way moving forward to ensure the public, that the framework for making these decisions is right? do you support more disclosures of the legal rationales for various aspects of the surveillance program? >> i think that we have to ask some pretty frank questions about the bulk collection component of section 215. . and make a decision what we are getting from that program sufficient amounts of good information, usable information to balance the very legitimate concerns that people have expressed about the potentially wide-arranging nature of the program. come into this with an open mind. there are certain programs, section 702, for instance, that has to be guarded at all costs. i, regard to 215, the meta data

part of 215 we have to ask ourselves difficult questions and simply not do things because we can do them, the question is should we do them. 215, as i said is legal, but this that does not answer the question the president has posed to us. >> thank you, mr. attorney general. i hope that the investigation into i.r.s. actions is done in a balanced, professional and appropriate way and i assume it is. and what i have heard there were progressive groups as well as tea party groups that were perhaps allegedly on the receiving end of reviews of their applications and it's my expectation that we will hear about the conduct of this investigation. >> let me assure you and the american people that the investigation of what we call the i.r.s. investigation will be done in a nonpartisan,

nonideological way, that we mr. williams: make determinations on the good investigative techniques we always employ in the justice department and let me express confidence in the men and women who are investigating the case now. i see no basis to question their at the and we will try conclusion to share as much information about the conclusions we have reached either through prosecutions or declarations, however the case ends up. >> senator flake. >> i appreciate you being here and i share the concerns that some of my colleagues have expressed about some of the -- lack of a better term, extra constitutional actions taken with the president with regards to the a.c.a., but you have been asked those questions and some

answers have been given, some not. i don't think i will plow any new ground and i share the concerns about the investigation and hope we can move forward quickly and i'm concerned whether there are leaks or statements by the f.b.i. that shouldn't have been made that there will be no criminal prosecution. i think that is concerning when the f.b.i. says something like that or leaks that out, i hope d.o.j. refutes that. and i don't think we saw that. >> inspector general issued a report in december that i think is some pretty tough medicine. he is saying that we need some

budget constraints, we need things to put in place to make sure we are not squandering taxpayer resources. they. it was reported that squandered millions of taxpayer money. the audit questioned all of the more than $23 million in grant funds awarded by the department to big brothers and big sisters of america. there aren't the controls in place that there need to be to shed the light where this money is going. mr. horowitz highlighted the problem yesterday and said there is no visibility of how grant funds are being used by the recipients. unless there is an investigation or the agency collects the accounting information from a recipient and the government and taxpayers are virtually in the dark regarding how grant funds are actually used.

this is an ongoing problem. i just want to know what is being done to remedy this. >> what we have to understand is that i don't think the inspector general indicated that he is concerned that these funds have necessarily been misused arch as there are not mechanisms in place that they are being used in a an appropriate way. that is a serious concern. i think as i remember the report that he had said that i think over the past couple of years i think that things have gotten better than they perhaps were. i might be confusing the reports, but i think that's what he said. but what we have to do -- the concern you raise is a legitimate one but we have in place the mechanisms so we know the money is being used in an appropriate way first that we know it's being done for the purpose that it was given and

also to assess the effectiveness of the grants. >> let me go beyond this. d.o.j. said in 2012 that that you would cugget an assessment of these -- would conduct an amessment of the program and see where money is being wasted. the inspector general said it has not been completed or provided to him or to congress, is that the case? >> we have to get that assessment and share it with congress and share it with the inspector general. >> with regard to the investigation of the i.r.s. it is perhaps to go 216 days and i understand that it probably is routine. what is not routine to go for a year, year and a half or two years to come back with an assessment you said you would do with regard to these programs. is that routine to take that

long after you said you would have an assessment? >> we want to make sure we have done a good and complete job. if, in fact that, if it is 18 months, whatever the sime frame is, that would be on the excessive side. >> speaking of which, it was brought up earlier in the hearing that the questions that were submitted after the last oversight hearing in march of last year that d.o.j. has not returned any answers to those questions by fiscal oversight committee. is that routine to go nearly a year without answering specific questions that have been asked as part of the oversight hearing? >> we try to make sure as senator grassley said to make sure we answer the questions before the next oversight hearing. i don't know how many of the questions have not been responded to. i will have to look into that. >> i think it was a case that none of the questions --

