popular cause. she visited the troops in the pacific. in europe, she met the troops. i think she is the best first lady. host: do the women who candidate are married to make a difference? do you consider their role in the white house? caller: no, i do not generally consider that much.

i think eleanor roosevelt was the most powerful personality in her own right to be first lady. host: ok. let's go to new philadelphia, ohio. rose, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. host: please go ahead. caller: i would like to vote for barbara bush because of the way she treated her dog. i think she influenced people to treat their pets better. also laura bush, because i think she worked in africa with the really, really poor people. of course, eleanor roosevelt. host: did you have positive feelings toward barbara bush when she was in office? caller: definitely, yes. right aphorist, i saw all the way she treated her dog. host: phoenix, arizona.

sunny, democratic caller. caller: for the modern woman, i would say jackie onassis. losing her child when she first got in. also, the beautifulication -- or, the change of the white house. she did a lot. she actually changed the white house. of course, the different things that happened to her as a first lady. john kennedy, on one of their travels to south america said, "i am the woman who is traveling with jackie kennedy." she was a lot of really well around the world, as well as at home. host: ok. let's here from chicago illinois. kathleen is a democrat. caller: good morning.

my answer is the present first lady, michelle obama. my second question is to ask you -- the address you showed with eleanor roosevelt, was that an inaugural gown? host: i cannot recall, but you can find out more about that by watching the program. it will be on today. it will be on a couple of times on c-span3. you can see it at 7:30 this evening. it is a tour of the national museum of american history's newly opened first ladies exhibit. guest: when the first lady took a portrait with a short sleeved dress on, she was ridiculed and prosecuted. i was wondering what the big uproar was.

since then, all the people who criticized her -- they come on with short sleeves in the wintertime. what she has been doing with her husband, by being the first black family she has had to keep herself together, as well as a shield her children. her kids and her are hearing this about her husband, which is so unfair. i take my hat off to her and any first lady that has had to endure she has. host: you can catch that program at 11:30 a.m. and this evening. florida, democratic caller. good morning. caller: good morning. my vote would have to be eleanor roosevelt. at the time that she was the president's wife, segregation

was still very strong. i grew up in south carolina. my father, who was a wonderful father to the family -- he was just the greatest, but he was a segregationist. i do not know why. he was. all you have to do was say "eleanor" and he would go boom right up to the sky. the first lady today, she is great. yes, she is picked on and criticized. those two are my votes. host: thank you for your call. the first lady is on vacation in aspen. she arrived for a skiing weekend with her two daughters. few details were available. "aspen daily news" talks about what she is able to do with her family this weekend. let's go to our next caller in springfield, massachusetts. ben is a democrat.

good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. host: who was the most influential first lady? caller: my generation is involved in this. i am a senior citizen and i lived through world war ii. eleanor roosevelt has to be the person, by far. two of your callers previously mentioned her activities. the lady from florida have a special, to make. eleanor, and just recently, the movie "red tails" has been playing across the the united states and the whole story of the tuskegee airmen. if it were not for eleanor roosevelt and her efforts to try to get her husband and the military to take advantage of the resources of black servicemen, there would not have been a "red tails." she did a great deal of work of trying to create fairness and equality in america at a time long before there was a civil

rights movement of the 1950's or 1960's. she played a major role, an influential role, and trying to create equality in various areas of our society of the united states of america. host: jack agrees with you. he writes in on twitter. host: washington, d.c.. nathan on the line for independents. caller: hi. how are you doing today? host: good. caller: i am calling in about first lady obama. asi also believe that with all the -- i believe she is one of the first ladies that do the most time with the children on cbs and volunteer her time.

and as the first african american first lady in america i think that's very important to us. host: how much do you pay attention to what first ladies do? have you paid attention to other first ladies? caller: yes, i have. i am currently 23. i live to do this. i'm currently thinking about running for governor for the state of maryland. there are more first ladies with obama that does more with the children and to do for our children than what other first ladies have. like i said, her being the first african american first lady does a lot for our history. with her being cut down all the time because her husband is not

doing this or doing that, we have to remember that is the mess he was left with when he got into the white house. host: nathan mentioned history. let's look back at the history now in "the washington post." "america's space age dreams loping along with him." this is the 50th anniversary of john glenn becoming the first american to orbit the earth. that happened at 9:47 a.m. on february 20, 1962. his at list rockets finally soared to life, catapulting him aloft.

"it held and glenn survived." also looking at the history books and how we relate to current politics is this story in "the washington post" looking at newt gingrich and his past. some archival records and his years in congress.

"when gingrich was in the house, his chief of staff noted that his boss frequently derided reagan." this is a story in "the washington post" that goes on past the jump to show some old photos of the former house speaker with the president and other washington leaders. it says --

host: we are talking about history and also the present day as we look at the first ladies and ask you, who was the most influential first lady? jarrett is a democrat in winston-salem, north carolina. what do you think? what do you think about the first ladies? caller: i wanted to say nancy reagan. host: how come? caller: i believe she did more for everybody with the d.a.re. program. it influenced my generation tremendously. it left a lasting impact on my whole generation. host: austin, texas. mae is a democrat. good morning.

caller: i'd vote for eleanor roosevelt as first lady. we were in a depression as that time. she was strong. she held him to bring about programs -- she helped him to bring about programs to help the poor and she was the first person to go out for civil rights. she was just a person of heart. she was the president. so much could be learned from her character as a person and as a caring person. also michelle obama because she supports black women. she has a lot to do and to learn. she is learning and she is

progressing. i am very proud of her. host: a comment from twitter. allentown, pennsylvania. bill, a democrat, welcome. good morning bill. are you with us? go ahead. caller: eleanor roosevelt because, she helped out with franklin and the administration. what the other caller was talking about. also, hillary clinton because no matter how much people think of how she tried to bring about health care back in the 1990's, that was the start to try to get us going through a single payer. that is what we need in this country. we need single payer.

>> thank you for all your calls and tweets. coming up on "washington journal" this morning, we will be talking with tony perkins. we will also look at the air marshal program. when we come back, the adviser to the international monetary fund, robert shapiro, talks about the eurozone crisis and its impact on the united states. we will be right back. ♪ ♪

>> tonight on c-span, former navy seal chuck pfarrer. >> one of the things that got me off the bench to write this book was by august, the factoids had metastasized into a story that had them blowing their way into a building after shooting of four 20, 30, 40 minutes, finally shooting their way through the building, where they shot him in cold blood in the bedroom. that did not sound like a sealed seem to me. talking to the guys on the team, it was over in 120 seconds. quite a different story. >> it also includes a debate on

whether to prosecute wall street banks with the mortgage fraud. also, hear from -- not all starts tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> today, join american history tv for 24 hours of america's first lady including an interview with eleanor roosevelt. >> i think, like everything else that we started out expecting that the united nations would solve every difficulty just by being the united nations. >> tour the white house private quarters with laura bush at 5:00 and lady bird johnson at 8:00. at 11:30, the only first lady to run for president.

american history tv, all day presidents day, on c-span3. >> i think that what we are probably going to see is committees of various jurisdictions coming up with bills that deal with spices -- with slices of the responsibility. >> tonight congresswoman eshoo on cybersecurity issues now in front of congress. >> "washington journal" continues. host: robert shapiro is an adviser to the international monetary fund . he joins us this morning to talk about the eurozone crisis and its impact on the u.s. economy. does it have an effect over here? guest: of course it does. the european economy is as large as our economy.

it is a huge actor in the global economy. it is our largest export market. aswhen europe is doing well u.s. exports are doing well, but it is much more than that. the u.s. economy is -- u.s. businesses, large businesses, are probably more integrated with europe than any other place in the world you go anywhere in germany, france, italy spain england, or scandinavia and there will be plants for ford motor co. or general motor company. there will be branches of u.s. banks. there will be offices of apple and microsoft. this is the other large advanced economy market for us. of course it has an enormous affect on us as we do on europe. host: we talk so much about

asia the emergence of china and the dominance of other asian nations. you are saying not to ignore europe. guest: absolutely. china is very important. china has become really the manufacturing platform for much of the world or at least the assembly platform for manufacturers from around the world. the fact is, if you are looking for a market, a large market -- things that in advanced economy produces, both goods and services, then you are talking about europe, the united states and japan. that is the whole ball game. guest: you are an adviser to the international monetary fund. you're the co-founder and chairman of an economic advisory firm. you have been involved in presidential politics, as well as advising presidential candidates and devising men who have held the oval office about

economic issues. how responsive right now is the obama administration towards what is happening in europe? we did not see a lot in the paper. we did see treasury secretary geithner go over to europe. it is not the top issue we're hearing about in, say, the state of the union, or briefings from the white house. guest: it is not a large, public issue. it is an issue that has upsethad the very close attention of the white house for at least the last year and a half. the reason is because the debt crisis in europe, the financial problems in europe are potentially more serious than our own financial crisis in 2008. here you know, a crisis in sovereign debt goes directly to the coure of the entire banking system. ask yourself, who owns government bonds?

