services committee on readiness. and autism speaks cofounder and former ceo of nbc universal for federal and private research funding for autism. >> good morning, everyone. six term incumbent defeated as tea party challenger state senator chris smith daniel in a mississippi gop senate primary runoff tuesday night. he beat make annual 57.7%. than 4800ce of less votes. he failed to succeed or congratulate his opponent tuesday in a speech. let me go to new york where was firstangle elected to the house of representatives 44 years ago appeared to have survived a

primary challenge there. in oklahoma, the gop primary established republican james lankford, a member of the house one against his tea party challenger there. primary results coming up. first, we want to get your thoughts on the surge of unaccompanied minors crossing into the united states from the southern border and the impact on immigration reform debate in washington. the numbers are on your screen. --ependents and all others send us a tweet. war post your comments on facebook.com/cspan or e-mail us. we have a fourth line set aside for those on the southern border states. we want to hear from you this morning as well. look at the headlines in usa today this morning.

again of the so-called gang of eight in the senate that worked on senate immigration reform bill. he was quoted to say the chance of passing a significant is zero. inside the article it says in an interview tuesday with capital download, he urged president obama to go before cameras to address families in honduras, guatemala and elsewhere who believe their children might gain legal status if they are in the united states. 2012 obama took executive action permitting the so-called dreamers am a young people growing up in the united states after being brought here illegally by their parents to work legally. here is a little bit of the interview. people, because it feeds the narrative, particularly on the republican side, that the

president is unwilling to enforce the law. when the president takes unilateral action without working with congress, anything that feeds that meredith makes it more difficult to move ahead , fraudgislation legislation intended to deal with a very complicated situation. >> that was a senator in an interview today when asked if the situation along the southern border dims the progress -- costs us for immigration reform. the answer that he thinks it feeds into the line republicans have about what the administration is doing on the border. from you. hear what do you think the impact is of the situation on the southern border on immigration reform.com

he had a headline, caring about minors crossing the border then passed immigration reform. here is what he had to say in this piece. some kids are crossing now because current law requires them to get channeled into legal proceedings in backlog courts ensure it will take forever until the course comes up. be to changeuld the loss of the kids can no longer get to present their case in court. kids whos deporting generally qualify for relief for humanitarian reasons. a better approach is to pass the senate bill or something similar now. as that happens, under current

law, new arrivals will never qualify for legal status but having this clarify as part of reform, which wicked extensive coverage throughout latin america would further dispel confusion. should we only secure the border now and the for legalization until the order is under control, that would only perpetuate the very problem that is a big thomas of some kind of legalization later is incentive to the -- michael kids and now. therefore, this should be part of any solution now, two. making the argument for immigration reform now because of the situation on the border. we will go to margaret in leavenworth, kansas. good morning to you. .aller" good morning i think it is very sad to watch a humanitarian crisis on our soder when we are causing

many in the middle east and other places and have hundreds of thousands of people and other countries are supposed to accept this. we do not take care of the western hemisphere. we have not taken care of immigration because it is not about that. it is about cheap labor. have visa workers pouring in when there are americans here that are trained for the jobs. so it goes around. it is sad to see us treat people not even like they would get traded in other countries. all the u.n.. go down and see what is going on. why people want to come here which is pretty wretched right now.

we are no better than these that havein africa displaced people. it is the people who keep hiring people for cheap labor. how much cheap labor do need? you keep bringing people and iin taking them like refugees. host: usaid has provided this .or minors crossing the border

we will go to paul next. we need to send the people back. a different message needs to be sent out. thank you. you would say deporting these children right away. there is a way to do everything year. we are not doing it right. what do you think about the situation on the border and the impact of that on the debate here in washington on whether or not to go forward on immigration reform like we saw in the senate last year, where they brokered innovation reform, a comprehensive reform. more of awants to do

piecemeal approach. do border security and then take a look at other issues. according to the u.s. border patrol, this is the situation. 414,000e seen about border apprehensions. 38,000 in 2013 were unaccompanied juveniles. those numbers have gone up drastically in 2013. reported that the waves of immigrants minors are presenting a crisis for the president and congress. this is what they write. an estimated 60,000 children the unitednto

states. washington is trying to figure out how to pay for food, housing, and transportation once tasted -- taken into custody. paul in florida. what do you think? caller: i think they should go back. i think there is a certain way to do everything. we have the rule of law here. they are just not used to them things, i guess. a new message needs to be sent. something needs to be changed here. but who has the magic answer? host: are you for immigration reform? caller: yes. that wouldu think send a message? there will be no pathway to

legalization. caller: that's right. the republicans are holding it all up. host: you don't think will happen because of politics? caller: right. host: john in louisiana. an interesting statistic out of health and human services. ,ll of these children statistically a believed 88% of those children are in the 14-17 group. i would like to remind people of the documentaries we have seen about ms13. they have 12-13-year-olds shooting and killing people. 77% of these are males. it is not that we are having all of the subtle babies and all of

these little children. these are some young adults that are coming over that are in these gangs. it is this angst over like they are all little children, when they could be members of these gangs that are coming up here crossing our borders. immigration is a legal process, by definition. you cannot have an illegal immigrant. they are illegal aliens. they are had -- here illegally. the house is not passed this because they are the people's house. the american people do not want an open border when we are flooded with immigrants wanting to be immigrants but they are illegal. to me, reform is, let's close our border, like it should be, and start from there. you been following

this debate? yesterday, there was a hearing about the southern border before the house homeland security committee hearing. you have a couple of the midi hearings again before the house hearings committee -- again before the house judiciary committee. yes.r: i am a c-span junkie. you can see the people saying what they are doing. yes, i follow it religiously. all we are hearing is people talking about this. they want to reform a system. why don't they enforce the laws that are already on the books. is on the books today is not a particularly bad one, except for the fact that is not being enforced. to say we are going to reform

something, let's make it work as it was written first. that is what we are not doing. agendas. about people want cheap labor. that is a fact. we maybe need to stop the idea that we can just have cheap labor of illegal people coming into this country. it's not, let's let the 20 million people in here have a path to citizenship. a path tonted citizenship, they would have gotten in line. interested int be the "wall street journal." they have a full paid at -- our economy about needs a modernized immigration system. congress can deliver on reform in 2014.

this is from executives, ceos, a wide variety of companies from the business roundtable, the u.s. travel association, technet , the national association of manufacturers, writing letters to congress, taking up this full-page ad in the "wall street journal." are executives who lead and represent a broad-based group of representatives. we are united on the need for our broken immigration system to be fixed. out, butunning meaningful reform is possible and we encourage you to come together on reforms that will revitalize our economy. making the economic argument in the "wall street journal." we are getting your thoughts on the situation with the southern border. what to do about unaccompanied minors crossing it. it could be 60,000 in 2014.

we covered the house homeland security hearing yesterday on capitol hill with the homeland security secretary, jeh johnson, talking about the situation on the border and what the administration would like to do. here is what he had to say but the possibility of sending more patrol agents to the border [video clip] we are making clear that the earned path to citizenship, contemplated by the bill passed last year will not apply to individuals across the border now. influx of unaccompanied children in the rio grande valley, we have and detailedffing 100 15 additional experienced agents from less active sectors two-man operations there. i'm considering sending 150 more border patrol agent's based on

my review of operations. directed the i development of a southern border approach campaign plan effort that is putting together a strategic framework to further enhance security for our southern border. finally, we will continue to work closely with congress on this problem and keep you informed. updating staff twice a week. i have directed my staff to be forthright in bringing to me every conceivable lawful option for consideration to address this problem. in cooperation with the other agencies of our government that are dedicating resources to the effort with the support of congress and in cooperation with the governments of mexico and central america, i believe we will stem this tide.

that was homeland security secretary jeh johnson yesterday. the debate continues today on unaccompanied immigrant children. we will have coverage of that on c-span three. you missed the hearing yesterday before the homeland security panel, you can go to our website, c-span.org, to watch it there. times" below the fold had this headline. drug cartels making use of children.

look for that in today's hearing up on capitol hill. we are going to keep taking your thoughts on this. what do you think about this debate here in washington over immigration reform with the condition of the u.s. southern surge ofd the unaccompanied minors crossing and from central america, honduras, el salvador," a mall? guatemala? let's go back to the primaries from last night. the mississippi press had this headline courtesy of the museum here in washington. the all nighter. cochran went on to defeat the tea party challenger.

a narrow when in "the clarion ledger." also from the denver post. pray -- beauprez takes the day for the gop. from "the oklahoman." langford wins bid. he beat back a challenge from a tea party candidate for the tom coburn.eplace i want to show you what thad cochran had to say.

here is what he said to supporters. [video clip] being hereu all for to help celebrate our great victory. applause]d it has been a real pleasure working closely with so many of townsaking appearances in all across mississippi. being in church services with , attendingper meetings that were important to talk about the future of our state. [applause] what we have tonight is a consensus for more and better jobs for mississippi workers. applause]d and thery force capacity to defend the security

interests of the united states of america. [applause] principles, the planks in the platform for the campaign. but you are the ones who helped her reach out to voters, make sure we knew that they were important to this election because it is a group effort, it is not a solo. we all have a right to be proud of our state tonight. host: that was senator thad cochran, who won his primary challenge in a runoff in mississippi. the new york times headline this morning. senator defeats tea party in mississippi primary. used the past three weeks to turn a democratic voters, especially african-american voters, to make up the deficit.

state senator chris mcdaniel, in concede anddid not did not congratulate senator thad cochran. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> there is something a bit strange, something a bit unusual about a republican primary that is decided by liberal democrats. [applause]

so much for bold colors. so much for principal. take someey can consolation in the fact that they did something tonight. compromising, once again reaching across the aisle, once again come ban -- abandoning the conservative notion. [applause] i would like to know which part of that strategy today our republican friends invoked. i would like to know which part of that strategy today our statewide officials endorse. [applause] this is not the party of reagan.

but we are not done fighting. [applause] state senator chris mcdaniel last night to supporters. he did not concede, he did not congratulate. he tweeted this out at about 11:45. sounding like he may challenge the results of last night's primary. also on this race from the "wall street journal." on money spent in this primary challenge. the defeat of mr. mcdaniel, who outpolled the senator, was a blow for the tea party movement. it was one senate race where all the major national groups had invested in the challenger. some big money spent in them primary race down in mississippi.

