a.m., a conversation publicniele brian on confidence in the so-called good government bills enacted by congress after watergate. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning. president obama announcing yesterday that military operations interact could last for months. calling for a rack to create a -- coalition government --: calling for iraq to create a new coalition government. in a new nbc news wall street journal poll out this past week

shows just how frustrated americans are over the economy and the direction of the country and over political leadership in washington. sunday morning, thank you for being with us, we will be discussing these all this morning, but we wanted to begin with a poll that has found that americans are fed up. host: good sunday morning to you. we want to begin with the latest on the hawaii races. one is still too close to call, the other is a surprise in which the state senator defeated david abercrombie. unknown to many voters, now the

democratic nominee for governor. he won the senate race. again, there are still some votes outstanding because of the storm that hit. this from the l.a. times -- obama sees no quick fix in a rack. timeline on what they see for military forces. [video clip] we won't solve us in weeks, if that's what you mean. this will take some time. those forces are going to have to revamp, get resupplied, have a clear strategy.

that is all going to be and aent on the people survey space for them to do the hard work that is necessary. they have been generally suspicious are wary of the iraqi government and are more likely to join in in the fight against isis, which can be extremely helpful. this is going to be a long-term project. the president made those comments yesterday morning. this is the headline from "the guardian," yesterday "the u.s.

has a long-term project in iraq and the -- in iraq and the second day of strikes is coming against islamic forces ergo andrew tillman has followed all of us and joins us live on the phone this morning. thank you for being with us. caller: good morning. thanks. host: what is the latest? it looks like operations have been pretty significant and rapid over the past three days. my understanding is that last there was a third airdrop withight on the mountain some additional airstrikes yesterday. i am seeing a lot of these in thet coming off

persian gulf. anytime there is an airstrike there are probably dozens of aircraft flying over to provide intelligence or some kind of over watch. i have been struck in the past few days about what a significant military operation this is turning out to be. host: how big of a crisis is this? for those still stuck on the mountaintop? >> it is a stunning and breathtaking situation. we all the numbers that took a few days ago were 40,000. i have seen that number change over the past couple of days. no one quite knows exactly how many people are on this mountain . to 50,000,re growing

even 100,000. this is a dire situation. .hese people are trapped something that people are referring to as a safe passage iraqisr, some of these are using that to get off this mountain, but they are facing a gauntlet and a lot of gunfire from isis forces as they try to do this, not even counting the fact that in other places there for not exactly besieged but are facing a terrible humanitarian crisis in terms of being forced from their homes with nowhere to go, food and water being an issue for some groups off the mountain as well. time last year when the president was looking for ,oalition assistance in syria basically great britain and

france said they would not get involved. seems like it is a very different situation now. what is different? there is a deep sense at the white house that this is a much more acute crisis on the humanitarian level. the situation last year in syria was a civil war. you had refugees of some sense fleeing the fighting. this is much closer to the international definitions of genocide. the president use that word in his remarks on thursday night. is probably that fell by the british and french is just ahat this much more acute situation that -- yugoslavialot and rwanda a bit more than what

we saw one year ago. there is also this military component in trying to deal with these terrorists. how long can these airstrikes last? as we saw in the report, it cannot be done by air alone, u.s. troops need to come in. caller: that is a huge question right now. no doubt that the military planners attempted to execute the mission are going to have a conversation among themselves and that it will be far easier to do this if we can get hundreds or even thousands of u.s. troops on the ground. you would really like to have some forward air controllers, u.s. troops on the ground, looking at the horizon for and revealing very detailed target information back to the planes in the air.

right now with information from and in addition a larger intelligence coordinating that with some greater support for the british forces that are fighting on the ground. you would like to embed some u.s. trainers or advisors with them. not just necessarily to support them in their fight, but to coordinate their actions with what the u.s. is doing. it is a slippery slope. some of those guys my need for that forward operating base, logistical support, medevac .equirements helicopters will need some maintenance support. tomilitary planners begin try to execute this from the timeframe of as the president

said months, not weeks, they are going to have a tough time doing this from the air. there will be some serious discussions of putting troops and how many on the ground. andrew tillman, thank you very much for the latest on the situation in iraq. caller: thanks for having me. host: we have more coming up with ambassador marc ginsberg. newsis a headline from nbc americans are fed up."

carrie dann joins us now. good morning. these are some amazing numbers. caller: one of our pollsters used the word cranky to describe the american electorate. numbers ino good this whole for anyone in washington. the president is at an all-time low in his approval rating. numbers for congress are obviously not getting any better either. the only person the congress is doing better than in its approval rating is vladimir putin. also, the right track wrong 71% ofuestions,

respondents said the country is on the wrong track. there was a lot of talk about the hope for future generations. that the current president is to blame for the economic problems in the country. the headline from your partners at "the wall street journal," "widespread economic anxiety." up to 76% in 2014? caller: we delve deeply into the questions that we asked about why people are so economically insecure. the number that stuck out the most is that 64% of americans feel they are being impacted by the recession today. half of americans don't believe that there is a recession, but the other half think it is getting better.

they say they are still being impacted by the recession today. in thequestions like -- past five years, has someone in your household lost the job? do you have more than $75,000 in student loan debt? stunning numbers. one quarter of the people say that someone in their household had to take on a second or third job to make ends meet. there are obviously some people in the country still feeling they have sois why much pessimism about the economy going forward. is ayou ask if this systemic problem in the economy, very few people say that this is a long-term economic problem. we want to hear from our viewers and listeners -- we are

talking with carrie dann about the latest numbers. any midterm election is often a referendum on the party in power . how does this bode well -- or does it not -- for republicans in 2014? the party in power is going to be a little bit anxious looking towards the midterm elections. we see about an equal divide when we asked about gop led or democratic led congress. obviously they aren't i great numbers for the president's party. but there is a silver lining for democrats, interest in the election is down from previous years -- you are not seeing an intense interest at the one you saw in 2010. republicans are still struggling with women, they are over 10 points behind with women, a big thing that democrats are looking forward to in november,

mobilizing that vote, as well as minorities. a lot of people, on problems like the economy and illegal immigration, while we are definitely looking at an election where the climate is definitely favoring republicans in this off year election without the president on the ballot, we are not really seeing the effect of a big wave like in 2010 because interest seems to be dampened. your do the back to what colleague wrote, two words that sum up the mood of the nation -- set up. absolutely. what we are seeing is a real decrease in institutions and faith in them. othere seen that in polling across the board. even faith in things like basic government services has really decreased. and people are angry about it. the thing is that democrats,

republicans, and independents often worry about different issues. there is health care, there is the economy, overall a big issue , but immigration, health care, foreign policy -- another reason we are not necessarily looking at a big wave in november, although people are fed up, as you said, they are not coalescing around a single issue. question we ask is -- is or anything that makes you upset enough to carry a protest sign for the day? 57% of our respondents said yes. that is enough people between different ideologies and parties . republicans and independents are all saying that they are fired up and ready to pick up a protest sign for the day. including anything from -- what would you want on that sign?

--ple saying things like republicans in congress, do your job. people from all across the spectrum have a lot to say about what they are upset about. you obviously don't see 57% of people out every day to register their disapproval, but there are people saying they are willing to get out there. poll, on the economy and government, thank you, carrie dan, for joining us live. caller: thank you. are you fed up with the direction of the country? mike, rockford, good morning. morning, steve. good morning, c-span. our voting system is still a slog, number one. number two, the walgreens

corporation in the u.s. is not mood. americans learn more and more of a big factoring overseas and are writing it off to the taxpayers on the taxes. host: thank you very much for the call. host: a new abc news "wall street journal" poll, "three months before the midterm elections a record number of americans disapproving of their own representative in congress, potentially a chilling signal as both political parties for their part are near all-time lows in popularity.

only 41 percent approve of how their representative is handling , the lowest dating back .o a quarter-century albany, georgia, democratic line , good morning. caller: good morning, steve. a kind ofy is in funk. nothing is getting done, correct? host: that's much -- that's your assessment? is, but that is the assessment of many others. nothing is getting done. should dohat congress their job and that not much is getting done. the reason we are in the shape we are in is the recession. but we have to learn from our

past mistakes and the recession is not the fault of the president. fault of the executive branch. all they had was handed to them. it is on them to try to repair the problem. this fromt: --host: "the boston globe." the white house began what would be a two-week vacation, although interrupted to do with business here -- spending time at martha's vineyard and hitting .he golf links diana joins us from on -- martha's vineyard. good morning. caller: everybody is missing the big picture here. worked 135 days in 2013. divide that by 170 $4000, they

got roughly paid 1200 $88 per day to do nothing. that is pretty much all i have to say. ok.: bill, connecticut, republican line. i like your program. one of the biggest problems is it is the american people's fault. if 80 million people went out to vote and voted for third-party like buchanan or perot or nader, something might have happened. but instead they are afraid they might get on june reduce the and we keep electing the same people. host: john is next. good morning. thatr: why didn't you ask reporter that was just talking if they have asked the american people what their satisfaction with the news media is? caller: --host: what is your

satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the news media? caller: barack obama got not have and it might been possible if the news media had told the truth. host: all right. randy, good morning. caller: is it possible to have a say in aicans have segment? host: finish your comment. to 25, the kids in college, to see their opinion of america now. host: thank you for the call and suggestion. baltimore, good morning. caller: i think the problem is -- a lot of things have to happen that are good, there are things that are still bad, but politicians only promote the bad.

is like dampening the spirit of the american people. i never hear about the cutting of the deficit. i don't know what that man wanted the media to do, but i would like them to report some fact, maybe's -- maybe some positive facts. about that.e talked the year-to-year deficit is down, the true object or he shows that it will expand in part because of entitlement programs. thank you very much. wait, can i say one thing about that? entitlement programs -- i don't don't the this -- why democrats and republicans get together to see how we can fix those programs instead of just complaining? we need them for solutions. truly. that is the problem, no solutions. you for the call.

if you are just tuning in, this program is heard coast-to-coast on xm 120. "two words summarize the mood of the american people -- americans ."e fed up we are getting your reaction. attention in of dcm the commonwealth of virginia , the u.s. builds its case and maureen mcdonald depicted as andbled and irrational there is a danger posed by the .usinessman "those closest are key to the prosecutor's case." this from d.c. venice greg, from union,

missouri, you are next. good morning. obama has been lying to the american people. he also doesn't do anything to help us in his bills. also, the congress has passed bills, but harry reid won't put them on the floor to be voted for. look to the senate and harry reid. he is the downfall of the american people. i think that obama has no credibility around the world. he lies to much. he said you could keep your doctor and your insurance. you can do any of that. what is that all about? who are the american people

going to trust? they can trust the president. everyone knows -- the democrats calling in to say the president is doing really good? look around, 9 million people are out of a job. thank you. this is from carol -- joyce is joining us from west virginia. good morning. i am probably fed up with a lot of things. would certainly want to change my representatives in west virginia. i certainly don't want to send her to the senate. i am hoping i will finally get a

representative who is a democrat who will replace senator rockefeller with another democrat. i am not terribly hopeful there, but as far as the president? i love waking up in the morning and knowing that this very , and iful, intelligent will say black man, although i am white and elderly -- i am not the demographic that is supposed know, support him, but i love waking up knowing that he is there and i feel safe as long as he's there. i am looking forward to the next has aars, even though he bigger burden than any president during my whole lifetime. host: thank you for the call, joyce. the lines are open. host: we are asking about the

latest poll that showed only 14% approved of the job the congress is doing. dating back to 2011, when this rating was below 15%. with the midterm elections less than three months around -- three months away, preferring a gop controlled congress. bill mcintyre, the pollster for nbc news saying that the good news for republicans is that the with peopleesident thinking they are on the wrong track is typically good for the .pposition party not so good for the gop as republicans continue to trail in the double digits. they said this could be a good for republican cycle but not necessarily a wave election. more of your calls in just a

