microphone. i would like to hold the question open to them in their individual situations. i mentioned earlier i completely underestimated the rigor that had to go into actually planning the office of the president-elect, the scheduling process, sufficient that the president-elect could in fact serve well, transportation, housing, the media, when there is no white house, but you have got all the duties that are coming. that is a big deal. if there is one money i will pass along, it is, start early on that. i mentioned steve in his good efforts in providing that. i would be interested to hear your response and the things you would see as lessons in what you learned? handle all the domestic policy,

managed the domestic policy teams. >> i found it to be a remarkably well-organized effort. the pre-white house, you came up with a number, the number of hours you would have available to brief the president-elect. a really small number. the idea was you had to use every one of the hours carefully and wisely. otherwise, they run out quickly. there was one thing i always found odd about the transition. what you said on the stage contradicts a little bit of what was said in the book, which is, how to handle the press. i thought the effort would have benefited from having one single press spokesman. at the very end, we started talking about having someone do that. there was a lot of confusion about who should handle it. the campaign said we do not

want to do with it because they were trying to handle elections. you said, just do not talk about it. future,ommended the using, what is your best wisdom on this? >> it was to have a single person after the election took place. i felt strongly then and still today the transitions should not have a voice. the campaign needs to remain as the principal voice of the candidate, the face of the effort, that on the day the election occurs, and there is a transition, then you do move out of campaign mode into the mode of the transition. it was at that point that i continue to feel there were times when there would be a leak, about somebody who was going to be a secretary.

and so and so is vying to become this in the white house. we felt it best to have the least amount said about it. and to reference it in the campaign. we have sent disciplined messages about when that occurred. to my knowledge, the only conversation that was ever held about who would do what in the administration between the candidate and another person, was when paul ryan was appointed the nominee as vice president. we want to minimize speculation and be in a position to say none of the decisions have been made and would not be made. inevitable speculation. we treated it as such. we kept the spokesperson role and i think that was the right decision. >> one of the important principles is this was the transition project. we had no role, no voice, no substance.

when you take the general view that we are not in charge of policy or announcing any positions because no positions were decided on, it takes a lot of heat out of the equation. as we get to the stage, something like this is presumed to be done from both parties, now that we have had three, 4, 5 elections where people have done something similar, slightly different approaches, but essentially the same, people go, i guess it is natural they have a transition. it is natural they will start organizing for something that happens the day after the election. there is nothing they are doing that is relevant to the campaign itself. if you take those principles and take away a lot of the heat associated with the leaks and who is doing what, we were quite clear we were making no

decisions relevant to either the campaign or the running of the government. that makes the media approach a lot easier. of course it is happening. of course there are a lot of people doing that here it there are people organizing themselves looking at issues associating with familiar policy. to the specific question, the thing i would add, over and above what we talked about, the selection of the initial people on the project is absolutely fundamental. from them proper gates all the other decisions. also talk about the role of the governor and the chairman, executive director, and the senior team and how they are selected is absolutely critical. six months before the election, most people are not worrying about that. campaigns need to invest time. if i get the right people involved at the senior level, i

can pretty much forget about it aboutx months and worry it when it is relevant. >> the governor talked about the someones important for leading the effort. you have expanded the circle, talking about a large group of people. you talk about jamie and the connections and relationships she had. what other skills or qualities do you think are essential to the core grouping? i do not know if you have a view on that. someone leading the effort. >> i think it has got to be a mixture. the best team and we have that quality on our team, a mixture of political knowledge, knowledge of washington. you have got to have that. you have got to have people with project management-type skills. mixture got to have a of knowledgeable about the campaign and the candidate.

it is unusual you would ever get all of those three things and one person. your senior team collectively has to have those things. that is nirvana, getting all those three things together in a team. that is the best balance overall. comments echo the here. we were blessed with a remarkable transition chairman. you could not have asked for somebody who better understood how the government works and has one of the keenest minds for policy in washington. in addition, we had a group of senior folks working on the transition, some folks from the private sector, some folks who have worked in government before. we benefited from people who served in the clinton administration. the administrator would help us with policy on this transition. carol recounted her experiences getting binders full of materials as the incoming

cabinet nominee and saying, i do not need all this stuff. that helped us refine what we were asking the review team to go out and find and report back. >> we learned from that. that was an improvement. we have resolved to do the same thing, to keep ourselves narrow. >> to follow-up on your notion on, if there are other folks here who have something to comment on, we have a couple of microphones. start, tom? >> thank you. first, i tell you a story. [laughter] during president reagan's transition, you talk about clearances and stuff. he talked about his landing on the moon. 10 days after the election, down came senator smith.

president said, how did defense gets though far behind offense? and missiles and spears and what have you. smith interrupted and said, let me tell you what is going on down here. are you cleared? [laughter] andgovernor turned to me said, i think they cleared you last tuesday. [laughter] i apologize for that. my question is, you had all been talking about washington experience, senior people who know the system and know what is going on. when we were running around the congressional affairs, the first rule was, no lobbyists. who the devil knows congress and how to run the system in congressional affairs than a bunch of lobbyists, yet the how did that decision come down? consequently, we did not have

the best and the brightest in that operation. how did that decision come down and why? >> every campaign in the last few years wrestles with this problem. that becomes a hot topic. we included that we would establish our policy after the election. we had not done so. i'm not suggesting it would have been markedly different. that is a problem i wish we could solve. some of them more capable people in washington, the people with great experience, need to be there. we did not actually have to deal with it. maybe chris, i will toss it to you. [laughter] >> the governor is to play for that. during the campaign back in 2007, when senator obama was running, about lobbyists serving, by definition, you had to follow that one.

i think you raised a legitimate point. some of the people, the best to understand policy, lobbyists. >> martha can go. wait one second. we will have a microphone. >> thank you. i wondered what role governor romney had in the transition planning? what information did you bring to him? what directions did he give you? >> the most important directive we received from governor romney, i alluded to earlier. we referred to as general instructions. it is in the book, laying out the priorities he wanted to be doing, the first 200 days. i would then meet with governor romney, essentially once a week. i would typically fly out to the campaign, spend an hour or two with him, generally on the

plane or his hotel room. i would keep them up to date. we used a one-page project manager as the basis of the report. we would look for anything yellow or red. he would want to know about that. but, everything we did was driven by the general instructions. then, there were a couple of occasions where we had to begin to get down to some specific groups of people to consider. so, we had input from him on that. aske would be times i would his opinion about a particular policy matter that could be reflected in our deliberation. we kept policymaking in boston, but we had execution. execution often, how that is done, makes policy. there would be times i would interact with him basically once a week.

>> one of the priciples we had, we had to be tightly connected to the campaign. we could not the a tax on the campaign. we cannot take a lot of the time for things to get the general principles, to ensure we had someone running the transition that governor romney was very confident in and knew. it was incredibly important. anwas spending more than hour or so a week thinking about what was happening on the transition is too much. not that it was not critically important. he was setting the framework for what was happening in november in his primary and single-minded focus had to be on winning the election, not worrying about what he had to do when he woke up in the morning. >> a couple of things we have not mentioned that we should -- i alluded to the inter-agency processes we organize. in many cases, you would have changed from different agencies working to solve a similar

problem. who have totally different perspectives. that is why you have interagency processes. it would be my role to sit in in the place of what would be governor romney if you were there. there were times i would say, we are working on this issue. this is my instinct. does it match yours yet so we would talk about that so i was in a position to then weigh in on his behalf. tim adams ran that process. tim had wide experience with the treasury and the white house and a number of other places in the federal government. he did an exceptional job in managing the process. another would have been personnel. bill hagerty, who is from tennessee, a great job in being able to organize the systematic process. there would be times when we would say, these are the characteristics we are looking for in this position. we rarely got to the point of saying, this is the kind of

person we are looking at. he was very useful in being able to say, this is what i want in that role, as opposed to, this person is what i want in the role. >> good morning. let me ask the question. the question is, we never got a shot in the confirmation process. we never transition to a transition team. the confirmation process is the greatest hindrance to staffing of government. going forward after election day, obviously, the inaugural. in this process, of confirmation, i remember sitting around the readiness project, wondering whether or not we should go on landing teams. the rumor was if you go on a landing team, people would say you were thinking i will be confirmed for this position. do not go on the landing team

of a position you have been qualified for asked to consider or may want to pursue. the question then, back to the question, is, what lessons can we take from the obama campaign or from our effort on the readiness project for moving beyond simply coming up with names, and working with desk united states senate to get senior staff appointees, senate-confirmed appointees, in place shortly after the inaugural? >> let me acknowledge one of the products of the zealousness and others. it essentially created a streamlined process for committee vetting.that is that is still in the process, putting together, those of us

who have and through confirmation can tell you if you are in a position where multiple committees have a level of jurisdiction, they all have their own financial disclosures. they all have their own questionnaires. you spend hours and hours vetting. so, to his credit, the legislation reduces by 160 or so positions that require senate confirmation. then they will ultimately streamline the process. we actually started the development of, because the process was not in place, we

were not able to complete. this is a project for someone to do. we thought there was a need for a means by which a person who was interested and qualified in doing public service would get themselves for nomination in a preclearance way. i will fill out all the papers, i will have the financial disclosure, the 84, all of those things free done. and i will go through a little process where they will tell me the realities of what this will look like. we are going to tell people in more detail what they can express in terms of intrusion into their personal life and what life as a public servant is about early, as opposed to finding that out later and withdrawing. you will have to have the following problems to overcome. it would be a good thing if you could say to a candidate, when you go through ethics clearance, they will make you sell that. that would be a great thing. it would speed the process up. i think between now and the next three years, if there is an area where additional focus could be made, it is in

streamlining the process of getting good people who are eligible into a place of preclearance, so that you do not have to use the 77 days to go through that and end up with 100 people running the entire federal government who have been cleared as late as may or june of the following year. >> i would add, and it will not surprise anyone, the confirmation process is broken right now. it is broken in a lot of different ways that people have been trying to fix. it is not only the lack of resources and how long it takes to vet people. it is the number of forms that get filled out. the quirks of getting anyone to the u.s. than it. we struggled with this in the beginning of 2009. when you are dealing with an economic crisis, as we were, you had, in those agencies, a secretary, maybe a chief of staff, and people minding the shop. the recovery act had been --

they were trying to get out the door. that would be a huge problem. the question you are getting to is how one gets a broader diversity of people to serve in government. that is something we struggle with. when the transitions are using people who have served the government, and even when we expand our circles, you are still getting the same group of people. one of the things we try to look at where people in the private sector, people who had experience in state and local government, people around the country. it is an evolving process. >> one more question, that would be great. >> speaking about the organization and clearly established a strong culture, post election, you have merged a campaign organization in with its own strong culture of people who work hard. what were your plans for doing

that merger and keeping all of the things you have built up to that point going? >> steve, do you want to talk about that? >> this is a very important focus for all of us. one of the very important things we did, prior to the election, is make sure people on the campaign focused on the campaign and people on the transition focused on a transition. there was a clear rule in place. do not ask about your job. we all have a job to do right now. if you win the election, that will change. in preparation, what we did was we looked to the number of places. we looked very clearly at all of the different positions in the campaign already. all the different positions in the transition already. then, some other areas, as well. people that may have been in peripheral roles. then we took a look at what we

would need in the white house and what we would need in the transition. we actually had a line by line extremely detailed listing of what we would need and, potentially, where the people would come from. we knew, for example, that we had fairly significant, fairly well-established legal functions to both places. we had a good understanding of how the two organizations come together. we knew there were a lot of junior level people on the campaign that may be able to come in and help with certain aspects of the transition. that would tailor to their skill sets. we had detailed processes in place. the plan was, the day after the election, to pull our heads together and start working very specifically on who would work each roles. to an 85% degree, we knew generally where the people would come from.

i say probably within a week or so, we would have had most of those very specifically populated. we also had a process where we were going to give people badged, vetted -- all that stuff fell through pretty well. say,ast thing i would broadly, in all of this, is it is real important when you are looking specifically at the 75 days, to know there are a lot of very detailed things that have to happen. one of the things i think is important to do is to really think forward and say, ok, what will it take to vet all these people, what will it take to find time on the president- elect's calendar to look through policy matters? what will it take to make sure he has time for congress and for media? and really sort of, like you would in any business, almost

do a contingency planning. and lay out the details. just like everything else, the plans may change, but we are going through in detail of how it is likely to go. it is a whole lot easier to adjust. you have all the pieces of the puzzle on the table. it is a matter of moving them around. >> jamie, do you want to comment? >> there could have been a hiccough, if we had been successful, in bringing the campaign people in. as we have talked about, there was a clear division between the campaign folks focusing on their job and us focusing on hours. while there was a meeting and conversations weekly with the campaign policy shop, as far as the lot of roles steve was talking about, scheduling,

anything to do with communications, those functions, the people who were playing those roles in the campaign, we really could not distract from their job. it would have been helpful to be able to have conversations, maybe three weeks out, so we could have prepared, so it would not have been probably that week before we could have gotten them on board. that was something i was concerned about. we alluded to this with the confirmation process. the whole focus is on getting them through senate confirmation. one of the things i had dealt with was with people. they have concerns as well. as governor leavitt said, if you can have some soft conversations about what this is going to be like, to come to washington, to take on the role of government service, i think that would have streamlined --

if we had been successful. some people are going to remove themselves. some campaign folks want campaign work. and what government service will going to be about, they could have perhaps counted on. i was the only thing that i would -- >> people try to guide these principles. as long as we stopped to the fundamental risible, it made life easier. this principle was -- anyone who was on a campaign with guaranteed a job on the transition if they wanted it. there were 500 or 600 -- >> the inauguration. >> there were 500 or 600 roles in the transition, probably an equal number of roles in the inauguration. over 1000 people we needed. some total people on the campaign was less than 1000. so there was plenty of work to

do. anyone who was on the campaign that wished to have a role, we would find one for them in either the transition or the inauguration. principle number one. principle number two -- no one was guaranteed a role in the administration. and people confused that -- those concepts. but if you kept saying often enough, they got it. [laughter] there was a 75-day period with a lot of work to be done, and anyone who wished to help on that work, we would find a role for them. but there was a defined during a 75 days for determining who were the people who were going to work with the administration or the department or whatever. just because you had worked on me campaign or the transition was no guarantee you would then have a role there afterwards. clearly, you had the opportunity to do it. as long as we stop to those two principles, many people who tried, it made life enormously