with sixhe results term senator thad cochran getting about 50.7% of the votes and mr. mcdaniel getting 49.3% of the vote. we are getting your thoughts on immigration reform, prospects for it, given the situation on the southern border with kids crossing over. you have the "washington times ," their editorial today. the tsunami of the huddled masses. it is the warning of the amnesty track that is the bright spot.

that is the "washington times" this morning. vice president joe biden was in guatemala. he was in brazil and then went to guatemala. he tweeted this out. he also had this quote. this is a serious humanitarian issue. that is what the vice president said in guatemala on the traveling unaccompanied minors on twitter. that is what the vice president had to say. here is reaction on twitter from all of you.

we will go to sylvia in burlington, vermont. , craddick -- democratic caller. have been up all my watching about four or five different channels. strangely, i did not notice many black faces being invited to senator cochran's celebratory party, did you? you think that they would at least be invited for a coffee and a sandwich after the helped

put him over. anyways, that is something else. as far as the children coming over, sure there are probably gangs in their. is keep awe can do better track of the people that come over. we are always losing people. that is why there are so many million people here. but we are supposed to be an exceptional nation. i'm ashamed of us. i'm truly ashamed of us. we can't even keep our poor from starving. so now, we are making of ourselves-- asses of before the world. we are going to send babies home. shame on us. furthermore, i have been hearing statisticiansrom and so on that we are eventually

going to be a brown nation. my god. the whiteare probably shaking ir boots. that is what all of this is about. host: richard, good morning. caller: i do not think you can opinion without talking about immigration reform. ancall was prompted by earlier caller who spoke about visas.a and the h1b i have heard this. of 65,000 per cap year. that was based upon a 1988 booze out study regarding the impact of the h1b. we are talking about a category that has a cap. it was placed based upon a

25-year-old study. in terms of comprehensive immigration reform, if you look at the senate bill that passed, the senate speaks out of both sides of their mouth. they are placing restrictions on for people coming in temporarily. supportschumer legalization. placeo wants to restrictions on non-immigrants coming to this country to work. the other issue is that the majority of these people coming in on the visa are graduates of u.s. schools. foreign students who are here studying at a u.s. school, applying for jobs in the united states. legalizationue of

has to be viewed in the context of comprehensive immigration reform. diane, republican caller. like ina situation california? do you see the crossing at the border? not in beauregard. what we have been seeing is the not caring. down here, we have border patrol agents on the border. they patrol regularly. what we have a problem with his we have so many coming over that it affects the school systems, theway of life, some of towns here are totally

spanish-speaking. louise, arizona, you cannot go there. they do not speak english. uis, arizona, you cannot go there. they do not speaking much. we do not who is coming across the border. we do not know if it is terrorists. our government is not willing to protect its citizens. that is their number one job for all of us -- is to protect us. they are doing a very lousy job. host: david, stony point, north carolina. caller: hi. how are you? host: doing well. go ahead with your thoughts. caller: all of the kids going across the border, they are not , how many decades have

we tried to immunize the children in the united states to rubella? polio, mumps, host: you see this as a health risk. caller: yes. host: what do you think should be done? are you for immigration reform? do you think these kids should be allowed to stay? that would be -- i do not know. i would be for it with caution. speakerre is what the of the house had to say on twitter. wednesday, the hearing that we will be covering, the obama-made border crisis hearing. unaccompanied, unprecedented, unacceptable.

president obama should immediately deploy the national guard to protect children and address the crisis at the southern border. technical issue here. our computer is frozen. speaker of the house having bad to say, calling the situation a humanitarian crisis and that the president needs to act. the democrat charlie wrangle, first elected to the house 44 years ago, is claiming victory in new york in the democratic primary. it looks like charlie rangle will likely go on to represent the constituents in that district. he clings to the lead in a primary fight. that is a headline. charlie rangle with supporters in new york.

we want to go through other headlines. militants want the islamic states as a staging ground for u.s. attacks. isis want their own country to possibly stage attacks on the united states. is bombing sunni militant targets. we will be talking about that coming up.

some argue any u.s. military action in the islamic state of iraq will fall short if it does not hit the group's major stronghold. on bothupy territory sides of the border. tensions between the united states and the vladimir putin. is planning tougher sanctions. also up on capitol hill, many of you are following the story with the irs in the lost e-mails. we covered that hearing on capitol hill.

you can see the picture of the chairman, darren issa, leading the hearing. you also have the head of the national archives and records administration further down. david syria oh, quoted as saying notify usequired to when they have a problem that could be destruction or disposal, unauthorized disposal. we covered that hearing on capitol hill. areou missed it and you interested in the story, go to our website. "the wall street journal" weighs in on the lost e-mails of the irs, saying e-mail jeopardy. they had a legal obligation to retain the records it lost. .e will go to ray

independent caller. what do you think about the kids crossing the border without adults and coming into this country, hoping to stay? caller: i would like to echo with the previous caller from louisiana said. you enforce the laws that are on the books. ,ou should have a program somebody on c-span that knows the law that is currently in effect, go through that law and tell us about what the immigration reform -- we do not need reform. we need enforcement of the present law. send of those people back. send them back now. most corruptf the governments there is in the entire world. you have leaders who are sworn to enforce the law. they are choosing to negate that. they do not enforce it. therefore, they do not follow the law. if we're going to have this, why don't we stop paying income tax.

to enforce theot law, then so can i. i have that right. that pointng towards where there's going to be a confrontation one day. that is what it is leading up to. our government is out of control. it is the most corrupt governments i have seen in my life and then we point fingers at everybody else. >> you might be interested in this. , we showed you a bit of the hearing. reason the chief kids were coming or the push factor of violence in hunt doris, el salvador, and guatemala. johnson acknowledged those conditions have been that for some time. he said that part of the problem is smugglers are lying to children send -- children and

families, telling them if they can get into united states, they can get a free pass. esther johnson said that is a misunderstanding of the law, which requires the children begin in immigration court summons. amilies believed that to be free pass. children are being turned over to families in the united states and given a chance to fight deportation and potentially disappear into the shadows. look like a good option to a central american family. go to our website if you missed it. arthur in corpus christi, texas, a republican on the border. go ahead. good morning. i would like to make a comment. it is on something you read earlier about president obama going to guatemala and maybe el salvador and the philippines and personally addressing these

--ple and saying that sending these kids over is not working out. host: we read that a republican from arizona part of the so-called gang of eight, he said president obama needs to talk to these countries and their leaders. the thing that gets me -- i think it is unconscionable that parents would send underaged kids on such a dangerous journey. for what? for who knows? heard how dangerous the trip is. host: byron, austin, texas.

caller: hello. i think the children should be returned. people are doing the right thing by talking to the people there. the laws will not allow it. people call in and events. democrats call and are saying about republicans republicans say bad things about democrats. can correct viewers and say that is not so, we have the information. that does not happen. we have got to be honest. the president does not have control over all of these things. it is embarrassing to be an american with the things that we hear said on this show. no one is correcting people. is set upn, the show

so that you can call in and challenge what you hear from guest or from other callers. chairsts that sit in this would have a hard time fact checking everything someone says in real time and also, get in all of the voices that we want to get in outside of washington. a few more headlines for you. the u.s. is set to export the first oil since the 1970's. two companies have been approved to export the first oil since the 1970's. you have inside "the washington times." 50 billion proves a stumbling block in the v.a. bill. conferees got together to try too out legislation -- that outther to try to bang

legislation. bills have hefty price tags. the congressional budget office says it could cost up to $50 billion a year to fully implement and the house bill would cost about $44 billion. look for coverage on c-span.org. hill, lawmakers honored a family's legacy. after the passage of the civil rights act, martin luther king and caretta scott king were honored yesterday on capitol hill. a year after the supreme court struck down a major component of the voting rights act that many considered

the most crucial component. gathered for this ceremony. we covered it with our cameras. this moment on capitol hill is ouring quite a few views on website. take a look. [video clip] ♪ host: house and senate leaders up on capitol hill, holding hands, singing together. that part of the ceremony is getting quite a few looks on our website. if you missed it, go to our website. you can watch it there. one last phone call for now on

the prospects of immigration reform. we will go to mickey. go ahead. to make aam calling statement about the situation that we have. i believe a lot of the three-year-olds and five-year-olds -- that is terrible this is happening to them. cover-uphere is a possibility for the young adults. realistically, probably in those countries as well within the u.s. and some states, you can get married when you are 15, 16, 17. i have a hard time believing course they are young adults, but i am sure they have other possibilities. i think we need some kind of enforcement of our laws. president andhe

others have given them the ok that as long as you get here, you get to stay. -- and often they are pressured to get here. i am sure many have died. i feel for the people who are coming here right now. taken into be not know.d -- i do host: do you think immigration reform is the answer? caller: yes, i do. i think they should get right on that and surely let the people know. have no idea. they think if they get over here they will be safe. say thishat i have to morning. thank you for c-span. i am a c-span junkie. host: we like that.

thank you, mickey. to modernize any of our systems will take money. congress will not have that because you will have to raise taxes. we will talk about the world congress coming up with a representative and we will talk with rob wittman on the iraq conflict. we will be right back. ♪ >> religion is a powerful identity forming mechanism. society.t of human who is us and who was them? who is my group and who is the other group? religion answers that easily. if you pray, indeed, go to the same church like me, you are us.

if you do not, you are them. us, them,e how that in group, how to group mindset can lead to extremism, to marginalization. religion may be the most powerful form of identity formation, but just as powerful as violence. how do you know who is up and who is down? me,ou fight alongside your us. everyone has been much more aligned than we would like them to be. >> religious scholar reza aslan is the guest. he will take your calls and comments for three hours starting at noon eastern sunday, july 6. august 3, former texas congressman ron paul.

september 7, the former chair of the u.s. commission on civil rights, mary frances berry. we are discussing "the forgotten man." start reading and enjoying others to discuss the book in our chat room. for over 35 years, c-span brings public affairs events from washington, directly to you. putting you in a room at white house events, briefings, and conferences. we offer gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house as a public service of the industry. we were created 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd. like us on facebook create a low us on twitter. -- like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. we are back.