moment. this from one viewer, -- writingchael gordon about the u.s. pursuing a middle road in a rock yesterday in "the new york times." for money, joining us onto, new york. good morning to you on the democratic line. caller: i have a question. my question is this -- democrats are not the ones that close down the government. it was the tea party. hello? host: i'm listening. caller: the tea party close down the government. it was not the democrats that wanted to cut food stamps were people. it was not the democrats who

wanted to -- but they always keep cursing at the president not doing nothing right. he is trying but republicans don't want to do nothing, and the tea party don't want to do nothing. northmatt is next from carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. to me, the frustration is just the democratic process and our type of government with the power of the people, divisions and government are representative of divisions and issues are complicated. host: ok, matt, thank you for the call. kathy from pearland, texas, you are on. caller: hi, steve. i would like to know what kind of congress we need. jobs,ake good paying walmart, earned income tax credit jobs. that is u.s. taxpayers subsidizing the billionaires. we also allow our congress to be

paid $3.5 billion a year. i mean, even the soviets are not that corrupt. stopnk it is time to outsourcing our soldiers. 5% of the population, and we are the world police? i do not think we have the moral authority anymore. thank you, steve. host: thank you, and thank you for all of your many tweets. we appreciate that. we go to wayne in pennsylvania. i would like to ask a question to the audience and everybody else out there listening. the republicans do not give barack obama no respect. everything he tried to do, they are always in the way of what he is doing. this is what i want to ask -- if givingted states is barack obama a hard time being president, how can he get anything done overseas? host: romney is next. gilbert's bill, kentucky. your thoughts on this latest poll on the direction of the

country, ronnie. i wouldin my opinion, like to hand the pink slip to all of them in authority. i think speaker boehner must go. anyone to comeow up and do any kind of job program, infrastructure, anything like that. wanted to give raise to american teachers, and harry reid needs to go as well. they all must go because they have nothing in their minds about their next election. host: ok. caller: thank you. host: thank you, ronnie. who says thepeg house only passes tax cuts for the top 1% and then calls them job bills. anant to shoare with you

obituary. it was august 2, 9043 that he was credited with saving the life of john f kennedy. credited withas saving the life of venue tenant john f. kennedy after their bunk was destroyed by japanese warship during world war ii. he died august 2. he was 93 years old according to the jfk library, 71 years ago during the early morning hours of august 2, 19 43, the future president was the skipper of a boat that was torpedoed along theblackest straight, -- blackett strait. kumana said i was young, but i was not scared. delivering a message by then lieutenant john f. kennedy, a message that was carved on a coconut. that coconut remained on president kennedy's desk during his 2.5 years in the white

house. again, the island are credited with saving jfk and the pt-109 crew died. his obituary is in the "washington post." the latest poll, americans fed up with the economy. bob, good morning. caller: good morning. the absolutely amazed at democratic, liberal callers calling in saying republicans don't do anything -- what about all of those that are sitting on harry reid's desk? will they please educate themselves? i just do not understand this. there are over 40 billion -- why do the democrats not calling complain about them? you know what? complainals never about their party, and they are wrong.

host: bob, thank you for the call. we go to nick next in new jersey. caller: i am calling up about some of the things that chris christie has done in the last few days. there were two bills put on his death that were bipartisan bills. one was for putting legalized sports betting in atlantic city and the racetracks, and the other was to stop fracking from coming into new jersey. and the great governor of new jersey has vetoed both of them bills. atlantic city really needed this shot in the arm to put them back because right now arn bad shape. casinos are closing left and right. i do not understand. bill anda bipartisan he still voted against it. so all of you people that love chris christie out there, think who is happy about these bills not passing. join us, we go to ed next from edinburgh, texas on the republican line. caller: i just want to say i agree with the previous caller

about the blame game thing. forpresident is wrong forcing policy and saying he is going to do it alone all the time, and the republican congress is wrong for having this agenda of just wanting to, you know, fight the president on everything. while we are playing this a blame game, our country is going down the tubes. we have got to stop it, and we have got to get together, work together, did the president -- democrats get your president to congress,the republican, get your congress to work with the president. if we do not stop it now, we are in trouble. host: thank you. we go to ron next. caller: i want to reinforce what the previous callers were saying. if you want to solve this, from your county sheriff to the president, there should be term limits in all offices. if you have more than two opportunities to serve, you are instantly corrupted by all that is around you. also, if you want to solve all

of this problem with the irs, we need a flat tax system just like england or any other place that we have helped straighten out. right away the first thing russia did when the wall fell is took in a flat tax. what happened to iraq? flat tax. we could solve a lot of these problems with these two different things. a flat tax and term limits. that would solve all of these problems because they do not have a chance or long enough time to be corrupted. thank you very much. host: ron, thanks for the call from indiana. up next is richard. hey, turn the volume down on your set and we will hear you much better. are you still with us? caller: yeah, you talk about president obama, and congress is the one -- they don't do nothing for him. everybody blames obama, obama,

obama -- it is congress. today's.ed everybody is fed up. get rid of all of them. host: ok, joy is next from asheville, north carolina. are you fed up with the direction of the country? caller: yes i am. am i on? host: you are on. we can hear you. caller: i do not know why anybody would defend obama about anything. when he it's that smirk on his face, and somebody ought to check and see what the national debt was when bush went out. he was a very decent person. and see what it is now. i think it is, like, five times as much with nothing to show for it except for general motors being bailed out, benghazi, bad military, the irs, the illegals, nothing but scandals. when they say congress won't work with the president, he is the one who says -- i will not negotiate, i will not compromise. he won't work with them. he won't work with anybody because he thinks he knows it

country -- i am almost glad that i am old, but i worry about my son and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. you know, germany put a bad leader in there, but they pay the price for it then, too. andy's open borders, it is not long ago he said these borders were safer than they had ever been, knowing they were open, and to grant amnesty to these people is crazy. host: ok, joy, thank you for your comments. this is from the "new york times " sunday magazine. major threat, a look at rand paul and the libertarians. robert draper saying he could wendy young voters for the gop if the party does not shut him down. meanwhile, the "hill" newspaper reporting -- a parade of , republicans looking to reclaim the white house. more than a year before iowa hosts the first in the nation caucuses, texas governor rick

and sosenator ted cruz, far ahead of 2016, they did not seem to sing which themselves from one another. in fact, they repeatedly, mended their potential rivals while bashing the democrats and the president. that is this morning from the "hill" newspaper. i'd away, texas governor rick perry will be at the iowa state fair on tuesday. we will have taped coverage of his remarks at the so-called soapbox, a potential stopping off point for potential 2016 medals. potential 26 in candidates. check out our schedule at c-span.org. caller: good morning. one of the examples that i think put a scar on american -- the way the country has gone is when you have this guy refusing to pay taxes and to pay the government, it sent a bad message to the world that if you

can stand up against the federal government, which is one of the strongest governments in the union, and this guy had guns pointed at it, and no one was arrested -- and that set a bad example because everybody is saying well, if he can do it, i can do it, too. also, when the president was --st elected and this man this was not a man, this boy hollered out you are a liar, i think president barack should have had him removed and locked up right then. that would have demanded respect. thank you, and have a good day. host: thank you, james, for the call. again, the "wall street journal" /nbc poll, the word fed up has carried over to the political leaders with the president's overall approval rating now getting a new low at 40%. the public giving

congress a thumbs-up. this is the headline from the "new york times" -- coming up in a few minutes, we will check in with marc ginsburg, veteran from the carter administration to talk about the very latest in iraq but also in the middle east. brett is joining us back from bonita springs, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, the headline "fed up," well, i am fed up. i am fed up with the callers, and probably they are representative maybe of the country, but they are bickering. all sides. so the congress, you know, they are people. they have dreams, they have feelings, they have emotions, principles, and they want to stick by it. and when you have somebody march into the white house, and they see be changing of a system we have had for over 200 years --

and it is not great, but it is of best that can come people trying to work together, and everybody is fighting with each other. you drive down the highway, and people are tooting and honking their horns and giving you the finger because you are not going the right way, so nobody is happy for some reason. maybe they are not happy with in themselves, and i do not know how they look into their souls and find that peace and happiness, but it is not going to be the congress. they are not going to answer it. they are just people with differences of opinion. host: ok, thank you very much for the call. we will come to more of your comments in just a few minutes, but we want to give you the hawaiion two races in during a lot of attention. b.j. reyes is joining us, very early in the morning anini honolulu. morning in honolulu. thank you for being with us.

b.j. is now thdefeating governor abercrombie -- what happened? guest: well, it is hard to say. this is a historic upset. david e gay, as he said, little-known six months ago. say,vid ige, as you little-known six months ago. he is sort of someone that people voted for because people do not know the governor. the governor is recovering from some pretty unpopular decisions in his first year, his first term. >> one of the terms to describe governor abercrombie is air again. that that finally caught up to him. is that a fair assessment? guest: i do not know if that is for me to judge, but he did rub some people the wrong way i think in his first year in office. there are a couple of bills that he did not produce. one of them is a proposed tax on soda.

another is the tyree's pension. i got killed in the legislature. somes publicly argued with unions in the first year. imposed a contract on to teachers. they got raises when the contract was renegotiated. the whole position of the mistaken,if i am not he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and never really recovered from it. he had some supporters in the university. host: let's talk about the senate race. one of the decisions the governor made alienated the supporters and those who admired daniel inouye, who passed away. his lieutenant governor running against commerce woman colleen hanabusa. and one point, she was up in the early numbers. it appears the senator is up

by 18% of votes. is that the latest? the latest.is i'm refreshing the website as we speak because i'm hoping to give you breaking news because we might update it with something absentee00, 11,000 ballots that came in and the last couple of days, and people can drop them off today if they still have them. additionally, there are two precincts on hawaii island, one of the big island, where polling places were closed because the roads are just too damaged from tropical storm iselle, and people could not get to the polling sites, so there are about 8000 registered voters now that will not be able to turn out ballots. this is the problem of the hanging chad, and what is going to happen is the 11,000 absentees will be counted at some point tonight, and then the other votes, they will have to electionsil, so the

will mail ballots to those who have not voted already. the elections officer say those people will have a few days to get them back in. i don't think it is very specific at this point because it is still the situation, and they're trying to get through today. obviously,, obviously butd affect the outcome like i said, they say turnout, which i heard something like 38% -- it will definitely affect the outcome in some way. again, let's look at these numbers where the race is essentially 49% for senator hatz and 49% for senator

hondanabusa. will there be a chance for them to campaign for these votes before the race is called? guest: yes, there is nothing to prevent them from flying over to the big island and campaigning. nobody has said that today, and chatz said they will meet tomorrow and decide what their strategy will become if they will head over there. we have not heard from the hanabusa campaign, but there were some news anchors that were joking how if i am one of these candidates come i'm over there knocking on doors with a bucket of ice and a chainsaw to help their the driveway, but we should not forget that these people -- some of these people may not even know that the election hangs in their fate because they are still without power. i forgot what the last count was, but there are still thousands of people on the big

island without power. the district itself is a little -- i don't know, i have never -- i've actually never been there. urals a sort of very lor over there. i do not know if it is known for a large turnout, but it is definitely a weird district in terms of how they would go one way or the other. host: again, let's recap the other big story from hawaii overnight. these are the results for governor abercrombie, former member of congress, getting only 67,000 votes or 32% of the votes compared to state senator david ige with 67%. did you expect this lopsided victory for david ige? guest: i think by the end we did. obviously six months ago we did we have had a poll in by 18per that had ige up

points, and other polls also solid double digits, and we were starting to hear from the camps of themselves that they had some more numbers. so it is obviously trending in david ige's favor. by the end of the week, we were pretty convinced that it would be a pretty big loss. were tryinglleagues to figure out how to write in terms of the historic nature of it. incumbenter voted an governor out in the primary, and we had not voted one out overall since the 1960's when governor quinn was voted out, and he was the governor shortly after stacy. host: b.j. reyes joining us very early in the morning, approaching 2:00 and hawaii, and thanks for being up late for us to give us the latest on these results and more available online at star advertiser. thank you for being with us. guest: all right, steve, thank

you for having me. host: we continue with your phone calls on the nbc/"wall street journal" polls. congress fed up with and the presidency. allen is joining us from alabama. good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: thanks for waiting. what is your take on all of this ? caller: i tell you what, i am losing my job, my kids and got no food, israel bad out there, bad outit is real there, man. obama is messing everything up. caller: i am really fed up with all of these people calling in. we had a very bad situation in america here. first of all, this congress, which is run by the republicans and speaker boehner or cruz, who is on a five-week vacation.

