alk on why humanitarian action can feel and backfire. ♪ on theood morning morrill day weekend here in washington and around the country, the nation remembers the veterans who paid the ultimate price in their service. tomorrow, the president will pay tribute at the arlington national summit -- cemetery. we will have live coverage. the morrill day was first called decoration day. it began in may, 1868. it is when general john logan called on the country to remember veterans who died in the civil war. to do so every day -- every monday in late may, around the country.

this -- the president will moore, oklahoma on this sunday, may 26. it is also commencement season. today, we are going to share with you some of the remarks delivered to the class of 2013 and get your comments on the message to these graduates. as always, you can join in on the conversation -- you can also join us on twitter or facebook and send us an e- journal@c-span.org. let's show you some headlines, following, oklahoma, the devastating tornadoes outside of oklahoma city. this from "the oklahoman"

and from "the norman transcript" -- the president traveling to the region later today. during commencement season, now defenser and secretary chuck hagel delivering the commencement address at the west point academy. he told the graduates that sexual assault would be "a profound betrayal" of their oath to the army. secretary hagel challenge the class of 2013 west point graduates to be a generation of leaders who stop internal issues like sexual assault, a holism, and suicide, which he said were debilitating and destructive to the strength of the army. at bard college, the commencement speech by former representative daddy giffords, joined by her husband, the headline from "the new york

times" for the next half hour, we will share with you just some of the commencement speeches we have been covering for c-span television and c-span radio. any are available on our website at c-span.org. we will begin with the ceo of twitter, digg costello -- dick costolo. [video clip] >> when twitter cofounder jack dorsey talks about the origins of his thinking for the product, he talked about his fascination with maps. he talks about his ultimate fascination with dispatch as a morend maps efficient way to get taxis and ambulances to where they need to go. when he sent out his first tweet, just setting up my not plan fordid

president obama to declare victory on that platform in the 2012 election. none of us at twitter thought during the earthquake and ensuing tsunami in fukushima, japan that our service would be a great alternative communication platform for mobile networks in japan were spotty in the aftermath. certainly, none of us even hoped, let alone considered, that our platform would be one of those used to organize protests across the middle east in tunisia and egypt during the arab spring. [applause] abouts the amazing thing what i have observed when i witnessed all of those things -- not only can you not plan the , yout you're going to have often won't recognize it even while you are having it. host: the ceo of twitter

speaking to students at the university of michigan, one of a number of commencement speeches we have been covering over the last weeks. them thisen airing weekend on c-span television. we are also getting your comments on our facebook page, and a few of you have already spoke up -- again, you can join the conversation -- you can also send us an e-mail at journal@c-span.org. or twitter or facebook. a story from "the national lerner, nowut lois on leave from the irs. they point out that

in the case of the irs scandal, the system aimed at keeping politics out of the civil service is helping the person who admitted to targeting tea party groups stay on the government payroll. in fact, there is this, according to the 2012 federal government report, few were there in 0.4% of civilian employees were fired. managers have little incentive to go through the time-consuming process of letting federal workers go. that story is available online from nationaljournal.com. another commencement speech from the fbi director robert mueller who told the students at william and mary about the role of government in their own service. [video clip] >> the lessons i learned as a marine have stayed with me for more than 40 years.

value teamwork, sacrifice, discipline, life lessons i could not have learned quite in the same way elsewhere. when i do look back on my career, i think of having the opportunity to participate in major investigations, adjust pan am 103, work with homicide detectives shoulder the soldier -- shoulder in washington, and having gotten to work with one of the finest institutions in the world, the fbi. i will say that these opportunities would have been difficult to replicate in the private are, and thus for me, i can say it has been time well spent. since its earliest days, the college of william and mary has .mphasized service of her self your fellow alumni has -- have served as the nation's highest political officers, attorneys, judges, teachers, doctors, and civic and military leaders.

the way in which you choose to serve does not really matter, only that you work to better your country and your community. each of you must determine in what way you can best serve others, a way that will leave you believing that your time is time well spent. the: the fbi director to students at william and mary college in virginia as he delivered the commencement address. our question to you is, as we look at the message of the class of 2013, what these graduates will inherit, what they will face as they move into the workforce, and other service. our phone lines --

elizabeth warren is the freshman senator from massachusetts, and she delivered the -- these remarks in massachusetts. [video clip] >> one day, i got a phone call. it was in mid-i.t. 90s. i have been teaching law for about 15 years. ae phone rings and it is former congressman was just been been appointed to head up a commission to rewrite the bankruptcy laws. he wanted to be able to get some help -- give some help to families in turbo financial trouble. he thought i could come to washington and help him. i thought he was crazy. i had a job. i was sure about what my job was. my job was to teach classes, to do research, to write for. -- write for a period. i did not know anything about washington politics, and frankly, i do not want to. then he said -- he offered me a deal. he said, if i could come up with ideas with -- that would help families, he would turn the

politics into law. he pushed, and i decided to try. for me, this first trip to d.c. ended up being about fighting for families who were getting squeezed out of the middle class and taking on an army of lobbyists who were working for big banks. for me, it was about the optimism that if we work hard and work together, we can make a difference that really matters. as it turned out, i had the honor of fighting along senator kennedy and many others in congress who were trying to protect families that were hanging onto their -- by their fingernails. host: the comments of senator elizabeth warren in massachusetts. from our twitter page, there is this from one of our viewers -- from our facebook page, there is this --

we are sharing with you some of the commencement addresses at the class of 2013, speeches we have carried in their entirety, posted on our website at c- span.org. the news this morning from politico, senator bob menendez telling in a weekend interview program that, we do not have 60 votes for the immigration reform bill. the story points out that senator menendez shed this week and that the gang of eight is not have the votes necessary to break a potential filibuster on the senate floor, at least right now. he went on to say that that means that in every state, you should be contacting your state senator that we want competence of immigration reform, that they are going to be judged on the political future based on this vote. that is from new jersey senator bob menendez. walter joins us from baltimore, good morning to you. the message to the class of 2013, what is it?

caller: i would just like to share with the graduating class that yes, you have taken a giant step into america's future. now do not forget those that you have passed by on your way to classes, on your way to college as you were taking your spring breaks and everything. please do not forget those people that really need your dedicated service. america needs service. i did not say volunteer service, there are schools that need dedicated teachers, not teachers for profit, but teachers who have a sense of community, a sense of liberty and justice for all. reject the right wing and the left-wing. pursue justice. when you do that, you'll make a better america for all of us, including yourself. i know those student loans will hurt you a little bit at the beginning, but there are chances for you to eliminate some of those charges by participating

andg not volunteering, social programs that actually our social programs, not those life -- right-wing or left-wing ideologies, but justice for all. thank you, and congratulations! host: thanks for the call. jan has this on our twitter page -- photograph front page of the "philadelphia inquirer" -- on tuesday, the president will travel to the jersey shore and tour the region being rebuilt following superstorm sandy last october. there is this story from weather.com. new jersey rolled out some of its big guns on friday to proclaim that the shore is back following hurricane sandy. governor chris christie and the cast of jersey shore to tell the

audience that the state is ready for summer fun. fun,ct, they even hired the rock band. more from commencement speeches to the class of 2013. this from vice presidential republican nominee and congressman paul ryan who is the chair of the house budget committee as he addressed students at the benedictine college in kansas. [video clip] >> after i was elected to congress, i was young. i had to wrestle with many issues, both as a representative and as a catholic. , ii wrestled with my views kept noticing two themes in my beliefs. both of which come from catholic social teaching. .olidarity and subsidiary that sounds kind of intimidating, right? it is simple. solidarity is this belief that

we are all in this together, so we must be good to one another. we must be generous with our love him and we must withhold it from no one. when we write the laws of our nation, we must never lose sight of our primary herpes of the common good. -- purpose of the common good. the belief that every part of the country asked to the whole. every part must be free to do its work on its own terms. yes, government must do some things, but it cannot do everything. it should not assume other people. it should not tell them how to do their work. the people closest to the problem with the most likely to solve it. do you know why? they know the community the best. we see this principle in the first amendment. host: congressman paul ryan, republican of wisconsin, and our question to you is, what should

the message to the class of 2013 the students move on to the workforce or move on to college? there is a story on the front page of "the washington post" -- kevin joins us from massachusetts, on the republican line. caller: you had a clip of senator warren from massachusetts. , she isral ideology sincere about caring for families, but she's little bit at the critical -- hypocritical. on one side she's championing families families for lower-cost tuition for colleges, but when she was teaching -- i do not know if she is teaching anymore because she is a senator that when she was full-time at harvard, she was making $350,000 a year to teach one class a day. that is just incredible. .he is hypocritical

she is getting the top salaries of these professors where they are driving the of education through the roof, and yet she is over there championing families for lower tuition costs. you cannot have it her way where she is getting top salaries good -- salaries. a little bit of hypocrisy. that is the liberal mess for you. host: this on our facebook page -- some other news on the sunday morning. we found this on the khou website

that story available online at khou.com. next is virginia joining us from washington, pennsylvania, a democrat. the message to the class of 2013? caller: god bless you. i thank you for all of your wonderful work and all the wonderful commencement services we have heard. i have a granddaughter claire, on may 24, and as i tell her and everyone, we are the greatest country in the world.

believe in yourself, help and what we have, we live in the greatest, wonderful country. i thank you, and god bless you. host: virginia, what did claire graduated in? .aller: she hasn't decided yet .he is pursuing and going on she is going to continue. host: virginia, thanks for the carpet here's a story from "the washington post" that is a piece by nick anderson. it is also available online at washingtonpost.com. alicia joins us from maryland on the independent line. caller: nice to see you again, steve. my love and

blessings to all those who have served our country in the armed forces and all of those who are still serving. that i have been taught this from the time i was you do all these things well, you work hard am a you study, and you learn, and you work, and you serve others on your own time. do not lose faith, even those who step on you -- keep getting up and trying hard. thank you. host: a political note from the "christian science monitor" --

very early in the road to 2016. the story also points out that kentucky senator rand paul is certainly acting as if he is in the race. he was in new hampshire this past week. can follow our coverage online at c-span.org. next is nick joining us on the republican line from california. good morning. you're up early today. thank you for phoning in. , my name is nick, and i have just graduated high school. my grandmother just turned 100 years old. host: happy birthday to her. caller: she gave me good advice. she told me number one to stay strong and optimistic for the future. i am a gay male. i am really hopeful that the nation has changed their views and hatred and all of that. secondly, she said pay your taxes. always pay your taxes.

