offices of members of congress are more likely to grant access to construe bidders -- contributors than constituents. you can join the facebook commerce nation and twitter as well. "washington journal" is ♪ in this reporting this morning that president obama has requested a review of his administration's enforcement policies for immigration laws. a to see if that enforcement can be done within the confines of the law. scott brown has formed exploratory committee considering another run. the commerce department says it will give up control of overseeing internet domain names starting in 2015. and move brought on by the nsa.

it was earlier this week that president obama announced that he wants to see changes that would expand the number of workers who can receive overtime pay. some say the move will cause job losses. what do you think about the proposal to expand overtime echo you can weigh in on one of three lines. social media available to you as well. you can tweak us or send us your thoughts on facebook. or send ustweet us your thoughts on facebook. this edition at the white house. president obama meeting in front of workers, especially those who are managers, to talk about the topic of overtime pay. here's a bit of what he had to say about the addition.

directing my secretary of labor to restore the commonsense principle behind overtime. toyou go above and beyond help your employer and your economy succeed, you should share a little bit in that success. this will make a real difference in the lives of millions of americans from managers and fast food retail to office workers, cargo inspectors -- we will do the right way. consult with workers and businesses as we update our overtime rules. we will work to simplify the system so it is easier for employers and employees alike. host: that announcement took place on thursday. joining us to talk about the details and expand upon what the president said is amanda beckert . thanks for joining us. can we start on what gives the president the authority to make these considerations? guest: it's authority with the

labor department. they make the rules to implement the wage and hour laws. periodically have opted those rules. -- updated those rules. they can change the threshold at which managers under that threshold are still eligible to receive overtime. they can change ways that you determine who was a manager. host: talk a little bit about the proposals themselves. who would this affect th? guest: it will impact the fast food industry, restaurants in general, retail, convenient stores, low-level supervisors such as a hospital clerk or dietary consultant. the idea of overtime laws that

an executive cannot receive overtime because they receive a healthy salary. some of these managers don't receive a large salary. it even if you are categorized as a manager, if you are making under a certain amount or week, you are still eligible. week.now that's $450 a that's right at the poverty threshold for a family of four. say you're a restaurant manager 455 dollars, you are just above the poverty line. host: if these new considerations are put into place, where would those new thresholds fall? not said.y have there are very few details at this point. i was talking to someone at the economic policy institute here in washington the other day. last year, she and a colleague

submitted to the white house their recommendations for what they thought the threshold should be. it was a little over $900. forward steps, what happens at the labor department echo what is their law? guest: they will be the ones working out the details of what the president wants. the labor secretary will take an active role in this. they will come up with some ideas. there will be a time when the public has a chance to comment on those ideas and offer input about how they think it can mean group. business groups are obviously expected to offer a lot of feedback about this proposal. after the public comments have ended, there will be public meetings to discuss it and it and they will issue a final regulation. host: you mentioned business groups. since they are directly affected, what is the general ?eaction

people might not be working overtime so they can get paid overtime. this constrained businesses. another part of this proposal is , they're looking at tweaking the test to see you a manager is. the last time they updated the threshold and test was 2004. they changed the test. it used to be 51% of your time managing people. in 2004, they moved away from that and they said it's whatever your primary value is. dishwasher and i spend all my time washing five percentspend of that time supervising other dishwashers because i'm the lead dishwasher, i could be considered a manager. the obamaeople think

administration may revert back to that time-based test. amanda becker to from reuters, thanks for the input. guest: thank you. heard, the obama administration's proposal when it comes to overtime roles. we want to get your thoughts on the proposals and how it might affect the business community and what you think about it in general. here's how you can do so. the phone lines are -- the political response to this already occurring. the house speaker being quoted in the papers. "if you don't have a job, you don't qualify for overtime. a what does he get out of it echo the president's policies are making it difficult for employers to expand implement.

up until the president's policies get out of the way, employers will have to continue to sit on their hands." --ublican responses in mind we want to get responses from you. you can call on the phone lines. you can also reach out to us on twitter and facebook and send us an e-mail. we will get to nick in tennessee. independent line. the little socialists have 10 commitments. cansecond is the government do anything as a bureaucracy. this guy has never held a job in the private sector. everything is touched has been a total disaster. everything he has touched has been a total disaster. his land grabs -- host: what about this proposal? caller: i've got people working

for me. the purpose of my people being in management is to go up the scale quicker than the people on hourly wage. some people work part-time because they want to and they get an hourly wage and others work full-time because they want to get to management for personal reasons and they get benefits. the people are trying to go up the ladder and eventually make more money than the people on the hourly wage. i'm going to have to say, i'll just cut back on that and put them on hourly wage basis. if they can pick up the overtime, fine. just go outside and contract to other people and let them handle aspects of the business. i don't need a full-time accountant so i'll just send that out to somebody else. bill in cleveland,

ohio. democrats line. caller: good morning. i think the president is on the right track. seeuld personally like to the united states implement more co-ops. if we could have worker-owners institutions, that would be the ultimate solution. that way they can determine their own wages and their own pay scale without much government interference. i honestly believe this is the way to go. host: why not focus on the wage factor? worker-a owner enterprises would determine their own wages. enterprise so they could determine their pay according to market demands. host: harry in oakland, maryland. republican line. caller: it's insane.

would not be qualified to run a retail store. clue on howave a things work. if you look at what's going on with 2 million jobs possibly lost with obama care and now we want to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour. then you've got this where you have to learn to remember these are in thehey training stage. it's a time when you can -- there's different types of exempt people. you managerial but also professional. this, there may come a time that you have to work. you are demonstrating that you want the job. i don't know what else this guy can do more to hurt the economy. the one difference between him and bill clinton is bill clinton

had enough sense to stay out of the way of the taxes later on and the economy grew. guy is a diehard socialists. he wants to change the face of america and it's more important to him to make those changes than to straighten out the economy. host: you heard our phone or -- "the reference overtime rules fall back to the fair labor standards act of 1988. to be paid 1.5d times the regular wage. hourly paid workers fall into this class as do salary workers who make less than a specified threshold amount. ideas that employees in higher status positions ought to be exempt armor seemingly over

temperament. but as with the minimum wage, which is not automatically adjusted for inflation and tends to lose real value unless it is raised, the overturning section threshold generally languishes. that means too many people who would have once been paid 1.5 times their wage working overtime." thoughts onet your her first 45 minutes this morning. here is tom in silver spring, maryland. independent line. caller: good morning. i want to go with the previous caller. i think president obama's a talented politician. and very intelligent. his economic orientation is all off. or journalist from reuters

, which is an independent and thorough journalist organization. government beal imposing a minimum wage and overtime provisions whether their individual contributors or managers across the entire country? there's a bigger question that republicans have and democrats do not ask. there's a bigger question of whether we should be doing any kind of minimum wage whatsoever when we have competition like we do today. i asked the question about minimum wage and overtime because, you look at people in new york city -- let's assume it's fair to have some kind of minimum standard. give the people $10.25 an hour. should you be giving people in florida a minimum wage of $10.25

the guyor demanding with several individual dec?ibutors mandatis mandating some guy in south a managero name a guy who should be working overtime. host: this relatively meaningless -- most employers would rather have a job. from the business insider website. they give their thoughts on the chamber of commerce's executive director of labor law. president'sn on the thought announcement. these changes in overtime rules will fall most harshly on small and medium-sized is mrs.. were already trying to figure out the impact of obama care on that. we understand the ministration is looking for ways to put more money in people's pockets.

the only way to do so as to grow the economy and create more jobs. adding more burden to employers will not accomplish that. seymour, connecticut. democrats line. caller: i have a little idea to share. i'm old enough to have a 20 feet 24 role daughter. aen i was a teenager, you had overtime for less than 40 hours a week. you sign a contract for a 40 hour week. my daughter has a four-year degree making what i made 20 years ago. i don't have the answers. host: what do you think of the proposal overall? employees -- people

who work are stagnant. there's a difference in generation from when i used to work. i don't feel people are appreciated for what they do. pay them for the work that they do. host: the lead story of the l a times, immigration policy. homeland security officials are focusing on two major policy changes that would slow the deportation of immigrants. the white house has tentatively rejected proposals to expand a program that would allow the parents of young people who were brought into the country illegally to stay. officials said the changes would effectively stop most ofortations before

foreigners with no previous convictions. the liberations mark a shift for the administration which has repeatedly insisted on making major changes on immigration policy on its own. lauren on the president's proposal to expand overtime pay. oakland, california. independent line. caller: i wanted to state that i've been in management and i will ted liu x -- i will tell you exactly what will happen. you have people making between -- about $24,000 a year. they are not executives. pay them for the extra five hours a week they do and pay time in half. that adds up to $16. what we will do instead is hire someone else to do 10 hours a

week that they would have done. that will cost is only about eight dollars. , businessesppen is will have to pay other workers to do that work. im not here or there because don't run those companies. at a's 10 million workers minimum of one extra day, that works out to 5 million jobs of people doing 10 hours a week. or 2.5 million jobs. forced to will be hire people to do the work that we are now not going to be able to have the salary people under $50,000 due. we will comply with the law. most of the companies i work for will always comply with something like that. there is workarounds.

caller: the whole point is not to give the $30,000 a year worker more money in their pockets for overtime. work 40son will only hours a week. they will make $30,000. what we are going to do is hire someone else to do that over time work and pay half as much. host: political cartoons capturing the announcement. the star-ledger out of new jersey. the president's announcement, taking a look at the issue of overtime policies for those listening on radio. driver from twitter. "small businesses can't afford to pay a living wage -- they should not be in business. is slavery has been abolished." share your thoughts on twitter or our facebook page. -- the phone lines

here is tom in ohio. democrats line. caller: good morning. on the phone talking about people working five hours -- i worked in a factory in the they have supervisors working seven days a week on salary. this will be a job creator, not taking jobs away. factories don't want to pay the overtime and will hire more people. more people to do the jobs. you will find quite a few more jobs out there that people can five days a making

week money and working seven days, they will find somebody else to do that job and pay them the equivalent. it will be a job creator. "sounds like a patch to avoid fixing the cause of low wages. which is an excess supply of labor." the attempts to unionize autoworkers in the south. this is mississippi saying that the labor organizers at nissan were shocked when autoworkers at the bulls wagon plant voted against joining the uaw. the largest private employer in mississippi -- unions are winning. a group trying to rally uaw

support -- they have not won the war. uaw officials and prounion workers say they won't hold a vote until the company of allow to make theirrt ."tches to workers this is degrading the stock of american workers. it's basically contract workers. that's all you have. they're working seven days a eek eating five dollars an hour pay. talking about the economy. the economy was going to go whether it is slow or fast or medium. the economy is irrelevant. what's relevant is the people

working pulling the train. take from the people and give it to the givesment, the government to the poor people -- you have to stop believing this mess that the corporations are telling you. it's insane. thomas in daytona beach, florida. democrats line. off, i'm a truck driver. about 30 years of experience. 3 million miles. they had a deal .alled coefficient overtime the way that works is, once i work every eight hours, i make seven dollars an hour, and make $18.44 for my regular wage as a truck driver and then once i get eight hours, i make seven dollars something. is that fair?

