umet. and then mitch daniels looks at public education costs. you can >> good morning, it is tuesday, september 23. this is "washington journal". today we will open up our phone lines for your comments. we will begin with isis and syria. later we will discuss security concerns at the white house after a man hopped the fence and entered the north door. we want to hear your opinion. you can reach us by phone, the democrats line (202) 737-0001. republicans line (202) 737-0002.

line.ndence and you can find us online. you can send us an e-mail at @c-span.org. >> the news out of syria checking out a cnn rep or. intensifying the campaign against the islamic militant group.

that report comes to from cnn. the first caller is from new mexico. ryan on the democrats line. >> the one question i have is the legality. that the president, the commander-in-chief, we have not declared war is congress can only declare war since world war ii. i just wonder if it is legal because i am hearing both sides, from democrats and republicans on the far left and right, saying that it is a violation of the war powers agreement. i questioned the legality. i believe the president has the power as the commander-in-chief to attack without seeking approval. i want to get that information hopefully someone can -- host: using a mix of fighter

tomahawk and land attack missiles. given that these operations are ongoing, we are not the decision to conduct the strikes was made earlier today but the u.n. central command commander. we will provide more details later as operationally appropriate. that is a statement from rear admiral john coby. he is the pentagon rest secretary. the independence line. timing isr me the traveling. obama is traveling to the u.n. today. it seems to tell to the world that the united nations is irrelevant. nobody discusses the united nations involving bombing somebody's country. and you -- and obama is coming now.

it is not wise. saying thator me is the u.n. does not matter anymore. want to bomble countries -- for me the timing is a signal saying that no matter what, the u.n. becomes irrelevant. more on that united nations meeting later today. we will be joined by jay solomon . we want to take a look at a tweet this morning. a statement from the chairman of the house armed services committee. mckean writes that the men and women in our uniform once again striking at the enemy. this is one step in what will be a long's i against i sell. partner, arrelation

capable military and a clear mission. it is a fight we can win. that is the committee chairman mckeon. he is on the committee that lawmakers passed last week. our next call this morning comes from north carolina. john on the republican line. caller: i was calling to make a note, we are starting to see the commencement of the military but tomahawkby air cruise missiles. people need to get real and realize that this is a threat. , thethat getting real previous gentleman was talking about how he is so worried about the united states not going to the u.n.. i hate to tell you, but i don't trust the u.n. except as a

hollow shell when it comes to protecting the united states sovereignty and citizens. the main thing we need to do is get the president of united states to listen to his military advisers, to numerous retired generals and numerous generals that have been purged from the military because of their stance against the president, to let the military use whatever means they feel necessary whether it is boots on the ground, united states troops or others. i'm not keen on having americans in the fight, that we don't have any kind of fight with one hand behind our back. the united states military is wetting their lives on the line for our freedom. -- putting their lives on the line for our freedom. if they want to throw in with the enemy they are telling us we have 20 million more coming at

you. the president needs to understand that the military can fight the battles and he can play politics domestically. look at who is involved in the strikes. we mentioned earlier that the united states is involved in a number of other arab countries. those are bahrain, jordan, saudi arabia, united arab emirates. caller: good morning ma'am. i have two quick comments i would like to make. when the president talked about the training of the syrian army. only a few weeks before he said these were just farmers. i don't know if he believes that they really are a good force or not. concerning the same issue, they said it could take one year to train them and you have 5000 forces versus 50,000 isis.

the numbers don't add up. a math doesn't add up. generals,litary retired and current, say that to win the war you need to have boots on the ground. obama needs to start listening to his generals, currently in the white house and retired. host: washington post reports on president obama's upcoming appearance. there are reports that obama has vowed that the united states will not act alone. specificruggled to win commitments from global allies and partners in the arab world. glaringly, his decision to authorize u.s. airstrikes in iraq and syria. only france has agreed to participate and it has limited its involvement strictly to iraq. white house insists that a

coalition of nations is required to confront the islamic state. secretary of state john kerry and u.n. ambassador rice samantha power, have laid the groundwork for obama's arrival tuesday for a three-day visit to the annual u.n. gathering. we will have more on that later. maryland, on the democrats line. caller: thank you for taking my reading thenks for names of those countries that are in the fight. those arab nations that are dropping bombs. this will put republicans to shame. because everyone will say the president is doing alone, he cannot come up with a coalition. its all about insulting obama. that is how republicans think. can you just support this man? it is a war now.