thirdly, she said ok the law -- obey the law. next, she said save your money. those three points are very important i think to all of the graduates. i thank you for having me on. host: what are your plans? are you going to college, enter the workforce? ,aller: i'm working right now but i was in theater arts. i'm hoping to be a dancer. host: what is the secret for your grandmother to live to 100? caller: she is canadian, and she ate well, and had a really strong heart and soul. god bless her. i really love her. representative nancy pelosi is a native of baltimore, and she went back to her hometown to deliver a commencement speech to the students at baltimore university. we will hear from her in a moment. misha with you the front page of the "washington post" --

the white house decided there would be a key difference. the strikes would be carried out not by the u.s. military, -- not by the cia, -- the story outlines the cia possible in the drone program. there is nancy pelosi, the former speaker of the house, a baltimore native. her father was the former mayor of baltimore. [video clip] >> right now, the doors of opportunity are close to many in our society. we must restore confidence in our economy. this is one of our challenges, to restore confidence in our economy by creating good paying

jobs for our workers i'm making it in america and reigniting the american dream. ,e must address this challenge and i think it is important for us to recognize the issue of income disparity. we must close this gaping hole who0 years ago, for those measure such things, the in the top 100 companies made about 40 times what the average worker made, about 40 times -- today, the average ceo in the same lineup of companies makes about 350 times the average worker. the comments of representative nancy pelosi, the democratic leader in the house of representatives as she returned to her hometown of baltimore addressing the class of 2013. you're asking what the message needs to be for the graduating classes as we share with you

some commencement speeches we have covered at the c-span network. you can give us a call, and you can also join us on twitter or facebook or send us an e-mail a t journal@c-span.org. david dreier, republican of california, as a new assignment. he is to the brookings institution. he will be serving as a distinguished a look. that statement is from the president of brookings. for more than three decades, david dreier has been a leader in congress. we look forward to drawing on his expertise across a wide range of policy areas come and notably his understanding of international trade and strengthening democratic institutions at home and around the world. he was first elected back in 1980, a republican from california, former chair of the house rules committee. david dreier is now at brookings in washington. that he joins us from albuquerque, new mexico, a joins usand -- becky from albuquerque, new mexico, a democrat. caller: if i were to say

anything, it would be, immerse yourself in books. read about the history of this country. read about how we were created. thatttention to the adage if you ignore history, you are doomed to repeated. perhaps engage yourself in some of the works of howard zinn. in particular, "a people's history of the united states," where history is told from the vantage point of the oppressed, rather than those who were the victors. you learn about history in an entirely different way. read about civil rights. read about malcolm x. read about martin luther king. see how we have achieved as much as we have achieved over the years and what we still need to do. , hang out in bookstores, pay attention, and learn from the past. host: thank you for the call. you can check out all of our book coverage on c-span 2 cost

booktv programming every -- c- span 2's booktv programming. tomorrow, our coverage of all nonfiction books. this morning from "the washington post" -- a retired member of the military and a lengthy piece in the military. we will share with you what -- what she had to say. first, the president's comments at the naval academy during which he addressed the issue of sexual assault in the military. [video clip] >> i say all this because you are about to assume the burden of leadership. as officers, you will be trusted with the most awesome of responsibilities, the lives of the men and women under your command. when your service is complete, many of you will go on to help lead your communities.

america's companies. you will lead this country. if we want to restore the trust that the american eagle deserve to have in their institutions, all of us have to do our part. those of us in leadership, myself included, have to constantly strive to remain worthy of the public trust. as you go forward in your careers, we need you to carry forth the values you've learned at this institution because our nation needs them now more than ever. host: the president friday at the u.s. naval academy, addressing the graduating class of 2013. in the "washington post" --

back to your calls, joe joins us in fargo, north dakota, on the independent line. your message to the class of 2013? caller: good morning. i think the class -- the message for the class of 2013 should be to uphold the constitution of the united states and protected to the fullest extent of the law, and the reason i say that is because the way you remove a politician from washington him up from the government -- washington, from the government is to impeach him. highption, bribery, crimes, we all know that is going on. treason and bribery, in my book him a are the same thing as

lobbyists and special interest. it is time for america to get serious and stop being a bunch minds and paying for gasoline when everybody is broke and everybody is going broker and blaming themselves and working all day can and families are falling apart and everything else because the petroleum industry is stealing, robbing the people's money. host: think you for the call. paul has this point on our twitter page -- next is joe joining us from orlando, florida, your message to the class of 2013? caller: good morning. , i amress your question sorry, i should've been a little more prepared, but i had

no idea who is going to get through. inm sorry for the time history that these people are graduating. i do not believe that their quality of education has truly ,repare them for the future from what i read and from what i see from time to time on tv. the fellow performing i think alluded to -- before me i think alluded to the constitution, their knowledge of history, another caller said, of the average student. a's if irobably make was graduating today. i'm afraid they do not have the basic values it will take to survive and really be productive right on down to the family, commitment to the

family. age, i was at school in the 40s and 50s, so i read the obituaries to see who of my friends have gone on, but most of them i read about, they have been married to the same person all of these years. that is not true today. we know what the divorce rate is. we know what the out of wedlock rate is. the morals of the country have gone down so far. .t has taken that liberal turn host: i will stop either because we are short on time. vicki for sharing your thoughts and how old are you -- think you for sharing your thoughts. how old are you? caller: 78. one last thing, i think -- i am a christian, but i think they need to believe in something

bigger than themselves if they are going to make it. they've got to have something bigger to hang their hat on to. thank you so much. host: good words of advice. there is a story we want to bring to your attention that you may not have known about, a speech delivered 50 years ago on memorial day in gettysburg, pennsylvania. lyndon vice president johnson, six months before he president following the assassination of john kennedy, the story from the "new york times" --

that was the story this morning from inside the "new york times ." saxby chambliss also delivered a speech to the 2013, a republican senator from georgia. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> it is easy to feel overwhelmed with how much the world has changed, just in time that you have been here at uga. look no further than the events in boston last month where in a single instance a joyous event celebrating human stamina and achievement transformed into a scene of life-changing carnage and uncertainty and unease are two very powerful emotions. my position as vice chairman of the senate select committee on intelligence, i hear daily about what a scary place the world can be, and i am privy to details

that keep me awake at night on a regular basis. but i also hear how dedicated young people like you, day and night, are out there working hard, piecing together valuable information, foiling plots, taking down bad guys, and preventing another boston, another september 11, or another oklahoma city from happening. classthe message to the of 2013, university of georgia, republican senator saxby chambliss georgia. some other headlines, from the "denver post" -- the "chicago tribune" --

this photograph front page of the "new york times does quote " --new york times part of the somber ceremony at dover air force base and a reminder of those who do pay the ultimate sacrifice on this memorial day weekend. we have time for one more caller. teresa joins us from portland, connecticut, on the independent line. caller: good morning. -- gabbyaddy giffords giffords'commencement speech. she said, starting tomorrow, you can change the world. today, we are celebrating you. the bold, be courageous, your best. a recent caller said president obama should be tried for treason and high crimes. he has the right charges but the wrong president. it was bush that led us into an unnecessary war, lied us into an

unnecessary war, and left this country a mess which our president now is trying to clean up. host: teresa, thanks for the call. all of your comments and we will come back to this issue and 9:30 eastern time. another half hour for you to weigh in on the for the class of 2013. more commencement speeches, including the president, and a more emotional speech to the students at morehouse college. all the speeches are available online at c-span.org. a very busy week in washington. alexis simendinger will join us in a few minutes from realclearpolitics. she covers congress and the white house. later we will examine u.s. intelligence and classified spending, how much is being spent and where that money is going. robert levinson of bloomberg government will be joining us to take your calls and share his insight on his reporting. on this memorial day weekend, everything from the budget and the debate here in washington over drones to the president's speech this past week here in

washington, d.c., to the week ahead as congress prepares for immigration debates. some of the issues and topics on the sunday morning programs. we are keeping track of all the sunday shows which can be heard on c-span radio. nancy, good morning. >> all those issues will be coming up today on the sunday morning talk shows. including the aftermath of the, tornadoes, irs targeting of conservative groups, immigration , and sexual assault in the military. "meet the press" re-airs at noon. today it is preempted by the monaco grand prix. at 1:00, we begin our readers " withbc's "this week workbook and senator rand paul, new york representative peter the chairman of the democratic national committee, debbie wasserman schultz. at 2:00, it is "fox news sunday." ris wallace talks with senator

dick durbin, republican senator lindsey graham, and former presidential candidate and majority leader of the senate bob dole. state of the union" follows at 3:00 with candy crowley welcoming oklahoma governor -- the oklahoman governor governor. at 4:00, it is "they said nation." "face the the sunday network talk shows brought to you as a public service by the networks and she's fan. again, -- and c-span. listen to them all on c-span radio on 90.1 fm in the washington, d.c. area. nationwide on xm satellite radio, channel 119. you can download our free app

for the smartphone, or listen online at c-span.org. >> i am a member of the supreme court bar. that is the select group of attorneys permitted by law to practice before the justices, filing briefs, and actually presenting oral arguments. these folks include the briefs -- books include all the briefs i have filed and more than 10 years practice. in that time, i have argued 18 cases on a wide range of important era law questions. i teach to bring court litigation. and california as well as harvard in massachusetts group i have called "the nation's premier supreme court advocate anarcho -- advocate." >> people cannot like that. >> i do not care. >> where did you do that? >> in my office at the law firm. a lotk that people who do of serious things in this town

take themselves way to tear -- way too seriously. i do not think i walk on water. i really enjoyed what i do. i feel like it is a privilege. i do not mind making light of what it is that i and other people who have this job do. i think we are lawyers, we represent people, we are not the greatest thing since sliced bread, and if we cannot have fun, what is the point? blog'se with scotus founder tom goldstein tonight at 8:00. >host: we want to welcome back alexis simendinger, who covers congress and the white house for realclearpolitics. , ic-span radio last thursday talk to scott wilson. he called the president speech one of the most significant speeches of his presidency. you called it a big sky speech with a lot of details in it. what is your take away? guest: the president was really trying to deliver a speech on

thursday that in some ways recalibrated or maybe reset his thinking for the american public about where he was, what he has been thinking, his whole counterterrorism policy. i thought that the president was really reaching in a way to assemble a whole lot of moving parts in one speech, but it also helped him speak to the american people about where he andstarted in politics very much as president thinking about the legacy. when we talk about it being a big reset speech, it was a signal in his mind that his thinking about the post-9/11. of being at war against terror in his mind is really wound up. he was not trying to say it was totally over with, but trying to summarize all of his policies, whether it relates to drones, the relationship with congress on the use of military force,

whether it was talking about indefinite in our security abroad, trying to encourage people on the hill to rethink the idea of closing guantánamo bay. he threw in some counterterrorism policies related to searching for government leaders. -- leakers. he thinks the mayor can people in this country are going back to footing before 9/11 when we are in a much more routine battle to contain and deter terror, as opposed to being on a war footing. talkghanistan, he wants to about withdrawing the troops by 2014. he mentioned that too. he pulled it all together and wrapped go around it and try to suggest or he thinks the country is going to be going after he is president. drone let me follow up on attacks, because we heard from the attorney general would not three americans have been killed. one was targeted, and three others are viewed as casualties as a result.

let me share with you part of what he said, the president last thursday. [video clip] , i authorized the declassification of this actio , to facilitate transparency and debate on this issue and to dismiss some of the more outlandish claims that have been made. for the record, i do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any u.s. citizen with a drone or with a shotgun without due process. nor should any president deployed armed drones over u.s. soil. a u.s. citizen goes abroad to wage war against america, and is actively plotting to kill u.s. citizens, and when neither the united states nor our partners are in a position to capture him before he carries , his citizenship

should know more served as a shield than a sniper shooting down on his -- an innocent crowd should be protected from a swat team. of course, the targeting of any american raises constitutional issues that are not present in other strikes, which is why my administration submitted information about awlaki two department of justice months before he was killed and briefed the congress before the strike as well. but the high threshold we have set for taking legal action applies to all potential terrorist targets, regardless of whether or not they are american citizens. host: let me pick up on two points. first of all, he called this an effort to be transparent. is the obama administration transparent when it comes to these attacks? caller: not quite. the president has been promising for some time -- he got a lot of pressure from parts of his party and days -- that he

needed to be much more forthcoming with the american people. we heard the president say that he would be doing this in some form or fashion for months. he chose to do it in this speech. it wasnsparency part of in some ways to get inside of his thinking about what his values are, what the legal framework is, what the standards are key is trying to establish for this administration that might carry over into the next, but in the americaning people through all four of the american citizens and how they were killed, he talked about one, awlaki. in terms of what the administration will be doing by moving it from the cia to the pentagon, that was sort of open- ended. the president talked about a framework of standards, but a lot of that is still classified. he was forthcoming in some ways with more details, and sort of

his thinking about how he had to weigh all of the ramifications of why it might be legal, necessary, and effective to use drone strikes, legal drone strikes, to kill not just americans but what is climbing towards a number of 400 suspected were implicated terrorists who have been struck in yemen or pakistan. host: with regard to gitmo, public and senators led by lindsay graham and saxby chambliss and john mccain, praising some of what the president said on the drone issue, but very critical of his call for closing guantánamo bay. the congressional delegation traveled over the weekend. we have been getting reports about some of these prisoners being force-fed because they are on a hunger strike. there's a lot going on. guest: the president has been trying to see some sort of support for congress to close one, since before he was elected. it was one of the more -- to