-- right nowlicans they should be sitting down and discussing issues of how to help people. we have a lot of people unemployed. five-week occasion, enjoy it this morning. they should come back to the table. thank you. the call.thanks for this is from a viewer who says -- we are especially fed up with the failed obama residency and his minions in congress. going to start fixing that on november 4. from layton,er is indiana on the republican line. go ahead, beth. caller: i think my biggest problem is -- i do not really care if it is republican or democrat. i really don't. my first quality i look at with someone if their leadership, and

i feel like -- i am frustrated with the american people, too because i work for a large company for 35 years, had many bosses. starts from the top. when you start putting somebody down, not taking any responsibility for anything, and just carrying another party down -- just tearing another party down or someone down, how do you expect to get along or merge on anything? it is the leadership. that is where it starts. how can we work together? how can we work together when we have been lied to? and i am not a total -- i disagree with everything that he does. i am not that way. i am disappointed with the leadership and using -- i mean, race or whatever, the republicans, to say that i am the one who knows how to do everything and you don't know, i know what is right -- that is

what i get tired of. how do you expect people to work together if you are putting them down all the time and won't work with them? host: ok, beth, thank you. i will leave it there because we have to move on with other issues. by the way, at 9:30 eastern time, 6:30 for those on the west coast, we will open the phone lines again to docks is ethically about the situation in iraq and the comments by the president saying we are therefore a longer period of time then just a couple of weeks. up next, we will get the assessment of marc ginsburg, former ambassador of morocco, to get his assessment. the 40thrday with anniversary the resignation of richard nixon and where things stand today. danielle brian will be joining us. our guest is tim phillips on "newsmakers," the president of americans for prosperity.

he talks about how much money the group is spending on campaigns and where that money is coming from. here's a portion of that conversation. [video clip] >> you have spent tens of millions of dollars this year. other groups allied with you somewhat in the coke network -- koch network. can you tell us how much you've spent so far and what you expect to spend through the rest of this cycle? reports have said we are around $55 million, 60 million dollars on television ads, and then we have a very strong infrastructure on the ground. we have full-time staff, permanent and 33 states, and that is a large expenditure, so i am not going to give a firm number. it is a significant number. >> we all know exactly what we are talking about. bikes i will say this -- we have spent significantly on efforts like this for years, so this is not a brand-new thing for us. some people have said unprecedented, words like that -- it is not. we have been very active for a number of years now.

some of the biggest principle of the group i think is that you do not disclose the donors. the donors don't have to say who they are giving to, and that leads to the dark money and accusation, that sort of thing. i know you are familiar with. why not just disclose? >> i mentioned the irs scandal where we had the chilling spectacle, the most feared regulatory agency in the nation, targeting american citizens based on the fact that they happen to disagree with the ideology of this administration, and it is documented. it is clear what happened there. i think there is a chilling effect, and as long as you have abuses like that, which candidly you will have -- and both parties have done it over the decades. this is not an only swipe at democrats, although in this case it is clearly of this administration. tothink it is the best thing protect the privacy of donors. this administration has shown that they will use the most feared regulatory agency in the

nation to go after people. they have shown that. a prudentthink it is thing to do to protect the identities of americans who will absolutely become immediate targets. >> "washington journal" continues. us from new york as ambassador marc ginsburg, next for it on the middle east, former advisor to jimmy carter. ambassador, thank you for being with us. guest: good morning. good to be with you, steve. host: the president indicated yesterday that our operations in iraq will likely last for months, but again say no troops on the ground despite what some in the iraqi government say is necessary to resolve the situation. what is your assessment? guest: well, there are two major issues the president having to address. the most important one is the situation involving the islamic terrorist state known as i.s.i.s., and i.s.i.s. has

already seized a significant territory not only in syria but also in iraq as our viewers know, and it is a diabolical, bloodcurdling organization. i actually have referred to it as the ebola virus of terrorism, and what it has been doing is basically engaged in grabbing territory and annihilating any non-sunni member of iraq's population as well as syria's population. the problem here is we also have a situation in iraq where the government of prime minister divided iraq, sunni versus shiite, that many of these sunni leaders that have supported the united states in the so-called tribal awakening have defected to support i.s.i.s. because they are so angry and upset. the way in which the shiite government dominated by prime minister maliki has dealt with them, so you have a combustible mixture here that is going to in effect undermine iraq's

stability for some time to come. host: i want to share with you, and bear with me for a moment, this is the reporting from the "new york times," and she really describes what the situation is like on the ground in iraq and she said "amid the low scrub of in northern iraq, new piles of loose stones are part of a new land scope. makeshift graves for thousands left behind by survivors desperate to find an escape from the sunni fighters fighting them. the lucky ones make it here to this desolate outpost on the evading theirfter tormentors and crossing the tributary of the tigris river over a narrow bridge. most flood miles on foot a week holy sitesthe yazidi that document to carrying almost nothing with them as they ran from the sunni militants of the islamic state in iraq and syria.

at the mountains that at first seemed a safe haven quickly became a place of danger." guest: it is absolutely forensic him and i know that our viewers are probably thing well, here is another sample of a typical middle east mess, but let's understand that this i.s.i.s. organization has been crucifying, and i will say this because i have seen the videos, crucifying shiites and christians along the path from one village to the other. they have engaged in wholesale membersr of non-sunni of any effect in northern iraq. these christian sects have literally for hundreds and hundreds of years. now, this should not have been news of this administration, steve. after all, we have long known ever since i.s.i.s. crowe claimed its caliphate state in northern syria that it is atrocities.hese at howtually shocked

poorly the administration has always been in effect almost too late. i almost and sitter there foreign policy middle name overtaken by events because in effect we knew this was going to happen. the i.s.i.s. leadership, who we well know has already committed itself to these types of atrocities months and months ago. this in fact, you wrote the huffington post from ferber worry of this year -- "it is the worst kept secret in washington that that the obama white house political staff has trespass like trojan horses into gn policy territory by interfering in the nsc decision-making -- channeling the democratic already equivalent of the tea party isolationist wing of the republican party into the west wing." guest: i say that as a democrat who has been involved in foreign policy for more than 30 years, starting with my years with

senator edward kennedy and all the way through the clinton administration. has soministration politicized that it is tactically driven as if it is a political campaign marching from one day to the next, the problem is from the middle east means strategy, you need people who understand the middle east, not people who are campaign workers who were all of a sudden putting on hats claiming that they are foreign-policy experts. and we see this particularly with the role that valerie jarrett, the president's personal rasputin-type advisor has played in this administration on which almost every nsc decision somehow makes a zigzag up to her office before it reaches the president. host: how do you resolve that, or do you? guest: look, the president has only to look at the poll numbers. he is less than 37% of the american people support his foreign-policy. if i were president i was dealing with that consequence, i would be asking myself whether i

had the right people and the right decision-making apparatus inside my administration because i would not be too bright of proud of that if i were him. host: one other assessment on the ground, this is from the "london telegraph," from jonathan krohn -- mount sinjar stinks of death. dogs are eating the bodies of the dead. on sunday, today, i became the first western journalist to to reach the mountain where tens of thousands of yazidis, a previously of secured middle east effect, have been taking refuge from islamist state forces. i was on board and not iraqi iraq-- i was on board an he army helicopter when they received one of the few missions of aid to make it to the mountain. the president did talk about the complexity of the issue including getting it on the mountain. how do you do that? guest: that will take more boots

on the ground. the question is -- who are the boots? will abv iraqi forces, will it be the equivalent of the kurdish? the problem is the tanks are because as you. know, steve, they have captured them from the iraq he forces --- the iraqi forces when they attacked the second-largest city in iraq, which is mosul. you have the kurdish forces allied with the united states, outgunned, and everybody will be dragging their feet on rearming. the united states has dragged its feet for many, many months. so as the iraqi government, which is reluctant to provide committed military aid because of this division between kurds and shiites inside iraq. host: let me let you listen to what the president did

yesterday. one of the questions he was asked, some of this great thing that we should have stayed in iraq. senator john mccain has been talking about that. the president was asked about that and had this answer -- [video clip] >> you know what i just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming this was my decision. under the previous administration, we had turned aer the country to sovereign, democratically elected iraqi government. in order for us to maintain troops in iraq, that we needed t he invitation of the iraqi government, and we needed assurances that our personnel would be immune from prosecution if, for example, they were protecting themselves and ended up getting a firefight with iraq is. that they would not be hauled

iraqi judicial system. and the iraqi government based on its judicial political considerations in part because iraqis were tired of the u.s. occupation, declined to provide us those assurances. left. that basis we had we had offered to leave additional troops. so when you hear people say -- do you regret, mr. president, not leaving more troops -- that presupposes that i would have overridden the sovereign government that we had turned the keys back over two and said you know what, your democratic, you are sovereign, except if i decide that it is good for you to keep 10,000 or 15,000 or 20,000 marines in your country. you don't have a choice. which would have kind of run contrary to the entire argument

we were making about turning iraqise country back to ,an argument not made just by me but by the previous administration. host: marc ginsburg, how would you respond? guest: the president is right in this instance. negotiation -- wanting to negotiate with prime minister maliki was projected. let's also understand here -- this was far more complex than saying yes or no. the president was very happy to accept the decision of prime minister maliki, and where the president probably should have added is that when he left, when enter intosed to the status of forces agreement, the united states more or less put its arm around maliki, endorsed him. maliki came to washington several times, and bean despitea

very cool reception being accorded him in congress because of his divisive policy against sunnis and kurds, the white house put their arm around him claiming he was a unifier. it was one of the more absurd instances of the president almost wanted to rid himself of maliki by merely putting a pat on the back. host: marc ginsburg, in addition to his service as the ambassador to morocco and former advisor in the quarter and administration -- in the carter administer chicago he is currently the ceo of the one voice movement, which is what? guest: it is an organization that trains israelis and palestinians in leadership to take over from the mess they are unfortunately having to deal with right now between israel and palestine. we have 700 youth leaders, young andt leaders in palestine almost 1700 and israel that worked quietly to engage in the and of leadership training efforts to try to rebuild a

consensus for a two-state solution in israel and palestine. >> litigate your assessment of someone you know well. dennis ross has extensive piece in the "washington post" called how hamas missed its chance in gaza. first, a new strategic ally many to take place in the region must be recognized was of egypt, jordan, saudi arabia, and the emirates my cv muslim brotherhood as a threat as they natural partners in denying hamas, the palestinian wing of the brotherhood, potential gains and assisting reentry into gaza. second, because hamas is -- publicly achieving to states for two people, diplomacy after the recent conflict must foster

tangible changes on the ground, not promise a victim that is -- a vision that is unachievable. that is the essence of good statecraft. guest: i cannot agree more. anybody who wants to see a resolution in gaza and the west bank and a return of negotiations between israel and palestine -- that is sort of the equivalent of american pie and honey added on top of it. look, steve, the problem here right now is the fact that with respect to the situation in gaza, hamas is a terrorist organization that is using the palestinian people in gaza to focus its own parochial goals and objectives against israel. these people are living in an open air prison, and unfortunately because of their enmity towards israel and because even injections now view hamas, a threat, this is the ejections and israelis along