it only helps the employer and hurts me because it takes money out of my pocket and takes money that i would be going into social security. my 401(k). money is money. if someone works over eight hours a day, they should get overtime. host: see your thing after eight hours, you go to half pay. caller: not even half pay. host: you can't stop driving after eight hours? caller: the way it works is they give you a job and whatever your day is, it works out to be $10 a day. you can work as fast as you can and get it done as quick as you can. you will still work 10 hours a day.

forre working four hours $28. workersve you or other addressed the issue of overtime with your management? caller: they are a big company. they don't care. it's not the small companies doing these things. it's the big companies, two. they have 30,000 employees. you have that many employees and your screwing that much out of their overtime, that is a lot of money for the company per year. they want us to work for nothing. host: do similar truck companies have that kind of overtime policy? caller: yeah, they do. not only the company i work for. the company i work for is a soda company. host: tom from daytona beach, florida. you can see the whole thing

on c-span.org and watch the announcement and some of the decisions that were made. we are getting your thoughts on it as well. you can go tos -- our video library. we are talking about the initiative, getting your the treasuryt. department receiving money from the federal reserve. of itsfinal accounting performance last year, the federal reserve earned enough interest income on its huge deliver 7.6curities billion dollars to the u.s. treasury. the fed is required to use its income to operate -- cover its operating expenses -- to cover

its operating expenses. it topped an original estimate of $77.7 billion that was made earlier this year. short of $88 billion. includingmists, within the fed, worry a large could make it harder for the fed to tighten monetary policy. long beach, new york. republican line. becausei'm just calling i'm a small business owner. salaries. small businesses across the country are struggling to keep inve because the economy is its ways. the bad weather conditions have greatly impacted all the businesses because there is no in the retail

operations. it affects retailers, wholesalers, etc.. can bury retail expenses. with these new regulations from the government, it is only going to force business owners to cut back more and not hire people. if small businesses are not making money, then they can't afford to hire someone or paid the extra money. people have to sacrifice things sometimes. this is not for the good. i'm very disturbed about what's going on in this country. deboraht's hear from from buffalo, new york. independent line. worked for a health

care agency. health care agencies do not pay their workers overtime if they work over 40 hours. this has been going on for like 30 years or more. work 50 hours-60 hours. i would just get straight pay. when you're talking about, they time want worker wages at and a half, you have people out there working like this for years. that guy who's a truck driver, not sad. that's a dangerous job. he should be getting paid more money. factory workers and people and small businesses. its people out there doing real jobs. i'm taking care of people and helping them. i was lucky when an agency did pay time and a half if you work

over 40 hours. but they stopped because they didn't have to. i lost about $40 a week. that's a lot of money. a lot of money that could have went to the economy. people get paid with a should get paid and maybe more money would go into the economy and maybe it will make more jobs. they are just locked in their philosophy. try something and see if it works. it might work. more money into the economy because people make more money. that's all i have to say. host: brooklyn, new york. the democrats line. caller: good morning. excellent program here on c-span. i want to speak and generality. anything that obama has proposed is no good. apparently an intelligent man like that president -- how many

do we have in this country act to make it easy and short, anything that obama proposed is no good. host: what do you think about this proposal? caller: i'm confident that this proposal is so good that it will benefit the people, especially the poor. like of people are working slaves now. it's like 1950 or 1940's. i'm confident that in the atection, we are sitting the table across the nation. we will take the republicans out of the house and senate. i'm confident it will happen. several stories in the paper as we continue our discussion about the white house expanding over time. several stories leading up to

rimea situation. crimea will vote on sunday. leaders of the regional parliament expect to ratify the decision to break way from ukraine and become part of russia. the referendum will offer two choices. in favor of the unification of crimea with russia? are you in favor of for storing the 1992 constitution and the status of crimea as a part of ukraine? voters will have to mark one option affirmatively but they cannot vote for the status quo. a follow-up story, including pictures with this vote taking place on sunday. fear and hate spread across crimea had about. thousands of troops floated into crimea. a new governor was installed.

the new pro-russian administration is pushing heavily for a yes vote on the referendum. making planses are to seize ukrainian state property, including the railways , offshore gas facilities and military equipment. ukrainian soldiers have stranded on the basis rounded by pro-russian forces. in london that the secretary of state john kerry the russiant with prime minister to talk about ukraine. those negotiations still remain deadlocked. determined to let the referendum go through. ideasresented a number of on behalf of the president which we believe absolutely could provide a path forward for all the parties. however, after much discussion, the foreign minister made it putin that president

is not prepared to make a decision after -- until after the referendum. the united states position on that referendum is clear. isbelieve the referendum contrary to the constitution of ukraine and contrary to international law and is in violation of that law. we believe it is legitimate. as the president put it, it is illegal. neither we nor the international community will recognize the results of this referendum. remain deeply concerned deployment of russian and then crimea continuing provocations and some of the hooliganism young people have been attracting across the border. host: that's john kerry from

yesterday. the financial times has one more story. a picture of the secretary of state with the prime minister, talking about the reactions coming from the russian side. pullingcompanies billions of dollars out of western banks, fearful that any u.s. bank could lead to painful asset freeze. data published by the federal reserve of new york sparked speculation that the russian central bank was reducing vulnerability to potential sanctions. the data showed a drop of 105 billion dollars in treasuries. that we can only speculate about who might have decided to move the securities out of the fed and into a third-party custodian. an obvious candidate is russia. 138 .6 billion dollars in u.s. government debt at the end of december. to our calls concerning the

president's proposal to expand overtime pay. this is brett in texas. republican line. one quick thing about what you were talking about there. i'm not an expert on foreign policy or anything, but i do know that secretary kerry and obama are talking about violations of the constitution. the russians are going into their. there have been a lot of violations with the constitution with obama care and adding to it and other things he is doing with his pen. i do agree with the minimum wage hike. i definitely agree -- a lot of the smaller companies are tech companies. a wagey don't think increase will hurt them. i don't think labor will be hurt.

the markets will adjust, just like they are adjusting to the issues with russia and crimea. host: would you think about the proposal? caller: i think it's fine. it's definitely fine. i don't see any problems with that. one thing i may agree with is, given the small companies out to in siliconley -- valley, maybe giving the small companies that are more labor a pay raise or the overtime. as far as these tech companies, you have snap chat at $3 billion. host: larry and webster, texas. caller: i want to talk about the

idea that the country has turned into a medieval type system. you have a minimum wage and overtime for the workers. what a bit of -- what about a maximum wage echo we have kings in the castle and outside, the peasants. the thing about this in our country, we were based on the egalitarian system. it's ridiculous. where the in a system workers are trapped. a redirection. host: what do you think the proposal offers? caller: it offers a way for the underclass to move ahead. is,real point behind this capitalism has to change. it has to offer the people on the bottom a way to move up.

a top-down system is not working. facebook -- from "people have known forever that if they want to up their cut, they have to break their quota. the only way to break quotas hardware. to work longve hours and if you don't perform you can threaten a suit to keep your job." we're taking calls and tweets and taking facebook posts as well. billy in jefferson city, missouri. democrat line. caller: good morning. my comment is the way the president goes about mandating

.ealth care let's mandate a wage increase and make employers pay employees more for his own political gains. starting thean is king days. host: kenneth from facebook saying this -- "this goes back to both parties'full-fledged support of globalization." you can give those thoughts on facebook, twitter and the phones as well. here is vincent in tulsa, oklahoma. republican line. the emperor has no clothes. columbus, ohio. independent line. caller: good morning.

i just wanted to say, the has a dysfunctional congress. can do something with the power of the pen to move the country forward. if you listen to most of the argument over here against this proposal, there's a lot of rattling around his point. they don't want to support the president. will find athey workaround to hire people to do the work for 10 hours. if there is a workaround to hire more people, that's creating more jobs. that's what we need here. jobs or payte more the people who are working this overtime of 60 hours a week. either way, it's a win-win situation. create more jobs. or people will get paid for the

work. host: taking a look at the tweets. the administration issued standard on friday for health insurance to address complaints from consumers who say that costs are too high. officials said they will scrutinize health plans more closely and rely less on the of regulators who accredit health plans. the government setting standards for insurers for the federal exchange which serves three dozen states, about two thirds of the nation's population. some of the details thing the administration will require insurers to apply direct links to this information from healthcare.gov. it will require insurers to say whether doctors are accepting new patients and federal officials say insurance plans must not discriminate against evil with significant health needs. the government will analyze

copayment charges. david in grand rapids, michigan. compressed line. -- democrats line. employers don't do things without being told. they don't like giving up the government says you have to. we the american public are the rich makers.-- we deserve to get back what we put in. the one percent has way too much control of the economy. when we say we want something ir attitude is, we will hire someone else. that is wrong. host: what do you think about these proposals? caller: i think we need them. people will not do certain things unless they are ordered

to. socialistt we are because of that, it goes to show t nice tois no man. time in my life, i would rather trade by overtime for time off. republican line next. this is amy from michigan. caller: good morning. i just wanted to talk about something i learned black friday. i got off of that after seasonal work and try to go back on my food stamps. toy cut me down from $100 $15 until 2015.

$85 a month. that equals out to $1040 in food. older dollars.,000 -- $1200. i'm getting screwed. host: when you hear these proposals, what do you think? caller: my family lives in texas and i live in michigan. to see my $500 a year family once a year. host: oliver in new jersey. independent line. caller: good morning. good morning c-span. i love your show.

problem you have is you have a small amount of people with a whole lot of money. i see several billionaires out there. what you have to do is turn around and let normal people become millionaires. his read thspread the wealth. host: two stories looking at how states are dealing with laws concerning marijuana. , "legislators have sent the governor a bill that would allow use of cannabis oils i small group of children who suffer from epilepsy. the bill was signed into law and utah will join the growing number of states that will allow some medical use of plants also used to make marijuana." if you go to the times tribune, a story looking at louisiana's medical marijuana laws. "arkansas has done it. so has kansas and mississippi.

it comes to easing restrictions on marijuana, lawmakers and baton rouge are placing the issue high on the dockets. this could mean changes don't go up in smoke. louisiana could catch up to the southern trend more quickly than anticipated. they will hear 10 marijuana related bills during the 20 14th session that began monday, including two bipartisan efforts to drastically roosevelt to use penalties.lly reduce ." ost star from liverpool pennsylvania. we in america are tired of the president being disrespected. he is not a socialist. he is president obama.