close guantánamo bay since before he was elected. it was one of the more misconstrued, misdirected elements of the first term because the president was not able to develop a plan that was persuasive with congress. when you talk about the members of the senate who were giving the president some room to come back to them and talk about this, senator mccain or senator graham, they said they were open to the idea of closing guantánamo bay with a plan. senator mccain said he has never seen an actual coherent and effective plan to do that. tois looking forward working with the administration to do that. the president has already talked about the challenges of closing guantánamo bay, it has 166 people still detained, especially in the case of those who do not have a case that can be held up in court. they are considered too togerous to shift back

their home countries or accepting countries. the president talked about how they could be moved to either a military detention facility on u.s. soil or perhaps at a super max prison. that is where you hear from members of congress that they do not want to see that happen. it may be that they will get him and allow him to use his executive discretion to start on a case-by-case basis to transfer some of those who have been cleared to yemen, which is something he talked about in the speech, but what to do with the dangerous but not effective cases to bring to trial, so open ended. --t: "the weekly standard" the cover story -- herew mccarthy has a piece posted entitled "obama's cynical

war speech" he called the president speech delivered because he isn't world and not one but three scandals and counting, including his own dereliction of duty in connection with the benghazi massacre. from: one of the things the right we heard right away after the speech was not at the speech was unwelcome, but that it was too many on the republican side of the aisle a change in the topic. for those who thought the president was feeling the heat, especially on the hill from the trifecta ofctive -- difficulties he has had at benghazi, talking about how the talking points have been developed, when he got into hot water over the irs and how the screening of tax exempt organizations with the names tea party in their title had transpired, and then also with the president's very assertive effort with the justice

department to search out government leaderkers, includint the associated press and fox news, members of the republican party were critical of the president and thought he was trying to distract the american attention from what was happening on capitol hill. host: on the issue of shield laws and the first amendment and classified information, leonard downie of the "washington post" had this -- you were in the briefing room with peter baker of the "new york times" who pose the question to jay carney, formerly the washington bureau chief for "time magazine." here's how that unfolded. [video clip] >> these are weighty and serious

matters. it is important to remember that the release of that information is a crime. if the government did not take any action, then we might as -- closeuation room thethe distuation -- situation room and allow all of those who would do americans harm access. there has to be that balance. that balance is important to the president. i think it is reflected in the stance he has taken in the past, and it is reflected in what he has said and done as president. he is again very understanding of the questions are being asked about the need to find a balance. he thinks they are legitimate.

kind ofves that discussion is healthy for democracy. >> my own question is whether , withnfronted that choice somebody who has that information and whether or not to publish it? not personally. every instance is different. it is certainly the case that this administration and previous administration, when information is pending, that we try to work sometimes with news organizations. in all -- an administration will work with news organizations in terms of the timing of the release of that classified information in order to protect as best as we can the national security interest of the united states. in terms of my past experience, it is not a particular relevance. host: this has been coming up over the last couple of days because jay carney is a former working journalist emma and he had to confront many of the issues. now he is on the other side of

the podium. guest: jay is a reporter, ex for "time magazine" who i worked with at the white house. i knew him when he was a working reporter. i think it was appropriate for peter baker, who also remembered working with jay as a reporter, to asking those questions as he straddled the two sides of the fence. the question at "time magazine" would have been appropriate because jay worked with matt cooper when he got ensnared in the valerie plame case. also, jay had been a correspondent in moscow, moscow bureau chief. he understood a lot about international policy, classified secrets, and leaks. it was an appropriate question to ask him. all of us could see in the room that jay was torn. he was trying not to involve himself in the response. he was trying to respond to the president of united states as a

a spokesperson, but he was also saying that this was a balancing act that the president was trying to achieve. what is interesting is that jay was not trying to get any further ahead of the president and the president wanted to be by the time the president gave his speech on thursday about the counterterrorism policy. the president moved again from jay not talking about reporters doing their jobs in any direct way, then saying the president did not think it was a crime for journalists to do their work as investigative reporters, and in the president moved further to say, i talked to the attorney general, and he shares my concern. remember, this is the same attorney general was signed off on requests for information 's e-mails anden phone records. the attorney general personally approved that.

the president has now got a review underway with the justice department. they are trying to talk to media organizations. the president says, i support a media shield law, which is debatable whether it would have affected anything that would've had to do with the ap and fox news cases. he wants to get report back about all the way justice does things by july 12. he offered himself some cover , i should theg media's concern. we do not think you are doing any kind of criminal work when you are seeking those leaks. we will see where this clash goes. technology has changed so much that justice is not asking the news organizations for their sources or information, which would allow them to go to court to protest it. they are actually getting justice to given the approval to go behind the scenes greatly to get the e-mails, phone records. we are talking about reporters relatives, their phone records. this is probably the broadest

sweep into this that we have seen in any administration. host: if you are just tuning in or listening on c-span radio, our guest is alexis simendinger of realclearpolitics. she covers politics on capitol hill to our phone lines are open -- capitol hill. our phone lines are open -- mike joins us from west virginia. caller: good morning. the question i have -- i want to thank c-span -- do you think goes to politics -- after a while, sometimes there are poor decisions -- i see a lot of things, congress is fighting. these are distractions. it seems like they do not want to do what is best for the country, but do what is best for politics.

our roads and infrastructure, our bridges and roads, congress should pass the allotment for repairs. what we have is a disaster. host: you used the word distraction with regards to benghazi and the irs investigation and obvious phone records. do you combine all of them together as the incompetence of government? caller: i would not say it is incompetence. it is political. host: we will get a response. thank you, mike. guest: that is an excellent question because the president, not unlike his predecessors, who has been through similar situations, especially in second terms, would agree with you in the sense that their argument is, what congress is focusing on, investigations, searches for documents, asking for witnesses to come to the hill, is a distraction from doing the peoples's work, whether it is legislation or as you say,

working on the budget or appropriations, or dealing with his recommendations for infrastructure. he has a very broad and assertive policy proposal on infrastructure improvement. the white house is very much and like mine with you, but the argument they are making is that the president is not distracted in any way by the congressional investigations and is very much focused on the work he has to do every day. the white house chief of staff, not unlike his predecessors in the bush or clinton administrations, has advised the toff not to be distracted, not get diverted into reading about it and worrying about it, but to focus on the work they are trying to do everyday. when i say not unlike the predecessors, i am old enough to have covered the clinton administration, the bush administration, and i can remember white house is in the second term being in the grip of similar, not identical, but similar controversies and having

to develop mechanisms inside the white house to keep allowing ahead on the things they thought were very important. say that it does not distract the american people or the job approval support for the president. that can happen. but the president is trying to argue congress is off on a tangent. host: this question based on previous white house press secretary. jay carney has been on the job for about two years. dana perino a year and a half. mike mccurry over two years. withf our viewers saying this tweet -- isn't it time for a new rest secretary? may be one that will give us information instead of spinning the story? right now, jay carney of the public face this white house. >> right. jay carney has been since the beginning because he joined vice president biden's staff. we are already talking about a political appointee who is

dealing with the administration for a long period of time. we are watching jay carney decide he has other opportunities to do. usually what happens with president to make a change with their spokespeople is when they feel that they have either run roadf traction, run out of to continue, their effectiveness have started to erode, maybe they would like to make more money -- sometimes presidents do it because they think they can turn a page and create a new environment. with all that in the clinton administration. we sell that in the bush administration. they're been outside analyst who jay isggested because good on television, heated television before he was that "time," he might have a career as a paid analyst for d.c.

so we will see. jay carney has participated in a lot of profiles lately. that is usually an opportunity to try to set the stage for yourself, what you have done, then you start to look for other things. i have no personal knowledge about that, but i'm sure if he wanted to, he could do many other things. host: including the "washington post" style section article. guest: his musical path and -- passion. host: good morning, brad. caller: there is so much to say. the last caller rallied about the republicans copping no bridges to be built, when the democrats held the house and senate during obama's first term and they got the stimulus passed, and most of that money went to the teachers unions and other union causes. they were the ones steering

this. your guests constantly keeps forgetting that and act like it is the republicans' fault for keeping the people's business that day. but obama ran for for the first time on closing gitmo. he ran on making jobs. neither of which have happened. he could have closed guantanamo during the first two years if he felt so abhorrent about the process, as he said so when he was running. journalism here is selective. you are so partisan. the excuses are really why term "drive-by media" is there. guest: first of all, i am delighted that he watches c-span if he is hostile to the media because it is that he is giving c-span a chance. the recovery act, the stimulus legislation was examined and studied and monitored all the

way through. the president said -- speaking to what you were just talking about, it was harder to find shovel ready jobs right away, shovel ready projects. outside innovation of stimulus money and money that was spent would refute your assertion about the money going just to unions.s -- just to many projects got undertaken and completed around the country. what was interesting is there were many republican governors who initially were very resistant to taking the money for projects in their state. it turns out that every governor accepted the money. we're talking about another phase phase of the president of the initiative to try to get congress interested in infrastructure spending as a way to create jobs. we will see what happens. we have seen that there is some attention and bipartisan support in the past for that. i would say in my own defense

that i try very hard as a white house correspondent to be neutral, so i'm going to tell you that i have covered democratic and republican in administration. i am sorry that you think we are partisan, but i have to say that. from senator bob menendez, a lyrical reporting that he is telling every hispanic pretty a network over the weekend that currently the senate does not have the votes necessary to pass the immigration bill. the so-called gang of eight has a plan that did not move through the senate. the final vote was 13-5. and the debate will resume after lawmakers return after memorial day weekend. this legislation will be on the floor. harry reid,, the majority of the senate, has said it may go into july. one oftor menendez is the members of the gang of eight from new jersey is suggesting that they are not at 60 votes yet, it is not shocking that they are not at 60 votes yet,

but he is saying that they are not even at the filibuster number. one of the things we've seen is advocates for immigration reform in the house and the senate is a great desire to see enough votes in the senate -- and we are talking about maybe 70 votes -- way over the filibuster and level of votes. way beyond that. to show a real cohesion of bipartisan support. support house republicans to feel comfortable. at least enough of them to support what is turning out to be a separate bill in the house, not the same bill. boehnerheard speaker say that the house wants to see its own immigration reform bill, not just take the bill from the senate. so if senator menendez is centered -- is adjusting right now that before going to the floor they are at the 60 votes that is concerning, but he is

optimistic that they can begin to craft legislation by letting members, leading amendments try to develop a bill that can get enough buy-in to really encourage the house to go forward. host: i want to back to the earlier issue of investigations. this is from the "hill" newspaper. based on an ibo -- on an e-mail, he said the republicans are " making up scandals out of thin air. co. -- out of thin air. oh from our twitter page -- is the house of representatives desert for scandal? it is policy and oversight. so at least the two that they were engaged in -- benghazi, what happened in benghazi is certainly legitimate. four americans died. there were a lot of discussions about what the attack was, what happened. congress was limited to the idea that maybe the white house has worked with the state

department to manipulate the information about whether it started with a video and whether it was terrorism and how that whole storyline had migrated. bipartisan support, including the presidents, there was an independent review of what happened in benghazi. all of that was oversight. totally legitimate. in the irs case, one would argue that that seems to be an incredibly legitimate oversight whatof congress to look at happened in a quad band dependent agency in terms of its review of tax exempt status for 501c4re considered organizations, which are sort of nuisance 2010. the arguments that part of it are partisan or politics -- my argument is there might be some of that there. the house chairman, for instance, in charge of the oversight and one of the committees in the house -- not overreach, not overextend what

it is that they are try to do so that the actual are given about the policy and finding out how it could be improved, let the american people see that as a more constructive effort than just throwing mud at the in administration. i want to mention that this oversight, the request for documents, the request to study has happened in every administration i have covered, first and second terms. second terms tend to be riper for that kind of things after a reelection. i am not sure that the irs or benghazi will be the end of it. congress has been very interested in keystone, the pipeline. continuing to examine policies of the president that they are concerned about. host: laura puts it this way -- congress is completely broken. toant to draw your attention this "washington post" outlook

session -- even when it succeed, congress fails. on the culture of mediocrity on capitol hill. that includes members of congress being mediocre. you can read it online. let's go to mike in boca raton, florida. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. it is a pleasure to talk with alexis. i have read a lot of her stuff on the internet. guest: thank you. caller: regarding the previous section of this program, my high school graduation was over 30 , and the in 1980 quote over my high school is one that i think our congress needs to take a look at now, which is enter to learn, go forth to serve. we have not gone forth to serve. it has more days off than it has been in session. host: where did you go to high school? caller: about 13 miles north of

boston. the class of 1980. one of the things i learned, especially with my history, was what abraham lincoln had said over 150 years ago. a house divided cannot stand. i also believe that goes with our nation's infrastructure. if we don't fix the roads and the rails, instead of having a to act toreaction the disaster, why can't we get something through this house? in some form of a stimulus or some dollars spending where we don't have to lose lives and have massive accidents and bridge collapses and all of this because this is just going to get worse. over 900it, i think -- bridges all over the country -- i do not know the exact statistics here. but our infrastructure -- we are falling apart at the seams.

