employees. host: fred, you are the last thought for today's "washington journal." thanks for watching. we will be back tomorrow morning. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] with yesterday we talked representative candace miller, a republican of michigan, and she is chair of the house and administration committee p are we talked to her about what these new members can expect at orientation. take a look. host: we >> we are joined on the phone by congresswoman candice miller who chairs the congressional committee that's charged with overseeing freshmen orientation this week. a question on who gets invited to orientation. there are still a handful of races yet to be called a week after election day. >> that's true. although they are quickly being

called here. but there are still a handful that are outstanding. >> we also send an invitation to both parties, both candidates, until those races -- contests have not been concluded yet, they haven't been called. there are a couple of those situations. which is pretty much par for the course. my first time going through as the chairperson for new member orientation, but i know every cycle there's always one or two that are outstanding. the new member orientation is taking place. we want to make sure whoever is successful in that contest is right up to speed. we invite both of them. >> nerms -- in terms of what actually happens at new member orientation, "roll call" newspaper on capitol hill likened it to college orientation. they talked about getting to know you fellow freshmen

meetups, attending panels about the institution, posing for a class photo. what do you make of the analogy to college orientation. >> i suppose there's some bit of truth in that. i can remember when i was a freshman it's often been characterized as try to take a drink of water out of a fire hose. something to be said for that. we have really tried this time to improve on what was already a very good new member orientation nd try to understand what we can do to present all this information in an easily understood way and something that -- the kinds of things that they really, really need to know. keep in mind we are not talking about any kind of politics or policy or any of that. this is just about the mechanics of being a member of congress. it is totally bipartisan. and it just is talking to the new members about ideas that we have on how they should approach

studying up -- setting up their new office. certainly their office in d.c. but just as importantly how do they set up their district office or offices. some of them only will have one district office. some with huge territory could have a handful of district offices. how do they set their offices up. what is their budget that they are looking at? we did a salary study. we are going to try to give them an idea what the average range is, if you will, although there is wild fluctuation, but a range of salaries for chief of staff, or a deputy chief of staff, or a press person, for a scheduler, for your legislative people and your district director and all these things. that's really the basics things that people want to know. how much will their budget be. and then what are they -- when they are looking at staffing up, how do they approach that. >> what is the budget for a new member of congress? how much money do they get to set up everything they need to

do to be a freshman member of congress? >> everybody -- actually everybody gets just about the same amount of money. i want to say it's about $1.1 million is generally what it is. there is a little bit of variation because when the committee is putting together the budget, try to take into consideration -- obviously if you have to rent a district office in downtown manhattan, your rental rate would probably be different than they would be in north dakota. we do try to make some accommodation to make sure people are accommodated in that way. it's pretty much the same. and everything comes out of that. as a new member, you are essentially looking at -- i would say it's almost like setting up a small business and you have to do it very rapid fire because you're trying to get it set up so that when you are going to be sworn in right after the first of the year, in this case on january 6, that you are ready to go. you don't have to have every

hire done, certainly, but you need to be as far along as you can so that you can have the most success and the most impactful for your constituents. we are really trying to help them with that. for instance, what kind of equipment they might want to think about. what happens is historically you inherit whatever time of equipment your predecessor had. well, if your predecessor had very antiquated equipment, maybe your predecessor wasn't really into technology, you're probably going to make an investment on that. i remember when i got there, i had that situation. and i actually did not hire one particular staff position. i instead spent the money on equipment. on the other hand, you might be able to walk into an office that has everything really up-to-date. we help them with those kind of decisions. what kind of equipment you might want to be purchasing that are within the house contract. and then of course we help them

with talking to, for instance, all of the house officers. they are going to have a session where they will meet the clerk of the house who will say you're now on the floor of the house and this is how you vote. so when you get your card you insert it in these voting stations. this is how this goes. and they'll be hearing from the parliamentarian who will tell them what is germane and what is not germane during debate. how you ask for unanimous consent. when it's appropriate to do a one minute or what a special order is. they'll be hearing from legislative counsel who will say most people have great ideas. i'm the person in the shop here that can really help you turn your great ideas into drafting -- a piece of legislation that you can then drop in the hopper. >> a few of the highlights of the week. tomorrow a session on how to set up your office for members. on monday, a session on congressional ethics. then of course a lot of members looking forward to choosing

their own office in that lottery that happens next wednesday. before we let you go, what's the one question you get most often from a new member of congress? >> how do i get from my office over to the capitol building? just logistically trying to figure out where everything is located at. we try to help them with that. probably the most is what kind of budget am i looking at? they know everything is coming out of that budget. and also they are going to be advised that it happens not very often, but occasionally, if a member actually runs over their budget, they have to pay for that personally. you can't pay for it out of campaign funds or anything else. it has to come out of your personal pocketbook. pay attention to your budget, which is always good. >> congresswoman candice miller, the chair woman of the committee on house administration. we appreciate your time this morning. >> thanks so much. fun fun -- [captioning performed

by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> the house back at 2:00 eastern today to start what is known as the lame duck session. this in advance of the start of the 114th congress in january. and news from alaska on the senate side, republicans adding to their majority, the a.p. saying republican dan sullivan won alaska's senate race defeating the incumbent there, mark begich. still not called in the u.s. senate is that louisiana race. that will be a runoff in december. and also the virginia race between mark warner and ed gillespie. as we mentioned, both the house and senate are back at 2:00 p.m. eastern today. in the house members will take up five bills, including one dealing with presidential records in a recorded -- any recorded votes today will be held at 6:30 eastern. the house republican conference will hold leadership elections tomorrow with democrats holding theirs next week. in the senate, procedural votes are expected on judicial nominations and off the floor,

senate floor, republicans and democrats both holding leadership elections. voting for the next majority and minority leaders tomorrow as well. you can watch the house live here on c-span and the senate on c-span2. meanwhile, just getting under way this morning at the wilson center in washington, d.c., virginia senator tim kaine will be speaking. he's expected to talk about his efforts to get congress to pass a new authorization of military force in the fight against the militant group known as isis. you can watch that live now on our companion network c-span2. later today, hearing on the u.s. response to ebola with health and human services secretary sylvia burwell, testifying today. she'll be appearing before the senate appropriation committee at 2:00 eastern. we'll have that live on c-span3. also on c-span radio. and we want your thoughts on the u.s. response to ebola. you can go to our facebook page, facebook.com/c-span to leave your comments or tweet us using

the #c-spanchat. >> here are just a few of the comments we received from our viewers. >> just calling to tell you how much i enjoy "q&a." at 5:00 on sunday on the west coast, everything stops in my house. i turn off my phones. i get my cup of coffee and it's the most enjoyable hour on television. >> very informative. opinions. i enjoyed listening to him and the comments that was done today. me, my self over in the middle east. he was accurate and on point. not -- he was not using his own personal innuendos. i greatly enjoyed it. i hope you have more guests like that. he was right on target this morning. >> i'm calling to say that i think like many people c-span is wonderful, but as to criticisms,

i almost have none. and i'm a very partisan kind of person. but the reason i almost have none is i think you-all do a tremendous job of showing just about every side of everything the way people look at things in d.c. and elsewhere. i take my hat off to you. thank you very much. >> continue to let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400. email us at comments@c-span.org or send us a tweet at c-span #comments. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook. ollow us on twitter. >> next former iraq and afghanistan war commander general stanley mcchrystal and u.s.o. president j.d. crouch assess their own leadership styles and provide recommendations for creating effective leadership in the military and politics. this was part of politico's editorial series called lessons rom leaders.