, people shouldnt get paid what they work. hours,law is over 40 that's what they should be paid. no matter what position they are in. salary or hourly. businesses do not want to pay for the health care or pay you the money for the hours you work. it needs to stop. if we praise president obama for trying to raise the overtime. and parkville, maryland. republican line. say, you aret to not increasing any kind of wealth. you can increase it to $1 million per hour. it will not make any people richer. you are creating a deadweight loss by increasing the minimum wage. you are not actually increasing the value of the money.

i can understand the arguments that people are making where they think they will get more money. the industries are just going to mechanize their systems and try to get workers out or go canseas to china so they don pay less costs. a few workers will be paid more, but some workers will have to lose their jobs in order for that to happen. some people make more at the cost of other people's jobs. from cnbc.date that missing airplane. d itsetliner ha communications system disabled. that's according to the malaysian prime minister. he said that there is a high

degree of certainty that the on theporting system lane was disabled just before it reached the east coast of malaysia. the plane flew in a westerly direction before turning northwest at which point it left military radar coverage. these movements are consistent with the delivered action by someone on that plane. here is mike in washington, oklahoma. caller: you where the ides of march. i think president obama needs to return to political activism in chicago. he is not letting the people realize when you raise minimum wage, that money has to come from somewhere. salary or overtime for salary people, they're going to be effected. factor salaries have a because the player realizes

they're going to work overtime. , you'llay them for it will hear about lower salaries being paid. people are not thinking this through. toneed somebody in america wake up and say, let the system work and quit funneling with it -- quit fuddling with it. host: democrats line. in new orleansd after katrina. they trickled down to $15 an hour. everybody was doing well. the business was booming. then the coke brothers --koch

brothers brought in 500,000 thingrs and every changed. if you don't have no money in the system, people can't make none. the people watching, they should go out and face it. for anyone to say that because thataised the minimum wage people will lose their jobs, it will create thousands of jobs. people have more money. i don't understand that. you talk about the president and a masters degreeo in the economy. he knows what he's doing. president's -- "facing

a possible defeat in the senate, the white house is considering delaying a vote on president obama's choice for surgeon general or withdrawing the nomination altogether. an acknowledgment of the relationship with senate democrats. has come under criticism from the national growingsociation, so intense it is placed democrats in conservative states in a difficult spot. as many as 10 democrats are believed to be considering a ."te against dr. murthy that. are you available in the new york times this morning. -- that. o. story available in the

new york times this morning. it is going to bring people back from overseas. host: would you think about expanding overtime? caller: yes, i truly believe in that. you've got a make more money. host: rochester, new hampshire. this is our independent line. get so frustrated once in a while listening to some of allers. i'm a small business person. i'm the one that works 60-70 hours a week. i'm good to my employees and they do get paid time and a half if they are working. most of the time, these are young women who have children. i give them the time off to be with their children. to go see games or if they're sick or whatever and i fill in their hours.

these people who call in and knock small business people come i get so frustrated with them because they don't see what goes on behind the lines once in a while. i get so irritated because they don't realize when these wages go up, we have to pay higher wages on workman to, unemployment, social security, medicare. we match all that. we pay all the extras. if you are a small business -- i watch could iphonesrls with their and spend more time on that than they do working. they spend more time on cigarette breaks than they do working and they still get paid for it. i'm an employer. if they want to take a break somewhere and come back 45 minutes later, i don't take the half hour back from them. and there are a lot business people who are just like me.

for these people who call in and talk about minimum wage, it will be up to $50 an hour in 30 years. where do we go from there? host: what type of business do you run? caller: i have a hair salon. it's hard because they come out of beauty school and we have to train them. they don't get that much education in the schools. we have no clientele coming in so there is no income coming in. i am working behind a chair to make sure that they get their paycheck. i don't have a problem -- i love to see my girls grow and make a decent paycheck. you can make more if you weren't incentivized enough. do you go to these haircutting places where they pay their

very little? -- scott lead story brown taking another chance or looking into another run for senate in new hampshire. he has begun seeking campaign staff while aggressively courting new hampshire's political elite. making what republicans would consider his first steps in launching a campaign against the the democratic senator. having recently rotated to new hampshire after years of , spentnting attleboro much of the time calling key

officials and essential gop activist. market up next. chico, california. caller: good morning. sense, whatt of your last caller said. i do pay $20 for a haircut. hoursy that works over 40 deserves time and a half. i don't care what job they are .oing, where they work at i just don't care. over eightutting in hours a day, pay overtime. terrible in this country.

we are getting screwed and it's time people start standing up and the manning we get paid more money -- demanding we get paid more money. -- start walking off the job until you are only getting paid $7.25 an hour or whatever it is in your state for working at mcdonald's and burger king. let the managers do it. they are making all the big money, right? host: alyssa, tennessee. caller: i wish people would stop calling your talking about stupid crap. dofar as the poll goes, i not agree with expanding our time that's over time. -- overtime. as far as people living off, like, food stamps and stuff, but also, i think people should be paid based on the quality of the work and how long they work, so i think the people who are doing paid-- people who get

salary like managers and stuff, they agree to that pay before they take the job, so they agreed to working those long hours without getting be paid. host: our last call on this topic will be peter, miami beach, florida, independent line. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. i work in a big hotel chains. there are eight of us. a desk, a verys big hotel, 12,000 rooms. an assistant manager for two reasons. one so the guests had the perception of complaining to a real person, and then we also worked overtime. six days a week, often more than eight hours, and we weren't less than the employees that we allegedly supervise. host: what you think about

these proposal and how might that change what goes on? >> i think that they would be justified because at least you would get paid more because there would be a minimum that the employer has to pay so that he would have a choice either to pay you overtime or pay you at least more than he would actually pay. host: that is the last call we will take on this topic. again, the white house moving to expand overtime eligibility, starting the process of looking at that. i appreciate all who participated this morning. i want to tell you about one more tweet. this is dd who weighs in on this will bearllennials the brunt of paying for the dead earning we are chelating. dedi frederick's, thank you for intervening. we will be seeking with alex smith of the college republican national committee and natasha

mckenzie, democrats of america national vice president. later on, we take a look at syria. today is the three-year anniversary since the uprising in syria. we will get a status report from joshua landis of the university of oklahoma. he will offer his analysis as "washington journal" continues after this. ♪ >> what our unique challenges in defining war in cyberspace? what hospitality is, what military action is? >> we are still trying to work our way through those issues. the tenets that are aqua boat -- that are applicable are whatever we do during international law, will pertain. that if we find ourselves getting to a point where we believe that ciber has taken us armed conflict scenario,

that the rules and the law of armed conflict will pertain in this domain as the does in any other. i do not think cyber is inherently different in that regard. i think those sets of procedures, those sets of nations and laws -- as a -- has stood us in good stead and i think they represent a good point of this -- of departure. >> this weekend on c-span, senate armed services takes on intelligence and military nominations this morning at 10:00 eastern, and on booktv, any part of jonathan allen look at hillary clinton's political career since her last political defeat on c-span2. americanspan3's history tv, poet and novelist robert penn warren interviews martin luther king, junior tonight at 7:00 and 11:00. >> the suggestion is when we say freedom of choice, let people go

their own way, what i think we often mean is they know best. the government does not know best. so the notion of autonomy, a pretty elaborate word, is basically a one-word way of saying that people know better than outsiders do about what will make their lives go well. and this sounds kind of academic and abstract, but i think the stakes are real and concrete, which is the christian -- which is the question we think about our policies. are people going to be sick? are they going to be miserable? are they going to be dead? and if we have some policy, whether it involves savings for retirement or if it involves privacy on the internets or if -- if wees air-quality can think of some way that makes

them less likely to be sick or miserable or dead while also letting them alternately go their own way, if that is what they want, that is probably a good bargain. >> former obama administration official catholic feinstein -- cass sunstein on his latest, "wide knowledge? -- "why nudge?" "washington journal" continues. host: joining us on set, alex smith, college republican national committee chair. just to let the viewers know, we plan to make this a roundtable with the college democrats of america. she is stuck in traffic out there. wesoon as she gets here, will bring her on and weaver into the conversation, but until then, thank you for joining us. we are talking about the on politics.view is there a view amongst people of your age, when it comes to politics in general do you

think? guest: i think so. this is a generation that is uniquely burdened by increasing amounts of national debt, educational debt, personal debt. this is a generation that thinks differently than its predecessor. this is the first generation that does not believe it is going to do better than its parent generation in a long time. so i think there are unique challenges for the millennials generation, but there are also unique characteristics that give us cause for hope. this is a generation of innovators, this is a generation of new thinkers that are on the cutting edge of technology and of using different resources than our parents did, so i think that, while at the same time we have challenges as a generation, we also have unique opportunities. host: one of those challenges being highlighted by the pew research center. they have done a poll on millennials and asking questions about it. one of the things they said is people who consider themselves independent, bulimias -- m

illenials weighing in at 50%. guest: in terms of party brand, obviously the republican party brand is not fair to well with young people. democrats do not do too much better with young people. party id for them is down. increasing amounts of millennials disagree with the president and his job approval. so what we are seeing is moving away from democrats and moving to the independent column, which for we as republicans, we think that is an opportunity for us to go in and capture millennials and capture their desire to have an alternative in politics. host: how do you appeal to them? guest: we go where there are and we give them something to share. in the past, we have not focused on young people. our get out the vote strategies, messaging strategies have not targeted young people. when we are able to target a message clearly and directly to them, we will win them over. you: as far as your party, said there were concerns about the brand itself, particularly about people your age.