with the saudi's and emma emiratis and others -- what is hamas doing? it is basically throwing everything they can but the kitchen sink in order to try to prevent it from being strangled by both israel and egypt, which together have combined to try to --nomically in effect survive in gaza, that is extortion, smuggling, torture. i just wrote a piece in huffington post on this a couple of days ago. arepalestinian people victims of the very hamas organization that is ruling them. you: in fact, this is what wrote, you said the gaza strip will never fit neatly into a palestinian state jigsaw puzzle, even in a utopian final two state settlement, it will always be separated from the west bank across 30 israeli desert miles. the best minds to try to figure elevated highway

linking gaza and the west bank. even a light rail system that geography-fated matter what hamas will seek and always will fail to change. guest: the people who live in gaza, the 1.7 million, live in abject terror and abject poverty, and unfortunately many of us have hoped that during the so-called arab spring that broke out in 2011, that the people of gaza would have risen up against hamas. we know based on very important and useful anecdotal evidence, steve, that had this unification ,overnment between palestine palestinian authority, and hamas had led to an election that was supposed to happen this coming december, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that hamas would have lost that election. they knew that, which is why they had tried to enter into the unification government in the first place. they had become so unpopular among palestinians that they knew they were about to be booted out of of power if the

palestinians in gaza had an opportunity to vote. host: let's get to your phone calls. (202) 585-3881 for republicans. (202) 585-3880 for democrats. we also have a line for independents. you can also send us an e-mail, journal@c-span.org. michelle is joining us from michigan. good morning to you. caller: good morning. i would like to ask mr. ginsburg what he feels about the comments madepresident jimmy carter in respect to israel and gaza not too long ago. guest: i am familiar with the comments, and i did work for president carter, but i can't agree with him because in some calling one is israel to negotiate with hamas. that is sort of the equivalent of asking israel or the united states to negotiate with al qaeda. it would be one thing if all of us had any expectation and hope that the leadership, the military wing of hamas, which actually runs the gaza strip,

would be willing to abide by and agree to the commitments of the palestinian authority to and violence,el agreed to in effect become part of a reasonable party to reach an accommodation politically. the problem is is that they are not, and i met with hamas myself -- it is quite clear the ideological islamic extremism, which controls their agenda, makes it virtually impossible to do anything if you are an is really to try to reach an accommodation with them. host: we have a quote from president carter from foreign policy from a few days ago -- humane or legal justification for the way the israeli defense forces are conducting this war. israeli bombs, missiles, and artillery have pulverize large parts of gaza, including thousands of homes, schools, and hospitals. more than 250,000 people have been displaced from their homes in gaza. hundreds of palestinian

noncombatants have been killed." office and my my foundation works in gaza, and we have heard the reports. we are heartbroken over the decent people who were unable to find any -- just think about it, steve, the hamas had built this underground new york subway system of tunnels. you could drive trucks through some of them. they refused to let the people of palestine in gaza, the palestinians, find refuge in these tunnels. why do you suppose that is the case? they could have accommodated tens of thousands of these people during this bombardment. they refuse to let these people find any refuge. that does not in any way, shape, or form excuse the fact that these people were hit by these bombs and rockets, but let's also understand -- it is very easy for jimmy carter to point his fingers at israel, but let's just also understand -- here is a situation in israel that but for their iron dome situation

that has protected their cities from the 3000 plus missiles that were fired at them, is really that had to run to air raid shelters on the highway in tel aviv. they have had to pull out their cars and lay on the pavement in the middle of highways in order to avoid missiles being thrown at them. what sort of life is that? i think mr. carter should be evenhanded the way most of us understand this conflict and understand that the israelis have been victimized by hamas as well in a way that most people don't understand. why? only because of u.s.-israeli technology able to provide them from the technology by this incredibly gifted i am doma system that has intercepted at the thousands of hamas missiles and other cities. host: we go to new haven, connecticut next. caller: hey, steve, how are you? extrai appreciate your

teeth, and i don't pretend to know as much as you do about foreign policy, but here is what i understand are some of the facts. the first fact is that there is gaza section.the these people that live in a particular section where there is a blockade or unable to leave their place, their homes, and so do business and to live a life. so my suggestion would be the blockade has to end unequivocally. it has to end. second, the bombings that were in place in order to remove the therefore destroy the homes of these people and their families -- and their

bele families -- this has to -- somehow we have to make amends for that. we have to rebuild their homes and figure out for each family -- some families lost as many as 10 people in their family -- what it would take to get these families started again. get athank you, we will response. thank you for calling. guest: that is a great question, and let me respond this way -- almost a 10 years ago, almost 175 gazans used to enter into israel every day peacefully to go to work and make a great living. they were doing all sorts of work. they were traveling by bus into .el aviv, into israel these uprisings in effect sealed the border. after 2007 when hamas gained control over the gaza strip from the palestinian authority in a

israelisini coup, the imposed this blockade hoping it would strangle hamas, undermine hamas, and look what has happened. hamas is able to use the smuggling tunnels to bring in the concrete to build these terror tunnels by which they have been able to attack israel as well is to smuggle goods into gaza from egypt that they were using to extort taxes and money from average gazans. look, i am a firm believer that the lock it not been a productive policy on the part of the israelis, and you know what? even the israelis have come to acknowledge that in their conversations in cairo during these negotiations. has gotnyahu government to come to the realization that despite its best efforts to try to achieve political goals by in singct opposing this -- impo this blockade, it is not the

not undermine hamas. it has been a counterproductive policy. it needs to change. host: from the associated press, we said at the top of the program that there have been some airstrikes overnight. now there is another cease-fire, a 72-our cease-fire according to the associated press. palestinian negotiators in cairo say they have accepted the proposal for a three-day cease-fire for this decision to aim to clear the way for new negotiations with israel on the long-term truce arrangement on the gaza strip. what happens next? guest: there is no doubt that hamas has been violating every cease-fire that has been provided to it. it violated the last one that started a few days ago. part of the reason is that they are insisting that they be able to produce something for the uplic who they wound contributing to their polarization, and they want a listing of the blockade.

they want something to show to their public because they are politically on the ropes. it is understandable the israelis do not want to reward hamas for its missile launchings and terrorist attacks through these tunnels, so the question egyptians and israelis and other parties in cairo are trying to reach some way in which to in effect provide relief to the palestinians, which without providing a political win for hamas. in the very difficult negotiation, steve, the egyptians have been able to work out something where both sides are able to claim what they need without either being able to claim victory over the other. host: re: guest is marc ginsburg, who served as u.s. ambassador to morocco during the clinton administration. he is joining us from new york. and dell is joining us from massachusetts. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. it is so refreshing to hear mr. ginsburg's comments about

valerie jarrett. andy huge on ballast influence she has on the running of this government. i would just like to point out -- yesterday within 30 minutes of arriving on martha's vineyard, the president put his courseoes on, and his rashaad, a moderathmad who i guess is valerie's main squeeze, and also her cousin. i do not know if they were there as babysitters, if they were good golfers or not, but i think it is interesting that that course had two very close people to valerie jarrett. i can't help but think she was also instrumental in decisions made around benghazi.

host: ok, thank you for the call. guest: the stories have yet to be written about the role she has played. listen, it is not easy for me to say this, but i have heard this from any white house staffers who have stayed in this administration and who have in effect left because of their anger and resentment over the role that she has played in distorting the role of foreign policy management. she represents the altra left wing of the democratic party inside the white house. advertising executive, yet she seems to have a stronghold on present obama's mind with respect to all sorts of decision-making. but to put all of the results ability on her would be absurd. the problem in the administration is that this, for , you do not have anybody in this administration really is an the next word on middle east policy, who have had a long

career in managing middle east policy in the area that is the most complicated for this administration. neither john kerry nor susan rice nor anyone on the nsc. the people who are working in the nsc right on middle east policy came out of the european n government.on o it is mind-boggling that at a time we are it is because of war and peace in the middle east, the the president does not have very talented people who had that long, necessary experience in foreign policy in the middle east around him. iraq in another story on the "london telegraph," the headline is -- the islamic street extremists deliver ultimatum to trapped yazidis: convert or die. hundreds of terrified people running to the besieged yazidi s' death have been reportedly

threatened with death if they did not convert to islam today. s are athe yazidi christian sect along with other sects -- for our viewers to understand, there have been almost 500 years of christians living in northern iraq. is a very populous area of christian communities that have lived there peacefully. clearly they have been persecuted. , i'llad of i.s.i.s. baghdadi, he militaryby the u.s. and then subsequently released. i do not think anybody in the 21st entry has ever seen someone who has a death hold around him the way this man has. he has to be destroyed along with the people around him in order to provide this relief.

as i said, the story has yet to be written, steve, of the thousands who have already been massacred by i.s.i.s. since i.s.i.s. was able to begin controlling territory and set up at the islamic caliphate. troublesome -- the obama administration and not just the obama demonstration, the iraqis, the turks, the jordanians all understand this has been a problem. the reason i am concerned about the administration's approach is in the president's speech yesterday before he left for martha's vineyard, he indicated that unless there is political movement in iraq to solidify and stabilize the iraqi government, he won't really want to commit much more support to getting rid of i.s.i.s. i.s.i.s. has very little to do with the future of the political equation in iraq. it has four more to do with how it will grab territory in jordan, and look, just a few days ago, lebanese military -- lebanon -- had to deal with a

major attack by i.s.i.s. forces. now, are you going to ask me -- how do you explain the fact when the lebanese are told by the important allyan of the united state hello, sorry, we are not going to be able to help you until the situation in baghdad is stabilized? host: that is the story this morning, from page of the "l.a. times," the president made clear the success in iraq counted in large part on the -- since taking office in 2006, prime minister malik he has dominated the government in jail political opponents and alienated minorities. our guest is marc ginsburg, joining us from new york, former adviser to morocco and former mideast adviser in the carteret administration. he is now the ceo of a piecework movement., onevoice richard is joining us. caller: good morning.

the thank you for giving a talk. i want to make some comments, and i want people to think about what i am going to say. i think that we're going to experience in this country, dwight is going to happen is because of what has happened over there right now. , theyur kids are young watch "sesame street" and they watch "mr. rogers" and things like that. teach kids,they babies, toddlers, they teach kids that the most important times in their life when, i mean, it is their most important time in their life, and medical science can support that that is the most important time of their life between the ages of say one and six years of age. guest: is that happening, mr. ginsberg? host--

host: is that happening, mr. ginsberg? guest: someone from hollywood must be producing the i.s.i.s. social media. there was a boy no more than 10 who was waving i.s.i.s.'s flag. is absolutely right. these people are trying to indoctrinate and brainwash these young people to take up arms against shiites. just think of the fact that these are fellow muslims that they are prepared to kill merely because they don't worship -- they worship the same god, but worship the same god in different ways. i mean, this is what is going on with i.s.i.s. host: jen says if we take out the leader of i.s.i.s., won't there just be another guy bloodthirsty for power? guest: there is no doubt that baghdadiid of bakr al is a step in the right direction. decapitating the head of i.s.i.s. is important.

why? he has taken on mythical proportions among these people. he comes from a tribe in iraq that claims to be from the descendent of the prophet mohammed, so the people around him think every day that they are having lunch with him they are having lunch with the prophet mohammed, so they worship him not only following his orders. he has to be taken out because he represents the kind of charismatic leader to them that is providing the hatred and leadership that is propelling them forward. there is no one right after him that has that claim to fame he has. host: let's go next to mario in new jersey on the democrats line. caller: i think what we are missing is the cartoonish notion the u.s. military can come in and change the facts on the ground. the reason isis has been so successful is because it has sunni tribal purchase.

people just say isis. the sunni tribes are the ones welcoming them sometimes into their communities. unless the people on the ground feel like they have a stake in the iraqi government and armed forces, there is nothing we can do. we can bomb them if we want to. unless the iraqi army is there to hold gains we make, it is a vicious cycle. we were there with 100,000 troops and could not stop the violence until we got the city -- sunni bias. what do you propose? guest: you are right. petraeus leadral was the reorientation of the sunni tribal leaders against al qaeda in iraq, the very organization of the daddy -- al baghdadi heads.

