do both of these things. and that we do not set one against the other. we do not set the freedoms of the nations against the security of this nation. that is not the direction in which we must go. we have to do both and that has been my record. that is the record of the free congress foundation and american opportunity, and that is what we must do. >> >> you can see the passion this serves in the crowd. 1993.tory goes back to it turns out they had a human asset directly attached to osama bin laden and finding out very early on that he intended to finance. we rely on technology today. are you worried we do not do enough of the old-fashioned intelligence? human intelligence? increasehas been this in trying to use supercomputers and technology to collect

a moreing that we can in substantive, traditional manner. we could use the technology we have to the best of the ability that still respect fourth amendment rights and understand we have to be increasingly hesitant of the growth of government. >> he managed to human assets when you were an intelligence officer. are you worried we are relying too much on technology? >> we have to use all of the above. not asntelligence is simple as going on the streets but it is quite in links and hard job. not the mostis savory job, i must say. youy in the modern world, have the opportunity today with modern technology to my this is a modern technology world. this is a place where we are all connect it and we have the opportunity to have

communications. this is a chance to utilize the weaknesses that our enemies have to use in order to communicate. this is a chance for us to do something like that. with our values and liberties, consistent with our freedoms and we could do so. the point is, john, and audience, we do not dismantle united states defenses. we do not open ourselves up to attacks by people i assure you want to attack us. you do not open ourselves up to that. you reform this and you make sure that we stay consistent with the law and you have proper oversight and you demand that people do not conduct oversight that they are subject to the penalties of criminal law. we have to make sure that we have true oversight by the congress, by people who are exposed to this and people we can hold accountable for oversight. that is what we have to do. it must be our mission.

this is not the answer the united states. i don't care what you say. it will not be the answer. a mature, will be reasonable approach where you preserve the information, empower people to protect our citizens and of the same time protect our liberties and our values and you can do that through the law and through a democratic process. >> it got some great questions coming in from the audience. tell me a little about the lawsuit was senator rand paul is going to go. where will the courts come down on this in your estimation? finde supreme court will what the nsa is doing is unconstitutional and the government is relying on their key case concerns a few weeks collecting of phone numbers dialed by a criminal suspect who was allegedly harassing someone

who they had plundered earlier and they have taken that one case regarding a register with the numbers dialed targeting a suspected criminal to justify collecting metadata on every single american forever with no suspicion of any wrongdoing and i think that is too far. five justices of the supreme court in 2012 indicated they were inclined to being open to re-examining this precedent and that is ultimately where we are going in but i want to underscore in the jurisprudence and all of these areas, public opinion, our values as a culture are very important. your votes about what congress should do, state legislatures, privacy is critical to what the u.s. supreme court will be doing and that is why your condemnation of the nsa, writing and to make sure you give remedial legislation is very important. the last thing i want to observe

that governor gilmore does not understand is our greatest national asset in defenses the loyalty and patriotism of its citizens who love their government because the government does not treat them as potential terrorists without cause. when the government believes all of us are traitors. the greatest danger is they will lose the loyalty of the american people. >> nonsense. thinkst is that nobody that the average american out there is unpatriotic. in whichve a system you actually focus on the enemies of this nation and you determine what they are trying to do to get at us and what we have to do in order to uncover those investigative propositions and investigative methods, then this is an appropriate thing. to blow this up and suggest there is some suggestion that all of us are under scrutiny or all of us are being suspected as

potential traitors, that is nonsense demagoguery and it is not helpful to a discussion that we, as conservatives, have to have to find out how you protect this nation and protect the defenses of this nation for ourselves, for our children, for the well-being of our people and at the same time protect our values and civil freedoms. these are the choices we have to face. collecting, they are metadata on every call you have made since may 2006 in perpetuity. why are they doing that if they do not suspect you of wrongdoing? >> they want to be in a position to find out who the bad guys are talking to. not to you, not to you, not to me, but we have to find out what people are doing and that is the approach they are taking. you can have perfectly reasonable ways of controlling this and having proper oversight. the alternative is we're going to end up with more attacks like we saw at the boston marathon

and there will be calls for a greater security state and authoritarianism responses. job and a do the correct way with proper oversight. frankly, demagoguery is not helpful. ability to get to the goals of we need to achieve. >> we heard a lot about oversight. you think congress has done a good job overseeing this program? >> not at all. >> i want to respond to one thing. i hesitate to use the words "bad guys," because we are viewed as bad guys right now in this government. we are. think about it. all the nsa has to do is just watch the phone calls made from cpac and the irs would have their audit schedule for the next five years. i say that kind of facetiously but we are in a very unique culture are these branches of government are being weaponize

to against us and the history of western democracy shows when the government continues to do this and target people that are dissident against the government, we for the activists of limited government will soon be the targets and we have to be very careful. >> i love this thing called twitter. some people want to know if you are available to date. i don't not that's relevant but good luck to you on that front. [laughter] that ie a question here really like. if the courts are going to intervene in congress is going to get involved, is there a new middle spot that we can find here? is there a place where we can collect some data that you would be comfortable with? you feel we have enough to go after the bad guys? >> provides the justification for gathering data when there is probable cause to believe you are an agent of a foreign government. this is how we did it for hundreds of years prior to the

modern efforts to try to create a surveillance state. it has been utilized to prosecute cases and most of the prosecutions, not all, post-9/11 have been tried in criminal courts with probable cause standard utilized to gather information and search warrant's. i think that demonstrates that we do not need the extraordinary measures in order to be safe and have the rule of law prevail. it does not mean that there will never be another incident again. not worky the laws did prior to 9/11 so we could not use them but that's like saying the laws against murder don't work because we have 17,000 murders each year yet we still have them. it is not a criticism of the againstlaw that laws terrorism occasionally may be violated like any other law. >> are you open to changes, governor? >> there is nothing law wrong ofh can directing assessment

any authority in determining whether they had gone too far. as i said in my opening statement, 10 years ago, i condemned the concept of awareness because i was suspicious of how it could be misused in the future. fact,s that we can, in have an appropriate rule and regulation, oversight, to make sure that we do not disarm this country. by the way, bad guys, i know you picked up on that and gave me a little slapping around because i said that, but what we really mean here are people who are agents of foreign countries who may have at some point in dr. war with us and that could still happen. the realistic world that we live in that people unconnected to states who are part of international organizations, whether they are drug organizations that are so often used in this country or whether

they are people who are, in fact, agents of international terror organizations who want to do away with all states, these are the types of people we have to be prepared to meet in the 21st century. as americans, we will be prepared to do it. not because we think some view that we are all paranoid. we're americans. we are conservatives. we don't need to be afraid of anything. we can set the rules down an appropriate way and demand that they be followed, that there is proper oversight and protect this nation as well. >> how old were you when 9/11 occurred? i was in first or second grade. worried that in the passage of time that people become complacent and forget the horrors we experienced that day? as we move along, some of what we see in the audience is just euphoric reaction and with

another attack the pendulum could swing back? >> 9/11 woke up a lot of people. she said 9/11 was one of the reason she got into politics and it's kind of an example. the majority of younger people don't need to know the -- and they don't even know the sacrifice of the greatest generation of world war ii. absolutely we forget and that is unfortunately the pendulum of history and that is the way that things go. it is unfortunate the only way to truly correct that is education and connecting with these people who gave the ultimate sacrifice. regards to all of these particular agents of terrorist organizations and foreign governments that governor gilmore mentioned, they have been subject to search and surveillance under laws for 20 something years. there is nothing that i've said that would serve those

authorities based on probable cause to believe you're acting as an aid to foreign government. it is not an argument to just throw the word demagogue around. your repeated reference to not necessary to discuss what we are debating. couple ofto get to a quick questions. >> we have an obligation to understand the difference between legitimate concerns about paranoia, and demagoguery and we have to be prepared to accept the reasonable concerns that we have with respect to a surveillance state. i was governor during the 9/11 attack. i was chairman of the national commission on homeland security and i was a person who in writing resistivity surveillance state and said that we should not go and give up our values in order, in the name of some type of total security, i'm on the record having said that.