why can't we get this congress to get something done? host: mike, thank you for the call. alexis simendinger. guest: one of the things that occurred to me is the president today is going to be going to , and on tuesday he will be in new jersey, in both cases talking about the bipartisan support that he has seen for disaster relief. for rebuilding after disasters. one of the things that the administration tend to lament is is only focus after some sort of a crisis. after 9/11, we had a lot of concern in spending about our infrastructure because we were worried about the safety of it, how vulnerable it might have been to terrorist attacks. the president has tried to talk about this gradual, as you were saying, deconstruction or falling apart of our bridges,,

our ports, or roads. just because we are behind the ball in terms of maintenance. a divided congress has not made it easy, but the lack of a crisis thinking about it is one problem -- one problem, and now we are in a deficit, sequestration mode. i am expecting to hear the president talk about the kind of investment that government can make, federal and state and local, to resolve some of the things after the crises, after a natural disaster. i think he is going to try to also keep at this idea of infrastructure, hoping that there will be maybe in the budget discussions, not necessarily separate and apart from the budget, but in the budget discussions we will have in the fall, a renewed interest in infrastructure. from the jersey shore weather.com -- open for business at the store. governor chris christie the area rebuilt

since these superstorm. back on tour again. the president and governor christie, as you mentioned, together on tuesday. political ramifications for this because governor christie up for reelection, and some are critical of his support of the president in october just a few days before the november election. guest: governor christie has been pugnacious about saying when you have trouble the president is your friend. they seem to really like each other. the oklahoma governor has also commended the president and said we welcome him here. we are very happy to have him in red state oklahoma oklahoma. we really need the federal government after what happened in moore. practicalrs are very politicians when they understand that they need the federal help. we are going to see governor christie giving the president a tour and be very proud of a one- year mark that he said -- he set

for the jersey shore. he is going to celebrate the local folks who really poured all kinds of strings to get the boardwalk back and get the taurus back to the beach. host: a follow-up on oklahoma. senator coburn has called for an offset to any aid that goes to oklahoma, potentially for the offset by other spending cuts. $2 damage estimate at about billion, 13,000 homes damaged or destroyed. fema has about $11 billion in its budget. guest: fema has signaled that they might have enough money to handle the oklahoma situation as opposed to the very quick request for aid for new jersey. that was also a big argument in capitol hill about whether it should be offset. we've seen members of the republican party in the senate in particular talking about how what happened in new jersey and their resistance to ok'ing that

money. moneyonal projects and got shoveled into that legislation, so it was not a clean bill. i imagine we will have the same discussion about oklahoma, whether it should be offset. there will be the same discussion about where the offsets should come. fema is trying to patch that up by saying we have enough money by now. host: oklahoma natives have been the last oklahoma couple of days. we have been sharing with you that what they have been able to capture. we will be covering the president's remarks and be the homes and area damaged and destroyed by the tornado last week. we will cover these remarks here on c-span radio and c-span television. john is joining us from north carolina. good morning, john. caller: good morning. thank you, c-span, for allowing me to speak my mind. i have a comment to make. --m extremely unarmed extremely alarmed and concerned about what the president said

concerning drones. my personal opinion is the drone is a clumsy, mechanical machine. case in point -- i was listening , and theerview journalists talk about a drone strike that killed a 16-year-old boy by the name of abdul, who is the son of the terrorist or the individual who was allegedly connected to al qaeda. i thought that was unfortunate. he said the son was 16 years old, and the drone strike killed him and two cousins, who were also teenagers. that many americans should be alarmed and even upset and frustrated about the drone program. i would like to make one more comment about the drone program and what the president said about the citizenship.

i personally believe that american citizens should first be read their miranda rights, etc., before some mechanical machine is sent out to execute him. host: john, i'm going to stop you there. let's go back to the issue of the drones. the front page of the "washington post," there is one quote i want to share with you the president delivered his speech, even though to agree that it may prove more difficult for the president to dismantle the cia's drone program -- that it is to shut down the guantánamo bay program in cuba. guest: one of these stories many people have had about the drone program is the collateral damage, the civilian casualties. the president has conceded that civilian casualties are part of

war, whether it is traditional kinds of boots on the ground warfare or whether it is the .nmanned aerial drones he tried to use his speech on thursday to talk about the weighedf, how he has the idea of civilian casualties, including the 16-year-old son, whom the president did not discuss in his speech. which has been a great concern to many people, many americans. and the president tried to argue that traditional warfare, what we think of as traditional warfare, has often had many, many more civilian casualties then the precision, lethal drones. and that he himself had thought about the revision as one of the trade-offs and why he has tried to use drones selectively but effectively, he has argued. he has not conceded that the a

16-year-old was a civilian casualty, but that is the expectation. , asof the things that steve was a suggestion, there is a debate in the and administration, is whether the awaydent moved the cia from its drone management of this particular part of the terrorism assault, and give that over to the military, whether civilian casualties will go up instead of down. the suggestion is that the cia is better and more precise in trying to hit the targets without killing women and or peopler villages who are just innocent in that situation. so the president is trying to figure out how to ramp down. that is the impression he's trying to leave. he is also trying to say he has used them out of a deference toward reducing the casualties.

graduate of new college and university of missouri, a couple of people have been weighing in on our facebook page about consent -- about commencement speeches. losing your dreams, not your fears, that is the america i know. tricia says, do not believe people who only spew hate and offer no solutions. do you remember one of your commencement speeches? guest: it was a wonderful florida author named john mcdonald. he was the speaker. he lived in a community when i went to new college. he was a terrific speech or -- a terrific speaker. he was lively. i also remember the one and only imitation i've ever gotten to be a commencement speaker myself was at my all modern, and i got to give the commencement address. it is a much smarter -- a much harder thing to do to come up with something that anybody would remember. host: what are the rules for a

good commencement speech? guest: i listened to my niece's commencement, and outward argue humor. we are so lacking humor. humor goes a long way. it should not be long, it should be uplifting, something funny, and in many commencement speakers also remember to talk to the parents. i think that is appreciated. host: alexis simendinger, a busy week in washington, and commencement at the end. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you. host: we will take a short break, and when we come back, we will turn our attention to looking at classified spending in the u.s. intelligence spirit we will be joined by rob levinson of bloomberg government. and then christopher cloyd -- christopher coyne. we will get his perspective as the "washington journal" continues on the son appeared we are back in a moment. ♪

>> after president grover cleveland loses his bid for reelection in 1888, his wife tell the staff -- >> i want you to take good care of all the furniture in the house and not not let any of them get lost or broken, for i want to find everything just as it is now when we come back again four years from today. >> and they did return to the white house, winning the election of 1892. the life of frances cleveland as we continue our series on first ladies, live sunday night at 9:00 eastern on c-span, c- span3, c-span radio and c-span .org.

>> what happened in the senate for three consecutive years, we do not even consider a budget resolution. i serve on the budget committee for eight years. throughout history, since 1974, many years where budget resolution is not pass. but three consecutive years, and this is finally the fourth, the house and senate has not reconciled their differences. this is supposed to be done by april 15. so congress is required to pass a budget and complete that process by april 15. here we are. they don't think they have to bother with it. it is no wonder everything has gotten so distorted and out of whack. sequestration, the automatic cuts, right? you have major debt, we have national debt, we are in uncharted territory. >> former republican senator olympia snowe on the current

state of congressional read bob. tonight at 9:00 on "afterwards." 2's bookkend on c-span tv. "> "washington journal continues. host: rob levinson is with bloomberg government here he is a senior defense analyst. specifically classified and intelligence spending items. thank you for being with us. let's begin with the bases. what is classified spending? spending isified sort of like it sounds. it is spending that the u.s. government does not get very public about and does not talk about what it is being spent on or where the government is going -- or where the money is going. intelligence is a lot of classified spending but those activities of the intelligence committees, which is 17 different agencies. they collect and analyze information and sometimes act on that information. host: let me show this graph and these question marks here.

guest: what you are looking at on the graph is the overlap between the national intelligence budget and the military intelligence budget and the classified budget. a lot of the intelligence community budget, the national intelligence program and the military intelligence program, are sort of hidden in adams called -- in the line items called classified spending. there are some intelligence spending spending that is not done by the pentagon. ast: there are more than dozen agencies, as many as 16 to 18 that are involved here how do you break it down? where do you go? guest: you can dig through the budget document, and you can see some of this. on the military side, there is a bit more transparency. on the civilian side, the office of the director of national intelligence oversees all of this. they published just the two

summary figures that you see on the side, about $50 billion or so, what they call the national intelligence program, about $20 billion or so for the military intelligence program. those are the only two large figures that they publish. they do not get into details about where the cia's budget is or how much that is. on the military side, there is a little bit more spending. again, not a whole lot. host: i want to look at some of these 17 agencies. you have the defense intelligence agency, you also have the office of the director of national intelligence here in the center, and then the cia, other intelligence agencies, the department of homeland security, the department of treasury, there has often been his claim that there are these silos in washington where one agency or one department is talking to the other. how do you ensure that these silos are broken down and everybody is talking to each other that needs to talk to each other? guest: that is the job of the circle in the center, the director. one of his main jobs -- he does

not control all of these a disease, but if his -- but it is his job to be the bridge between them. , there/11, as he said were a lot of these silos -- it was not getting put together because there were different pieces of information residing in different agencies. so his job is to ensure that flow. there are various centers where they try to fuse all of this information from different agencies, but it is always going to be somewhat of a problem. it is his task to break down those barriers. host: how does he make sure that he knows what he used to know, and how does he find out -- i'm trying to think of an articulate way to display in his question. if he does not know things are happening, is there a check and balance along the way? has representatives from all of those various agencies on his staff. they are supposed to keep him in the loop. he has regular meetings with them, and they all know that they are supposed to keep him in the loop. but it is a big job.