>> hello, everyone. how are you? welcome to this event this afternoon. it's a real privilege to host dr. j.d. crouch and susan glasser and general stanley mcchrystal and jim for today's conversation. it's an extension of our innovative partnership with politico. and really, it couldn't be a better day to do this, right? i mean, on the eve of veterans day, a day that's set aside to honor those who are serving and those who have served this great nation. you know, nobody really signs up in the military for the recognition. i mean, they stand up. they take the oath. and they're going to jump into something and be a part of something important.

they're going to make a difference and they're going to make contributions. it's not really any easier today with the draw-downs and the budget cuts. really, a more dispersed threat. but if you take a look at this all-volunteer military that we have, it's a smaller force. and they're at a very high operational tempo. but i can tell you with certainty that those coming home today, it's a little more complex than it was when i made the transition a few years back. that's why i'm so proud to have this role at bank of america with my good friend lewis to drive change and have that opportunity where we can support the men and women who serve. and in the bank, this company is fully committed to supporting those who are transitioning to civilian life. it's pretty neat to see.

what else is very valuable today is to be able to hear from a couple of very distinguished gentlemen. and listen to what they have to say and what shaped their careers to where they became the superb leaders they are today. if you're here with us today or listening in and you're a member of the military, then we want to thank you. and we want to thank your families for your service and for your sacrifice. with that, let me turn it over to susan, who will facilitate today's conversation. susan? > thank you. >> well, hello to everyone. thank you so much for joining us today. i'm delighted to be joined by j.d. crouch, who doesn't need very much introduction. but suffice it to say not only is the new head of the uso but i think he brings an incredibly interesting array of experiences here in washington, whether it's at the pentagon, at the white house, in his new role and even in the private sector, imagine that.

so, you know, i thought we'd jump right into the topics, because on the one hand, it seems almost crazy, right? we're doing a series about leadership in washington. sounds like a punch line of late-night tv. and so, you know, i thought we should really start with that fault line that you've observed firsthand between political leadership or lack thereof, how difficult it is to read in our political climate today. and that military culture and how it works, just to say almost the definition of, you know, organizing very large groups of people to take action together. so what -- you know, is there an inherent conflict between a political and military leadership? >> you know, i don't think so. i mean, i think, you know -- churchill said once at the summit, politics and

strategy are one, which is to say that, you know, whether you're a military leader or a political leader, you really have to focus on, what are the important things that face either the country or company or whatever it is? and focus on those things in a laser-like way. everyone is expecting you to do that. you have to be able to communicate to people. and that means not just talking to them but getting their buy-in. and then you have to be able to build a trusting team of people that can help you make it happen. those elements, i think, are classic. they're true on the political side, true on the military side. in some respects, you know, i think one of the differences is we actually train our military leadership to be leaders. and a lot of people in washington come to washington with a lot of -- they're smart people. they're bright. they are well-educated.

but they've really never had much experience in being trained. what are the important elements of leadership? i think you do see that difference here in this town. >> and let's talk a little bit about that. when you talk about training to be a leader, the pentagon loves power point slides obviously. what goes on those? when you then saw the political class in action, those smart people at the national security council and the like, the world of ph.d.s and big brains, what were the ingredients they hadn't been trained on? >> well, they may not have known how to manage people. they may not known how to get the best out of individuals, right? they may not have even had -- one of the, you know, points we were talking about earlier is this notion of empathy. leaders need to have empathy. they need to understand what their customers are thinking.

they need to understand what their opponents are thinking. they need to understand what their employees are thinking. in the context of the uso, for example, we're on -- we're an organization that has 400 employees and over 29,000 volunteers. so me having to understand, what is it that makes those volunteers tick? why do they come to do what they do? i think that question of empathy is something that's been lost in our political dialogue. we don't listen to what the other side is saying. we're already thinking about scoring our next set of points rather than really understanding and putting your shoes in the other person's socks, as it were, to sort of figure out, maybe there's a way forward here. >> that's an interesting point, right? about point scoring. some people would say, right, that one of the big differences between military leadership or political leadership or lack thereof right now, right, is that we're missing a shared

sense of purpose? a goal? that it's easier to organize a large group of people to accomplish something when you have a very clear both chain of command and a sense of what you're trying to do? the mission has been framed for you, in effect. how much do you see that as being one of the things that hampered political leadership in washington? >> well, obviously, you know, political leaders have a broader pallette in a way that they have to paint on, a broader canvas, i should say, that they have to paint on. they have to take into account a ot of other factors. i mean, than a military leadership too. but don't kid yourself. military leaders have to operate in a political environment as well. they have to know how to deal with political leaders. they have to know how to deal with people in the countries that they may be operating in, whether they be friendly forces or nonfriendly forces. so i think there's not

that much of a difference between the two. some of our most skillful leaders have gone on to be political leaders. it is not an accident as the russians would say -- >> they would say there is no accident. let's talk about some specifics. where you scaw leadership in action or not. probably one of the most interesting examples was late in george w. bush's presidency, his idea to go into iraq when people were questioning if we should pull out from iraq, it was seen as a risky move at the time. clearly, there were some leadership involved. tell us what it was like inside, how was there clarity gotten

around we should have another pretty audacious decision at the ime? >> president bush came to the then national security advisor stephen hadley and said we need to do, a review of iraq, things are not working and he gave the following strategic guidance. i am not going to quote it irectly. something like, if we can win, i want to win. if we cannot, i want to get out. we did a comprehensive review, both steve and i went to iraq and pulled all elements of the government together and tried to look at it as. basically came to the conclusion there was a way to turn around. you are right, it flew against the conventional wisdom in washington at the time.

one of the elements of leadership is being willing to have the courage of your convictions and that's what the president did. whether you agreed with iraq or not, whether you agreed to do the surge or not, he had the courage of his convictions and stand up and say i'm going to take this and go all in. an interesting element of that, very late in the decision process, a lot of people said, you may remember we put in combat brigades. somebody said, why don't we put one in and if you need more, put nother one in. i remember him saying, i am not going to make six decisions about this. we are either going to make the forces available to the military leaders and let them use them as they see fit or not.

i think again, that is another example of an element of leadership which is you have to have trust in your team that they can execute once they understand what the strategy is and what you communicated. >> many people would say that example of decision by president bush is in contrast to some other decision-making early on, not the decision to go to war and we were talking about my husband's book on the bush presidency earlier and one of the things that leaps out in that account of what happened in 2003 is that there was no one moment. you could argue there was a very murky kind of decisionmaking process around the actual invasion of iraq. i am curious because you did see the art of this, was there something that changed in the

decisionmaking? was there a better process or team? >> one of my professors used to talk about the interocular trauma test, which is when the facts hit you between the eyes. >> nothing like reality. >> nothing like reality to kind of focus. a policy that was going bad and it needed to be turned around. it needed to be fundamentally changed. there was an alternative narrative which was called the baker commission report which basically was talking about a slow and steady pull out at the ime. and clearly that interocular trauma test forced people to be more clear about things. i give a lot of credit to steve hadley for running a very positive process that was inclusive of people's views but

got to frame up a distinct set of decisions. one of the things we love to do in washington is muddle things together. take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and muddle them together. everybody walks out thinking heir position prevailed. quite frankly, you saw a bit of that in the bush administration where people walked out thinking their position had prevailed and therefore there really wasn't a clear vision and a direction. >> historically, a lot of examples that has encouraged that creative ambiguity among their advisors. bill clinton is famous for that at various times. there's been a lot of examples in american politics of it. t does not mesh with the award. >> it can be very dangerous in a

-- war. wartime. it seems like you did take away something very specific from watching that surge decision in terms of your own personal leernings about leadership which has to do with isolating and what the decisions are and inding a way to make them. >> the first thing really starts with learning, getting an understanding of what is going on the ground. i will give you an example. you remember in late 2005 that the marine who headed up the intelligence operations testified in front of john mccain's committee of officers -- committee of anbar province was lost. it was headline news in "the washington post." i went out to anbar province in october and i met with some of the senior leaders operating out there as well, some of the folks on the ground. i said we are being told in washington that it was lost. military guys, younger ones,

kind of shuffle their feet and drew a map out and said sir, would have dumbed it down. it is real, simple sir. it runs down the river and we control about 2/3 and we are beginning to see the sunnis getting tired of al qaeda and wanting to push them out. they are not going to come over to our side if we do not demonstrate that we can protect them. that was a nice moment because i had someone, a group of people who were living it every day and knew what was going on. finding out what is going on and getting ground troops and not just listening to experts from washington is a really important part of leadership. again, having that your -- ear open. >> you have to start with what the situation is and figure out hat to do.