what is the concern? guest: with young people, because we have not talked to them, we have allowed the other side to come in and define us however they want. which has obviously been negative, but for us, we see a lot of opportunity in being able to reverse those trends based on what young people believed at their core. young people believe that we spend too much, they think the government is doing too much it would be better left to the private sector. it's on those core beliefs, we think we have the ability to capture them. what we are not saying it's those least friendly to the brand, which as i said has been damaged by negative stereotypes. in the absence of our presence on campus, online, and the other side's very active presence there. host: do you think people who are not millennials within the party are listening to your concerns, and are they responding to the metal? guest: absolutely. we are an independent organization at the college republican national committee, and we work closely with our sister organizations. we found a great home for our

voice in this committee, and the planning sessions, and those different workgroups because they understand that young people are important. age 30,g has started governor romney would be president right now. young people make up 19% of the electorate, so the party understands this is a demographic that has to be addressed rectally and softly. host: as far as the way you view politics and particularly maybe those older, what are the differences, what are the changes in philosophy? guest: i think that the party as a whole and braces the diversity of thought, and i think that is growing with millennials and the party, bringing diversity into the party. host: on what areas? guest: some of the social issues, and obviously different issues like national security, for example. i think this generation believes a little differently than its predecessors within the party. host: in terms of what? guest: i think growing up in a different time. just being a different

generation, and increasing .oncerns over privacy our world becomes more online and more exposed. there is a diversity on that issue and many others within our party, and i think that the millennial residents really goes to highlight how big our party is to accommodate a number of different viewpoints. host: we will have a discussion not only with alex smith, but also with natasha mckenzie of the democrats of america. you are encouraged to ask about politics and the way they view it. (202) 585-3880 for democrats, (202) 585-3881 for republicans, and (202) 585-3882 for independents. i think you had mentioned health care, taking a look at these issue. what do you think about the president's health care plan, and particularly what do millennials think about it? guest: they disagree with a it. 54% disagree with the

legislative achievement. this is a problem with the democrats. the problem is democrats that it would be ready on day one, that it would work, that the government would know better how to make health care decisions for the people, and it has not proven to work, and young people understand that. they understand when the president says if you like your doctor, you can keep it, if you like your plan, you can keep it. those statements and out not to be true, so now we have a lot of millennials out there looking for affordable health care. they cannot find it because they are paying for the old and sickly on the different plans out there. so we are seeing their premium deductibles rise, and young people are looking to take that $95 penalty coming in the next two weeks. host: will that be you or do you have health care? guest: i have health care or my work, but i think a lot of young people are faced with tough decisions. a lot of my friends are independent contractors who turned to those so-called jock plans with a very thoughtfully researched and thought about before they purchased and that were canceled under obamacare, for they have to go and search for a new land, and they are finding their premiums are rising, their deductibles are being, and it has proven to

a bad situation. host: what anything about the president's appearance with zach galifianakis? guest: he might have been between two ferns, but democrats are between a rock and hard place this coming election. we saw that on a florida special , and health care was a series issue in that -- was a serious issue in a campaign. democrats plan to run on in this election, and we are seeing the result of that special are showing that people are very much in disagreement with this law and they do not trust the democrats can fix it. host: here is a little bit of that conversation took place with the president. [video clip] >> do you go to any website that are .coms or .nets or mainly stick with .govs? >> we stick with .govs. have you heard of

healthcare.gov? >> here we go. what did you come to plug? >> first of all, i would not be here today if i did not have something to blog. have you heard about the of oral care act? >> i heard about that. that is the thing that is not work. what if you get the guy who created the zune to create your website? >> it works right now. many people have health insurance plans. what we want is for people to know that you can get affordable health care, and most young americans find out they are not covered, and the truth is they can get coverage all for what it costs you to pay your cell phone bill. >> is this what they mean by drones? >> the point is that a lot of young people think they are invincible. price did you say invisible? >> no, not invisible, invincible, meaning that they do not think they can get hurt. >> nobody can be invisible. if you had said invisible -- >> i understand that.

with health insurance for my can make a difference, and they have until march 31 to sign up. host: that was from earlier this week, now we want to introduce the other half of our rain table, the national vice president of the democrats of america, welcome. what do you think about the president's appearance and using that format to talk about health care issues? guest: i think young people are very connected to social media, so for them to use that lead, and especially that galvanize, who is a very great actor, it it -- and especially to use the zach galifianakis, who is a very great actor, for everyday we use twitter, facebook, and for us to see the president such an appealing manner -- it is something that matters. for us, the health-care law is something that is going to help young people. it is helping young people every single day like myself. i am a college student. i have health insurance through

my school, but once i graduate, i would love to keep my health i amwith my parents until 26. and for him to talk about an issue that matters to young people on that venue, in a funny setting, not only does it humanize the law but it also makes it something that is very accessible for people to log on, go to healthcare.gov and sign-up for. host: we have a lot of people on the program, particularly democrats and republican, talking about changes to the health-care law. amongst your age, about your political structure, what do you think about these delays and changes and things like that? does it diminish the law overall? guest: it is not diminished the law. those are just part of the conversation. many people in households are first-generation. i am first generation american. and many do not know much about the health-care law, so it is up to us to start become recession with older americans, with younger americans, for them to understand. first with them understanding, i think it is also important for us to branch out and identify

law becauses in the there are certainly positives, so for young women like me with pre-existing conditions, it is very important. it is something that we identify, something that is extremely important, but it is very apparent that there are so many benefits in this law. republicans try and doom and gloom it and say it is something that is horrible that needs fixing. to repeal it. but what they do not notice is it is saving lives. and it shows a lot about their character and about the structure of the party. host: how old is the democrats of america? guest: the democrats of america is the official uniform of the dnc. it is made up of about 10,000 young, active, really it's, progressive young people that do a lot of great stuff on their campuses nationwide. we are a force to be reckoned with. republicans should watch out in 2014 because they say on our

campus is, we are active, mobile, and we make sure the democratic voice is very much heard from people my age. host: natasha mckenzie. we are also talking to alex smith of the college republican national committee. toh of these ladies are your talk about politics from their perspective. again, the numbers of your to talk with them and ask questions, (202) 585-3880 for democrats, (202) 585-3881 for republicans, (202) 585-3882 for independents. are upton, florida, you first, good morning, democrat line. caller: hi. thank you for c-span. two terrific young guests there. i was going to make a comment about what the woman had said about the republican brand being stereotyped. there are stereotypes for a reason. the republican party really is tax break forhe

the rich and for the corporations. -- that is just what it is. talking now about health care, i will talk to quickly about my experience as a 56-year-old. i graduate college in 1979, and i had to get health care right health carege, and premiums have been going up through reagan, bush, clinton, -- perhaps your guests have not been around, and i am not trying to pull rank, but health-care premiums have always been going up. i recently went on to the exchange and purchased health insurance. it has never been easier. even though the rollout was a little sticky, i was able, through the affordable care act -- and i compared it to going directly to the companies themselves.

the identical priced rhenium through the affordable care act gives you much better coverage, if youa ripoff, whereas go directly to the insurance companies to do business, they have so many exclusions and headlations that your starts spinning and you find that the coverage of less and you are paying more. host: alex, what you take away from that? guest: with respect to health-care reform, i am here to represent young people in the country, i mean, we are paying for that plan is the bottom line. we as young, healthy americans do not receive any benefit for being young and healthy. we finance the majority of the plans out there for older and sickly americans, so i think that is an unconscionable shift in our resources, and mortgaging our future away for the benefit of another generation. that being said, i don't think

that there are republicans out there that don't think we need health-care reform. we do. and there have been a number of different proposals in the senate, in the house that have attempted to not just repeal obamacare but to replace it with something that works, something that pays a attention to tort reform, that pays attention to health savings accounts, purchasing plans across state lines. republicans know that we need reform. we do not think that a one-size-fits-all, government solution is that. host: at least your age will bear eventually. guest: he has a very similar story to my on. i helped her sign up for health insurance. it was a very easy process. it is something that will take a long period of time, but if you sit down, have a nice time, just reading the peas and qs, it is very simple. there is nothing obligated about this. and i think that young people especially one not necessarily have to bear most of these cost. it is blamed on republicans for

the past administration that is done things to rise up the premiums in the first place. as for young people to have that it is not necessarily the cause. young people see this as an investment in their health, and their future comments on the neck and be very prosperous for them. guest: i think they're paying for plans and services that they do not need. in order to finance plans and services for an older generation. that is just an empirical reality that our generation is paying for this health care plan. this is a generation that voted for the president, they got him elected in 2012, yet we were not in the room where health-care lobbyists were designing the individual mandate, we are basically financing this plan off of our backs. young people do not have a voice in the backgrounds, data on a voice when the president brings his friends and to give a special exemption than special

delays. young people are bearing the brunt of this health-care law, no question about it. david fromis orange park, florida, republican line. good morning. caller: we have two bright, attractive guests. i want to address my toward the tosha. 14 years, social security, medicare, medicaid, and interest on national debt, will be close to $3 trillion by then, is going to take up the entire budget. and then what? there is not going to be money for any other aspects of the government. generation, unfortunately, is being thrown so far under the bus -- it is just criminal. really, some of these politicians ought to be thrown in jail for what they are doing to your generation. governments are not bottomless pit, natasha. you see it all over the world, and if you parse it down to the

local and state government, you see what is happening on the local levels. they are running out of money. too much spending. you have got government employees retiring in their 30's with these fabulous pensions that they are receiving for the rest of their life. it is not sustainable. guest: young people are very much aware of the republican tactics that have led to us being in the situation in the first place. our future as see something that is extremely bright and we have a voice at the table and president obama has taken upon themselves and also the daschle for young people to have a strong voice at the table. that being said, young people know that they have to be aggressive when it comes to republican tactics and republican initiatives that have the largest to gain and to be moved forward. this is mainly a republican parliament has democrats have timesand tried numerous

to address the national debt, to --ress the issues that are such as the student loan debt, which will be a huge burden for students. foror us to blame democrats issues, that is not the case. it is republicans. guest: i think in terms of not having a voice at the table, or having the boys at the table, that simply has not been true. on the same week that the president met with big business leaders and other special interests to cut delays and exemptions for them, he gave young people a google hang out pajamal penn and the voice shortly thereafter. this president has not taken young people seriously in terms of an actual conversation, having a meaningful voice in it with health care reform because he knows he has nothing to offer them. he knows that he financed this plan on their backs and that there is simply nothing he can do about it now. that is why republicans are

going to present an alternative in 2014 and 2016 talking about our alternatives to health care and talking to young people about what that means for them and talking directly to them, something we will partner with them to do. host: as far as the republican alternatives, what are they in general? guest: address buying insurance across state lines, talk about health savings account, talking about for reform, real, meaningful reform, but is it a one size fits solution? we have seen what that solution brings -- delays, ineptitude. and the government cannot handle this task on its own. guest: more and more people see government as a good thing. or us not to work with the government, for us not to see government as in the that benefits us is not true. more of the young people widely identified moving more toward the democratic party because it

is a party that you can see locally, federally, as something that needs to benefits directly. earlierasked ms. smith this morning, there was a pupil taking a look at money a, take a look at how they consider themselves as clinical, independents, what does this mean? guest: we see that the term independent these days, only 20% of people actually identify as independent. we see that so many young people even though they might identify with liberal or independent, they have issues that are very prominent, such as gay marriage, such as the health-care law. and things that they directly identify, is not aligned to the democratic party ideal? and that is why the remote can party with the a tactics, has seen young -- time and time again wide young people are distancing themselves from them. host: we are talking about millennials.