easier. >> a big part of this transition generally is managing people's ambitions and their anxieties. >> what was exciting to me starting the mixture of skill sets a must we had governor leavitt, who had deep knowledge of washington, chris liddell from the private sector. the team of young potential political appointees. as i looked at people to come in and help with the transition, tried to keep that mixture of washington old hands that knew the agencies, but a lot of people that were new to

washington, new to potential government service. a lot of young people that were ready to roll. i think it made it unique because we did have a lot of people that had never been engaged in politics or government service that potentially would have served. that is why plotting those conversations, filling up the good work early, and having some sort of system to get them ready in case they were going to be nominated was important. >> i would like to make two suggestions -- i think it would be useful to hear from drew on the question that tom reference. you're feeling on that. then brian, i think it would be valuable for you to comment on the interest that has developed among people who work together on a team to keep this policy team as a means or together in terms of the network of

resources that was generated. >> i think there were two issues in the legislative outreach group that we had to focus on that most people don't see. chris lu mentioned one, and that if the lame-duck session. there was all this focus in the campaign on day one what we would do during the first 200 days. you had to react to what was going on at the time. and lame-duck during president obama transition, there were economic challenges. we would've had the same thing with the fiscal cliff. we had to get through the whole lame-duck in order to get to the 200 a first. wet was a big ordeal that had to set up, decisions to make the day after the election, go up and brief resume liked romney and chairman ryan at the time. the second issue was going past -- christine and tom were very

helpful on was setting up the confirmation process. we had a very ambitious goal of getting 26 nominees through during the first week of the inauguration. that meant that you had to have all 26 vetted, you had to have them scheduled to with the senators, it was up to read to get them all scheduled. what we had done as we created teams of about seven to 10 people assigned to each one of the 26 potential nominees. so we had a whole wing at the transition readiness office at the time that would be designated to each of the people. but this was going to be an and or miss task. as tom said, historically, as you have walked people through the nomination process, you've had old washington hands. we found as we could that were

unregistered lobbyists at the time to shuffle these people around the senate. i think that was one of the areas where people don't appreciate the amount of work that goes into that whole process. we also did not have a communications staff, see you had to figure out how you are going to announce the table. we were working very closely with steve preston and his operation as we mapped out that process. >> i would just mention that there has been some consequence of the defeat is that we try to make some lemonade out of it. we had all of these policy teams. we had about 10 teams. they were organized by subject. fromd iran and syria, burner policy issues. on election day, each team had produced a 15 to 20 page paper

and how we implement the 200- day plan. there was a feeling after the election -- it would be a shame to let all of this go to waste. so after the election, these teams have largely stayed together. we now have 16 teams organized by topic that are now working, trying to help the hill and republican governors and try to be a broader service to the republican party. that work has continued. there was a thought on the readiness product that people do not want to lose. they wanted to keep it going. we have done a lot of work with house leadership, working with speaker boehner and cantor's office, being a resource to them on issues that are coming up and make full use of the people in the readiness project.

>> last question and then we will close. >> thank you. my question was about and it ready may. but another question is -- the american people have been pretty clear about their feeling that there needs to be change in washington. that government needs to be structured in a way that they view is more responsive to their needs. both candidates in the last election picked up on this theme. my question is -- to what extent did the respective transitions, including the obama transition, planning reflect this interest, and to what extent is it appropriate for future

transition teams to begin to plan for the kind of change that perhaps the candidates are talking about and the american people want? >> i will start. we certainly in the 2008 campaign talk about transforming washington. a lot of our policies ended up getting put on the back burner because of the economic crisis and so we ended up moving to things like transparency later in the administration. youbroader issue about how make government, how you make transitions more open to the public, and something that we have thought about. it is one of the subjects -- we did not spend enough time on before election day. the use of technology. going forward to the next four years. i cannot even envision how you would run a transition in technology if you are not skilled and technology. you go back and look at resident clinton, resident george w. bush, they held a summit around the country during their

transition period. i can imagine the next president-elect doing a skype or google hangout or twitter townhall. we made a conscience effort that we were not going to have people send us resumes in paper form and have to re-input them all again. we created a thing on our website that you could submit them all. we did the address on the internet. i think technology gives you a lot of ways to include more people in the planning of a transition, make it more transparent. >> i would just acknowledge the fact -- i think that jamie mentioned it -- that is getting a mix of people and disciplines. we work hard to bring new ideas to the american people. one of the things we did, and i still believe was the right thing to do, is we kept policy in boston. that is where the new ideas came

from. our job was to say -- we have ways to influence that process. they had policy teams that had been developed of people outside of government who were injecting those ideas. once those had been done, our job was to figure out how to work with the federal government to make them happen. >> with that, i just want to end with a round of applause and thank you for your contribution. [applause] i know you are committed to this process, and i hope you work with the partnership going for to making next round even better. >> we should mention that people can get this on amazon.com. it is available to them. work wanted knowledge the that clark did along with daniel. and chris.

they were very instrumental in the assembly of this and deserve to be acknowledged. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> i feel the same. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> up next, marine corps commandant general james amos on the future of the marine corps followed by a look at yahoo! news operations in washington, d.c. and later, a discussion from earlier today on the affordable care act with the former congressional budget office director. . differentill be very impacts depending on who you are. urges are not going to tell the story. the young and healthy will see big increases.

our survey is said to want to%. these are sharp premium increases. brothers, there will get relative decreases. will getthers, they relative decrease is. there is not a single number that will tell you the story about the aca implementation . lot andple will get a some others i lot less. that is important and raises a couple of wild cards that deserve some further work. we did a second survey which we put out more recently last week that surveyed young americans, 18-34 who have insurance. we took the time to find out their monthly premium and as a result, turn into dollars, what happens if their premiums go up 10%, 20%, or 30% which based on all the work that has been done

are not crazy possibilities. the answers are quite striking. group that looks a lot and says i like some of it but not all of it. it is not an act of political partisan calculation. it is a consumer price indication. they look at the cost of a product and at a certain price point, they say they are done. we could lose 17%. 20%,aise their pay meant 5% of the retain their coverage and it raises 30%, down to 55% which are quite striking results about the price responsiveness of the young folks who are an important part of the pool that will be on the state-based exchanges. the final point is that this will depend a lot of money.

the way you solve that problem is easy -- you throw money at it. --thereby having subsidies either by raising subsidies. they might get a smaller increase and continue to stay in the pools. that is one way to solve the problem or, if they choose to exit and we're left with more expensive pools, the reinsurance provisions and other ways of subsidizing will become important. how that plays out is something i don't know the answer to an merits more consideration. it is that a part of having this be an effective, functioning expansion in insurance for american. . >> you can see the entire program here on c-span at 5:15 eastern this afternoon.

tonight in primetime, a look at the economy and the future of science research with the founder of the harvard business school life sciences project you're on c-span. with congress out this week, we have been featuring book-tv and prime time on c-span 2. and american history on cspan 3. at 8:00, addressing by partisanship, beginning with the former senator olympia snowe on her book. a american history to become stories from civil rights activists including john lewis. the attorney general arranged me in california after the extradition, he indicated he wanted the death penalty on each of the three charges. he wanted the death penalty three times. that made me realize how serious they were.

it made me realize it was not about me. first of all, i could not be killed three times. it was about the construction of this imaginary enemy. i was the embodiment of the enemy. >> she was not that interested in talking about what happened, this period, the crime, the implications of being chased by the fbi. she was not that interested in talking about it. she is a person you don't necessarily go to directly. that there were important people in her life and i chipped away at the people she knew and trusted. i was able to get them to write letter and get involved. around and shee agreed to meet me. '60s activistf

and radical angela davis, sunday at 8:00 on "q &a." >> up next on remarks from general james amos, marine corps commandant talking about challenges facing the marines including automatic spending cuts known as sequestration that took effect earlier this year. also, the eventual u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan. this is 90 minutes. good morning, everyone, welcome to brookings. on behalf of my colleague peter singer, and all of us at brookings, we want to welcome you and especially welcome general james amos, commandant of the u.s. marine corps to be here today. the format for today is the general will speak for 10-50

minutes and summarize his thoughts on broad issues. then he and i will have a conversation and then we will turn to the crowd. whenve cspan covering so and if i call on you in the course of that conversation, be sure to identify yourself and wait for a microphone and then we will proceed. general ms is a combat aviator for the great state of idaho where he attended college. he has been in the marine corps for his entire 35 year career. is the longest serving service chief, the senior member of that illustrious body. his a top adviser to the president on all matters like national security and the marine corps' top planner, budgeteer, combat conceptualize your and so forth. he has had many jobs at different levels of development and different levels of command including in 2006 when he and general petraeus teamed up to write the counterinsurgency met

manual. he had been instrumental as a combat aviator and they were fired in the early stages. prior to that, he had a number of jobs deployed around the world as all marines do. one of the important priorities thegeneral amos is keeping core expeditionary and responsive. the service as well on its way to withdrawing from afghanistan but is still there with several thousand personnel as we speak. without further i do, general, we are delighted to have you. please join me in welcoming the commandant of the marine corps. [applause] q for the kind remarks. if i had only been in the marine corps for 35 years, i would look younger. i have actually been in for 32 years.

my wife and i had been married marriedears and we got after a joint the marine corps. now general james amos discusses automatic spending cuts and the challenges he is facing because of them. held earlier today at the brookings institution, this is an hour-and-a-half. >> good morning, everyone. welcome to brookings. on behalf of my colleagues, we would like to welcome you and especially welcome general james amos, the commandant of the u.s. marine corps, to be here today. the format for today is that the general was before 10 or 15 minutes, summarizing some of his spot on some issues that i know our interest to you as well. then he and i will have a conversation here, and then we will turn to the crowd. we have c-span you are covering and some other tv. if i call on you in the course of that conversation, please be sure to identify yourself, wait for a microphone before doing that, and then we will proceed. general ams is a combat aviator from the great state of idaho where he attended college. he has been in the marine corps for his entire 35-year career. he is a senior member of that illustrious body, a top adviser to the president in all matters of national security, and of course the marine corps's top

planning budgeteer and so forth. in 2006, he and general david petraeus teamed up to write the counterinsurgency manual for the u.s. military. prior to that he had been instrumental in his role as a war fighter in the early stages of the invasion of iraq. prior to that he had a number jobs deployed around the world, as all marines do, and as we will discuss further today. one of the important priorities is keeping the marine corps global and responsive, which is a big part of the services ethos. although still there were several thousand personnel in afghanistan as we speak. without further ado, we are delighted to have you here, the commandant of the marine corps. [applause] >> thanks for the kind remarks. if i had only been in the marine corps for 35 years, i would probably looked a hell of a lot bianca. my wife and i have been married for 42 years, since right after i joined the marine corps. this is all i have ever known. but thank you for the warm welcome. i have just a couple of bullets here. i will not read my remarks but i have a couple of things i would like to talk about here in opening. i get asked often, what is the main thing on your mind that keeps you awake at night and that you spend time thinking about? to be honest with you, it is how do you get through this austerity? it is real, it is upon us. all of you in this room have done it, gone back to look at historical downturns after major combat. sometimes it is 30%, sometimes 29%, but from the peak to the bottom of the trough and where it begins to turn back up, that is somewhere around 9-10 years. and it is historical. i would hope that this time is not the case, but you don't know. i try to prepare the marine corps for the future. i look at that historical downturn, and how can we as the senior leadership of the marine corps, and myself as a, not, how can we shepard the corps through that period of austerity? i want to remind everybody that as we gather in here, there are 30,000 marines that are deployed around the world. they are on the marine expeditionary unit, some are out in the gulf of aden, doing our nation's work. we had marines in the gulf, flying in the gulf, and we have a significant contribution on the ground in afghanistan.

turning the world on its axis, going out to the asian-pacific area, we have a large amount of marines out there. we have a marine rifle company down in australia, our nation's first installments for that renewed relationship between the government of australia, there are me, and the u.s. marine corps. so we are optimistic about that. focusing more specifically on afghanistan, even though our nation is weary of war, i am mindful, and i would ask you to be mindful, of what is happening in afghanistan. if you have talked to john allen when he was still the commander, he would say exactly the same thing. if given the opportunity to complete the mission, not just to pull the last force out and live, but to complete that mission that both of those officers, and they know more

than any of us who anticipate success. uscess is defined by all of in different ways. let me focus on the helmet province which is where your marines are today. there are about 8000 u.k. forces there and two battalions of our georgian brothers. the republic of georgia, not the state of georgia. we have jordanians and australians on the ground with us. bahrain has been with us for a long time for biting a service. in that helmut province, which was one of the most dangerous places in all of afghanistan -- and i go there frequently. i will be there next month. we spent christmas there. i have watched this progress to the point where i can tell you with some level of confidence

that things are going particularly well. we have every reason to be confident that if given the opportunity, we will be allowed to complete the mission and be successful in afghanistan. is it going to be in your mind what success is? probably not. in my mind, the way i define it is we will give the people in the helmut province the national security forces and and the central government of afghanistan the greatest opportunity for success for the future. the conditions will have been set. it will be up to them to seize those conditions and proceed on. i feel very good about what is happening. we are done with offensive combat operations. we do not write operations orders, we write supporting orders in support of the afghan national army that are there. we feel good about how it is

going along. avenue provincial governor and he is doing a terrific job. we have a courageous corps commander down there. they are doing well. these are tough times we are in right now. it is not a tried statement. i want to remind everybody that i am also a taxpayer. i pay taxes like hopefully all of you in this room. here we are in this unprecedented time where we have the longest war nomination has been in. we have a fiscal crisis that is real and is upon us we are drawing down forces in afghanistan after 12 or 13 years of combat between iraq and afghanistan. we are downsizing the poor so that we can pay your bill while facing frustration, which is

the $500 billion bill over the next 10 years. billionon top of $487 that had been passed a year- and-a-half ago in the budget control act. under bob gates, we found another $200 billion worth of bills that we had to pay, and it is called efficiencies. i don't recall the marine corps getting any of those deficiencies. the bill is $1.20 trillion, for the purpose of discussion. that is real money and it will have a real impact. let me give you my sense of what the world is likely going to look like over the next two decades. i see much of what we are going through right now -- i don't see any of it going away. i do not see major theatre war over the next two decades.