>> once you decide, you have to move forward. i like to think of myself as being an inclusive person when it comes to making decisions, but a decisive person once the decision is made. a military leader will tell you, you make a decision to do something. halfway through the execution is not the time to be questioning your self. >> tell me a little bit about that. coming to the pentagon and working there, what kind of leadership styles and did you see their? more or less successful in a caricature of a military leadership style that when not -- that wouldn't necessarily be called inclusive. right? >> i ran into all kinds of different personalities. it is hard to isolate one. one of the things that don

rims felled was good on is focusing on what was important. what is important and focusing on that. in his book, which he collected over years, you managed to -- you manage through your out box not inbox. meaning that place can bury you if you go to the pentagon. the secretary of defense has enough work to fill up 24 hours a day just from what his staff is preparing. somebody who says i will figure out what is important and i will stay on that message. i think it was a really interesting lesson that came from that. >> that does get at a really interesting question, too, which is where does accountability factor in to leadership? obviously, secretary rumsfeld in the end left the pentagon and president asked him to leave after the midterm election in 006.

the iraq war was not well managed in his early days. how much of leadership is luck and how much can you be a good leader and have a terrible result? >> anybody who serves as a senior level whether a ceo of a ompany or organization of uso, you are there really for the people you are serving. i think that is the ultimate accountability. you have to expect, it is not a question of whether it is fair or not there, what is right or -- for the country, what is right for the organization, what is right for the people you're serving? if that means you exit stage left, that's what it means. if you do not, if you do not walk in thinking that, you are fooling yourself and i would question if you could be a good leader. > can you be a good leader and

not achieve great results, how much of those things go together? >> sometimes people have been in o-win scenarios, situations -- in a way, you can ask yourself how well did they manage that really bad situation they were ut into? i find that usually great leaders will turn a positive result. they are not necessarily going to be remembered for failure. >> or maybe they are smart enough not to take on the challenges. i want to make sure we get a chance to get questions from the audience. et me a bit of a sense about your new challenge at the u.s.o. i always found when you come new to an organization, you have a

crisp sense of what makes sense and what does not. what is your outsider's view of three exciting things i can do with this? >> it is absolutely a national treasure. the uso was founded by franklin roosevelt in early 1941 before we went into the war in understanding the war was coming. talk about a guy with strategic vision who saw we would need something to support our troops verseas. it has really been a treasure at providing support and connecting people and the like in ways, in some ways hard to explain if you have not been a customer. if you see a young 18-year-old show up in kaiser waiting to go off to fight in afghanistan, he has never been out of iowa

before and he walks into the uso center and there is someone standing there that looks like mom and hands him a sandwich and tells him to sit down, soldier, relax. the impact of that, a thousand times a day, in fact, 30,000 times a day. that is how often we see these people. >> 30,000 times a day? there's a big data opportunity. fascinating. 30,000 interactions. >> having said all of that, organizations have to change and stay relevant. one of the things we have learned to be very agile and expeditionary. i'd like to say we have acilities in kansas, and kandahar, will learn to be in those places.

the military will be deploying smaller deployments. we are starting to support the operation in western africa by providing satellite networks that can connect to the troops to their families back home. the one thing commanders felt strongly about. a lot of concern about the potential exposure. being able to connect with families back home is a really important thing is something of a uso has specialized in. figuring out how to do it in an environment where we may be sending 500 troops or 1,000 troops, not the large numbers you have seen in the past. and finally, we are focusing on what is called transition right now. we are not a veterans organization. we support active-duty and their amilies. that's our focus, and we'll keep that focus.

making sure that can be veterans as they transition out is a really important part of what we do so we support a program across our centers having to do with hiring heroes and building stronger families. a lot of stress on the family's as a result of multiple deployments. sometimes, both mom and dad are eployed. this is an all volunteer force. >> it is very interesting as a leader, you are talking about a reinvention of your model in two different models. >> absolutely. what i am calling it is reimagining our program. we also have to do something called refreshing our brand. most of the people in this room i guess when they think about the uso, they think about bob hope and centers.

right? we do so much more than that. we have to penetrate the consciousness of americans in terms of what we do. that is one of the things that is an important part of my mission. i want to make sure people under 50, under 40 know what to the u.s.o. does, know it's been a national treasure. >> the under 40's do not know who bob hope is. >> they know who robin williams is. he was a huge supporter of the uso. >> let's grab a couple of questions. here you go. hold on one second. can you do the microphone? >> mark johansen, i work with boeing. i enjoyed your view on atellites. you had a great discussion on leadership in very tough

situations and recognizing uso serves veterans. what about the tough situation of the v.a.? how does -- how do they turn it around? >> my predecessor, sloan gibson, who was president and ceo of uso is deputy secretary of veteran affairs. he is going to have an opportunity to work that problem along with his boss. again, i would go back to what i said earlier, which is first of all, you have to have a period of a new leader, a voyage of discovery where you are figuring out what is really wrong and needs fixing. as opposed to what the hype is in the newspapers. once you have done that, focus on the two or three things that are critical.

i do not know what they are for the v.a. i know that sloan is focused on that and i wish him the great success. it is the same thing you cannot do, you cannot do verything. in a time period limited by the politics of our system. for somebody like him to make those kind of changes, they have to figure out what is an important. >> there's been a long-running debate about having this freestanding v.a. versus the pentagon. people have said the pentagon has a lot of opinions about whether it should be more connected. have you ever had a policy point of view, whether we have the right set up to succeed? >> no, i do not have a view per se on it.

i think that in washington, all too often we are not open to looking at more radical solutions to things. whether a new organization or a different or collapsing organization or putting things back together in a way that makes sense. having said that, the pentagon has a lot on its plate. to give it another mission on top of that, there is logic in separating the two, they are ifferent activities. you really want the military and active duty military, i think, focused on the threats to the country however defined. and not necessarily focused their, but you need somebody focus on veterans' issues. >> let me switch tables. here you go, sir. >> thank you very much. >> can you get the icrophone? >> "the boston globe."

on your discussion of military leadership and the unique skills that men and women gain in the military that is different from other sectors of society, when we talk about veterans, we talk about deployments and helping soldiers transition. i am wondering if you have thoughts about how as a country we can do a better job of tapping into that unique set of leadership skills when people are coming out of the military. i read the other day that congress now will have the lowest number of veterans in generations. if not ever. i am wondering if we have given enough out into how we tap into its. >> 1% or 2% serve now. the health of that all volunteer military is very important to all of us in this room. they are doing in a sense, doing the job that we expect of them

but also doing the job we are not doing. it is not the same as it was and -- in the postworld war ii or the vietnam war period. i have views on that. the incredible leadership skills built up by these young folks, we trust them, for example, with an enormous number of direct reports under very stressful circumstances. it is not unusual for a lieutenant or captain to have $500 million worth of equipment under their command. can you imagine in your business giving somebody at that age access or control over $500 or $1 billion worth of capital? your board of directors, their hair would fall out. they have learned to do multiple things. we have got second lieutenants and majors who were fighting in

the morning and having tea in the afternoon with iraqis or afghans and building projects ? villages in the evening. they are pretty good multitaskers. i think the problem is often on the soldier side, helping them understand how their skills translate into something that is useful in the private sector. i think we need a beating here. -- medium here. people can help them take that xponential leadership skills they develop and turn it into language and understanding that accompanies or appeals to a company. on the company side, bank of america is a good example, they are all in on trying to higher ore of our veterans. on the hr side, we needed to

invest in people who know how to help those people be successful once they get the job. getting the job is actually the easy part. it is staying in the job in being successful that's going to be the bigger challenge. a lot of these folks coming out, they want a career path like we all do. those 2 things can really be helpful in creating a successful environment for that transition. >> i think we have time for one more question. o ahead. >> ben fernandez. you talked about the 2006 surge and you look at the press, several problems with syria, afghanistan.