there's a danger when you have a rand paul who says, a traitor like edward snowden should get a slap on the restaurant the father who says perhaps we the newave amnesty or york times who says perhaps we should have amnesty. this undermines the legitimate peoplehat we place and who have an obligation to meet those dedications to the security of this nation. that is violated and a person should stand before the bar of justice and allowing a lawyer to defend him and make his case and let a jury of his peers decide what is right and what is wrong. that's the way we do things. >> we have run out of time here and i want to thank you all for an impassioned and intellectual debate and if you stick around, the audience will want to talk to you some more. thank you again today. thank you for your time. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> and our live coverage of the

conservative political action conference continues tomorrow. we will hear from newt gingrich, and coulter, sarah palin among others getting underway at 12:40 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> c-span. we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white ande events, briefings conferences offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house is a public service of private industry. created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. tv, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> the crimean referendum just over one week away and associates from the associated base isying a military under siege by russians and

their siding a duty officer that a russian military truck broke down and entered the base were about 100 ukrainian troops are stationed. the report is from the associated press. conservative political action ntinues tomorrow for a discussion on the role of religion in the republican party. the house ethics committee rarely takes action on investigations launched by the office of congressional ethics. also, a look at privacy rights and government surveillance with author and journalist. washington journal is live every morning beginning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. from today's washington journal, a discussion on midterm elections in the 2016 presidential race. joining us from our new york studio is the new msnbc reid.joy

tell us about your show. 2:00 p.m. re at i call it, nation of policy, all politics and culture. we let people know what's happening could we try to do some analysis, to. and we have fun every so often. host: the show just started february 24. an article about your show when oy reid on was, "juli says a show won't be in our own white republicans suck." guest: i was asked the question by the writer and he was like, will you go after republicans everyday? i said, no. what we want to do is have a conversation. there are a lot of issues on which there is great disagreement with much of our audience with the conservative

movement and the republican party. but we want to also get republicans to come on and talk about it rather than just talk about them. are other republicans would've invited up it we had on a candidate from texas who is running for governor. she is in the primary. we try to encourage people on the right to come on the show. the water is fine. host: what are your politics e? guest: i grew up in a house with a mom who was an immigrant to the united states and my parents -- my father was a reagan republican and my mother was a yellow dog democrat. an absolute diehard democrat, coming in with john f. kennedy. we grew up very much democrats.

i was a democrat. i was a liberal columnist for the miami herald. i have worked in democratic politics. so i definitely have a strong personal point of view but i am intrigued and interested in the other side. i find a lot of their views, some confounding and some fascinating and am interested in having a dialogue. when i did talk radio, a lot of what we did was debate. we had joe scarborough on the show. we would have the debate. i think that is the great thing that cable news and talk radio allows you to do when you're willing to do it and get the other side engaged. host: have you been following secpac? guest: of course. i feel like what happens and things like cpac -- it is preaching to the choir. it is a pep rally for the right. it's not a place where they are engaging in the battle of ideas. they reinforce one another and emphatically say we are right

and the other guys from. that is what they have done. -- i have been watching what's going on over there -- i think both , there is a bull within their bubble they feel if they just explained their ideas better, they would do better in polls and people would rally to their cause. but i think it is somewhat limiting because a lot of the on theiehard principles right are things that if you roll them up politically are very hard to sell. of putting medicare into a voucher program, whether you're talking about future seniors or current seniors, it is not popular because people do rely on it. paul ryan had an interesting are offeringocrats people a full stomach and an empty soul.

if you have ever experienced want, you want the full stomach. it's counterintuitive to try to sell people on the idea that if we remove benefits, the benefits to your soul are better than that meal that you're able to give your kid. i think it's a core difference between conservatives and liberals. when you see want, how do you attack it? liberals come in and say, let's try to help meet the need. conservatives say, philosophically, it's a bad idea to meet the need because it breeds dependency. that's a core struggle. guest: should the democrats pay attention to the midterm elections or move on to 2016 ? guest: that question gives you the core of the problem. itocrats are great when comes to presidential elections. the young, the minority, the .ingle woman, the urban voter and they all turn out in great

numbers in presidential elections and demographically, democrats have a distinct advantage and it's getting bigger because the part of our population that is the growing bulge is the younger cohort that is much more minority laden. as we go forward, democrats going to elections with 200 plus electoral votes in the back because there is the urban voter and the minority voter. when you drop out of midterms, you essentially allowe entrenchment. when you have these masses of people come out in 2008, midterms become completely different electorates. they're much more like the republican party. much older, whiter, rural, suburban. -- tony up giving back 10 was a perfect example.

you had purple states and blue states that were won by president obama in 2008 did republican governors in 2010. that makes no sense. it was a census year. a huge error on the part of the democratic party. toocrats have to start create a habit of continual voting among their electorate. otherwise, all the advantages they need mean absolutely nothing. democrats have a demographic advantage that is getting bigger. if you look at the number of latinos, for instance, who are turning 18 every week, something like 18,000. a growing cohort. the latino vote is 65% leaning towards the democrats. the african-american vote, 90% leaning towards the democrats. the jewish vote tends to be between 70%-80% democratic. those parts of our population are growing and they are very

highly concentrated among the younger voters. so people who are emerging are much more in thel demographic category that democrats have because the preferred the policies. they are for the universal health care. and they're much more moderate on social issues. democrats have a distinct demographic advantage that they don't take advantage of in midterms. a midterms, republicans resume the advantage because it is their base that actually turns out. the "reid report." kathy on our democrats line. caller: good morning. boy do i hate chris christie. please, take him and go. i can't stand chris christie.

our congressmen is a friend. he has had enough of the republicans in the house. alpalone.ike frank host: why do you dislike chris christie? guest: i don't trust him as far as i can throw them. i never voted for him. that's about it for me. i'm a democrat. i don't like him and i don't trust him. host: thank you. colo sponse for that aller? said, wehis christie as republicans can't let the media define who we are. guy whose adoration

from the media was unchallenged until the bridge gate scandal came up. it was the media in a lot of ways that made chris christie a star. 2009. a tough election in he did achieve a high level of popularity. he was able to cultivate a lot of democratic support which we are now learning that some of it may have been more coerced. that he hasie, now lost his media love, is able to gain with the conservatives that did not like him at all. they thought he was too nice to president obama. dy aid.d for san now he has a way of getting back in the good graces of his party. before the bridge gate thing, i never understood the love of chris christie at the media

level. the treatment of teachers, they yelling at people at townhall and the treatment of his constituents i thought was rather shabby. i was fascinated by this idea behavior waslying truly did in a way. -- was cheerleaded in a way. it's interesting that now that people see that same sort of behavior played out by members of his staff -- we don't know if he himself had any involvement in it, but we have his staff behaving in a manner that speaks of bullying. the media has lost its love for chris christie. i never thought he was that viable. now that the media is not on his side, i guess he will gain fans on the right. "is: karen tweets and -- there an actual field for the democratic nomination or is everybody all aboard for

hillary? " there is not much of a field that could seriously challenger. there is a pent-up demand -- i believe residential elections are about who has the greatest hunger. young and african-american --ers have a great desire had a great desire to see barack obama. american women have that incredible pent-up demand residual from 2008 and really want to see a woman ascends to that high office. hillary clinton is an incredibly valuable candidate. ben she gets in, it will very hard to stop her. that's not to say there should not be or will be a primary. you'll have people run but the question becomes, is there somebody that could come out of nowhere and challenge her in a full some way?