nothing. the answers have been prepared and are under review by the office of management and budget. >> nearly a year later, we still haven't received answers to the questions from the last oversight hearing. i understand we haven't gone through regular order in this place for a while but it's difficult to provide oversight when the answers don't come back. >> that's a fair criticism and we are going to have to do a better job in the department and o.m.b. to get answers to you. >> we'll have some follow-up questions but i would like to have a commitment that you will get back in a timely fashion. >> we'll do better. >> on immigration, i was part of the bipartisan group that put together an immigration bill, i share the president's concern and his desire to get to immigration reform done. let me just tell you in all

honesty, one of the most difficult questions i face at home from constituents and others about this new legislation we're putting forward as they say, why in the world do we want to create more laws when we aren't enforcing the ones that we have or the department or the administration takes it upon itself to interpret the laws that we have and use perhaps a little too much discretion in terms of law.menting this when it becomes a law, it will be implemented as it was intended. do you understand that sentiment out there at least and what can the administration do to help us? we are trying to get this done. i'm on your side and those who want to get immigration reform done can tell you that it's very difficult when we see things like release of individuals with

multiple felonies in the community. i asked questions of secretary napolitano napolitano and those answers never got back to us either. that kind of stuff at home makes it difficult to instill the confidence that we need that these laws will be faithfully executed. >> i think if people truly understood how we enforce the laws, how completely reinforce them and use the discretion that we possess, they would have a greater degree of comfort in how the justice department, d.h.s. for that matter, conduct themselves. and not focus on anecdoteal things but have a better view on what we do because i'm quite proud in the way we use the limited resources we have to keep the american people safe.

>> i agree with that and i would just tell you that if people understood, perhaps they would better understand that if they had answers to these questions, what i'm telling you is i'm not unable to go back to my constituents and say here's the reason these people with multiple felonies were released into the community because i'm not getting answers back from department of homeland security or d.o.j. it's very difficult when we don't hear back from the department, a year later in conducting oversight hearings. so i would just leave you with that and appreciate you being here and we'll have further written questions to follow up. >> and senator, the concern you raised is a fair one. and we will have to do better. and i'm not criticizing anybody in the justice department. as an executive branch, we have to do better to answer the

questions you are talking about. >> i yield back. >> thank you very much. thank you very much attorney holder and thank the people who watch this hearing can see the range of work that the justice department does -- i was jotting down some notes, legal issues regarding surveillance, autism, propane fuel, sex trafficking, i.r.s. investigations and drug policies. thank you for answering such a broad range and look forward to seeing you again soon and the record will stay open for two weeks. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by tional captioning institute]

>> we are getting confrontations and better to program yourself to walk away. the congressman cares about the job he is doing and he is defending his indeg grit. let's this thing die and go onto the job. [inaudible question] >> i have gotten no flavor of that at all. i wouldn't be supportive of that. this is america. -- ave freedom of speech so

understand the frustration. >> off for a two dive day retreat and we will have a camera down. they are headed down to cambridge, maryland. they will hear from many as they develop their agenda for 2014. speaker boehner will skwlate a one-pager on immigration for the group to discuss. we will have coverage as it becomes available. earlier today, politico held an event with a number of members of congress. we begin with comments from roy blunt. this is an hour and 45 minutes. >> there is a mobile polling

question on the screen for you to use. those of you on live stream, hold that print edition with the headline, obama to congress, if you won't, i will. senator blunt, the president has been talking about his pen, what do you think of that? >> the president with three years left in his presidency, which is the length of the entire presidency. he has that much time left to say that i'm sort of giving up on both the congress and maybe the constitution. if there is a reason that things are supposed to be done the way they are supposed to be done and normal order of things in legislating, in governing and in life and occasionally you can violate them and get away with