banks, mainly. financial institutions are the major owners of government bonds. that means that, as opposed to our financial crisis, which was based on mortgage-backed securities -- mortgage-backed securities were held by a small number of very large and very important financial institutions. it brought some of them down. it brought down lehman brothers. it brought down bear stearns. it brought down merrill lynch. the fact is, we have thousands of banks around the country. most of them did not hold mortgage-backed securities and they were ok. if you have a crisis in sovereign debt, if the government bonds of an advanced country default those are bonds which are held by every major bank in europe. we're talking about a problem which really threatens the entire banking system of europe. host: robert shapiro served as

the undersecretary for commerce affairs during the clinton administration. we are talking about the eurozone crisis and its impact on the united states. do you think it has an impact? are you concerned about this? you can direct your questions to robert shapiro. here are the numbers to call. what are you watching in europe? where are the hot spots? what are you paying attention to that could signal that this could have a real impact here at home? guest: 3 things, i suppose we watch. one is, will the eurozone, the major actors in the eurozone -- we're mainly talking about germany and france. will they finally come together with a plan that will assure global investors that in

effect, italy cannot defaults? greece is a problem. greece is the first. greece may very well default. greece has already reached deals with the holder, the major holders of greek bonds, to write down the value of those bonds by more than 50%. that is, in effect, equivalent to a default. they have not formally defaulted. the fact is, greece is a small economy. it has relatively a small volume of government debt at there. the banking system can afford a banking problem with greece. italy is entirely different. anditaly is the eighth largest economy in the world. its bonds are held by every major bank in europe. if those bonds were to be written down 50%, for example,

that leave many of the largest banks in the world technically insolvent. host: bernie on the line for democratsrepublicans from new york city. good morning. caller: good morning. the question i have is, assuming that we did not take action during our fiscal crisis by bailing out the banks what, in your estimation, what would have been the real black swan scenario? with all the banks -- would all the banks in the country have gone under? theoretically, what would have happened to the country? thank you. guest: i think the caller was asking what would have happened had we not bail out the -- not bailed out the large financial institutions.

we would have had a much broader financial crisis is the short answer. here is the problem. if you have not bail out, for example, aig and citigroup -- citigroup and aig had hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts with goldman sachs and j.p. morgan chase and very large regional banks. if aig and citi had been allowed to fail, all of those obligations to goldman sachs and j.p. morgan chase and large regional banks also would have gone down. that means those banks would have gone down. we would have had, in effect, a spreading financial crisis. we probably could have had runs on banks. let me explain why.

in day two of the financial crisis the government stepped forward and said, we're going to guarantee money market bounces. money market balances are the place where every business keeps its operating capital. had they not guarantee that, businesses would have withdrawn their money-market funds. that would have led to spreading bank failures. i really think it would have been -- we would have seen the kind of banking crisis we saw in 1931-1932 in this country had we not bail out the banks. that does not mean that the bailout we did was the best bailout. there were other ways to do it. i think it would have been cleaner and fairer. did not pursue them for political reasons, i assume. the fact is, whether or not to bail out the banks really was not a credible option economically.

you know, the first time the bailout came to the house, the house republicans voted it down. ben bernanke when up to the hill -- the chairman of the federal reserve -- and he spoke to the republican caucus and the leadership. he said, if you do not pass this, there will be no u.s. economy next week. what he was saying was the entire financial system would come at a minimum, frees up. there would be no credit for businesses or consumers. the economy would come to a halt. we have never experienced anything like that where the entire u.s. economy comes to a health. -- to a halt. as i said, i do not think that the structure of the bailout was well thought through. i think we could have had a more effective recovery with a different kind of rescue plan

but the fact is, whether or not to rescue was not a serious economic question. host: what did we learn from that bailout as we look at europe? how do you take what we experienced and apply that to europe? guest: let me say again a financial crisis based on sovereign debt is much more dangerous than a financial crisis based on mortgage-backed securities. you know, i gave the example of the u.s. government moving in and guaranteeing money market bounces -- money-market balances. if you had a crisis in the italian debt and they said they would guarantee them, who would believe them? the market would say, "with what? with what money?"

that is the problem. i think the lesson that europe probably has drawn from this is to do whatever steps are necessary to avoid it. the fact is, we could have avoided most of our financial crisis had we financial crisis had we taken more seriously, had the treasury under hank paulson taken more seriously the failure of bear stearns which came six months before the full-fledged crisis. they believe that that the crisis had passed. there was a lot of best case scenario thinking going on, as there always is. >> let's hear from eric in atlanta. georgia, good morning.

>> thank you for taking my call. i wanted to make a couple of comments and ask a question. caller: the way the you guys framed this question about the eurozone socialism, things of that nature but it does not have anything to do with socialism. china was allowed into the wto by george w. bush. china dumped a bunch of cash on our investment banks. they thought that investments backed mortgage securities for a lucrative investment. guest: the fact of the matter is

that the u.s. financial system is part of the global financial system. the fact is that china's savings played a role. they expanded the capital available for all kinds of uses, including the creation of mortgage-backed securities. much more important is the fact that we made the wrong decision in 1999 cannot regulate these derivatives, these mortgage- backed securities, and what are called credit default swaps. someone goes to an institution and says -- if you give me 5% or 10% of the stream of income payments that come from a security or a sovereign bond, i

will guarantee that if that bond defaults, i will make you whole. so, there is no regulation at all on those mortgage-backed securities or the credit default swaps taken out against them. they have not allowed the market to grow in a way that was not able to be supported. it allowed security houses to issue mortgage-backed bonds that were rated aaa but were not, in fact, they were b and lower. they were very risky. we did not regulate it initially and, under the bush ministration, the bush should ministration and the fed -- the bush administration for the fed did not attempt to regulate.

host: robert shapiro is an advisor for the international monetary fund, recently ran up as one of five economists who could give the white house a boost on jobs. he was the under-secretary for economic affairs in the commerce department during the clinton administration. he is the chairman and co- founder of an economic advisory firm that provides analysis and insight into economic firms in the u.s. and around the world. do you think that the present crisis will lead to the eventual dismantling of the eurozone? guest: it certainly could. there is no doubt about that. italy were to affectively fall, if the sovereign debt of italy became unsustainable for italy -- that is, they can only sell bonds at interest rates that were so high, they would not be able to meet them it pushes

them into default. the eurozone could not survive the exit of a major member. no one has any idea, the consequences of an exit from the eurozone. think about this every contract in italy and greece is written in euros. exiting the eurozone means that you no longer use the heroes. instead, there would be a new greek drama, or italian lira. what is the value of that? what does that say about the contract that people had that were denominated in euros? an exit would impose enormous additional costs.

we probably could not have entirely avoided our 2008 financial crisis, but it could have been much smaller had you taken steps earlier. the same is true of the eurozone crisis. they could have taken steps to 18 months ago, when the u.s. treasury and the u.s. white house was urging them to do so. i know this, because i spoke to them about this. the obama administration has been on top of this for a long time. they just cannot get germany to listen. now the cost is going to be greater. if they wait until there is a default, the cost will be enormous to the net -- to the united states, as well as europe. host: bob, democratic caller, herman town, minnesota.

caller: my first comment is that i never thought it was a good idea to link all of the world's economies. i do not think it has served germany to share the pain of the slackers in greece. i do not think that some of the policies we have had in the past, i think we have had the import export bank finance move like when boeing moved their operation to china. u.s. tax dollars, sending money to china from the united states. i just do not think that they had the proper regulations in place for a banking system either. i think that lack of regulations is what caused the housing meltdown.

guest: well, i do not disagree with the caller. i think that lack of regulations was a critical factor. certainly, the central factor to the size of our financial problem. the same thing could be said for the eurozone crisis. germany pays the price in part because germany set up the rules of the eurozone. under the rules of the eurozone, everyone has the same exchange rate. everyone has the same interest rates which are in effect set by the european central bank. meaning that governments like greece or italy have fewer tools to become more effective. one of the ways that country's can become more competitive in

selling their exports is to depreciate their currency. meaning that everything they sell to the world becomes cheaper. normally, markets will do this. they will drive down the exchange rate into something relatively less productive, making them more productive in global markets. the eurozone prevents that. there is a single exchange rate that is set by the dominant economy is germany and france, which are -- economies, germany and france. it meant that greece had fewer alternatives to become more effective. it may germany the most effective exporter. they did not have to compete against a greek producers because they were not nearly as productive. they try to compete with germany

by reducing the exchange rate. to a certain extent, germany had more to pay as part of the price, in one way or another bailing out the less productive economies of the eurozone. that is because they benefited for 20 years from a market in which those companies could not compete effectively. host: this is jason from twitter -- let's talk about greece. this story is from "the washington post," today. "a fed up greece public is questioning the strings attached to the aid." we have seen riots in greece, people losing their pensions. austerity measures are not going

