♪ c-span,g up next on newsmakers with florida congresswoman and dnc chair of the wasserman schultz. after that general motors ceo mary barra testifying before congress about her company's handling of an ignition switch problem and its cars. and then the circumstances of bowe bergdahl's disappearance, and the exchange that led to his release. host: joining us is representative debbie wasserman

schultz, the chair of the democratic national committee. thanks so much for being with us. -- you were injured at a softball game. is everything ok? raised over $150,000 for the coalition, i pulled my hamstring in the process but it took one for the team. a couple solid base hits before i went down. i will be back in the game next year. [laughter] >> we're glad you are doing well. let's start with a rock -- ira q. conditions have been deteriorating, the president announcing he is sending in 300

special forces. what did you think of that move, and are you a fellow democrats willing to support him if he needs to take other steps like airstrikes? >> we have to protect our national security interests. that is first and foremost. takenk the president has measured steps to guarantee that without issuing ground toops to be able to start slowly step up our assistance to an iraqi focused security effort . the other thing the o president has emphasized is that there are tester gives political

house in order. they have not been able to unify under the current leadership, and there really needs to be some better coordination at trying to get that resolved. that is a major contributing to the deteriorating situation. >> there will still be military personnel in harm's way. thatid the democrats sell to the american people that we are sending american people back to iraq, a war we said we're going to get out of. ? >> we have troops are protecting , and soamerican embassy the additional troops to enhance the protection was important. a measured response, we

have to make sure that we are protecting our national security interest. we do not want the situation to deteriorate even further because that would compromise our interest even more. american all the understand that there is a certain amount that we have to make sure that we do particularly because we unfortunately in the previous got fully engaged a iraq and went to war in country under false pretenses. have, i think of a certain responsibility to address the situation there, particularly as the situation gets worse and potentially threatens our interest. >> through the president bring the congress along with him on this? does he need to get additional the authority -- additional authority to get airstrikes and

military strategy? >> the authorization the president has in place from the original war resolutions all the authorization me hhe needs. the president said yesterday he would consult with the congress. beo not think it would necessary, he already has that authorization. greg zero the business of --ping >> you are in the business of helping democrats get reelect did. what this was due to the democratic race going into the fall election? >> i think the main focus of the majority of americans is still the economy. we should be focused on creating

jobs, getting the economy turned around, grinning more opportunities for people to climb ladders to the middle-class. republicans are focused on everything but creating jobs, distracting american voters from the fact that they do not have jives withthat what americans want to focus on. that is why they are focused on benghazi and every other unrelated item to the economy. withcontinued to be upset the affordable care act but they were willing to shut down the government over it. it is such a huge contrast between the direction the democrats want to continue to take this country, such as the that showrday americans want democrats to control congress because they our prioritiesve

in order. we have their back, and what they see from republicans is extremism. when eric can't or his own party's nomination at the head the party, you know how far the extremism has come. >> i see no map anywhere to suggest that republicans will not be in house seats. republicans are going to do better in the next verse in the house than they are this term. >> no they are not. where will we lose to them? republicans are fully engulfed, and have been swallowed by the tea party. in race after race, the contrast between the democratic company and the republican nominee is

going to be extremely stark. the republicans embrace revealing the affordable care act, trying to cause to seniors more with their prescription drugs by reopening the doughnut holes. they settled foreign-policy like benghazi, and creating investigations instead of trying to work together to make sure something never happens again like that. obama administration was able to bring the perpetrators to justice. that attacknd of will be standing trial in the united states. when you have a republican candidate versus a democratic end of it standing in front of the voters, in race after race, and the folly will be the democratic candidates that win because we are focused on creating more opportunities, investing education, more

opportunities for young people to go to college because that is the path to making sure that you can have a life that you envision for yourself and your family. on the political side of things, the dnc efforts and so many efforts in which we ever -- we havedidates recruited candidates to run against republicans who have embraced that extremism. >> do these things and a major voters? the president's approval ratings are 41%, was that nbc poll found. how did democrats know out in full force in a midterm election? it is a different electorate campaign.sidential >> this is not a referendum on the president. thishappens in a midterm,

race is going to be about local issues. it is going to be about issues that are important to each congressional district. for voters will be does the candidate that wants me to vote for them have their finger on the pulse of what i care about? the polls that the republicans have their finger on his right tea party extremism that wants to deny women access to health care that they have the right to, that wants to cap education, cut support for people who need to feed their families. who refuse to adopt immigration going tod how are they win hispanic voters with the positions they have? they refuse to increase when the wage -- minimum wage. they are so dramatically out of touch, and that is the contrast