you just heard from natascha mcelhone the, she is the national vice president of the democrats of america. we also have alex smith joining us, the national chair of the college republican national committee. rose, independent line, good morning. caller: good morning. alex, pedro asked you a few specifics from the start and you just answer on that, but you sound almost as a mini puppet of the nrc. is far as your back health care, youth that about 10 times. who finances your health care from your job? as far as the republicans plan for 2014 and 2016, hsa's across wow, lines, tort reform,

that was set in 2009 and 2010. guest: first, my employer pays for my health care, because i am thankful to have a job. which is not something all millennials can say thanks to the obama economy. instead of staying on their parents insurance until i'm 26, putting a band-aid, those people want jobs to pay for their health care, they do not want to just say on their parents plan, they do not want to -- that is not my own personal health care. goalrms of our plans, the going forward, 2009 when we were talking about health care reform, i agreed we should be more vocal, more direct and especially with young people and positive about those reforms with them, but in 2009, we did not the benefit of seeing what a disaster this health-care law has proven to be. we have seen out what it looks like to have government controlled health care, and it is not pretty. georgia, democrat line, carol, up next, good morning. caller: good morning, pedro.

she still has not answered your question. the thing is, she has health care, so -- and everything that she is saying is almost like talking points. overline. this was a republican plan the president obama initiative. this planning he has initiative was a heritage plan, so baby, do not let her get away with that, and when she is talking, and any time you find somebody that --'t want somebody guest: in terms of me not wanting health care, that is simply not the case. a lot of the reforms out there right now and congress are

talking about pre-existing conditions, talking about still sitting on your plan until -- your parents might until 26. these are ideas that republicans are embracing in their own plans. but in terms of, you know, talking about health care, i mean, this is an unmitigated disaster, the rollout has been, and we see that voters are rejecting it. you can look again to the special injection -- special elections. voters rejected the idea that democrats can fix the health care plan. i did way, it was a first-time candidate that the a statewide candidate, 100% name id in the district that president obama had won twice. i think that as we see the rhetoric for 2014, democrats know that they are losing on this issue. host: this essentially would become a political issue on how people would vote in the future? guest: democrats are not losing on this issue, democrats are winning on this issue. we have seen this time and time again statewide.

if 63,000 people signed up for a law that was doom and gloom, then there's something wrong with it in the first place, which we see there is not. and we see that nationally going to 2014 at this will be something that many people benefit from. , and the special election, can show that she can compete in this district, that no one thought the democrats could -- for her to even get to a place where next round in 2014, democrats will win again, we will see, but obviously i think the democrats will be a champion in 2014 when it comes to this law. and yes, there are things we need to work on. yes. but time will tell if republicans will actually get to work and work with democrats to be a part of the process other than just saying no to everything, not necessarily wanting to work on anything in the first place. republicans are showing time and time again that they do not want to work. they come to washington and not

want to work. people signedn up. no clear indication of how many have paid, no clear indication of those who had showing in the first place, lower numbers of young people signing up. are those concerns? guest: young people are going to sign up and young people have been signing up. it is one of those things where we see numbers that are presented and from a republican perspective to make this law out to be doom and gloom but it not necessarily is. host: mrs. smith? guest: by the president's own assassination, he needs 43% of young healthy americans to sign up for this law. only 27% have done so. the deadline is two weeks away. to say that young people are going to sign up for something that they cannot afford -- i think this is a giraffe stick -- not in, i mean, it is touch with reality. the political reality for democrats is that the us health-care law is bad news for

them, they promised they would run on a in 2014, and now they are stuck with it. i think in terms of the special election, it was a close race against 200 precincts that had voted for alex sink in her past statewide campaigns, then voted for first-time candidate david jolley. to me that is a clear indication of where people are standing on this law. aboutour guests with us. politics, alex smith, sacha mckenzie. here is jim from south carolina, republican line. good morning. caller: how are you. good morning. natasha, republicans do want word, they just do not want to work your way. it is a major work. they are ready to work, ready to do things, but not everybody agrees with you. i have two quick points poor you. i hate to burst your bubble, but young people are clearly seeing this new government policy -- you say it is for your site, but they are not in favor of it toause your programs tend

pay group against group, and now you're just saying that they do not want to any up and pay this is reallyit frustrating, they are saying clearly young people, the effects of you voting for a democrat. one last thing, if a republican does when the presidency next , doesif he or she changes a sweeping changes of the aca on their own self, then you should not say one thing because that would be very hypocritical, but that could happen, and i just wonder how you will react when the president, a republican president just decides i am going to make sweeping changes to the aca. i bet your group is going to jump up with me that vitriol, yet at the same time this president can change anything he wants to keep this sad thing going. host: ms. mckenzie. guest: this president has tried to work with republicans many times and we have seen the effects. we have gotten nowhere with republicans in charge. us health-care law is something

that is changing laws of millions of americans, so for us to deny something that could lead to the benefits and help millions of americans is something we should does not do. and this law is something that is extremely impactful in my life, and the life of my family members come in the lives of many people in my community, and in a lot of people nationally. it is something democrats will run on, it is something that is extremely important for industry such as florida's 13th district. it is something we necessarily need to acknowledge and work on together, republicans and democrats, if republicans are ready to work. let's be clear. your contention that the florida 13 race was not about the affordable care act? guest: it plays a role, but i am not necessarily saying that just because of the health-care law with the reason why mr. alex think lost the race.

host: here is danny from louisiana, independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning. i almost forgot what i was going to say, observing what is going on here. now the young lady, the republican young lady has been accused of being from -- representing the heritage foundation, so forth. what is disturbing is now universities, the koch brothers donated so much money to universities to build buildings and to have their point of view taught in college, and i find that disturbing. secondly, this party of doom and -- i hear all of these negative things coming from republican callers, and they listen to the doom and gloom news and they are scared to death. i call them the scaredy-cat party because they are just afraid of everything. host: what would you like our

guest to address, sir? caller: i would like to address one thing. has toublican party fight everyone. once this is over and we show that this does work and it is beneficial as a social security was, which republicans fought tooth and nail, once we show this is beneficial and it works, will all of you please -- uninformed, scare people, stop watching fox and listening to their bull? guest: in terms of talking about the koch brothers, to me, majority leader reid addressing on the senate floor, calling on a private individual, calling them un-american on the senate floor, which is disturbing to me on a number of different levels, what are we not talking about when we are talking about the coke brothers? -- koch brothers? we are not talking about the fact that young people don't have jobs and that's three in 10

millennials are working back in with her parents -- are moving back in with her parents. thehey fact that melissa -- bottom line is the president has a democrat-controlled house of representatives are part of his presidency and all that we have gotten out of that is a complete failure of a health-care law. in terms of republicans being here or not want to work, i think it 2014, we are going to see a renewed sense of promise when we not only retain our majority in the house but also retake the senate and maintain our robust level of governorship, which i think is where we are really seeing reforms take place. host: for both of you, there's a person on twitter, ok, move on to the nsa. is question i want to ask other than the affordable care act, what other political thing do you find, especially among people your age, things that need to be addressed by your party.

guest: the most important thing to me currently is gay marriage. it is something that we see is very apparent when it appeals to young people. i have many friends that are gay, i have many friends that are gay in the red states that we see clearly where we have republican majorities have done nothing but to stop the quality. it is something that very much resonates with me because of the fact that we have people that want to love someone and they can't. host: ms. smith, i should say before we talk to you about these things, that one would be few -- that when the pew ofearch all, 51% even say republicans that they support gay marriage. guest: sure. i think that space to the diversity within our party on this issue and on other issues. when we are talking about the size and scope of government as it relates to marriage and other issues, it gives us credibility as a party to challenge those

same premises that underlined the health-care law and underlined the president's national security programs and the economy -- and the economic decisions that he is making. when we have a discussion going me that we are big enough as a party to embrace a diversity of thought and embrace a conversation, which is what i am drawn to as a young person. rather than myopic thoughts offered by the democratic party. get in line on the health-care plan. there is not room for thought in the democratic party. is one string, it of thoughts, whereas republicans have many different viewpoints that we regularly talk about and we publicly talk about. being onear as belief thing about same-sex marriage, would you like to see your party advocate more for gay marriage? guest: like i said, the number in the pew study shows empirically that there is a

diversity within the party on that issue, and i think that time will show where we take that. host: what is your thinking on gay marriage? guest: like i said, there is a diversity of thought on that issue. i'm excited to see where the debate goes. host: do you supported personally? guest: i am here to represent college republican national committee, not my personal beliefs. caller: good morning. i would like to say to the democratic host, you are doing a good job, but our problem is the democratic party, we are our worst own in the me. we do not vote in our midterm elections, so that is half of our problem. to alex, i was at a party a couple weeks ago and talked to a friend of mine who is a medical biller. she helps people find money to pay for their prescriptions and things of that nature. one of her patients got a bill for a cancer medication that

would cost her -- it cost $30,000 for the medication, and her insurance -- i think she's at 30% of the bill, which left the remaining portion of the person that was sick, and it was like, $10,000, $12,000 a month. so health care, we need some kind of health care. if it is not obamacare or the affordable care act, we need something that is going to work. i agree. my older colleagues, like i said in the house in the senate are working on plans, they're are working on reform that will address health care in a number of different areas. not any comprehensive, unworkable government system. but in terms of my views on it, i'm here to represent young people who often don't have a voice in the rooms where those decisions are being made, and i am telling you that this plan -- by the numbers -- is unworkable

for young people. it is unaffordable and those people are paying for the plans of older individuals. ands a very simple concept, i'm here to advocate for the young people, as i said, who don't often have a voice in those decisions. host: what you think about his thoughts on participation in midterm election? guest: we saw in 2008 when present obama got elected, that young people were the driving force behind his election, and we saw in 2012 the younger goal also the driving force, but enjoy 10, when young people did not come out to the polls, we saw the republic is were able to take back the house, so we see that young people each and every time when they are active, participating in elections, that they are the driving force that leads democrats to win, and young people are very impactful. young people have a definite voice, and we see that when young people have a voice, they vote democrat. host: is your ordination active

and not only supporting midterm candidates by getting out and voting? guest: yes, we are gearing up state-by-state, district by district. we are ready and willing at all parts for democrats to be elected. i join people on the ground, knocking on doors, making phone calls. democrats know the resources that college democrats are as a whole, and we see the benefit that our organization definitely contributes because our young people on college campuses through statewide organizations see the importance of their involvement in the first place. host: are there any particular races of interest to you? guest: i am a native new yorker. i am very interested in john eldredge, and i think that he will be a prime candidate. very focused on hagan in north carolina. i think she has been a wonderful senator and contributes a lot of

collegeople, the democrats of north carolina, for example. senators like that are the reason why i am so active and just in my prime because in 2014, people are back -- young people will drive their voice. host: ms. smith, your ordination's activities in these midterms. guest: our goal is to get on people, thatoung means on campus, online, which is again where we as republicans traditionally have not been. we have been away from the campus, we have been performing traditional get out the vote activities off of campus, but not to wear young people are. so it is our goal as an organization to get the college republicans energized, to get their peers moving on these issues. in terms of race i am excited about, i am makes -- excited about an expanding map.