i want to show our viewers the 28th district and where it is in texas. represent the 28th district. we have a wake of humanity coming across. in may 2014, border patrol detained 48,000 individuals. 9700 of them were kids with no parents. the average cost of bringing someone across, ,5,000 times 48,000 individuals it is a big business. host: how much does it cost the

united states? guest: we spend billions of dollars on border security poirier -- border security. other expenses, local communities, my local communities have shared some of the burden. the state of texas, i have spoken to governor perry. a lot of people are concerned about the costs that are involved in this wave of man eddie coming across. host: what should be done? guest: working with the republic of mexico, you have to look at current law. current law, there is an agreement in 1997 that says how to treat the kids. a 2000 to pass under the bush administration. homeland security act of 2002.

that is a law under 2008 talks about how we treat the people that come across, especially the kids. there is a big difference in this. it is not a mexican problem. it is a central american problem. 75% or more of the people coming across are from central america. canada,re from mexico, homeland has 48 hours to determine placement. the way we do with with central america, they get them, process them, get a piece of paper that theynotice to appear and can travel anywhere in the u.s., except the kids are putting in locations, fosters. we need to change the protocol with the central american countries like we have with

mexico and canada, where within 48 hours, we have to determine whether they stay or they get removed back to their countries. difficult task -- to change the protocol? the state department and the u.s. government, if they sat down, i understand they have talked to somebody at the state department. i have sat down with an ambassador. this saturday, we had the thessador of honduras, first lady of honduras coming down to the valley. we can talk about some of the issues. we have to make those same agreements that we have with the republic of mexico. this is not a mexican problem. it is a central american problem. we need to have the same protocols like we have. 48 hours, we should return them. that is what the law calls for four mexico and canada. law thatt is the 2008 is often referenced, saying that

is why they are coming here, because of the law that is on the books? what does it say? in 1997, there was a court settlement talking about how you treat the kids. , under the homeland security act, it talks about who is supposed to get the andonsibility to get them deport them, house them, and take care of the kids. the human trafficking reauthorization act, it also startingut setting up -- certain protocols and procedures within 48 hours, the contiguous countries like canada and mexico are treated differently than the central american countries. in my opinion, we should have the same type of treatment. you cannot send people across the border in canada or mexico,

but we have to work with those countries to get the travel documents and send them back as soon as possible. host: what about republicans who say it is because of the executive action by pending -- penning the authority for the so-called "dreamers." i can point out the bush .aw of 2008, 2002 it is not time to get political. governor perry called me up. he said this is not a democratic or republican issue. let's work together on addressing this issue. timenot think this is the to be pointing at anybody. i have been critical of the administration in the sense that they did not respond fast enough, they did not give us information and in my hometown, and two weeks, they released two thousand 300 family units in just two weeks in south texas, rio grande.

they did not tell us. and they would take them to the bus station and give them a notice to appear. it would take a bus anywhere. paper, it wase of a notice to appear. that notice to appear basically says you promised to show up in a couple of months. you know the majority after they miles, or they paid $5,000, or they face difficult abuse, rape, or whatever the situation might be, they are not going to go in and turn themselves in. there is a gap there. you have called it a humanitarian crisis. republicans and the administration are calling it that. yesterday, there was a back and forth between the homeland security secretary jeh johnson and a mike rogers. i want to show that exchange and

get your thoughts. [video clip] >> i do not see this administration doing anything about it other than trying to house the children. i understand the humanitarian basis of that. we need to send a signal that it is not going to work. you cannot send your children up here. we are going to give them back to you. for is what i am looking from you, a way to do that. that is the clearest signal to these parents to not send these children appear. what can you do? other than give them to hhs. nothing? have you call the national guard out? would like to consider every option presented. i went through in my prepared testimony the 12 or 13 steps we have taken to deal with the crisis, including building more detention space. the speakerdent -- of the house called on the president to mobilize the national guard to give some relief to the border patrol and

fema and this crisis. why can't you call me president to do that? >> if you are asking me if i can take an unaccompanied child and send them back to guatemala, i do not do -- do host: congressman? been: that is what we have saying. we have to send a message that you cannot stay here. if you look at the 2008 law there is a procedure for mexicans. develop a policy to do the same thing? does it take negotiations with those countries? yes. i have sat down with ambassadors , guatemala,- mexico

honduras -- we will have a meeting. they are meeting on migration at this time. we talked about bringing some ideas. we have to negotiate with those countries and say we are going to try to send your folks back as soon as we can. we are doing that with mexico and canada. why can we not do the same with those countries? host: should the president put the national guard on the border? guest: i welcome filling in the gaps. they will not do border patrol. that is not their job. patrol mind, border takes 40%, 50% of their time doing paperwork. my question is who is filling the gaps? that is the part where the natural -- national guard could fill you in, not do immigration

-- could fill in, i do immigration reform. host: that is the subject of piecewashington times" this morning -- order patrol is being distracted taking care of these kids and criminals are getting in and taking advantage of the situation. we will cover the house judiciary committee on c-span3 at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. let's get to calls. john is up first in florida. the public and. caller: -- republican. caller: i have three comments -- the idea that these kids coming into our country, they should be dumped across the border in mexico, where they come from. the idea of busing them to these other states and say we will give them a court date -- i heard on the news it will be 10

years before they have a court date -- they will never go to court. they will be distributed all over. host: i will have you stopped there and listen to the congressman address your points -- where the kids are coming from, and you hear the news reports that they are getting on buses, and will not appear before court for 10 years. over 75% of of all, these people are not from mexico. it is not a mechanical problem. guatemala, honduras, el salvador, that is where the majority of the people are. when we talk about jumping, , those are- dumping strong words. puritans, that about the jews, the irish escaping famine? we have to treat these people

with respect and dignity. now, do we remove them with respect? yes, i think we can. does it take them 10 years? no. for kids, it is about two years. for adults, it is less than that. the problem is the gentleman does have a point. there is a cap from the moment you are giving the piece of .aper you go and wait for your hearing, and it will probably be postponed until another time. then you have time to disappear. host: how old are the kids that notice to here is the appear? guest: the kids are not given that, per se. it is whatever the guardian might be. adult,r, if it is a male -- one border patrol get somebody, they say is this a

mexican, yes, ok. they pretty much have expedited return, removal, voluntary. it is a different process. canadian also. central americans -- you are detained, have an immigration hearing, and at that time you will be deported. s are flying people there several times a week. if you are a child, hhs takes you, moves you somewhere across the country, which is wrong -- why not do this at the border? why do you have to send this to other communities where folks do not want them in their community? if you are a family unit with kids, or you are a pregnant woman, you will be given a piece appear,, the notice to you will be put at a bus station, like they left 2300

, and thenmy hometown you could take a bus anywhere you want to. greyhound and other bus stations are overloaded because there are so many people being released. should we have a protocol like we have with mexico? the answer is yes, and we can do it. the law allows that flexibility. we should do it in 48 hours likely treat canadians and mexicans. host: ohio. democratic caller. catherine. guest: good morning. i would like to say as an american, a christian american, we have shot up our vows of compassion. adults.e not these are children. every american that has called in, white, black, or brown, let me tell you something -- god is listening. he puts children first. if we, as a nation, have refused

, and it sounds like we are refusing to do god's work, take care of children first host:. host:-- first. host: congressman? guest: when i talk to border patrol, we have seen a lot of things. we are tough guys. this is what the border patrol tells me. when you have a family, you see your kids in the morning, go to 11,, and you see kids, 10, 12, 13, nine-year-old little boys and girls that came over by imagine how desperate you have to be to send your kids over. imagine how desperate the situation has to be that you dare put your kid in the hands of the smugglers? that is something you and i would probably never experience, but that is what happened to some of those people. should we treat those kids with

respect? yes. should we have hearings and immigration laws that everybody gets? yes. who stays under asylum, under credible fear, and if it is something that does not fall under the long right now -- -- under the law right now -- we follow the law, and if we have to remove some of those kids, families, adults, then we do that. that with mexicans, except we have a different protocol with central american countries. we ought to treat the kids with respect. i do not care how tough you think you are. you have to see what i saw -- young boys, young girls by themselves, traveling 5000 miles, face the difficulty, and understand what i am talking about. host: on twitter -- most of these kids have a relative summer in the u.s. that we are trying to find -- do we talk to

them, and i think she means the u.s. government, or attain them? about 55% of those kids have a relative in the u.s., and the kids that i talked to personally, they say i have a mother, a father in north carolina, someone over here. a lot of them have relatives over here. so, yes, a lot of them have relatives, but under the law hhs is supposed to put them with a family, an adult, a foster home, or somebody. about 55% of them have a relative here already. host: rick in tennessee. independent caller. caller: i have a couple of statements and questions for the representative. feels to know how he about all of the languages that have to be translated between

all the different taper work and organizations from social security to the welfare office. if you come here from a different country, the, an american, don't you think you should have to speak english? our road signs are in english. our libraries are in english. we are english-speaking by majority. if you're going to migrate into a foreign land, you want to speak their language, right? you know, when the puritans came over, english was not spoken here -- i take it back. english was not the european language. the first language was spanish. the spanish were the first. then, the native americans had their own language, so the people from europe came over and learn the language. of course there is always a transition, but you cannot put

the blame on immigrants. if you look at google, mcdonald's, some of the biggest businesses we have, they were established by immigrants or immigrants' kids. we are a land of law. we need to follow the immigration law and the last time we had immigration law was in 1986 under president reagan and the democrats in charge. host: a couple of e-mails have the same questions -- if the children pass through mexico, how is it not a mexican problem, and then steve says why isn't mexico stopping the wave of humanity at their southern border? some people say why are you trying to help mexico secure the border with guatemala. we have been playing defense on the first yard line, the u.s.-mexico border.