and the iraq surge, there are those who do not agree. the question for you is, some of the problems -- you think there is a problem with the relations, and if so, is it institutional or personal relationship? and what should or can be done to make it better or to sustain hatever good success there is? > well, you only have to -- go back to see problems of civil military relations and it is not exactly a new phenomenon. in times of stress, those things end to come out. one of the things that is very helpful to our military is when you have sort of a clear decisions about the direction you are going to take. one of the reasons why the surge was successful was even though there were different points of view on the military and quite

frankly, you want to those points of views expressed. you do not want to suppress those points of view. we allow a lot of that stuff to cool out and people to debate the various points in front of the president so the president had all of the information needed to make the decision and e made a decision. military, once a decision is made, is actually good about, ok, we have got it and we know hat we have to do. where you see the worst aspects of relationships is where decisions go on made and that is why that decisiveness is a really important part of eadership. >> we have to go to our next,, -- panel which i know people are excited to hear general cchrystal. while we finish up over there, today we are looking at being

right back in iraq and syria in ways that clearly president obama tried hard to avoid having to make a military decision. we have heard a lot of criticism about how long it took to make the decision and what is the goal of the conflict. i am curious having seen the whole arc of our decision-making from 2003 in iraq. what are your thoughts as we return militarily to that country where we sacrificed so uch? so much anxiety around why we were there in the first place, and here we all are again. i am curious about your views. >> we really have been in iraq since the gulf war. a lot of people forgot that bill clinton waged an air war over iraq throughout his entire

presidency and it was president clinton who signed the legislation which actually talked about the need for regime change in iraq. one of the issues really surrounding that is the fact that iraq is an important country. it is an important country from a cultural standpoint, economic standpoint, and political standpoint in a part of the world that is very important to us. that is one of the reasons why you see the decisions that have been made and the desire to sort of see whether or not we cannot sustain our position there as sustain a position of our friends in the region. not surprising to me that we had an announcement this week of another 1500 soldiers going in a upport role. still because the steaks are -- stakes are very high there.

4 presidents learned in a way you cannot ignore. >> i am not sure it is a sobering note to end, but thank you so much. i am going to walk to the stage my friend and colleague, our leader at politico and general mcchrystal. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> a pleasure to see you. >> a great honor. hank you for your service. and all of those watching who served our country. a great person to talk to about leadership. he has been a soldier, a leader

in the military and on business, you are an author. ou are a star on ted talk. when was the moment when you said, i am the guy, i can be a leader? most people can't. most people don't have the capacity, most people don't have the ambition or self-certainty to do it. when did you think, i can't? -- when did you think i can? >> early on, you focus on trying to be competent at what you do whether banking or supporting and whatever you do and you spend a lot of time on it. arallel to that, you are positioned especially in the military and when i was a lieutenant, my first assignment, making every mistake known to man. you have times when you think that you just don't have the knack to connect with people.

if you're like me you try every style. you tried being a real nice guy and heavy-handed and you bounce back and forth. for me, it was probably about five or six years into that was suddenly i started to find out what i am. i do not try to be somebody else. >> you were how old at that point? >> about 28. you can suddenly do things that seem right for you. ou are not trying to be george patton, you have sort of figured out what your abilities and limitations allow you to do. it was at that point i thought i could do it and found out i liked doing it and i wanted to do it. >> what did you think you were really good at back then that you realize in retrospect you were not? >> i thought i was very good at running things and i became a icromanager.

i had 14 armored vehicles and i put them all on the same radio frequency so i could talk at once and i told them to turn left and they all did at once and i said, i am an amazing leader here. to some extent, that's probably the most obedience i have ever gotten since. i found out that, i thought if you really got control of things and understood everything that was happening and made the decisions like that, you could control things to a level you could get the standards that you wanted. i learned that is true to a certain size organization. maybe about 100, 120 guys, like an infantry company. and once you get past that it doesn't work anymore, and you try to do it through people and suddenly you realize that model was wrong to begin with.

what i learned to do and i had help from subordinates who cannot put up with my micromanagement and explained, we know how to do this business. your role is not to do our jobs but to help us do our jobs to give us an environment. that started a change in the way i think about leadership that continued through the rest of my career. >> you said i came to believe a leader is willing to learn and trust. this self-awareness you cannot appreciate enough. critique yourself. your greatest weakness as a eader is what? >> i got a bump of them and i'm not being falsely modest here. i'm lazy, for one. >> i can tell. i am lazy in ways that do not show. i will not do all of my homework and study some. when i went through most

military schools, i do not write the essay. i will make decisions too quickly sometimes. if people come with information, i will get a certain amount and will be decisive. sometimes that is not yet informed enough. i get moody. i am not as bad as i used to be but i will be frustrated and it will make it harder for people to interact with me. it is not a one-time of the day, but i will do that. hen i get tired, i am not as a good leader, especially if i am exhausted physically and i lose my patience. that makes it harder for people to deal with me. >> what are the adjustments you have made to offset one of those weaknesses? leep more? >> i try to sleep more and step back and do not make yourself responsible for doing too much.

as you get more senior, your job is to create an ecosystem which people operate. do that. do not follow the temptation of doing what you did when you were younger because you are good at it. that's not your job anymore. when we were going over to afghanistan, i remember a classmate of mine was selected to be my deputy and go over initially, then he took command forces afghanistan, the three star job. he told me, we are going to go over there and you are going to deal with president karzai and i am going to fight the war. i said, no, that is not how it is going to find -- work. i said i'm a great war fighter and i said i'm going to do that and you're going to do the politics. which probably would have been better. he goes, no, you do not do it. only the commander can do those things. only the commander can form a relation with karzai and do those things.

you have to do this. he was completely right. it took self-control to divorce myself from moving forces around on the map because that was not what i should invest my time in. >> you would not have the confidence you have if you do not make decisions along the way. take us behind the scenes behind one. i made a smart decision and saved lives or change trajectory or change an institution, a very specific one you can walk us through. >> i picked my wife and asked her to marry me and that was the reatest. [laughter] the thing i am most proud of is not a single decision in joint special operations command. we had an organization that was functionally excellent. we were better than any organization has ever been at the kind of things that it was

designed to do. it was designed for specific high-end counterterrorism and special operations mission. because we were so good, it was our identity. our identity was excellence. the problem was we were not right for the problem at hand started in late 2003 when i took over. i found we could do what we were doing at this level of effectiveness but the war kept getting worse and we were not making a big enough contribution. it was one of those moments when you say we can continue to do what we do and do it well and people pat us on the back and say you're great and things can get worse, or we can step back and say we have got to make a bigger contribution to the overall effort at the risk of stepping away from that which is comfortable to us and what not. we made that decision and that was one of the ones i became most committed to and carry through the whole time of command.

we were changing what we did, who we were, how we interacted nd we were doing it in a way that was at least upsetting internally by the organization. it was well received by some of our partners and not well received by others. other groups and whatnot. it was fundamentally essential for us to perform our role in the fight in iraq and afghanistan. and so, there was not a brilliance to a single decision i made as i learned once you make a decision like that, it is consistent commitment to it. never giving up the energy on that. you turn something and you have to start pushing it. if anything i felt would stay at a day after day, the resistance, people who go, it did not work. sometimes i think genius lies more in persistence than it does

in some kind of sudden -->> at that time, the government had done all of these studies to figure out how to we fight a war. from that, you came up with a concept of intelligence. it is hard enough for me to get 10 people to do what you want them to do. how to get the military to go from a mindset that completely change itself in afghanistan? >> when i took command and 2003, it was already a great organization and we need to change because the requirements ad change. the requirement is changing. instead of us having to figure out the problem and work a solution to it, what we had to do was aim at a moving target. al qaeda was this resilient network of associations that was constantly morphing. it was a dynamic moving

arget. as a consequence, i didn't have a clue how to beat them when we started. all i knew was what we were doing was not right. nd so what we did was overcame the inertia, that everybody to the idea, one of my young officer said, sir, you cannot steer anything until it is moving. let's get a moving and then we will fix it. some said, we should not rush to failure for that we need to do a study. the reality is, we do not know what we were going -- where we were going. the mindset became what we are going to do is start moving and develop this organization that learns and communicates across the organization those lessons and adjustments in real time, faster than i had ever seen. it became the organization this

organism that took in nformation, hard lessons sometimes and adjusted constantly. e created, not just flat, or organism like things were information flowed everywhere and decisions were made much closer because everybody was at the same time. we call ensure consciousness now. it gives you this confidence you know the big picture. you know what needs to be done and nobody can give you the right guidance from the top because things are changing too fast for that to work. >> what's the worst decision you've made? >> well, i've made a bunch of them. i think the places where i most think i failed was in certain relationships.