it, but if you violate them over and over again, you will face a significant problem. >> what is he violating here? >> trying to shortcut this process and think that is the way to get things done. i don't think that's the right way. it takes more effort on his part to pass a law than to sign an executive order, but one, think think a number of these executive orders are questionable and two, they don't necessarily have to have a life beyond the president. when he was running for president he said i'm going to look the every one of george bush's executive orders and see how many of them i need to eliminate immediately. this is sort of like if you are running the race around a track and you decide, well, i deserve to win and i'm pretty important, i'll cut across the middle and get to the finish line, you are disqualified at that point from being named a winner. i would like to see the

president make the effort it takes to get things done the constitutional way and there are plenty of things that we can do if we did them the right way. >> there are things in washington that are starting to work after saying -- talking for years now how broken washington is, looks like republicans are not going to shut down the government again or have a serious threat to. there was a budget deal. senator blunt, you are on the appropriations committee, you were mentioning to me that it looks like the appropriations process actually might work for the first time in -- >> in seven years, which is both a tragedy and travesty that we haven't done this the right way. appropriating sounds pretty boring until you set your priorities, how you set your priorities with your family and your personal spending and how you set government priorities and not one time in seven years

has the process worked the way it's supposed to. the other day, we brought all the appropriations bills to the floor, a third of the year into the spending year and passed them all at once. actually that was a step forward because many of these appropriations bills haven't been updated in years. a year ago when we started talking about cutting the line-by-line cutting which happened when we didn't follow the law and appropriated more money than the law said we could spend, the so-called sequester, didn't have to happen. it only happened if you violated the law which says this is how much money you could spend. the point i was going to make, when we brought the service chiefs in and i'm on the armed services committee and commerce committee and brought them into the committee and later to the defense appropriating committee and every one of them said the sequester is a problem but you

are cutting a budget that we haven't wanted for years. you are cutting lines in a budget that met our needs six years ago that doesn't meet our needs now. this would be like a family and set aside money to remodel the bathroom and every year for the next years you couldn't touch that column for the next years. and in the government, either you don't use that money at all and you remodel that bathroom. but getting the priorities in order, updating what we need to do, if we take these bills to the floor as the new appropriations chairman, senator mccull sky and senator shelby, the leading republican on that committee would do, take those bills to the floor like we did for 30 years in a row and let any member of the senate or house and bring a amendment as

they would like to spend the money to the best of their ability, defend the bill they brought to the floor, but occasionally members come up with something better than you thought of to spend that $10 million and that's how you set priorities. so one thing about the system working again, we have set the bar now so low that we surely can get over it. we can chin that bar because it's not a very high bar. if we go back to the normal way of doing things -- you know, to legislate, we don't have to a total rewrite of the tax code to do better than we have been doing. can look at the pro-job-creating bills. surely some of those could pass the senate. we could look at these manufacturing things that a number of us are involved in a bipartisan way, and energy will

drive manufacturing. more american energy doesn't just create the jobs that produce the energy. all kinds of jobs begin to be created if you are confident about the future of the utility bill, if you know the delivery system is going to be there because you figured out how to make that part of the process work in a better and more dependable way, all kinds of things will happen if we get busy and do the things we need to to get the economy going. >> in the house, you were the number three leader, majority whip when i was covering the house. you never listened a vote on the floor. what do you think the chances on immigration are this year and you were telling me this year you feel strongly that doing immigration in pieces does make sense? >> i do, and when i was the majority whip in the house, that's when the republicans were in the majority of the house we

didn't lose bills on the floor but we never passed bills. two bills in all the time i was in the majority whip six years passed without democrat votes. that means hundreds and hundreds of bills passed with some democrats voting for every single them. two times in six years that we passed a bill that didn't have democrat votes. i think that could be right. i have to look and see, but there's more division, and part of that is that there's no sense that this bill is going to find its way to the president's desk. it's a different ask when you are asking members to vote for something that is going to become law, that is actually going to change the country and then say let's vote on this because we want to make a statement. but on immigration, i have said this for a long time, there are at least three distinct questions to be answered, how do we secure the border, both at

the workplace and the actual border in a better way? what are the legitimate workforce needs of the country? and what do you do with people who came illegally or stayed illegaly. and 50-50 came without documents and some came here illegally and then they just stayed. what do you do with those people and my vote is or my view is, rather, that the same majority in the house and senate that are the best majority to come up to question one, how do you secure the border, may not be the best 218 people in the house or 50 in the senate to come up with the answer, what are the workforce needs in the country and what do you do about people that came. you are going to get a better solution to all those problems