i see what i call it difficult, challenging, -- not necessarily technology intensive, but human intensive kind of conflicts and challenges over the next two decades. i often call them the nasty little things that happened around the world or in the international community, not just the united states of america, has a responsibility to around the world. global responsibilities. to what degree is yet to be seen. i sense that the world is not getting any nicer. i don't see any indication that things are going to settle down and become peaceful. any of your major newspapers, you can see it on your daily paper. everything on what is happening

in syria, you see it on the nightly news and in the morning news. we are not sure how it will play out. is not clear precisely what is going to happen in syria, and yet the whole world is focused on it. what about hezbollah? there was something in the paper about a just this morning. threats from syrian fighters. you better quit supporting the regime. it is always challenging, our relationship with iran. i look at iraq, having lost 851 marines killed in action in iraq. we have an investment. in addition to the monetary investments and the years and the sweat and toil, there is also our most precious commodity, which is the currency which is our young men and women.

so i have an investment in iraq, and i have lived a very close attention to it. you watched it last night on the news, and solid again this morning. there is no indication that that area is going to settle down. turn the world on its axis to a month and a half ago with the 30-year-old boy leader of north korea. i am probably the oldest person in this room. nikitanctly remember khrushchev in the 1960's taking his shoe off and banging the heel at the united nations. the united nations in new york city threatened thermonuclear war against the united states, we are going to wipe you out. yet just a month and a half ago, he now calls himself the

supreme leader of north korea, he will destroy the u.s. with thermonuclear war. i have not heard rhetoric like that since the 1960's. that is just the highlights. there are territorial tensions and lots of things going on around the world. week in the u.k. last speaking to command staff and talking with some of my french brothers about mali and what is happening there. a very courageous stance from my perspective on what the french have done. sooner or later, the international community is going to have to address some of these thorny, nasty, tacky little things going on around the world. we may think we are done with them, but they don't necessarily the -- they are not necessarily done with us. let me switch from that and talk a little bit about what we do with this environment.

now we have this brought down, this tension going on inside a coronation. of just the department defense, it is inside our nation, how we are going to pay our bills, reorient our focus back to the united states. it cannot ignore that world that i just described. you cannot turn your back on it because it is very dangerous. in some cases, depending on the threat and who is involved in it, the international community does not address some of these threats, we may find those threats in washington d.c. we may find them in new york city. we may find them in the major cities all around the world. so somebody has got to do something. there has to be a sense of presence and a sense of engagement. that is why you have a u.s. marine corps and the u.s. navy. that is what we do.

it is paid for. there are still bills out there and we are still building new pieces of equipment, but this is what we do. we do not need an air field. we'll need to step on one of our allies sovereign territory. quite honestly, we sail around the world and interact with nations and build relationships that cannot be surged in the time of conflict. relationships are important relationships are important to build trust right now. that is what we do. and things become a little bit questionable, we can pull off the coast. there is nothing that sends the same signal as three amphibious ready ships full of 2500 marines. not necessarily doing anything,

but everybody understands the seriousness of what could take place. in my experience, it has a calming effect. so there is an engagement responsibility, that our nation needs to acknowledge. while we are drawing down and we want to come back to the u.s. and reinvest ourselves inside the department of defense and inside our nation, the question for me is, what is that balance between the reality of the world and how you deal with it and how you live in that reality, and then how you pay your bills. how you rebalance, reset your service. my service, probably more than any others, we took our equipment to the war in iraq and most of it we left there. we bought for maintenance

facility so we could refurbishing it. most of the equipment we had in iraq actually found its way over to afghanistan. the equipment coming out of afghanistan now has been in that part of the world for a long time. so the challenges i have right now as a service cheek is the reality of the budget. sequestration is real. ladies and gentlemen, the bill was signed on march 2. i take it as rally. i am not in the nile on sequestration. israel and we are working on a plan right now that will pay my bills. congress down the road elects to change this, the american people decide that we need a better way to do business than this sequestration, which i think is a terrible way to do business,

but is certainly has an effect. if they change, that is great. but for right now, we have been working on a plan for about 90 days on how we will pay our bills. and i know precisely how we will do it. the key is for us as a nation now, how much is enough, and how much do we need to have going forward, because we have global responsibilities. we do have responsibilities as a superpower. you could argue with me and say there are other superpowers out there, but this is not a prideful statement. i think the united states is the most significant superpower overall world. we do more things right than we do wrong. we work pretty hard to try to provide peace and stability.

some of you may argue with that, but i think we do. so the issue is, what is our responsibility as a global nation? just turn to the asia-pacific area. we have five major treaties in the asia-pacific area, and they go back decades. we have responsibilities. i would argue that many nations in the asia-pacific area rely on the president of the united states. i don't think we can ignore those responsibilities. as i put in my -- i take my comment from the marine corps hat off and i think about the nation and what is best for the nation. the balances, how do we fulfill our role as a global superpower.

and then as a the part of the fence, what is our responsibility in that? more specifically and more tightly focused, what is my responsibility to provide capabilities as the, of the marine corps. with that i think i will stop, and mike and i will jump up here and take some questions. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, general. i would like to pick up with a couple of the scenes that you usually begin with. let's get to the sequestration matter in more detail. i will begin as a for early skeptic might. i raised the issue in terms of the debate we heard last year.

secretary panetta and others were saying that sequestration is allowed to happen, this guy's going to fall. now we are a couple of months into it and this guy does not seem to have fallen. i am not trying to defend sequestration, by the way, but i think a lot of people will wonder why such a hullabaloo is made of this. so much rhetoric was devoted to this, but it has happened, and we seem to be doing ok, at least in the short term. can we keep in place and keep the cuts over 10 years as opposed to just suffering through sequestration for a few weeks or months. why did this guy not all? >> it is because it has not taken root yet. i read this in the paper just like all of you do. i would say that is probably a great question. the fact of the matter is that

the issues of design and marine corps to live with it. all those services are doing it. and that is revealed, which was to be when the president decides he is satisfied with the planning we have done. when that happens, with that sense of what sequestration will do and is all about, will begin. that will be significant. the fact of the matter is we are in fy13. everyone else is on a continuing resolution. it has not taken root yet, but it will.

i would predict that it will within the next six months. >> how are operations and training regimens changing, starting about now, if i remember -- what are people not going to do this summer that they normally would be doing? how worried about that are you? >> i have made a decision that we would take monies out of other accounts for this year and move it to what we call readiness. we have taken money out of facilities. all the buildings and the barracks that our marines live

in, places will work in and out, that is one area where i reached in and touched. i also reached in and touched those areas -- i pulled money out of those units for training. i have gone through and pulled money out just about every town i can to maintain readiness this year for those units that are deployed. they are the highest priority. as we approach the end of this summer in august and september which will begin to turn the course over in afghanistan. those units will be at the high state of readiness. i effectively mortgaged near- term readiness, to pay for that. here is what the impact will be of nothing changes and we roll into sequestration and a

continuing resolution for next year. i don't think we should turn our back on that. that is the reality of what will probably face for 2014, the continuing resolution. i predict as we go into january, a little bit less than half of my combat units, but the infantry and the guys that support them, will be little less than 50% combat ready. the half my forces will be less than ready to deploy to combat. i want to be clear something happens, we are going to go. if something bad happens around the world, we are going to go. that is not the way we train and not the way we like to deploy forces. i am not optimistic that things will change.

then the sustainment we have order this year will roll into next year as compound interest. >> on your major equipment modernization efforts, that has to be a big concern, too. just to remind those who are not always studying the marine corps. you have your amphibious vehicle you like to replace. you cancel the previous version and you make sure you dealt with that program. you have a few other major programs and a lot of smaller ones. how are all those programs bearing and how did you explain this sequestration both now and into next year?

>> we have taken the osprey -- i probably remember beginning at 2000. we are well beyond that right now. the airplane is doing incredible. that is going well and we anticipate that we have bunnies in that contract for the multiple years. the amphibious combat vehicle which is a replacement for the tractors that we currently have it is not a farm-all or a john deere. is ashley and a previous the

nicolette's winds to shore, loaded with combat marines inside of it. our vehicles are little more than 40 years old. we have refurbished those and added and a service life extension on them twice. you come of an amphibious ship one of two ways. you either fly off of it or swim off of it in one of these vehicles. that is it. we have some transport connectors but that does not hold all the marines, so we needed.

we have been at it for 2.5 years to get that right. i am only going to get one more shot at getting this right, so i take it very, very seriously. the industry has helped us out with this thing. we will make a decision this fall with regard to the speed and capabilities. what i am looking for right now is just a good forward f-150 kind of vehicle that is reliable and can move our marines around. please don't just think this is a vision of a vehicle that is an amphibious assault. one would take 700 ships to haiti, it was our amphibious tractors going back and forth. they are a utility fighting vehicle for us.

the replacement is doing well. we will have 16 airplanes next quarter and by the end of the year. it is the only short take off than vertical landings being built in the world. you can ask yourself, why do we need something like that? envision the amphibious ships as carriers. anywhere around the world, like in the gulf of aden, it can fly off the ship and go out and do the bidding of the nation. if we just let the harrier die,

we would have 11 large deck carriers which would just be helicopter platforms. those programs are funded, i have accounted for that and to keep those programs alive. don't see major theater war is being all that likely in the next 20 years. i would probably agree with you as far as the relative likelihood of big wars versus -- versus small world -- small wars. of the big wars you don't think are likely, which do you think we still have to be ready for? some may be too hypothetical to talk about in a public forum,

but could you give an example or two of the kind of larger campaign that if any, you think the country and the marines need to be ready for? >> i'm glad you asked that because i want to make sure everyone understands that i'd don't anticipate that. the one thing i would remind everyone that the one thing we get wrong more often than we get right in the past, it's not pathetic by any stretch of the looking at thet proclivity of our nation, having drawn out 13 years of combat to reengage itself is probably pretty slim. second as ak for a member of the joint chiefs that we should ever think it will not happen. we have been old before. we came out of world war ii

thinking it was the war to end all wars and in world war ii we thought we were done in right back into it again we were into it in 50 and 51. be prepared for what we used to called major theater war. our nation has to be. there has to be enough capacity --re when something happens the american people expect that. they may be struggling with how much and what does it cost, but i guarantee when it happens, the american people and congress will expect and the president will expect it is military and all the services will be prepared to go do that. i don't think it becomes an expeditionary force that handles these small national crises. we have to be prepared to do major theater war. i've got to tell you that none of us in this room knew

precisely what was going to happen with north korea a month and a half ago. probably not on anybody's radar here. all of a sudden, it just blossomed. none of us knew how that was going to turn out. there is an example of should our nation never need to, our nation would have to have the capacity and capability to be able to respond. begin to wrap up here in a second, but i want to try to tie together some of these pieces. we talked about sequestration and modernization and smaller theater war. can you help us understand that will point the budget cuts make you fundamentally uncomfortable? obviously, you are coping with sequestration and you have explained to us why it is worse

than it looks and you found ways to compensate in the short term. but in terms of longer-term force planning, what point do they become crippling to our ability to handle a major theater wars and the smaller stuff? aw do you explain that to skeptical audience? above the colde war average in real dollars and some people will say why can't you get high with that smirk you are doing a little less here at the little less there, but it looks like a pretty good military. is there anyway you can link a certain size it cut to a fundamental threshold beyond which we just don't want to go? don't have a monetary figure for the department of defense. in my own service, when we look at how do we pay the sequestration bill and what does that force structure look like question mark you and i had an

opportunity to talk about this a couple of weeks ago. we know what that would look like roughly in people and equipment and capabilities and capacity, so we have a sense for that. a dollar figure in my isvice, but where i worry that this force i'm looking at building to accommodate here are some-- attributes to that force which i think are significant. after the major theater war, which we talked about -- i have an obligation to do my part and be prepared for the american people and the president. , the force wes are building will go to war and come home when the war is over.

that is not something we are used to. my father was used to it. my wife's father was used to it. they went off to the war in the pacific and four years later, the bus pulled up in front of the red dirt road in alabama and my father-in-law got off. same thing with my dad. we are used to rotating forces every seven months in the marine corps. we will locate -- we will rotate a squadron or rotate major headquarters every 13 months. that's not what is going to happen. that's the first thing. the second thing is the force we are building under sequestration is on what we call a one-to draw. dwell. the -- one-to the force goes away for six months, it goes on a ship, does theater security operation, it goes into the asia-pacific area

and is gone for six months and is home for 12 months. then it goes again. just to give you a sense of what does that mean, during the height of the rack, most of the ground forces were on at least a one to one, that's about the best it will get. gone seven months and home seven months and gone seven months. that begins to wear on the force. you are 30 days out in the desert and you've got schools you've got to go to. you are only at your home for five months. six years ago or when i was at quantico testifying in front of the house and senate that we were coming out of the war and we one- build a force on a three deployment ratio.

in thece we are building marine corps to pay our bills is going to be a one to two. the fact is, the marines will probably like that because the marines are young force and we like to deploy. but our families are not going to be too thrilled about it. there is a little bit of danger because the issues come back to the homefront. it will be go to war and stay and then come home force that will be rapidly turned around. that is what we are building under sequestration. >> that is helpful. i have a few more questions i could ask but i'm going to hold myself in check and turn to you and maybe throw one and later. please identify yourselves and ask a general question. thank you for joining us.