making a relationship with an organization or individual was right it paid off in spades. in other cases it wasn't as functional as it needed to be. for any number of reasons i didn't fix it and i didn't put enough effort in it. the command paid a price. not just me. the command did. and if somebody in another organization irritates her, you don't like them. every once in a while you say, i'll not deal with that person. the price for that is just incalculable. if you're in a leadership position you don't have the -- you can have whatever personal feelings you want. you don't have the luxury of allowing them to be operationalized by what you do and don't be and be pet lent or whatever. i -- pet atlanta or whatever. -- petulant or whatever. i would pound on the plywood and i'd say, that's it. we're cutting off with

diplomatic relationship with that organization and they talked me back from the ledge and they said, you know, sir, relationships are god. i think that's the thing that can so often submarine otherwise great plans. >> in the book you spend about a page and a half on the rolling stone article you wrote talking about that. you're probably familiar with it, the narrative and all. what were you thinking about it "rolling stone," i'm going to give these guys access, why? >> well, it was the context. >> you know a lot about p.r. you're savvy on the public relation sides of things. >> wow. i wouldn't give myself credit for that because i spent the years in jsoc where there was no public so i wouldn't give myself credit. i did understand it was important but contextually we did a whole bunch of press. the war in afghanistan in the fall of 2009 and spring of 2010

wasn't very popular in the u.s. and it wasn't very popular in europe. so we felt this incredible need to support the story. i did the first "60 minutes" interview summer of 2009, i literally did it kicking and screaming. some of my team said, you got to do this. last thing i don't want to be is on "60 minutes," extreme close-up, that sort of thing. if you don't do this we won't be able to get the public audience and the ear of people to start the make the case on how we need to change this strategy so we did it. we did a whole bunch of media. a number of imbeds and i remember they came to me and said we want to do "rolling stone." i don't read it. why would i do this? well, it's a different audience and this piece will be focused on this. it was a number of imbeds. it wasn't a unique thing until

the story came out, of course. >> what will -- nobody knows afghanistan arguably better than you do. you were there for -- you spent a lot of time thinking what works, what doesn't work. you changed the approach in afghanistan. what will afghanistan look like five years from now? >> of course it's impossible to say with confidence. i tell you what i think it could look like. i think that afghans -- they're survivors. they've proven that many times over. the question is, are they political accommodators to the point? that's the big question. they have an army, they have a police force which is not where it wants to be. but they have an army they're proud of. they have the capacity to be a -- an effective society that's durable and gives taliban pressure. the weakness or the challenge will be in their internal politics because the people of afghanistan lack confidence. they lack confidence in external relationships. the countries like the u.s. they lack confidence that neighbors like pakistan will give them the breathing room to do it. then they lack confidence in their local politicians and they lack confidence in

international politicians. so when you lack confidence in something, you withhold your participation. your support. think of the most confident person in the world, at least who shows the most faith is the farmer because they plant something, confident that it's going to be something that they can harvest later. in afghanistan, you start to see a lot of the behavior in many cases of people who are taking a very short-term view of things because they think that things will stay tumultuous so you have to protect what i got right now. if we lacked similar confidence we wouldn't put our money in the banks. we wouldn't send our kids in the military or things like that. we wouldn't invest in those type of things as a society. afghanistan has got to get over that and the governs level will be part of that -- governance level will be part of that. i think they have a reasonable chants to do that. i think it will motor along. it won't be perfect, but no country is, but i think that it will. if they can't do that then it's going to be a different -- a

different outcome. >> what would it look like if we did nothing? >> well, that depends when you pick your point in history. if we did nothing in the 1980's to support the mujaheddin, potentially the soviets would be there. if we did now in 2001, then al qaeda would have remained there. had we left after al qaeda was ejected in late 2001, and left the afghans to their own devices, what we would have was a country that was damaged by the soviet war, then traumatized by another decade of civil war and the rise of warlords. then suddenly the upending of the taliban government. so in the fall of 2001, they'd had 20 years of this incredible sort of upset and kids hadn't been in school and all these different things. had we walked out then, then i think what we would have seen was the rise of the warlord-driven civil war that had been in the early 1990's.

the taliban were really accepted in 1994 through 6-because they were swept a-- through 1996 because they were swept away. i think they would have come back. >> 13, 14 years old -- it seems like we have this debate -- now it's about isis and where we authorize these military force to go and kill people who want to kill us. is there ever going to be a point for that young man or for any of us in this room where we're not at war? does isis manifest itself in another acronym to tare rise us here and abroad -- terrorize us here and abroad, is that reality? >> i call something called the power of one. single individuals could do things now they couldn't do before. a single person with an automatic weapon in the u.s. can have an effect. someone with chemical, biological, can have a single effect.

a person with a computer can have a huge effect. single individuals or small groups can do something more than before. there were small groups who didn't agree with us but they were over yonder and they didn't matter so much on a daily basis. most of us remember the bar arry pirates, -- barbery pirates. they affected part of our economy until we decided to act on it. the difference is you have these organizations that didn't have the reach or technology or the media standing to do much can do that more which actually encourages them because they see more about it and they go, well, if they did it i can do it. so i think for the foreseeable future, 10, 20 years, it's very likely we'll see a series of challenges from groups across the spectrum, not just the united states but against other existing structures, government

structures, business structures, religious structures will have all of those under assault and we'll have this difficult decision over how we want to deal with it. because in some countries there's going to be a great temptation to lock down and the government is going to get tight control and we're going to get -- because technology lso helps both ways. there's a chance we can go with this incredible police state in many areas because people want order and many people are willing to pay quite a price for order. you have these cases like somalia where you have this lack of centralized control and people will deal with it for themselves. in the middle will be a perfect sweet spot of maybe democratically run governments with enough control that you could have society and property rights and what not but enough freedom so people don't have

their civil liberties infringed. but that's a pretty delicate sweet spot to maintain and history hasn't been in that weet spot most of history. we have to work hard toward that. it will be a challenge. this is not -- i don't think that that kind of society is an automatic instate to development. you know, you progress, progress, suddenly hit democracy and civil rights and all these things. i think instead it's this balance you maintain and protect every day because otherwise it tilts one way or t tilts another. it's clear in the next presidential election is about leadership and the context of global leadership and how robust military presence we have. i will not ask you to critique the commander in chief. what are their greatest

strengths when you look at them as leaders as it pertains to our global position. >> first and foremost, both presidents care. that's obviously. well, that's not always obvious. both of them were trying to get the right outcome for the right reasons. both of them were challenged with different circumstances when they came into power and the events that changed george w. bush's presidency and the things that barack obama has both of d so i think them had that challenge. the two things we need to think most about is credibility. when you have a foreign policy it's based upon credibility and your willingness to reflect on pem. it's your ability to do something and your willingness to do it. if for example the united states says we would like this

to happen or not happen in the world, everyone in the world makes a calculation. they said, one, can the united states cause that to happen or stop it from happening and are they willing to do it. if they question both or either, maybe we'll try this, maybe we'll do it so american credibility americans a lot. it matters to our allies and ur potential foes. you say, these are our values, you got to believe it and you can't say, we want -- we're going to be strong unless you show you're strong and firm and all the sorts of things. credibility is the key thing. >> is that hard to build up? every single day it's a new challenge. even if you take the critics of the president saying, yes,