if you'll deal with them one at a time than to try to deal with them collectively. a l and on many occasions, difficult problems had to be broken up and solved in pieces to get the best solution rather than just a solution and what we should want here would be the best answer to all of those questions, not just -- we don't want any answer unless we answer them all at once, is that the right goal or the right goal how do we get the best answer to this challenge. >> one of your roles for leadership is working with members on the importance of social media. what are you telling members what they need to be doing this year? >> we have seen such a revolution in the way people communicate in the last decade and probably in the last three weeks. there is some communicating thing going on right now that

i'm not even aware of and interestingly, the closer that members have to running for election and six years in the senate is a long time. the closer they have run, they appreciate all the different ways people want to communicate with you. and every one of the senators now is doing things -- republican senators with media they weren't doing a couple of years ago. >> is it hard to convince some of them? do you have to prod some of them? >> once their staffs gets into this as well, it matters. i started three years ago telling a story -- i think it was in one of the books about lyndon johnson but a story about sam rayburn and when he was a young member of congress, he probably had a staff of maybe two or three but told his staff how do -- he said if people

write us a handwritten letter, i want you to write them a handwritten letter back. if they type us a letter, i want you to type the letter back and i'll sign it. he said if they write it on a big chief tablet, i want you to rite a letter on a big chief tablet. what he was saying, i want to communicate with people the way they communicate with us. it would work more efficiently if you respond the way people communicate with you. the number of letters we get in our office trying to communicate in all different ways, we don't get many letters anymore. and many of the questions that people ask, they don't need to get a complicated answer. if they say is senator blunt for or against this bill. our correspondents who do most of that and i say what do you

need to know that you don't know. and i say to them, if someone says says am i for or against a bill, say yes or no. probably half the time that's plenty of answer for them. and if it's not the right answer, they'll challenge you back and say why is he not for this bill and then you have that discussion. but yes or no is all they need, say yes or no and go onto the next question and let's communicate with people the way they want to communicate with us. >> how many books to you read in a year? >> i read a lot of books in a year. probably read more books than probably health care legislation. i read a book a week, about 50 books a year. >> that is an agreed practice. and we are going to have america's best senate correspondent. i think those of you on c-span,

all of you here. and senator blunt, thanks for this conversation. [applause] >> senator, thank you for joining us. senator rob portman of ohio. get right to it. you have been in washington for some time since the 1990's and worked in the two bush white housees and former house member and been a senator since 2010, how would you say this beats

ranks to other state of the unions over the years? where does this rank? >> the president as he always does, but there were no big proposals and it was kind of the me an ambivolent speech. the state of the union is going great and he said it's not going so well and therefore we need to make some changes in terms of take-home pay and long-term unemployed and he said i want to work with congress and then he said, by the way, i'm going to go around congress. as compared to other states of the union that i have listened to, the message was muddled and hard for me to really know what he was trying to communicate. i believe he is uncertain about what kind of second term president he wants to be and there are a couple of models and bill clinton in his second term was more productive and did more

in his second term than the first term. think of welfare reform. 1997 balanced budget agreement which dealt with medicare and taxes as well as putting the government on a diet that ends up with a balanced budget over a period of several years. here. he has a decision and so i think that speech was reflective of where he is, which is he is not giving us a clear message. >> he did mention a handful of measures you think you could work with him on. trade promotion authority something that you have been involved with working in the u.s. gr. democratic leaders are very skeptical. do you think the white house is committed to getting this done or is this a nod towards bipartisan?

your mind? >> i hope so. i think there were several openings. i think one was on trade and the president made it clear that he is going to promote what he should have been doing along which is the ability to knock done barriers. it is crazy that the united states of america for the last seven years hasn't had the ability to negotiate a trade agreement and that is all about. and get the last and best offer. only negotiated one agreement that wasn't done under a trade promotion authority. every president has asked for it except this president until last year. he needs to come out swinging on that and say i need this and he needs to go to his democrat former colleagues and say, you have to allow me as president to be able to interact with the world. we can't sit on the sidelines and used that last night. >> needs a bigger push. >> bigger push.