they have been able to get support from the sunni population of the northern comments as of iraq largely because they are so angry with the role prime minister maliki has not only played to discredit them. you have to think maliki has been a divider. whos a paranoid leader believes the sunni leadership in iraq is determined to overthrow him. he is also convinced it is important to purge iraq's military of all sunni commanders, which he has done. let's face it. the main reason the situation in iraq got so out of hand is not that strong asew much as it was maliki destroyed the cohesion within the country that could have prevented isis from gaining strength inside iraq. host: the next call is atlanta. steve, good morning, republican line. as far as valerie

jarrett and the president go, what makes ambassador ginsberg think the president cares what is going on over there or has any intention of stopping it? the truth of the matter is isis people have shown it is a battle between the sunnis and shiites. both are going to kill each other given the opportunity. host: how do you respond to that, ambassador ginsberg? guest: i want to point out to the gentleman that the fbi director as well as the head of counterterrorism in the white congressh testified in several times over the last few months claiming isis constitutes the greatest threat to the homeland of the united states than any other terrorist organization. why is that the case? it is because there are americans who have gone to fight for isis inside syria.

we also know who are these people. one committed jihadist suicide by blowing up a major syrian tank column. we also know one of them has returned to the united states. they went back again for more training. if the fbi and counter is a terrorism -- counterterrorism director of the united states are publicly declaring isis to be the number one threat to the united states homeland, that is one of the reasons i am unconvinced this is merely an issue of sunni fighting shiites. the thousands of fighters that have joined isis are not nearly iraqi sunnis joining them. there are hundreds of tunisians, libyans, and others coming from the united kingdom and france to go and fight for them. this has become almost a second

generation of al qaeda-like terrorist wannabes who have decided to flock to join an islamic extremist organization. i don't have to say anything more other than you can go online and listen to what the fbi director said. host: our next call is from north carolina. beverly is on the phone. good morning. caller: i would like for him to speak about these heard people -- kurd people who never supported iraq in the beginning. into: iraq is divided three principal ethnic groups could you have the kurdish muslims in the north. you have the sunnis largely in the north and the shiites in the south. the kurds have always sought an independent state. but they have turned northern iraq into a cosmopolitan area of

peace and tranquility into isis showed up on their doorstep. they have always wanted to be an independent state. from population stretches iran, across iraq, into turkey and syria. they do want an independent state. let's also understand this crazy quilted border that created the convenientiraq was a artistic drawing by winston churchill with his french allies after world war i. these populations have lived more or less under the threat of terror from saddam hussein. saddam hussein was overthrown. each of them have wanted to go their merry old way. host: richard is next on the independent line. good morning. in 1936, sos born

you can do the math as to how old i am. i have a question, maybe a two-part question. it is no doubt and is crystal clear hamas, which is an arm of islam has differences with israel. they also have differences with the united states of america. hisa bin laden stated for resolving some of the problems. what i would like to ask the you evaluate do dislikesthat islam

west, along with the which generally means the united states? host: thank you, richard. guest: i was the first jewish ambassador to an arab country in the united states. i spent most of my professional career in the arab world. i can only tell you the vast majority of arabs who are muslim have nothing but the highest desire to live in peace and find hope and happiness for their children. there is this strain of islamic extremism that has taken root. we thought after osama bin laden was killed the al qaeda would be on the run. but we see the unemployment and gravitational pull of islamic identity seems to capture the imagination of young people. i even started a television 9/11 toon company after

try to reach out to the arab world to open up doors between the united states and the muslim world. we produced almost 190 hours of primetime programming to try to address these grievances. the fact of the matter is even if americans who barely understand the difference between sunni and shiite, which i go around the world lecturing about, the fact of the matter is hamas is an offshoot of the muslim brotherhood. the muslim brotherhood is a mike extremist group is a -- is an islamic extremist organization that was overthrown in egypt when president morsi was overthrown. it is the granddaddy of islamic extremist organizations in the middle east, started in the 1930's. it has captured the attention of muslims throughout the middle east. i do not subscribe to the view, no matter how hard it is for me at times to try to explain this splinter of islamic extremism,

across the world owe no ill will towards israel and the united states. there are so many that would like to see this conflict between israel and palestine resolved. many would like to see isis and al qaeda destroyed. host: our guest is mark duesberg -- marc ginsberg. our next caller is from england. matthew, go ahead. i would like to ask about the israeli conflict and issue. anti-semitic, i would like to put that out there. with israel, americans tend to be very pro israeli. i know a lot of that has to do with holocaust and the way the jewish people were treated during that.

however, they were not the only victims of holocaust. there were six point 9 million [indiscernible] 2.7 million with gypsy people killed. i'm wondering if you are more willing to deal with israelis in a more evenhanded way, including illegal settlement building and things like that, if we stop treating jewish people as victims and treat them on evenhanded perspective. host: marc ginsberg, your response? guest: i'm not going to humor anyone who would suggest the holocaust that resulted in the murder of 6 million jews somehow should be diminished in relationship to what has happened. in world war ii, we know the nazis and others committed huge atrocities, including stalin, by the way. the fact of the matter is you

have to separate you from israeli -- jew from israel it. the idea that anti-semitism becomes a convenient scapegoat for people with certain views is disturbing. i was in paris a couple of days ago and saw what i think is atrocious attacks on jewish businesses because of anger towards israeli policies, towards israel. that is the type of anti-semitism that is unacceptable. you cannot tell me jews living peacefully in paris are somehow responsible for the policies of the netanyahu government. that said, i want to at least pick up on what the gentleman said. every settlement constructed by the netanyahu government in the west bank puts a nail in the coffin of any hope for a two state solution with the palestinians. only aettlements are not violation of international law, but they pose a real threat to

israel's long-term security. the people living there, most of whom were incentivized to move into the west bank the cousin of israel economic policies, most would likely leave if there was the hope for a palestinian state. obviously, there are extremists in the net and yahoo! government who do not want a negotiated -- in the netanyahu government who do not want a negotiated two state solution. there are a vast majority of israelis want to have a final settlement with the palestinians. unfortunately, they have a prime minister as well as a government that has been unwilling to negotiate in good faith with their palestinian counterparts. as iresident of palestine, said in my article, has not been willing to yet off the seesaw of ambiguity and and try to convince the israelis he is ready to sit down and make the the part of his

public that would require a two state solution. host: that is available online at huffingtonpoosst.com. i want to read a tweet. why would they vote to put boots on the ground in iraq? last august, you were on msnbc and admonished the ominous -- obama administration saying they put u.s. code ability on the line by declaring chemical use in syria as a redline and then went on to say the u.s. is obligated to act because of the sentence.'s rhetorical guest: i still think it was one of the catastrophes of the obama administration's foreign policy to have self-declared this redline over chemical weapons used by assad regime. it was only by sheer accident john kerry stumbled into a perhaps permitted or required the assad regime to

give up the weapons. the assad regime came up with another weapon that was even worse, the so-called barrel bombs that killed hundreds of thousands inside syria. it is not as if we should pat ourselves on the back and think we stumbled into a solution. i have worked with presidents who understand that when you draw a line in the sand, the credibility of the united states is on the line. no one forced the president to make that declaration. no one compelled him. it was not john mccain. it was not democrats. when the president puts the credibility of the united states on the line and it is not fulfilled, he has now is could ability on the line with respect to those people stuck, those poor use 80's on the mountain -- those poor yazidis stuck on the mountain in iraq. the problem with our allies and adversaries is they do not know

from one day to the next what the foreign policy of this administration is going to be. host: this is from arnold who says maliki divides iraq the way obama divides the u.s. go ahead. guest: maliki, for all intents and purposes, is the world-class leader of division within his own people. he is a paranoid, diabolical, power-hungry leader who has done more to destroy what we left behind than any one person could have done given the blood and sacrifice of american troops in iraq. allen is next from scottsdale, arizona, with warmer ambassador ginsberg. caller: marc, i have a lot of respect for what you are saying. the last comments you made, i would agree i could do the same similarity to obama. this is the picture i want to

paint. when we went into libya without , andval and took out momar in the redline, like you are saying with syria, he has an intent. he never negotiated with iraq. we did not leave boots on the ground with iraq. we are not going to leave boots on the ground in afghanistan. out --an agenda to take it seems like he is taking out almost every one of the leaders and replacing them with these terrorists. here is the other thing i want to say to you. i heard we are training isis people in jordan? to go against syria? when you put all of these eggs in a basket and look at what

obama has done, it is frightening. he has an agenda. host: thanks for the call. we will get a response. guest: you've covered a lot of territory. let me briefly talk about libya. i say this as a democrat who worked for al gore's as deputy national security advisor for bill clinton whose foreign-policy i enormously respect and am proud to be associated with. i work for ted kennedy for many years as a democrat. there is no rearview mirror in this administration's foreign policy. libya is onderstood the verge of anarchy, the country is in turmoil, the country is being run underground and being overturned by militias. what are we doing? it is as if we claimed victory, got rid of qaddafi, and said by

e-bye, we don't have to worry about it anymore. syria has been a more consultative situation. early on, hillary clinton and bob gates who was then defense secretary urged the president at the beginning of the civil war in syria to provide the type of ground systemse to the syrian army that would have provided the type of support we needed from a moderate, non--islamist oriented organization. the white house cut the legs and arms off of that policy. i remember when mrs. clinton was on her way to istanbul to a meeting of the friends of syria. routes told halfway en the white house was reversing everything they had committed to give in terms of aid to the free syrian army. nothing has been clean in syria. the fact of the matter is i have

never been in favor of boots on the ground in syria. but i certainly was in favor of providing massive humanitarian support to the people in syria who desperately needed that. even then, it took a year for the white house to get off the dime. why would that have been important? at least it would have set the stage for many of those people to thank the united states for coming to the rescue. host: a veteran of the state department, a senior advisor to a number of senators including edward kennedy. also served as ambassador to morocco and adviser to president jimmy carter. marc ginsberg is now the president and ceo of peace works foundation, one voice movement. thank you for joining us from new york on this sunday. we are going to continue on the situation in iraq. we will 45 minutes, reopen our phone lines to talk about the president's comments about iraq being a long-term commitment, what that means. yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the resignation

average of nixon. since then, a number of changes since watergate. we will check in with the executive director of the project on government oversight to look at some of those reforms and where things stand today when it comes to campaign financing. "washington journal" continues on this sunday morning. it is august 10. we are back in a moment. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> while congress is on break, c-span's primetime features a wide range of debates and topics. we visit the atlanta press club for the future of news and take a history tour looking at the

civil war. what you think about the programs you are watching. call us or e-mail us. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. c-span presents debates on what makes america great, evolution, and genetically modified foods. in-depth looks at veterans health care, irs oversight, student loan debt, and campus sexual assault. new perspectives on issues including goebel warming, voting rights, fighting infectious disease, and food safety. showing the sights and sounds from america's historic places. find our schedule one week in advance. let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. call us or e-mail us.

join the conversation. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. >> "washington journal" continues. to welcoment danielle brian, the executive director of the project on government oversight. good morning. thanks for being with us. tell us about your organization. guest: we have been around for 32 years. it is nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that investigates waste and fraud in the government and misconduct. we find solutions for the problems we find. host: we want to talk about watergate 40 years later. what changed in washington? can you give us an overview? guest: there were a number of significant reforms that took place in the five to seven years after watergate that are relevant today. buckets. them in three the first would be transformed -- transparency reforms.

the second bucket of reforms were the ethics reforms. forviewers that have worked the government have had to file one of those disclosure forms about the money they have. those are the kinds of reforms that happened as well as the campaign finance laws. the results of the foreign practices act. , duringl big bucket was that era, you had j edgar hoover at the fbi. that resulted in the church committee which resulted in the important reforms with the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which is relevant today with all of the snowden stuff. huge things happened during that era that are in play now.