mike has been asking about the future and you answered about the future but then gave certain historic echoes in the dwell time and the like. in the marine corps's history, is there a parallel you think about in terms of organizational challenges or identity that you keep in mind as you deal with these questions for the future? is it from the 1990s, the 1920s or 1890s, what do you think about in terms of marine corps history? a lotead the writings of of the previous commandants. we have seven of them besides myself that are alive today. a couple of them went through some very challenging times. carl monday went

through some challenging times as far as what is the for structure going to look like? -- as far as what is the force structure going to look like. with a force of 172,000 or 173,000. some commandants have been faced with a challenging budgetary issue, but i don't think anything like what we are going through today. i think these are unprecedented. go back to 1946, it astounds me that we as a nation completely emasculated the entire department of defense. war, we realized we were tired of it but we fought a but wetwo continents

were successful. had that not turned out that way, we probably would not be sitting in this room. would have turned out dramatically different. we went completely into the .asement i think about how quickly that turned around. with president truman and the secretary of war and even the great general officers of that time. all of a sudden in 1950, we were ill-prepared. itn we went to war in korea, probably cost us dearly in the early phases of the war. we finally caught up and figured out him up but it was costly to get there.

it has not been below 170,000 cents 1951. the marine corps has not. , no leadershipon in congress has taken the marine corps below 171. there's probably a reason for that. i don't know that i would say that is the reason, but there at the challenging post-worldo probably war ii and i go we probably have to get this right. for all of us in here, we have different opinions about how much is enough and how much is right. i do understand that. we are not going to get it exactly right, but what we can't afford to do as a nation is get it exactly wrong. i look at coming out of world war ii and i would just ask everybody, take a deep rest.

we will work our way through the budget over the next six months to a year. not forget about the lessons from that time. >> next question, in the third row. >> thank you, general for your comments. my question is along the training and education line. language and regional skills have been talked about. now that the force is looking forward with sequestration cuts and other budget cuts, how important do you see the skill sets for potential missions moving forward as you try to rebalance training and education efforts? >> thank you for the question. it's every bit as important

based on that environment that i described. -in 10 -- it is people-intensive kind of engagement. over the last 10 or 12 years of war, that is critical to the future. it is language and culture. we started using the term about a year and a half ago -- human terrain. before that, we used to talk about war among the people. it is relationship building and confidence -- building. among the people is the most important part. we cannot afford to lose that and we cannot use -- we cannot lose that in the marine corps. our schools and resident schools for our officers and noncommissioned officers, i made it clear as we go forward,

we are not going to lose the the counterinsurgency mindset. we did after vietnam and we forgot all about it. it took a while to relearn them. i would argue right now that all of us, the forces are probably doing that better than we've ever done it before. but we don't want to lose that because there are plenty of places around the world where it might be a small surgeons si. i argue tha what's happening in mali is an insurgency. how do you deal with that? so that's a classic case of trying to deal with something among the people of mali. you know, there are folks that want to eke out a living. so if we're going to as an international community touching those kinds of communities where we've got to be mindful of the culture and languages, their nuances, the

things that are important in those -- that's why quite honestly relationship building is critically important to me. i mean, i don't -- i think, as i talk to my officers and every year we select a new team of brigadier generals, and i spend a lot of time with them and i talk to them about the importance of relationships. because as you go ashore, and you pick some country, maybe we have the benefit of having been there before, perhaps we've never even been able to pronounce the name of it, the relationships that are built there will be the thing that will cause us to either be successful or not. but we are not going to turn our back on that. >> ok. >> by the way, just so you know we've doubled the amount of officers and doubled the amount of regional area officers. we never used to include our staff noncommissioned officers. we're sending them to get a post graduate education and go to defense language institute.

those are staff sergeants and master sergeants because they can do it. >> here in the fourth row. and then the second row after that. >> general, you've got a kind of -- you're downsizing and at the same time congress and the administration wants you to beef up your embassy security detachments. you sent one unit to europe already. how are you going to manage the manpower and the budget crunch of downsizing to 182 if they'll let you stop there while still trying to add another thousand-plus to the embassy security job and what all are you doing in that -- in that vain? >> thanks. when the -- when the questions first began, which was probably eight or nine months ago about -- how many embassies are the

marines at? and we're at about half of them around the world. and we're somewhere around 160 embassies and consulates around the world. and there are about twice as many. so there's another half that there's no marines resident in. and so we're asked could you -- what could you do? the answer was well, we can't do any more with what we have. so we'll need to put more marines into this if that's the will of congress. and well, how many more do you think you'd need? and we did some work fairly quickly, and the number roughly was about a thousand marines. and so congress faithfully went after that, and that was included in the n.d.a. language as you're well aware, and it's 1,001 marines to add.

in the discussions while we were talking about that, we talked about the missions of those units. a marine security guard detachment at an american embass is roughly about one senior staff n.c.o. and five or six young marines that are corporals and lance corporals. and they're highly trained. they have skill sets that other marines don't necessarily have. and they -- they have security clearances that are -- are critical for their jobs. their job is to not only to consul or immediate embassy, but to secure the classified material that's in there. their job is not really to get in a vick and provide a protective service as the ambassador or somebody else travels around whatever nation they're in. that's not -- that's not their vision. so if you're going to plus this

up, how would we do this thing? and so we developed training standards and a plan. i asked in the discussions with congress, i said look, can you do this? the answer is yes. would you like to do this? the answer is yes. i think we do it, we do it, it's part of our -- it's part of our -- who we are. but how do you pay for them? the original intent in the discussions was they would be above my structure line. so whatever 182,100 marines, these would be on top of that. and they would be paid for by a line-item out of congress. and that was the original discussion. i don't know that it's going to turn out that way. i just -- i want to be clear that this is a mission that i think is important to our nation. and i think the marine corps ought to do it. so dealing with my service, i've looked at everybody and i said, regardless of how this turns out with regards to money, we're going to do this

mission. so it will either be on top of 182.1 or it will be 192.1, excuse me, 180.1. 181 -- math in public is not good. 181.1, ok? so yet to be seen. but it's a mission that's important. we're going to do it. we're working with the state department right now. as i recall, there's -- there's will receive that a security guard detachment here in the next little bit and probably another half a dozen or so before the end of this year. and we'll slowly build that capacity up. but we got to work with -- it's a deal between us and the state department. and because when you put marines there, you've got to have a place for them to live and there's got to be security around the area. but what we did, which is really important, we built a small force that could be

rapidly flown in to reinforce the marine security guard detachment. and that's called a security augmentation unit. and those forces, we can put them on a c-130, we can fly them anywhere in the world if there's indications and warnings that this is probably not an area that -- or is an area that's going to have issues, they can put the marines in there ahead of time. so we have that, ok? >> let's go up here, second row, please. >> morning, sir. on betting that your i.o.c. is going to be 14, you don't have to tell us unless you want to, given that, you've got to start developing -- i'm wondering as you look at some of the other lessons you've learned over the last two years, how you see the 35 or the 22, and how that's going to change how you work in

the pacific in particular. >> yeah. this may be the first time we say this publicly, but our i.o.c. is likely going to be in 2015, not 2014. and the definition of initial operational capability are 10 airplanes, 10 crews, full maintenance sweep that does -- they've been trained, both the pilots and the air crews to do the mission of the airplane, and they're shipboard qualified. so that's the definition of i.o.c. it will be full 16 airplanes. so it will have more than the 10. but right now we're planning on that happening towards the latter part of 2015. but back to the lessons learned. the concept of operations and employment. i think if you take a look at how the amphibious ships of

late have been used, and then i'm going to take you back to 2003 because i actually have a little bit of experience in this. but let's just talk about of late how they've been used, the aircraft. when we were under -- this is under the secretary gates era. when our carriers were pressed into the gulf and doing the business of our nation in that part of the world, we still had other issues down in the gulf of aiden. and we needed fixed wing aircraft with precision weapons that -- where you could do precise targeting. and the fact of the matter is -- flying off those amphibious ships really became almost surgery, surgical capability for the president and the secretary of defense.

so since that time, it has been used an all of lot in that regard. we've also had the squadrons on the ground and we have a squadron on the ground right now. and you remember the terrible attack we had, you know, last september. and we lost circumstances airplanes out of that. but they've been flying close air support and support of the coalition forces for some time. so there's that. if you turn the clock back just a little bit when we weren't sure what was going to happen with muammar gaddafi and the whole world, nato and the united states were saying ok, what is it we should do? you might find it interesting 26 ote that they sailed marine unit up from the red sea, suez canal and they turn left and went off the coast of

libya and they sat there. so while we were all trying to figure out ok, the president was -- ok, what are we going to do? no-fly zone? nato? how are we going to do this? they actually were off the coast. during the first two days of the air war or the no-fly zone reenforcement, they were the only airplanes that were actually flying because we needed to get the tankers down from europe so we could tank the nato aircraft. so there's a great example of the flexibility those airplanes did. but you go back to o.i.f. one, the iraq war and i was a wing mmander, and we had 72, as i recall. we were flying them off two large deck amphibious ships and then we moved them ashore. i've got pictures of them on highway one just south of carballa, landing out there right after i had just met up

with then colonel joe dunford who was the commanding officer. and i landed in helicopter along the highway. looked like i-95. and i said, what do you need? he says i need air support. so we started bringing in fuel, landed c-130's on the highway, landed our -- and then we started landing them there on the highway. i got pictures of it. and we reormed them and refueled them and flew support for the potential attack on baghdad. so those are method that we will use with our aircraft and i expect we'll do exactly the same thing for the f pf 35. >> i have one question before we go back to you. and i want to pick up on this very point you've made, general. and i don't want to you get in trouble with your fellow chiefs, but you made a pretty powerful argument for the value of short takeoff, vertical landing aircraft. but you're the only service buying such things. is that a mistake? should the air force be buying

some aircraft, especially in an era when air seals are becoming potentially so much more vulnerable to precision strike? >> well, you know i'm not going to answer that question. if you take a look at, first of all, it's interesting, the -- the u.k. about a year and a lf ago, sir david richards approached me and said ok, if we decided we'd come back in to stovall, are you going to be ok with that? and, of course, the answer was yes. and we are to do day. we're training with them. in fact, we're putting u.k. pilots back into our squadrons. we're going to put a u.k. pilot in both either r.a.f. or navy pilot in each one of those squadrons. we have them trained right now down. so they're in it.

if you take a look at a picture of the world as the satellite flies over the world, and you see, take a look at -- you image where all the 8,000 runways are versus the 3,000-foot and less, and that's just runways, that's not highways or it's not parking lots or something like that, there are about 10,000 times as many 3,000-foot runways as there are 8,000-foot. for us, the places that we'll probably be operating, that's actually pretty important. so whether the -- whether the air force should buy them or not, michael, i won't touch that. but it's important for us because we're an expeditionary force. we're designed to go places where quite honestly other people either can't or they don't have the sustainment, the logistics. that's what we do. we live -- we're more than willing to live hard. we don't need fancy air conditioned tin cans like you

and i stayed in. we don't need the chow hall where can you get eggs to order every morning. that's bad for your health. and so we actually can live off our m.r.e.'s. we also need to be able to operate our equipment off there. and i've got hundreds and hundreds of pictures of refueling airplanes and vehicles and arming them off of highways on the way to baghdad. >> thank you. next question? we'll start in the back. gentlemen in the blue striped tie -- yeah. >> general, i also don't want to try to get you in trouble. i'm reading former secretary earl brown's book right now that's actually a brookings book, really interesting book. he talks about from the time he served as secretary to the present 35-year period, we now have something like four additional undersecretaries, 12 additional assistant secretaries in the defense department, and he made a

strong argument for getting rid of the service secretaries. so without really trying to get you into trouble in this era of sequestration, can you talk about sort of the bloat in the pentagon leadership? >> you guys really are trying to get me in trouble here. it's recognized that there's been growth within the pentagon, both -- both in the joint staff, the commanders, and kind of what we call the fourth estate. you know, those -- those -- the folks that support the actual services. and that's one of the things that's going to have to be addressed under sequestration. in other words, the actual -- the actual -- the growth. what it turns out to be with regards to service secretaries, i kind of like my service secretary and i kind of like what he does for the united states marine corps. he's one of our greatest

advocates, former naval officer himself. he understands us. so i'm actually very, very happy with where we are. but if you expand, which is really, i think, what your question really begs an answer to, is how much is enough with everything else? because what happens is staffs grow, then the questions and the activities grow. and then the services have to respond because we -- because we have to. and so we grow. our service headquarterses, our service headquarters grow in response to the growth of the forces that are -- the headquarters that are above us. it's a natural tendency. so i'll stell you, the question we're facing right now is ok, how much is enough? and we get into this thing called tooth and tail. tooth being whatever that

war-fighting capacity, it could be cyber, it could be airplanes, it could be ships, it could be marines, whatever that tooth is, then how much tail should be affiliated? there has to be some kind of what we call tail. and that's headquarters. and that's staff. and that's people to kind of help out. but as we look at the -- as we look at the department of defense, and we look at the combatant commanders and we look inside of my own headquarters, there's tail there that under sequestration is going to have to -- it's going to have to go under the magnifying glass and it's going to have to be scrutinized. because what we can't have, we can't just continue to allow growth to happen. at the expense of the war-fighting capability of the united states of america. we have a department of defense for one reason and one reason only, and it's not to do paperwork and answer questions. it's actually, we have it to defend the united states of america and defend its interests.