last night was a good start. i hadn't seen it until last night and we need to encourage him and his cabinet to be out there explaining to the american people and going to democrats saying look, this is something that is incredibly important to our country right now and losing market share every day as we are not knocking down barriers, other countries are. they are negotiating. 100 trade agreements have been negotiated while we have sat on the sidelines. that hurts us. and i as president want that authority to be able to help move the economy forward. >> have you had any conversations with the incoming finance committee chairman, getting that bill through committee and onto the senate floor? do you think there will be action in the finance committee? >> i think there will be and get democrat support and i have talked to him as recently as last night. >> was he receptive to it? >> you have to talk to him.

he believes in trade and represents a state that is huge in exports and got good provisions in the t.p.a. that relate to digital products and specifically i.p. issues and intellectual property issues and there are good aspects for some democrats who are concerned about labor rights, environmental concerns, digital economy. i think has a good prospect of getting through the finance committee with several democrat votes and i hope all the republican votes and i hope we don't hold back on given trade promotion authority to this president because it is right for the country. >> you have close relationship with people in the business economy. last night the president talked about the debt limit. when you talk to folks in the business community, how concerned are they about default? and do you think that that congress should increase the debt ceiling without any strings

attached? >> talked about this before, when you look back over the last few decades, only thing that's ever worked to get congress to restrain expanding is a debt limit discussion. am rudman came out of a debt limit discussion and so did the 1997 agreement we just talked about and george bush 41 didn't get re-elected. the budget control act led to this improvement on the discretionary side of the budget. let's not squander this opportunity and do something about the underlying problem which is the spending problem. i'm not saying add extraneous issues to it but it's like the credit card in your wallet. when you extend the credit card for you or your family or your kids max out, what do you do?

you say what do we do with the underlying problem. >> we want a clean debt. >> no president in the history of the united states has taken that position. they have all negotiated on it. >> you are saying -- >> this is the underlying problem we have right now in my view. you have a president who refuses to engage with congress, even talk to congress, so he stands up there and says i'm going to go around with congress, but i won't even talk to them. i mean there is a difficulty of getting congress and the president to work together. i think there are several openings. if you won't engage and talk to congress, it's a tough vote. when i say to my constituents we have $18 trillion debt and $140,000 bucks but if i voted to extend the debt limit again without getting any changes in spending -- i mean that's a tough vote. >> what would you --

>> nobody wants to default. >> what do you think the prospects are? >> i don't think we are likely to default. why? no one wants to default. we should be responsible about this. the president should be responsible and say just as presidents bush, clinton, reagan and carter, when you have to raise the debt limit, by requirements you have to raise it, you say this is a tough vote and this is the credit card, and both we extend our limit, i want to work with you. the attitude shouldn't be i'm not going to even talk, i refuse to negotiate on this issue. i feel strongly on this because it's something we glossed over last night and we continue to gloss over that everything is fine in terms of the debt and deficit. it's not fine. the congressional budget office has told us we are in deep trouble. they said we are back to trillion dollar deficits within 10 years and say we are going to

have a 100% increase on the mandatory side. >> if the house sends something over to you and have the senate -- >> the process ought to be that the president ought to engage with us, both sides of the aisle and come up with some sensible changes on the spending side and ought to be on the mandatory spending side. 2/3 of the budget is on auto pilot. that's where the big increasesr that's where the potential is to actually address this long-term problem that is very clear that will otherwise bankrupt the economy over time. and there are some great ideas there, one that i have been pushing is means testing in medicare. why wouldn't the president want to take his own budget that is a $56 billion savings and $450 billion over the next 10 years and say let's do that. in the past, democrats have said they can't touch medicare unless there are tax increases on the

rich. that is a difficult logic to apply to cutting benefits for the wealthy. let's say reducing medicare for the wealthy through some premium increases in part b and part d, which is in the president's budget. all of us have different approaches. let's take the president's own policy proposals and put it as part of the debt limit discussion and tell the american people and say we did something to deal with the problem and it is on the mandatory side of the budget that was on auto pilot that will grow that will bankrupt. >> jobless benefits, you have been involved in those discussions and the president really went after republicans last night for their votes against the latest proposal to move forward. what other discussions right now with senator collins, senator reed of rhode island, senator heller, how likely are you going to get a proposed deal and what