there was a good book that came out recently called "the break-in." began becauseera of citizens in pennsylvania that were concerned about the overreach of the fbi. they broke into an fbi office in -- andvania and still le these papers per that resulted in the church committee that found j edgar hoover vastly expanded beyond what the law allowed. it resulted in the foreign intelligence surveillance act. did that keep up with the times? is that court that is supposed to keep restraints on surveillance effective? clearly it is not. that is one of the big reforms happening in congress now. host: let me ask you about

transparency. president obama has pledged to be the most transparent president ever. what does that mean? guest: it is painful to hear that because we had high hopes for what that meant. i think the president had a different definition than many of us did. i think he has been quite committed to making data the government collects, especially in civilian agencies, more available. for example, medicare costs. but many of us took that to mean the kinds of transparency necessary for holding the government accountable, especially when it comes to national security matters. that is where we have seen the reverse. you have this administration prosecuting more national security whistleblowers than any previous president. by jimmy law signed carter required financial disclosure by executive and judicial branch officials.

it also established the office of ethics, which is what? guest: the office of government ethics is a separate agency overseeing ethics rules across federal agencies. they have rulings on what someone is doing any federal agency if it is filing conflict of interest laws in particular. host: it allowed the appointment of a special prosecutor. some would argue that is an abuse. guest: it is now a question of whether it has been required. it had big intentions. it has not lived up to its mission. host: let's talk about campaign spending. that is how much jimmy carter received as the democratic nominee in 1976 and gerald ford received when campaign laws were put in place. candidates did not take matching funds, each raising

over $1 billion. in 2012 a huge disparity between 1976 and where we are today. guest: there is no question the laws post-watergate were trying to limit the influence of money in politics. at this point, we have nothing like that. with the citizens united supreme court case, it has become a landslide of money in politics that people post-watergate could not have imagined how bad the problem would have become today. host: here are some bullet points on the creation of the federal election commission in 1974. it imposed notations on expenses and contributions. it established strict as closure requirements for campaign donations. it regular reporting by committees and establish the means of public financing of primary elections and established the fec. how are we doing 40 years later? guest: it is sad to hear what

was supposed to happen. the fec is one of the least effective federal agencies. it is a set up with an equal number of democrats and republicans on the commission. as a result, you have almost no decisions made by that body. we see that as one of the great failures of that era, the way the fec is currently working. one of the other reforms was the idea of being able to lobby coming from congress and being able to lobby congress. it was to be limited by the laws. as many see, those limitations are relatively meaningless as well. . .

important bill that has bi-partisan support. senators in the senate and mr mr. isa and cummings in the house are trying to make the freedom of information act more rigorous for those of us in the media and citizens and the non-profits who use that law to really find out what the government is doing. it's a very, very important law. what has happened over time is that agencies have used what's called an exemption saying, well, this isn't information isn't available to you because of what is considered predecisional. so not getting too into the weeds. but this isn't the final

decision. it's not available to be made public through the freedom of information act. what this law is saying is: let's have a balancing act of whether it's in the public interest to know why that decision was made while they were deciding what would happen in the final decision. >> will vastly open up our capacity to understand what the government is doing. >> is considered in the congress and it's important that it passed. >> a graduate of smith college who earned her master's at john hopkins and our notes say you began this organization as an intern? >> i did. >> and now executive director. bill from oklahoma for danielle brian, good morning. >> good morning. how are you today? the young lady, i hope you take some time to read several of the books that have been written about the watergate situation. i think you will find that the gener general consensus were that the watergate situation was created

by the cia to eliminate richard nixon. to the other gentleman who was on, mr. ginsburg, i think the israelis will be -- what they are doing in palestine and throughout the middle east has created more terrorists than the united states can kill. and mr. ginsburg, of course, would be not objective in his views as to that matter. ho host: host: let me go back to richard nixon. was there an appetite in washington to make some of these changes before the watergate affair developed? guest: that's the only sort of silver lining to watergate is that there had not been an eptight for this type of reform had there not been the dramatic scandal in the sense the executive branch was absolutely unaccountable. certainly, the cia was running rou roughshod beyond it's limits. >> frank, if you are interested in our coverage of the nix on

res ignatio resignation, we were live yesterday on american history t.v. and the events from august 9th, 1974, are available on our website. you can check it out any time frank from california caller: i would like to compare our system and britain's system. in britain, campaign can only last for, i think, six weeks and the amount that they can collect is miniscule. it's just a few thousand pounds. you just spoke about a billion dollars for campaign it's obscene. it woiipes out anything that an ordinary citizen can dream about being president. host: host: thanks for the call and observation. you go back to free speech which is fundamental in the citizens

united case. guest: essentially the corporations have the right to send money as individuals with their campaign contributions. many of us are very concerned about that interpretation, and there are very important potential reforms. public campaign is working hard to make elections essentially free of this kind of influence. >> that's a very important step. host: host: let's go back to the issue of influence. on k street, a lot of former members of congress are able to cash in on their contacts and expertise. some are argued eric cantor is stepping down because the one year ban to lobby the body they once served? guest: one year is not enough. it's a bi-partisan problem. one of our most corrupting elements, people in public office have one eye toward what

they will do arrest they leave public office and what does that do? one year is not enough. what we found even when you talk about two years is what is defined as lobbying is very limited compared to what is actually happening. so sort of advising of clients is not necessarily literally lobbying so we have a whole world of shadow lobbying that needs to be captured. it's not. >> from greenridge missouri. robin on thephone. caller: i have a question. okay. i know that every time i vote, i vote on what the people are saying, and then when we get them in office, we find out that everything that they have said has been a lie. why can't we do something about that? host: host: okay. guest: well, what you can do is vote them out of. if you are unhappy with the person that you have elected and you felt that they had sort of tricked you into voting for

them, then in the house, pretty easy turnaround after two years, and i think that that's essentially the best way you are going to be able to do that. host: host: one of our viewers says our puny little voices are lost in the money storm. mary in silver spring, maryland, good morning. caller: hi. good morning. i actually was on hold. but let me ask you a question how much oversight can the government have to donations to private organizations? like c-span, if we would like to know how many donated to c-span, to public tv, could we get a list of the individuals and how much they donate? for one thing. number 2, it is surprisingly a lack of attention to what we,

the people are doing. north in the news pay attention and they are blindsided like cantor in virginia, aber crom bi in hawaii. they can't see why that's happening and no attention is being paid to the actual we the people. >> mary, thanks for the car. i think the c-span is pretty basic. you contribute because a few pennies a month on your cable bill allows us to provide the network. our radio station and our website, a complete list of the board of directors is available on our website. all of our board of directors are from the cable industry. we don't receive any government dollars not a penny. all information online at c-span.org with a staff of about

280 people, we run a pretty lean operation, providing you the programming you see every day on all of the c-span organizations. where does your money come from? guest: that's a great question for my nonprofit sector. we take no money from the government, corporations or or the labor unions. we list our donors in our annual reports. but it's in a very important question. when you look at organizations that have these very benign names, you need to find out who is funding them. often organizations have very clear hidden missions with their donors hiding behind these names. you need to figure out who is it that's behind disappointed but we are very transparent with the project at government oversight. guest: kim next in tacomtacoma washington. caller: mary, concerning the legislation that you had mentioned and pending

legislation for oversight, just how much, if it doesn't happen, how much information do we not get to, to be able to take advantage of? host: host: thank you. guest: many in addition to pogo that are successful in using the freedom of information act, you know, from the "washington post," it is able to use that law to get records from the department of defense's inspector general or generals who have been under investgation, through organizations like cru and epic who are getting seminal documents on na sna surveillanc white house visitors' logs. it's not so say the law isn't important. it's one of the things that we don't know we don't know. this is one of the big loop holes that agencies use to prevent us from getting information and by being able to have a judge essentially weigh whether the public interest is more important, we believe, is

going to access us to much more information than we currently having. >> this is about you and not about us. one of our viewers says only 280 people running all of c-span? the answer is, yes. lee for danielle brian, good morning. caller: hi, danielle guest: hi caller: i had a question about the freedom of information act. it's my understanding that this administration has that organization run all of the information that's requested through their office and that all of the redactionses that are done by this administration, all of the redaction had to be done by this administration and the totally -- they have told the applicable organizations to say that they did the blanking out of that information. is that true? guest: what organization is it that you are talking about? i am missing the central organization you are referring to. caller: any organization. if you request information ol

nsa. and, say, they want to send it to you but they have to send it to the obama administration first to see if it's okay. and then, the obama administration recontacts anything in there, and the nsa has to take the blame for the redactions. guest: well, you have to understand the nsa is a part of the obama administration. there are 64 agencies that make up the obama administration. it's true any particular agency that's releasing information with redactions is a part of the obama administration from that perspective. >> that's always been true. >> that's not limited to this administration. that's how it works. host: host: this has been happening in richmond, virginia. i am the not sure how much you have followed well mcdonald, the richmond times dispatch, amid the bombshells, he was charged with taking in guests and loans about $165,000.

this is a state issue, not a federal issue. so what does this tell you about the state of politics? or is this just a case of -- if convicted of agreed or incompetence? guest: we have seen since the writings that power corrupts and absolutely absolute power corrupts absolutely. there are different ways of looking at this. it's terrific that the system is working in the sense that he is getting caught. there is media. we have free press here we have the capacity and laws that make these kinds of activities illegal. i think it's important when we are looking at corruption in the united states to remember that we have problems that need fixing, but we actually are -- we have a system that actually can work and this is an example where the courts are actually doing their job. >> let me go back to the issue of the fec which you said is not working the way it was intended. guest: right. host: host: how would you fix and change it guest: it needs a total

overhaul. in fact, because one of the things is you are going to have this good luck between republicans and democrats. many of the people who were appointed have been appointed because they don't believe in limiting campaign contributions and the disclosures, timely disclosure of them. so from my perspective, that is an agency that either needs to go away or has to have a significant overhaul. >> could that come in 2015? guest: we are not seeing any signs of that, that anyone is paying that much attention to it. all of these things could happen. as you said, before the watergate scandal, these reforms were unimaginable. i think that to some extent, the fec is somewhat an akronistic. these are times where people who are filing on paper what their campaign contributions were. all of this should be realtime information, people can be seeing long before the fec is

able to get through theirlex. that's one of the reasons the center for responsive politics is such an important organization. it helps to make the information collected by the fec usable. >> tu expressed the lack of transparency. where are the biggest areas of concern? guest: we are most concerned when it comes to the national security agencies, the surveillance for example, the fact that the foreign court coua decision that the buck bulk collection of all of our citizens telephone records was constitutional. >> decision was essentially made in secret. that is a significant interpretation of law that needs to be done in the open where even the congress can be aware of what's happening. it's clear that all of this is happening without that. in the bush administration, for example, there is another body inside the justice department,

and that body was interpreting whether it was legal to torture, and nobody in the public was aware or in the congress was aware that these kinds of decisions were being made. so for us, those are so important to sort of the core of who we are and the coal of our country. those are laws that need to be interpreted and determined in public. host: host: question from bill, from our twitter page saying: have you called for any action alleged at a time targeting of republicans by the irs guest: we have been using freedom of information act to get better information on that question. it has been an allegation that was raised by the inspector general of the irs, that the targeting -- it wasn't exactly targeting. targeting is something nixon was doing with his enemies list and using irs as a weapon. in this case, the allegation is

that new organizations that were looking for the it kind of tax exempt status all of us as non-profits had was slowed today a equal. there has been some analysis shown that essentially all of the new organizations were suffering significant delays but most of those organizations happened to be tea party and conservative organizations. so sort of by de facto, it was more the conservatives than liberal groups that were experiencing those delays but that's different than targeting. host: host: you might be listening to us on c-span radio. this is 7:00 a.m. eastern time and c-span root is heard on xm channel 120. our guest is danielle brian. we are talking about some of the changes put in place post-wat post-waterga post-watergate, the executive director of the project on government oversight. bill is joining us from grifton, northed carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. danielle, i was just curious about, you kind of let the guy before talking about freedom of

information act put some kind of blame on the obama administration for going through the redactionses. well, you did at the end of what you said say that that's the way it works, all administrations do go through that. but the guy was making a direct accusation towards the obama administration as if it were some kind of conspiracy that the obama administration goes through everything. well, it does work through that, that way. but you said it was the obama administration that did that. guest: okay. so i actually agree with you that there is no scandal there. what happens is, when we, for example, file a freedom of information act request at any agency, that agency actually is the agency that makes the redactions. what was trying to explain to the caller before you was that every agency is a part of whatever administration is in. f

i was trying to point out this is not a scandal. this is the way it works. who else would you have do it? but thank you for making sure that i wasn't letting something turn into a scandal that really isn't one. host: host: what country has the best election financing system, and how does it work? caller: i am not the right person to answer that. i really am very focused on the united states, so i don't have good answers to that. we had a caller earlier who was pointing out england has a much better system in campaign finance, but i can't speak to that. host: host: george in barstow, california caller: my name is george. i live in a veterans home in california in barstow. we have a very serious problems with trans piece, cooperation, communication be and respect to the allied counsel at barstow.