that we are going to have in race after race across the country. i think democrats are well positioned to pick up seats in the house of representatives, and i think we will hold the senate because of the contrast. >> what do you think of the new republican leadership in the house? we had a vote this week, the new majority leader. kevin mccarthy of california change the dynamic at all on that side of the aisle? could you perhaps work with him better than mr. cantor? >> i had a decent working relationship with mr. cantor, and i suspect i would have won with mr. mccarthy, but there is no difference. on the contrary, unfortunately i wish that we could turn a corner and that republicans would decide that a want to embrace common ground and focus on working together, but they are

entire leadership team old and new still think that the most important priorities are to repeal the affordable care act, and to roll back the access to health care that has been the law since 2010. this is still a leadership team that should -- does not believe conference of immigration reform or raise the minimum wage. even the kevin mccarthy has had some positive example of form, this is a leadership team that has the same thing. >> any bill that we should expect to pass before november that they could really work together? problem, and the dynamic elliptically --

politically, is that they will election after november. the tea party extremism have the big lead this is not over. they have been engaged in a civil war for a long time, and the tea party has won that war. all the republicans have been forced so far to the right that there is no more mainstream in the republican party. that is the case on full display in the republican conference with the republican leadership. unfortunately, if the current republican leadership wanted to try to come to the middle of work with democrats, they would be hard-pressed to do that because they will have tea party components in their conference. >> do you think that is the case with the highway funding bill? >> i see no indication from the republican leadership or confidence that -- they have a lot of opposition in their

conference in dealing with that highway bill. despite the fact that the highway fund is about to run dry. they refuse to support investing in infrastructure. why have we not brought that bill up for a vote? it is due, it is time. it takes time to work together on that. even as the leader of my , even i party understand we have to work together. some of ouret aside strongly held views. you do not compromise your principles. but you come together, and each their struggle he had abused to the side seat can move forward together -- strongly held views to the side so they can move forward together. unfortunately their members have that theye and again

care more about holding onto rightbeen doing the ring. >> you are from south florida, if we have reached a point where immigration is not going to get through on the legislative front, do you need the president to work unilaterally and accomplish the things by executive order? >> i think the president has rightly shown a propensity to do that. he has clearly said he has a pen and a phone, and he is not going to sit idly by, nor should he. if congress refuses to take on some of our biggest challenges because the status quo is unacceptable on rick immigration reform -- on immigration reform. who have lived

here their whole lives, they do not know anything else, any other country. 11 million people is a huge amount. if we do not address that they to earn that legal status, and we just ignore it, it is plainly callous and insensitive. on the political side, it shows how out of touch the republicans are. talkedago my counterpart about the autopsy that they had done on their party and that they needed to reach out to certain groups that they have daily mail it. alienated.y had they doubled down. instead of getting better, they have gotten worse. i do not see how they have any hispanic voters, the women voters, to the lgbt community, to young people,

these of the people who want to cut education, who did not want to make college affordable because they want to cut student aid. they are going in reverse and forward -- reverse, not forward. a democrat other than hillary clinton who could be the standardbearer? >> of course there is. we have a vice president of the united states, who could be a standardbearer. dnc, so ihair of the have to manage our primary process with whoever is in it. bench of deep potential candidates, whether it is secretary clinton, vice president biden, or anyone of the number of candidates, the governor of maryland, or massachusetts, or new york, or

virginia. the list goes on. >> you were one of the early supporters coming you endorsed her in 2007. do you think there is a need to coalesce around her as a party, or is a contested democratic primary good for the party? >> honestly i think we will have presidential campaign like we always do in this country. counterparthrase my who himself said that they are going to be hard-pressed to win another national election relatively get the missiles right with a group they have alienated, who are the swing vote. is continue to do to focus on the priorities of

the american people. make sure through tax policy, economic always think of education policy, environmental policy, health care policy, that people can have more opportunities to create a better way of life for themselves. that is contrasted with republicans who seem obsessed with tea party extremist issues that are not something that almost any of us actually hear from our constituents about would we go home. ask you said you needed to manage the primary calendar for the party. when do democratic candidates need to be in an order for you to manage it effectively and have the party the most competitive it can be? have are well on track to the amount of time appropriate. we are well-prepared, we're getting in the strongest possible shape to run a