create a high he did and do that again in 2016. i don't see that person yet. it's not to say they could not be there. i year in politics is like a decade. anything could happen. right now, there is not much rivalry for that spot if she wants it. host: the former managing editor and a graduate of harvard. harry on our public in line. caller: president is a good place to put food in his place -- to put putin in his place. msnbc is great for helping him. --se jackson and al sharpton call them a racist if they don't agree with the president. can call him ae

racist for not agreeing with the president. he hit the trifecta. this is something i do find really intriguing that happens on the right. name every black person you can think of that as a liberal and andthe word "racist" throw in "you people." he hit the trifecta. nothing to add. host: mike from ohio. the show onjoy msnbc. my favorite sport is ping-pong. i think that says a lot. why do you watch those two channels? caller: i want to see how both sides think and how

their logic works. i was raised by a conservative democrat. i am an independent now. i like to vote for the best candidate. host: go ahead with your question. i liked the 2008 election when obama got elected. the impact it had on the republicans. i do have to hold both fox news and msnbc responsible for this. he made the winner of the , obaman -- all i saw was and oprah for 20 minutes. , what do they look like at this moment? i think we got a lot of information there. guest: opera is a celebrity.

tv next toon somebody nex somebody who just got elected, we don't see somebody with that level of celebrity be in the proximity of a president. anything particular to their race or anything. it's because she is a celebrity and celebrities get attention. justin bieber, everybody. many people are out there that watch both fox and msnbc? whatr: they want to hear the other side has to say. so more than you think. before i worked at msnbc, i feel like what is happening sometimes -- notervative media

a lot of it is hammering home a very singular message and doing it in every one of their media. it's a very consistent, repetitive message. i think that is one of the things that tops the conversation. we no longer agree on a set of facts. you can cherry pick the facts that make you feel good. for a lot of people that the , a certaintering to core group, there is a certain sense of victimization that is being fed all day and all of the media whether you are reading it online or listening to it on the radio or watching the television.

it is designed to provoke a certain response. it's effective. negates any type of debate. you can't engage in a debate if someone will not agree with you that there are a certain set of objective facts. that is a negative thing about the polarization of our media. maybe more people should watch it all so they can get some alternative facts. letou're not willing to those facts penetrate, if you just believe anything that is said by anyone who's a democrat, i'm not sure how we fix the polarization. host: some people would argue that they feel the same way about msnbc on the other side of again, i. guest: worked there, so i don't think it's the same. there isn't -- roger is a political operative and was a longtime political operative. not an equivalent of

him in any other network. a crafter of clinical narrative now running a news organization. they do a good job of what they're doing. they are excellent at what they are tasked to do. there are journalists over there who are attempting to do good work. i just think it's different. a couple of twitter responses to the hillary clinton question. this is dan saying, "elizabeth warren could come out of nowhere ." pegues says, "john kerry has much appeal for the democrats." caller from wisconsin on our democrats line. caller: i would like to start by saying, i'm a white male that gets it. part of that 35% that they talked about the other day that voted for the president. that's where i fall.

you are doing a heckuva job. keep up the good work. guest: thank you. host: we will move on to sam in kentucky. republican line. caller: hi. i'm watching you all on television. msnbc turns me off. i'm a registered republican and war ondown here in the poverty. you come down here and you look at this county and it's run by all republicans. voteoor people down here for them because they all work in the coal mines. there is one man who runs the county. we have to go 23 miles to a hospital. we go 80 miles to another hospital. we have nothing in this county. the poor schools don't have no books or anything. they want to talk about poverty. how in the world are kids going to learn anything if they can't get what they need? it burns me that the republicans

are doing what they do. l sorry for obama because they down him every time they turn around. mitch mcconnell has never been in this county. everybody votes for that cool. same thing with rand paul. foolerybody votes for that . it bothers me that the people down here and a lot of people in the united states do not see what the republican party is all about. that breaks my heart when i hear the stories. you just got to the heart of one of the real dangers of absolute political polarization. people almost have their political parties like a religion.

they are voting because this is my ideology and i am with this group of people. but i never hold them accountable for what they are delivering to me. are publicians servants. they work for us. when we are only demanding of our politicians that they deliver us the ideology and say the words and deliver enough vitriol words the other party and show they hate the other party more than anyone else and they appeal to our ideology rather than deliver us some substance, it's tragic. i look at the situation with water. 300,000 americans of the sins not able to give their kids a 300,000 lemonade -- american citizens not able to give their kids a glass of lemonade. they are denied the basic

.ustenance of life that's wrong. i'm hoping that eventually people will start voting their absolute interests. vote your economic interests. it's not about ideology or someone appealing to your religious morality. vote for people who deliver to taxthe substance that your dollars have paid for. that's so important. it's the reason you cannot and will not bow to rise medicare because elderly citizens say, no, you will protected. you need to do the same with their basic living. hearing the stories is incredibly tragic. host: this tweet -- "i just don't like the opinion format channelsdominates news . i miss old, straight news." that. i hear

when i was a kid growing up, we were watching dan rather or the news. those networks still exist. you still have broadcast news. i think people understand nowadays that everybody has a point of view. i don't think people hold it against great news anchors for knowing that they have a point of view. i understand how people feel that these -- we have taken what the national conversation and turn them into 1000 little conversations. i don't think that is good for the culture. it is what it is. you have a tremendous democratization of information. you can form your own reality. it is difficult and hard to navigate. it's hard for news organizations, two. they struggle with it as well.

host: next call comes from charles on our independent line. you, c-span. congratulations on your new show. you are a breath of fresh air. i love your balanced approach to educating the public. great job. thisestion relative to conference going on with the undertone of libertarianism, is with the goalat to destroy a strong centralized government that several things are at play? one is not being in position to bail out the banks or the industry that we saw in 2008. ,econdly, if that does happened we have seen a significant rise of inequality of the middle class and the lower class.

such ase look at secretary rice's video for couldlity for all, they be educated on the facts. the statistical facts and draw a clear picture of what is truth and what is fiction and what is hyperbole and what's not. is, do youuestion have an opinion on the move that is underway to provide a constitutional amendment to change the current law that says that corporations are people and that money is speech? thank you for your time. guest: there is a lot packed and there. worst things that has bodyned to the american politic's is this notion of corporate personhood. libertarianism -- iran said

riod was theal pe late 19th century. wereu think about who we in the 19th century, this was the era of pure laissez-faire capitalism with no unions, no worker protection, no child labor laws, no minimum wage. the idea that if you are rich, theare essentially more in superior because you have shown that your pluck your and smarter and better. therefore, you will make the right decisions for everybody else. that's not what america has been for 100 years. the 20th century was a triumph for the american middle class because when workers got parity and you had unions able to argue for a living wage and 40 hour , you had the bulge. when people were able to afford their refrigerators, there were reasons to make the

refrigerators and cars. we came to be economically .ecause of a strong consumer a strong middle class. our gdp is overwhelmingly made up of consumer spending. we have to make sure that there are some parity for workers. now we have ceos making 400 times what their average employee makes. employees have lost incredible power. now the ceos are supposed to improve shareholder values. fealty betweene that ceo and the person who works for them. restoring that is going to be difficult because we have really gone so far in the other direction. between corporate personhood, stock options for ceos rather than getting paid in real money. it's hard to put that genie back in the bottle. if we don't, we will see inequality continue to rise and we will race back towards the 19th century. that's not where we want to be. joy is onto something.