are you looking at to pay for that? >> it is doable. i'm one of the republicans who voted to have a debate. we have a proposal that was rejected. the majority leader had his own proposal. we didn't get to have a debate on those issues, but the reality is we are pretty close. it's a three-month extension and during that time we want to do precisely what the president said last night, reform the unemployment insurance program for long-term unemployed. >> what is the pay-for. >> and we want to pay for it. if you are not paying for it, you you increase the debt and deficit. if you can't pay for it, you definitely should. i have ideas including stopping the double dipping between unemployment insurance and social security disability. there are lots of waste and fraud and other issues we could

go after. the democrats are talking about smoothing pension contributions. there are a number of -- >> are you ok with it? >> i heard about it for the first time. there are ways we can pay for it. what's more significant and more exciting for the american people, how do you change the unemployment system to help people obtain the skills they need to access the jobs that are available today. >> we have to wrap up. but one last question. one thing you learned about president obama last night, what is that one thing? >> i think he's not sure what kind of second term he wants to be. i think the president has an opportunity to engage with congress and work with us to resolve some tough issues, one is the long-term unemployed and skills and get the country back into trade and expanding jobs. it's all of the above, energy policy and can and should be done and talked about tax reform and corporate tax reform.

these are areas where we could give the economy a shot in the arm and work with him. he needs to make a decision because it won't happen without his leadership and specifically providing a little help to democrats and support to democrats to be able to work with us to get these things done. >> senator rob portman, thanks for your time. senator joe manchin from west irginia. senator, you are a former west virginia governor and i'm wondering, when you were governor, did you ever go before the state legislature in a state of the state speech and say i'm going to go around the legislature and do things because -- i can't work with you and i have to do things at an

administrative level? >> never. why? >> first of all, do you think someone says they are going to do with or without you. you are going to hunch down and try. i would like the benefit of the doubt, the president is very frustrated. if you are an executive, you have been frustrated. i worked with the right and left but bottom line i have to get something accomplished for the people of west virginia. i have to figure out how i get everybody to vote. and the bottom line is, you never put your opposition in an embarrassing position and don't send them home. >> do you think -- >> we have an atmosphere up here if you don't you you'll get me. that's not getting anything accomplished. if i was trying to get you on the other side of the aisle and know we are a different party,

but still we are trying to get something accomplished, i can't go out and berate you on issues and think you are going to work with me on monday and go to your district on friday and try to defeat you and raise money against you and say i need you on monday because this is what's great for the country. you have to build trust and relationships and that's what it starts. >> you think his going around congress ruins the relationships? >> he isn't going to go around congress. i would have liked to think he could have chosen better words. first of all, the constitution gives executives so much leeway. you have powers that you can do something. and you are in charge of the operation. all the agencies you have, they deliver the services that people depend upon.

the laws that have been passed, gives that agency the power to do things, are they exercising it in a prudent manner. you don't have to say anything. my goodness, keep moving around. and if you do, go out with the playing field and someone says, wait a minute, governor or mr. president, you are going too far here. let's sit down and talk. let's interpret it this way. >> is he going too far in doing things on an administrative level? >> i keep seeing frustration. i have trade it. maybe he believes in his heart to the best of his ability he has tried everything he can to people together. you don't give up on that, that's the challenge. do you ever try hard enough and accomplish it and are you able to get frustrated to the point that you think i have the powers to do it. i just don't think that is his

intent. it came across pretty harsh, pretty direct and you will see america pushing back and the opposition take it to a different level. >> is it unconstitutional, concerned about him expanding --? >> he might try. no difference than when he had the recess appointments. goes to the court. he doesn't want that. he wants to get something done so bad. i could see the frustration level. i have been down that road before and my goodness, can't they say this will get people back to work and can't you see simplifying the tax code. i like that he said incentives reward corporate deduction because of the job you produced. you give me something in return. i need value. people need value. jobs is what people need in west virginia. at some corporation, god bless