robust campaign. is selection process ongoing. six incredible cities have for submitted requests for proposals . i am looking forward to going t hrough that process. it has been an exciting year and a half in 2012 election paid off our debt. we are now in the black and the dnc and have been building on our programs. i've been trying to manage responsibly paying our debt down and building a program so we can do that. >> what is your thinking about how you pick the city? is it by fund raising or by organizing? there is a variety of things

we looked at. i was not a part of the selection process, i was chair after my predecessor picked the site. we have a whole host of considerations, and we send those out to the city's them to put together a plan. we will review the proposal. it is the organization and the depth of support and the community. it is the hotels on the capacity they have, the ease of travel in the city. there are so many considerations. >> will it be earlier in 2016? republicans are making their calendars a little bit shorter, are democrats doing the same? >> we are the had it a little bit shorter -- already had a bit

shorter, to engage the grassroots community and make sure that there was a regional folks in north carolina, south carolina, and virginia. morelowed us to sign up volunteers and put more out there in the swing states. we are not at the point where the committee is reviewing the calendar, but we have lots of time. citypect to pick the host by the end of this year or the beginning of normal fo2015. are also looking at limiting the number of debates. with democrats like to do the same? >> instead of trying to hide our candidates from the voters, and not allow them choose the some of the rings that are candidate care about, republicans had a

pretty awful experience with a lot of their extremist candidates saying things that got them into trouble. it is not surprising to me that restrictedoters before the ballot. have robust debate which i expect our candidates will have an opportunity to to show up no matter who is our nominee they will be the president of the united is because they will job creation, and making sure we can protect our environment so that our children grow up healthy. and we can ensure the next generation of americans have an opportunity to just feed -- to succeed. debt, is thatndor

right? >> we do. >> do you think that will be paid off the end of the year? has this had any tangible effect on your operations? >> no. what i have tried to do is to debt, and we took on major art can't part would trade with the city day of the week -- and made sure our counterpart would trade with us any day of the week. launched the fourth generation of our digital a technological advantage, and use that technology to microstar good howl and where to register voters.

we are focused on expanding the vote them and the republicans have been focused on limiting voters abilities to cap the ballot because they know they cannot win elections on the merits, so they have to rig with the electorate looks like so it makes candidates in a better position to win. the midterms should be pretty good for them because fewer people vote. democrats celebrate more people voting, so that is what we focus on. we always carry some vendor debt, we will carry about the normal amount of debt that we usually do. be in thever want to situation where i paid off all of our debts until not build the program out to know so we could make sure we could back up our candidates. we will be in a very strong position, we are working with many companies to provide that

we own the data that would campaign with now. and down the up ballot, so that they can benefit -- from that day ta. we are light-years ahead of them, so we're going to continue, since we have a print our grassroots cultural network, coupled with our technological and digital advances, to allow us to exponentially reach more voters. >> do you have a commitment from hillery? is focused on resting and now that she has got her book tour launched, she is in the midst of that. that she willet

be helping democrats across the country getting elected. and i end on a personal note. yourur roommates like clean cooking and your black bean chocolate cake? >> since we used to only have popcorn and maybe some coke in the refrigerator, and now i food shop every week and focus on eating and cooking healthy, the problem is i stay up a lot later because i'm cooking at 11:00 p.m. at night because that is what i can fit it in. in the some stuff refrigerator for them so they can give it a try, and so far they really like it. >> we will have to leave it

there. thank you. we are back with our reporters can and paul. asked about how it was looking for 2014 and democrats to possibly take back the house. what do the numbers say? very competent dnc chair say that the democrats could win this. >> i have not seen anyone suggesting that democrats will be able to take back the house. i think they will lose another half-dozen seats in the house. the on thing is with redistrict redistricting, there is very few seats where room.is wiggle few opportunities for them to make again, and she did make gains, it --

but she did not seem worried. all of the seats they have to take are in the margin of error. each state and each race will be critical. there is a jeopardy for the democrats in the senate, but debbie seemed very confident they going to win. question oft is a momentum. where will they get momentum in the next few months? much of the passage of legislation in congress, but there is not a lot that democrats can run on egg big raise here -- on big victories here. big headlinese

and news about the situation in iraq. them.does not help her justification is we are cleaning up the mess that we are responsible for because of the last administration. we made this point, how do you get a democratic voter onto the polls by saying we're going to send people back to iraq because we are cleaning up other people's mess? >> this will be a tangible issue in october as well. we do not know what additional that the president may take in iraq. this is something that the democratic vote has been opposed to for years. tangled inrther iraq, it is hard to see how that hopes democrats in the fall. >>