that's why we have it. we don't have it for a whole lot of other things. so we just have to go back to that. and i'll tell you as we work our way through sequestration d the impacts, that's -- the headquarters inside of my institution, without telling you what we've looked at, as i said, we've already built a an to pay our bills, headquarters inside my own organization. i haven't just looked outside. i've looked inside as well. >> stay in that same row. the next. >> thank you very much, general. i hope my question will be less controversial, or at least less potential for so. i'm wondering that given you mentioned how the post world war ii drawdown in 1946 and subsequently how we had to suddenly build everything back up for korea, especially the

marine corps, do they have a plan for sort of being able to suddenly draw up again if we get another strategic surprise s was raised earlier, and what -- and how would such plans be affected by sequestration, for example? >> thank you. when secretary panetta, probably about six months, a year before he gave up his job, and we started looking -- this was when the budget control act was signed and then, of course, sequestration was -- was now a matter of -- it was out there, and it was out there a year later, you know. and he said look, as we do this, as we begin to reshape the force, he said there's several things we got to keep in mind. he said we have to build an agile force. we have to build a flexible force. we have to build a force that actually takes care of the

business that we're typically find ourselves involved in today, which i think is that -- that kind of nasty, thorny stuff that i talked about at the beginning. and then he says as you reshape the force, and this is to all the services, you have to build in reverseability. and that's -- and then he also said i don't want you to build a hollow force, which is probably worthy of talking of. and i can take you to 1990. we don't have to go back too far and talk about hollowness. but he said reverseability is a key factor. so what does that mean? well, if you're the admiral, my shipmate, he's worried about the industrial base. i mean, we're down to, and he'd tell you how many shipyards we have, but we don't have a lot of them anymore. and the ones we have are pretty important to the nation. we don't have a lot of aircraft manufacturers anymore. so those are pretty important to our nation. but regardless, you have to -- as you draw the force down and you reshape the force, this

matter of reverseability as it relates to industrial base, the reverseability to be able to what i call blow the balloon back up, there are some things, if you decide, and i'll just -- i'll just say this -- this f-35 b matter, if -- if something were to happen and we said ok, that's it, we're not going to do that, that's an irreversible decision. because nobody in the world is building those short takeoff and verse cal landing fighter. nobody is. not another nation. you know, we built them. the, k. did. we built them with boeing and consorted with them. the soviets built them. when i was captain amos, but nobody else -- so there was a decision that becomes irreversible. if you -- there were some units that we could blow the balloon

back up and a reversing motion or effort, you could probably rebuild an infant at this battalion, it would take you a couple of years. but we actually have experience in doing that. so reverseability for me, and i think it's in line with what secretary panetta said and i think it's exactly in line with what secretary hagel is saying. the important part as we approach sequestration. so, sequestration is going to affect that. and so as we make decisions, as i go inside my force and we take a look at how i pay my bills, one of the bumper stickers or one of the things on the wall is the term reverseability. so while we're making decisions on programs and people and equipment and capabilities, and capacity, we need to always remember -- i -- we -- we may guess this wrong. we may have to turn this back

around. and so do i have a -- so if i'm going to take a capability away, it needs to be a purposeful decision and i need to say to myself ok, i'll never have to get that capability back again. >> next question. stay in the back for a minute. the woman about three in. second to last row. thanks. >> hi. thank you. mckenzie cooper from the government accountability office. could you address the status of the a.o.a. for the a.c.b., particularly given my understanding that water speed requirements have not yet been addressed and won't be until the fall. >> reask your question one more time, taking out the acronyms? >> government accountability office, i don't know -- if you could address the analysis of alternatives and the status of it for the amphibious combat

vehicle given that my understanding is water speed requirements won't be addressed until the -- or the analysis won't be complete until the fall. >> ok, i'll tell you right where we are. the office of the secretary of defense and congress directed that we -- we do a analysis of alternatives last -- last year. that was completed. it was held at o.s.d., secretary of defense's level and his staff. we were an active part of it. the department of navy was an active part of it. and that completed in june of last year. and reported out some time probably around the july time frame. and what it did is it confirmed the requirement for an amphibious vehicle, a tractor as i described earlier, some type of surface-born capability that you could use both in a combat environment for a forcible entry kind of thing if you ever had to do that again and certainly became the

follow-on. it's not an expeditionary fighting vehicle. it is a fighting vehicle. so it confirmed that. we took a look at that and we said ok, it didn't say anything about high speed or slow speed. and for the difference of everybody in here, when you have a vehicle like that and it's under development, the old expedition tearry fighting vehicle actually had the capability to get up on planes. imagine a water skier getting up on plane. and once you got up on plane, then you could go significantly faster. and as i recall, the expeditionary fighting vehicle, the e.f.v. was somewhere around 20 knots. well, that gave you an awful lot of capability to be able to leave a ship and then go someplace where the enemy is not. the current vehicle we have is what we call a displacement

vehicle. and that's a vehicle that goes about -- the one we have doesn't go eight knots, but it becomes -- it becomes a vehicle that stays, it swims. i mean, it's -- it's not below the surface, but it's like a boat that doesn't get up on a plain. and you get into physics here, and you literally cannot push a heavy vehicle through the water any faster than -- of that size, any faster than about eight knots. so what i asked was ok, let's go back, as i said earlier, we're only going to get one more bite at this apple, we want to do it right. let's go back and just make sure that we understand the difference between the value -- the value between a high-water speed and a displacement vehicle. so the analysis of alternative is done, but we're doing right now, we're working with industry. we actually have got two corporate partners that have teamed together, and they will report to -- to the marine

corps in this fall and they'll tell us what the art of the possible is with regards to high water speed versus regular displacement vehicle. and then what the cost is. i made it clear to everybody, cost is a variable in this. i mean, it -- we answer eld it because of cost and because of a host of other things. i'm not about to go do it again. sooned we want to get it right. and i'm confident that by the time we hit the fall i'll have enough information to be able to actually make an educated recommendation to secretary of the navy as to how to proceed. my sense is we'll make a decision in the fall and then probably around the beginning of next year release what we call an r.f.p., a request for proposal on ok, who's going to -- and we'll have money available to do that. that's where we're headed. we've got a modest amount of

money in the five-year future defense plan for research and development. we don't have any procurement dollars in there, just research and devment. >> back here to the third row. gentleman in the orange tie, please. >> good morning, general. wanted to ask you about your special operators. you've been a huge proponent over the last few years. like many other parts of the marine corps, they're moving in transition, moving with more of a maritime feel. what do you see their missions being in out years and how will that affect the recon zans communities? >> yeah, thanks. i'm pretty proud of -- in fact, i'm very proud of the command. it's in its sixth year now. and it sits about 2,600 strong. it's based in north carolina. headquartered there. we've got battalions there.

one at camp pendleton. they're an integral part of the special operations command. we provide the marines. we provide not all the equipment, but we provide the standard equipment. and we provide the salaries and all that stuff. the future is bright and that kind of decade that i described. there is plenty of work available for special operations. we are partnering in it. i have got no intention of downsizing special operations. i think the value added for our nation is one of those things that is good for our nation. we are looking right now on a concept. we will prototype it this fall.

training with special operation forces again with the units that will go to sea on those ships. the beginning of the turn of the century, every aircraft carrier had a group of seals that would be aboard it. every marine unit had a team of seals onboard. in 2001, that changed. the war in iraq broke out. they became preoccupied. they have not been back aboard naval vessels except for unique situations.

we have agreed to a concept that we will try it out this upcoming fall. we will have marine special operations forces that will have trained. we've also put marine special operations teams -- excuse me, liaisons -- the theater command. we will have a relationship and know exactly what is available in and out of theater. we will have special operators on board the ship. they will be our eyes and ears. we will know their capabilities. we think this is a pretty good installment to provide relevance.

that is where we are heading. we are reemphasizing -- we will wait and see. my expectations are positive. >> we have time for two more questions. i will ask one of them and i will come to you. the summer with the president and china and the united states. there's a lot to talk about. i want to get at this through more of a planning and budgeting dimension in line with your budgeting. it is getting a lot of attention. it is seen as a response to

precision strike weapons. i support the idea. two questions -- one, are the services and allies becoming part of this concept because it was primary air force and navy thought. is it something that inspires you or that you look to for guidance? or was it a one-time air force and navy thought that had its

heyday? it harkens back to air-land battle. it's a confrontational sounding slogan that china seems to take a little bit of bad reaction to. can you comment on how you're thinking about that? >> i have not thought about that. like a lot of things when first conceptualized -- to your point about the concept, it is a concept. i look at it as a phase of an operation. i think that is the safest way to look at it.

by that i mean it is an anti- access aerial denial, how do you deal in an environment where they do not want you to come in? but technology has become more advanced to push them offshore or back into the air. it goes way back. i look at it as a phase. if we are trying to impose our will somewhere around the world, the enemies will try his best to ensure that we do not. they will do that through a variety of means. one could be kinetic weapons. it could be air weapons.

it could be weapons that go into the air and come back down. also cyber. the impact of cyber could prevent a force from accomplishing its mission. as we think about terrain and coming ashore in a certain environment, i think we take it very seriously. it is a phase. when you are going against a determined enemy, the last thing you want to do is go where the enemy expects you to go. what you want to do is put the enemy on the horns of a dilemma.

it is not just bullet versus bullet or missile versus missile. you could do that. there is a part of it that fits that. since most determined enemies cannot defend on every front, you want forces that are capable to challenge enemy on a very wide front. there are a lot of ships that you can land around the world. it depends on where you are and what country. it drains off assets.

it's an anti-access aerial denial, i do not think it is mature yet. i think it will get there. everyone worries it is a bunch of programs. it could be. it is actually more than that. how do we go against an enemy that is trying to prevent us from coming ashore? services are very cooperative with it. it needs to be a part of how we conceptualize. >> the man in the jacket against the wall.

>> good morning. i'm a british officer working on exchange in the pentagon. a question about major theaters of war. i'm interested in broad terms, the boundaries and the roles you envision for the u.s. army. >> over the next couple of decades, how i see coalition boundaries between u.s. marine corps partners? what do you mean? >> how do you see the roles in the u.s. marine corps with [indiscernible]

>> the u.s. army and u.s. marine corps and the relative roles. >> ok. let me make a couple of comments. we have got a phenomenal army. it is designed to be a dominant land army. it is designed to go to war and dominate on the battlefield. the u.s. marine corps operates along the seams. i will try my best trying to describe the different domains. the u.s. marine corps works along the seams of all of those domains. we do not really have a domain. it depends on what the crisis is and what the need is. --st of the needs we have our are

urgent needs. we have been on the ground for 12 or so years. i make no apologies for that. i think we more than did our mission in iraq. we did more than do our mission with our partners in afghanistan. america has a marine corps to deal with responses. something happens today and not 30 or 40 years from now. it is today. that is why the presence is critical. two different missions. america does not need a second marine corps. we have a specific capability set and talent pool we bring to a crisis. as we look around international community, i was just in the

u.k. as we include that asian-pacific area, our sides of the marine corps and how we do business fits pretty well with most of the armies around the world. there is an affinity. it is almost -- it is not a fraternal bonding. you are responsive and adaptable and flexible. we will like to build a force kind of like that. we would like to fight along side a force like that. there is an affinity between the u.s. marine corps and many of the world's armies.

my sense is most of the armies around the world are not designed to be a dominant land army. >> general, we are grateful for your time today and your 42 years of service. we're all thinking of you. we are thinking of you and your marines all the time. thank you to all of them and thank you very much. [applause] attonight we are looking the economy, the deficit, and the future of science research. out ofs pull ourselves

the business of discussing the deficit and talk about things that are important, the trends, because the debate is taking the oxygen out of the room. you have all fight about stuff which is reasonable compromises which have not happened. when you do that, what happens theou do not understand truly important transitions taking place because you are focused all day all the time just on the deficit. and you might be missing the big picture. here is what the big picture looks like. humans are the only species on earth to transmit data consistently to their kids across time. maybe a dog learns commands, maybe a parent learns words, onb but there is not an animal earth that right except the human being.

this is how you have a baby, this is the fish we've, this is and you just learn what was happening in argentina 2000 years ago. as you think about how we transmit knowledge, if that is enough for tried, it is not enough for an empire. here you have to go to a cave to learn what is going on. an empire looks like this. two things have happened. you standardize the language and put it on paper, papyrus, or clay, which means you can transmit data across time and learn the lessons why egypt fell. all of you clearly know that you can read that, right? it basically says cut the deficit. [laughter] do youn what you standardize language, make it abstract, put it in 26 letters, and it looks like this. you can have huge libraries and

transmit data across time, and of course in this can write little sentences that say cut the deficit. then what has happened over the last 30 years is you collapse all language into ones and zeros. that is the single greatest creator of wealth that people have ever seen. you want to understand the rise of silicon valley, taiwan, boston, korea, singapore, and galore, india, it is that transition right there. >> a recent summit held in washington, d c you can see the it entire event tonight at 8:00 eastern. you can call in or send us a tweet, tonight on c-span. fascination with

frances cleveland extended her clout. women emulated her clothing. the secondress from administration, and in a way this is the most prized piece of all because this is the inaugural gown. this was her inaugural down from 1893, and it stayed in her family and became the family wedding dress, and this was used by her granddaughters. even frances cleveland everyday closer very stylish. a lot of them looked like something you could wear now. , black withcket this beautiful purple-blue velvet. this is a more evening appropriate piece. this is a bodice that would have had a matching skirt. you see that people seek wins -- sequins.

daytime vests. this would have had a matching color. -- collar. on francestions cleveland is available on our website, and tune in monday for the next program on caroline harrison. this morning we took inside ! newserations of yahoo nd it expansion into d.c. host: olivier knox is the chief washington correspondent for yahoo! news, and he brings us inside the operation. we are looking at the d.c. news bureau. caller: thanks for having me. host: before we ask about seeing what is behind you, why did yahoo! get into the news business? guest: one of our co-founders, one of the first items they put up had to deal with jerry

garcia's death. we have been cultivating an audience ever since. that is continuing with the incredible partnership with abc. the idea is to provide people who come to the site with the information they need and want, keep them coming back. host: tell us about where you are right now, what is the operation we see behind you? guest: i am in the confines of the abc news headquarters here in washington, d.c., and behind me you see the yahoo! news operations. hopefully, my colleagues are hard at work. this is where we start our day, where we take stock of the stories and we are working on before our reporters go to their various assignments. host: how many reported to you have in washington, in other locations? guest: we have a congressional

and political reporter that you will speak to soon. we have a white house reporter. we have a talented data journalist in chris wilson who is doing some exciting stuff. when you think of the jack lew signature generator, that was his baby. and then you have me, of course. other reporters in new york. and in some of our yahoo! media operations in california. host: expand on how your relationship with abc news works and why you are based in washington. guest: we have a fruitful partnership with abc news. we produce a lot of original content together, a program that i co-host with rick klein, and we also have a showcase for some of the abc's prime talent. this marries our audience and content with their content as well. it produces some exciting stuff.

host: people go to the yahoo! news site, how much do they see when you and your colleagues wrote, how much from the partners, and how much is aggregation? guest: we try to produce as much original content as we can. if you go to news.yahoo.com on any given day, you may see original content, an abc investigative report, a blend of content. we do not do too much aggregation, but we do use a lot of partner content. we try to give our readers and viewers as complete a picture as we can of politics, policy, sports, entertainment, finance. host: if we look at the yahoo! main page, we see a story about a new virus, sports stories, entertainment stories, and some news stories.