over well there. guest: for a very good reason. if you impose austerity on an economy that is already in a recession and has problems with sovereign debt, the austerity will drive that the economy further down. it will worsen the recession. as that happens it it it -- the ability of the government to pay its bills will diminish even more until you get into a vicious circle. the greek people have said -- we have taken these austerity measures for the last year and it is not working. you can say that we need more and more austerity but what we are talking about when we talk about austerity is sharp cuts to the people's wages. wages have fallen more than 25%

in greece already. now the eurozone is saying that your wages are going to go down even more. what the eurozone has resisted throughout this and use austerity in its place is the basic principle of any monetary union. that the full faith and credit of a whole stands behind the full faith and credit of each part. it is the only way that a monetary union can survive. no u.s. state has ever defaulted in the history of the united states. the reason is that our system, our monetary union is put in place, as it was put in place at the time of the constitution partly because the bank of the united states, a national bank of that time, assumed the bats of the states. -- assume the debts of the

state's -- assumed the debts of the states. ultimately the european central bank will have to carry it out. host: richard philadelphia, independent caller. good morning. caller: the austerity population in these countries is what concerns me. if the rest of the emerging economy is able to kind of by some of this sovereign debt with the technological infrastructure it seems that much of this coming together can only have occurred because of the technology with frequency trading. really, it will be able to interconnect now where they did not have the time, speed or

access to moving the transit. the question of how this company will deal with the question of austerity, how the emerging markets of china and india will be able to absorb those zero deaths -- euro debts, what is the technological mismatch? guest: china could buy a lot of bad debt. the middle east could buy a lot of that debt. as oil prices go up, the question is, why should that -- why should they? the eurozone appealed to china to be a major supporter to bailout this problem. china said that they had other uses for their money. we are building bridges and power plants. we are building a new military.

it seems like an investment that will produce a better return than buying eurobonds. the fact is, there are three ways that you can finance the rescue of this kind of crisis. one, the taxpayer. that is what we did with tarp. european taxpayers have their own in the 2008-2009 financial crisis. the american people said no more we cannot do that again. so they cannot goethe taxpayers as a political matter. eurozone has tried to look -- tried to go to global investors several times, and global investors have said that that is not a good answer for them. that they can invest in much

safer securities u.s. treasurys. or they can invest in new enterprises in places like china. the third and final remaining place that can generate a lot of money in the central bank'ss ultimately there are inflationary implications to that. when the economy recovers, not in the short term. but you cannot get taxpayers or global investors to do it. if you think you have to do it, the central bank is the last way to do that. eventually europe will find its way to that solution directly or indirectly. as virtually every international economist in the world has concluded.

germany does not want to do it, but ultimately if they are going to avoid a crisis, that is where they will have to end up. host: robert shapiro is an adviser to the international monetary fund an economic advisory firm, and was the under secretary for the thomas -- commerce department in the clinton administration, serving as the fiscal adviser to president clinton during his 1992 presidential campaign leaving the case that led james carville to coin a phrase, "it is a the economy stupid." here is a story from general motors -- plant turnaround may take a couple of months. host: general motors doing well,

but not in europe. let's check the interconnected nature of american companies. guest: well, there is no america in which the direct investment and u.s. companies go and check up on full operations in another country. there is no area that has more of that than u.s. companies in europe. it is, as i said, there is a lot of most of what we sell in europe and not being produced in the united states, but produced in europe by european subsidiaries. they would be enormously affected. in addition, the worst would happen through the financial system. u.s. financial institutions do not hold much european sovereign debt.

they have wisely gotten out of that market about one year ago. no one knows how many credit default swaps u.s. financial institutions have against either european sovereign debt or the banks, which are holding that that in europe, and would fail in the event of a complete financial meltdown. in addition u.s. financial institutions are in the midst of thousands and thousands of deals and transactions with the european banks where they come together to finance a particular investment. really probably tens of thousands. in a full-blown eurozone crisis as i suggested, the major events in europe -- you were talking about deutsche bank commerzbank, and these other

major banks of germany and france -- plus the major banks of italy and spain, all of those banks would be endangered. they would not all fail, but some of them would fail. the question is -- what happens to those transactions and deals therein, with u.s. financial institutions? this is a significant threat to our economy as well. host: exports to the european union, here are the numbers. $68 billion. what do we get? $368 billion. guest: yes, they are our largest trading partner, as i said. and actually, the fact that the united states buys more from europe than we sell has been a support for the european economy during the last six

months, as this crisis has actually driven down the european economy. i would say that europe is likely in a recession today. it certainly looks to me, as an economist, that it is in a recession already. u.s. purchases of these exports have been a significant support for the last year. host: rich joins us from st. louis, missouri, on the democratic line. caller: i believe that the imf is basically a loan shark running around and imposing austerity measures on people. it is a simple question, so i expect a simple answer. if everyone is broke all of these countries are broke where does the money go do?

outer space? second who funds the imf? thank you. guest: i will take the second day, first. the imf is funded by every major nation in the world including the united states. in effect, the imf is a global lender to countries in economic crisis. when they simply cannot raise the funds on their own there has certainly been a lot of criticism of the role of the imf on the financial crisis in the 1990's. meaning that the imf has urged caution with respect to austerity in this crisis. austerity has come from the eurozone not the imf. the imf has said that all countries need to step back from austerity until the global economy is stabilized and

healthier. so, i think the imf has played a very constructive role. i've advised them on the u.s. economy. advisory boards, every country sends representatives to the advisory board in this hemisphere. where does the money go? to the people that lend those countries' money in the past. it does not go to outer space. it goes to keep those countries in the credit markets and able to continue to borrow. host: as the year -- this comes to us from twitter -- guest: i hope not.

in the sense that it will affect financial institutions, but there is no evidence to believe that it would cause or threaten what we call a systemically important institution. a financial institution big enough that its failure would cause multiple failures of other institutions. there is no evidence of that, yet. i know that the government has conducted a review of how exposed our institutions are to worst-case scenarios and public documents that are part of intelligent planning. there is no evidence, as i said that it would go to the

extent of a bailout but it would definitely slow the economy significantly. host: you can join the twitter conversation by writing journal@c-span.org -- by writing twitter.com/c-spanwj. good morning. caller: the question that i had the united states, it took us 50 years, until just before world war ii, in order to involve the different economies in the united states. you had the gold standard, then the other group, the gold plus silver people. the way that you are defining the problem, the only solution is what you are given. however, why not have a euro gold and euro silver?

so that they could affect again the entry-level into what the hero should be in light of the economy. we've not heard any of this talk about by any of the european leaders. guest: well, there is a great reluctance to go to a gold or silver standard, for a lot of reasons. normally, it makes it much harder to respond to a crisis, because you cannot expand the money supply to respond to it. you are constrained by the amount of gold and silver that you hold. it seems to have been one of the factors in driving the world into a recession in the 30's. the other problem is that technology has really changed

the way our gold standard would operate. in the 19th century the supply of gold was pretty set. it was hard to find, there were only a couple of places where you could find gold in the world, and since the supply was set, its use as an anchor for currency was stable. technology today the fact is that the supply of gold and silver fluctuates enormously. it would make a gold or silver standard a lot less stable. host: bob, independent line -- i think we lost him. yes, we lost him. this is a quick thing on twitter -- guest: that is a good question. in fact, it does not.

i think that it is bigger than what existed but the fact is that it is not a major economy it is a small economy. it is about whether kris goes down and global investors will that include that the eurozone let greece go, as it is not prepared to support italy or spain. those are huge economies. the failure of their sovereign debt would bring down the banking system in europe. host: a democratic caller in pennsylvania. hello, jerome. guest: i would like to say -- caller: i would like to say thank you to the cable companies for c-span. i would like to ask mr. shapiro who is being held accountable

for these mistakes that were made? host: the mistakes in europe? >> -- caller: no, but the mistakes in this country. guest: the fact is that almost no one has been held accountable. we do not have a good system for creating accountability in these kinds of crises. most of what was done by the banks which failed and consequently required taxpayer bailout, was not legal. there was nothing illegal about it. it was risky and reckless. regulators were reckless in allowing it to happen, but it was not illegal. that makes it hard to hold anyone accountable. i think that, as i said, the

terms of the bailout imposed a certain amount of accountability, and that was not done. we could have said to the banks that we were bailing out that you must use these funds, or some part of these funds, to expand most of the businesses in order to drive stronger business investment. which was part of the argument for the bailout. they did not use it for business investment. they used it instead to make sure that they would not fail in the event of a second crisis. host: applying that to europe, who is being held accountable there? will it play out in an election? guest: i think it will play out

in an election, as it did in the united states. i think that sarkozy and angela merkel the expectation is that right now there have been all of these exchanges that will be held accountable by the voters of germany france, and the borough mosconi and spanish governments. the governments that allowed these problems to go -- to grow have already fallen. so, there is a little political accountability. host: thank you so much,. guest: my pleasure. host: coming up, the air marshal segment.

but first tony perkins, the head of the family research council. >> more international news at this hour. south korea has conducted live fire military drills despite the threat from pyongyang to respond with what they are calling "a merciless attack. north korean officials are preparing for nuclear disarmament talks with the united states. that happens later this week. officials have arrived in iran to talk about the country's nuclear program. the second in a month. concerns are growing over their alleged it weapons experiment. new sanctions on iran over the nuclear program has prompted iran to stop shipments to the united kingdom and france, with crude oil prices jumping to a nine month high.

international stock markets have risen on the news. markets in the united states have of course closed for the president's day holiday. those of the latest headlines from c-span radio. >> tonight on c-span, eliot spitzer joins the debate about whether to prosecute wall street banks or mortgage fraud. >> they had a sign on wall street that was very accurate. we would know that corporations were people when texas executes one. [laughter] the problem that we have right now is that we have given corporations all of the upside, but none of the downside. we have given them the rights and privileges that we extend to individuals, but when it comes to holding them accountable because of the diffusion of responsibility the layers and

buffers built in, all doing their job in good faith, it is difficult to ascribe criminal intent. justice on the financial side, we said that we will guarantee a big sale of the downside. in the criminal context we do not have a way of holding you responsible. guest: -- >> c. the remarks as part of the president's day lineup. also, -- >> c. the remarks as part of the president's day lineup -- see the remarks as part of our presidents to a lineup. >> today, joined american history television for 24 hours of american first ladies. >> i think that, like everything else we started out expecting

that the united nations would solve every difficulty just by being the united nations. >> moving on to laura bush at 5:00 and ladybird johnson at 8:00. and the only first lady ever to run for president, hillary clinton from 2008. american history television, all day, every day on c-span 3. >> "washington journal" continues. host: tony perkins is the president of the family research council. he joins us this morning from nashville. hello. rick santorum has come under scrutiny this week for comments that he made on saturday. but while he believes the president is a christian he believes that the president adheres to phony theology. not one based on the bible but

a different theology." what do you make of that? guest: i have not talked to him about those comments, but i tried to read them in the context in which he said those comments. i think that he was referring to comments made by the president at the national prayer breakfast, that open " to whom much is given, much is required ." referencing the president's tax plan. he was referencing the president's theology of individual instruction in the scripture that goes to christians, that somehow the president interprets those as being instruction to government. >> he was on -- host: he was on "face the nation," yesterday talking about the belief that man should be a good steward over the earth.

we cannot take those resources." he believes that obama is essentially privatizing the earth over humans. guest: that is the ideology that is driving the global warming population control. that somehow we need to be more focused on protecting the earth than we are in people. we have seen that by the efforts that have been put forth. we have seen it in this country and others around the world. there is a lot of danger in that. that we need to be good stewards. no question. in office, i was a strong conservationist. i believe we have a

responsibility to care for this earth. we only have one we have to take care of it. but to put it over people that we have to limit our population because the planet is more important, that is the ideology that the senator is making reference to. host: do you think that that is the president's ideology? guest: i do. i think he has promoted the agenda behind that. we have continued to promote the one child policy in china, which tries to limit the size of families. that we have a very limited series of resources and children are a consumer resources, rather than a blessing from creators. children should be seen as those who have great ideas and the ability to expand. there was a concern that we would run out of food for the earth.

we have become very productive in providing food for the population of the world. it is an ideology that looks at people in different ways. as being the source of solving problems. host: tony perkins of the family research council, we will try to talk this morning about social conservatives. you have made strong statements supporting rick santorum, as part of a coalition of evangelicals. why no formal endorsement? guest: the organization, which has been around for 30 years the president of the organization has been restrained by doing that. in fact, one of my predecessors, who ran for president himself back in 2000, the organization

did not endorse him either. at this point the board has said that they want to hold to that. we do not endorse the candidate but we have endorsed a clear set of ideas and policy initiatives. it took place over one month ago. i was asked to be the spokesman for the organization the meeting of social conservatives. focused primarily on the social issues quite frankly, i was surprised that a super-majority of those decided to support rick santorum, and others have been working to help him. frankly, i was surprised that they came to such an agreement

over one particular candidate. especially at the time when you consider that he was not up in the polls. it was right before newt gingrich surge. -- surged. they know the candidates. they work with him. best positioned to move forward and withstand the spot light that comes when you are out front, i did not agree with him on everything. they felt that he was the most authentic and consistent in his conservatism. host: gregory joins us. good morning. caller: thank you for being who you are, livy.

to your guest, please let me finish my statement. you use the word family to describe your organization. my first question regarding that word family, do you include all families of all colors and creeds in this country? as you talk about rick santorum and how you speak to him to explain what he meant with regards to president obama and the words in his theology, the people that settled this country supposedly created the constitution in an effort to keep the church outside of government. by last question to you sir, as a conservative, does that mean making sure that all children on this planet has something to eat? that every citizen should have a job? my last question is -- rick santorum has been on the

government payroll for how many years? america, some conservatism is not all inclusive. guest: let me see if i got all of those points. first, let me take one of the issues that sticks out most, the issues of what the founders made clear in the bill of rights. that congress shall establish no religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof, which is interpreted today as a separation of church and state in the establishment clause, which we support. we want a clear line of separation between church and the state. but that does not mean that the church those with strong faith cannot be part of government. that their view points cannot be entertained in this national dialogue we have in shaping

public policy. what we have seen in the last couple of weeks is a violation of that so-called separation of church and state by this administration. to fund certain things that they are morally opposed to based on the tenants of their faith. i am speaking specifically to the contraceptive mandate from this administration. it is not just birth control, it is also the morning after pill. that is a violation of the separation between church and state. 2500 pastors have signed a letter to the resident, raising the issue of -- of religious freedom. they did not want the church being part of the state as well. so, they needed both to have a

healthy environment. in terms of the historical definition, related by blood or by adoption. -- blood marriage, or adoption. showing that children grow up with a mother and father are the best prepared to be successful in society in every way. we do the best to craft policies to accomplish that goal. host: this is a gallup poll of the republican presidential candidates. rick santorum, 36%. mitt romney, 28%. newt gingrich, below that, under

20% each. tony perkins, what do you make of this? michigan being a make or break it moment for rick santorum and mitt romney? guest: we have seen this all along. mitt romney has been in this race for eight years. he has been running for a long time. he will have this threshold that he cannot get past. people are just not comfortable with them. his record as governor of massachusetts is much different than his platform today. i am not saying that it is not authentic, i am saying that people are not comfortable with it. this series of candidates did not seem to get traction. this is the first time that you have seen someone emerge, to go beyond it romney and become the front runner.

i think it is because they see that he is authentic. they did not have a lot of baggage to weigh him down. social conservatives looking for a candidate they can walk on water but managed the baggage. he has that authenticity. he also has the blue collar background where he does not fit into a particular mold of just being a conservative republican. he has physicians that some republicans do not like, because they tend to be more moderate on economic issues. i think that he has hybrid policy agenda that is attracting an unusual coalition. host: mike, republican, maryland.

caller: i think i have a good handle on what santorum was talking about when he talked about phony theology. for a long time, people on the left have been using christianity as a means to justify collectivism and socialism through the government. there are a lot of things that i could stay about what is stated in -- that i could step -- that i could say about what is stated in scripture. we are talking about the kinds of things that you learn when you said in a church like obama was in, which was all about black liberation treat -- theology and redistribution of wealth. you cannot find any place in scripture where the church or anyone else, any questions, or any followers of jesus, if you want to talk about the teaches of jesus, were told to help the poor by means of establishing an

all-powerful federal government that would in force charity and good works by means of a tax code. guest: mike is correct. the point that was made earlier when the president made reference to scripture in support of his tax program taking from some and giving to another it points often to the scripture which viewers might recall when the rich bowler came to jesus to tell him to give all the he had to the poor. he did not tell him to give it to government to redistribute it. the instructions throughout our to his followers to care for the poor. that is something that the church must do a better job of. there are some concerns that with the form of government that you're seeing that there is a

crowding out as we have seen with catholic charities who did great work with human trafficking. because they would not subscribe to the pro-abortion policy, they have been cut out of that process of delivering these essential services. there needs to be a clear line. i have not been a big supporter of even the bush and administration or the faith based programs to do the social work. churches need to be free to do that. the thing that concerns me more than prayers in public places the founders clearly understood that that was a part of who we were, given money to religious organizations. i think that religious organizations should be free to

operate in an unrestrained, public spaces. host: this is from twitter -- host: i wanted to get your response to that comment, and this article. host: let's just look at birth control. catholics, the stock -- despite the churches teachings 84% believe that a person using artificial birth control and still be a good catholic. almost everyone uses it." guest: i am with the 86%, they

should be free to do so, but this is the issue. a church might have teachings that are morally opposed. it is not just birth control. it is measures like the morning after pill which destroys the embryo. host: separate from that issue which talked about earlier are you concerned that the views of rick santorum are generally more extreme than the average american? guest: no. what he said as a good catholic, he does not use could burt -- he does the use birth control. he is free to do that. he has the right to do that. he has the right not to be forced to fund things that he does agree with -- that he

disagrees with. most people recognize that. that is why a number of protestant denominations -- they do not talk about birth control but they have stepped up because they see this as a religious freedom issue. that is really what it is about. it could be something else. it is about mandates. this all comes from the mandate that every american purchase health care. so much of the issue that president santorum brought up yesterday as seen in the press couples and pregnant women have mandated that they have prenatal tests. he is not against the tests but he is saying they're not accurate. and there is not much to even do about it, other than a board the

unborn child. -- abort the unborn child. many insurance companies have left the parents with few options other than a boarding -- aborting. it is about religious freedom and the made it -- mandate that people must do these things. host: tony perkins ran for u.s. senate as a republican candidate in 2002 and his career includes time as a u.s. marine corps member, police officer and television news reporter. he is the co-author of the book open " personal faith, public policy." david is on the independent line. welcome to "washington journal."

caller: you talk about santorum as being a good catholic. do you ever hear him talking about priests molesting altar boys? i am a catholic, but you do not hear him say anything negative about the catholic church. i know that the priests molested off -- altar boys, costing the catholic church millions of dollars. tell the truth stop lying, and stay out from under women's dress. guest: that was interesting david. that is an issue that has been in the press. i am not sure that he has been asked about it.

i am certain that he said something about it. in all of that from his time in the senate -- i know that from his time in the senate, he was very concerned and involved in humanitarian efforts around the world. it was a matter of public interest when he spoke out about it. host: gary, pennsylvania, democratic line. hello. caller: i just found out that you are a marine. i knew that i like you. i could not figure out why. i disagree with him much everything the say. but i knew that i like you. i got out of the marine corps in 1969. guest: simplify. caller: same to you.

i am not sure where i am. i feel like an independent. i like people that told we disagree with me. it is hard not to. i am a catholic. i am a marine. and i disagree with almost everything you have said. basically, when i first got out of the marine corps most of the people that worked there were relatively poor. mostly this nursing assistants and oral -- orderly's. we are the ones working late doing cpr. until the doctor gets there.

of course, they are asleep. guest: -- host: what did you learn from that experience? guest: this is not a religion. -- caller: this is not a religion. this hospital is in business to make money or at least survive to provide this care. host: so, tony perkins should the catholic related charities and hospitals be treated like businesses? guest: i also worked at a hospital at night, when i came out of the marine corps. i was not an orderly though. i work in security. i would be pulled in to assist with some things, help with cpr

helping doctors that were short-handed. these are non-profit hospitals. we go back to the history of this country, it was churches that started the first hospitals in this country. they continue to do so and continue to do that today the percentage off of the tahoe ahead but if they were forced out of business because they were forced to violate the teachings of their faith we would have a crisis of health care in this country. we need to respect the party first, who remain in communities

and respect their religious views. that is simply all the they are asking for, and i do based upon the first amendment. host: tony perkins is president of the family research council. he joined in the fall of 2003. he hosts a national radio program, washington watch weekly. we just showed the website. if ms. romney is the nominee will socials -- social conservatives get behind him? guest: really, look and see what has happened so far. he has not been able to consolidate social conservative support. he has not been able to do that in 2008. he worked aggressively to try to do that. it has been interesting. i looked at his business career, and he has been a very astute businessman. and he adopted different business models based upon the circumstances. clearly this time around he has

adopted a new political business model. he was reaching out aggressively for social conservatives in the last cycle. this time he has completely sidestep them. it is because he has not been able to convince them that they should be comfortable with him and with his apostles -- policies. i think he will continue to have difficulty. and i think now that you see an alternative, not just challenging knit romney but exceeding him in the polls, that more and more social secure -- social conservatives are going to move from newt gingrich and those who were supporting it romney thinking he would be inevitable moving toward rick santorum. i think he continues that momentum. host: what would it take? you mentioned in your opinion romney has not convinced social conservatives that their issues will be prioritized. . what would it take to convince them?

guest: i think the only thing that could happen is if for some reason if the word to get the nomination, and i think it is less than 50% change, -- chance, that he would have to somehow reach out and come to the table to bring social conservatives behind his candidacy based upon the threat of another obama administration. and i think he is going to have to more of the negative and positive. i think that is a hard way to run a campaign. people -- conservatives, independents concerned about the country both economically, culturally, are concerned about another four years of president obama and his administration. but that is not enough, i think in an election that will be driven by intensity. and it is going to be very close. i would never underestimate the president and his campaign. i think it is going to be a very hard fought campaign. a lot is at stake. and so i think intensity is

going to be everything. it is going to be very difficult, i think, for a mitt romney to have that level of intensity to compete with barack obama and his base. host: anthony from florida. independent caller. caller: good morning. i have been listening to your in g you folks talking about conservative. i did you do not know the meaning of the word conservative. because when president george bush was in office, we were all conservatives. that is the question i want to be answered. he ran this country into bankruptcy. and now they want to blame president obama. another thing, mr. mccollum, he is the minority leader of the senate. he should be -- [unintelligible]

to have to make mr. obama a one- term president. he was sent here to do the law that without the american people. host: let us leave it there and get a response. guest: let me answer anthony's point because i think it is good and when we repeatedly stated, is we would not support and we challenged at the time some of the big government programs of president bush -- the medicaid part d, the prescription drug benefit -- a huge government program that the expanded that debt deficit and the debt of the country and we spoke out against that and continue to point to the fact that the policy is of the president then, president bush really paved the way for the expansion of government for barack obama. so, he is absolutely right.

we never said this problem just began when barack obama was elected president. it has been going on. but he is spending on steroids under this administration, where you have 1.3, almost $1.50 trillion in deficit spending. $15 trillion deficit. at some point in time we have to get a handle on that and i think that is now. in reference to mitch mcconnell, he is not running the senate. he is the minority leader. and the senate has done nothing. it has been over 1000 days and they have not produced a budget. so, i think the senate, under the democratic leadership, is a problem. it is not the republican leadership there. although i think they could be strong rural actually in pushing the administration to be fiscally responsible. host: on twitter -- guest: well, i do not know his complete and total record but i

am certain that he -- as i said earlier he has supported programs that many conservatives would be not support above. i will tell you one in particular that i had a disagreement with senator santorum, back when he was in the united states senate. i was at the global fund administered by it the united nations, and it did a lot of good work. his focus was on addressing the aids crisis in africa. unfortunately not all of that money went to fighting aids. part of it went to promote abortions overseas. and we have a problem with that. and we had a disagreement with them over that. but he felt, as it was initially proposed that it was going to simply be focused on the aids crisis. and unfortunately it was expanded beyond that. so, i have disagreements with him over his policy. but i think he is the most consistent in his conservatism.

i think when you look at the other candidates in the race, with the exception of ron paul, who i think does have a pretty solid fiscal record against government expansion but he's got some foreign-policy ideas that i think are extremely dangerous for this country. host: here is a story from "the washington times." ron paul says the race is far from over and i am staying in. he has not won a primary or caucus dipper prepared to stay in the race through the convention in august. -- he has not won a primary or caucus yet but he is prepared to stay in the race. guest: i actually think it has been a healthy process. i have often warned that the republican party ignores ron paul and his supporters at their own peril. because i think his supporters are sending a very clear message to the republican party that we are not happy with you.

you are not consistent in your conservatism. you have been a part, as anthony made reference to earlier a part of the big spending, big government programs. and it is interesting if you look at the demographics of support for ron paul. a lot of his supporters are young people. and not a few evangelicals. there are a number of young evangelicals, social conservatives, supporting him. now, when you break down his record it seems like it is anathema to be supportive of him because of is really libertarian policies on social issues, which, again like his farm policy, are dangerous and undermining domestic security and stability, but they have heard for years the republicans talking about abortion, how they will make a culture of life. and while they have been some gains of the margin, they seem to be losing those issues were for political issues as opposed to really advancing policy.

and i think they are tired of the hypocrisy. i go back to why i think rick santorum seems to be catching on from the standpoint people say yes, i did not agree, will look at his record. he is consistent with what he is saying today. that makes an authentic. and i think that is why the support have gone to ron paul. is that he is authentic. they like him because he says what he believes and he actually does what he says. host: one of our tweeters -- did you want to respond to that mr. perkins? guest: again i said, i cannot defend every vote. i think it is interesting that probably the worst charge that you can make against the rick santorum is that he was a republican in the senate. fortunately, because of the tea

party -- and i celebrate what the tea party has done in terms of kind of a civic awakening that has taken place in america, four or five years ago, six years ago this distain for earmarks was not there. and that is a big part of how we have gotten into this fiscal mess. it was routine. and so, what we are seeing now is looking back six or eight years ago into this kind of paradigm shift taking place today. i think it is healthy and we need to assure the candidates we support going forward are on the right side of this issue. host: diane is a republican from clinton, tennessee. caller: i could pick a few -- confusion that exists is many churches have quit teaching christianity and teaching socialism. people calling and saying jesus was a socialist.

they have a program on cnn showing some of the church is teaching people you go here and you signed up for unemployment and you go here and sign up for food stamps and you quit paying your mortgage and sign up for section 8 zynga. they do not teach the preaching of jesus where he cannot -- condemns the one who does not work and increase is well, calling them wicked and slothful. or intimate the where it says if any provide not for his own -- in timothy, if any provides not for his own or especially those of his own house has denied the face -- faith and worse than it infidel. what jesus said -- you have the poor with you always -- you may do them good. preachers like jim wallace and the rev. wright are not teaching that anymore. and i hope they have their fire insurance paid up because he's a condemns ones who misleads the church. host: not sure i understood the last part -- but tony purpose,

what is your response? guest: let me, on what diane said. she makes a good point. i think our pastors in america needs to be preaching the whole council of god. it is not focused just on public policy, not just focused on the poor the bible is very clear that we are to take care of the widow and orphan. and we have the responsibility to do that as a society. but not collectively. the instruction is always -- as a set early -- to the individual. but there is a policy aspect to this. part of it is again with the president has proposed, is we eliminate the charitable tax deduction in order to fill some of his budget gaps because of big government programs. again, crowding out of the private charitable sector. and we have looked at the research. research is very clear. that those who give are

actually benefiting more than those who actually receive because there is a psychological as well as a health factor of those who give to those who are in need. so, yes, we need to be preaching that it is not the government's responsibility to take care of everyone, but it is the church's and individual's a responsibility, and we often routinely challenge to the church to do a better job of taking care of our neighbor in working in inner-city. my family and i -- i have been working for 20 years at a homeless shelter. we are very much involved in it because we think it is our responsibility. and america is a better when each of us takes on the responsibility of helping our neighbor, whether it is because they are poor, underprivileged or have a bad string of luck. we need to be there to help out in our communities. host: the story from the associated press. the local county sheriff in

arizona build a reputation on a -- being a rising star -- involved in a relationship with a mexican immigrant who claim this tariff threatens to have him deported if he reveals their relationship. he has been a supporter of net romney -- mitt romney and was working at the state level and arizona and was featured in robo calls. what did you make of this development? >>guest: if there is criminal behavior he needs to be held accountable. other than that, i did not know what else you have to say. if he used his position of authority over some one that is

a mistrust and misuse of authority and should be dealt with smith -- swiftly and severely. host: do you think it does anything to the romney campaign? guest: not really. you cannot hold mitt romney and his campaign accountable for what a supporter does. i do not think it does. and it should not. he may have been supporting mitt romney because of their policy ideas that they had in common but certainly because of his illegal or unethical behavior. if so, that would be wrong to somehow point the finger back to mitt romney. host: tony perkins is president of the family research council and host a national radio program "washington watch." thank you for joining us this morning. guest: thank you. good to be with you.

host: tony perkins was in tennessee joining "washington journal." up next, the air marshal program. but first, a news update from c- span radio. >> 9 klop 3:00 pm eastern. republican senators john mccain and lindsey graham and independent senator joseph lieberman are in egypt today to visit part of a preplanned trip. senator mccain says that while he will address the situation of the 19 detained americans he will not attempt to negotiate their release. the americans, including the son of transportation secretary ray lahood, are among 43 people and used in a case involving foreign funding. they are scheduled to appear in a criminal court sunday. eurozone governments are close to approving the rescue package for greece. finance ministers meeting now in brussels working on a few issues like tighter controls over greece's spending and further cuts to the country's debt load. greece needs of $170 billion

bailout to avoid bankruptcy next month. turning to campaign 2012, newt gingrich's deputy campaign manager, in remarks earlier on cnn, said he does not think it would be a bad thing if the battle for the republican presidential nomination is not settled until the convention in august. he added that newt gingrich has "tremendous staying power." he went on to say that the former house speaker candidacy would be weakened, however, and it will be weakened significantly, if he does not win his home state of georgia on super tuesday, which is march 6. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> i am the head of c-span's lc d project, a local content vehicle. we have three of them. the purpose is to collect programming from outside of washington d.c. how we do it? we staff each one of these with one person with a small video

camera and a laptop editor so they are able to roll reports reduce, -- produce, and ended on the road. why i want to do this is to get outside of washington and collect programming for all of our networks. we are doing the city's core. we will descend on each city with the vehicles. one will do history programming at historic sites, the other will do book tv programming at bookstores and catching up with offers, and a third of community relations event. community relations events are important to us because we work with our cable partners. the last thing that is important to note is all of this not only goes on the air but as archived on our website. and what we are also doing in the cities is doing extensive social media. if you will see us on facebook, our cable partners. you will see foursquare location-based, and see us on twitter. a chance to get out our message not only on air, but online and

social media as well. that is why it is important. we want to get outside of washington. get to places where we normally do not do programming and make a commitment to get outside the beltway and to -- and to the news program for all our networks. >> wanted the next top in shreveport louisiana, but first weekend in march -- on c-span 3. tonight on c-span, hear from google's -- whose facebook page is like -- widely seen to have influenced the egyptian influence. >> i always believed the internet could help change the world. i know it sounds very cliche, or does not make sense to a lot of people, but that is just how i see things. and working for google, working for a company that does mass scale projects online makes a difference. i remember in the interview, the typical -- why do you want to work for google question --

google?' what i liked about google, offering people information. probably people living here did not understand the value of that. we all have equal access to information. in oppressing regimes, most of the people would only get streams of propaganda flowing into their brains, and this is how the regime can sustain. besides making everyone scared. >> see his remarks as part of our prime time lineup. and former navy seal on the mission of killing osama bin laden. and in debate on whether to prosecute was the banks for mortgage fraud with former new york governor elice spitzer -- eliot spitzer and the assistant attorney general. >> "washington journal"

continues. host: every monday at 9:15 a.m. eastern time, are featured segment your money. a program, is special focus on its mission and who is involved and how much of cost. today we look at the federal air marshal service. our guest is mickey mccarter senior washington correspondent for homeland security today. how did the air marshal program change after 9/11? guest: its changed dramatically. on 9/11 itself, air marshals were part of the department transportation and there were just 33 of them covering something like 30,000 domestic u.s. flights and international flights operated by u.s. carriers. that had to wrap up really quickly, as you could imagine. as the transportation security administration was formed, there marshall became part of it which was also the part -- part of transportation at the time, and one homeland security was greeted they jump over there.

host: what do we know about their presence? do we know how many are on airplanes? do we know how prevalent their presences? guest: the exact number is classified. the department of the list -- homeless security would like to keep it classified so potential terrorists cannot do the math and say, if there are a certain number flying around at any given time then i can gain the system somehow. but we do know there are about 4000 of them. i thing one of the ways we know that is sort of bought extrapolating public money they have and how many salaries they pay and that sort of stuff. probably about 4000 covering all of these flights. host: give us insight about what somebody in the air marshal program does. we have an idea of a plane closed individual on an airplane but give us the real details. guest: that is their primary responsibility, to be a plain clothes police officer on an airplane. and if something was to go

wrong, they have the authority to enforce the law and arrest somebody, to detain them, transfer them to other law enforcement agencies. a lot of the arrest the air marshal's do, do involve a refer where the air marshal would detain somebody and then allow the local police or agency to arrest that individual. host: the program was first proposed by president john f. kennedy back in 1961. it was expanded in 1970 with the sky marshall program. 1700 agents. and then back in 1974 the faa took over the program. post-9/11, as our guest mansion there are over 4000 air marshal's hired under tsa a dramatic -- dramatic change from prior years. why did kennedy even want to have the program? was it a similar mission to what it serves today? guest: it was a similar mission.

in the 60's there were fears of terrorist hijacking airplanes. suddenly we have lots of fears of perhaps cuban nationals or whenever from the soviet union sort of trying to hijack an airplane to sort of make a statement. after kennedy's time with the rise of the palestinian issue obviously hijacking betake -- became more commonplace, particularly in europe. the mission was extremely similar to today but not much more pronounced in the public consciousness now. host: president obama to cut $36 million. what is behind the proposal? guest: their marshals would not suffer much because they are actually organizing -- reorganizing. integrating into transportation security administration by moving their administrative and training function out of the air marshal function as of and into the broader tsa, so taking $36 million at this point i did not think will harm the agency much.

host: let's go to the phones and hear from debra joining us from springfield, massachusetts, a democratic member. good morning. gcaller: i just want to say that this agency is under homeland security. homeland security has no budget. it is funded with a blank check. and we have so many contractors in that agency, and they are working off the government and making huge amounts of money, i might add while ron paul and all of the rest of these republicans are willing to cut everything else but homeland security. they want to eliminate all the regulations on air and water and you name it. so all of that money could be shifted into the military budget. timely that is not true.

host: before you go, what do you think about the service the air marshal's provide? do you think they should be on airplanes? caller: of course. but the idea is -- and he was correct when he says that $36 million is not going to hurt him very much. we have enough if we want to grow the agency to wear -- we are going to be a military dictatorship with all of these people on these airplanes watching everybody else. host: if you could weigh in on what she is saying on boosting the budget of growing the defense and homeland security system. guest: interestingly there is a democratic proposal in congress to grow the air marshal service by about 1700 people. and the bill, which has been sponsored by sheila jackson lee from texas does not specify how many air marshals there are now. but the time of. -- enact a bill from all but at a certain amount, with the idea of we will cover more rouse that

have high risk -- passengers coming in from various places, like the christmas day bombing attempts in 2009, kind of hype -- heightening the awareness that the high risk groups are not covered as well as they should be. her bill is aimed at covering the route. host: remind us about the underwear bomber situation. it did air marshal's play any kind of a role? and perhaps you can also share with us what their track record is, what have they manage to do? guest: this is interesting. the underwear bomber, as he is called, was just sentenced to life in prison. he was actually spotted by passengers on board that plane which was flying from amsterdam. he had gone to amsterdam from nigeria, where his family is from. air marshal's played no role in that. it was the public basically

that's captured him and he was arrested, i believe by customs agents in detroit. if there has been a recurring criticism of air marshal's lately it's has not been they have -- has been they have not responsible with capturing terrorists. "usa today" i believe that a study or report done in 2009 there marshall's only arrest about four people a year and none of them have been terrorist -- air marshalls only arrest of four people. there was an outcry in congress but i think it overcame that. host: you mention sheila jackson lee wants to expand the number of air marshals. what is the general feeling and sent to the in congress? guest: i think congress respects and values the air marshall and understanding are the law enforcement arm of the

transportation security administration. when you go through airport screening and something happens, it transportation security officer, a screener cannot arrest you. they did not have that power to enforce the law. they can detain you and crowd you somewhere until a law enforcement officer arrives. but they did not have the power. and i think there is some recognition that have been a fair -- the air marshal service strengthens it. host: bill, a republican from ohio. caller: yes, ma'am. on the air marshal's service -- we have a lot of people coming home from the military. a lot of them were security police or weapons systems security forces, which regarding nuclear weapons in some of the more secret sites.

i myself was active duty army and i joined the air national guard and got into the security police. we were well trained to take care -- host: do you recommend that veterans could fill these jobs? gcaller: they could fill them very easily. host: something in "the washington post" that touches something bill is talking about. troops complaining of being denied jobs or otherwise being penalized by employers because of their military obligations. "the washington post" says the biggest offender is the federal government. mickey mccarter, and talk in congress that you hear of of

trying to have some kind of formal or pipeline to get veterans jobs or training through the air marshal service program? guest: department of homeless security has an aggressive recruiting effort and they are one of the better agencies in meeting the mandate they have to hire veterans and veterans' in places of unemployment. that has increased and prominent in little but lately because the deputy secretary herself is a veteran. host: what kind of training do they go through? guest: they go through some typical law enforcement training. i think regardless of the level of training that a federal air marshal has won the come into the service on the are hired by the service it is a standardized program at the training academy to sort of understand what to do with unruly passenger, to understand what to do if you encounter an explosive weapon at some sort, under different emergency situations. those are things that are unique

to the environment that air marshalls undergo the training regardless of whether and not have prior law enforcement training. host: independent caller, good morning. caller: now i know he writes for "homeland security today," and i read some of their magazines. i am an expert and promote justice myself. i commend you for that. i have friends that are homeland security, and some of them started prior to tsa taking over. but i think they are probably one of the most highly trained law enforcement specialists. i would also like to find out -- there is also what they call the pilot flight deck officers that are trained and have the ability to stave off the tax on the --

attacks on the flight daeck and they aren't trained. and once the forward stewards and flight attendants, to double their role and kind of be the undercover. the other law enforcement agencies use dea and undercover folks, but they mix in quite well with the program. like the pilots, flight deck officer, the a well-trained. i am just wondering if that could be expanded. and i do applaud them. i think the democratic bill in congress would be well -- host: ballston there at the end. but let's talk about the flight deck program. guest: it is actually being cut under of the current proposed fiscal 2013 budget, cut at least in half, i think. one of those things that the white house is sort of putting

in as a hard reality. they are saying we've got to cut somewhere. this program is not really something we consider critical. host: tell us what it is. guest: the fedor will flight deck officer program basically train a pilot with a sidearm to defend the cockpit -- federal flight deck officer program. a lot of that program is done, the pilot actually pays a lot of the expenses. right now at the stands. if a pilot has to go on his own day off, for example, to participate in the training, i believe the pilot may have to pay for the launching. but the transportation security administration will pay for the training, weapons training, in defending the cockpit and what the pilot would need to know. there are some in congress who are upset. tsa is looking at cutting it because they believe -- it has a lot of benefits, but it is going to be cut. it is interesting the caller

mentioned as well airline stewards and stewardesses, airline attendants, because they have also been vocal about liking to see training and assistance from them to be able to participate or defend themselves if necessary. host: are the train right now? guest: not on a wide scale. i believe there have been some small efforts to sort of provide self-defense training, largely through their union. but really not on an large scale. host: what is the obama administration's justification in proposing to cut the funding for the federal flight deck program? guest: again just the tough fiscal environment makes it hard to expand anything, much less keep it at the same level. host: is there an argument having the marshals on the airplane serves the purpose of safety so the pilots did not have to be equipped to defend the airplane, and they have now the heavy doors unlocking

system? guest: transportation administration -- you have later security, and to get the threat as far away from the plan as possible. you have a lot more risk-based systems going in now, with the pre-check, trusted traveler program they just introduced in washington and around the country with various airlines and various frequent flier passengers, able to skip a lot of the traditional security screening, or maybe when the more advanced components. so, i think it is bundled and that idea, that if we have all of these different layers of security going on, maybe we can afford to cut the last line of security, the pilot with a gun inside the cockpit, maybe it does not need quite as much funding as otherwise. host: of -- washington correspondent for "homeland security today." you said we did not have a hard number of how many air marshal's -- but are they on

every flight? guest: the number i recall is about 30,000 flights a day operated by u.s. carriers new- paragraph s.4000 air marshal's juncker years, and have about 4000 air marshals. what they tried to do is try to figure out what are the "dangerous flights." a flight from pittsburgh to denver probably is not the hardest flight so probably not as much of a need. but from amsterdam to detroit it might be high risk of flight and maybe needs one. host: tom from minnesota. caller: i want to ask your guest what is his take on the fact that this underwear bomber was around to obtain a visa to start

with? it seems on the face this is someone -- anyone with any common sense would not have let him in the country. the other thing i would like to ask him about is that this accent on more and more security in our society is incrementally leading us toward a police state. and the real problem -- annoying people -- host: around the globe annoying people? let's get a response from mickey mccarter. guest: generally denies as a huge visa vetting failure. at the united kingdom raised concerns about him before. his own father called u.s. authorities to report that his son was becoming radicalized. that information was floating around in some database but had not centered itself on the terrorist watch list. since the underwear bombing

incident the terrorist watch list has grown tremendously whereas before any effort to make it a smaller lists the no- fly list, and the terrorist watch list, have grown now quite a bit. lesson learned, i guess. i guess as far as the air marshal's are concerned, there are only so many of them available to cover these high risk of flight. as a police agency themselves, i do not think they are getting to the point where they are that interested in to the lives of everyday americans. host: alabama. ken, republican. caller: yes, this is ken. hello. host: please go ahead. caller: i am a conservative from alabama and the guy from minnesota made a great point about the underwear >> . -- bomber. if he would have botched it the plan would gone down and there would have been hundreds dead. host: what does it tell you?

caller: tells me that maybe wasteful spending we are spending in the homeland security, and we have these people who are getting government pay and there are so many people in the offices that are doing nothing but bringing coffee are bringing donuts to these people sitting behind complete -- computers all day. guest: i think there is justification for the service side by anybody -- if you would have had air marshals on the point is -- airplane's hijack 9/11, these crises may have been likely averted. it would not have crashed and we would not have lost all of these people we will have lost. that said, and the case of the underwear bomber, we do have to point to the fact there was no air marshal on that airplane. it was public vigilance that resulted in the apprehension of the underwear >> . and i think the department of

homeland security and any expert involved says public vigilance will be a huge part of the efforts because you cannot possibly have an air marshal and every airplane. you cannot have a police officer standing by everywhere all the time. as some of the callers have alluded, it is not necessarily desirable. host: don rights in with something we touched on -- how many will be needed to have won on every flight considering there are over 30,000 flights? other conversations among members of congress or administration -- bush or obama administration? guest: there are no serious conversations of proposing and the like that. the air marshal service's budget this year is about $966 million. the obama administration has proposed trimming it and little bit to about 930 million in the 2013. you know, i don't think anybody

looking at growing or shrinking the service from where it is now. host: independent caller from austin, texas. caller: good morning. it is amazing how much different information on this underwear bomber there is. this guy never had a visa. the gentleman was led on the airplane literally -- they tried to keep him off the airplane but two attorneys who have just submitted -- you can go look and youtube -- said that he would lead on the plan forcibly. he was denied access to the airplane two or three times and some unnamed office -- you should look this up, sir -- they let him on that airplane forcibly. he was not allowed to be on that point. somebody put him on that airplane. why would the unnamed agency want to get that guy on the airplane? guest: i am not familiar with the story of anyone attempting to stop him. my understanding is the petn the

underwear bomber was carrying was not detectable by the standard screening he went through in amsterdam and for what i heard he raised no alarm. i was not there, obviously. so i did not know. host: chris, democrats' line. good morning. caller: just a quick question. one of the more underlooked sectors of aviation safety is cargo. one of the things i am looking at is by no cargo operators that the air marshals do not regularly ride but they are part -- can be part of program, the federal flight deck officer program. is there any planning along those lines? the regulations are different from cargo and it is the

overlooked threat. if you look at the airplane as a weapons system for a potential terrorist, that it could potentially cause just as much damage as people on board and not. guest: but caller raises a valid concern and this has entered our consciousness and the more after the printer cartridge plot that came after yemen in 2010 when an al-qaeda affiliates attended to send bombs into the united states the a cargo planes. and the transportation security administration again, has a responsibility for making sure all the cargo is screened before it comes into the united states. tsa keeps asserting they will not be able to screen 100% due to diplomatic and technical complications but they will build a screening of high risk cargo. that said, the air marshal's do

not really play a role in that. maybe down the road there is some expand opportunity for them to do so. u.s. customs and border protection, which has its own very large law enforcement officers division, does make sure a lot of the cargo shippers are in compliance with dhs rules. host: a viewer wants to know how it is related to u.s. marshals? guest: no relation whatsoever. u.s. marshals or for justice department and the air marshalls are with tsa and two do not interact. host: chuck on independent line. caller: my question as we seem to be spending a lot of money on homeland security. has the government looked at freeing up or changing some of the laws to allow intelligence agencies -- fbi and cia -- to do a better job or a more for road

job rather than having their hands handcuffed in regards to some of the intelligence laws we have in this country. i will hang up and wait for my answer. guest: there are a lot of sensitivity is where bolstering intelligence agencies are concerned. the department of homeland security in the federal government and sort of been viewed as a filter, a barrier. the public and interact with the part of homeland security, which is nothing more than a collection of federal police powers and agencies, and that they can serve a broker to the u.s. intelligence community. people are happy with the an arrangement right now and that is probably the way it will remain of the foreseeable future. host: shop in jacksonville florida. independent caller -- sorry. we already had chuck. devon, republican from the

answer -- new hampshire. caller: i heard your guest mentioned the underwear bomber's -- a testimony at the trial last week, and he said abdulmutallab did not have a passport and was not going to be allowed onto the airplane except he was escorted by two men in suits who claimed national security in order to get him onto the airplane. curt haskell is testament said all of this. he was not allowed atlanta beat and witness to the trial because they got him to plead guilty. -- he was not allowed to actually be a witness. the real they would need to be afraid of is the government and tsa in their hands down our pants -- host: bringing up the question one of the early dammars --

callers that abdulmutallab was escorted by agents of some kind? guest: i am not familiar with that story. i cannot say it is true or false. my understanding is that he was targeted for questioning by u.s. customs and border protection which was operating passenger screening for overseas passengers like abdulmutallab and they have plans to question him when he are arrived in detroit. obviously if he was successful they would not be able to question him because he would double himself up. host: let's talk about a recent inspector general report. concerns over the work environments. tell us more about this. this is a story that you reported. new workplace procedures that air marshal service necessary to counter perceptions of discrimination. guest: it is true.

i think it was a cnn investigation and a little while back found, particularly in this orlando office, that the air marshal's operate out of, that there were a lot of feelings of discrimination and retaliation and they found one of the smoking guns, if you will, was this billboard or bulletin board that the managers in the office were using. and they had a lot of derogatory names for various agents and sort of created this oppressive work environment. dhs inspector general investigated this and found there was no widespread discrimination or retaliation for what the service. they did find that people were having a lot of feelings that there may be because a lot of the processes, if you will, a lot of the management there seemed very secretive and not very transparent. the inspector general recommended a dozen remedies and the transportation security administration and is carried

out one would hope that would alleviate the problem. host: bill nelson, democrat of florida, slammed the service for treatment of employees. you said this so stemming from an investigation into an office. the florida senator said the behavior one well over the line and was unprofessional. where others joining his call for an investigation over concerns, and separate but the actual oig report found, were their concerns from members of congress this could be a widespread phenomenon? guest: three or four including bill nelson band together for the ig investigation. although it found the was no discrimination retaliation per se, that there were a lot of fears because the air marshal service had grown rather quickly and it sort of have it -- it did not know the right way

to put it, but a good old boy network saying we are going to get things done but we are not going to tell everybody, not communicate our intentions as well as we should. there were these fears that that was happening and the inspector general basically said here is what you have to do to alleviate those fears and make sure the way for everyone understands we are following equal opportunity laws. host: new york. jim on the democrats' line. caller: i was wondering if the other countries that we fly to and that we have our federal marshals -- security of the airport and so forth do we hold their security accountable the same way that we protect our citizens? is it just a one-way street or do we have other countries who have their own federal marshal program, so to speak, so that it

is a reciprocal thing? is there accountability to other countries? host: let's get a response from mickey mccarter. guest: interestingly enough, again, since the underwear bom ber another incident, there has been a movement to grow other consensus, actual binding agreements with other countries through the international civil aviation organization, which is part of the u.n. gen napolitano has really taken is under her wing. she is the homeland security secretary. and she had been doing a lot to make regional compacts if you will. we have an agreement with countries in asia, europe, south america, to sort of bring of aviation security levels in

general. and these are supposed to be two-way street. we are all agreeing that we will hold a job at uncountable. if one country were to step out of line in these formal agreements, we could sort of seek remedies. the idea is supposed to seal in gaps of security whenever they are perceived. host: mickey mccarter is a senior washington correspondent for "homeland security today." he's got more than a decade of experience reporting on military affairs and military technology. after 9/11 happen -- happens, he shifted to reporting on homeless a dream matters. he has also worked at veterans business journal "stars and stripes," "congressional quarterly," and reported on special operations technology. we have a question from one of our tweeters.

guest: that is an interesting question. one would think they are less than a deterrent because there has been an effort to sort of make them less visible, if you will to the public. one of the ideas in -- is you do not know of there is one of flight. they are supposed to be on it assuming they are supposed the wearing civilian clothes. theoretically it the rest of our security apparatus is have been working, one armed air marshal's should be able to handle two or three different assailants in a perfect world. and of course, we count on the pilot, the crew, and alert passengers to be able to assist. host: in that kind of scenario, is that an example of an incentive to get flight attendants trained so they can assist? guest: i think the flight attendants would agree. one point that has been made is more crewmembers more pilots,

more people in general associated with airlines need that sort of training. and like i said, it's sort of occurred in fits and starts. host: mickey mccarter, who knows when an air marshal is on a flight? does the pilot know, the flight attendant? guest: the pilot certainly knows. whether or not the flight attendants know, i do not know. i would assume in cases they would because if they need to assist, they would be aware that a person with law enforcement authority is on a plane. host: and not just the person waiting a gun. mark on the independent line. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning, america. and also good morning, mr. mccarter. a question about you claiming you have no idea about the underwear bomber being helped onto that plane. i live on disability and i knew

about it. if you have seen the evidence i have gathered about the individual and about the warehouses that were completely filled with all of these bodies scanners and no airports were buying them. and then this underwear bomber thing came along and everyone got sold immediately. this is how they work. these elites who hijacked the federal government is using it through the media, to people. host: you say there is an and destruction place geared toward making money? it is a generate a crisis to help businesses make money? guest: i have to say, after this program i am kind of the interested in talking to my colleague who specializes in intelligence to see if he is aware of the story is that somebody might have helped the underwear bomber on display because i am certainly not aware of them. there are lots of accusations of

the government being in bed with industry on various issues. i know as a matter of policy that the bush administration had actually had a plan for the whole body imagers to be rolled out, and it was under consideration under the obama administration before the underwear incident and it just accelerated the plan and put it in public view. there was a realization that metal detectors can only detect metal, and we had these problems before where people bought a list of items on the airplanes because they are not metallic. host: bill, republican from fairfield, conn. caller: i hate to keep hammering you on the underwear thing. yes, there has been lots of news. it was televised on c-span before congress. undersecretary of state for management patrick kennedy said that the gentleman was allowed to get on the airplane because

they were tracking him. which was troubling in either case, knowing he had a bomb on him, and allowing him to get on the airplane in the first place. guest: again, i am unaware of that. host: mickey mccarter, senior washington correspondent for "homeland security today" talking about the federal air marshal program part of the segment we do every monday watching your money. we will have charlie hurt from "the washington times" and we will hear from someone from the national endowment of the arts, and matthew kroenig, council of foreign relations looking at iran. that is on "washington journal" tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. that is all for today. have a good presidents day.

>> this is president's day officials started in 1971, setting aside the third monday of the month to celebrate the birthday of george washington. there is another president with a birthday in february, abraham lincoln, february 12. president lincoln was our tallest president. james madison was the shortest period. >> i think a good american presidents