he has a staff that is responsible for doing that. sometimes some things could fall through the cracks. host: put this in terms of forers -- $67.6 billion the classified budget, including a special aspect -- special after program, research and develop a, that is a lot of money. guest: that is the pentagon put the money. it is roughly about 10% or so, even a little more than that, of the pentagon put the overall budget -- the gun -- of the pentagon's overall budget. host: (202) 585-3880 is our line for democrats, (202) 585-3881 is our line for republicans. (202) 585-3882 four independent s. it also send the twitter or an e-mail. .ournal@c-span.org and @cspanwj isst: they were a question

how much does that overlap? i've always wondered about the national intelligence program. funds agencies like in sa -- like nsa, but then some of that money also comes from the military intelligence program. so we always sort of wonder where that overlap is between how much of the nsa's budget is from the national intelligence program, how much comes from the military. then there is a specific budget on each of those agencies. how big is the cia's budget? i do not know the answers, and they're not going to release those numbers. host: the president has called for more transparency on the use of drones, and when it comes to the line items on all of this, is there transparency in this administration or are they pretty tight lipped? guest: pretty tight lipped. purchasing the drug, you can get the numbers for those. that not usually too secretive. -- purchasing the drones, you

can get the numbers of those. the cia is buying some of those, and that is not transparent. the president talked about moving some of the drone program, which has been moved mostly to caa, more into the military, and i will probably add some transparency to it because the military budget is a bit more public, so if there is a transfer to the pentagon, sort of away from me ci -- away from the cia, we will probably get more insight. host: $67 billion -- there is no reason all the money should be secret. how can we stop that? the argument is the government needs to keep certain things secret. primarily, the things that the government seats to keep secret is either intelligence am collection capabilities, obviously you cannot disclose these kinds of things, because if you do, then the enemy or the adversary knows what is going on. there is an example, i go back to 1970, we were attacking

mobile phones of the soviet union, and we were listening to what they were saying. that became public, and they turned those ones off, and we lost the source of information. there is also classified weapons capabilities. you do not want your adversaries to know exactly what the capabilities of your weapon systems are the cause again the naked develop a countermeasure. so those are the two primary things. -- they could develop a countermeasure. using classification to hide things that are embarrassing. there have been occasions of that in the past. host: are there private contractors involved in this? guest: oh, yes. in the national intelligence program, about 70 billion dollars based on various public disclosures. about $50 billion of that goes to contracts. some of these contractors are developing sources and methods for intelligence collection or,

indicate the beginning, may be developing classified weapon systems, but there is all so maybe some monday and things, like the cia had a cafeteria, and maybe not all of them are government employees in the cafeteria. that may be classified just because it is the cia. host: at this point, how much redundancy and repetition of the response abilities does homeland security creates -- security act create? guest: there is a certain amount of redundancy in these agencies. they always try to eliminate some of that, but at the same time, particularly in the --elligence is at intelligence business, sometimes there is a healthy redundancy because you have people with different backgrounds looking at the same problem. but in an era of a tight budget, they will look harder at those things and eliminate some of those redundancies. so they're not wasting resources. host: (202) 585-3880 our line for democrats, (202) 585-3881

for republicans. we have a line for those of you watching outside of the united states. (202) 585-3883. in terms of sharing this information, what has changed over the last 12 or 13 years between these agencies? we said after 9/11 they created the office of the director of national intelligence. that really has promoted a lot of the sharing of information. it is still not perfect. we saw that in the boston bombing that the fbi had information that may be a do not get everywhere that it needed to get, or when one of the bombers was traveling, it was not quite known by everybody that perhaps should have known. so there is always going to be issues. but i think most suggestive analysis would say that since 9/11, things have gotten better in terms of sharing information between agencies. in terms of what homeland security is able to do, is its

primary mission information? staff of about 180,000 people on its payroll. guest: its primary mission is not intelligence, it is not information. theywatch the borders, have the transportation security and administration, watching people traveling on aircraft, customs, they are responsible for fema, they have the secret service. homeland security was created, it was rolling a lot of different agencies together into one big agency. they still love all those missions. intelligence is a relatively small component of all of that. host: who does the most intelligent operation? guest: the cia is clearly focused excessively on that. the fbi have actually gotten a lot more involved in intelligence. actually, the majority of the fbi's money and people is now spent on either counterterrorism or counterintelligence as opposed to traditional crime. that is really a shift since 9/11. the fbi has become much more of

an intelligence agency. host: in terms of sharing information with our allies in europe but also some of our my call them enemies, we talk about what happened in boston, is there within the intelligence community a sharing of information among u.n. countries? sharinghere's probably among lots of of countries, and some that you would not expect. these things are often times kept very quiet. but the united states intelligence and unity has relationships around the world. high as those interests converge, even with countries you might not think, we have a common perspective on. if there is a terrorist threats, even in a place like cuba, we may have some discussions with the cubans about that kind of thing. so, yes, there are corporate of invasion -- cooperatives arrangements. others are less formal or maybe one-on-one, just relationships

between individuals. but intelligence relationships often will surprise you as to where they are. host: carl is joining us next and abilene, texas. our guest is robert levinson from bloomberg government. caller: good morning. hello? host: yes, you are on the air, go ahead. caller: my question was about the $2 billion a week that is cian to afghanistan by our agents. i would like a sense to where the money goes. they try to say that it was for the retraining of their police forces so that they could be better. theyou hear in the news put on different uniforms and attack and kill our troops over there.

why is this money being given , andgovernment like that no explanation as to what is really going on? host: thank you, carl. we will get a response. rob levinson. , $2t: they figure he gave billion a week -- that seems a bit high. the cia giving money to president car they both the government -- president karzai's government, there have been concerns. i do not think it is a surprise that the karzai government have a lot of problems with corruption, and we have had problems with insider attacks from the afghan military. it is really problematic. one of the things about the intelligence business is you often have elation ships with very unsavory people, and it is not clear outside the intelligence community what is the cia getting in return for delivering all of that money. maybe they're getting critical information on terrorist threats, or they are getting cooperation from certain unsavory individuals.

but it is not clear. these are one of the things that stay behind that black wall of the intelligence community. host: a tweet about maintaining -- does the government keep track of twitter traffic? guest: there has been more and more in recent years about analyzing big data and social media. the intelligence community is using that. there is a lot of technology out there. look at trends. there might be able to actually look at tradeking behavior. one thing about twitter, facebook -- people are talking about their day-to-day behavior on a regular basis. sometimes there is some thought that you could get information that could lead you to the idea that maybe there is going to be an uprising in a particular country or something like that. in egypt, twitter was critical in the arab spring in a democracy movement in egypt. so, the intelligence community

is looking at these things. they have be very careful about what they can do on american citizens. they have a lot of rules about collecting intelligence on american citizens. so that is somewhat problem at it. but they're definitely in that business. host: we're talking about classified and intelligence spending. our guest is rob levinson. i want to go back to the issue of outside contractors. what type of security clearance to these and vigils need to undertake? -- do these individuals need to undertake? and what if the time? guest: there are different levels of clearance. the contractors need to be cleared. the government and the contractors share the expense of clearing them. once a contractor company has been rewarded a certain amount of work, then the government pays some of that cost, but the contractor may have to pay some of that cost. there are about one

million people who work for contractors who do have a security clearance. host: here's a story, a new book titled "the wolf and the .atchman" by scott johnson he had a conversation with his 14-year-old son that said, i do not work for the toro company, i am actually a spy. the book was just released. guest: it is interesting. the cia has this program, nonofficial cover, noc's. they go to work for a company, but they actually work for cia. there has very little said publicly about it. i've not read the story, but it's on but that is what this guys doing. host: mark is joining us on boston, independent line. caller: good morning. those unofficial noc's, as you

, thethem, uncle russell maritime bomber's uncle, he was one of those. he was married to grant full or's daughter. -- grant fuller's daughter. interesting story. the number of police across the country, state, federal, local, his amazing. just witnessing all of the police that were in the boston area a month ago. i mean, is this not a police state? it is totally over the top. so much police, so much money, so much unaccountable action, i mean, you have to face reality. this is over the top. host: thank you, mark. about the hear a lot state and local police, and there certainly is a lot of state and local police. they are not really part of the intelligence community,. although with homeland security

they do cooperate. all of the state and local police are under local jurisdiction. their budgets every public, and they are sort of controlled by the public, they're subject to the court. i do not say i would go so far as to say to is a police state. there have been more emphasis on the security of the public and a lot of money has been spent in that direction at the federal and local level. areank it is a legitimate of debate about how much is the right don for a free to market right balance for a free democracy. talkingrealize we are about defense and intelligence spending, but this is a tweet -- is there anyway to find out about how much other money in other agencies agencies goes to outside contractors? guest: finding out how much goes to outside contractors am a yeah, that is public. we at bloomberg government look at this all the time. we know exactly -- every nonclassified contracto is

published. we have some on our website where you can go in and look and sort it by agency. the vast majority is outside of classified space theater half $1 trillion a year for the u.s. government. public all pretty information and you can get that without too much difficulty. host: the next caller is glenn calling us from west liberty, kentucky. good morning. caller: good morning. my question is about the intelligence of the structure of it. how it has changed over the years, and what has made the biggest impact on our intelligence? the other part of that question is who ultimately make the change in the structure of our intelligence community? host: glenn, thank you for the call. let me show for our television

audience again, these 17 agencies that were involved. those listening on the radio, let me go through them quickly. ea and the fbi part of the department of justice. the permit homeland security -- of the coast guard and he department itself. department of state, central intelligence agency, department of treasury, department of energy and the office of the intelligence office. defense have the intelligence agency, the u.s. navy, the u.s. marine corps, the u.s. army, the u.s. air force, the national security agency, the national record -- national reconnaissance agency, and he national geospatial intelligence agency. prior to that change, the director of the cia actually wilore to hats.

he was called the director of oftral and pay diligence -- central intelligence. some people thought that was problematic, so they gave the cia a first among equals kind of a role. that has been probably the biggest change. before that, we almost have to go back to 1947 when the cia was created. before that, there was a lot of intelligence with the military, the fbi was involved in intelligence collection overseas. the second part of this question -- who make these choices -- it is really congress. created byr was congress. they oversee these budgets. even the secret budgets are overseen. .y the various committees it is up to congress. they'll have to be signed by the president, as well, but they have to make the changes as to how these agencies work. host: robert levinson is a graduate of the u.s. air force academy, earned his masters from the university of california san

diego. has spending on up, down, or stayed the same? definitely gone up. spending since 9/11 has consistently pretty much gone up. now we're in an aero where it is starting to go down again. really, defense and intelligence spending really peaked in the 2008 2 2010 area period.to 2010 these agencies are not immune to the cuts of sequestration, and they will be cut along with everything else, so the suers are starting to come down. host: michael is joining us from an etiquette on our republican line. go ahead, michael. i am not sure mr. levinson can address the thing that concerns me about the use of drones in other countries, but it seems to me that an awful lot of power has been transferred from congress to the

executive branch. and the president is deciding whether or not a drone strike should be conducted in another thetry to kill what intelligence report indicated an enemy of the united states. i question the logic that they are using using to make that decision, and i am questioning the intelligence based on past performance in iraq and all the other times we send our young people into a conflict. i wonder -- who is checking on this? if congress notified, and if so, how? of the it is a violation constitution. the president have all this power. host: thank you, michael. rob levinson. guest: this is been one of the big questions, asking what is the process by the president, and other senior officials decide on the drone strikes. there've been some transparency

on this, but probably not as much as people would like. congress is not informed of every drone strike ahead of time. they sort of know about the drone program, and i think they get some of it, but it is really left up to the executive branch. these are questions -- you know, it used to be that congress has the power to declare a war, but we have not really done that since world war ii. there has been a shift to sort of giving the executive more and more latitude in these areas. 's, there was an attempt to rein in the executive somewhat. but residents have pushed back against the war powers act, never even a knology whether it is even constitutional. it is a real question. the caller x a good point that there is been a shift somewhat and national securities to deferring to the executive. congress has yielded a certain amount of power that maybe in the past it had exercised a little bit more. host: brad from maryland, good morning. democrats line. caller: i was wondering -- if

passed- when they budgets for classified spending, many times we find duplicate spending. several different agencies doing the exact same thing. arm that suites along and find duplicate spending to save money? thank you for the question. that is a good one. i do not know if there's an arm so much, but there is a government accountability office, the gao. it will be tapped by a member of congress to look at activity in the executive branch and come up with an assessment, and they often do find that. they will go through endless various programs that they think are redundant or duplicative or just not working. at bloomberg government, we have looked at some of these. ideal's for items that should be on the chopping

block. on our twitterse page, you can join our conversation at twitter.com/c- spanwj. if all of these agencies are charged with keeping a safe, why won't they share info? they're not doing a good job hiding intelligence from each other. guest: i'm not sure how much of it is willful hiding of intelligence as much as it is these are large bureaucracies, and things do not get filtered out. sometimes adjustment is made that we have this piece of information and they do not recognize. while it may seem innocuous to them, it may be imported to another agency. i do not think it is always willful. although sometimes bureaucracies compete for dollars in prestige and people, and sometimes it may be a little bit more willful word agency wants to protect what its unique capabilities are and maybe less

willing to share. but i am not sure that it is always willful. in most cases, it probably is not willful. but these are big bureaucracies. intelligence bureaucracies are no different than any other government bureaucracy, and things slip between the cracks. host: our next caller is brad from nevada. good morning. caller: good morning. i totally agree with the drones, but i know there is a lot of stuff going on. i don't believe public should have access, you know, because that is like privacy between, you know -- i don't want no drone. i watched three weeks ago on sunday morning, they showed all of the different types of drones. no, they showed this hummingbird that is like 1.5 -- whoird that could

knows? it is just watching you. but for military and overseas agree with i totally that. we need that. unmanned -- we do not need to put our military into harm. host: thank you, brad. raises an caller interesting question about drones in the united states. there's a lot of talk about what aerialnes or unmanned vehicles could do in the united states. examining the faa is that. they have been passed by congress to come up with a plan, but they are moving fairly because there are huge safety concerns about these things flying into the airspace and crashing into stuff, crashing into commercial aircraft or landing on on the ground and crashing into something. so there is also a lot of privacy concerns, which i think the caller is getting at.