how do you bring traffic into the news portion of yahoo!, and how you keep eyes there? guest: we find a lot of people start their day on news.yahoo.com. we also have some people drawn there from our sister sites. we get tens of millions of unique readerss every month so we do not have much trouble bringing in the eyeballs right now. we are growing operations to make it even more complete and interesting. hopefully, get an even bigger slice of the pie. host: how do you compete with the associated press, bloomberg news, who scores of washington reporters? guest: we do not always. sometimes we turn to others to

for original stuff. we also have a great national affairs writers out of new york. we are not geared to compete with the associated press, for instance, but we are trying to give people that they may not see on another news site. host: how much do you think about people's click habits, how long the leader on a story? does that influence what you do? guest: they are very good about not putting their thumbs on the scales at yahoo!, telling us that you need more traffic. they are very good about giving us our editorial freedom and letting our news judgment shape what and how we cover. that is important for me because i do not want to be writing to the traffic. i want to write about things that are important and neewsy. we do not get a -- newsy.

we do not get a ton of info about the traffic we get. host: you mention your colleague, chris wilson, something that got a lot of attention, and the jack lew signature generator. remind us about this story and why did it get so much attention? guest: it was a fun tool that he came up with. you could put in your name and you could see what your signature would look like if it were similar to his signature. his signature was getting a lot of attention at the time because it would go on our money. chris has done some fantastic things, whether it is arranging the internal e-mails on the benghazi situation into an interactive inbox. he has done a lot of work like that. he has a searchable congressional database. jobs numbers state by state over the last decade.

lots of fantastic stuff. host: how do you see the internet and yahoo! news presence online as a tool? how can you use it in a way that more traditional media may not be prepared to? guest: i think a lot of people are coming to us to get a balanced sense of the news, not just the dry political stories, the stories that impact you every day. maybe they want to get more sports, finance. we have extremely good resources on both of those fronts. the idea is to be the site that people go to before they go to work in the morning, maybe at work and after work. people are increasingly getting their news from their smartphones, and we want to be there when they do. host: you mentioned the benghazi

inbox. here is a look at it. organizing is as if it was a normal inbox. what are you looking at right now? guest: we are looking at the likely nomination of james comey to the fbi. we are looking for any aftershocks from michele bachmann not seeking reelection. of course, daily stories from the white house briefing. i cannot really disclose what chris wilson is working on my now, but it will be fun. host: if you want to join the conversation with olivier knox, chief washington correspondent at yahoo! news, here are the numbers. we have a question on twitter. what are ideas about how to get young people interested in news? i think trust will become important. guest: trust is important whether you are working for a

traditional news outlet, newspaper, radio station, or online. the most important currency you have as a news organization is your credibility. as far as getting young people involved, it is about reaching them where they are. it is about giving them a news platform on the smartphones, for example. the credibility thing is crucial. host: asheville, north carolina. democrats line. caller: good morning. i would like to know how we can stop the black hole phenomenon where certain news stories are followed, like political gossip or scandal stories, and other stories simply get ignored for years or decades. as an example, 15 or 20 years ago, climate change would have caused nothing but rolling of eyes and a diversionary answer. now if somebody mentions dust at

the world trade center, it is enough to stop the conversation. there should be an inquiry as to whether these things are true. political reporters simply do not follow up on things that have not already been followed by the mass pack of the press. guest: well, i think climate change, first of all, is an important story. we do cover it from a science and political perspective. there is no doubt that it could stand to get a lot more coverage. in terms of things disappearing off the radar, there is certainly an element of the media following the day's stories, sometimes to the detriment of longer-term stories like that. i think you are correct, we need to be more careful about the kinds of long-term storage we follow. host: we saw a recently news

here, from "usa today" -- "yahoo! boldly goes for deals." "the wall street journal" says another look from "the new york times" -- a flashy bet on a shift in social media. what does tumblr mean for your newsroom? guest: it would not surprise you that yahoo! h.q. did not consult with me on expansion. but we provide viewers and readers with as dynamic interface as they can. these all fit into the broader strategy. host: what is tumblr? guest: a site that allows you to tell stories mostly with

pictures and i will get in trouble with saying with gifs. it is another exciting place to get your information and share your information. yahoo! has a lot of interactivity in the news program and we tell stories sometimes by collecting them from the public. we did that with sequestration. we did that with student loans, and we are committed to doing that in the future. host: kansas city, missouri, independent line. caller: i would like to hear your guest comment on what your take was on the deregulation of the fcc and how it went to getting out a broader news story. it basically allowed these big news corporations to buy all the newspapers, tv, and radio stations. i would like to direct a comment to c-span here. host: what is your comment?

caller: when the initial benghazi hearing came out, for the $130 i pay for a cable bill i do not get c-span3 -- when the first initial benghazi hearing came out, you announced it that it that you could go on c-span3 and i flip from c-span1 and c- span2, both showing the same thing, the senate waiting for a senator to come to the floor to speak for about five minutes. i thought that time would have been better utilized may be showing the start of that hearing, and then not broadcasting a later at 3:00 in the morning when nobody is up. host: you can still find the hearing on our website, www.c- span.org, and you can look at our video library. we have archives there. generally c-span1 carries the house floor when in session and c-span 2 carries the senate

floor. your cable company makes the decisions about what c-span networks are carried on your particular package. olivier knox, let's get to his question about regulation. guest: first of all, i think any caller who wants more c-span, i think that is the kind of problem c-span wants. a great primary resource. in terms of the consolidation of the media industry, it is an undeniable fact of life. i do not have a particular opinion on the fcc opinion, but it is an undeniable fact of life, consolidation of tv and newspapers and even some sectors of the industry are really struggling. host: a viewer on twitter wants to know -- do you expect yahoo! and similar companies to start their own tv stations? guest: we have rich offering on yahoo! video programs. i sat down with republican senate minority leader mitch

mcconnell and first lady michelle obama for separate exclusive interviews. we have a pretty rich offering on that front. this is part of where the abc partnership comes in. if you go to either abc.com or yahoo!.com, you will find original programming. a lot configured for you to watch on your smartphone or imputed. exclusive interviews, reports. this is actually a very vibrant part of our operation. host: a look at topline news, a project between abc news and yahoo! news. olivier knox, where's your role and where can people find it? guest: i am a co-host of top line with my friend and longtime colleague, rick klein, political director at abc news. it runs regularly. it runs at least once a week on either of our sites. typically we like to bring in someone who could share their thoughts on the days news or important stories.

we had the earlier caller talking about climate change. one of the most recent top lines we did was on the shameful backlog of disability claims at the veterans administration. an important story that does not always get as much coverage as it should. host: eric in jonesboro, georgia, on the democrats line. good morning. caller: i have a couple of comments and a question for the fellow at yahoo!. my comment, first of all, profit info is always biased. meaning corporate media equals propaganda. every corporate agent has the fiduciary duty to serve its rich shareholders. we have six corporations that own almost virtually 86% of the media, meaning they have control over 86% of all the information that the public hears.

we have basically corporate info reaching the public, and we have a profit motive. the fact that this guy is a corporate agent, he is not a journalist, he is a corporate agent, and has the fiduciary duty to maximize profit for the shareholders. the idea that we and c-span, you, the host, call him a journalist before the show is crazy. he is serving his boss. his boss is serving the shareholders. their motives are profit. if they do not have a motive give you information. in america, we have to pay for information in order to get more good information. the government has to pay for information. we have to pay for medicine -- medicine. there should be no profit in medicine. host: should anyone be called a journalist? is journalist a fair word in the vocabulary? caller: you have to be independent -- host: do you have to be unpaid? caller: you can sell your story independently to whatever

corporation but the fact you are on a corporate payroll means you have a fiduciary duty to serve your shareholders. host: if you were an independent filing for those corporations, would you also feel a responsibility? caller: you are selling it for whoever will buy it. you are writing first. host: ok, let's get a response from olivier knox. who gives you direction, olivier knox, and what do you consider yourself? guest: i consider myself a reporter more than a journalist because i want to give you the facts and not too much opinion. i understand the criticism. the problem, if you look up fiduciary duty, as the caller suggested, one of the ways the news business works is by attracting readers or viewers or listeners. and we certainly are competing for those viewers and listeners and readers. but at no time has any corporate

agent or shareholder -- no one like that influences my copy day to day were even over the long term. so, i understand the criticism. i heartily endorse the overall sentiment of skepticism about reporting. i want people to read carefully and skeptically. but the idea that somehow this diminishes the journalism of the people at yahoo! i just completely reject. host: expand on the concept of a firewall and how the chain of command works for your news division and how it is different? how is yahoo! news different from yahoo! the overall corporation? guest: the firewall makes it sound a little bit dramatic, but basically the way it works is the newsgathering, the news reporting is its own independent part of yahoo!. we do not get our marching orders from corporate yahoo, we do not get our marching orders from people who are looking at shareholder return. we do get input from people who

are career reporters, career editors, people who really care about the news product we are generating. i think that is important no matter who you are. it is definitely a fact of life at yahoo!. host: jacksonville, florida. democrat. caller: good morning. i will make a short statement. mr. olivier, as far as your association with abc goes, i would want you to triple check every story you look at from jonathan karl. he has sources with the republican party. for example, they rewrote the questions from the e-mails on benghazi and published them and show them to jay at the news conference as if they were fact. they were not fact, they were

fabricated. triple check every source. if i was yahoo!, i would take -- not take what jonathan karl had to say because he is a planted republican in the newsroom. do you all have a reporter in the newsroom, and if you do, ask that reporter not to ask all of these gotcha questions like every other reporter. poor old jay, he sits there and everybody has a gotcha question. ask a question that is important, something the president is doing, something we might be interested in. don't try to nail him every time the man opens his mouth. thank you. host: part of the save jay carney movement. jay walks into the briefing room asking that expecting us to ask tough questions. the point of the briefing is to

get as much information as we can and sometimes confront the administration with its own mistakes. that is an important part of journalism. we need to ask the questions not being asked and we need to reflect some of the public's own questions about how their government acts, sometimes in their own name. as far as jonathan goes, i have known him for years and i respect his work and he apologized on twitter about the error in his reporting and i think he settled that matter. host: our focus this morning is on the yahoo! news washington, d.c., bureau. here are the numbers -- lessons learned from your

coverage of the 2012 campaign as you look ahead to 2014 and 2016? guest: if we can duplicate the energy and creativity we had in 2012 and 2014, i would be happy. offering readers and viewers a fun, interactive and informative product, we generate something called control room which on election night drew millions of viewers. it offered them the chance to watch our evening commentary on results while playing with the electoral college map and getting a lot of political information. that would definitely be one of the products that we bring back for 2014, that we will improve upon. that was hugely successful and i would like to see it happen again in 2014. we will like to send a lot of reporters on the field to get the important stories as well as the offbeat stories others are not covering.

host: as we look at the yahoo! news page, we see a range range of stories covering congress and white house. you mentioned congresswoman michele bachmann. what do you make, olivier knox, of her decision not to run for reelection and what does it mean for the overall political landscape? guest: she won a narrow election and some in the republican party thought she was in trouble this time around. she was the face for a long time for the new breed of tea party republicans. one of the co-founders of the tea party caucus in the house. i will say, i share my colleagues view that generally when a politician comes before you and says this decision is not about x and not about white, usually it is about x and y, and they probably read the writing on the wall about the prospects and also the writing on the walkabout inquiry about the financing of her campaign. i have yet to talk to any republicans who were

particularly disappointed with her decision. she was a magnet for controversy, in a lot of cases. this is a party that at least at the highest echelons is trying to spear the path away from those. host: another political story -- the governor of rhode island poised to join the democrats. here it is on the yahoo! news website. what is the significance? guest: another decision made by a politician who saw a difficult reelection fight. lincoln chafee, independent, former republican. he made the decision i think in part to boost his reelection prospects. easier to rely on the democratic machine than to make an appeal as an independent. i think in both cases you saw people making decisions looking carefully at the numbers and their reelection prospects. host: pennsylvania, republican. go ahead. caller: i have enjoyed c-span and have watched it for years. i also am a member of yahoo! and watching that for years. i noticed over the years when you became affiliated with the

abc, your news has slightly turned to the left in the sense that -- well, i am from northern pennsylvania, and we have experienced here a long, brutal winter, and i noticed the snowstorms in the middle of the country, in the north, not really reported that much. floods have been reported a lot. anyway, to make it a long story short, i am just interested in this climate change debate that has been going on forever. i notice that the people that are for dlimate change -- or for the restrictions in our economy to accommodate that, they are all government-sponsored and

they are actually dependent on the government for money. and the people who are against the climate change -- like rush limbaugh as an example, they view it. never given an equal opportunity on yahoo! news or other news outlets. it would be nice if there was more balance in the news and not a filter. guest: duly noted on the lack of coverage of storms in your areas. we are not affiliated -- we are partners with abc, which is the term we would prefer. in terms of climate change argument, the policy level, what to do about it, i think it is generally a pretty decent blend of voices, the skeptics and the overwhelming scientific consensus that this is a reality.