jp creates fact. last month, obama was a dictator. this week, he is weak. -- "howtweet from diana often have you or anyone on and the president it istable?" guest: fascinating that on one day he is weaker and on the other day he is a dictator. those can't be true at the same time. esteem foreen this putin. when the irs thing happened, it was covered extensively on msnbc until it was debunked. people pay attention -- if you look at our network alone, the

rollout of the affordable care act, i think the white house would find that to be withering. it was relentless and negative. nobody was cheerleading the rollout of the affordable care act. before i was at msnbc, i was writing columns that were quite negative on the idea of adopting the public option and not sure that would make the bill go through without it. having universal health care is better than none. if you look at the coverage and are specifically talking about us, go back to october of last year and look at the entire rest of that year. i don't think you would find that to be cheerleading. host: henry calling in from michigan on our democrats line. caller: good morning, joy. msnbc has really done a

fantastic thing by giving you your show. i will watch it as much as i possibly can. i think you are wonderful, intelligent and beautiful. i will make three points. , there was a keeneok post when david was speaking talking about the outreach. and saidngue in cheek it was standing room only at the cpac conference for the outreach thing. david keene seized on that to make it seem like it was standing room only. we saw pictures last night on msnbc that there was nobody there. as long as republicans are the party of ted nugent, who called lhe president a subhuman mongre and people like bill o'reilly,

we will not have any outreach with the republican party. i would like for you to put into context two things for me. the first thing is, can you explain to the people how red states are seeming to do so much better and how the government subsidies in the states that have fewer population than figure into that? the second thing i would like for you to put into context is the lie of the year where president obama said that if you like your health care and your doctor you can keep it. how insurance companies will were actually responsible for making the president look like you like. host: thank you very much. guest: the idea of anybody who wants be credible palling around

with the likes of ted nugent, i found that astounding. the conservative movement would do very well to walk away from some of the extreme talkers. the people who say really ugly things because they don't help you run your base. makes you sound angry and mean and ugly. it's not a good idea if you want to broaden your base. number two, i think the caller -- let's go tout the third thing. that was an unfortunate way of -- 85%that if you have of people already have insurance. nothing in the afford bullet -- nothings caused in the affordable care act has caused you to lose your plan.

for the five percent of people who buy the individual market, much of that was very cut-rate insurance. it was bargain-basement. if you went to the er, you would pay most of that bill. your doctor will was so huge, you could still wind up in bankruptcy because you would be paying your deductible. illegalans are now under the law. your insurance company needs to offer you a legal plan. it means you get the new plan offered to you and if you don't want income, you can go on exchange. that's a very coupled to the thing to explain. complicatedvery thing to explain. host: subsidies going to the red states more than the blue states. guest: oh. that is important. he said red states are doing better. that is not true. the 10 poorest states, the only

blue state that winds up is new mexico. other than that, you're talking t mississippi, alabama, louisiana. tremendous poverty. the mosthe states with in short people are in new england. so what is happening is you have red and blue america different in terms of the economy and a lower wage economy in the south. there's a lot of job creation because of the guarantee of lower wages. factories will relocate in this out because they don't have to worry about unions. you are seeing that movement the wage, lower tax day. what you have is tremendous poverty. what happens is that the blue andes in new york california and massachusetts wind up being donor states. new york pays more in federal

taxes than they get back from the federal government where is louisiana and mississippi get back considerably more in federal tax money than they pay in. so they are essentially the recipient states. if you want to talk about who is on the dual, it is those red states because they have oil and other things. you do have this weird thing the test states that the federal government actually rely more on the federal government. it's one of those ironies of our politics. from missouri. republican line. caller: hello. said and been so much i would like to debate all of it. inill say that the bias mainstream media is so much against republicans.

it's really awful. chris matthews and al sharpton -- this thing with chris christie, the people on msnbc and other mainstream media have absolutely ruined batman over a over that situation man and we still don't know who screwed up benghazi because those people have begged for assistance for months before they were murdered. some of the people of guarding them were sent away in august before this happened. the government was told that al qaeda was flying flags. what would you like her to respond to? caller: i would like her to respond to the bias.

just to start from the last. that whole soliloquy on benghazi -- there was reams of data -- reports that have gone through exhaustive detail in what happened. all those things that you just heard which are repeated over and over on right wing radio, those are not facts, ma'am. it's really important that we start to get to an objective fact. none of that is what you just said. any of the reports that have been done for the federal government come you can read them. they are all online. what happened was quite simple. you had on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack, pockets of uprisings. pockets of protests. some of which in other parts of libya and egypt had to do with that video. that video that was made that

offended parts of the muslim world. the thought was the benghazi whoation more into people attacked our embassies. all these fantasies about hillary clinton operating drones -- those are not facts. those are things that right-wing radio used to get you started up. look at the real dar narrative of what happened. as far as bias against republican women, i don't know what she's talking about. she has to give me some specific examples. -- he saying because host: sylvia's calling from roque and arrow, oklahoma on our independent line. broken arrow, oklahoma.

calling from broken arrow, oklahoma. caller: i'm so glad to be on the show again. it has been a wild. joy, i have three questions for you. see a blessing it is to lord to takeof the this form. my heart and soul goes out to joy to bless you. to keep up the good work and the good fight of faith. there are so many individuals -- i want to hear the three questions. bring theu going to two platforms, the democrats and the republicans, together? to come to one issue. jobless rates. how are they going to help the

veterans of our united states of america, which my firstborn son is still active duty? i'm a military mom. bring this to a close. --ler: the next question is i will start watching msnbc if your face is there. come to oklahoma? host: thank you very much. guest: i would love to come to tulsa. there are certain issues that unite everyone. an economy in which everyone can find a job and feed their family without having to work two or doing the

backbreaking work. they deserve to have a living wage. we should all be able to agree on that. polls show that most americans do agree that it's only fair that people who work hard get a decent wage. i don't think that is ideological. republicans and democrats can agree. we should all agree that we all deserve to breathe free, clean air and have clean water so our kids can have a glass of water. i look at west virginia and say, this is not a republican or democrat issue. aren't care if these people 100% republican. they deserve a clean glass of water for their kids. we all agree on that. whether or not your state is a red or blue state, your citizens deserve to have the basics. that is something that i really hope we can all agree on. we will debate how we get there. let's agree that we all respect the presidency and respect one

another's right to have an opinion and debate how we get to a common place where we are living a decent life. i think that's not too much to ask. host: a couple mins left with joy reid. andy in georgia. caller: good morning. i want to say thank you so much and i'm so proud of you and so proud of the position for you at msnbc. i have two points. president clinton said a long time ago -- talking about republicans will fight when they are right or wrong. democrats will not fight when they are right and they won't fight when they're wrong. i'm from georgia and i'm hoping that we will send a new representative for my district

to take hank johnson's place. they did not happen in the council. three years ago, when the republicans started to make statements -- i'm upset with the clintonl -- said, we won't even fight when we are right. all kinds of untruths and they will stay with it. the democrats have facts. like the health care program, they have facts right in front of them and they say -- i hope this is hank johnson's last term. let me just say one thing. not all democrats lack the fight. elijah cummings most definitely has a lot of fight in him.

the chairman on that committee has attempted to put out cherry picked parts of transcripts and he has said, no, we will put the whole transcript out. chairwoman of the caucus, they sent onl a letter to banner removedg that he be because of his shabby treatment. boehner.er to he was not allowed to say one word in his opening statement. off.d his mic cut it was incredibly shabby treatment. they not only sent that letter to the speaker. then attempted to bring to the floor and motion asking for him to be removed or at least sanctioned.