one of the rules for a drone flying over your house and looking at you, these are capabilities that law enforcement and not really happy for. did notld use a man -- have before. they could use a man ined aircraft. if the faa moves forward with what it is trying to do in the next few years, we will see more and more of those in the skies over the united states. host: under the freedom of affirmation act, a lot of information from the budget menstruation will come available in january of next year. well that include some of the classified information? guest: it will include some of it. but the government, even under the freedom of information act, ite the ability, or if question sources and methods, the government can still withhold some of that information. but there is a process. the government can deny requests, and you can go to a

court and appealing, and he judge can make decisions about that. you goow far back can in terms of trying to get classified information that would be available to you? are we talking about the first bush at administration? is the go back further than that? what is a timestamp? guest: you than go back to 1940's if you want. if you do a foia request, you can go very brad -- bury broad. there is a process -- you can go very broad. there is a process to declassify old material. but everything is of interest because often times, even if the subject of whatever the program was that changed so much, just looking at the internal bureaucracy and how decisions were right that is always interesting both for journalists as well as historians. in fromhn is calling

center at, california. good morning, john. caller: i just want to clarify something that you said earlier media medications that are collected. you said there are a lot of rules governing how they are collected from the american people. american citizens. does that mean that they are being collected pretty much across the board, digital communications, our american citizens? and the rules govern how they are being used? guest: i am a little bit familiar, but i cannot speak to how much is being monitored or not monitored. it is not just how the information is used, it is actually even collecting. i was an intelligence officer, and i got training every year on intelligence oversight.

it was restricted. you could not collect information using intelligence assets against american citizens. so it is not just how you use the information, but also the collection of the information. even if it is collected and vertically sometimes, you are looking at something and -- collected inadvertently sometimes, you are looking at something, that information has to be segregated out. that information cannot really be used. often times it has to be destroyed. so there are rules about both the collection as well as the use of the information. host: it is a sunday afternoon in great britain. this show is carried live on the parliament channel. this call is from there. richard, good morning. caller: how are you today? excellent. i will be quick. in relation to the use of drones, the united kingdom has recently started operating its own drone rogue rim -- drone

program. in thet friends of mine area, one of them actually does operate drones. any drone that he uses that could be used in taking up the enemy, if he makes a mistake and hits an innocent target, he could be held up in the icc, the international criminal court. yet your guys, even though we fight side-by-side, played by a very different role book because none of your guys have to deal with that. i was just wondering, do you think if we are going to start tong from manned aircraft drones, that everybody has to play by the same role book? -- same rulebook? people cannot just be using drones willy-nilly. thank you. guest: he also mentioned the

icc, which the united states is not a signatory to. subject to sanctions under the international criminal courts. however, the drone aircraft in a legal sense it's not really that different from a manned aircraft. if we intentionally target civilians knowing that these are civilians and not a military target, we have legal processes in the united states that we can prosecute people for. but we are not subject to the icc. i'm not sure that in that sense draws a really that different from manned aircraft. kill the wrong people sometimes, there is collateral damage or inadvertent damage. government has not signed the icc and is not likely to. host: you can get more information by logging onto bgov.com. q every much for being with us. guest: it was great being here.

host: in about one hour, c- ,pan's "newsmakers" program senate bernie sanders. a huge backlog on veterans cases. one of the issues we talked about on the "newsmakers" program here is a portion. the va was one of the very few major institutions in american society that did not go from paper to digital. it did not do that until shinseki became secretary. how come? why? social security did years ago, every major corporation obviously made the transition. what ends up happening is there is a huge influx of new claims. what many people do not understand is the backlog is unexpectedly long, we are all

embarrassed the veterans in this country wait for years for the benefit process. unacceptable. what many people do not know is two things -- number one the va has finally done what it should have done years ago. i think it deserves credit for saying we are going to move the paper. shinseki announced a very ambitious goal. politicians do not get up there and say "at a certain point i am going to accomplish this the " he said at the end of 2015 all claims will be processed with 90% accuracy. doesb is to make sure he do that. the second point that many people do not know -- we can but their the da processing phar-mor claims now than they have ever processed

before. we're monitoring them very closely. we have legislation which is going to have them say on a whereerly basis "this is we projected to be and this is where we are." if they are not moving as fast as they should be we will find out why and we will provide the resources to make them achieve that goal. sanders,ator bernie independent from vermont, he is our guest on the "newsmakers." you can watch it at 10:00 eastern time here on c-span television. also on c-span radio. with a bookis out titled "doing bad by doing good ." sundayook the other programs that can be heard on a

tape-delayed basis on c-span radio. good morning, nancy. >> good morning. on today possibly talk shows the topics include the aftermath of the oklahoma tournedos, irs targetting conservative groups, sexual assault in the military, and immigration reform. press" is pre- empted by the monaco grand prix. we begin with republican senator rep paul, peter king, and debbie schulz, the chair of the democratic national committee. chris wallace sits down with senator dick durbin. gramm, ator lindsay member of the service committee.

state of the union cause a 3:00 p.m., candy crowley welcomes mary felon and representatives mike mccall of texas. the nation." "face chuck schumer, a democrat of new york. descended network talk shows are brought to you as a public service by the networks and c- span. easter begin at 1 pm n. listen to them all on c-span radio, on the 91. fm in the washington d.c. area, xm sattelite radio on channel 119, or online at c-spanradio.org.

>> for three consecutive years we did not even consider a budget resolution. 1974 -- there have been years which a budget resolution has not been passed. this is the fourth year, they finally passed on in the senate. this was supposed to be done by april 15. required to pass a budget and complete that process by april 15. it is no wonder that everything has gotten so distorted and out of whack with sequestration and the automatic cuts. we get a major debt. we get 16.8 trillion dollars national debt. >> former republican senator alympia snowe on the

congressional record box -- olympia snowe on the congressional gridlock. >> "washington journal" continues. host: i want to welcome chris coyne. the book is titled "doing bad by doing good: why humanitarian action fails." you write -- explain. guest: thank you for having me. one of the core promises of the book is there is this discussion in the united states by politicians and pundits and policy makers that we must intervene around the world to help those in need. you can understand why this is the case. there is a national human emotion to help people with human suffering. one of the things i argue is we

have to step back and instead of focusing onw hat we can do what should we do?" both in terms of resources and in knowledge and understanding difficult as in the world and shaping the way be in addition shipping them. host: let me put on the screen -- the so-called "millenium goals."

all of this from the united nations and agreed upon by the member nations. you write -- guest: these millennium development goals is just the latest iteration of efforts to alleviate suffering around the world. these goals have been attempted to be achieved for decades. all of them are very noble, nobody would argue that these are bad things. the point i want to make is that the key part of economic development is allowing people indom to interact with others. there is only one sub-target that is focused on this. instead what a lot of these

targets focus on is how foreign government can fix things and make them better. one thing and want to point out is a key aspect of development and liberty. -- of development and liberty is creating an environment that allows people to choose what they wanted to and have experimentation in trade instead of having other goals impose on the people. regard to afghanistan, -- of the goals that were imperiled. reamin a different stance from "new something a little different in terms of trying to provide aid or assistance.

this story is inside the a section. guest: on the issue of rights for women in afghanistan, i think this captures the problem with the u.s. and other developed countries. first of all governments going around the world and attempting to impose what we be as liberal democratic institutions of other societies. what the story gets that is what the underlying belief -- when the underlying belief system differentiates from the outsiders you will not get the desired outcome. in the united states we have certain rights that many people take for granted. inse apply to everyone theory. when we look out in the world and we intervene in other places with the goal of fixing it what happens is we attempt to achieve the that same outcomes. what we are fighting in afghanistan with their belief systems at historical experience, they do not align

with partition and there is a rejection of the rules to try to establish their. there is a picture of the pink balloons -- pointing out -- 10,000 pink balloons in afghanistan. this is a picture related to the story. guest: this story captures very well why this oftentimes fails. you have an injection of millions of billions of dollars, and governments, private non-profit, one of the ways to bring attention to themselves is by spending money quickly as it toed to -- as compared refrain from spending it. it is kind of obvious that it is not doing anything. in many cases it is not so obvious until further down the line.

the article points out it was purely a nonprofit and private funded for. the government refrained from wasting taxpayer money. these balloons were handed out, pink balloons or around the capital of afghanistan, with sayings about peace. there is a great quote from a , "where isin their ?"is piece you speak of while private nonprofits are important they sometimes engage in wasteful spending. the difference between a private nonprofit and government is the government is wasting private taxpayer money. host: the book is titled "doing bad by doing good."

our guest is chris coyne. phone lines are open. the president last thursday in prague policy speech -- in a broad policy speech touched upon foreign aid. here's more from the president this last week. [video clip] >> i know that foreign aid is one of the least popular expenditures that there is. that is true for democrats and republicans. i have seen the poll. even though it amounts to less than 1% of the federal budget. a lot of folks think it is 25% -- if you ask people on the streets. less than 1%, still wildly unpopular. but foreign assistance cannot be viewed as a charity.