host: moving onto another topic. earlier, a man successfully jumped over a fence into the white house. the wall street journal has more on the individual. they report that the army veteran accused of climbing over the fence and breaching the insion had to -- 22 wars iraq and returned home with severe mental illness. revealed, a prosecutor earlier incidents by omar gonzalez that demonstrated that the 42-year-old calvary scout constituted a danger to the president. . on monday, a judge ordered that he be held pending a hearing. a he unlawfully entered restricted building with a deadly weapon he can be restricted to as much as 10 years in prison. maryland on the line for independents. suggesti would like to

that we ought to declare war against isil. we should have declared war on september 12, 2001 against al qaeda. there are a number of ways to declare war and there are certain advantages that adhere to us if we did make it official and declare war. monday, the white house press secretary spoke about the recent security breach. let's take a listen to his comments. [video clip] >> providing security at the white house is complicated business. it is one of the more popular tourist destinations. thousands of tourists on a typical day look to her the white house. that means that thousands of

members of the public will walk out that front door at the conclusion of the two or. the white house is of course a place of business. it is a large office building. it is where members of the staff and journalists show up to do their work. in facilitating your entry and exit at a minimum amount of inconvenience is an important priority. right outside the front gate is lafayette park. among the most prominent first amendment zones in the country. individuals will gather in that ariel to make their first -- gather in that air trope to make their first amendment views known. this means that the secret service has the challenging task of balancing the need to ensure the safety and security of the first family while also ensuring that the white house continues to be the people's house. balancing those equities is

challenging work. it is clear that that a review of that work is warranted and will be conducted. reports thattimes the secret service is considering screening tourists and other visitors before they enter public areas in front of the white house. as part of that screening, the secret service would establish several checkpoints. that screening would likely be limited to bag checks and not include measures taken at airports. which include metal detectors and body scans. reporting again this morning from the new york times. democrats line. caller: good morning. i would like to know why the legislature has passed laws, or a law, to where it these people are so concerned about people

joining the isis movement. why are they passing a law to where they lose their citizenship in this country and can't come back? that's what i would like to see. they're screaming and afraid of isis coming over here, maybe this is a move that will prevent it. host: speaking of congressional action, i want to draw your shareson to the one who the oversight committee. he says the white house intrusion incident will be held on tuesday, september 30 at 10 a clock a.m. lawmakers were scheduled to return to apple -- capitol hill. georgia, the democrat line. caller: thanks a lot. i would like to remind the republicans they keep calling in

, especially the gentleman from north carolina, that it is the generals who listen to obama. obama not the generals. they go by what obama says. thank you very much. host: this morning we are opening our phone lines to your comments. your number in levittown pennsylvania, christopher is on the line for independents. my comment is that there wasn't unarmed man who breach the fence and came over in washington there, that the security guards apprehended the man in a somehow ascertained he had no weapon and did not shoot him. i'm not saying they should have

shot him, but compared to ferguson, where are all the pundits and reviewers saying, there are only 20 fit -- feet between him and the security guard saying they have no choice but to shoot the man. host: take a look at a statement by secretary jeh johnson on the united states secret service review. jay johnson says i look forward to the receipt of the security review. i will carefully evaluate the findings and recommendations of the review at that time. after which i will discuss them with director pearson. white house officials and members of congress. in the meantime i occur -- encourage all of us not to rush to judgment and not to second-guess the judgment of security officers who only have seconds to act. important to remember that the united states secret service

remains one of the best, if not the best in the world. securityrom homeland secretary johnson. alexander for independents. i just want to say i'm 24 years old, and this war on terror has been going on since i was 10 years old. i remember i was in middle school when the towers went down. i can speak for many other young people come a that i am sick of it. most young people i know are sick of it and we are disillusioned. stuff, last year it was from politicians in d.c., they wanted to fund these people in syria, and now this year they want to bomb them. it is like every year it is getting worse. safe,t think we are more

i don't think it will make us more safe areas -- safe. first it was al qaeda, now it is isis. what will it be after we drop tons of bombs on syria and kill maybe hundreds of thousands in syria and what will the people think of america now and how will they react in three years? it is getting frustrating to watch this constantly. when is it going to end? draw your attention to a couple of tweets this morning. afp, any international effort in spite it -- in fight against jihadist. and from one of our viewers, she tweets, what is winning? what do we get? new york on the democrats line. caller: good morning.

theuld like to speak about news i got about the bombing in syria. i think president barack obama is his decision to strike these isis terrorists was a good decision, his leadership is very good. rushing to do all of these things without a proper plan would be the wrong way to go. now is the right time. i think it is very presidential, and doing a very good job on that. from the more tweet haveessman who tweets, been investigating the secret service for some time. frustrating. good men and women but huge

question marks for their leadership. next up on the democrats line. talkinge to keep about these fighters leaving the united states and going to syria and fighting with isis. what can they do about it? they pulled edward snowden's passport when he was in russia, why don't they pull the passports of the people they know are fighting for syria so they can stay there. other big news yesterday. the front of usa today's money section. the treasury department will crackdown on so-called tax inversions. togeting companies that try avoid taxes by moving their headquarters overseas. secretary jack lew says it