it was gaveled down by the republican majority. there was some fight there on that issue. i think democrats do fight overrules more than republicans do. republicans tend to fight in a different way. democrats don't have that same mentality. democrats like it that way. i'm not necessarily completely disagreeing with you on the level and nature of the fight. democrats need to learn to fight harder because republicans like politics to win. if democrats want to be competitive in midterms, they better play hardball and get their voters out. that is the key. get your voters trained to vote in every election. in local elections. those judges putting your kids behind bars. boards deciding whether your kids will learn

creationism or intelligent design versus learning science of how human beings came to be. those local officials that are ordinances that you live by everyday. host: last call for joy reid from james on the republican line. first off, i am a republican. second off, i'm not racist. third off, this has nothing to do with black caucus. this has to do with my health care. i am 47 years old. i've been deemed terminal for the last six years. since obama started the affordable care act, my medications have tripled. i can even get the medications that i need to hold back the pain. i have documentation to prove this. how can i go about showing

people that obama care is not bad, but when it comes to helping people who are terminal such as myself, are medications have doubled and tripled? let me ask you a question. your medication has doubled and tripled since when? caller: since january 1. guest: the president has tripled th? caller: yes. the vicodin's are used to take for my lung cancer to help with the pain, they don't even make more.any i have to get to re-scripts because of the obama care. guest: the affordable care act does not mandate what drugs are manufactured. one of the laws in the affordable care act is that it does not mandate -- the drug companies are les

untouched. it's not the reason your drug company does not make the drugs the company makes. anything the insurance company's or the drug companies do is put under the affordable care act. do you buy it in the market or from your employer. caller: i have medicaid. i have social security. guest: so you're health care is coming through medicaid? caller: yes. guest: the affordable care act is not the reason for your problems. the only thing that the affordable care act test if medicaid is if you previously did not qualify for medicaid because you made a little too much money, you can now access medicaid. medicaid is a standalone program that is not changed by the affordable care act of all. the only thing the formal character did to medicaid was to expand it so more people could get it. there are federal programs. if your drug companies are

ratcheting up the prices over prescription drugs, you may have reason to file a complaint. you need to start talking in there are because agencies that oversee these programs. your problem is not the affordable care act. your problem is your drug company. you should definitely file a complaint. the " reid report." joy reid is >> as the conservative clinical action continues tomorrow, we are joined by ralph reed for a discussion on the role of religion in the republican party. also paul singer who says the house x committee -- and

committee.- ethics privacyalso look at rights. cpac tomorrow. we will hear from newt gingrich, palin ater, and sarah 12:40 eastern on c-span. >> suffice it to say most of health policy really is not health policy at all. it is essentially budget policy. -- andthey'll congress so that congress just docs on so many of the big issues and ends up putting together something that in the parlance of washington might be called a patch. maybe it is an extension. maybe it is called a stock that

stopgap.a but it docs the big issues. on medicare, we have 10,000 people eligible for medicare every day. there is a very real cost attached with that. so now the challenge is to try to find a way to move beyond budgeting.ion on indicated we have do not get at the structural kinds of issues. and move beyond this lurch from one kind of budget calamity to another and come up with some sensible budget policy. wyden oneekend, ron the challenges facing medicare and hospitals, saturday morning at 10:00 eastern. then the historical and cultural ties between russia and ukraine, sunday at 5:45 on c-span2.

on american history tv, the grounds and architecture of mount vernon. sunday night at 8:00. >> new unemployment number's out today. the economy added 175,000 jobs last month. the unemployment rate was up to 6.7%. reaction from leadership. a statement issuing saying while it is good news that more americans found work last month, there are still far too many asking the jobs? they have been waiting for more than five years from an answer from this president. the second ranking house democrat says with 100 62,000 private sector jobs created in february, or must be done to add jobs at the pace we need in order to put all those who are still seeking employment back to work. c-span, public affairs events

from washington to you, looking you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, conferences, and offering coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. we are created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and funder by your local cable or satellite provider. weekend, crimea will hold a referendum on leaving ukraine and becoming part of russia. today in washington the brookings institution discussion on developed in ukraine. we will hear from several analysts and a former ambassador. this is 90 minutes.

>> thanks for coming. hello to the c-span viewers. fiona had trouble getting into her own event. among the discriminant is whether there has been an invasion of ukraine, who the president of ukraine is, whether there have been mass attacks on synagogues and churches in ukraine, and whether hundreds of thousands of people have fled ukraine, causing a humanitarian crisis. these are facts in dispute.

we can hopefully bring some clarity to those and other issues. we have a tremendous panel to do that with here today. i think perhaps not all of perspectives in those facts will be represented, but i think we can shed some clarity on them. ll, thewe have fiona hi director of the center of the united states on europe and my boss, so please be nice to her. she is a former national intelligence officer for eurasia and the offer of "mr. putin, operative in the kremlin," which i think everybody here should read and memorize because it might come in very useful. on the left we have stephen piper, a former ambassador to the ukraine and assistant

secretary at the state department, form.eer. michael o'hanlon, author of more books than i have read, and an analyst of all these types of crises. let take it right off, and, fiona, let's start with you, and i wonder if you can give us some sense of what are the russians and particularly your man vladimir putin doing in ukraine and what are they trying to calm push? situation a complex on the ground in crimea and ukraine. is theseevidence conflicting reports and views about this. this is a culmination of the collapseears since the of the soviet union for russia. there has been a long established russian interest in you crimea -- in crimea. fairly --ack to the

to the early 1990's, at the time when steve was one of our investors in ukraine, or have been a whole host of claims by the russian federation, including under present force yeltsin, about sovereignty over crimea. crimea is the one that got away in the post soviet collapse for russia. it was transferred, as all of khrushchevn 1954 by from the jurisdiction of the russian federation to ukraine. there is a great deal of discussion about the historical links between crimea and russia going back to catherine the great and the consolidation of the role of the , which is are different point under the sovereignty and of the protection of the ottoman empire. we are going back a long time in

history. crimea waslong time, under the jurisdiction of russia in the form it was known today, the russian federation, taking up from one that russian entity within the russian empire. in many respects, there has been a great desire for the restoration of this bureaucratic staff that khrushchev made in the 1950's to bring crimea back. there have been talking points about this. we have the parliament over and over again actually signing resolutions and bills about ukraine. you might remember after his points vladimir putin in one of was off on an annual rally in crimea. ground are seeing on the is not much of a surprise. many of us who have been

watching this over the 20 years, there were always times of great crisis inside ukraine when the claims about crimea, the assertion of the different interests of the crimean population, the russian speakers, has reasserted themselves. in the 1990's, after the orange revolution in 2004, entries points when ukraine appealed for membership in nato, back in 2008, which is the same time as georgia made the request and ended up in a war, crimea is consultative. as we get on with the discussions we should ring this out. thes the case that many of population in crimea are russian speaking, but it is not always the case that everybody in the room to let things they should be part of russia. a recent poll that came out of the crimea was carried out by sociologist just before the russian movement suggested that