it is fundamental to our national security. and it is fundamental to any long-term strategy to battle extremism. it is a tiny fraction of what we spend fighting wars that our assistance might ultimately prevent. what we spent in iraq at the height of the war -- we could be training forces in libya, maintaining peace agreements between israel and its neighbors, feeding the hungry in yemen, building schools in pakistan, and creating goodwill that marginalizes extremists. focus on hised to comments regarding foreign guest: aid my problem with the speech is that it assumes aid

can be spent in a matter that generate results. the typical rhetoric is "if we spend more we can -- but we have found through historical experience is that sometimes aid does not work, it can do more harm than good. there are many examples of mr. history. two more recent examples are haiti, following the 2010 inthquake -- and also libya 2011 when the net states government helped to overthrow ghadaffi. china's joining us from alexandria, virginia on the republican line. -- john is joining us from alexandria, virginia on the republican line. using a handsfree device. host: go ahead. caller: this is an issue i have

seen it -- i am a marine and i have served multiple to worse overseas. i want to start off with an anecdote. a year and a about half ago in afghanistan and i was recovering in hospital. visit the came to hospital, dick durbin from illinois. i am sitting there in my him --air and i said to we had some nice pleasantries. i ask him a pointed question. "senator, why are we in afghanistan?" he looked me squarely in the eye and said, "women's rights." i have nothing with women's rights and i agree with secretary clifton that if we can to aer women it will lead better society. was soanistan it

misunderstood. state ispartment of filled with individuals who fundamentally believe this is true -- if we empower progressive initiatives -- it is like the democratic peace. it was so popular during the bush administration. if we empower minority groups and women to participate in government and give them an education all at the expense of the u.s. taxpayer and at the cost lives of u.s. serviceperson we will somehow achieve greater freedom. -- host:et a response we will get a response. guest: i agree with in principle that if we empower citizens in other societies we will get good

outcomes. likewise if we spread constraints on government democratic liberalism we could get good outcomes. you hear this over and over, it is on both sides of the aisle -- it assumes we can do that, that we can empower certain groups and we can impose democracy and markets in other countries when it comes to economics and economic outcomes and we can impose development. we never use the term "impose," we talk about"citizen =-based "citizen- about based initiatives." the typical cases people point to post-world war two, in order to get to that position we had to annihilate large segments of the population and occupy them as military occupiers --

basically taking over their country at the point again in a very harsh manner and it is very clear that there is no stomach for that among the u.s. populace or it would be morally acceptable. host: we are talking with chris coyne, studied at manhattan college and previously talked to virginia university. the book is "doing bad by doing good." you write -- pecific cite si examples where humanitarian aid backfired? thest: haiti following earthquake in 2010 is an example

of this. pledged $9anizations million. three years later there are people in tent camps. the money is not coming through the haitian government. you have all of these external aid workers both for the government and private organizations who are in haiti. they are doing some good, it is not they are doing no good. they get food and water to people. the issue is kind of an exit strategy. haiti, the nazis has been giving them foreign debt -- the united states has been giving them foreign aid for decades. there is no clear way for the haitian citizens to move out of these tent camps and into permanent housing. where is this money going? government lacks

accountability mechanisms. in iraq, the inspector general who is basically the auditor of the iraq deconstruction identifies $8 billion in unaccounted funds. it is pure waste. $8 billion is not a lot? we have a six trillion dollars -- we have a 16 trillion dollar deposit. -- dollar deficit. estimates place the total costs of the war in iraq and afghanistan, all of the health care costs for soldiers, it is four to six trillion dollars. -- it is four trillion dollars to six trillion dollars. money that is being spent both in the past, in the present, and also well into the future.

host: our phone lines are open. we have a line for independence and for those of you watching outside of the united states. 3883.number is 202-585- good morning. caller: i have been watching all of this debate in afghanistan and iraq. they had an ax cia official come in and give a speech one day. was a proclamation signed by jimmy carter on july 3 of 1979. never told towas the united states congress nor the senate.

secretive plea $5 billion was appropriated on july 3 of 1979. it is called operation cyclone. the americans started the war in afghanistan on july 3 of 1979. the shock of iran was expelled on january 16 of 1979. complete and a total force. everything that we have done over there. after operation desert storm took place it was the classified information. wanted -- they wanted a non-ending war in the persian gulf after we lost our dictator in iran.

from double for the call lawrence, kansas. -- thank you for the call from lawrence, kansas. guest: there is this issue of responsibility and accountability. us.alk about need to remember is there are individuals that make decisions on how to allocate resources, both in united states an extra to the united states. -- you walks of life think about your relationships with other people -- really when there is accountability and responsibility, when you suffer the outcomes of europe -- the consequences for better or worse you get this behavior. you tend to get waste and what many people consider bad behavior. foreign aid and foreign policy foreignal, and

governments in general, has severed the link that there was between actions and responsibility. you have this massive waste, you have these very foreign interventions around the globe. ofthere's no decision responsibility and individual accountability in washington d.c.. that goes down to the bureaucratic structure. whatever the motivations of the people -- we do not have to make judgments about whether it is a farce or whether they are good intentioned individuals. of the economic way of thinking it shows that the basic incentives and incentives politicians often face is to spend more money as to come -- more money as compared to less. there is a lot of finger- pointing that takes place and no one ever pays the price except for millions of u.s. taxpayers. host: this point is made on our

twitter page -- guest: i am not sure what the exact question is. we did not really impose well- functioning democracy. i do not know if you are being sarcastic in the message but i am a skeptic of these efforts to impose democratic and market institutions around the world. one of the themes is the focus inward. what can we do in the united states to help suffering. there is a lot can do domestically to help those who need assistance as compared to looking outward and continually intervening in other societies to attempt to achieve that same goal. host: which is what you write in your book --

gloria is joining us on the independent line. caller: i am a retired educator. inequity in our own country. i see children who come to school, i see poverty. in the meanwhile we are trying to straighten out other countries and we have so much hypocrisy here. their ownry is raping nts, and notatns one is being held accountable. as a woman we still cannot make what men make in this country. i do not understand why we are other country's affairs.

i was so embarrassed to see what happened with the hurricane in new jersey. most troops that are helping other countries should have been here to help us rebuild. host: thank you for the call. guest: you raise some excellent points. do not forget about her cantor -- about hurricane katrina. we have instances like katrina or sandy where the response is not as quick as you think themakes you u.s. government has the capabilities to go abroad and do these things in much more complex initiatives. u.s. citizens and taxpayers should be upset by the constant failures abroad and the lack of attention at home. the only thing that if voters do is -- voters can do is be informed and hold your politicians accountable.

the interesting thing is that for a long period of time, years, decades, the republican party was viewed as the party of intervention abroad. the democratic party was billed as focusing domestically. since 9/11 there is not much of a difference on both sides of foreign intervention. if you vote for a democrat and republican, what is the better for a policy? study carefully. if you vote for someone who has a record of intervening or you're goingikely to get that plus a lot more. there is a natural tendency for officials to spend and spend. as long as you support the international welfare state you are quite a bit more than you bargained for. the best thing we can do as voters is to be informed.

host: let us follow up on vivian's tweet. she says -- host: let's go to atlanta. good morning with professor christopher corne of george mason university. go ahead, caller. you're on the air. >> yes, yes. host: good morning. caller: good morning. i'm originally from pakistan. my question is, why is there such a focus on policies that are helping the military industrial complex, even the aid money that we all talk about all the time? it's really helping the military industrial complex, the basic -- i mean, the basic

need for all the third-world countries as energy and education, but we hardly ever see any money that's going to towards those areas, and somehow it always ends up being the military industrial complex that benefits out of these eight policies. host: thanks for the call. so this is a great point you raised, which is the idea of the military industrial complex. guest: it refers to the relationship between kind of the military arm of the government and then private producers and then, of course, what happens is private military producers kind of enter into this relationship with the military, and then they have a vested interest in continuing to expand their production, and what happens, like in pretty much all aspects of politics, is that you have certain narrow interests who start influencing policy because it benefits them and their members. so why this happens is very obvious, if you think about it, there are concentrated benefits on certain private companies and private producers that are large and have a lot of political influence, and what they do is lobby government to

continually expand the production of military hardware , military products, foreign policy, that engages in active interventionism so that they benefit. note, by the way, this is no different than any other government policy, wleths healthcare, you have a vested interest there to shape policy. education policy domestically, so this cuts against -- cuts across, excuse me, all types of government policy. and again, the key here for viewers and for u.s. voters is to be cognizant of this. we can think of lots of different policies that sound really good, both domestically and internationally. but when you realize that the minute you start actually trying to implement these policies, vested interests come out of the wood work and attempt to shape those policies for their own narrow interest at the expense of taxpayers. you should be surprised when the policies fail, but also generate lots of unintended consequences. host: let's share the goals from the united nations, as we show you that, we'll get our final call from sarah.

she's joining us from florida. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning. host: good morning, sarah. go ahead. caller: shall i turn my tv back on? host: no, you sound fine. go ahead. caller: ok, sorry. oh, it's so good to hear you, to hear -- oh, you're so truthful ideas. i'm 80 years old. and i have seen this country go down the drain now for, oh, my goodness, i've been married 60 years and have six children. but it's so sad. it's so heartbreaking, because this used to be a wonderful country, and it's just going down the drain. and oh, i love your ideas. e only problem is that the atheists have tried to take our creator out of our country, and they've done a pretty good job of it so far. and so we have to wake up the

american people. but it's very difficult to wake up and know who to vote for when you're in a middle-class person and you have no job or you're working all the time, and you don't have time to research who these politicians are that are running for office. host: thanks for the call from florida. for those who want to keep track of your work or follow up with you, sarah and others, how can they do so? well, i have a website, seecoyne.com where i post events. and to her point, well, i agree with most of what you said. i think the core point, which i would emphasize, is this idea of kind of returning to u.s. fundamentals, so instead of, again, focusing outward and trying to export things like freedom and liberty and democracy on our people, let's focus inward and make sure we have those things at home first and what those things bill is,

the things we all value are constraints on government, from overstepping its boundaries, individual determination, individual freedom and liberty, to pursue what many people call the american dream, which is the ability to move both up and down the economic ladder, and what we also want is con streants on private actors from influencing government, and that's really one of the big problems today, is that there are well placed special interests who influence government policy. the problem with that, of course, is that the driver is government spending lots of money. and when government spends lots of money, you're going to have private interests who try to secure as much as possible. what we need is fundamentally return constraints on government, constraints on the individuals to influence government, and instead, a focus on entrepreneurship, economic freedom and liberty. host: the book is titled "doing bad by doing good," professor at george mason university, christopher coyne, thanks for being with us. we're going to come back to an issue that we spent the first half-hour on c-span's

"washington journal." we've been gathering commencement speeches by some notable individuals to the class of 2013, and we want to come back to some of those speeches, all of which are available on our website, c-span.org, and we're sharing with you the speeches over this memorial day weekend here on the c-span network. we want to begin with the comments of president obama morehouse college in which he talked about the challenges facing african-american men. >> be the best father you can be to your children. because nothing's more important. i was raised by a heroic single mom, wonderful grandparent, made incredible sa sacrifices for me, and i know there are moms and grandparents who did the same thing for all of you. but i sure wish i had had a father who was not only present, but involved. i didn't know my dad. so my whole life, i have tried to be for michelle and my girl what my father was not for my mother and me. i want to break that cycle.

where a father is not at home. where a father is not helping to raise that son or daughter. i want to be a better father, a better husband, a better man. it's hard work. it comments your constant attention and frequent sacrifice. and i promise you, michelle will tell you i'm not perfect. she's got a long list of my imperfections. even now i'm still practicing, i'm still learning, still getting corrected in terms of how to be a fine husband and a godfather. but i will tell you this -- everything else is unfulfilled if we fail at family. if we fail at that responsibility. host: the president at morehouse college last week, and so our question to you, the message to the class of 2013, join in on the conversation on

our twitter page or facebook or give us a phone call at 202-585-388 , our line for democrats. 202-585-3881 for republicans. as you can see on the screen, we also have a line for independents, and those outside the united states, outside the u.s. the president, by the way, traveling to moore, oklahoma, and this morning, the oklahoma newspaper on graduation ceremonies for the high school class of 2013 in moore, and the greater oklahoma city area, done so by school officials to have a sense of normalcy for those of who had been dealing with the devastating tornado that is swept through the area. by the way, the president leaving the white house later this morning. he will be traveling to oklahoma, and we'll continue to have highlights and coverage of his remarks probably at about shortly after 1:00 eastern time here on c-span television and c-span radio. meanwhile, keith lang of the hill newspaper writing about another speech over the weekend at the west point military academy.