in colorado, scott brown in new hampshire, a number of different places where we are expanding the map. some interesting candidates with like dr.ng stories, monica what he in oregon, and of course our republican governor, we have a number of them up for reelection, and some others we are about to elect. that is where the road changes are taking place for our party, those are the laboratories where we are seeing republican ideas that work and hopefully we can bring that to a national level. host: a call from denison, texas, republican line, hi. caller: perfect timing after going back and forth 100 times on what i wanted to ask him what is been answered. the affordable care act in a nutshell is probably the -- going to represent the best way

more young, originally democrats will it turn into been or republican, i can imagine. people do not know what they don't know when you're 18, 20, 25 years old. 25 in years, to but you are one or two years to five or six years old actually in your time that you interact with the world. one of the old sayings attributed to winston churchill is if you are not a liberal when you're young, you're not -- you have no heart, if you're not a conservative when you're old, you have no brain. and we can argue whether that is a true quote of his, it's a pretty good reality. i had a sign of my yard when i was 21 in north florida when it was george wallace country, and a few years later after being self-employed, believe me, and change my political strife. i've been self-employed most of my life. i am 62 now. i get updated and i just think -- do i want to keep doing this? it is like your earlier callers

about the over something, talking about how self employed people are typically earning less than the people they pay because of the hours they put in. and as the words -- and as you watch government continue to pay more and more -- pick a number. ofis only the difference democrats and republicans -- host: thank you. his thoughts on people change when they get older as far as their political views are concerned. guest: everyone changes, but one thing i want to bring to light people that democrats have of candidates in the first place. speaking of sean, a young, gay candidate running in new york. democrats push candidates that represent their values. for young people to see someone like that, it resonates with them, but it also makes them see that we have a place in this party, and powerpoint or our -- and powerpoint or our

change will always be apparent. our views will change, but when things we see is that people are moving closer and closer to becoming a democrat because then only have candidates that look like them, candidates that resonate with them, but they also have issues that are very much relative towards them, and i think that young people will move closer and closer to becoming democrats. this independent notion is something that many people might see, but the issues that they identify even as independents, as we move toward democratic. host: one call, then final thoughts. longmeadow, massachusetts, independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call and thank you for the guests. it is nice to have young people who are interested in politics. i want to mention something about the health care, something to talk about.

specifically cents the 19th of 1970's,e, -- since the a $3000 reduction in the average person 35 and under, while at the same time gdp has grown about 300%. there has been a major shift in pay for our young people. it is also captured by the fact that there are internships, which are often unpaid. most of these things would be legal in europe. -- illegal in europe. there is a book that makes the argument that most the internships we have in this country are illegal -- so the effects on people in a direct way --

guest: under this president, we have 47 million people in poverty, we have only added 175,000 jobs in february. the economy is not good. it is particularly not good for young people who are really looking for an opportunity at this stage in their life and who need one to pay for all of those student loan's and all of the personal debt that they have accumulated. republicans are about, the message we will be communicating in 2014 to millennials is that we need to -- we are about creating opportunity for everyone, equal opportunity for everyone, and not simply gearing tarrying -- not solely guaranteeing equal outcome for different measures like minimum wage hikes and artificial top-down measures that really will stifle job creation and harm small businesses that often hire young people. seet: i think young people the 2014 election assuming that is free optimistic, especially if we can win back the house.

we have a president who has always been a champion for young people. we have seen time and time again how strong he has been, especially with the democrats in the house and the senate to do things that benefit young people. minimum wage hikes -- i have many friends that will been working minimum-wage jobs for a very long time, and that hike will do so much for them. but we have a president and democrat that have been working very hard when it comes to student loan debt, when it comes to advancing the economy, but we always get pigeonholed by republicans and attacked. at the end of the day, it is republicans and democrats. democrats have tried numerous times to work. republicans have not. and this is something that has been holding back the progress in the economy for young people. social media,ee facebook, twitter, every time something hits, political or roll call, the players that are

a part of us not getting anything for it, and those players are usually republicans. republicans that don't want to move forward. before we let you go, each of you have a snapshot of the biggest influence that has been on your life that kind of spurred on the political vision that you take was that ms. smith. guest: i would say my parents. i parents always having on the news on sunday morning so i would come down a set of watching weekend cartoons, i was watching meet the press, and i really thank them for always having political books around, having interesting discussions, having a lot of family members with whom i disagree challenge me at the thanksgiving day table and really engage me in the debate. host: ms. mckenzie. guest: definitely my parents also and my grandmother who watches television and a lot of fox news. she is actually a republican, oddly enough, but the thing about it that i was resonated with is that even though we disagree, i always use it as my driving force for something that

always influenced me. anytime she caught me on the phone, i was have something to tell her right there. [laughter] host: the touch of mckenzie with the democrats of america, she is the national vice president postop we also have the national chair, alex smith, of the college republican national committee. coming up, we will take a break and we will be right back as "washington journal" continues right after this. ♪ >> we are here at the state library in the archives of florida. what you see behind you hear is about a cubic foot box. of those 45,000 cubic feet, we have 30,000 cubic feet of state lube records from the legislative branch of government, judicial, and the executive branch. we have about 15,000 cubic feet

of records, which falls under our manuscript election. these will be private donations from individuals, everything from letters and journals to photographic collections. this is what is known as the patriot constitution of 1812. there is a lot of history behind this particular document. in 1812, a group of georgia settlers known as the patriot army invaded northeastern florida, and they were operating with the assistance of citizens who were living in spanish florida. at that time, florida was still a colony of spain. the motivation for this particular group of individuals was that they were going to, to florida -- they were primarily from georgia -- and they were going to come into florida and they were going to encourage the citizens of spanish florida to rise up against their government and proclaim independence. >> this weekend, booktv and american history tv take a look at the history and literary life of florida state capital

tallahassee. today at noon eastern on c-span2 and sunday at 2:00 on c-span3. c-span, 435 years, bringing a look the affairs washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and conferences, and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house -- all as a public service of private industry. we are c-span -- created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or separate light -- or satellite provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. "washington journal" continues. from norman, us oklahoma, is joshua landis, the university of oklahoma center of muslim -- of middle east studies. professor landis, welcome. guest: it is a pleasure being with you. host: today marks the three-year

anniversary since the uprising in syria, and we wanted to get your sense on not only reminding viewers of what happened to start the uprising, but where we are now. guest: right, well, this uprising began three years ago in march as part of the arab theng, and the syrian -- arab spring really stalled in syria. people expected bashar al-assad, the president of syria, to fall rapidly, and that these small clique that was around him, largely brand by alan wites, the religious group he belongs to, they thought he would collapse. but bashar al-assad turned out to be much tougher, his military fought hard for him, they did not abandon him, and the russians and iranians stepped up and began to give him money and arms. -- has law and lebanon been law -- hezbollah and

lebanon has come over to help them out too. besides the united states, turkey, saudi arabia, the gulf countries trying to -- trying to unify the rebels. they remained hundreds of malicious, very much chaos on the rebel side, and nobody from their allies, not europeans, not the are allies, not the gulf, have really spent the kind of money that would be needed in order to get them advanced arms and advanced weaponry, and this is largely because they remain fragmented and increasingly because syria has become a jihadist cause for muslims throughout the world, and ofhaps 20,000 jihadists various kinds and al qaeda soldiers are in syria permit number of radical groups, and this has spooked not only americans but also arabs who are now beginning to look at syria as a counterterrorism problem,

not as an opportunity to overthrow the assad regime, and this is given new life to the -- andegime and the rear the areas near lebanon trying to destroy a pocket of resistance along the lebanese border that has -- that is close to damascus and hasn't been an avenue for feeding arms to damascus and other larger cities in syria. and the country today remains divided between opposition and alled north and east government-controlled south and west. that's where we are today. host: as far as the united states in the position it has taken on syria, what has it been and what are our options going forward? guest: well, senator mccain -- there are a number of supporters

of the syrian rebels -- they believe they have found moderate up and overwhelm the assad state but president obama has clearly decided, at least it seems apparent today, three years ago, he did not want to get sucked into the syrian quagmire. he has not given -- the united states has not given lots of arms to the rebels. we have given them no military support and over $2 billion has been spent on syria and the neighborhood a, a lot of itide and a lot of nonmilitary support. the saudi's have been the main donors in terms of arms and so forth. united states has resisted, allowing them to get what our command paths, these shoulder held antiaircraft missiles in which is what the rebels really want.

the syrian air force, particularly helicopters that are dropping barrel arms, these on theirbombs positions and shooting them from the sky, gives the syrian army a great advantage. some way to neutralize the syrian army, the rebels are going to be hard put to hold onto their positions. obama does not want to get him. we have only spent $2 billion and that is the equivalent to less than one weeks spending during the height of the iraq war. that is the level of order that washington has seemed. there are supporters in washington that say we should do more and this is a terrible because there are 6 million syrians displaced within syria, 2 million have fled the country, that means about 1/3 of all syrians have lost their homes or been forced to flee and schools have shut down and we

are getting all generation of syrians today who have no education, who are really traumatized a this war and there is no end in sight. the sense, americans and civilized world have firmed up their arms and syrians are extremely bitter. host: the three-year anniversary of the uprising in syria is our topic with our guest joshualandis. the numbers are on the screen. one of the stories in "the washington post" says -- is there a role of even trying to help them organize to do what they have to do on their own?

guest: there is an effort going on from jordan. the united states is paying salaries of resistance soldiers and is training about 250 at present. they have trained several thousand over the last year or so. saudi arabia is giving most of the money for the weapons and so forth but this is a small effort. the united states has restrained this effort to a certain degree because they are worried that if damascus falls and jordan is worried that if damascus falls and they take the war to the capital city of syria that there will be waves of refugees that will come down to jordan. jordan does not want to get involved in this. they are also worried there will be retribution. been the mainve force behind this effort to get a southern front, front from jordan trained up the cia, armed

by the saudi's that would move toward damascus and begin putting the syria a pressure onssad. the ibi -- the idea behind it would be to force into the negotiating tables to make optimizes and step down from power. many people believe the only way he will step down from power is when he steps into a coffin or when he is destroyed. there is not the heart to really do this or it the neighbors are getting tired. turkey is tired of this fight. jordan is frightened that there's more refugees, the country could explode. it's the same with lebanon. there are one million refugees in lebanon and jordan. these are small countries. about 4 million and jordan is 6 million so that number of refugees is overwhelming the neighborhood and causing a lot of economic deterioration and stress to these neighboring countries. they don't want a big offensive that could cause the capital

into armed warfare and create waves of refugees. >host: aside from his job, our calledrites a site syriancomments.com. what do you do there? about what'se going on and i publish articles well aboutpeople as happening in syria.