why don't we move it over to the 20-yard-line, the border with guatemala. just yesterday we added money to support mexico. dollars that will help secure mexico will pay off so much later than having to deal with this issue on the one-yard line, called the u.s.-mexico border. we have to be smart. is that a mexican problem? they told me it was a problem for them because those people are coming in -- older boys are cartels,en by the drug and guess what, they are being forced to join their games. problem forbecome a mexico also because they have central american young boys fighting the police over there as part of the drug cartel. so, it is a problem for us, a problem for mexico, and before we talk about why are you giving

taxpayer dollars to mexico, central america, you know, mexico is not part of the $1 billion club. israel gets over $3 billion. egypt gets over $3 billion. pakistan gets over $1 billion. pakistan, iraq, and now jordan gets over $1 billion. mexico just get a little bit of our money. we have to be smart on how we deal with mexico and latin america. keep in mind, we are not paying attention to latin american countries. remember what happened in the 1980's where all of a sudden america woke up. the response was send arms, oliver north, and we responded and forgot about them. sendcountry, we spend -- 40% of eggs first to latin america. reduction half of the to latin america, why don't we pay attention to those countries instead of overreacting when you

have this wave of humanity? we have to look at short-term and long-term goals. dedicatingaid guest: yeah. host: go ahead. guest: i am glad the administration reversed its course as i have been critical because they were cutting drug .fighting money by almost half i told the administration they were wrong. how could you can't buy -- cut by half a little bit of money we sent to central america to fight drugs and smuggling? i am glad they woke up. they have reversed their policy. in fact, yesterday, the congress overwrote the president and

secretary john kerry and we added about $120 million, which is nothing compared to the $1 billion clubs of egypt, israel, and other countries. just a little bit of money compared to other countries, and i'm glad administration reversed its course on that one. host: the speaker established a working group. will you be part of that? you mentioned kay granger from texas. pelosithe speaker, nancy had to make their decisions. kay granger and i are going to talk about it. i live on the border. i do not just go there for a few hours. i am very familiar with the border and i believe this is not a democratic or republican issue. let's figure out as americans how to address this issue in a logical, smart way, and one that works for the parties involved. host: danny in jamestown, south

carolina, republican caller on the air with congressman henry cuellar. caller: thank you for c-span. learned inomething i high school -- wants, needs, and desires. i did not go to college, and i am proud of that. i worked my whole life. it seems when the president does not get what he wants he uses the desire of his pen to get what he wants. maybe the republicans should give him what he wants, and see if he could give the country and the american people what they need. thank you. guest: thank you for the comment. my father and mother went only to a first and third-grade education, so i understand where you come from. i am the oldest of eight kids. my parents sent us off to

college. i appreciate your background like my parents. again, i want to see a bipartisan approach to this issue. this is not the time to put politics into an issue. again, you have to see what i have seen down there. i invite members of congress to go down there. i invite other folks to go down there. see the good work our men and women are doing. border patrol is doing a good job. let's come up with a bipartisan solution to figure this out. again, let's not wait one year or two. we have to move on this as soon as we can. adriana in st. petersburg, florida, democratic caller. caller: i do not agree with mr. cuellar on many opinions but i agree that the government should in awith funding humanitarian way, but what i

hear from him, and i am a democrat, and i'm about to democratsause i feel are selling the best interest of american people. i work in social services and i see that needs for the children here, all kinds, and the government is shutting down the programs to help them because of the economy. who do they care about, the children of other countries, or american people? -- butorn hispanic, that american citizen because of my heart, not because of my needs and i'm here for the american people. host: congressman? guest: i'm sorry you are leaving the democratic party, but the doors are open for you to come back. in the countryas

as one of the members. we have to do what is right for the country. like ircing the laws mentioned, i'm sorry you disagree that we enforce the laws, but if we enforce the laws that is taking care of the best interest of our country. that is what i'm concerned about. laws, there are certain that we have to enforce and i'm sorry some people do not like the laws that we have. so wee to change the laws can reflect the majority of the public that we represent, and i want to make sure that we represent our best interest, but at the same time if a child comes over and you treat them, at least under the bible, the way it has been said that you ought to treat a stranger when they come into your land, or just a moral part of it, you the kids with respect, human dignity -- that does not mean you are putting the interest of your kids over the interest of some kids that have crossed 1800 miles. we have to treat people fairly.

.ost: sandra phoenix, arizona. independent. good morning. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air. caller: i would like to thank representative cuellar for speaking out. very few democrats do. i watch the spanish news, and they do have a lot of bipartisan news. a lot of people that are being interview that are in those are saying that they are coming here to work. that is the news that is going on here, that they get here, and if they have a child, they are allowed to stay. they are not saying that they are coming here because of the violence, although i do believe it and i see it in the news -- i do feel sorry for the people coming, but i do not understand

if the mother is coming with the child, they cannot be deported. they have a home there already. some of the children that are coming -- i understand they do need help, the smaller ones that are unaccompanied. host: take the smaller children. what happens to them? thank you for your question. let me say this -- when border patrol get someone, they make certain determinations. a mexican, there are certain protocols were you have voluntary departure or expedited removal, and you send them across the border because there are ports of entry. that is for mexico and canada. if it is central american countries, you have to have a verse to travel. you can not get an airplane and put them in the hands of some bad guys. you have to make sure they are

given to the right authority because you do not want to put them in the hands of an abuser. when border patrol get central americans, or people from other of the world, if it is a male adult, you are held in , have a hearing, and then sent back most of the time. if you are a child, you are processed. within 72 hours border patrol hands them over to ice, who transfers them to hhs, the resettlement, and that office is supposed to put them in foster homes, and they are told to show up two years later. that is the gap that i am talking about. if you are a mother with kids or a pregnant woman, you are given the notice to appear. you are processed by border , over, taken over by ice

to a bus station, and there you can go anywhere. then if you show up you will be postponed. those are the gaps that i am talking about. that is what was created under law, not trying to be democrat or republican, but bush administration. to work withs us those countries and remove people. with mexicans we are supposed to make that determination within 48 hours. why can we not do the same determination with the central american countries and do the same thing, treat them with respect, give them the hearing at the border, and then move workto their countries and with those countries and be tough with those countries because a lot of times they file objections -- we cannot give you travel documents because of xy

reasons. host: what about this sentiment , marie -- we have children living in poverty and crime in chicago, let's take care of our own first. guest: i agree with him. in texas, i started the first chip program. i started the largest scholarship in texas history. yes, i agree with that. the problem is when somebody crosses the border because we are playing defense on the one-yard line called the u.s.-mexico border, we have to treat those kids with respect and dignity. as christians, that is how we are supposed to treat them. just because we treat them with respect and dignity does not mean we are putting them over the interest of children in chicago, new york, washington -- we are not doing that. we're just treating them with respect. i am saying why don't we have

the same process as we treat mexicans and canadians, give them the hearings, make the determination and remove them within 48 hours. some of them stay here under the law. we have to send a message to those countries in central america they you cannot just come over, get a permit, and stay here as long as you want. that is the message we need to send. we have to have a media show the airplanes going back, and that we are deporting people back likely do it canadians and mexicans. host: we have a few minutes left fromcongressman cuellar texas. inmate was reported that the number of undocumented, -- it was reported in may that the number of undocumented, unaccompanied children under 18 will cost $2 billion.

caller: let me get something straight -- if i choose to improve my living situation and rob a bank, i'm a criminal, but if an immigrant comes into the country illegally and is a criminal, they get benefits. again, look at history in america. here it tends coming in, -- puritans coming in, jews coming in, the irish coming in -- we have to treat people in the current situation the same way. again, this is a process that we have to improve where we remove those people. the gentleman is missing the point. listen to what i am saying. i am saying we ought to treat way we americans the treat canadians and mexicans under the george bush law created in 2002 and 2008 where

within 48 hours we have to make a determination who goes back to canada or to mexico. i am saying let's do the same thing with central america. i know there are logistical issues because there is no port of entry with them like canada and mexico, but let's work the same types of policies. that is what i am saying. it is very simple. let's get the emotion out of this, look at the facts, and please, do not just look at hispanics because the puritans, the jews, the irish, the germans, so many people did the same thing, and i do not hear people complain about them. --'s not treat hispanics let's treat hispanics the same way. the administration was caught flat-footed or they knew this was going on, and this is one of the reasons i release those photographs and started talking about this. in 2009, 6000 kids came across.

in 2013, it moved up to over 25,000 kids with no parents. now we are over 60000 and growing. 9700 kidsth of may, through texas alone. the response of the administration has to be faster. let's look at how we address this issue -- let's get the politics by democrats and republicans, get something that works and will be in the best interest of the united states. guest: --host: one more phone call -- nick in key west, florida. democratic caller. caller: thank you very much, representative cuellar. if these children are adjudicated, children in need, would they be available for adoption in the united states? it is a big country. yes. -- guest:

i want to have the size, under the -- i have to emphasize, under the law, it hhs is opposed to put those children, and i have been told about 55% have families here, but nevertheless they are supposed to put them with a family, a relative, a foster home, and from there that is something you have to talk to homeland security -- i mean hhs, health and human services. so, that is what the law calls for right now. i want to emphasize before we leave the problem has nothing to do with the dreamers act. it has to do with the law that we have right now. we need to have the same type of protocol we have with canada and mexico. within 48 hours, let's make a decision, who will go back. have the hearings at the border instead of sending kids all over the country. host: this debate continues on capitol hill, as you know. guest: it sure will.

[laughter] host: on c-span3, the house judiciary committee tackling that, 2:00 p.m. eastern time. congressman, thank you very much. guest: thank you very much. it was a good discussion and we will continue the discussion. host: you that. appreciate your time. next we will talk to congress and rob wittman, a republican from virginia about military later bob iraq, and wright, cofounder of autism speaks. first, an update from c-span radio. >> sunni militants raided a iraqi oil refinery. they have been try to take it for days. this as newly arrived military and special operation forces arrive to strengthen baghdad's ability to deal with the insurgency. nouri al-maliki is calling on political blocs to close ranks and the u.s. is asking for a

more inclusive government to draw support away from the immigrants. margaret brennan of cbs news is tweeting that john kerry says the insurgent group isis might have moved into a rock after being in his words "kicked around and attacked" by syria. max baucus of montana has made its first public -- his first peopleremarks telling that he would work to strengthen chinese and u.s. ties. the ambassador said the country's ties would outlast individual disputes and stated that "no bilateral relationship is more important than the u.s. and china." in march, max baucus replaced gary locke, the first u.s.

ambassador to beijing of chinese dissent. the update on ukraine -- russia's parliament will not be voting on a resolution allowing the use of force. the upper house has agreed on a request from president vladimir putin to cancel the resolution. president who says the move is -- president vladimir putin says the move is to enforce space. obama administration officials say sanctions might be delayed because of positive signals from president vladimir putin. those are the latest headlines on c-span radio. religion is a powerful identity-forming mechanism. part of human society is figuring out who is us, and who is them -- and religion answers that question easily. me, eat likeike me, go to the same church that i

do, you are us. if you do not, you are them. of inn see how that kind group, our group mindset could very easily lead to extremism, marginalization -- as i remind people, religion might be the most powerful form of identity formation, but just as powerful is violence. how do you know who is us and who is them? if you are fighting alongside me, you are us. if you are fighting against me, you are them. far from religion and violence being the things that are at odds and should have nothing to do with each other, they have, as everyone knows, throughout history, been much more aligned than we would like them to be. >> religion scholar and best-selling author reza aslan "in-depth" guest. paul, august 30.