chuck hagel told the graduates of the military academy that sexual assaults would be a profound betrayal of their oath to the army. secretary hagel challenged the class of 2013 west point graduates to be the generation of leaders who stop internal issues like sexual assault, as well as other issues that have been plaguing the military, alcoholism, and suicide. senator ted cruz delivered his own remarks to hillsdale college, the class of 2013. he, of course, is the republican senator from texas. here's senator cruz. >> 55 years ago, my father fled cuba. he had been imprisonned and for toured as a prisoner in cuba. today my father is a pastor in dallas. to this day, his front teeth are not his own because they were kicked out of his mouth when he was a teenager. when he landed in austin, texas, in 1957, he was 18, couldn't speak a word of english. he had $100 sewn into his

underwear. i don't actually advise carrying money in your underwear. but he went and got a job washing dishes. he made 50 cents an hour, and he worked seven days a week and paid his way through the university of texas. and then he graduated, he got a job, and he went on to start a small business and work towards the american dream. now, imagine if at that time the minimum wage had been $2 an hour instead of being able to work for 50 cents. he might not never have had that opportunity to get that first job and work through school and work towards the american dream. i cannot tell you how many times i've said thank god some well-meaning liberal didn't come to him when he landed in austin and put his arm around him and say, let me take care of you. let me make you dependent on government, let me sap your self-respect, and by the way, don't bother learning english. host: senator ted cruz with the

immigration debate. they're out for memorial day break. a headline we want to share with you, the inquirer inquirer, back to the shore. the president traveling to the jersey shore on tuesday, as he tours the clean-up area as a result of the storm that hit on october 29. michael is joining us from new boston, michigan. the message, the class of 2013, what is it, michael? >> i think the president nailed it at the college. i can't remember the name of the college. >> morehouse college. >> morehouse college, yeah. i've been waiting 4 1/2 years for the president to say something like that, and i hope he keeps saying it. i don't agree with him on much, but i certainly agree with him on that father issue. props to the president for that remark. thanks. host: ok, thanks for the call. the "denver post" has this headline and a photograph of the vietnam war memorial, the traveling memorial. it has been touring the

country. i can't do enough to honor them, says one veteran. here in washington, d.c., rolling thunder got underway early this morning from the pentagon, as literally thousands of cyclists come to our nation's capital in tribute to those who were veterans of the vietnam war, and this is a live view of the u.s. capitol as the nation remembers those who paid the ultimate price. the first memorial day, by the way, back in may 1868 following the civil war. first called decoration day. now, remember, memorial day, as we pay tribute to the veteran ceremonies tomorrow at arlington national cemetery in the washington, d.c., area, and pbs tonight with a memorial day tribute that will be airing on the pbs network. more from the commencement speeches that we've been covering, including attorney general eric holder, who spoke to the students at u.c. berkeley. here's the attorney general. >> many of these tired and

meritless political arguments and renewed calls to abandon the use of civilian courts in dealing with terrorism-related activity are being made yet again. and once again, every legal professional, every aspiring leader, and every graduate in this crowd today must renew your commitment to standing firm in the face of manufactured controversy and overheated partisan rhetoric to uphold our most sake rid alues. let me be very clear. those who claim that our federal courts are incapable of handling terrorism cases are not registering a opinion. they are simply wrong. host: the jorningse eric holder, to students at u.c. berkeley. again, the message to the class of 2013, another headline we want to bring to your attention

from the front page of "the washington post." the story by greg miller points out, four years ago, as the new al qaeda affiliate in yemen was proving itself, a potent adversary, the obama administration, made plans to attack it with air strikes just as the u.s. had been doing by the terrorist network core in pakistan. host: that's the front page and insight a seskets "washington post," if you want to read it. joe is joining from us brooklyn, new york, democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. host: fine, thank you. caller: i just wanted to speak on behalf of what ted cruz said, thank god a liberal didn't come and hug his father. i'm just curious to know how he would have felt, you know, if his father made $2 an hour. maybe he would have been able to provide better things for his family.

i don't know how a person could advocate for 50 cents an hour. i think people that are motivated are going to be motivated no matter how much you paid them. i think that's the big thing that no one ever talks about, just like students, motivated students will do well no matter what you put in front of them. i just wanted to talk about that. you know, partisan, eric holder with the partisan, you know, rhetoric and values, but a lot of the values, some of the republicans, you know, with gun control, value human life more than their right to carry m-16, you know, in this case, af-15. host: ok. jonathan, a law professor, has a piece from the outlook section of "the washington post" titled "the rise of the fourth branch." he points out how the administrative state damages our democracy. next is rich joining us from new york, independent line. good morning.

caller: good morning. i agree with what the president said. we need to get some sort of stability in this country and be proud of what weather we live and teach civics to our people and civic pride, and then it does begin at the family. there's too many people, fathers, men and women who are not held responsible for their actions. excuses are made for them, and so they feel that they can just go about, do what they want, and not be held responsible for their actions. if there's a breakdown in the family, there's a breakdown in the family unit, the whole country is going to be felt and affected by it. and also, i just want to make a quick note about the second amendment as being abused and cancelled in new york state, and i'm a good citizen. i've never been in jail. my guns have been confiscated.

i had a divorce, and i went through some problems. they immediately, whenever there's an m.h.l. call, they take your firearms immediately no matter what the call and they will not give them back. and people need to take pride in their country and pay attention and be more civic-minded and participate, pay attention, see what's going on. look, pay attention. host: ok. rich, thanks for the call. the skagit bridge collapse is the front-page story in "the seattle times." the vulnerable bridges, not so rare in the state of washington. headline courtesy of the newseum. we're focusing on commencement speeches. at bard college in new york, representative gabby giffords, former congress woman from arizona, delivered the commencement speech, joined by her husband, astronaut mark kelley, saying students to the class of 2013, be courageous. frank is joining us, ford lauderdale, florida, republican line. good morning.

caller: good morning. i just wanted to comment on the president's beautiful speech at morehead college in georgia. i agree with every word he said about the importance of family and fatherhood. however, he has a pattern of saying these beautiful words, yet doing oftentimes just the opposite, like in the case of families. he's for abortion. he's under the obamacare. he's forcing tax payers and businesses to provide abortions, drugs, as part of the program. and there's many other cases where he's the most pro-abortion president we've had. it just doesn't make sense, and because those unborn children are part of a family. we were all unborn parts of our family. and he doesn't seem to get it. his beautiful rhetoric is one thing, but so many politicians

can speak eloquently, but it's what they do that is more significant. and i wish he would be truly -- observe his own speeches, his own words. host: thank you for the call. a lot of you focusing on the president's remarks at morehouse college in atlanta. he spoke to the naval academy on friday in annapolis, maryland. here's another portion of the president's speech one week ago. >> just as morehouse taught you to expect more of yourself, inspire those who look up to you to expect more of themselves. we know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices. and i have to say, growing up, i made quite a few myself. sometimes i wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. i had a tendency sometimes to make excuses for me not doing the right thing. but one of the things that all

of you have learned over the last four years is there's no longer any room for excuses. host: the president's comments to the class of 2013 at morehouse college in atlanta. we're asking you this morning what the message is to this graduating class and their future as they enter either the workforce or other career paths. a call from mississippi, good morning, welcome to the conversation. caller: well, look, it's great to be here. troy brown jr. is my son, and we were blellsed to be there, to see him go across the stage and obtain his degree in economics. host: at morehouse? caller: at morehouse. we endured the rain. we got there at 4:00 in the morning and it took a commitment before the program started at 11:00, but we had to get there quite early, obviously. the president and secret service, but it was worth every minute. the whole ceremony was probably one of the most powerful things

i've ever had an opportunity to witness, and to see pretty close to 500 young black men go across that stage made me feel good, not only about my own son, but about myself and the future of this country. what ow, when you look at -- the college itself has the whole thing, why don't we do the whole four years? the president is the icing on the cake, but the college itself deals these young men on that thing, they feel good about themselves, take responsibility for your actions, and go out and be somebody and be someone who's going to be -- going to make a worthy contribution, and pushing the world forward. host: troy, congratulations on your son, graduated from college. what's the next step for him? what does he intend to do? caller: he's probably going to be to washington, d.c., or to massachusetts.

he has an opportunity to go into a program at either of those two places. it's going to be interesting to see where he goes. but now he's here this summer. he does have a summer job in atlanta, but he's going to be with us the next three weeks, so he's doing all those things that i needed to do. host: that's what a son should do. troy, thanks for the call. congratulations to your son. appreciate you phoning in. arthur next in corpus christi, texas. good morning to you, arthur. how are you today? caller: i'm doing pretty good. yourself? host: fine, thank you. caller: i just have a couple of comments. i'm 59. and i do have the opportunity to hang out with some young people. and if i was going to make a omment for anybody graduating, i guess from my own experience, 'd tell them to find god and

find their inner selves and start on your reeducation, because, unfortunately, a lot of the things that you've been taught have been lies. you know, i noticed people talking about this country going down the drain, and i'm afraid that there's been kind of a general trend of god becoming money and work becoming religion. host: ok, arthur, thanks for the call from texas. if you're just joining us, maybe listening on c-span radio, we just heard on x.m. channel 119, we're sharing with you some of the excerpts of speeches that we have covered in their entirety, notable figures to the class of 2013, and you can check out all of these speeches on our website, c-span.org. among those delivering commencement addresses this

year, from the university of minnesota, the comments of senator al franken, democrat. >> as chairman of senate subcommittee on energy, i spend a lot of time trying to convince people out in washington that not only sustainable energy and energy conservation really important, we also actually something can do. and as a senator -- thank you. and as a senator who's privileged to represent this state, represent minnesota, well, i spend a lot of time bragging about you in particular. at a time when too many in washington won't even admit that climate change is a real problem, the more the community is showing who's a real solution looks like. and you're doing it in a way that really exemplifies the

best about what morris means. you're reaching out and including everyone. you're working on the ground, waiting for someone else to leave, waiting to follow. you are, as ghandee advised, being the change you want to see in the world. host: the comments of senator al franken of minnesota, speaking to the students at the university of minnesota. mike is joining us, new mexico. good morning, republican line. caller: good morning. my comment was going to be a little different, but i was asked a question about your screener, and basically, my message to the kids would be, work hard and be an american, understand what our core is, understand the difference between us versus those around the rest of the world, and try hard to teach your kids, and i do applaud obama.

finally he gets to the black out of wedlock issue, but that's really important for the black community to really kind get control of families and go back to their roots, which is really christianity. so good for him for that. i totally applaud him for that. i don't really agree with him in anything else, but good to him. host: mike, thanks for the call. another speech from the co-founder of apple, steve wo sniak, who spoke to the students at u.c. berkeley. >> take the side roads in life. you know, then you might find yourself out in the middle of a warm field, and you either got there because you were dreaming or because you trusted your g.p.s. system. your sbectdwral and physical energy is at a peak at this young people. look at the people who started google, facebook, apple back when. they're your age, and they come one ideas that they believe in, they work for it like breanna did, and you got to get a trust

in yourself and know what your internal passion is. when you have success, are you going to become a different person though? all the sudden money and power and wealth is important to you, or are your ideals going to be with you forever? you can't tell yourself he want to be this person for never life. now is your time to change the world and to think different. host: that was the co-founder of apple, speaking at u.c. berkeley. we're asking you about the message the class of 2013. steve, thanks for waiting, from bedford, texas. good morning. good morning, steve. caller: what president obama said towards the black males at morehouse should be echoed at all the black colleges throughout the united states, as well as the black pulpitsful ministers should be telling the youngsters in their churches on sundays how to be a good citizen and a good father, and to obey not only the laws of the home, but also laws of the

state instead of filling our prisons, we should be filling up our colleges. host: steve, thanks for the call. his is on our facebook page -- host: join the conversation on our twitter page, also on facebook. arianna huffington also delivering remarks, this to the graduating class of smith college. >> another graduation speaker notoriously told the class of 1954 that their way to the top would be determined by the man hey marry. well, i want to do him one better. and tell you, don't you -- you don't get to the top by marrying someone.

and. simpler way is to sleep your ay to the top. [laughter] right now i imagine they're thinking they probably should have edited the speefment host: the co-founder of huffington post to the graduating class at smith college. all of these speeches available on our website, c-span.org. we'll continue the conversation tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. 4:00 for those of you on the west coast. among our guests, bruce fleming, who teaches english at the u.s. naval academy and the author of bridging the military civilian divide, also kathleen is going to be joining us to talk about the national military family association, which families of the military need to be dealing with, especially those who are departing the armed forces and into civilian life, and randy plunkett of military.com will discuss the jobs available for those returning service

members. tomorrow, of course, is memorial day, and we'll devote the entire three hours to paying tribute to our veterans and also those veterans trance i going from the military to the civilian workforce. the ceremony is at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. thanks for joining us. "newsmakers" is up next. hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> today on c-span --news makers" with senator bernie sanders. followed by president obama at national defense university on counterterrorism policy. and then rebl