you're right, we should have been in this area earlier and handle libya right now, we have to definitely go after isis, anybody that looks at these, these are complicated things and being able to show credibility or inconsistency, is that even possible? >> well, that is what makes it so darn hard. ou're exactly right. now, that individual can add a little bit because of their actions and words. you're building on credibility built and building it for your successor. a lot of it won't come until after you're done. the second thing is relationships. you know, think about who we do things for. if you got a phone call right now and someone asked me, hey, can i borrow x amount of money or can you give me x amount of money, you know, there's people that fall into two groups. those that wouldn't return a call or wouldn't say yes and those to whom you would. and reallegationships matter a

lot. it's not just between countries. they're between people. one of the things i was struck over time was -- is so much of not just politics but diplomacy is built on the senue of personal relationships and people place great value and great importance on those and if we think that we can go in and just make a stated case and the searing logic of our position will sell the day, that's not my experience. my smeerns is that what people do is they do a much more complex calculus of, do they trust you, do you have that relationship and do they value the relationship enough to give a little bit on this one so they can maintain that relationship for the future? so i think this give and take of relationships between individuals and organizations and nations is really, really important and it doesn't come automatically. it's another thing you got to work at. it's like i tell people -- if you think about marriage that you meet, you fall in love, you

get married, you live happily ever after, welcome to the real world. you meet, get married, work your rear end off every day at it or you don't live happily ever after and that's the thing we sometimes don't pay as much attention to as i hope we would. >> let's open it up to questions. there's a mike quo phone. -- microphone. >> general, thank you for your service. my question is about shared sacrifice. support our volunteer force. i have one in active duty. one from an unnamed middle east country. we work because the rest of the united states doesn't have to worry about it. there is an all-volunteer force. there is a huge disconnect what the military and military families go through and a huge disconnect between the policies that support those troops and i wonder about your comments on

that. >> thanks for your sons for their service and thanks for your comment. first is within the military. there's -- it's a two -- two-braided sword here because on the one hand, exactly as you described it the military can get out of touch with the civilian side of society and the civilian part of society doesn't feel it. during the civil war, one out of every 68 americans was wounded so everybody saw or knew someone that was wounded. now it's like one out of every 700,300. if you know somebody it's just in passing. it isn't a shared sacrifice that's felt. that's part of it. the other part of the sword, when you have a military that becomes more insular -- and i used to go to bases all the time around -- and every time i got got to a base of platoon of size, i would assume that somebody was the son or daughter of a friend of mine in

service. now on the one hand it's very comfortable and say, hey, how's your mom, how's your dad? we're seeing ourselves all the time. and a military can start to get self-righteous. not intentionally but the military can start to say, well, you know, we're the only people out here fighting. that's a dangerous germ to start growing and it really hasn't proven much in the military but that's a dangerous thing to have. that's first. i would expand this broadly. most americans aren't asked to do anything except vote and pay taxes and the reality is if we think that's citizenship that's not my view of citizenship. you may or may not know, i'm the chairperson for an effort to put national service for all young americans into reality and that is not military service but something, you know, teaching, conservation, something. everybody does a service year for a modest living stipend, $12,000 to $15,000, not for the

work you get done during that year but for the difference it makes in the person that does it because you become different. you have a different sense of contribution, a different feeling of pride. in reality you also get to know people you wouldn't know otherwise. and you suddenly go, wow, that's -- they're not so different or they're not so bad. it changes our view of citizenship and i think that's critical that we do it. i got one of my colleagues here with me. great. >> work our way up here. >> quick question. power of one, access to a computer. so we saw obviously with the arab spring and benghazi, with the youtube video and isis, the role that social media plays and the p.r. battle. what are current or future military leaders doing to prepare? is there training there? what role will that play in the future? >> what you started to play out

is the power of real complexity and speed now. so two things came together. the speed and interconnectedness and suddenly they wound themselves to the speed we've never seen in history. so the reality is that nobody knew what was going to happen when the arab spring started. it wasn't like this discipline movement that started with a plan and we'll do this, etc., etc. what it was was this series of things that fed off each other in a completely unpredictable fashion. impossible to predict. and so social media allows that to happen. it produces this swirling level of complexity that our organizations and leaders aren't prepared for right now. we saw the egyptian government stunned. called for a -- a demonstration a week later, all those people showed up and didn't know what to do. nor the u.s. government. we were also chasing the information and chasing the developments.

so what the key is going to be is change the mindset. all right. we are not preparing for anything in particular. we are preparing for this constant change. you create teams and you create ways of communicating. very similar to the experience that we sort of backed into in jsoc so you -- every day you walk out on the field and you're playing a different sport. you say, wow, today is soccer. tomorrow is baseball. it's that stunning a difference and that's what i think organizations are going to have to do. you can't predict one thing, get it right. it will be very frustrating to people. that's why the structures and the roles of leaders will be so dramatically different or they'll catch themselves looking at headlights and they'll get run over. >> more from this table.

> sir, question for about -- there has been lots of questions. some people think it's an institutional issue. some people think it's personal relationships you talked so much. i'm curious, where do you think falls on both both from a institutional standpoint which is more lasting or personal -- i think we talked about personal -- >> well, i think they are related. if you go back in history and you look at team of rivals, what president lincoln put together and we remember how good it was when he and ulysses s. grant in the last couple years of the war had a good relationship. it took painful years to get to that. you look at our major efforts where we got to work together. i think that ultimately it takes really good relationships. it takes people who trust each other, but you can't do this thing where you keep going through people and you happen to find people from the same hometown or like each other. you can't build a structure and n expectation based upon share

dipity of -- serendipity. you got to create organizations and you got to create processees that force that. now, one of the things i would say, if you think about to a sports team that you were on, from the beginning of the season your coach typically pulled all the people together and you started practicing, you did some team building things. a number of things you did just to get them together. we take the united states most senior leadership, national security council, who are going to execute a war and we take people who really don't know each other, they might. a few of them might but often they don't. they come together in a room wearing suits or dresses and so you're sort of in your stilted special personality because i'm not always exactly like this. and you want them to suddenly become this team. and yet they're from different backgrounds. military guys grew up in the military. they speak military. civilians are from different and they didn't spend time

together. they weren't at each other's weddings. they didn't often read the same books and it's just as true across parts of the military. if you take the intel service and the department of state, they're speaking different languages. it's all english but different. so we expect this team to come together seamlessly and i think it's unrealistic. particularly the speed that has to happen. we have to step back and say, if you want teams like that to work, you got to create a process to build that team together. i always joke with people. what would you do? if we were going to go to war again, i'd tell the president to take his top 15 or 20 people and go whitewater rafting and go -- i'm not kidding. take several cases of beer, go whitewater rafting, don't invite the media. do all those things you do whitewater rafting and just get to know each other. just pull each other out of the water. just see each other, you know, when they're not in a suit and protecting someone. not because you're going to solve the policy problem, but because when you're doing these very difficult interactions,

you can look and you can say, you know, i disagree with you but i know you. you're not a total jerk. so let me at least calibrate my ears to listen. people laugh and say that's the accumulate about aia thing. thing. baya we need to do things like that. >> i have a question i want to get one question from this side of the room. maybe if the young gentleman can think of one as i ask the jen. what is the one thing -- that i ask the general. what is the one thing that the media gets so right? it would be what? >> they're remarkably similar once you get past acronyms. i think the military talks about leadership a lot and we say that's not important. es that important. the military -- your efficiency ratings, the name of your job

typically, the way you are admired or not admired always has leadership in the terminology. there's very rarely a bottom line that said that person made x amount of money or that person got that many bills passed, it's that person took care of soldiers. i think just the focus on talking about it and making it so overt in your culture actually helps it be true. i think that would be an advantage for any organization. >> wrap up on this side. do you have a question, buddy? >> yes. >> so i have a question. how do you see drones getting more involved in modern warfare in the next 20 or so years and how is that going to affect troops on the battlefield? >> what college are you in right now? [laughter] >> that's a great question. first off, i think i'm a big fan of unmanned aerial vehicles. maybe not my lifetime but in your lifetime you'll fly on

commercial airliners that's going to be remotely piloted. it's going to happen. once my generation who says, oh, it can't ever happen, it will. so i think that unmanned aerial vehicles are going to be prolific in everything to include ground vehicles. in war they're funny because there's two things to them. on the one hand for our special operating forces, unmanned aerial vehicles allowed us to change the way we fought. there were certain technologies, global positioning systems, the internet, unmanned aerial vehicles. and everybody thinks because we could shoot somebody with macele. no. what it did in the old days if we wanted to raid something, raid your house, we use about 120 people because we take bout 80 of them and create a thing to stop from everybody else from reinforcing it or stop the people inside from get age way. we take command and control and have a small force that actually raided the house.