and the coverage has to reflect that scientific consensus. that said, i do not think any of the voices skeptical of climate change are exactly losing out for coverage, whether they are on capitol hill or out in the private sector. i think they get a fair hearing. host: olivier knox is the chief washington correspondent for yahoo! news. he has been 16 years a reporter covering president clinton's impeachment to the george w. bush administration and has background in international relations, has a masters degree in international studies. how does yahoo! news cover

international news? how'd you get reporting from countries far and away? how do the stories make it on the website? guest: we do rely on a lot of partner content for areas in which we at yahoo! news do not have a foothold. we do not have anyone in syria so we rely on abc news coverage or associated press stories. but the flipside, foreign policy being decided in washington, d.c. we have our team of reporters, including me. i am actually very interested. i am a perpetual student of foreign policy. the level of american engagement or involvement in syria's civil war. that is something we can cover pretty easily. why was this a thing you covered and why was it significant? guest: the debate over drone strikes is important. not just the targeting of americans but more broadly. one of the questions i have been

asking is whether america's counterterrorism policy might actually be recruiting more terrorists than it is killing. this was very important because this was a very secretive american program. we learned about the killing of people like anwar al-awlaki from the media of the government kept a lid on that so when eric holder confirmed officially for the first time that four americans were killed in these types of strikes, it was an important moment. americans need to know what is done in their name overseas and they need to know the consequences, ramifications, and how it can impact their daily lives. host: a questionnaire on twitter, jim asks about the story about afghan insurgents attacking a red cross facility. he says he has not seen it yet on yahoo! news. is this the type of store you might cover, olivier knox? guest: i think i saw it yesterday on yahoo! news but it would not have been an original yahoo! news story but either a

wire story or something from abc. i will double check. i think it is an important story as well. obviously, it is very difficult to cover every important story out there. i will double check. host: we have it here for you. yahoo! news on our ipad, a quick search. associated press version. this was posted yesterday. the story goes on to say that in kabul, two insurgents attacked a compound housed by the international committee of the red cross in afghanistan wednesday, killing an armed guard before security forces rescued seven foreigners. why is this a significant story? why might somebody who follows us on twitter be interested in seeing it? why should americans care? guest: for starters, there are not quite 70,000 american forces in afghanistan, and even as they plan to draw down between now and the end of 2014, possibly leaving a residual force, we do not know the size yet, it is

important to know. afghanistan was staging ground for the 9/11 attacks and americans need to keep an eye on unstable or fragile states that could be host to the next big attack. assessing the american role in afghanistan, worrying about the americans who are on the ground, and looking at the potential for future trouble. i think all of these elements are important and it makes it an important story. host: massachusetts. independent caller. go ahead. caller: thanks for having me on. first, i would like to say i think yahoo! does go a pretty good job on the website with the amount of news stories they have. you can scroll across the top. they do have a pretty broad spectrum of news there. but with current news, i am really perplexed with this whole boston bombing incident.

you know, the fact that it looks like this person was unarmed in florida, a friend of -- and an acquaintance of the suspect bomber. and then the suspected bomber that is in prison now was apparently unarmed in the boat that was riddled with bullet holes. i would not be surprised in the least to find that ultimately the bomber suspect that was killed was unarmed himself. now we have the director of the fbi resigning. we know, right, that most of these terror attack plots in the u.s., the fbi actually made up and they got patsies to go along with it and then they stop the event from happening and that you have headlines about how they stopped a terror attack.

this is a fact. we can even bring it back to the 1993 world trade center bombings, some actual date phone conversations of the -- taped phone conversations of the fbi formulating this attack. it seems a lot of the stuff is out there, if you get into the comments that people make on yahoo! news, that is where it is interesting. it seems like the most popular comments are the government version of everything. but then if you click on new list, for the newest comments and you scroll through their using to get a much broader feel. i do praise yahoo! for having the comment section and leaving it open, but i do worry about the press just lying down for the government story, even how bizarre it is. i would like your comment on the boston bombing situation. host: let's get a response. guest: presumably, you learned about these troubling details

about the boston bombing in the media, right? this is not an uncommon occurrence. i get people to tell me when will the media cover this story and they send me a link to one of my stories. you want to keep following the media reporting on this. there are people in boston, people tracking federal law enforcement and everything else and they are really working extremely hard to get as many of these details out whether or not the government wants them out. so, keep watching. i can never criticize people who tell me they are skeptical of news reporting. i am, too. i think it is an important intellectual habit. host: how does the comment section work, olivier knox, on yahoo! news and how often do you look at it? is it monitored for things that are inappropriate?

guest: i don't really have any oversight of the comment section myself. i get so much feedback my phone, e-mail, and twitter that i only rarely have time to go scrolling through. it is a bit of a free-for-all, too, which sometimes make it hard to get the most constructive thing. but we want to keep a very interactive relationship with our reader base. if you look at some of the best things we have done over the past couple of years, they have been what we call crowd sourced stories about things like sequestration. our colleagues at together a piece about the impact of sequestration on the lives of ordinary americans. we have done it with student loans and other issues people have on their minds. so, the interactivity is very important, people telling their own stories, and i think the comment section plays a role. host: a viewer tweets in -- how is the trending determined? guest: another internal operation that i am

unfortunately not that qualified to discuss. it does not really have an impact on my day-to-day operations. i don't pay attention to that. i do what is important on any given day. and i hope it goes well. i am not currying favor with anybody. i am sorry to tell you, i don't know how it operates and it does not have a big impact on me. host: ohio, democrat. go ahead. caller: i just got a couple of questions about things. here is my main question. all the media, all the newspapers in this country are owned by four or five different companies. who actually owns yahoo! news? and you talk about distrust in the press and stuff. back in 1979, jimmy carter at the head of the cia and they said there was operation mockingbird where the cia was

infiltrating and planting news stories for international war mongering. what is yahoo! news going to do to keep from being a patsy for international warmongering? i don't understand some of the news sources that you are reporting on. i do like the comment sections. one thing like -- look at how you did not say anything about monsanto. how you cover ron paul. host: look to see what yahoo! news have done in coverage of ron paul, because there are many stories on the website. caller: they did neglect to report about the cheating at the caucuses. they did not mention that pretty much as they do not really report good on romney. host: tell us about your coverage of members of congress.

we will talk to one of your political reporters to elaborate. how do you dig into these stories, and what do you have to say about the caller's concerns? guest: i understand the concerns about media consolidation and corporate ownership. i will tell you, yahoo! news is part of the broader yahoo! corporation. but we are very independent. on a day-to-day basis, as i said on a day-to-day basis, as i said to a previous caller, i am not getting marching orders from people looking at our prices. it is just not happening. in terms of looking at the stories we cover in congress on broadly -- and broadly, we are not out to make anybody in particular happy, sad, angry, what have you. again, i cannot criticize people who are skeptical of news media. i think it is important. but read the stuff we are doing, read our stories, read our work, do it for a while, and i think you will emerge with a favorable

impression that we are fair and independent minded, funny when it is suitable, and always informative. host: a story that just got posted in the last hour on yahoo! news -- "privacy is a looming issue as drone regulation loosens." your colleague liz goodwin has a story about concerns that a woman in the capitol hill neighborhood of seattle noticed a small camera equipped drone buzzing around outside the third-floor window of her home. and man nearby was operating the small aircraft by remote control, and the woman wrote about it in a local blog. how much do you use online news sources and things like local blogs, community website resources like facebook and even tumblr and twitter to inspire news stories? guest: quite a bit. one interesting development with the internet as there are almost no local news stories anymore.

all you need are a couple of keyword searches and you can unearth some real interesting stuff almost anywhere. i think back to the incident in which vice president dick cheney had a hunting incident in which that wasa friend of his. first reported in a small texas newspaper. .e use all of those resources we look at local news outlets. theuently they are doing best work on those stories. we use a lot of that stuff on a day-to-day basis. caller: it keeps everything on point and makes us check out fights. keep asking questions. i thank you for that.

host: are you still with us? caller: yes. host: how do you get your news? caller: different magazines and c-span and fox news. and many different areas i get my news from. not just one idea or one particular news section. i use many different things. to get my facts straight. thank you. continue to do that, asking questions, and keep getting our facts right. i love the idea of americans go to a broad array of doing that.

i love the idea that someone is going to c-span for one thing and a local didn't get -- a local newscast for another. i love the idea of that kind of a balanced diet of new sources. sometimes you can get two competing versions of the same story. that is great. i endorse that. host: thank you for joining us. guest: thank you for having me.

>> congress would not appropriate money for sign up to then accusee money

anething is dastardly as iran-contra type of situation. this is about trying to discourage any administration efforts to rates private funds that were not raised public a -- that were not raised public ly. anthe one in, that has been unfortunate aspect of what we are seeing. the potential to get as many people in the pool as possible, and you need that to keep the premiums down. my view on one side. on the other side, the democrats have to be real. there will be consequences.

you expand coverage and during the access and you narrow premium searchers -- surcharges. at least you are getting more for it. you're getting better coverage. that is true. , no improvement in the policy at all, this is insurance fees and taxes created or to the bell. this happened in the senate him up by the way. [laughter] new feesare faced with and they cannot deduct them. i think there are some on found thatl who they cannot the doctor the new taxes. who are paying the premiums, that is passed on and

priced out for coverage. that is a premium driver that does not contribute anything in enhanced coverts -- coverage for the policyholder. now we see who that turns on. who you are, where you live, what your health conditions are, not that much impact. how old, if you are younger, there is limitations. if you're older, you underrated them. finally, how much coverage you by also will vary substantially in terms of its there is an impact on the premium or not. finally, i do not think of this as winners and losers. i do not think we have acceptable health insurance. put its best to

either keep you out of coverage if you need it, and did nothing to respond to those who cannot afford coverage at all. that was a system that in a way, we are all losers. we're making a difficult transition under a competent it system. you can say all of that event this evening. look at our primetime schedule.

>> we now return to washington journals look on yahoo news. >> went out continue with chris mitty, vertical reporter -- we now continue with chris moody, political reporter. beforee saw hearings they headed home before memorial day. inst: there is news going on the irs and immigration. they will be facing a lot of questions, not geared toward them, but towards washington. what is going on is a question that people are asking. the last time they went back to their district, it was for immigration. right now, it is about doj and

the irs and the scandals that have been happening. on the christian science monitor piece, what is next for michele bachmann? us why she does not plan to seek another term. guest: that is a good question. michele bachmann was a lightning rod. she got a lot of attention and had a lot of support around the country. i spoke to tea party people yesterday and they were surprised. they do not see this coming, but they are hopeful for the future for her and what she will do. she did not pass many bills in washington, but she got beats from reporters. this is not the last you a card from michele bachmann.

maybe in washington, but not back him. i think she will go in the speaker circuit in the future. host: you recently reported from south carolina. what was the purpose of your trip, and what did you come home with? guest: mark sanford was trying to run for congress again. he was in washington in the 1990 pause. when he became governor of south carolina, we know how that ended. now he is seeking redemption. we went down there to see if he could pull it off. he ran against elizabeth colbert bush. you had a disgrace for a former governor who was arcing hard to get back in the spotlight, then the sister of celebrity comedian stephen colbert.

the fun part about local campaigns as opposed to presidential ones is that you get access to the candidates and you can see how things work on the ground. host: you also reported recent stories looking at the governors -- at the governors'seat area he believes he is in striking distance again. in 2010, it was the year of the tea party, when concert -- when conservative candidates were sweeping across the country. is a record she can run against now. this race is not for another year and a half. so we really get to talk to these candidates.

we have calls coming in. we will hear what our viewers have to say. go ahead, catherine. caller: my question has to do with yahoo news. i'm on the internet several times a day, although i am not very savvy, but i did get yahoo. it is a little-- tiny bits and pieces. i do not think you actually cover the whole truth. in order for the people who listen to news, you have to be told the entire news, not just the little tiny bit of the news. that is my greatest fear with news today. we only hear what you want me to know. i want to know the entire truth. i want to know everything that happens and i will make the decision if it is good, bad, or

indifferent. for example, the irs. they were doing exactly what they were paid to do. they are not paid to make sure that no group, left, right, or anything else gets through and does not pay their proper amount of taxes. i commended the irs for doing their job. they did the same thing to other leaders who happen to be democrats in the past. thank you, irs, you are doing your job. i do not think that people should be harassed for doing their job. thank you, irs. thank you, c-span. host: catherine, do you want to hear what members of congress are saying, whether or not they agree with you? i am probably your

biggest c-span watcher. i watch it almost everyday. i get most of my true information from c-span because i get it right from the mouths of the individuals. i do watch msnbc. i watch cnn. i watch fox. i watch "democracy now." everybody, listen to because i think everybody has a slanted view. as an american, i only want to know the truth. host: thank you for your comments. i think the beauty of reporting on the web is that we can provide links and videos to the primary sources. what we are tying to do is pull out the most important pieces. let's say we get a 500 page document, we will try to stay late, read the entire thing, and pull out the most important arts. what we cannot do at newspaper

and television, is give you the entire document, which we can do on the web. i think it is wonderful how the web has democratized information, giving bloggers and reporters an opportunity to show what they think is the most important part, also to give their readers access to the entire document. i think we will be doing more of that in the future. on yahoo reported news -- tell us more about the story. you theou have the -- 2014 cell -- house and senate elections coming up. they are trying to find how they want to define the other party early. they are testing different messages.

we saw the republicans pay for mobile billboards to drive around democratic districts, trying to get them to support the irs. it did not mention anything about the targeting of tea party groups. just an association. they are trying to find out if it will resonate with voters. aere will be a lot of text -- lot of tests in the next couple of months. it is a fascinating story to see what the parties will try to do the message the american people. he reported on the hearing of the lowest learner. lois lerner. of another headline --

how do you approach the stories? what do you get to do the big think pieces? guest: the drama is fun to watch. it is fun to cover these stories. are grilling both republicans and democrats. you do not usually a seat both sides of grilling a witness. to be consistent. what we have is irs officials defending themselves, and a number of them are involved. there is a question of procedure, of whether she should proceed. the german decided to let her chairman decided to

release her. , we haveion about that to balance ball. best way to balance both. work over a.me, of time on longer pieces as well. both are equally important to people a fullgive picture of what is happening in washington. this from twitter -- host: how do you learn about your readers opinions? howdy you use social media? guest: this is the best part of online reporting, we have access to readers that we have not had before. if you are writing a story 25 years ago, you might get a , now we gete mail

instant reaction. you better believe that readers will let you know nowadays. if you do something well, they will also let you know. it allows for interaction with readers. in ways that we do not have before. it makes our stories more complete. host: jocelyn, connecticut, independent. thank you for giving us regular people a voice. i cannot begin to tell you how much that means to me. theuestion for you is -- last month or so, the subject of the upcoming furloughs for the civilian department of defense employees has fallen off the radar. there seems to be a complete lack of interest. nowadays, you hear about the more popular subjects like

.mmigration, can control, doj we mentioned a few today. , i me, i'm directly affected am facing a 20% pay cut from july 8 on. give voice to what the real repercussions of this is to my family. i would like to know why yahoo news, which i read every day, has also dropped the ball on that. host: tell us more about what kind of work your family is involved in. caller: my husband is an engineer with the department of the navy. his role is important. --july 8, it has been starting on july 8, he will be furloughed. host: are you reading local news stories about this? caller: no, that is the real

issue i am having. c-span covered it dutifully, thank you. it was in the news regularly, to have ansupposed outcry, then it just stopped. other things became more popular. unfortunately, with the lack of coverage, the general populace becomes ignorant of it, and it gets swept under the rug. for us, it is very real. host: thank you for your call. guest: one of the greatest challenges washington reporters have is showing what legislation and what happens in on theton has an impact american people. when we taste lawmakers around, we are working hard to get stories.

had -- these laws of had a direct impact on you. we need to do a better job of doing that. host: the baltimore sun has a .iece this morning there was an across-the-board cut that happened this morning. olivia knox mentioned that one of his colleagues, rachel hartman, who will be our guest in a little while, did a sequestration series. we will talk to her in a half hour or so. docilely, you can turn your questions to her also. here is a question from twitter -- host: do you use tumbler as a

source of news or entertainment, and will it affect your news reporting? different medium, a different way to tell a story. the wonderful part about that is that it is easily shareable. it tore down the walls of two medications between groups where one blogger can share another blogger story. we can communicate our story to people in a way they want to be communicated with. we communicate differently on all of these different mediums. tumbler gives us an different news agencies a different way of telling their story. it is an exciting thing, and i think there will be even more mediums and different ways to tell stories in the future. host: what is our typical workday in terms of whether or not you're in the office?