41% of the population at that particular point were interested in some form of unification with russia. that is not a clear majority. iranian -- crimea is the residents of the whole -- residence of a whole host of different peoples, particularly russians, and the crimean tartas. many of you have heard about them in the last several weeks and days. about 50% of the population. you have to be careful about these percentages. rs weremean tarta deported by stalin during world war ii, because of the prevailing soviet fears of minority groups being influenced thing -- being influenced from the outside. perhaps in fact there was a question of crimean linkages to

the soviet union. be returnedlowed to after the collapse of the soviet union. are not favorable members of their incarceration into the soviet union. another group with a different view of how the crimea should evolve. a combo kit isis situation. we have been dealing with the situation behind the scenes and sometimes in public for the past 20 years. what has happened on the ground is not that much of a surprise. in fact we are dealing with another question about the future disposition and governance of ukraine itself. >> thanks. does that imply from the perspective of the russians that

they are not questioning the rest of ukraine and not likely to move further into ukraine? >> i see the situation similar to turkey in 1974 and cyprus. looking around i see a lot of people might remember it. i remember it at the time, but in 1974, there were a lot of turks in cyprus. the greek cypriot community in cyprus voted in favor of right of greece.on this triggered violence and triggered a response by turkey in defense of the greekh-speaking creek -- cypriot community. what the turks did is moved the on not just the turkish community and took actually asies, which were not seen we are of the turkish community.

they used it as a bargaining chip. for the next several years, everyone was arguing what was going to happen about that city. i see what we are seeing today about all the questions about cities in ukraine, cities with large russian-speaking populations, when in fact the polling shows they are not all interested in the part of russia is similar, that the russians are diverging us by the questions about the cities and other places when the actual fact, the real concern is about crimea. also about having leverage cause as turkey wanted in the case of want inbout what they crimea in the future. us was crossed, although they did not say that explicitly, when we got into a situation on the overthrow of chemical which -- of

yanukovych. the ukrainian seeing this effort and what are they trying to do in response? acting prime the minister, or the acting president, you need to ask yourself, why did i take this you have a really long to do list. a lot of it is going to be internal. a big part of what the russians are doing is to try to destabilize the new government, which everybody in the government is talking about a want to sign the association agreement with the european union and vladimir putin does not want that to happen. a large part of this has been, what today ido they do interna? they have to fill out the cabin et?

they got to make the trains run on time. they got to prepare for free elections in may, because right now the acting president, as a result of perfectly result of legitimate problem and treat procedures, he will not have the legitimacy of someone who wins elections. getting legitimacy is important. they are beginning to appoint governors. there is a little bit of an interesting question. they're beginning to go to some of the oligarchs who they think will have influence and appoint and that in places maybe a two edged sword, because in maidan, they said we were trying to separate government and business. this is not the model we like. they got to be careful how they managed that. there is already a monetary fund team in kiev. they are having those discussions. what they are going to have to work is an agreement which provides assistance in return for which ukraine commits to

circuit economic reforms which are really going to hurt. i think the one good sign that the people in charge recognize how hard this is going to be is the acting prime minister about a week ago said i am heading a common cause of cabinet ministers, because what we're going to have to do to turn the economy down will be so painful physically that we are all going to drive our political standing into the ground. and so they have got to manage that. a third challenge is to not do anything dumb. it was unwise for the parliament in its first a after yanukovych fled the country to try to overturn the 2010 language log. you can debate that language law, but moving right away cost a bit of concern on the part of russian speakers, and this is what is coming to us. it is wise i think of the acting president to veto that.

this government wants to be inclusive, it wants to make sure that eastern ukraine feels comfortable with it. another thing that has to do is do not talk about, when you talk about europe, do not talk about nato. i saw that someone was going to propose a hill about nato access ion. that is the kind of thing that will provoke internal divisions in ukraine that they do not need. turning to the external challenges, how do they deal with crimea? i think government in kiev will proceed in the starting point, that crimea is that part of ukraine. there's this, gated history, but the agreement that was ignited by all the pro-soviet state in 1991 was that when the soviet union collapsed each republic is a republic in the context of its current borders, and crimea at this point was the part of the ukrainian soviet socialist republic. that will be their starting point.

the problem for all of its flaws, boris yeltsin basically accepted that. when time in the 1990's you had the russian parliament passed some laws that said ukrainians had sevastopol, yeltsin said the right thing, we respect ukraine's territorial integrity. the problem ukraine has now is vladimir putin is present -- is present and he does not believe that. the tools that ukraine has is limited. it is important they deal with crimea what they have done last week, which is to keep their military restraint. it has been very commendable, and there are probably about 12,000 troops on the crimean peninsula, they stayed on bases, they have not challenged the russians, they have been several cases where the russians have tried to provoke them and they have not responded. that is important. second point of looking out is

-- let me say one must comment about the situation in crimea where i think it is little bit less tense in military terms than it was a couple of days ago. it is worrisome. russia and ukraine right now are one nervous 20-year-old soldier's mistake away from something very bad happening that could spin out of control. and there needs to be some action. there needs to be some kind of the escalation. standingys with guns across from each other is not a good idea. the second think they are going to have to deal with was the decision taken yesterday to vote to join russia, although it is interesting there are reports -- 78-0 -- there are now members of the parliament who said they were not told of the vote or they were denied entry into the building so they could not cast a negative vote.

the acting president has already declared the referendum illegal in traditionally -- in addition to decreeing it illegal. they will try to delegitimize it. that kind of referendum is against ukrainian law. two, one of our colleagues reported she has seen the report that 2.2 million dollars are being printed for the referendum , which is an interesting number because crimea only has 1.8 million residents. that will raise questions. the russians so far have refused observerssce and u.n. on to the crimea peninsula. it is not clear the ukrainians have the tools to basically stop this. governmentrainian needs to do is keep pushing to say they are prepared to talk. so far the russian attitude is there is no legitimate government in kiev. recognizehey still

viktor yanukovych as president. he gave a tv interview about two weeks ago. week ago.n briefly a i do not think anybody knows where he is. hisink president clinton in press conference -- president putin in his press conference in tuesday saying this guy has no political future. ukraine's have to push to see if they get some kind of dialogue going. the result indication that the to and that maybe there can be an economic dialogue and try to broaden that out. challenges forig a cabinet that is about eight a's old now, and it is going to take some -- is going to face some tests in the next months. >> a tough job. clarify, when i listen to your strategy can ukrainian strategy on crimea, i am not clear as to whether it represents an actual attempt to hold onto crimea or just an attempt to have a soft landing

while they lose it. >> i think they are going to push to hold on to it. this is i think from the ukrainian point of view it is not just about crimea. because the complexity of crimea, 60% of the population of crimea is ethnic russian. in 1991, although, 54% of that population voted for independence from the soviet -- forindependent from -- independence for the crimean state. the tartars are going to book caught -- are going to boycott the referendum. i think they would be asking themselves if we just accept set a's departure, do we precedent which the russians might try to apply in places like other cities and pull off a bit of that in eastern ukraine as well. >> thanks.

is a comic situation, just the type that the united states is typically very good at entering. what do you see their response should be? thanks, jeremy, thank you for being part of this panel. i will say couple of things to frame the discussion. one is i do not feel like president obama should be influenced by the broader political debate we are having here about whether somehow it is uncertainty in other parts of the world has provoked this. the answer is probably not. i think he has done some fairly robust things that are underappreciated he want -- he may want to talk about it himself. he is trying to hold up the defense budget. he is still on his work to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon on his watch, and we still have 35,000 troops in afghanistan. he may want to say that more. he may want to think about

fixing some of the policies where i think we are not doing as well, such as in syria. i do not feel like he should worry and i do not think he is all that inclined to worry that this broader cacophony of chris's him about his supposedly policy u -- bad foreign needs to change how he reacts to the ukraine. second, thinking about what specific small military options we may have, not directly in relation to ukraine, but as i think about the full taxonomy of things, we have a lot of nato allies, and i know we are doing something stomachs of them less word. initional technical aircraft the baltic states than we normally would have had. a half-dozen more than we normally might have sent on a recent rotation to one of the baltic states. that is the sort of thing we should be prepared to do them a because there should be no doubt about a commitment to any nato allies, even for those of us who