but nowadays, by using unmanned aerial vehicles, all of those other things can be done because you see. you had to put security at the hedge against what you didn't know. so we could do raids with 20 people. so now instead of doing one raid with 120 we were doing six at the same time with 20 each. which sped up the pace of what we could do. and so hugely effective. just, you know, it -- an efficiency and effectiveness boom. the problem with unmanned aerial vehicles is they allow you to lower the threshold of some things like you can fly over an area with no risk to americans and you can shoot missiles down or drop bombs and t feels almost antiseptic to us. you won't remember this but others in the room would. president clinton shot tomahawked after we had intelligence on osama bin laden. if you ask americans the next

morning, is america at war? no. we shot some tomahawks. if you talk to people near the receiving end of those tomahawks, very different response. so the danger is, you've got different thresholds. you're shooting at someone and they go, looks, feels like war to me. and when you're in another position you say, well, we are just doing surgical operations. and so you can get this resentment at american arrogance, americans can be perceived as we're arrogant because we can stand up from the heavens and be like thor throwing thunder bolts and although militarily it might be the right move. if you're building up massive resentment, then there's a negative cost to it. i think it's one of those technologies that has to be very carefully balanced as we use it. now, pretty soon everybody's going to have them. a lot of countries have them now. i don't know how we'll feel when somebody does it so us, but i can predict. that's a great question. thank you. >> with that i want to thank bank of america for hosting us.

thank all of you for participating in the conversation. thank you, general. >> thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. isit ncicap.org] >> both the house and senate are back today to start their wrap-up of the 113th congress. at 2:00 p.m. eastern, the lame duck. the house comes in at 2:00. back out. they'll return at 4:00 and taking up a total of 10 bills today including one dealing with presidential records. any recorded votes in the house will be held at 6:30 eastern. the republican conference if the house will hold leadership elections tomorrow with democrats expected to hold theirs next week. the senate, meanwhile, will be working on judicial nominations and off the senate floor, senate republicans and

democrats both hold leadership elections for the next majority and minority leaders tomorrow as well. follow the house live here on c-span and the senate on c-span 2. this, of course, in advance of the start of the 114th congress in january of next year. in preparation for that, new senators-elect made their way to the capitol today to meet the with the republican leader, mitch mcconnell, who is poised to be the next majority leader. they're flanked by a couple former members of the house, shelley moore capito, the new senator from west virginia. one senator-elect who won't be there is dan sullivan. he's been called by the associated press as the winner in the alaska senate race which means there are only two races left undecided. louisiana, which will have their runoff in december and they're still waiting to call the virginia senate race as well. mitch mcconnell earlier today speaking to the newly elected senators.

>> let me just say this is a lot happier occasion. for example, after the 2006 election when we had president, secretary of treasure ear bill -- bob. we're excited to have a great new bunch here. we hope dan sullivan and bill cassidy will be here shortly. we're here to make the place function again and to begin to make progress with the american people. >> you say you're ready to work with the president to move toward the middle. are you planning to work to the middle? >> the problem is the president sends signals that he has no intention to move toward the middle. i was stressed with the deal. -- on his current trip,

requires the chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years while these carbon emission regulations are creating havoc in my state and other states around the country. i would welcome the president moving to the middle. i said before i hope we can do the business on trade and maybe tax reform. first indication it's not been -- >> [inaudible] >> how do you expect to deal with the china issue? will you roll back -- >> we'll be discussing all that with our colleagues here in the next few days before we get ready to take over the new majority. >> thanks, everybody. thank you. inaudible] >> thank you, everybody.

>> how does it feel to be here? >> great. >> thank you, everybody. >> mitch mcconnell with newly elected senators. here's the headline from latime.com. obama, china president agree to landmark climate deal. it says that u.s. and chinese presidents laid out ambitious new targets wednesday to cut pollution in a deal that negotiators hope will inspire similarly dramatic commitments from other countries. the president announced he had agreed that u.s. will cut net greenhouse gas emissions at least 26% by 2025. doubling its current pace of carbon reduction.

that is from the "l.a. times." reaction from china. this one from speaker boehner. part of a statement he released earlier. the president continues his trip, staying in china, at least -- >> the 2015 c-span student cam video competition is under way. open to all middle and high school students to create a five to seven-minute documentary on the theme the three branches and you. showing how policies, law or action by the executive, legislative or judicial branch of the federal government has affected you or your community. there's 200 cash prizes for students and teachers totals $100,000. for last of rules and how to get started, go to studentcam.org. >> earlier this month the supreme court heard oral

v. ment of zivotofsky kerry. n american that is born in jerusalem is -- the foreign relations act directs the secretary of state to record israel as the place of birth on a passport of a u.s. citizen born in jerusalem if the citizen requests it. president bush signed the act but issued a signing statement noting that provision interfered with the constitutional functions of the presidency in foreign affairs and did not enforce it. these arguments are just shy of an hour. >> we'll hear argument first in case 13628, zivotofsky v. kerry. >> mr. chief justice and may it please the court. how an american is identified in his or her passport or u.s.

consular birth abroad, including the place of birth designation does not amount to formal recognition by the united states of that designated location's sovereign status. this is a principal reason why congress' law authorizing jerusalem-born citizens to carry passports that say they were born in israel is a legitimate congressional exercise of congress' power to regulate foreign commerce -- > suppose that -- suppose that the president and the secretary of state put on the passport the place of birth -- and i've written it out -- the place of birth on this jerusalem-born's passport was listed israel at the holder's request. this designation is neither an acknowledgment nor a declaration by the department of state or the president of the united states that jerusalem is within the borders of the state of israel. could the president under

existing statute -- and the secretary of state, under existing statute put that statement on the passport? >> yes, your honor, they could put that statement on the passport. >> if congress then passed a law saying that that statement had to come off the passport, could congress do that? >> yes, justice kagan. there's no restriction on the initial granting of recognition by the president, but by the same token, the congress has the ability afterwards upon deliberation to decide if they disagree with that recognition. but in the case that justice kennedy -- >> has had a ever happened? >> yes -- >> in the history of the united states where congress after the president has declared that it was not recognized and someone -- has congress ever recognized? >> yes, justice society owe

mayor. -- sotomayor. in 1898 congress passed the recognition of the people of the independence of cuba over the initial opposition of president mckin low. and that ended up recognizing the independence of cuba. >> you were careful to say at the outset this is not recognition. the court of appeals decision -- i think it was in the judge taylor concurrence, said that both parties urge upon us that they -- the power of recognition is involved here and congress has done it and then of course the attorney general takes the opposite position that, a, this is recognition and b, that's why it's void. did you change your position here or am i just misinterpretting the way that court of appeals discussed it? >> we provided an alternative options for resolving this issue. our primary position, as i said at the outset, what is written

in this statute does not amount to a formal recognition of sovereignty because the language of the statute itself is very narrow. it begins by saying that for the purposes of -- the narrow purposes of recording a place of birth on a passport or a consular birth abroad, that is what this statute provides for. it also does not state that in all circumstances you have to list israel as a place of birth. it is an individual choice. >> the provision is part of the section, section 214. i think they're trying to read as it is disassociated from the purpose of expressed throughout 14, that is the capital of israel. congress said that and you are trying to deal with a piece of one section without regard to the thrust of the whole