i also go on twitter a lot. i send out updates every day about what are the different battlefronts on what is happening and achieve leading articles on syria. i am following this day by day and talk to a lot of news organizations i go to washington fairly frequently to consult. i am trying to keep on top of this. i have been studying syria for well over 20 years now. in the last 10 years, i have been writing this blog which is trying to keep pace with what is happening in syria today. host: from twitter -- talk about the russian influence in this. guest: russia is a major player. they are providing the military happening in syria. i also go on twitter a lot. to the government of syria. and iran may be paying for a lot of it but russia is backing assad all the way. syria is russia's last major ally in the arab world. along the mediterranean coast, the syrian coast, the that is a repair and resupply port for the russian navy. tin is very anxious about the

russian navy and that's why he is concerned about keeping crimea as part of russia because the russian fleettin is very ane russian on the black sea sales out through the straits at turkey, the dardanelles, and comes down and supports syria. it is also a bridgehead for russia on the arab-is really conflict. this is key to russia. the united states is very concerned about israel and protecting israel and for russia to have a beachhead onto this important conflict at the center of the middle east is very important. it makes russia a player in all of these things. most recently we have seen john kerry sitting down withlabrov and drawing the russians into settle the chemical weapons problem in syria, negotiating the syrian work -- it puts russia at the center of events in the middle east. russia is not hitting up. host: the first call is surely

from new orleans, democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning, i think president obama is doing the right thing because it's a middle east problem in a country surrounded -- and the countries surrounding series should take care of that. we should not get involved in another country or civil war. i think john mccain should concern himself more with what is going on in america and less putting himself into places he does not belong. is it cut and dry as just being and middle east problem? guest: your guest color expresses -- your guest caller expresses a majority decision in

the united states. it is clear that americans do want their president to spend lots of money in syria. the united states is turning their back on the middle east, certainly on the syrian their po spend lots of money in syria. the united states is turning their back on the middle east, certainly on the syrian crisis and president obama said both iraq and afghanistan have been failures to a certain extent. not afghanistan necessarily because we did kill bin laden and we seem to have thrown al qaeda on their heels but spending trillions of dollars to try to fix the national problems of iraq and afghanistan is something president obama said we are not going to do again. i think that is the root cause for his not wanting to get involved in syria. the american people are behind him. they are looking at their own deteriorating economic conditions, their cities, their school systems and thinking we need to invest at home. we've got our own economic crisis and we saw that in september when syria used chemical weapons. even the republican house was

overwhelmingly voting against hitting involved in syria. expressing is mainstream american opinion. coburn, virginia, up next, republican line. have a lot of conflicting differences of opinion when it comes to syria and the so-called islamic freedom fighters. i know for a fact that we used benghazi as an issue of running guns and missiles, over 400 missiles. and all kinds of weapons to the islamic freedom fighters to go against libya. that was backed by the u.s. government.

we have four americans killed there. that was an arms deal gone bad. it has not been a proven fact on using the gas in syria. were the freedom fighters overrun and decided to use it and blame it on assad? guest: i think your caller is expecting's -- expressing some of the concerns that have undermined support for getting involved in syria. the libya situation where the u.s. and qatar working with the gulf countries tried to put together a coalition government for libya that would replace qadhafi. they were concerned that once you destroy the government in a

country like libya, as we did in iraq we took down saddam insane, that you will get chaos. they were concerned that they legitimate government that is united in order to step in and try to replace the government they are destroying. the trouble with libya is that the libyans fell apart. today, the prime minister, just a few days ago, had to flee the country. he was voted out and he was safety andut his increasingly libya is falling apart between east and west. there are rebel groups that are trying to export oil and the government says if you export that oil, it is threatening to shoot any chinese and other ships that come to take that oil away. it is chaos. that has deeply concerned the in destroyingt the assad government in syria. that these 100d safety or so malicious fighting against him will turn into somalia, that

they will not unify and that you will not get a government that can substitute and bring law and order and the jihadists - possibly the same ones in syria that we are fighting in iraq, why are we helping them in syria - those are the concerns that the policymakers and it causes people like john mccain and others who are encouraging greater u.s. role and more intervention -- they have to come up with a way not to empower these same radicals if you are going to destroy the assad government and bring the rebels to power. the lack of unity amongst the rebels has been the major weak point for the rebel cause to convince the west to get on board and help them with better and more arms to overpower assad. is there a concern for the

u.s. putting arms into the situation because those arms could be used toward other countries? absolutely, that's why they are putting in machine guns and not sophisticated weapons and large caliber guns on the back of pickup trucks but they are not using antiaircraft weapons. they are worried that al qaeda will get a hold of them and be used against other allies of the united states and this will cause a real headache. that has paralyzed the west in their thinking about supporting the opposition. host: another group listed is isis, what is it? >> the islamic state of iraq and syria and it used to be al qaeda onceaq which metastasized the syrian fighting started. group -- you heard of

of ali, the main leader qaeda in iraq. he was killed by american troops but his organization survived. thought we had dealt a death iraqind the centralized government would keep down the sorts of rebels. kie trouble is that the mali comenment we helped build as soon as we left, became increasingly secretary and and only supported shiites and supported the military around shiites. the 20% of the population that had been supporters come

as soon as we left, became increasingly secretary and and only supported shiites and supported the military around shiites. the 20% of the population that had been supporters of saddam hussain felt persecuted and joined these al qaeda radical groups. they have gone to syria to fight on the side of the rebels. they have tried to build a larger state state, an islamic e in iraq and syria, that would unite a sunni parts of iraq with the sunni majority. they are fighting this battle to build an islamic state. that has alienated a lot of the rebels in syria who don't like their message because they are chopping peoples heads off, they in the northern province, an islamic state where they are forcing christians to pay a poll tax and putting a lot of other humiliating impositions on minority communities. this has alienated not only many serious who were on the rebel cause but it is feeding into the propaganda of the assad government who says i am fighting terrorists and you should be on my side against this al qaeda elements. host: here is another tweet --

in september, the big debate was whether to bomb assad and deter him from using chemical weapons. by force. after greatama, acting onted against this, parliament decided they did not want to get involved and the u.s. congress was about to vote against obama's use of force. obama made a deal with the --sians and assad to ship gather all the chemical weapons and ship them out of the country. there have been hiccups in the still but by and large, assad is following along. about 60% of chemical weapons are estimated to have been shipped out of syria. of course, he may be hiding some. he has delayed a little bit and is dragging his feet because he knows that having these weapons keeps them in this deal with united states. by and large, they are being

shipped out. a lot of the launchers for the chemical weapons have been destroyed. it is believed he cannot effectively launch those weapons today. the process is not over. butd could be hiding things much of the chemicals have been shipped out of the country and by june or july, this process is supposed to be ended. whether he is holding back, probably he is. many people suspect he is holding something back. the majority of chemicals should be shipped out of syria this summer. pennsylvania,gh, independent line, go ahead. caller: i have a couple of comments real quick. whenever you have a president like obama draws red lines and says we will do this and then ,urns around and does nothing

that shows weakness. the world we live in is not somewhere where we can just be friends and be nice. that is the goal. you want to be nice and trade with other countries. you want to be social with them or what not. sheer fact that we have a president who completely ignores the facts of history and the whole world and we will have crazy situations like syria refuses tor al-assad step down even though i think you should. i personally don't think we should get involved. we need to have a strong alitary and we need to have competent leader so this way the world is a safer place. i think the caller expresses a deep

anxiety on the part of many americans that we should be strong and able to wield their military power in the world and keep order the weight we did during the cold war. -- at them with this same time as your caller expressed to me does not want to get involved in a civil war in syria. i think people want it both ways. they want america to be strong and be able to keep order in the crazy world and yet they want -- they don't want to get sucked into battles like the one in error that cost well over $1 trillion and not as a surly help american foreign-policy. -- and not help american foreign-policy. as america retreats from superpower position it creates deep anxiety. the united states is being in part because other countries are getting much richer. they are able to exercise power

on the world stage and the united states is not as rich comparatively to the other countries of the world even though our military is much stronger. it is costing us trillions of dollars. in 1953, when we had a problem and a nationalist government that had nationalized oil -- $3 million, we were able, the cia was able to overthrow the regime in a secretcoup and put the shah of iran in power and have an american ally for 25 years until 1979. that only cost $3 million. we own that country in the sense through theshah and having supported him. there was a big blowback but it only cost america $3 million. you look at what we are trying to do with sections on iran, it is costing america billions of dollars. we have not deterred iran or overthrowing the government. it is much more expensive for

the united states today to carry out a foreign policy, and aggressive foreign policy that challenges leaders around the world when they do things we don't like. your caller has touched on anxiety that america is not as powerful as it used to be. as we retreat from global events, other powers like russia or china are going to push back on the united states and we are not going to be able to do anything. host: is art of that the perceived strength of our leader? guest: he does look weak. normally, america would have sent troops and been able to influence the flow of events in the middle east. when we don't do that, we looked like we're making a big departure particularly in contrast to george w. bush who was so aggressive. he had tons of optimism about the role the united states could

play in bringing democracy and changing dictatorships and building national unity in states like afghanistan or iraq. eight years later, that most americans like your first caller just do not want to get involved in a more and think it is not worth it and is not helping america. we have to build in our own country, our schools, our roads and invest here at home. is attuned to the domestic situation and understands that if he is aggressive in countries like syria or even crimea, this could lead to lots of money being spent and it would undermine his presidency. he has decided he will not do that even if it makes them look weak in terms of u.s. foreign policy. host: south dakota's next, democrats line. caller: interesting conversation this morning. is that thereink

are too many factions in syria to get involved. i think we made a big mistake by going into iraq and overturning the sunnis and putting the which iin charge guess iran has a shiite majority population so they are now closer allies. we have actually helped iran to become stronger in that area. i think we just have to pick our fights. we spent more than the top 15 countries in the world on military. we definitely are the strongest military in the world. we need to use our technology rather than our boots on the ground. these factions that

are causing all the problems with in the world. host: you cannot see it but "the guardian" had a map of syria and where the lines are drawn. you see more of a government strength. they say there is rebel strength throughout the country but northwest is the kurdish area. you mentioned the fracture of syria. how does that play out to some type of resolved to a civil war to the country is segmented? guest: that's an excellent question. everybody is scratching their heads on this. will this lead to the fragmentation of syria with the government south and west and the rebels north and south and the far northeast near the iraqi kurdistan, kurds make up about 10% of the syrian population. they are a different ethnic group although they are sunni muslims, they are kurds who

speak kurdish which is related to urgent. it is not arabic. lead to a small kurdish enclave in the far northeast, rebel terrorist order and a government territory. the government has put their ace commanders in aleppo which is largely rebel controlled and in the east. it is quite clear that the syrian government still believes that it can begin to roll back conquer syriad re- and united under asides control. they have not been disabused of this notion but many analysts do not see how the syrian government can do that. the religious minority community and syria's only 20% of the population. it would be very hard for them to have enough soldiers to keep

ofsunni arabs. many people say there are many that are on the side of the government them as the rebel forces become more radicalized and fragmented and cannot win, sunni arabs are returning to assad and looking to him for stability even if they dislike his government intensely and dislike him and resent being ruled by the minority, they want stability and they want security. they are tired and i know they cannot win so in a sense, they are hanging down their heads and retreating back to the government. that is possible. the government is calculating ift it can once again win not the loyalties, the maybe the begrudging acquiescence of the syrian population and begin to roll back the is rebel movement. a lot of that will depend on the posture of the west and particularly of the gulf arabs.

if they stop sending money and stop giving political support to the rebels, it's quite possible that assad will eventually be able to overwhelm them. the opposing powers to not support the rebels. host: joshua landis is with the university of oklahoma. he also has a blog on syria. from pennsylvania caller: caller:, republican line, go ahead. that we haveto say no business over there interfering with civil wars of countries. ,he french, the british throughout history, people have tried to control the world and it just does not work. did was runng we saddam hussein out of kuwait. other than that, we have just

been to american lives -- we have just spent american lives and not gained anything. this is a powerful republican current that does not want to get involved in nationbuilding, in trying to resolve civil wars in other countries. look at how difficult it is to resolve civil wars -- if you look at our own civil war estimation,ewest 750,000 people killed in america and the united states at the time in 1860 was that we had a population of 30 million. syria is about 24 million. brutalityompare the of the american civil war, the number of people killed, you see

i massive scale how it is. most americans would not have wanted great britain or another power to interfere in the american civil war to stop this kind of bloodshed and mass killing. prisoners of the 400,000 prisoners that were taken by the north and south, 58,000 died in prison or were killed. the bloodletting and civil war is germanic. -- the bloodletting in civil wars is tremendous. allowing other countries to get involved is debatable. many a strong current of in the republican party as well as democrats who are beginning to throw out their arms and say we cannot resolve this kind of problem. in "the washington post" there is a story on the three-year anniversary -- it looks at presidential

elections. put the election and a perspective of what can happen in the future of syria? president assad is running for a third term, seven-year term of the presidency. these are completelycooked. the majority artie in parliament is the baath party, the president's party and they will nominate him to be the candidate and he will be elected through elections that have never been fair and it's only important who is counting these ballots. he will win and he has said he will run for these elections. that will theoretically provide some kind of fig leaf of legitimacy for his candidacy.

the international community, the u.n. can say he should not do this and it -- but he's dead but it should be hard to stop him. what it means in the end, i'm not sure. it underlines the determination of the shark al al-assad -- of bush are al-assad to continue their effort to can 10 you the position of the government in syria. next from illinois, independent line, go ahead. caller: i have a statement to make in the question. i have had a member of my family fight in every war since world war i. bombedbrother's ship was in pearl harbor and we have had one in every war until my nephew just got back from afghanistan. about johnof hearing mccain, the money monger. i disapprove of him. --the meantime, your opinion

if we were to bring all of our troops home from the middle east from these wars immediately, trillion dollars we would not be spending and put 24% import tax on all foreign goods entering our country which is over $5 trillion per year that we can bring -- build u.s. naval airships and put them out in the free waters to protect our country. enough is enough with these wars in the middle east. this is the opinion that so many americans have that underlies the retreat of the u.s. government from its more forward positions in the middle east in particular. americans feel poor. they don't want to spend lots of money in foreign adventures. has previouslyes

said spend on the military the equivalent of the next 15 countries combined. to a certain extent, european countries which spend less than two percent of their national budget on the military, have been protected by this u.s. umbrella. retreats from the superpower role, they will have to be spending more money if they want to be able to project power3 maybe that's the only way to get our allies in europe and other places in the world to spend a ontle bit more of their gdp military and build a new coalition that can bring stability to the world and bring some justice to the people of the world without the united states shouldering the responsibility. , after able to do it

world war ii, 50% of the world's capital was in the united states. we were a tremendous power. today, we are one among many. to shareo find a way those responsibilities in a more echo of fashion. there a scenario in which the united states takes more of a role in syria? guest: i don't see it. i think the intelligence in many ways, turned against the rebel cause. they see the blowback and we just read an article today in ofters about the number syrian saudi fighters -- there have welded over 1000 saudi's who fought in syria -- and they're coming back a number of them have joined the yemeni al qaeda groups to blow things up. the saudi's have become increasingly concerned about the blowback.

over 400e there are british and french people who have gone to fight in syria. written just arrested for our five of these returning fighters. that's because they are very anxious about what kind of influence there could be and whether there might be fighting or things blown up in britain. all the countries have really shifted their attitude from supporting the rebels against assad to worry about the blowback once they return home. russia has been a deadly fear. chechnya and other islamic fighters have gone to participate in syria, they will come back and create havoc for the russian government. to thesians have said middle east, we are not ready for democracy and we need a tough leader and america made it

big mistake by overthrowing saddam hussein. you got out that a growing in iraq and we will not do this. america's don't know what they're doing but think democracy is good for the middle east. it is not. that is the russian attitude. is very self-serving because bashare our ally and al-assad and want to keep their ally in power. they are very worried about the blowback of islamic hadists inlism ji their country and i think that is become the dominant factor driving policy in foreign capitals today toward syria. i don't see how that reverses. with chemical weapons being drawn out, that is one redline that does not exist anymore. major redline that obama drew, the use of chemical weapons. joshua landis, the university of oklahoma. you can also read his work on his blog.

thoughts and his all of this.about >> thanks for bringing me on. host: up next, a short session of open phones. in, theant to chime number is on your screen.

do in the cyber arena,

host: the internet and the future of it is the subject of a story in oak both the new york times." maryland.e from caller: hello? good morning.

i would like to make a couple of comments. i agree with the previous caller about the establishment and their intentions. americae that instigated the civil war in syria and have a lot to do with that and i believe that russia instigated the war in the ukraine and it's just a power play and they are trying to position themselves. if it keeps going the way it is, it will be a nuclear war. host: salt lake city, utah, democrats line. caller: yes, sir, good morning. the discussion that has gone on today in the morning about the wars going on and the involvement of the united states i think is emblematic of foreign policy by the united states after the soviet collapse in the 1980's. of united states, instead using the attitudes they used during the cold war to make sure

it has its own curve - east or west -- the united states adopted a policy saying we will only get involved in the country or in a conflict only if we have specific u.s. interests. in other words, reflecting what is in it for me. wars arey all these and the american people don't understand that policy. we are seeing what happened in somalia in 1982 and we saw what was happening in a rack in 2003 and we see what's happening in libya and what is happening in syria. those are not simply things that are happening in a vacuum. those are policies adopted the united states a long time ago and they will continue to do so. the united states will never went anywhere with that attitude because the u.s. knows how to win wars like world war ii.

united states adopted a firm policy in which it was making sure that democracy took lise -- took place. "newsmakers" program tomorrow at 10:00, adam schiff talked about issues and the uniteda states position. here is a little bit of that conversation. >> in terms of what more we can do on the humanitarian front, i think there is more we can be doing and our allies to step up and help these people who are in need. i think united states can be more welcoming to some of the refugees. that's an issue i have been working on. many thousands of them have family in the united states and have approved immigrant petitions but they cannot yet a visa because we have reached the visa limit. there are small things and some large things we can help them on

the humanitarian front. on the broader military front and the peace negotiations, probably one of the most significant things we need to do is get our allies on the same page about who they are supporting and make sure the weapons flowing into this conflict are not flowing into the hands of jihadis who will use them to kill the more moderate members of the opposition but also pose a threat to us after the conflict. i think that is frankly far more important than us getting involved as an arms supplier. when he to help direct the supply of an extra no amount of weapons that are already going into the region. host: watch that whole conversation tomorrow on our "newsmakers" program at 10:00. independent line, hi. caller: happy 35th c-span. regardless of democrat or republican or independent, i

urge everyone to go to storm clouds gathering. i think that will explain everything going on with the world. just get prepared for some really bad times. i hate to talk negative but it's not looking good. this president we have in the white house was never purged raab early from the corporate news media. that's all i have to say. i wish the best for us, pedro. bepan tries to straightforward and lets us know what is going on, thank you again. on from tennessee on our democrats line -- are you there? where is rob? he is one of my favorites on their. host: i will let him know. caller: i want to talk about the seventh district i live in in tennessee. host: are you there?

caller: yes i want to talk about the seventh district in tennessee. it's one of the poorest districts in the country. a lot of people are on food stamps and unemployment and welfare. the people in this district still vote democrat. if we could get all the blacks that lived in the seventh district to register to vote and get them to vote, we could get rid of people like marsha blackburn. that's all he wanted to say. thank you. host: the effectiveness of congress is a subject of a story.

diane from arkansas, republican line, good morning. calling to give you a few thoughts about the college student you had on before the open phones. remarkableit was

about the study of the donors or constituents. people forget that human nature is involved in all of this. and oneened his mail envelope look like it had a check made out to him in it and advertisement,n which do you think he would open first? he would want his money, right? it's the same way with politicians or anywhere else. i think that is not remarkable. advertisementtry to solve othe. i cannot see where he would be surprised that it turned out like it did. am i missing something? host: a deadline is approaching for the sign up for the affordable care act, march 31. a story in "the wall street journal" --

try to solve other diane from tennessee, independent line. caller: hello, i want to change the subject a little bit to talk about the restrictions of voting rights. if the republicans have such a strong platform, why are they trying to prevent people from voting?

i don't understand. this country should be up in arms about this. that is one of our rights. tell them to -- put their politics and their pocket when they come on the air. it shows the party they belong to. i thank you so very much. host: also month, new york, democrats line. caller: hello, thank you, pedro. everybody talks about obama being week. obama was week when the republicans decided to never work with him. putin knew that and that's why obama brought to congress. he made his decision to go into syria and he wanted congress to get behind it. he wants them to own it. that's whenputin came to the table. everybody misunderstood what obama was trying to do here. that our to show putin country would have been 100% behind that.

john mccain was sitting there looking his jobs. he would have pulled everybody together to vote on something like that. putin knew that and now, obama is looking for putin's next witness. he is the smartest guy in the room. if him a chance, thank you. and wehat is our program appreciate those of you who participated in open phones. this is what to look forward to tomorrow. a former transportation department inspector general will talk about the missing malaysia airplane flight. her insightk about on the investigation and airline safety and regulations for foreign carriers. we will also hear from dave leventhal who will discuss harry reid in the recent campaign about the koch brothers and their role in political campaigns. you can learn more with him at

9:15a.m. and from a.m., we will talk about president putin and light of many things going on as far as they vote on crimea that takes place on monday. she has met the russian president several times and will give her insight on how he does things related to what is going on in the ukraine. we will do that and take phone tells and look at the newspaper all on "the washington journal" tomorrow at 7:00 a.m.. we will see you then.