them all. have to make these investments. their return or incentives should be if you want to have an offset, you have to produce a job for it, not just using the code, if you will. >> you talked -- he talked about energy last night and that is a big issue in your coal-producing state. >> energy is a big issue in this country. >> he said yesterday, climate change is a fact. >> absolutely. seven billion of us made an impact on this. >> give me your assessment of his administration's efforts to regulate carbon emissions and coal-fired plants and the effect that is having on the coal industry. >> let me give you the facts. first of all, the coal industry, as you know it, whether you like it or don't like it or don't understand, it produces the majority of the power for this country. it produces 35-plus percent of

the power. only thing close to it is natural gas. 75% of the power. you can wish all you want right now and i'm a total believer in wind and solar but i'm realist, it's only going to produce that much. if you are relying on it, you would be cold. that's a fact of life. even the department of energy, the president's department of energy, energy information agency said you will be able to depend on coal and need it for the next 30 years. the president acknowledged that we reduced emissions in the last few decades. >> what about the e.p.a. regulations on coal-fd fired power plants. >> we should be working together with the technology. $8 billion has been laying there since 2008. none of it has been spent looking for technology, r&d. we reduced emissions thus

far, we did do more. we burn less than one billion ton of coal in america. >> do you believe that the line that the administration is waging, the so-called war on coal? >> if you had someone shooting at you every day, you would think you were in a war. >> you think that? >> you have this moving target and performance standards saying they want coal and gas, the same air standards. they can't. it's physically impossible. and all we have said, why don't you take a more realistic approach, look at the six best coal-fired plants in the country and use that as your standard because they are already producing. you are depending on energy. if you want it cleaner, find examples. if you want better, invest things in research and get

private and public sectors working together. this is how we cured all of our other problems -- he never even mentioned coal and it produced more energy. and he said we are going to cut credits, $4 billion. we have been subsidizing wind for the last decades at 2.2 cents. >> how much is the president's unpopularity in your state to keep rockefeller? >> his numbers aren't good in our state and they have gone down, one of the two lowest, wyoming and west virginia are wo of the lowest states of his approval. and i said listen, the president is my president and he's your president, whether he or she, democrat or republican. you want that president to do well. and i have never been against something that i didn't think i had a better idea.

they all have a perception. i go out and defend immigration. not a popular thing. people just don't know. you have to mainstream these people and get them productive citizens of america. so these things here constructive criticism, they have a hard time taking constructive criticism. maybe the people they are defending and saying ok, that makes sense. let me give you the facts on this. have some real intelligent discussion. >> if hillary clinton becomes your presidential candidate or nominee, how does that affect the democratic party, can there be a resurgence for the party there or is the state shifting pretty rapidly to the right? >> west virginia is the northern most southern state in the

united states. we are right on the mason-dixon line. so we are the last but seeing a national trend, a lot of social issues, a lot of lifestyle that people don't understand. it's just one of those things -- >> a shift to the right. >> it doesn't have to be a permanent shift. if you look at the entire south, i'm still very proud west virginia democrat and i have a lot of friends who are proud west virginia republicans. we don't really relate to the washington democrats a lot or the washington republicans. so it's a little different. and we are not just running against, it's just who we are. and west virginia, you can be pro-life and pro-choice and be pro-labor and pro-business. >> do you want hillary to run? >> i do. i don't know if there is anyone more qualified who has had the

experience. experience, hard to replace that. the experience she has had, seen it from the front line, first lady and governor's end of it. we have to balance the budget. we work towards a time line every day as a governor. when the crisis hit in 2007-2008, most governors meet once a week with the policy, we had to meet every day, meeting twice a day to try and keep a handle on finances. we don't see that urgency in the federal government. the last time the budget was balanced was 2001. it is 2014 now. think about it. and no one is talking about it. >> quickly, if there's one thing you learned about president obama last night, that would be what? >> i learned that his frustration level is very high and parts of that speech, we are going to work together and be americans. i would like to think he