ethical of nato enlargement. we got to hold from buy where we have extended our alliance. secondly, if russia were to launch some kind of a general and blatant assault against ukraine, i think the talk of helping ukraine's military with assistance should be seriously considered. i was reviewing ukraine's military budget, only $2.5 billion a year. russia's is $70 billion year. there is a twentysomething one disparity in the spending levels and an eight to one disparity in size. i do not adjust we should try to encourage a fair fight and it was a better to try to defuse it at any point along the potential as latter. it is reasonable and appropriate for us to think about how we might you help ukraine's military, at least protects certain parts of the country, which it comes to that. i would say i do not agree with an american i admire greatly

recently wrote that one of the steps we ought to take is to get nato's rapid reaction force in early stages of preparation to do something. he did not say what we should do. he suggested it was worth making the russians were a little bit. i do not agree. i do not agree with the idea of invoking direct in -- direct american suggest as a direct action in the crisis. putin won't recognize them as symbolic and primarily a blcock. i would hope they are that. there should not be any missions we want to carry out even if things get worse than they are at the month. that leaves me with one more point on the military option front. there's a lot to talk about with the issue of nato and nato enlargement and ukraine's potential future role. i would like to see us reaffirm our commitment to ukraine's well-being in other ways, reaffirmation of earlier

commitments, some of which steve worked on 20 years ago, and make a trend we are prepared to use economic sanctions if this gets worse. henry kissinger had a good op-ed yesterday use adjusted that we may need to think about offering to put in as we ask them to acknowledge that he is the bad guy here, which he is. i am not trying to suggest we try to cover or apologize for putin. he may need to think about ways we need to offer little face-saving. ofefinite postponement ukrainian membership in nato would be a reasonable thing to look on the table in the context. turning to where we need to be prepared to be tough, and i will finish on this. if let's say things stay as they are, there's a referendum on secession in a week and russia chooses to go along with that, the problem i have a that is it is way too soon. i am not necessarily against a discussion personally of whether crimea should be independent, part of russia, but it has to be

after emperors and tensions and fears have called. putin asked to raise kosovo as a president. -- precedent. at least we let things calm down. that is the sort of proposal you need here, a referendum after a year or two or three if there is ever going to be one. if things were to stay as they are, you need to apply sanctions that are hurtful to the russian elite. i do not suggest broad-based sanctions based on this annexation of premier. i am not suggesting we go after their energy sector. i think putin and his cronies need to have these targeted sanctions on their travel put in place and stay in place, for y ears, and we need to find some way to send a message. i would effect russia from the g-8, and boycotting sochi is not enough. we got to make this a lasting penalty in the event that putin

covers crimea under the of this referendum. i would suggest strong measures. we saw a large-scale war in ukraine, that is where we got to come down like a ton of bricks economically. it may be worth raising the prospect now, but i would not go there just yet. i would not go over the this referendum necessarily. that is an overview on the tools we have and might take on which ones we might want to invoke at whichever stages. >> thanks. think about how russia and putin would react to some of those steps, we have to understand what position putin is coming from in taking these measures. there is in some of the

commentary around town a notion represents russian weakness rather than russian strength, that this invasion demonstrates that he could not pull ukraine into a russian means andugh other that it guarantees that whether or is left of ukraine after he is done will move to the west, maybe not to nato, but at least to the eu accession agreement that he was trying to avoid. what do we think of these arguments, and what do they tell us about how putin might react to some of the measures that mike outlined? >> we have to be careful about categorizing something as a sign of weakness or a strength, especially in an incident like this. we have seen this from the united states perspective. obama being blamed for being weak and an itsy care of this

as well. we know the situation is much more complex and much more difficult than that and we cannot make these distinctions on any front. what putin is doing is taking advantage of a moment of weakness when he perhaps at home right now this moment sees himself in a position of strength. as we look at what has been happening in russia over the weeks leading up to the crisis in ukraine, which i do not think anyone would have predicted to have evolved in the way it has, they just finished a successful olympic games. all of us trust those olympic games. it was more than rummy going into london and saying you are not ready. respects it was a great success.

twicessian minimalists, as many as were in vancouver. the reserve structural disasters, no pieces of something falling on someone's head. the only problem was with the weather. he should've had our weather. instead, washington, d.c., got the snow. the point is he has got a huge bump at home in his popularity from this. putin's popularity is on something -- was on something of a downward trajectory in the months leading to sochi. in november last year he hit his low point. as putin is the only game in town politically in russia, he is running against his past self. in the past he has had approval ratings in the 80's.

there was a 20 point drop from the past. he is 70% as a result of socha. now what is happening in ukraine has taken hold in wretched -- in russia. i have also demonstrate this. not autin has been .2 is disaster. this is chaos. this is nationalistic extremists from the streets come out of control with no leisure. overturned the lives of government. this is the result of mismanagement on the part of yanukovych. putin has been very critical of yanukovych. home -- at home has been the person who turned russia run from the 1990's, who presided into his second decade of stability. he has pointed to her credit saying, this is what you get if you mismanaged the system. kind ofbasically this

uprising, this kind of what russians call a -- something without any kind of purpose. --s is to do a all of the stories that we are now arguing about, the pictures of what is happening on the ground are meaningless because our part of the argument is not getting out there in the russian media. this is a one-sided depiction. putin right now is operating from a position of strength. it may be limited. bump inw while he has a his ratings, he is in a position of comparative strength. he is doing this for his political base at home. as i mentioned, the issue of crimea, even if yeltsin might have locked the parliament at

different points, has been a popular symbol of basically russian perestroika. it is something that should've been part of russia. it is also people, russian speakers. and russian speakers have been left all away around the borders of the russian federation. kazakhstan and the baltic states are feeling nervous about this years,e in the past two there have been a lot of questions about russian about their fate and their disposition. this is really about the post soviet collapse. it is the kind of thing that in inrits have engaged the falklands in the 1980's. the french in algeria. this is a post-imperial hangover, but also people in

russia have felt badly about this. this places very well at home. apart -- if it falls weakness will come if it falls apart. lots of russian territory that was not its territory today. [indiscernible] mongolia, huge swaths of the far east, and i lines -- an island, or the territories of japan. not as weak as he looks, and and we should be very careful. fiona just reminded us, what enables this is the lack of good governance in

ukraine. they have had over the past 20 years a unique system of alternating plutocracies. i am wondering since it has been so critical for what they are losing right now and since we have always had the view here i believe that ukraine is at the end of the day a nationalist country, very jealous of its sovereignty, will this seminal event, will this invasion, will this potential loss of crimea change that system, that moving forward will they be able to unite east and west with whatever is left? >> a big question here is going to turn on how competent is this current government. is it able to be inclusive? they did not get off to a good that if you look at the cabinet ministers, there is no one in the cabinet that says speak eastern ukraine.