then, september 7, mary frances married. we're discovering "the forgotten man," a new history of the great depression. booktv, television for serious readers. " continues.journal host: back at our table is congressman rob wittman, chairican of virginia and of the subcommittee on readiness. the me begin with the headlines on the front pages of the newspapers. you have "the washington times" reporting that the militarists , want an islamic state as a staging ground for a u.s. attack. disturbing,

understanding what their focus is and what they want to achieve, obviously specifically going after the united states and the united states interests. that should be a sobering finding is how we combat isis. mean inat does that your opinion for what happens next in the rack -- iraq? guest: first of all, let's determine the exact extent of isis in iraq. we have 300 advisors on the ground also figuring out what is the extent and capability of sis.i forces to combat i we need to put together those pieces of the puzzle together what is there, and grab as much intelligence as we can, which is lacking about what the capabilities are, what they intend to do in iraq, and then

put together with iraqi forces a counter effort to stop there efforts, especially their violent efforts. one of the big areas we have to pursue his engaging other sunni factions that would work with the iraqi government, other forces there against isis and this extremist element. we need to be able to bring together forces within these buts, not just within iraq, other neighboring countries. this has to be a regional effort. focus, if it is not a regional effort, it will not work. the united states could help, but it cannot be the sole effort to say the u.s. will come in and clean this up. as we have seen what happened before when we had the -- did not have the status of forces agreement. states left, extremist elements reasserted themselves, and here we are. we cannot let that happen again.

we have to make sure we will have partnered to continue the effort and it is sustainable. host: who are the partners -- what countries around iraq are the partners? guest: that is a great question. we have to look within iraq first and foremost. i do not believe iran will be part of that. there are other sunni elements that could be part of countering isis. that is where we start. host: another headline from "usa today" -- what do you know about the kind of work they are doing? to get asy are trying much intelligence as they can about the wherewithal and capability of isis on the ground, and also the capability of iraqi forces. they are asking for volunteers to come in. they are not trained. we have to determine what is that there avail, what weapons

do they have, what weapons had fallen into the hands of isis. they are trying to grab their awareness about what is on the ground. host: tell the viewers how they go about doing this. guest: they sit down and meet with the iraqi military leaders. what do they have control over, how many people are part of that, what confidence do they have in the forces been able to, in an effective way, fight isis? they will do that, and figure presents onthe isis the ground, what areas do they hold, what have they captured, but do not have an ability to hold? are quickly trying to gain that type of information to determine what they can do to push isis out of various. what capabilities does the iraqi military have to do that? host: would you support drone strikes by the president? guest: i want to make sure all

options are on the table. drone strikes could be part of that, but before you do that you have to determine how to best deploy u.s. assets in conjunction with iraqi forces to achieve efforts to push isis back out of iraq. the front page of "the washington post" the government of syria, bashar al-assad, is bombing isis. is he helping the united states? guest: the key is is the effort being coordinated? if it is not, it could be detrimental. we need to make sure efforts against isis are coordinated. bomb,y will come in and there needs to be coronation

with what bosher assad is doing against isis in coordination with iraqi forces. host: are you advocating the united states work with bashar al-assad? advocating that we understand what they are doing, and if there are efforts that could be helpful in pushing back against isis, that ought to be part of the efforts. i am not convinced that bosher assad will work in u.s. interest or iraqi interest. we need to understand why that .ffort is being pursued in iraq i want to address the situation before we jump in and say yes, we will be working with bashar al-assad. withe not been impressed what he is not in syria and elsewhere in the region in stabilizing the region. i am not sure his efforts would be helpful. host: margaret brennan for cbs news tweeted that secretary john

kerry tells cbs news that isis may have moved into iraq after being kicked around and attacked by assad and moderate rebels. jeff. independent caller. caller: i served eight years in the military. i do not think we can effectively stabilize the middle east at all with our warfare. we are --ey fight, they are more barbaric. civilians.they use do you know what i'm saying? guest: sure. could: i do not think we accomplish it, so we should let them duke it out. in thei do know it is u.s. interest to have a stable middle east.

you talk about the different factions, the history of conflict, and that plays in. at the end of the day, there has to be stable government in iraq to make sure you have a sustainable level of order in that particular region. the u.s. cannot do it alone. the u.s. has to come in -- the not can help, but can expect the area to remain stable without having sure and stable government. i am not convinced that prime minister maliki is able to do that. when he to help iraqi forces stabilize the region -- we need to help iraqi forces stabilize the region and sustain that level of order in the country. that will be a challenge. you hit the nail on the head. be. presence is not going to something we expect to maintain their nor something that i believe in the long one creates the type of order that is necessary within the middle east. host: pennsylvania.

perry. independent caller. are, theere we republican party wants to create the fear mongering that somehow or another any of these middle east countries can somehow strike the united states from a far. it is the same problem saddam evenin was faced with -- if he had weapons of mass destruction, he had no vehicles to get them here. we constantly get this nonsense that these guys are going to have the sophistication to deliver a weapon to america. congressman,, there is no such thing about a dirty bomb. the nonsense about suitcase bombs does not hold weight because nuclear weapons have been around for 70 years and there has not been any. the reason you want a stable middle east is because you take money from the israeli lobby. tell me that you do not. thank you. thank you.

we do on a stable middle east. extremist organizations can attack the united states. we have seen it. 9/11. it is very clear. those forces can come here. we need to be able to stop them from being able to expand their for print. we see the effort in syria and iraq. it is a real threat. we have seen the manifestation of that threat. there is the opportunity for them to use a variety of weapons, nuclear or otherwise to harm the united states interests. that is the reality we have to deal with. it is in our best interest to have a stable middle east, one al qaeda is not able to operate out of, train people to extend their levels of violence to other areas of the world. host: the caller also believes you have this stance because of israel. guest: obviously israel is a partner in the region and we have to be mindful of our

relationship in israel. help inas been a great making sure we have a stable middle east. we have a strong relationship that should continue. that is in the best interest of the united states, the region, and israel. i am a strong proponent of a strong relationship with israel because it helps both countries and that area of the world. g on twitter -- howling reactive our embassy is attacked, staff, or 300 advisors are killed -- and we have a second invasion or go home? guest: we have to react. i do not know if it is at the level of an invasion, but we will be attempting the green zone within the embassy to make sure americans have the ability to make sure they are not attack, and if they are, we will at the veryike kind least against the folks that attack u.s. interests. host: another tweet -- any readiness to address isis

integration with iraq population -- joan strike seamount, presence seems out, diplomacy seems out. it is difficult when you're looking at this type of effort. this type of effort ends up being an insurgency. to question is does isis try infiltrate the iraqi society like we have seen with al qaeda or the taliban. that becomes more difficult. we have pursued a counterinsurgency strategy in the past that has been effective. it is much more difficult to do that because you literally have to go door to door to root out these insurgents. that is why it is important to determine what is the extent of isis presents, purely situation of them taking territory? it isis just that, different than them taking territory and holding it with their presence in those villages. it is important to determine what is the isis mode of

operation what they will do to maintain a presence and what will he do to counter that. .ost: dave centreville, virginia. republican caller. caller: good morning. guest: good morning, dave. you, sir, for your excellent work as a public servant. i am honored to be talking to you. my question is what is the western european role in this conflict -- a.k.a. germany -- i have not heard much about what they are doing as far as what their role is in this country. and one last point to the caller from pennsylvania, anti-semitic remarks are not necessary. thank you. david.thank you, i understand other people's concerns since when we went into areas like iraq and afghanistan it was a multilateral, nato presence. there have been conversations about other nations partnering with the united states, but at

this particular point it is solely a u.s. effort in support of iraqi forces. just advisors, intelligent surveillance and reconnaissance to iraqi forces -- that is my understanding of where it rests right now. they are having conversations with other nations about what they might be able to do to help, but it would only be in a support role. host: ron. pennsylvania. democratic caller. morning, thank you for taking my call. i cannot think of any industry that was not involved in supporting the war effort -- textiles, medical, agriculture, pharmaceuticals -- and this is all separate from weapons manufacturing. tell me, what would the influence be on unemployment in this country if we pulled out of iraq or afghanistan? well, certainly, we do not have a presence in afghanistan other than the 300 advisors there. host: in iraq.

, excuse me.aq we are pulling out of afghanistan as we speak. the question is what type of security agreement and enduring presence will we have? how long will that last. recommended is a force of about 10,000, at least through 2015. it remains to be seen what happens after that. obviously, the impact of that continues to be reduced. the overseas contingency operation funding, the dollars that we spend to fund that, continues to go down. the impact of that economically is less and less and less can remember, a large portion of the dollars that go to that are enduring missions. it is anti-piracy missions within the persian gulf, also making sure that we are performing security operations within those areas. many of those dollars will be expended through military

budgets regardless of a direct engagement in afghanistan. host: the caller mentioned europe and what role they are playing. guest: europe has obviously been a -- partner in afghanistan. their presence is much reduced. they are on the same track as the united states as getting out, but their pace is much quicker than the united states as far as where we will be after a bilateral security agreement is hopefully signed. ?ost: the situation in iraq guest: there has been conversations with european allies, but at this point it is solely a u.s. effort in advising forces. host: from twitter -- where is nato on iraq? if they cannot leave this, they should be shut down. guest: i have concerns about nato's total involvement, whether it is here, where we saw responding to vladimir putin in the taking of

crimea. harry is a requirement by nato nations to put at least 2% of their budgets -- there is a requirement by nato nations to put at least 2% of their budgets . , and we couldq have a discussion about what effort should be in iraq -- right now it is purely a united states presence. there are discussions about what nato could be doing, but so far there is not an offer to come to the table, what that might be, or even if it would be helpful at this point. right now we're trying to figure out what is the extent of the capabilitysis, what to iraqi forces have, and from that point take the next up forward. host: time next in pennsylvania. independent caller. good: host: -- guest: morning, tom. vietnam, in i was in quoted -- it is

not good for the question why to hold the asian brown for the christian riles. awful liesclear, here -- a fool lies here who try to hold the east. i am for pulling out of afghanistan and iraq. the only reason we are there is for the state of israel. host: why do you believe that because some people -- why do you believe that? some people believe that is anti-somatic. it is foolish of the media of violence -- the media allows that. i believe it started in 1962. believes that goes