and the counsel is kept in the dark about the moral recreation funneled. this is specific money that comes from the assets of deceased veteran special donations, et cetera. this money is supposed to be used for the morale, recreation, spiritual welfare of the veterans who live in our home. the california department of veterans affairs does not want to share this information and it's the lauds of the land, ab 1379 that direct cal vet affairs to have the in any meetings.

guest: i don't know about the specific circumstance at your facility but we were alarmed as we were hearing news of what was happening with the va system more broadly and joined with our colleagues at iraq and afghanistan veterans of america and created a website portal for whistleblowers inside to help us figure out what was happening. how could things be so bad? and in something like 6 weeks we had over 800 people contact us from across the country. what was clear to us as we sifted through all of the current and former employees as well as veterans who were explaining their experience and how things were happening, there was really a -- it developed a toxic culture where people who were trying to not even blow the whistle but just raise concerns in trying to fix things were really squashed while they saw

supervisors who were responsible for some of the retaliation were advanced. we hope in the secretary will take it more seriously. i think the acting secretary is goi doing a good job. it has such a critical mission. it's a scandal we have let it go to such a terrible degree. host: host: a comment, dianne feinstein was accused of spying until was the target of the cia. justin, are you with us? we are getting feedback. we will go to darrell in long beach, california. good morning. caller: good morning. i just basically, california has their prop 8 going, which is a vote that everybody had an option, either one side voted for a yes, and the other, obviously, for a no.

but then the yeses won, and then, basically, some one or two judges alleviated all of those votes. so what i am wondering is: is this a sign our democracy really is becoming nothing more than a supreme court guest: tim not really familiar with the california local state proposition. certainly the way your checks and balances work, the separate property is an essential element of having the final word if we, the people, art happy with the final word, it's up to us to push congress. the supreme court can only rule on the laws that are, you know, created by the congress. so we do have -- we do have a role. it was an interest can point raised about that the senate, i think that's worth raising.

one of the referral i referred to, the intelligence surveillance court was coming at a time because of the church committee hearings. they created the senate intelligence and house intelligence committees. it hadn't existed before. it was supposed to also be providing oversight. host: host: chaired by senator frank church from idaho? guest: it was great congressional oversight. that's right. and so what we saw was in the last few years, there has been growing concern that those committees that were created really had become captured by the agencies that they were supposed to be over seeing. we are now seeing, though, that i think the cia in this case really crossed the line and has caused the senate intelligence committee to sort of realize that they need to sort of step up and become more the overseers and when it got to the point where the cia was actually investigating and hacking into the congress's computers, that's where things really have become dramatic and i am excited to see

that there is really enthusiasm now for more oversight because of that. host: host: our last call is from greensboro north carolina. good morning. caller: i just had a question regarding watergate and, the scandal and of course everything is completed, all of the investigation, but i always understood that there was a gentleman who was a custodian or janitor that had kind of broke it open or just kind of happened to cross it cleaning up one night and came across it in the building. he was an african-american man, and there was never much said about him. and he lost his job and eventually, i think he had even ran in to some hard times and went to jail for stealing to try to have food or clothing for his daughter or family. and i just am curious as to what

you think. do you think now if back then, if the whistleblower laws had been in effect, would he have been protected? because we don't hear much about that gentleman. i think he passed away a few or couple of years ago, whatever. but we never heard much about it. but he lost out and he uncovered, from what i understand, uncovered a lot of that that went on with watergate. guest: i am not familiar with the story of the gentleman that you are discussing, but is clearly been one of the things that people are proud of that has happened in the last few years, and i have to say with the support of the obama administration on this case is dramatically expanding and streng strengthening with protection the federal employees and now, we have, also for contractors who are the place where we have a significant way to go is for intelligence commune tip contractors and they know some

of the most important things our government is doing but have no protection right now. ge host: host: he was a private contractor working at the watergate building and happened to be on duty on the night of june 17th, 1972. in a phrase, what is the mission statement? guest: to investigate misconduct and corruption, find solutions and make sure they get enacted. host: host: danielle brian is the executive director. at a time website is cogo.org. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for having me. host: host: a headline from "the washington post." vowing to limit as u.s. air strikes continue in saying that we could be in iraq at least for the next few months. we have talked earlier this morning with a reporter to give us an assessment. andrew 'tilman is a pentagon reporter with the "military times" my first question was what was the very latest as of

this morning? guest: it looks like operations have been pretty significant and pretty rapid over the past three days. last night, my understanding that there was a third air drop, you know, overnight on the mountain where the yizidis were trapped and there was some additional airstrikes yesterday. so, you know, as i am -- as i am seeing a lot of these aircraft are coming off of the carrier bush in the persian gulf and, you know, i think it's for every time there is an air drop or an airstrike, there is probably dozens of aircraft that are flying over to provide intelligence or to provide some kind of overwatch. so, you know, i guess i have just been struck in the past few days at what a significant military operation this is turning out to be. host: host: just how big of a

humanitarian crisis is this for the yazidis, many still trapped on the mountaintop? guest: i think it's a stunning, breath-taking situation. as the days go by, i see the estimates rising. the number that we all took a few days ago was 40,000, and i am seeing that number change over the past couple of days. no one quite knows exactly how many people are on this mountain but the numbers, estimates are growing to 50 or even 100,000. and it's really a dire situation. i mean these people are trapped. i think there is like something that people are referring to as a safe passage corridor. it's some of these iraqis are using to get off of this mountain. but i think that that's really that they are facing gunfire from isis forces as they try to do this. >> doesn't account for the fact that off of the mountain, in the

region, in erbil and other places, there are other yazitis that are not besieged by isis forces but are facing a humanitarian crisis in terms of being forced from their homes and nowhere to go, food and water being an issue for some groups off of the mountain as well. host: host: this time last year when the president was looking for coalition assistance for potential involvement in syria, most notably with great brittain and france, those two countries said they would not get involved. it seemed to be a very different situation, as the president pointed out, his conversations with the french president and british prime minister david cameron. what's the difference in this situation? guest: i think there is a deep sense at the whitehouse that this is a much more acute crisis on the humanitarian level. i mean the situation you had in syria last year was a civil war. you had refugees of some sort

fleeing the fighting, but this is much closer to the international legal definitions of jenk side. the president used that word in his remarks on thursday night announcing these operations. and, you know, i think that that's probably felt by the british and the french as well, that this is -- this is just a much more urgent situation that e volks yugoslavia and rwanda than what we saw in syria a year year ago. >>. host: host: how long can the airstrikes last? and we found some reports including within from abc news yesterday that those on the ground say it cannot be done by air alone, ground troops, u.s. troops need to come in. >> yeah. i think that's a huge question mark right now.

there is no doubt that the military planners will have a conversation and it will be edesier to do this if we could get hundreds if the not thousands of u.s. troops on the ground. you know, you have -- you would really like to have some forward air controllers, meaning like the u.s. troops on the ground looking for over the horizon for targets and relaying their detailed targeting information back up to the u.s. planes in the air. right now, i think they are relying on, you know, overhead imagery and maybe some information from locals. in addition, you would probably like to have a larger, you know, group of intelligence operatives, you know, coordinating that. you would probably like to have some greater support for the kurdish pershmerga forces, you would probably like to i ambed some trainers or advisors with

them not only just to support them if nair fight but to coordinate with what the u.s. is doing doing. it's a little bit of a slippery slope, you think some of these guys might need a full operating bates which means some perimeter security, itself, logistical support and they might need some other requirements to get helicopters down there. the helicopters are going to need the maintenance support. so you can really see how, as the military planners begin to try to execute this, on a time frame of as the president said, maybe months, not weeks, they are going to have a tough time doing this from the air, and there is going to be some very serious discussions of putting it troops and how many troops to put on the ground. host: host: andrew tilghman is pentagon reporter for "the military times." he joined united states earlier this morning. this is the headline from the "l.a. times." the presidencying no quick fix in iran, triggering the

likelihood of an enduring military presence in that area and saying airstrikes and aid would only help contain the tret until the government leaders form a new government to confronts the crisis. we want to hear from you on the president's comments about this being a long-term project. our phone lines are open at 202-585-3881. >> that's our line for republicans and 202-585-3880 for democrats. if you served in iraq, here is the number to call. 202585-3833. send us a suite at c-span wj. the president before leaving for martha's vineyard was asked about the cost of the involvement and what it means for the u.s. here is part of what he had to say: >> currently we are operating within the budget constraints that we already have. and we will have to evaluate, you know, what happens over time. we already have a lot of assets in the region.

we anticipate when we make our preliminary budget did that there may be things that come up requiring us to engage. and right now at least, i think we are okay. if and when we need additional dollars to make sure that the american personnel and american facilities are protected, then we will certainly make that request. but right now, that's not our primary concern. host: host: that was the president yesterday. again, the headline from the "new york times," the airstrikes may last months, according to the president. our phone lines are open at 202-585-3881. that's our line for republicans. and 202-585-388 for democrats. barbara taliv of bloomberg news writes the president's decision to approve airstrikes and humanitarian drops began to come together on august 6th between the he end of the african leader

summer summit he hosted and a dinner with his wife and friends during a 5-minute limo ride with the joint chiefs of staff, general martin dempsey, the president's fears were confirmed. the offensive by militants with the islamic state group reached a critical point. the chat turned into an hour long meeting with dempsey, the president chief of staff, mcdonna and a background t cliff is joining us from sykesville, maryland. good morning. caller: it's funny. i have been following this thing very closely. i really feel -- i would feel very sorry for barack obama. i can't imagine the stress and frustration he must feel. he ran his whole campaign on getting us out. i think we are learning -- he is learning it's not so easy to give up the legacy of what george w. bush and dick cheney left the country and the world.

host: host: thanks for the call. tanya from west virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i hope you give me a few minutes to get my points of view across. i am a liberal, independent. yes agree with going in to iraq to start with. but i certainly don't condone leaving christians on a mountain to perish. and one of the things about president obama, they talking to the republicans. they went after jimmie carter for four decades. it's not personal with the republicans whether you are a white president or a black democratic president. they hate the democrats for government spending. and another thing: i think that obama should order congress back to work. and when congress want to work

together, they should get together and they don't have to disclose their travel expenses. host: host: suzanne next in albuquerque, new mexico. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say i totally agree with president obama bombing this isil group. to me, they are like the new nazis but they don't seem to have one clear leader. if we don't act now, we are all going to have to pay later. i agree with this last caller that, you know, congress really needs to act responsibly and work with the president. i mean the u.s. has sacrificed a lot to, you know, to win in iraq and i agree that we should go in there because saddam hussein was a terrible dictator and his sons were horrible, and, you know, we sacrificed a lot and connection not just lose that. we need to do what we need to do to, you know, an especially these christian people and zorostrians and moine or at thi.