it is not for a lack of trying, because they offer positions to couple members of the party allegiance. that is yanukovych's old party. they turned the job down. smart political adulation. the prime minister calls this a chemical has he cabinet. a, causing cabinet. they have that challenges of showing they can manage things in a competent way, and more open and transparent way, they have got to avoid the habits of the past. it has got to be different under what it did under the previous presidents. there are going to be challenges coming from russia. the russians will test. there is this phenomenon in eastern ukraine where the ey protest

tourist. this is a model that we probably saw in crimea a week ago. the times i visited crimea you did not get a sense of huge ethnic tensions between the ethnic russians and the ethnic ukrainians and the crimean tartars. tartars were unhappy because they were trying to recover land. real was not a sense of friction. we went from that point the crimean parliament calling for joining russia in a referendum because there were some effort to push back and encourage that. my yes is if russia had not wanted that to happen it would not have happened. we may see some of that plane that in eastern ukraine and that will be a challenge. it is important remember that crimea is the only part of ukraine where ethnic russians are a majority. in eastern ukraine, all their

there may be more russian language speakers, from only 45% of the country uses russian as their first language, but everywhere else in eastern ukraine can ethnic ukrainians constitute the majority. some we use this as eastern versus western ukraine. i guess is that the station has blurred a lot in the last 20 years. even at the end of the 1990's, when i traveled in eastern ukraine, i got the sense there was a sense of national identity. it was not as deep as it was out in the west. you still had this sense in eastern ukraine they saw themselves as ukrainians, and that is important to bear in mind. we willr point i think see when the polling goes, i wonder how this action by the russians, which certainly in eastern ukraine, they are getting one of you for those who are watching russian television. vladimir putin and foreign

minister lavrov and the defense minister has said these guys, they are not russian troops. mr. putin in his press conference said these are local militias. if you have seen any of the films, there's a lot of video, they do not look like they are ragtag local militias. it is a very professional force. elle trained. -- -- well trained. they are wearing russian combat fatigues, and they say there are the stores where you can get these kinds of uniforms. and reporters did not have the sense to ask the question, can you get russian jeeps at the because these are all over crimea as well. the question is going to be how do ukrainians at this? my guess is support for drying closer to the european union, which by some polls in the fall up to 50%, that may

go up. my guess is even in eastern ukraine where they are likely uncomfortable with what happened in kiev, how the government and how chemical which left, that crimea is a bigger shock, and that may have an unintended consequence. the lasthy i get to point, they have to be careful how they handle nato. i hear what mike is saying and i would disagree a little bit. my guess is over the next in years you're not going to see ukraine seriously consider joining nato. you hurt somebody in testifying -- you hurt somebody testifying in congress in 2008 that they have checked off all the boxes. even when you had a president there, very pro-nato government, the popular support for joining 8%.ure never got above 2

nato is never going to seriously consider a country for membership when you bring in a country with a population that is not operable with that. it is ethical to see that changing. on one sense if the russians are to be a sure that there's not a realistic prospect next five to 10 years of ukraine joining nato. the problem is there is no way that the united states government and nato can or should say to the russians we are not going to take it in. that is the hard part. there is a reality they will not be there, but with the open door and all of the statements they have made since then they would tellry hard for nato to the russians, ukraine is off the board, even that may reflect where things are de facto. like you toould respond that a little bit, but also to step back and think about and let us have a sense of what you think the administration's long-term vision for ukraine and for this crisis is.

do they see it in the way that steve just presented, or do they have an alternative view? >> first of all, and i learned a no from steve, and i have doubt about his reading of ukrainian politics or the commitment too's ukraine and keeping alive the option of potential nato membership. i realize it is now hard to walk that back, and it might seem like too much of a concession or appeasement of food and. i guess however i think we got to the point where we had to find some way to address this russian peasant impasse in an otherwise potentially successful negotiation, you might be if able to find cover language. you can say you cannot imagine seeing ukraine joining nato undercurrent circumstances and there would have to be a broader shift in the security environment in europe, maybe the -nato thatf a supra russia could be a part as well,

but you could basically keep alive the option of ukrainian membership in the long term under different circumstances without rolling it out, but making clear to russia that there is going to be more of a delay than just a five or 10 years that steve talked about as all they can take to the bank now. we got to the point where we had to find some creative wording, i would encourage us to find that creative wording rather than reduce it to yes or no, is it an option or not. in terms of america's long-term interests here, and i want to turn the question back to you, and jeremy we are glad to have you back at brookings. he was in the administration. he was always a thoughtful brainstorm or on ideas. you have got your own insights and thoughts on how the administration might want to handle this. firstwould say the instance, we would like them not to be a major international crisis. we do not need another.

this sounds like on the talk shows an extent as to say, all obama wants to do is build this nation at home and withdrawal and he is weak. that is not what i'm saying. most of us should want this to go away. we do not read this. there's nothing to be gained for the united states by an escalating showdown. we decide whether it can be in the end. the showdown needs to be minimized. we need to get back to encouraging ukraine of whatever stripe its current leaders might have toward the necessarily path of economic reform which they have not taken. their economy is one of the worst performers in europe and the last 20 years by almost any measure. our good friend and former ambassador to poland voided out that 20 years poland and ukraine were similar in size, population, gdp. today poland has three times the gdp. today poland ranks 50th in the world in good governance and ukraine is ranked 155th.

i beg someview and of the questions that others may follow up here, but he is using this and not making it any more of a zero-sum showdown necessary is the core interest we have. there is no other big thing to be gained here. are about halfway through, which for those of you keeping store, exactly the right time to go to the audience. why don't we take some questions from the audience and then we'll come back to the panel. ok. please when you are asking a question, identify yourself and make sure that your question ends with a? -- with a question mark. i want to come back to a comment that steve made earlier -- with respect to how

ukraine handles the situation, do nothing stupid, no unforced errors, and put that in the fiona callsof, as putin, i am interested to know what acts of commission putin could engage in if there is an act of omission, but i think i know -- you know what i mean. how could he didn't blow this -- how could putin blow this? it seems to me he has said i do not care what the rest of the world is. most of his downside it would seem to me, i may be wrong, is domestic and political in nature. so i am interested in knowing if

there is a thought experiment that can be had here about what is going through his head and take thatns might he would have him basically say put his political saliency in russia itself? >> let's take a couple more questions before we come back to the panel. a hand in the back. >> i would like to point out in the cable here that what we are talking about is nothing short iiihermonuclear world war with this kind of dangerous rhetoric with obama calling this an invasion, but according to the 1997 agreement with ukraine, russia can have up to 25,000 troops -- >> are you getting to regression? i am nervous this is a speech. >> that is fine. >> it is a worry. >> my question to you is, the

u.s. and european union backed a coup to-- nazi overthrow a government and is now talking about setting up a confrontation with russia where obama launches economic sanctions -- >> i think you are still missing the question concept. >> how are you guys justifying a propaganda that will lead to world war iii? >> that is a question. we will take another question. >> this is based on ukraine, but this to the other side of the world. does anyone up there think that china is watching this closely and it was at what china does vis japan and the south

china sea? >> can you identify yourself as well? why don't we come back to the panel with those questions. maybe we can start with you and you can handle that mr. putin question. >> thanks. the mr. putin question and the second question are similar and is related. you might not think it. we are indeed in a situation here of pretty sharply competing narratives. there is a certain pitch in and in the russian official media about what is happening and we have a different depiction here. although our depictions are all over the place as well. tvave been watching a lot of bizarre things about goes to showhe

no one is doing their homework here. it is easy than to fall into. saville -- simple depictions, which is what people thrive on who want to have certain kinds of outcomes in these circumstances. and of those that i will er is ay the question strong narrative coming out of russia today on a whole host of other things in the channels in russia. i have been watching russian cable television recently, and it is a striking narrative. we have to be careful about repeating that. same kind ofat extremist coops that we have seen operating in ukraine are here in the united states, all across europe, and also in russia itself. putin right from the beginning 2000 hasesidency in been concern about extremists of all stripes, including russian master list -- russian

nationalists. he said in multiple speeches over and over again that he is opposed to extremism in any form. he is playing to the nationalistic extremists at home and is worried about them. he is worried about the same kind of people who are being seen in groups on the street in kiev and elsewhere, in finland, norway, netherlands, u.k., germany, anywhere and find right-wing extremist group's it doesn't matter where we look right now. let's be honest about this. our own extremists. 7-12% of any population at any time depending upon the of crisis will hold extreme views an