back to our support for israel, but you believe it is wider than that. you think it is wider than that. guest: i think it is. combating helped us efforts, but the picture is broader than that -- what are we doing to make sure we are not allowing these extremist organizations to take root who then export that extremism, that violence to other areas of the u.s. interestsg and on u.s. soil. it is broader than just israel. having a good, strong reliance -- alliance in relationship with israel is critical for that region, but is not just for the united states-israel relationship, but is the broader perspective of stamping out extremism. twitter -- didn't

secretary john kerry said weapons capable of busting down buildings and funding to the rebels in syria? are they using those now interact -- in iraq? there is a discussion about what you provide and what would fall into the hands of other extremist organizations that did not have u.s. interest in mind. there is simple weaponry, not things that could be brought across the border against the united states, and that is why there is hesitancy about what you would do to arm the rebels because it was difficult to identify what group of rebels would actually work in the united states interest. let me get you a drink of water and show the viewers this headline on "the wall street journal." what is the danger? some are arguing the u.s. should

go into syria withdraw and strikes to go after isis on both sides. know, you broaden the conflict then if you have u.s. drone strikes in syria. we have to be very careful about broadening the conflict and bringing other interest into the conflict by moving into syria. this. issue is complicated -- the syrian issue is complicated enough. when you add in the isis situation with iraq, i do not want to get so mired into a conflict that we end up engaging other interest that otherwise might not be engaged in this conflict. that is the danger of broadening that conflict. we to be focused solely on stabilizing iraq and making sure that u.s. interests are being served by us stabilize in that particular region. obviously, the syrian issue is

something that is separate from the iraqi issue. isis, which was spawned in syria, has moved into iraq, but we need to focus solely on the influence in iraq. host: you would not before going into syria? point.not at this there is a danger of expanding the conflict and unintended consequences. we need to focus on asserting ourselves in the region to determine the extent of the theat from isis in iraq, capability of iraqi forces, how we can help the forces come together to combat crisis. host: "the wall street journal" reports that so far go to judy next in hyattsville, maryland. republican caller. caller: good morning.

how are you? i am truly amazed every time i hear the congress and the senate talk about iraq, pakistan, syria, and foreign countries, when they do not seem to know anything about our own country. we cannot secure our borders. we have no idea who is coming across the southern borders. dhs just ordered -- i know this is a weird thing, but dhs just ordered underwear in large sizes, not children's sizes. i believe this is all a security issue here at home, and a very dramatic one. it is costing local communities so much money, and congress sits there and point at the white house, and the white house it's there and point at congress -- sits there and point to congress. you all seem to be impotent, and people are hurting in this country. host: judy, we get your point.

judy, ijudy -- guest: anre your opinion, without orderly process where people can come into the country, that is a deep concern. believe me, conversations we have up here are focused considerably and how we address that we understand the issues in our country, folks in the middle class suffering through these times with decreased earning power, purchasing power -- all of these things add up to deep concerns for the congress, and we want to make sure we are addressing those things. there have been a number of pieces of legislation that have come through the house to be able to address that. at the end of the day we have significant issues at home. we must address those. the issues around the world also call for us to act there. not to the neglect of domestic issues and not to the neglect of security on our southern borders . we will continue to focus on

that and make sure we make that a priority issue for congress to address, and as you know, recently, there have been a number of hearings. my subcommittee on readiness will be addressing specifically undefended miners and will they be -- unattended miners and will they be housed in military facilities. they have the ability to do that and will that take away from the readiness of our military force? we have done that on an emergency basis in the past, but this is more of a sustained basis to use military facilities s. house unattended minor judy, we are focused on those issues to make sure we're making timely and good decisions protecting u.s. interests. that you will be having baby for your subcommittee. the house judiciary committee also having a hearing on this issue let me go to this viewer tweaked. -- tweet.

guest: we have gained at least security in the region. security has been up-and-down and down -- i can agree with that. saddam hussein was a tyrant. there were not weapons of mass destruction. that being said, we are where we are today. saddam hussein is gone. do with making sure there is a stable government in iraq. certainly, it has been a roller coaster ride. won that today we are having to deal with. past and howo the we exited iraq without a status of forces agreement or the ability to have some kind of coordination with the a recce government is something that we ought to look at and learn from in how we deal with our exit from afghanistan. the charismatic leader

theng a look at -- charismatic leader of isis. shown aruthless and has knack for tactical operations and military strategy. headstrong, opportunistic in his ability to break with core al qaeda leadership. what do you know about him? guest: he is a treacherous and vicious individual. you can see some of the atrocities that are being committed by isis in iraq. he is not subscribing to any type of conventional elements of the other extremist organizations. he is trying to carve out his own niche there. very troubling. it should be even more troubling if they are able to expand their foot rent in the region. there will -- they will stop at

nothing to continue to do that. that is white is important to stem the flow of isis -- why it is important to stem the flow of isis. that is a great post analysis question of why didn't we pursue vigorously aore precedence status -- status of counteract forces like isis where we could have prevented this. it is postgame analysis, but it out to be lessons learned in what do we do about a situation we continue in a noncombat role of support in

countries we have expended a lot blood in support of and now we have seen it lost. help to regain that in a noncombat way? robert is calling from virginia beach, virginia. caller: good morning. are you with me? i do appreciate -- i can tell you have knowledge. say, we hear,t to in america, i hear our politicians arguing back and forth. do you think our enemies do -- itn things because seems like we have so much disorder at home. how are we going to help people abroad when we have all of this disorder here at home between

the politicians? well, there are certainly divisions. the divisions exist across the nation. our government still does a pretty good job at having these vigorous debates as long as we stay away from the personal side of things. that is the way our nation was designed. that as alieve weakness of the united states come i believe it is a strength. when there is the extent of the divisions we have today, sometimes it takes longer to get things done which leads to frustration to all of us. nobody should question the resolve of the united states in doing the right thing. enhancingre we are what goes on within our borders, our economy, our security.

everybody is of like mind to say that these are issues that need to be addressed and i don't foresee the world looking at weakness. anybody that understands our system of government understands that we get through these times of division and vigorous debate. no one should question our resolve. eddie in virginia. independent. caller: good morning. i'm a 21 year vet. disheartening to see how the iraqi soldiers were so quickly defeated. i spent a year over there as an advisor myself. to see how those guys have laid down their arms, i don't think we should send anyone. as far as sending more resources , i think we should get an

agreement before we send any other resources. i would like for the representative to explain to the people what was the breakdown in the agreement? or were the terms that we could not accept and how we could do it differently? were you training iraqi forces? caller: absolutely i was. host: what kind of training did you give them? why do you think that they lay down their arms? caller: i don't know. they did the same thing in 1991. they lay down to us. we were training them -- my thing was communications. we had an 11 man team. .e trained in various areas all of the searches and that good stuff. to be quite honest, most of the

we spent making sure we were watching our own back. we send a lot of money and resources and it is disheartening to see how easily they allow another force to come in and take them over. guest: it certainly is disturbing to watch out they lay down their arms and took their uniforms off and retreated. originalk to the status of forces agreement, one of the reasons we left iraq is because the iraqi government would not provide the legal protections for our men and women. we are engaging in warfare. the elements of law are different for warfare than on the criminal side. we wanted to make sure our individuals were afforded the legal protections to make sure they engage somebody and were to kill somebody on the battlefield that they would not be pursued from a criminal standpoint for that particular action.

that projection had to exist. the iraqi government was not willing to do that. therefore, the united states left. we have to protect our men and women in uniform. today, the0 advisors iraqi government has agreed to make sure they are afforded legal protections, to make sure they are not pursued criminally for whatever might happen on the battlefield. advisors willour not engage directly, but they have permission to protect themselves -- they will shoot back. this makes it a little better for our folks to operate there. host: let me go back to the front page of the "washington times." michael anthony on twitter. guest: the risk to the american homeland if you have an islamic

state that becomes a launching area for attacks is that becomes a stronghold and an area that they will train fighters to spread out across the globe to not only attack the u.s., but u.s. interests. that is something that we cannot allow to happen. we sell the effects of that in 9/11. we cannot allow that to happen. advisors -- will he be training iraqi forces again? guest: the training element does not seem to be part of this mission. they might provide instruction to leaders about how they can pursue these operations. there is not a tactical element to this where they will train .raqi fighters

it would purely be at the strategic level. michael on twitter. guest: understanding culture is critical. there have been those divisions in the nation for eons. we have to understand going in that the government has to engage all of the different factions within the country. if they don't, we see the outcome. with the current prime minister essentially shutting out the sunnis, protecting the she is and we see the outcome of that -- shias and we see the outcome of that. as seen in the past where governments have failed. host: anthony in cape coral,

florida. republican. caller: good morning. how are you all doing? good to see you out there. ma'am, you looking really fine today. i am a first-time caller, a c-span junkie. we were one of the last 40,000 guys to get evacuated out of iraq. host: in 2011? caller: yes. caller.with the last a common back about 15 minutes ago. thiseason we cannot win and we have got to get in there and got to fight it -- the way these people fight -- i was trained to fight and to take them out. it breaks most of our rules and our heart to fight that way. there are two kinds of people in the sandbox. the ones we could put uniforms

on to lay their uniforms down. there are the other ones that people like me have to go after and neutralize. a lot of people cannot handle that. that is why we have a lot of suicides. some of those guys are hard and now, they have no soul and no ethics. it takes people like me to go over and neutralize them. the question i have is, why do we just covertly put in a battalion, maybe 25,000, 30,000 men so they can pinpoint and our droneargets for programs and our air force and let them take care of it? all, thank you so much for your service and for all you have done in iraq. we want to make sure that we at least have a chance to keep iraq as a stable place based upon the great efforts that you put forth there to get those forces up to snuff.