misspoke and picked his words poorly and say if you don't want to be an american, i'll be american myself. it came across a little bit as that and i would hope that we could come together and there are a lot of good people who want to work for the country. senator joe manchin, thanks for your time. [applause] i'll introduce my colleague with senator richard blumenthal. >> good morning. thank you for joining us. we appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. i wanted to give a quick reminder those to to participate in the polling question and we'll get to that. i want to start where you left off, what was the one thing -- the biggest thing you learned about the president last night? >> that he is frustrated with

congress as the american people, as i am and going to use the full reach of his authority, not exceed it, not overreach, but use all of the authority that congress has given him to give action to the american people and whether it's the minimum wage or immigration where he has already acted or veterans, which is such a pauferfully important issue, he is going to use executive orders and promulgate the regulations that are delayed. one of the problems is the overdelay in issuing rules in order to implement the law. >> a lot of your colleagues on the right said he was overreaching by his call for executive actions and trying to go around congress. do you disagree with that? >> i disagree that the president will overreach. he has used executive orders less frequently than recent

president, not by a little but by a lot. the numbers were in the papers this morning about how infrequently he has used his authority. this authority has already been given to him. in fact, there's a strong argument that he should have been doing more executive orders much earlier in his presidency, but i understand that he wanted to work with congress and still does, but he is going to use the full reach of his authority to implement the law. he is simply executing the law. >> focus on obamacare, focus on energy policy, but what were you most invested in and got constant mention, for example, intelligence reform, n.s.a., where do you want to push that issue? >> i would like the president to

continue to emphasize the need for stronger judicial oversight. i have proposed and advocated a constitutional advocate, a public interest advocate in an adversarial process. the president has embraced that idea. i would like greater openness in the fisa court so more rulings and opinions and decisions are made public. we cannot have secret laws made by a secret court. and i would like to see more of that expressed by the president. but obviously, he was focusing on a theme that has such compelling power right now, the theme of economic opportunity. i think it was a home run. and the veterans' issues, more speaks physicianity in terms of the programs that will help not only brave and dedicated

veterans like sergeant remsburg but like the guest i had last night suffered traumatic brain injury and has come back to be an advocate for veterans, health care and also on military sexual assault because she was a victim of sexual assault while in the military. i would like to see him talk those issues, embracing some of the ideas that are in the bill that chairman sanders of the veterans affairs of the committee, senator sanders of vermont and i was very pleased to be a leading co-sponsor when he introduced it. health care, educational opportunities, skill training. >> what about gudge legislation, coming from connecticut and the tragedy that happened there, giving the odds of it getting some momentum this year.

is it hit a stale mate? >> uphill, but still has a chance. the thing to keep in mind here is and i have lost sight a little bit, too. president reagan was almost assassinated. and jim brady was shot and paralyzed and still it took 12 years to adopt the brady handgun law, 12 years, which makes 12 months look like a sprint. we have to be prepared for a marathon. we are going to bring the bill back in some form. background checks, mental health initiatives, a ban on illegal trafficking and straw purchaseses. the american people want it. 90% of the american people favor it. and i think it will come back in some form. maybe this session, maybe not. but in some form, it will come back. >> talk a little bit about the mmigration reform, house

republicans are potentially doing something. are you optimistic something will get done. anything you can do to try and push progress along? >> i think immigration reform will be done. on the list of priorities likely to get done, veterans, immigration reform, i think are at the top. and i say immigration reform because everybody has a piece of it. the president has mentioned the issue of high skilled workers needed by american industry. we need to educate our own engineers and scientists and computer experts. but in the meantime, there is a desperate need for those skills. agricultural workers are needed. the nation cannot allow 11 million people to remain in the

shadows. and the dreamers, one of the president's guests was a dreamer, i believe. i think there is real currency, political currency to this issue, and i think it will get done. again, not everybody is going to et everything going to get everything they want. like the farm bill. >> in erm it is of that these are issues that often get into the political grit loch we talk about and write about a lot. the partisan nature of the speech last night some people said didn't necessarily help the movement, the momentum in the direction of getting things done. do you think that there's any sense that the president went too far? that he should have pulled back a little bit? >> i think things are getting done. hopefully we're going to have the debt ceiling solved. we have a budget. the farm bill. i think that there is a series of measureth