will close loopholes in the u.s. tax code. next up on our republican slime, bob in miami, florida. line, bob in miami, florida. caller: he is done the wrong thing and did it too late. the united states policy, interfering in other nations and -- in iraq and libya. libya is a complete failed state because we stuck our nose where it didn't along. we supported and anti-assad group that created a vacuum and allow them to grow. a year ago they warned the president of support of these rebels, the money flew in from qatar and saudi arabia and we didn't do nothing. now all of a sudden it is a

threat. we have to do something about it. if we were not involved in nationbuilding, and interfering in other countries internal problems, we wouldn't be facing isis. is libya better today than it was under gaddafi? on top of israel with a completely radicalized country and a failed state. sending 5 still million american dollars to train rebels. i think it is wrong. the problem is just a stall step in less you get countries such as the u.n. jazz influence in that region and to work something else out. one more story on the front page this morning. the world health organization says the ebola outbreak would

last for ever. u.s. -- if the world doesn't get the outbreak under control quickly, it could become a permanent fixture, spreading as routinely as malaria or the flu. 20,000 cases by november 2 with thousands of new cases per week. about 70% of patients are dying. california on the democrats line. caller: this is the first time caller. i was excited about the open phone so i decided to call. old, i agree with the guy who called saying that since he was 10, i was 11 when i saw the twin towers. people inar for 300 the middle east aria, al qaeda.

in 300 or less. going to war for that and spending trillions of dollars, 13 years, since i can remember we have been at war. besides that we have a war in our own country. i have student debt, micro friend has student debt them out of college we have student debt. how can with anybody have opportunities as those born in the 60's or 70's before all of these big banks took over the credit cards -- i'm going on tangents, what change can we do? vote these people out. regulate and make a change that way. that's the only hope we have as millennium's coming up. the new york times reports -- judiciala force choices are urged to withdraw.

boggs, the embattled judicial nominee from georgia does not have support effectively killing his nomination. andboggs the state judge quickly ran into opposition from democrats and liberal activists for his support for the confederate flag and his opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. line.rsey, democrats weler: i basically think haven't seen anything yet as far as with isil. -- when weis only went to iraq and afghanistan, we killed innocent women and children. atse are the people who are work and came home and found their houses blown up by the united states and these are the people who will retaliate. ,ust like if they was over here

doing to us what we are doing to them, that's the bottom line. we ain't seen nothing yet. tweet from a diplomatic correspondent. damascus says washington informed serious u.n. and void before striking islamic state in syria. that is from matley in syria. a couple more tweets from our viewers. the rum bottle report tweets isis targets of opportunity are already hidden in hospitals, schools and residential neighborhoods. collateral damage on cap. michelle, --t from faqshoal panther. we will take a quick break but when we come back, we will talk with wall street journal's foreign affairs correspondence

jay solomon about this weeks meeting. ther, jason s. grumet author of a new book on washington gridlock will talk with us. governornight's debate. the debate finance and tax structure. [video clip] >> do you believe that pensions are a crisis? the legislature hasn't been able to come to terms. do you think is a crisis? >> i'm not sure where this crisis problem -- that's a semantic thing. we have a problem and if we don't do something it will become a crisis. we need to make sure we do something that the governor said we need to do which is adequately fund our pension system. we have not done that over the last 10 plus years. >> i take exception to that.

if we keep up with that pattern, we will have a huge crisis because just like a credit card bill, the balance goes up every year we do not fully pay off our debt. we have not been paying off our debt over the past 10 years. we have got to stop doing that. it is not just talking about plan design. this is a new plan we can actually work with. thatwe need to do is pay bill that we didn't pay for the past 10 years. if we do that and find a way to do that that doesn't hurt the taxpayers, we will have a solution. what i promise is i will not kick that can down the road. >> governor corbett one minute rebuttal. >> i'm surprised. we're talking about the same thing. we're disagreeing on how to do it. growinging at budgets and the cost of the budget growing because of health care,

medicaid, because of contracts that we have in pennsylvania and just the cost of business continues to grow. we have revenues growing. i have yet to see any country that has grown its economy by taxing. inquisitive as to where mr. wolf wants to spend the money, how much he wants to spend and how he will get the revenue. too rd him say 9.9% is high. we agree and everyone in this room agrees. we could be attracting a lot more business coming to pennsylvania if we could lower that. just like we eliminated the inheritance tax on the family business. that is a start but you have to control your spending first. "washington journal" continues.

joining us is jay solomon. to start with isis, the president will be headed to the united nations general assembly, what can we expect to hear? >> he is giving both a major also sharingek and a special session of the un security council. looking at the flow of foreign fighters into iraq and security -- syria. i think we will hear the president keep holding on this idea of a united coalition against the islamic state. war,is not just a u.s. this is a threat to the entire region and europe. that's why we have seen secretary of state kerry put such a focus on building arab participation. it started last night in syria.