you point out exactly the difficulty in battling insurgents. they embed themselves in communities. they're willing to do most anything to serve their own purposes. in awe can do with that noncombat role is in the support element. states,think the united are citizens or leaders, are ready to go back into a combat engagement in iraq. we want to see a stable iraq and we want to make sure the government is able to marshal forces and have command and control of the forces to fight back against the insurgency. we can give them the tools necessary to do that. i think sending our forces back in in a direct combat role is not where we need to be at this particular point in time. all of these other options need to be on the table. a direct boots on the ground

combat role is just not something that is in our long-term best interest. we cannot continue to come back in and rescue the situation every time it gets out of control. there has to be sustainability in iraq within the military and the cap from and. what are you watching for next? are you getting a briefing from the administration? we are trying to get a briefing on situational awareness. what is the prime minister capable of doing? how strong is the government? bearing onget a where we are, what can be done, what are the realistic elements of what the u.s. can bring to the table to help the iraq you forces defeat isis. options available

for the u.s. to be able to help? host: how long does that take? guest: art visors have just gotten on the ground there. advisors have just gotten on the ground there. it should take place pretty quickly. i don't have a definite time. but i know that they're going as quickly as they can with the assets that we have to make that this termination -- determination. coming up next, we will talk with bob wright, the cofounder of autism speaks. we will talk about research dollars and the rise of autism in the country. time.is 9:15 a.m. eastern the commerce department says the u.s. economy shrank at a 2.9% annual rate in the first quarter

-- the worst showing since the beginning of the recession. the setback is expected to be temporary with growth rebounding solidly since the spring. u.s. durable goods orders fell 1%, driven by a sharp drop in demand for military equipment. orders excluding defense rose in% in may after falling april. a judge has dismissed the jury after it failed to reach a verdict on whether former news of the world editor andy colson and clive goodman were guilty of paying police officers for royal phone directories. mr. colson was convicted yesterday of conspiring to hack phones. to theameron apologized house of commons for employing andy colson. the labor party leader said the prime minister's employment of andy colson meant he brought a criminal into the heart of

downing street and shows willful negligence. part of thee was prime minister's questions time and you can watch it on sunday night at 9:00 eastern. .ou can also listen to it here listen to it on c-span radio. those are some of the latest headlines. >> what i have read here is a partially processed plant that i have cut down into sections that are the right length for hanging. i take at all of the big families and those are sent to the kitchen to make edible's. these little leaves are the tight tram. that can be dried and made into to ther can be sent places that make extractions and i can be made into hash. this is the finished but.

-- bud. washington journal looks at the recreational use and sale of marijuana. live on friday morning. now you can keep in touch with current events with c-span radio on audio now on your smart phone. every weekday, listen to a recap of the days events on "washington today." you can hear audio of the five networks beginning sundays at noon eastern. c-span radio on audio now. long distance or phone charges may apply. >> washington journal continues. host: we are back with bob

wright, the cofounder of autism speaks. thank you for being here. there is legislation dealing with research dollars for autism. autism cares is the bill. where does it stand? guest: it stands very well. last night, it passed through the house unanimously. that is really something at this point. the bill is led by representative mike doyle. it was unanimously approved. where it seems almost impossible to get things done, the house passed it. it is in the senate committee this morning. i hope it will be fast-tracked

there. senator menendez is the guidepost. that would be fast tracked in the next couple of days or maybe today in the same manner. we need that. it is a five-year program. it is a lot of money, but it does not nearly enough. it represents but less than one dollar per year for people with autism based on the current prevalence. the cost of autism is $65,000 per year. it is an enormous delta. we really needed this bill to be done. it expired in september. i'm thankful to the congress. i know i'm going to be thankful to the senate too. host: how much money has been

spent on autism research over the year and what has been accomplished? guest: looking at it at the government level, the first bill was done in 2006. allocated.n as been is allocatedoney through the nih. the nih has control over a portion of that which goes to other special resort -- research areas. the cdc has a small amount of that. the bulk of it is all under control of the nih. host: what have they accomplished with that money?

guest: i'm sure they would say a lot. that they have accomplished a good deal. the difficulty for me is that the approach we use for academic medicine, the peer reviews, with the nih in the center and the academic institutions around, it does not guarantee that you are going to get a lot of breakthrough activities because it is all pure reviews. these are the same universities. is that the difficulty the people pick grants that only advance a little bit beyond and they know that they can you peer-reviewed and written up on that basis. you don't find very many breakthrough ideas peer-reviewed. it is kind of a much slower process to deal with something

like autism which is very complex. we don't even have a definition of individual autism. we are still working on a spectrum. back 50-60 years, cancer was a spectrum. now we have several hundred types of cancer. pharmaceuticals to not want to do with a spectrum. they want to do with particularly defined cancers or autism's. we are embarked on a uniquely important effort. google onking with

10,000 different cases involving families with and without autism . we have rd sequenced over 1000. we're in the second sequence now. all of this is being put on the google cloud platform. all of this is going to be done by google cloud engineers. the results of that will be made available to the scientific community. the scientific community can register and go in and look at the work that has been done and used that information for their own research, which i hope will greatly advance this process. i hope we end up with identifying several specific autism's they can immediately be worked on by pharma. why do you think this

technology is the future of defining autism? guest: i think it is the future of working with any disease. it has been very expensive. none of the academic are able to process the month of data and whole genome sequencing. there are 1.6 billion pieces of information. in each one of our genomes. that all has to be sequenced. then it is going to the google platform. then they will register that under autism speaks in a discrete area. the second genome is 1.6 billion. it then you have the first one

against the second. pretty soon, you have an ounce of data that gets into the .rillions real fast that is where biology today can't go. it is blocked. it is limited by data limitations. were google is coming in, modern computing has that ability now. would google believes is they can break down that barrier that exists. it exists for physics and biology. they can break that data down and then offer back to scientists a discrete entry point to look at the results of andking out all of the data

that will be the methodology that is used uniformly. the nih is still not doing it. the mayo clinic is now doing the same thing we are doing with their patients. up in boston, they are doing the same thing. once this starts, it is not going to stop. we are talking about the rate of autism in this country and research dollars set aside for it. (202) 585-3883. let's go to our first phone call. maggie in california. i got to punch the line. my fault. caller: hello?

host: you are on the air. caller: i would like to know why you believe that autism rates are going up so much? is it that it is being diagnosed more or is it appearing more? why does it seem to be more prevalent in boys than girls? can you dispel this thing about vaccination. i think it is really harmful. i will take my answer off the air. thanks so much. guest: those are very good questions. thank you. let's take the boys and girls these. that is not unusual. diseases where there is a prevalence that is greater for boys or girls. it is a testosterone issue and it is not unusual by itself. we have gone around the world and the numbers are always somewhat different, even though in some places it is closer to

2-1 than 4-1, as it is in the united states. the first part of the question is the prevalence. we have spent an awful lot of time and money. we have raised $500 million in autism speaks since we started. in terms of money, program money, has come to medical and scientific research. i can tell you what we do know. we know there has been a significant increase in awareness. that is what we do. we know there has been a significant increase in diagnosing the ability and diagnosing. concluded after some examination that we can account for roughly 50% of the increase that has been reported. the other 50%, we really can't account for. most cancer seven firemen to components which are 60% or 70%

-- most cancers have environmental components which are 60% or 70%. this particular case where autism has become so prevalent, it is the most prevalent serious developmental condition in the united states or in the world childrenve 2.5% of our and it is more like 3% of boys. this is incredible. we cannot answer that question, but we know there are risk factors associated with all of the genetics and we know there are risk factors associated with where people live. that is what we're are hoping to break out with this study with google. we have all of the phenotyping for these 10,000 samples. the phenotyping means we know the height, weight of the child or individual, what treatment

, whether they have problems during vaccines, did they have problems later on, what diseases did they have. all of that is going to get integrated into it. that is when you start to get into environmental association. vaccines are a very complicated issue. foranswer for the question the vast majority of people is that the vast majority of people , vaccines are safe for. there is no peer reviewed methodology to guarantee to that there are some small my new percentage of people who see vaccines -- they're getting 100 million at a time -- there is no guarantee that some small group of people in there are not going to be injured. it may not be autism. there is always that remote aspect. you cannot do a sample of 5000

or 6000 and try a conclusion. you need thousands and thousands. i would say, safety is there. vaccines have not been determined to be a cause of autism. we know that any significant medical advance, there is always going to be some problems on the other side. this case, you're getting such big numbers. you could have several thousand people affected and that is hardly specific. "the daily beast" is critical of autism speaks. the money you have raised and how you have spent it. controversialre than the theory that vaccines could be causing autism. several studies showed no connection.

autism speaks has used money to a value at a possible link. guest: we have looked at a lot of environmental links. we have no unique focus on vaccines. that is an unfortunate characterization. we have to be open-minded. it is the same thing with parents. we try to represent anyone who has autism. their terms and conditions of being represented. there are a lot of people who are really high functioning that they'll want to have us talk about autism. they feel that they can handle their own life and they don't need us interfering with it or whatever. fine. you are welcome to. we have a lot of people very concerned on the environmental side. we are not doing enough with flame retardant materials. i understand that. they are welcome too.

we are not an exclusive club. if you or your family have autism, you are welcome too. this is a church that does not exclude anybody. having autism in your family can be a devastating experience. we are not about to try to order what people should or should not be doing. is providedo information and help people get services locally and nationally and internationally. the pesticide question. this was a recent headline. this came out of the university of california, davis. it was a study just recently. i read it.

yes. it indicates a higher risk associated with people who work in areas with high pesticides and having autism. risks of that20 nature that we are aware of. -- parental age is also a much higher risk. in a familychild is a much higher risk. just being able to attack one of these issues individually is very difficult. we certainly pay attention and we encourage the university of california, the mind institute, we supported them in the past, and we support them. that is only a couple of weeks old, i believe. a headline from

"the wall street journal." birth nation is seen as an autism risk as well. guest: is that because of the immigrant issue? we found a higher incidence rate of people coming into the country from certain countries. host: melinda beck reports that researchers found that autism more common among white children in the united states than other ethnic groups. showed thatch study certain immigrant children mothers might be more particularly at risk. guest: around the world, we have a unique medical system in the united states. nobody has this insurance based system. nobody is quite close to it.