?ow many times a week do file is inwhen congress session, i am usually on capitol hill all day. start coming in, and we chase them around the capital. there is a lot of walking through hallways, jumping into putators, and trying to questions to the lawmakers, then write up what we find. who toldo look at what, and asking them afterwards why they cast their votes the way they did. sometimes, we even go on the road. .ahoo is a wonderful company

they give us a lot of independence to cover what is important. , to grateful for that cover all of that. ruby, california, democrat. caller: i love yahoo's questions and answers. .heir responses simply be equal howrding these scandals, about the voting machines and the 2011 election? they showed on tv how it easy it is to reprogram the outcome. you think about covering something like this, and having an investigation? to me, this is a big deal.

i love yahoo. it is easy, and i enjoy being on its. thank you. guest: i think covering the integrity of elections is important. public officials were car to make sure that is done. we have a lot of it accountability to make sure the integrity is a sound. i'm not cover those in the past and have not been able to look at them specifically. with summoning people reporting on this and looking at it, it it would be difficult to get something passed all of them. is working on a degree in government at johns hopkins university in washington. where visiting the yahoo newsroom. chris moody is our guest.

stay tuned. we will hear from white house reporter rachel hartman and a little bit. our next caller is an north carolina, isabella, republican. what i wanted to say was that i cannot imagine anyone thinking that the irs has done nothing wrong. in targeting people who are just as speaking out against too much government, taking over your , which wespending know is a problem in this country. i cannot imagine they do not listen to anything or read anything. the other thing is that to give eric holder the benefit of the ,oubt, when he absolutely lied is telling me. i do not know where these people come from who say, maybe

he forgot. how did he forget about the gunrunning? i appreciate the show this morning. thank you. host: any comment? congressional why investigations exists. i think we're watching this play out right now, and it is yet to be seen what the outcome will be. no one is ignoring what is happening in washington. there is a microscope both internally and externally, and i think for the most part, that is a good thing. host: immigration, something congress will return to when the comeback to washington after the memorial day recess. what are you watching to happen next? been manyre've developments on that front. one of the most fascinating stories is reveals efforts -- is rubio's effort.

he went on a conservative talk you show trying to explain why isabel was a conservative approach to them -- to an immigration. there is a divide. of what should happen in the future and how they should approach this. the bill went through a committee, and it is going to get to the senate floor soon. there will be a lot of drama about this. the question is, can they get it done this summer and they need to. when the health care bill, lawmakers were back to their districts during the recess and caught hell for it. democrats and republicans that are supporting the immigration legislation want to get this and at the latest by july, have it on the president's desk

by then. host: how much car does the gang of eight rita the table? guest: they put forth a blueprint heard they made it smart to make it a bipartisan gang. they got not just moderate republicans, but conservatives. look at how conservative groups rubio's vote. it was very important to have him on that to gang of eight. many people have seven that if people like and do not sign off on this, the bill will fail. piecesre crucial moving here. the gang of eight is important. it is out of their hands know. their work is not necessarily done, the most prominent part of what they do now is going to go to the larger body. you will see a more dwight

debate now that we have an actual bill. democrat, new mexico. caller: my concern is that when on do reports, for example domestic surveillance, you do not tell us how we can protect ourselves. what is our recourse? it is great to know the news, but there is also fear. we are given a sense of fear because we do not know how to protect ourselves. how do we do this? how do we deal with it? guest: that is something for a lawyer to answer. it is also, you have to assume that consequences are unfolding. it is not fully complete here. these are new questions. you have to take baby steps in approaching what is happening.

the most important part is to get the information out very this is what is going on. as to can weigh in then what the action should be. chris moody covers politics for yahoo news. or is a question -- here is a twitter question -- tell us more about the operation of a gun in news. guest: liveperson at the white house, capitol hill, and other reporters out air. we have editors in new york city. we have bureaus in new york, d.c., and california at our headquarters. it is a national operation.

we have a small team with the backing of a big company. we put forth what we hope is a superior product. we deliver what we hope is news that is accurate and fair. how are you received as a member of the yahoo news team? private person, or broadcaster? how does the infrastructure view you? guest: a web reporter 15 years ago would be treated differently than they are now. no one is really looking down on people who write for the web. what we start to see now is websites that have pretty obligations -- that have print publications.

there is going to be a place for print publication, as well as television in the future online. the beauty of online reporting is you get to do platform reporting, video, interactive's, you can do live chats with your readers. it offers a little bit of everything. we're getting to the point where reading a traditional print publication on your ipad, for example, is hardly different from reading it on paper. the technology is getting better, and people are getting more access to information. host: new jersey, republican. i am calling in response to the last two colors ago. she said she watches c-span and fox. she said that the irs is a doing their job. job,rs was doing their but the problem was that they were focusing on conservatives, not liberals.

liberal groups get streamlined. the big thing here is the fact that the irs took information and turned it over to a liberal organizations. that is totally wrong. you do not give personal information that somebody provided on their taxes to an attorney or a group of people. that is basically it. i have been around for a long time. normallyfirmly -- puts people in place. saying i don't know, i don't know what happened. that is ridiculous. been able tou

absorb the news that the president as appointing someone else to hide the irs. does that mean anything to you? caller: that means -- let me tell you something. and we people's judgment see his judgment. his judgment is eric holder. the woman inis charge of homeland security. what about the one in charge of healthcare? when people make mistakes picking people, they continue to make mistakes. there needs to be an epiphany that sparks some person to run these things properly. let's look at a story written by rachel hartman -- are you hearing reaction

fromcongress at -- congress yet? guest: no, not yet. the fun part about having them in town is being able to chase them down hallways and get their responses. are on recess, so it is harder. cindy, texas, independent. all we hear now is a scandals. i would like to know why, that --2004 and 2008, was thrown and main fields. berkshirehappened,

bot over the bin laden family. he got them pass security. what was he doing wringing them over here in the first place? no onecandals to me -- wants to talk about that are giving answers. they want to talk about things that don't matter. i want answers to those questions. host: would you go for your news? .aller: i listen to c-span i listen to my local news. . lot of it from c-span i watch a little bit in the cnn. i don't listen to one station, i don't. guest: there are many stories that are important. we spoke to someone earlier today about sequestration and how that had an impact on her

family. anytime you can tell a story about how actions in washington dc are having an effect on her family, even here in washington, that is an important story. host: this is from an e-mail -- guest: the colleagues i work with at yahoo! news and elsewhere were car to show a full picture. the reporter has of their length about how they display a story, and you can read different stories about the same thing, and read something different. but that is the beauty of reporting. everyone does their hardest to provide the information as clearly to people as possible and as fairly as possible. host: this from twitter --

host: is there a difference between the online content and traditional media? guest: i hope we are perceived well. twitter will show you what they really think. shoulder toing shoulder with every reporter on capitol hill that is trying to go after new and interesting stories. , think there is a lot of new wonderful news sources, including yahoo news, that are breaking stories and skipping traditional media and competing. once you sell yourself out as an honest broker, you will be taken seriously. what i found in the past couple of years is that there are so many online news organizations, everybody gets a fair shot. and you get a new kid in town, the person is not blacklisted, e is given a shot.

i think that is great. the more voices, the better. caller.t is our next caller: it seems to me that all news networks do not dwell on this enough, and they need to. they need to put pressure on congress until there is a change in this respect. many members of congress are millionaires. weblog is controlling our .ountry

caller: i believe the yahoo! chief executive officer is marissa meyer. i believe in was reported that she was one of the top 2012 obama campaign fund raisers and bundlers. this is the ceo and not the owner. i want to know it is this true? and the person at the top setting the tone. how does that set the tone for

journalists, knowing that their ceo is an insider in the obama white house? guest: anyone can look up online who has given to the administration, but we are an independent news gathering source. nobody from corporate yahoo! tells us what to cover. we cover what we believe is important to the american people, whether left, right, center. we are an independent news organization. host: a story from bloomberg news, looking at marissa mayer, an early backer of president obama's reelection campaign. we talked earlier with olivier knox about the firewall, a strong word, but the division between what corporate yahoo! and what yahoo! news does. tell us about how that works, how much do you know about the overall operation?

guest: i do not pay attention to the corporate side of things, we've pay attention to washington and what is going on here. a lot of news organizations have corporation that oversee them. we are one of those, but like i said, we are an independent news agency. host: a couple of questions on twitter. does yahoo! news customized news for its viewers? if so, what purpose does that serve? rich wants to know if yahoo! has an e-mail alert system, and if so, how can he signed up? guest: the nice thing about online is we know what our readers want to know. we can gain a picture of that through comments, tweets, in ways that we could not before with additional newspapers. we try to write on what is

important for people coming here in washington, in a way that people want to read about and will be informed about. there are several products on yahoo! news that you can sign up for, e-mail alerts, whether on the news, finance, or sports side. host: mac is an independent caller. caller: thank you for this fascinating program. i feel like news organizations focusing on the irs is spreading misinformation about who is really being oppressed. the real issue is 501c4's. this is a diversion of the actual issue, which is the destabilization of the old parks to control the media. is yahoo! news willing to challenge the corporate political machine at all?

guest: in washington, i mostly cover politics and lawmakers on capitol hill. if there are stores out there, we tried to investigate to see if there is more to say. host: when will you be watching as congress returns to washington from the memorial day recess? we talked about immigration, the irs hearings. one is on your agenda? guest: those are the two things. we have more hearings on tuesday were the house ways and means committee will bring out people to show that there were targeted by the irs. it will be interesting to hear their stories. immigration will be heating up. we are coming down to the wire. they need to get this done by the summer. when we get back, we will be in june. it will probably make up most of the news that you will hear from washington over the next few months. host: chris moody of yahoo! news to you can follow him on twitter and find his articles on yahoo.com.

yahoo! news is treated as any other news organization. every organization hopes for more access, lots of access. i am there every day that i can be, almost every day of the week, attend a briefing.

we are situated there and are treated just like any other news organization. we are granted access when appropriate and get to speak with folks in the press office, and other officials. host: are you called on to ask questions at the press briefings? guest: every reporter raises their hand. traditionally, jay carney has a system, and a lot of people criticize him for favoring the front of the room. we do not have a seat in the front, so i am with other reporters raising my hand, hoping to get called on. it happened less than i would like, and other reporters would say the same thing. host: rachel rose hartman has been with yahoo! new since 2010, has experience at congressional quarterly. how does outsourcing work at yahoo! news? without divulging your sources, what kind of access does a

reporter like you have, and how much does that contribute to your storytelling? do you get the sense it is different from prior administrations? guest: i have not covered prior administrations from the white house specifically, but i have heard from other folks that things are tougher right now. i do not know if that is true for every reporter. for me, from my perspective, i request things from press officials, talk to officials, you try to establish a relationship like for any relationshipbeat. sometimes -- like for any beat. sometimes that is helpful, sometimes it is not. host: rachel rose hartman writes, the attorney general meeting with media bureau chiefs. what is the latest? do we have a fuller sense of who is accepting, who is rejecting, and what will it all mean?

guest: i have not seen a complete picture. i think people are keeping a tight lid on this, especially as we saw reports yesterday of news organizations pushing back on these meetings because they have been deemed off the record, which some news outlets say is inappropriate for these types of meetings. we may not see a complete picture of who goes into those meetings, or what comes out of them. host: as you watched developments at the white house, the response at the white house has given to pressure the phase i number of fronts, the justice department looking at reporter records, irs scrutiny of tea party records, questions over what happened in benghazi, are you and your colleagues calling them scandals, how do you report on them? guest: we have gained some of them as scandals, the irs scandal, the benghazi scandal.

i think that is an appropriate term for these two events because there is a lot of controversy surrounding them. i think a scandal is and a corporate word because we are seeing the administration react is the appropriate word because we are seeing the in ministration react to these things. host: one of our earlier callers talk to your colleague chris moody, and she brought up sequestration. she said her family has been affected by the sequestration, cuts -- the word i'm looking for what am i trying to say -- the furloughs, sorry. people that are keeping their jobs but seen their pay cut, up to one day a week off, one day a month off. your colleagues say that you have been working on a series looking at sequestration and

what it has meant. refreshed that for us, and what are you looking at now? guest: yahoo! has this amazing reader base, and in the past, i had seen some of my colleagues tap into our reader base to develop a story. sequestration, i was interested i was hearing stories in local papers, reading about them, and i thought, what a great way for our national organization and for me, in d.c., in this community, to get a broader picture of what sequestration is doing to regular americans. we used a yahoo! contributor network as well as regular crowd source to all of our readers, asking them how they believe sequestration will possibly impact them, negative consequences there were about, and we got some amusing responses.