i don't know when iraq will be able to stand on its own 2 feet but we need to be there. host: host: there is a piece by jonathan kron. he says mount sinjar stinks of death. the few yazatis who have managed to escape its clutches can tell you why. dogs are eating the bodies of the dead said one observer. today, i became the first western journalist where tens of thousands of yazitis had been taking refuge from the islamic state forces seized their largest town, sinjar, in an iraqi helicopter and watched as hundreds of refugees ran through forward to receive one of the few deliveries of aid. a first hand account from the london telegram. tony has this point on our twitter page saying i don't look forward to looking to a long involvement. the president does not announce his end date from the start. george is joining us next from

fairmont, west virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i am a two-war veteran from korea and the second world war, sergeant major, retired. and i am all along with what this president is doing what he is doing. the only thing, he is two months late in doing it. also, he's got to have some good observers on the ground so that he can use these bombings perfectly and not harm too many civilian people by doing that. he has to have somebody on the ground to pinpoint these targets. host: host: george, thanks very much for the call. the president making the announcement of this operation on thursday. here is more from his state dining room speech: >> i have said before, the united states cannot and should not intervene every time there is a crisis in the world. let me be clear about why we must act and act now. when we face a situation like we do on that mountain, with innocent people facing the

prospect of violence on a horrific scale, when we have a mandate to help, in this case a request from the iraqi government, and when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then i believe the united states of america cannot turn a blind eye. we can act carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide. >>host: that was the president on thursday as he announced the airstrikes. some on the ground according to abc and nbc news calling for troops on the ground, something that the president said is not going to happen. we are asking you about the president's comments. is it a long-term project? here is a story from the "new york times," another first hand account of what it's like for those who are in the mountain tops of northern iraq, for the refugees on the mountain, no water, nothing, is the story from allison ruben. she writes amid the low scrub of the mountain are blue stones that mark the bleak landscape

there throughout the area saying that the lucky ones who have made it here to this isolated out post on the iraqi border after skurt skirting through syrian territory to evade their tore meanters in crossing the trib u terri over a narrow bridge, most fled miles on foot toward the holy sites that dot the mountaintop carrying almost nothing with them as they ran from the sunni militants from isil in syria. it seemed to be a safe haven and became a place of danger. cindy is next from forney, texas. good morning. caller: yes. i was just wondering in iraq, these isis, how are they getting their money to g to do what they are doing? we did spent $800,000,000,000 to iraq and nobody knows where it we went. host: host: what about the

president's comments about this will be a long term operation? caller: we were told when it first started, when it went into iraq, it would probably last three years at the momest. and it didn't happen that way. so. i don't think anybody knows what kind of -- we just went in there and started up a big ant bed and made all of them mad, and we shouldn't even have went over in iraq. i do think we should have went in to afghanistan. host: host: cindy, thanks for the call. following the washingt"washingt journal" is c-span's newsmakers program. tim phillips, the americans for prosperity. we proposed to him his role of the republican brand. here is a portion of that interview. >> speaking in all candor, the republican brand is weak. it really is. a lot of -- a lot of conservatives have shifted to independent when they self

identify themselves. one reason candidates have been doing better with independent is that the independents have kind of rejected this administration's big government agenda. but, also, you have more independents who used to be republicans who got fed up with the brand. i am not going to call myself a republican anymore. and so the republican brand is still weak. it really is. i do think that they wereability recruit better candidates this year. i think they have a better core of candidates across the country now. >> we hope you tune in for c-span's newsmakers programs, tim phillips for americans for prosperity. 10:00 o'clock eastern time. also available online at c-span.org. by the way, the primary yesterday in hawaii getting a lot of attention where former congressman and the current democratic govern knee, neil aber crom bi was trounced by david igi, the state's representative. 32% for abercrombie and 67 for david ige and in the u.s. senate

race, brian shotts, the appointed senator and colleen honabusa trailing behind by about 1800 votes essentially at 49% for both candidates and there is still about 8,000 ballots that were not -- 8,000 potential voters that did not cast their ballots because of the storm that hurt -- that hit hawaii on wednesday and thursday. hundred iselle. so still to be determined when this election will be called in the u.s. senate race. in the governor's race, abercrombie serving one term and defeated in the democratic primary john on an independent line. caller: thank for taking my call. before i make my main comment, i wanted to point out one thing, mr. ginsburg, of thes trying to point out when he was on. he did make the xhfrnt about the yazidi's being a christian sect. >> that's incorrect. it's true, isis is attacking and tathing christians yazitis.

but they are actually more in common with zorastriansism and mesopotamism. my comment is that i am surprised there is not more being said about the support that isis is getting within the region. saudi arabia which has been considered an american ally, they support some of the most radical brands of islam. i don't think they are -- they are definitely not -- if they are not effeactively supporting ices, they as well as other countries in the region are not doing much more about it. i know surprised the establishment doesn't have more of a sense of urgency to try to garninger more support. the kurds' government has been trying to do that. i saw them on c-span about a

month agoer more support. the kurds' government has been trying to do that. i saw them on c-span about a month ago. they were trying to point out the danger and the threat that all. current trees face. they have a de facto independence right now. i think there is a lack of urgency. the most dangerous threat to not just the american security in the region but all of the countries and it's funny. it's one threat that puts israel, iran, the u.s., and other countries in the region on the same side. >> that's all i wanted to say. >> thank you for the call. chris has this point: i remember cheney and rumsfeld saying it would take about six months in iraq al from boston, good morning. caller: i would just like to express to people that this is a spiritual battle. it's a lot of things the average person doesn't understand. america was dedicated to god and christ. if you look back even before our

constitution to the mayflower compact and with that dedication has come a lot of responsibility for our nation. and that's why we are excepti exceptional. it's not our universities. it's not our intel i can't annualism but an anointing that's on this nation. and if people understand these spiritual things in christ, it begins -- you begin to see these battle lines. what the bush administration did was temporarily hold back a tide that is now unleashed throughout the middle east if we don't try to stop it, it will be unleashed on this nation. all i can do it present the truth and people have their own free will to do what they want with that. >> okay. thanks for the call. another viewer saying why don't you tell folks the real reason obama is bombing iraq: because he wants the oil fields back. michael gordon this morning in "the new york times", the u.s. pursuing a middle road in iraq. his piece is available online.

he says a senior kurd kish official who will asked not to be named because he was discussing internal delibrations said yesterday the did you everedish authorities asked the obama administration several weeks ago to provide ammunition, sniper rivfles and other equipment for their fighters through the iraqi government and recently provided some ammunition. the americans were still assessing this kurdish request. paul is joining us from alaska. good morning. ca caller: good morning. everybody is saying radical islam. if you read robert spencer's book, the politically incorrect guide to islam and an egyptian muslim con vertsd to christianity's book, you understand if a person is a muslim and follows islam and the tenants as written, it is a war from islam out of saudi arabia

against the west. they were stopped and in spain and the balkans way back then and quieted down but petro dollars has brought mohammed's tenants, as he has said, forward and they are now executing what he has told them in the quran and his sayings in the hadid. this is a war that has been going on for a thousand years and mohammed is not a peaceful man man. he assassinated over 650 juice in medina who took him in. but when they would not convert to islam, he killed all of them, beheaded all of them action took their wives and converted them and made them sex slaves. this is not radical islam. this is the continuation of what mohammed told his people to do if you adopt islam. host: host: craig, thank for that history lesson. in "the new york times" is a map of the region in northern iraq where many of these yazitis,

many have been there for a week or longer saying that there is no water. there is nothing. the map also available online at nytimes.com. >> one saying they are responsible for every drop of blood shed. saying bush destroyed the entire middle east. from concord, california, ronnie is on the phone. good morning caller: good morning. how are you? host: host: fine. thank you. caller: my question is: is there any hint of where putin and russia is in terms of joining a humanitarian effort in all of this? host: none. we will go on to rick. good morning. where are you calling from? caller: calling from alabama right now. host: host: go ahead, please. caller: in regard to what the president was saying of being transparent going in. what else is he supposed to do?

the government has asked him to come in. we lost so many lives and money inverted in securing iraq and we don't want to see that go belly up to these terrorist groups, isis. so he's going in. i think it needs to go more international effort. one thing he said is that we can not continue to put out every hot spot. i would hope there will be a much more help from the arab countries as well. not just having this on point but the american people, you know, we are tired of two wars, tired of nation building. this is going to be a quick hit. this is not going to be a short-term fix. is the world going to finally, get up and do something and stop this? particularly targeting arab countries that are there, nearby. this affects them all.

we can't do it all. but the world needs to come on board. host: host: thanks t next to sandy from wheeling, west virginia. good morning. caller: hi. i would just like to say that i don't believe one single american life should be spent over there in iraq. we gave lives, and i think it's up to them to solve their own problems. host: thank you for the call. the guardian newspaper has this story available online saying that the president has committed u.s. long-term involvement in iraq, warning that the rapidly evolving crisis in the north would not be solved quickly. u.s. air craft have targeted armored vehicles in a second day of strikes against it's lammic state forces. a mix of u.s. fighters and drones attack and destroy armored carriers after civilians near sinjar came under contact and the pentagon saying they were successful. the president talking about his conversations with british prime minister david cameron, french

president and offered this assessment of what the tame table would look like for the u.s. involvement in iraq. here is the president from the south lawn yesterday morning: >> you know what i just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming up as if this was my decision. under the previous administration, we had turned over the country to a roof ren, democratic lee elected. troops in iraq. the invitation of the iraqi government and ainsurance that our personnel would be immune from prosecution if for example, they were protecting. with fire fight for iraqis that

they wouldn't be before an iraqi judicial system. >> part, because iraqis were tired of a u.s. occupation. they declined to provide us those ainsurance. on that basis, we left. we had offered to leave additional troops. when you hear people say: do you regret, mr. president, not leaving more troops? that presupposes that i would have over written this sovereign government that we had turned the keys back over to its good for you to keep 10,000, 15,000 or 25,000 marines in your count country, you don't have a choice which would have run contrary to the entire argument we were making about turning over the

country back to iraqis. an argument not just made by me but made by the previous administration. >> presidentsponding to reporter's questions about about some of the critics saying we should not have left iraq. senator john mccain among those critics. he is on cnn's "state of the union" and all of the sunday shows can be heard on c-span radio at noon eastern time. barbara from oklahoma city. good morning. caller: hi. i think, you know, what obama has had to do in iraq is an unfortunate situation. it was necessary but it was unfortunate. but also, tu think the guy who said something about the muslim religion and about an african-american christian, and he ties them in together and you

gave him credit as if he was actually quoting some history. and there is no correlation between creslodollar and the muslims. it's unfortunate that you would even give these zel on tzealotst much credit that they are quoting any kind of history. >> that's insanity. >> that's the reason why our country is in such trouble because those people who know the truth will not speak it. for you to give this man credit to say that, you know, all muslim people, that their whole idea is to go and destroy all christians and that will creslodollar was born and raised in this country. he is a preacher. host: i am going to say thank you as well because i think the thank was just, the thanks was for adding another voice and perspective of this program which is what we do all the time.

so thank you for the call from oklahoma oklahoma. sam from clearwater, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. hi. my question was why all of the world is against muslim? and i do agree with the lady, whatever she just said that people, they really know the religion and they know what's going on and why all of the world is against the muslim. that's all my question. and the second thing, i do agree obama, why obama sent in troops to iraq and all of the muslim countries because they know the oil is over there. why we are not doing it to go like peacefully and like to have something, you know, from... host: thank you for the call. one other caller, jody has this, a viewer saying if we spent what we did on feeding the world instead of the iraq war, we

could have fed it for 30 years and made some allies. one final photograph this morning from inside the "new york times": those refugeeses chased to the top of the mountain and again, in search of water and food and some of the basic necessities. the president is the in the martha's vineyard. he will be back next sunday and we are back tomorrow morning every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. 4:00 o'clock for those of you in the west coast. "newsmakers" next at q and a: all of our programming available on our website. check it out anytime. c spanl.org. thank you for joining us on this sunday. enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great week ahead...