everyone has universal health care. a lot of countries do not want to spend time investigating the prevalence of autism because when they find out the numbers, they have to do something about it. it becomes a budget issue, an economic issue. having said that, as far as we , we have able to tell not been able to establish a prevalence of autism anywhere. the best program we have undertaken was in seoul, south korea. it was a far more sophisticated approach than the one the cdc uses in the united states and they would agree with me. they would say it is more expensive. study.paying for a cdc that isduced a result

the gold standard. it is not to say that korea is more vulnerable, but the way the test was done was more sophisticated. we have had people from the chinese ministry of health look at the korean study and they haven't knowledged that they find nothing wrong with the math and the approach of the korean study. they also said that they have no reason to believe the numbers would be any different in china. studye doing a prevalence . in chinave an issue that becomes too prevalent, it has to be nationally managed. if china has the same rate of autism as korea, that would .nvolve 40 million people that is potentially a

governmental concern. host: we will go back to the phones. caller: thank you. i have worked for 30 years for .hildren and adults autism has become big money for .any, many people are you familiar with waiver programs? guest: yes. goesr: a waiver program through seven or eight different .reas of government

managed-care organizations have sprung up, provider organizations have sprung up. host: i think we got your point. this is turned into big money. guest: there is huge money and .ost most of that money is paid for by parents. if it is not paid for by parents, they are on a medicaid benefit of some type. even there, you still have money. there is no condition or disease that is anywhere similar to autism and the amount that parents have to pay out of their own pocket. host: what are they paying for? guest: speech, occupational

therapy. behavioral therapy. you need 40 hours per week when the child is between two and six or seven. you're paying for doctors outside of the normal pediatric visits. comorbidchildren have symptoms. you are paying for the loss of one parent not being able to work to deal with the child or child care. it is an endless parade. we just started something. it is brand-new. it is called autism speaks champions. .t has its own website this is a way of connecting any ,erson which is interested

people with autism we are speaking to the families, you can connect directly to your legislators. what we have to do is encourage people to not have to take a plane to washington, you did not even have to go to the local office. you can do this online. it will make a phone call for you. it will put you on record. so you can explain some of the issues and inform and educate. we want to get this down to the lowest person in the community. i was talking with some people last night and they were talking about their congressmen helping them with their medical problems. the congressman is not going to help you with your medical problems. you are having to go to the local -- you are going to have to go to the local ama. it has to be done locally. if you have a problem with the school district, you need to know the school district people.

you need to get involved with outboard. we want to turn every one of the walks and two organizations that are family service oriented by the volunteers themselves. we want to mobilize them so that they can get their message out to the lowest possible level. that is really the most effective thing to do. look at the election in mississippi. thad cochran. they were way behind and they went right down to the street. they got people right at the street level. i don't know if that is what w on, but that was an awful lot of .alk in the press last night i'm embarrassed to try to explain to people how complicated it is. host: dai yan also impacted by

arkansas. -- diane is also impacted by arkin -- autism. she is in arkansas. caller: what used to be called autism, what they are diagnosing now didn't use to be diagnosed. diagnosing more as autism. i have felt that way for a long time. my little boy did not give eye contact or speak. he forgot most of the words by the time he passed away. these kids who have autism cannot compare -- when my son had autism. i study that, i researched it. it would not have been diagnosed

as autism before. host: maybe we need to talk about the spectrum of autism you referenced earlier. guest: i appreciate what you are saying. my mother was a school teacher for 35 years. i was an only child. i would go to my mother's school. she did not drive by the way. we got a ride home from another teacher. she taught first grade most of the time. one of her jobs was to work with the school psychologist to determine which kids graduate into second grade and to discuss those children that end up having to go to special ed programs because they cannot manage or get to second grade. i remember it distinctly that those kids for many years. i thought children -- mental retardation was very prevalent. down syndrome is very prevalent.

speech problems and all behavioral problems and so forth. knowing what i know about autism over the last 10 years, they did not manifest the same presentations that i see today. mean that some of the kids would not have been on the spectrum. the spectrum goes from a very in manyctioning -- cases, they don't even get diagnosed until their 12-13 -- two children who are very low functioning and have no ability to communicate whatsoever. no way they're going to be left alone. my grandson falls into the latter category. he has the ability to speak some , but he doesn't.

he cannot be left alone. he has to have an awful lot of help to make any level of improvement. worth thest not argument as to whether it was there or not because it is here. what has happened is that there are much better diagnostics. it is not easy to get a of autism. a lot of people would get a diagnosis of add or adhd. 5% of children in the united states have some kind of today.delay second set of the university of california the mind institute. delays can be dealt with with therapies. in the case of autism, if you get early diagnosis and a lot of chancent, you have a 50% of matriculating through a public school at your age level.

that is a lot of improvement. i wouldn't worry about how many there were. how many there are is what we are dealing with. we dealing with what is current. .hese are the families every year i have a new freshman class. every year, thousands of people joined this issue. that is really what we are struggling with. we areall struggling -- all trying to help. host: greg in san francisco. caller: i was watching diane sawyer. she did some stories on autism. there is one online, a couple online. the one that sticks out is ktla's story about this little boy with autism is taking all of these autism drugs and was taken gaining weight and became so aggressive that they had to remove him from school and were on the verge of institutionalizing him because

his behavior became so aggressive, the weight gain from the drugs he was taking for autism. he just could not go to school anymore. they started treating their child with cannabis. this using cannabis -- and is a family that had never used cannabis before in their lives. was able to reenter school, lost the weight, was able to get along with others. his parents ripped out tomato plants out of the backyard and put a few cannabis plants back there to help him. back then, this child is in school, he has lost to the weight, he has friends, he is playing. they treat their child with one dose. they roll it up in a little ball and he takes it in a pill and it is more like a hashish form. do you have it --host: do you

have a question? theyr: i'm wondering why don't advocate more research into cannabis use? after ellaisturbs me for near passed the medical marijuana laws that the former coal pseudo-cold -- pharmaceutical industry testified that they stood to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. we have not done anything that i am aware of specifically on autism. that there has been so much agreement on the medical side the cannabis can have a positive effect, especially in people,ief for lots of not just autism. that is pretty well-known. they get all that information when they get into this discussion, the state lawmakers. it is moving quickly in some

places and slowly and others. i think there is an inevitable conclusion that there is a real medical benefit for a lot of people that we will be seeing in the future. hopefully autism will be one of those beneficiaries. tweet.nother is autism curable? guest: it is not curable from a medical standpoint. the symptoms could decline substantially and that is probably not a cure, but it could be a significant improvement. cancer is not curable. diabetes is not curable. cystic fibrosis is not curable. serious diseases are not curable and we don't know what causes them. we actually know a lot about autism. we know it is very complex. we know that it can be improved.

we know that your life can be improved. but it is mostly service .elated, not surgeries doctors have very limited tools for autism. have of pediatricians that been sing autistic children for many years have developed protocols of the round. -- of their own. some of them are quite serious. a child comes into their practice and they could say, i have seen the presentation before -- the presentation meaning, the way the child looks acts or so forth. that is not necessarily the way the ama works. the reality is that that does go on. in many cases, that is how people depend on getting some connection to the medical

establishment even though it is not part of the ama protocol standard. it is sort of like a gray market. i don't want to do anything to condemn it. i don't want to say we want everybody doing it. it does exist. a lot of parents rely on that kind of help to get the child into a better state. host: steve is an independent caller. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have my blue light on. my question goes back to the pesticide use. i believe america is the number one user of pesticides, especially in relation to europe. i wondered if the autism rates are lower over there. -- this global weather modification we are doing where they are spraying , could that be

causing autism? maybe we need to do an air test for heavy metals on these children. autism has arisen and asthma like conditions have risen. anyway, thank you for doing all that you do. test them for heavy metals. guest: you are right. we use more pesticides than anyone. it was undoubtedly no benefit. the question is how serious are the negatives. out atudy that just came the university of california indicates that that is a high risk factor. is that about europe europe is the hardest place to on autism. the most developed countries are often the hardest to get data

from because they do not want to share it. some that do give you data it is very incomplete. however, i can tell you in other countries, that they are much more open about this. developing countries like , theydesh, where the who are very open. they have a problem, they want a solution, they will do it on a community basis. not have the money to do all that we can do. they will have their community clinics deal with it themselves. it is a trickle-down effect. doing thatt there with the world health organization as their provider. say thefficult to pesticides are changing the numbers in any particular .ountry speaksow much is autism

given to research over the years? you started this in 2005 with your wife. guest: we have spent over $200 million directly of raised money just on scientific research. we have done a lot of things that surround that. we have spent probably $500 million since we started. there are a lot of other programs involved in that spending. it is very difficult to run a where your goal is to end up with no money at the end of the year. it is counterintuitive to my whole 40 years of careers. it is harder to do that. it is easy to budget your expenses. it is not so easy to budget your revenue. whatever we end up with at the , it is all spent

by the time the year is over. a lot of it goes into communities. we run educational and community meeting events. i will say one thing about the walks that is unscientific, but it is one observation. we have 400,000 people who walk with us. a lot of these people have 25,000 people in them in the bigger cities. when i go to these walks, the children are there with their parents and their neighbors and everybody is connected in some way. you see very few meltdowns in a walk. it is amazing. you see very few meltdowns. these are children after all. there is no judgment taking place. a judgment.king everybody understands what this is all about. the children do not get special treatment if they make a fuss, like they might in a grocery store. is one ofudden, it

the calmest places you ever want to be with children that have some very severe to very modest signs of autism. wheremmunity around them, there is no judgment going on, really calms them down. host: part of your goal when you cofounded this with your wife, you are here for a documentary "sounding the alarm." guest: by the way, none of the stuff that we do could be done without my wife suzanne. on works 50 hours a week autism. she is responsible for all of the awareness activities, all of the blue lights. countriesose to 200 that are with us on that. that is an awareness issue. that goes to people around the country. last night, we showed a film that we and others produced called "sounding the alarm."

it is 58 minutes. it is a wonderful film that talks about 12 families dealing with children of different ages all the way through to adulthood. it is different families. i think people would find it really interesting, even if they don't have a relative with autism. if they do, i think it will be very worthwhile. on july 15, it will be on netflix in several languages. it will be on amazon prime. it will be on itunes. less than three weeks away, it will be available around the world. host: the house is about to come into session. byst: it is a documentary, the way. "sounding alarm." host: i want to get your take as the former chair of the nbc. the big four networks want to o from being able to

capture their free signals. what do you think about this technology and the supreme court weighing in? think -- my guess is the view of the court -- i'm a lawyer. i started out as a lawyer. that it is a is is backdoor around copyright. that will be viewed by many in the court as that is exactly what it is and that has a very negative connotation. is being technology used as a back door around existing law, that is always going to have a negative connotation. i think they have a case. they have an argument. i would doubt that it gets the support of the court. host: we have to leave it there. bob wright, cofounder of autism speaks. thank you for talking to our viewers. we appreciate it. guest: