>> we will take you live to the washington convention center to hear from remarks from president obama and the israeli president. that will get underway in about half an hour. >> we want to welcome back buck mckeon, a republican of california. donna cassata covers defense for the associated press. and colin clark. >> sequestration, we know you hate it, we know you want to change it. this morning, your ranking member, mr. smith, suggested that by allowing the tax cuts

under mr. bush to expire in december, this would solve the problem. republicans would not have to vote for a tax increase. you guys could march forward. what do you think? >> adam is a good friend and we worked together on this. our committee is bipartisan. i really tried to work because we look at our responsibility as protecting the men and women in uniform. defending the nation of the country. however, we have had many hearings and i've expressed my opinion. he has expressed his. my opinion is that our responsibility, my responsibility, is to look out for the defense of the country, to make sure that men and women in uniform have all of the training, equipment, tools,

leadership, then they need to carry out their missions and return home safely. i do not think it comes under my jurisdiction to worry about taxes and revenue. there are people at a higher pay grade that worry it and work on that. >> given your strong interest in avoiding defense cuts, would you be willing to not vote and let the tax cuts expire? >> like i said, i look at my responsibility of protecting the men and women in uniform. back to the sequestration problem in particular, i have a bill that would address that issue. i do not think we should wait until december to fix that issue. we were elected a year ago in november. we should have been working on this all along. job waser committee's

to work on coming up with the other $1.20 trillion in savings the entitlement programs. if we eliminated the discretionary budget, we would be running a half trillion dollars a year deficit. we could eliminate the pentagon, the department of education, and we would still be in serious problems. we cannot fix this on the back of the military. >> publicly, your leadership has not indicated that they are ready to bring something to the floor before december. do you know differently? >> i have a bill. i am approaching 70 co-sponsors. my bill pays for the first year of sequestration. it does it by reducing the federal work force overtime through attrition. that, to me, is a solution we should all be looking at.

right now, people are -- have buried their hands in the sand -- their heads in the sand. we have leaders of the industry that wants to build the equipment that the war fighters used who are already having to freeze jobs and lay off people because they cannot -- they did not have the liberty of what we have around here of saying we will fix it later. they have boards of directors that require them to be responsible and they cannot say, if you do not fix it december 31, we will take care of it january 1. all the contracts of the defense department become null and void because they have to cut everything across the line. everything. 8% to 12%. >> regarding your bill, leon panetta said it is a well- intentioned effort, you are looking at 700,000 federal employees who work for the

defense department. he is concerned that targeting the federal employees hits him as well. he does not see it as a starter because of the elements of having bipartisan support. >> it sure beats the alternative. when people start understanding -- we have the secretary of the air force, people are just starting to understand how serious this is. they are just trying to come to grips with the $487 billion being cut out of the president's budget right now. then you add another 500 to $600 billion on top of that. no thought, no planning, no nothing. when we had the secretary of the navy and the marine commandant

in the week before last, i asked them, what are you doing to plan for sequestration? they said, omb has ordered us to not even think about it. this is totally irresponsible. >> mr. panetta did say yesterday that come summer, he would consider planning. >> somebody better. in the meantime, i am. i think it is irresponsible to know this is out there, but not pay any attention to a. the leaders of industry who represented hundreds of thousands of jobs, those people will be laid off. maybe not hundreds of thousands, but many. we are looking at the 487

billion and then the 500 billion in sequestration, we are looking at almost 200,000 uniformed military. cuts to the national guard. a couple of -- the civilian defense people that will be laid off, and all the civilians who work for the defense contracts. >> let me try again. does your republican leadership agree with you? >> i have not talked to them. when i get about a.d. 200 co- sponsors, i will talk to them. -- 80 to 100 co-sponsors, i will talk to them. >> we should all know that we are talking on thursday afternoon. >> during the near-term, you are facing the obama budget for fiscal year 2013. there is divisions within the house gop conference as to

whether to go with that number. or to increase that amount. will you try to increase the amount in the budget? >> i think that in the first round of cuts, we are now dealing with the $487 billion. what we have done, the defense department accounts for 20% of our overall budget. we have taken 50% of the savings out of defense. that has been our history after every war, we are brought down the military. it is our dna. i have a real problem with that. if you read history and you see how many people we lost at the start of world war ii, we lost a lot of people that should not

have been lost. we were not prepared when the north koreans and chinese came into south korea. you would think we would bar at some point from history. i hear the same speeches back when hitler was going through europe. at some point, we had a little meeting with some of our members with secretary rumsfeld, and he said on the morning of 9/11, he had some of the members of our armed services committee and the pentagon for breakfast. he said, i told them, because we have just gone down the clinton- bush drawdown, he told those members at that time, something bad is going to happen. i cannot tell you when, where,

what's. my study of history tells me something bad is going to happen. a couple of hours later, they hit the towers. we should know what is happening in iran right now. what is happening in north korea, china, the whole spring with egypt and tunisia and libya, and what is going on with syria. those things were not even on our radar a couple of years ago. if we keep trying down and coming back or military, we will be asking them to do more with less. we just had the admiral in this morning to talk about the pacific. the president came out with this strategy and we're going to put more emphasis in the asia- pacific. but we're not giving them more money.

if there is any way to get more money for defense, i will pursue that. >> let's look -- most people would argue they are the key to shaping things in the pacific. the navy is coming down from 313 -- >> 313 is what we say we should be at. we are at 285. they're hoping to be able to stay at 285 over the next five years. we have the smallest maybe we have had since world war i. the degree of power that we can produce now compared to then its magnitude of difference. numbers also account. -- count. there is important in numbers. a ship can only be at one place at a time. >> which ships do you think need

to be right -- preserved? do you want to poll the ohio class back? >> we have a subcommittee that will be going for the hearing process that will be getting into those details. i am not prepared to argue for one ship over another. i do know that we are cutting back in our production. we are going to be -- as we go through that subcommittee and drill down into that, we will come up with better responses. and then expecting them to do more it is what i am discussing right now. >> the joint strike fighter program, the b-model has been

taken off probation. some of your colleagues in the senate are not sure this is a good idea. the administration has kept its commitment to the full buy of almost 200,000 joint strike fighters over time. might this be a place to save money over the next five years? >> you know, the b-2 was built in my district. i saw the production line. a $40 billion spent on research and development that would build 130 planes. they cut back to 20. if you spread that over 130, we would have that one cost. we actually got one more plane. now they say, we need another 100 long-range penetrating bombers.

it would have been cheaper than the what we're talking about now. the f-22s, when they were first proposed, 825. now we have 178. it is not in this discussion right now, but they will be proposing cutting back because that is what we do. we propose a number based on a need, and we cannot come up with the money, we eliminate the need. i understand this. we did it after world war i, ii, korea, vietnam. it results in increased loss of life. we always talk about the cost to do things, we do not talk about the cost of not doing something. >> global hawks are built in your district. the pentagon cut -- is that

going to be overturned? >> i do not know. i want to look at it. to me, it is not a one or the other. i have some concerns. how do you take a 50-year-old plane? that technology was 50 years old. -- kind of unmanned the direction we are going. i will not look at it based on whether it is done in my district are not. we have a subcommittee that will be looking at all those things in minute details and i will try to look at the overall -- i will

not be involved in trying to force something because it is best for my district. i will be looking at the overall defense of our nation. what is the best way to make sure we have the best possible use -- i understand the defense needs to be on the table, just like everything else. why take 50% of the savings out of 20% of the budget? we need to get to where the real problem is. the defense department is not the problem. when you look at 487 billion and the potential of another 500 billion, and someone even go further. there are people who would like to see us eliminate defense, just along with everybody. >> we have about 10 minutes left. >> just to shift to the question of afghanistan, you introduced

legislation that would bar private contractors from providing security. would that largest -- without legislation require more americans in afghanistan while we are looking at a timetable for withdrawing forces? >> we had a hearing on this. we had a young man in our district to was killed by an afghan security guard. this was a man on a base with the rest of his group. they had broken down their weapons to clean their weapons to go out on a patrol. this afghan that had been hired by a security company came on to the base with another patrol, so they were unarmed, killed two of them, wounded four before they were able to kill him.

the tragedy that those parents had to deal with, the parents in my district and the other young man was from ohio, they should not have had to deal with that. it is hard enough -- war is bad enough that we put our young people out there at risk. they should not have to worry about security within the base. how do you handle that? this is not the first time. i talked to a friend of mine who served in vietnam and he said that is the way it was in vietnam, too. this is something that has been done for a long time. i was down at fortis last week and as we entered the base, -- fort hood last trick, and i

said, who was providing the security at the gates? he said, we did have contractors, but because of money, we're having to use some of our own people. i am thinking, we cannot use our own people in afghanistan, because it is cheaper to hire contractors, but in fort hood, we cannot hire contractors because it is cheaper to use our own people. it does not quite ring true to me. i went out with this lieutenant- colonel that had just come back from iraq and i asked him, would you ever have all of your men under arms at the same time? his research was standing there and the command master sergeant and they all said no. we would always keep two men ready to go. they could provide -- it is a

different emphasis. i think we could work that out some way were we could provide our own protection. i introduced the bill today and we will move forward and see what we can do. it is a problem. i think the president -- breaking news 20,000 troops home this year, it is to soon. -- bringing in these 20,000 troops home this year, it is too soon. they do not fight up till september 1 and then jump on a plane. there is a decompression time and checking and equipment. pulling them out, the original plan was when they sent the 30,000, the original plan was

they would be there longer to make it better so when all the troops come out in 2014, the afghans would be better suited, better trained, better able to carry their own protection. >> can return to iran for a moment? do you think the administration is handling the situation with iran fundamentally correctly? should we go further in defining redlines? >> there are ways to let them know without putting it out and the public. we have channels and they can understand where the red lines are. that should be done. in our bill, we tightened up sanctions.

those are bearing fruit. i wish it had been done a few years ago. we probably would not be in this situation where we are right now, where they're getting very close to having the capability to have a weapon. my concern is we are resolute enough to make sure when we say we're not going to allow them to have a weapon, that we are not. it is kind of like -- i hope this is not some wink and a nod thing because this is very important. >> but you are not questioning the resolve on that? >> i said i hope that we are not -- that this is serious about it. >> there was a report out that iran's nuclear technology underground is vulnerable. is there a way to go into iran

to take out the different types of technology? if so, what do you see? >> i do not know if i can talk about all this. i probably can not. i just had a briefing on this yesterday, and i am hopeful we will be able to take care of whatever needs to be done. and that we will take care of what needs to be done. >> president obama issued some waivers regarding the detainee language that you had included in your bill last year. regarding military custody, mandatory military custody for nine americans who are considered part about -- for non-americans who are considered part of al qaeda. he seems to the had the last word.

will you try to have the last word in the defense bill? >> it would have been more prudent to look at these on a case by case -- there would be a more serious attempt to look at the security of the country. that was our intent. this was a provision that came out of the senate bill that we excepted in conference. it is not my fight with the president. it just seems to me that this should not be -- this is serious stuff we're dealing with. i would think that the president already said when he signed the bill -- he seems to be doing a lot of that. i will support this law, i will not support doma > . i have a real problem with that. we do not pick and choose what

laws. the people did not get to pick and choose what laws they shouldn't force. i do not think the president should pick and choose what laws -- if he disagrees with it, let's go to the supreme court. when we vote on the bill, i have get to vote on a bill that i agreed with 100%. once i vote on it, i am committed to that vote. the president can say at a signing ceremony, i do not like this, but i will sign this anyway, but i will not do anything about it. we learned in civics class that we have three branches of government. they all have different responsibilities and the executives is to enforce the law. >> we have time for one more question. >> the dni has cut the geode spatial spending on commercial

energy by about half. the two companies involved depend very much on that spending to keep going to build new satellites. have you begun to look at this as an issue? the white house has a steady they are doing. >> no, i have not. >> fair enough. >> we will leave it there. buck mckeon, thank you for being our "newsmakers." we are back with our to reporters. colin clark, let me begin with you. you ask the first question about sequestration. what did you. the chairman say? >> -- what did you hear the chairman say? >> we will see and try to bring as many republicans on. if the tea party folks sit in

the back of the room beating the drum, he will not get very far. >> no action on the floor in december it? >> i would be surprised. >> what does that mean, donna? >> it all comes down to what happens on election day. and what happens in a lame duck. the inclination among members to address this issue after an election, when some of them may be in their last few weeks of their term. >> i predict something big happens on december 23. >> the defense budget, he is trying to get more money for the pentagon. is it possible? >> it will be very hard because there are divisions within the house republican conference about increasing of the money. you have a lot of the new freshmen, the tea party-backed

lawmakers who want to cut the deficit. they have said that everything should be on the table, including defense. >> we are talking about 2013, right? >> i was fascinated by the chairman's pledge that he would not try to reassert to the that are built in his district. he said, i will not interfere. i will leave it to the subcommittee. i expected more pushed back. in an election season and from a man who is so committed to strong defense. >> what is the expectation -- people are familiar with the big-name military equipment. what will survive?

we never from the defense secretary, to push some of these cuts out. what are some of the big things that will survive? and not survive. >> the f-35 will definitely survive. we will see the size of the 2500 planes shrank. i do not think it will shrink by much because the allies do not want that number to shrink. it means there cost will go up. the administration actively assigned their virtual treaties with these allies, committing them to certain prices. it makes the jury difficult to shrink things. -- a very difficult to shrink things, but there is no bigger target. >> you asked about enough -- you ask about