provision that congress has said we think jerusalem is the capital of israel. >> justice ginsburg, the -- that is correct. this section of the statute should be reviewed and the constitutionality of it be determined on its own, but the court should look not at what congress may have intended by the entire section but rather what this section actually did. and this section, as i said, gives the individuals a choice and does not confer formal recognition. there are benefits that -- >> you say that. you say -- i think that's certainly a reasonable position. you could read this and say it doesn't really say anything about recognizing anything. but the solicitor general of the united states, after conferring with the state department, says since israel's founding every president has adhered to the position that the status of jerusalem should

not be unilaterally be determined by a party and he adds, by requiring the president to contradict his recognition position regarding jerusalem in official communications with foreign sovereigns, the section unconstitutionally encroaches on the president's core recognition authority. so he has a different view. he thinks it is our policy not to recognize jerusalem as the capital, which you apparently agree with, and he thinks that this does have some tendency, at least, to suggest the contrary. now, i'm a judge. i'm not a foreign affairs expert. and when he tells me that, and they are foreign affairs experts in the state department, how can i say that i'm right even if i agree with you and they, who are in charge of foreign affairs, are wrong

when they make those two statements which certainly sound plausible? >> two points, justice breyer. the first, what goes on a passport is a place of birth is not tantamount of sovereignty. taiwan is a perfect example. >> i must interject at this point because you emphasize the taiwan example. it seems to me most distinguishable. taiwan and china maintained from the beginning there is only one china. and so taiwan is a place, it's a region. t's in no way recognizing no question of recognition in the taiwanese act. >> that's correct, justice ginsburg. what you put on the passport does not -- >> you go back to my question which i'd like an answer to. i don't think that taiwan is a

counterexample since the policy of the state department in that being f.a.m., foreign affairs man, says pretty clearly that if there's a dispute about the larger power, i.e., china, you always can put in your passport the smaller place of birth, like a city, or i would think here taiwan. so i don't hear the department, who i guess i'm saying the experts, saying that taiwan example conflicted with their policy. >> china objected to that. >> i want an answer to this question. not whether china objected or didn't object or so forth. i'm not interested in that. i'm interested in what we as judges do when the state department and those charged say those other things were not contrary to our recognition

policy, that's what they think. and this is. >> so one last point on taiwan -- >> i'd like the first point -- what am i supposed to do? >> the first point is what goes on a passport is not for the benefit of formal recognition of sovereignty. this does not entitle the government, the foreign government to bring cases in our court to the protection of sovereign immunity or to the act of state doctrine. what goes on a passport does not amount to sovereign -- >> ms. lewin, i thought your position was, you couldn't care less if the state department thinks this is going to interfere with our relations with the palestinians, that congress is entitled to do what it is authorized to do under the constitution even when that contradicts -- let's assume they can't recognize a country, but they can declare war on a

country, can't they? the state department has decided to recognize and be friendly with, congress can do that? >> that is correct, congress can do that and the test -- >> and you say they can do the same here. and the fact that state department doesn't like the fact that it makes the palestinians angry is irrelevant? >> absolutely, justice scalia. >> if you take that position, which explains it, then what do u think of a justice who writes in 1833, the exercise of the prerogative of acknowledging new nations and ministers -- and he makes clear that that involves whether a city or region is part of a country, etc. -- he says it's an executive function. some argue, as we -- i think we just heard -- that congress could make that decision, too, but that hasn't been decided. and he concludes that a power

so extensive in its reach of foreign relations could not probably be conferred other than the executive department will admit of little doubt. he's saying, of course you have to have one person deciding such a thing and that has to be the executive. that's 1833. pretty knowledgeable about the founders' intent. >> that is a rather extreme position, number one, to suggest that executive branch would have not only the authority to recognize a foreign government but also if the state department says so, that automatically would end the question or any review by any other branch and the state department merely says that the -- >> there is review of power of the purse and there's always review with not pointing an ambassador.

there is review in a variety of alternative ways by congress. it just may not be the way that you prefer if they could pass a resolution contradicting that that would have any legal force. >> there -- well, there is review. even both to respond to you, justice sotomayor and justice breyer, both story recognized the authority of congress to review. just as storey also said, if such recognition is made, it's conclusive upon the nation unless indeed it can be reversed by an act of congress repudiating it. and if the president refuses to recognize, then he said congress may not withstanding soundly acknowledge the sovereignty of the nation or party. >> i guess you could say hamilton in 1787, or whatever, trumps storey in 1830. he said opposite. that the recognition of provision was trivial

formality. >> hamilton also switched his position before he was in the administration and after in the administration. what that would seem to show, mr. chief justice, it's not clear the history -- >> in any case, that's not your main point, is it? you're being -- either forced into or willingly yield yourself to arguing that against the proposition that if this is recognition, it is invalid. but your main position is this is not recognition. it just has an effect on the state department's desire to make nice with the palestinians. your position is congress has no compulsion to follow that. assuming it can't recognize. >> that is correct. >> you don't claim this is recognition? >> we do not claim this is recognition. in fact, there's a -- >> one factual matter i'd like.

i see in the record that your application for the passport asks for jerusalem, israel. that was changed. was it changed in litigation? was there an actual official request to change it in your application? >> the request was made purely because of a misunderstanding what the law initially of -- >> answer my question. did you apply formally to have it changed or did you just take that position in litigation? >> the position was then subsequently taken in litigation. in subsequent renewals of the passport, too, it's the request of israel be put on the passport and it has come back with jerusalem. >> may i ask you another factual question? when he was born, was he issued a birth certificate by the israeli authorities? >> yes. >> and the united states recognizes that as a lawful exercise of israeli authority

to issue a birth certificate for a child born in jerusalem? >> i believe they do, your honor. >> this is a question i would ask the solicitor general. i don't completely understand what the position of the united states is regarding israeli sovereignty over jerusalem. i understand it's the position that israel does not exercise full sovereignty over jerusalem but in that -- in this instance, the issuance of a birth certificate and others i can think of, i suspect the united states recognizes that israel is lawfully exercising atributes of sovereignty over the territory of jerusalem, is that correct? so if someone -- let's say an american citizen committed a crime in jerusalem, would the united states take the position that the israeli government has no lawful authority to prosecute the person of the crime? >> i do not believe so, your honor. i do believe that the israeli government has the authority to prosecute that crime.

>> ms. lewin, if i could ask you. if your primary position is that this is not a recognition statute, can we talk a little bit about what it is? i mean, why -- what is the design, what is the effect of this statute other than something that goes to recognition? >> this statute is a statute that was created to give individuals the right to self-identify as they choose that they were born in israel -- >> the united states government does not normally give people the right to self-identify in this way. in other words -- i think this was the chief justice's question in the first argument. if you're an american citizen born in northern ireland, you can't get the right to say ireland. for that matter, if you're an american citizen born in jerusalem today, you can't get the right to say palestine. his is a very selective vanity plate clause, if we can call it

that, and it's selective because congress -- it appears to me and consistent with the rest of the statute, as justice ginsburg said -- a real view that this was the self-identification it wanted. the ability of american citizens to say, yes, i was born in jerusalem and that means i was born in israel. that and only that self-identification is allowed. >> this statute was rectifying a misguided policy of the state department which enabled individuals born in israel proper, whether in tel aviv or in kifea, who were opposed politically to the state of israel to remove that sovereign, to remove reference of israel from their passport, but it did not allow those who are born in jerusalem and who live under the sovereign government of israel who wish to put israel on their passport to put israel on their passport. >> they were born in jerusalem

and wanted to have palestine as their place of birth, that existed until 1948, that option. >> correct, justice ginsburg. because at that point it was before 1948 a palestine. so the law was not going to -- >> people could -- palestinians could not -- american-born palestinians could not do that and that suggests that congress had a view and the view was that jerusalem was properly part of israel. >> that is because this statute is dealing with an existing sovereign, that you either remove from the passport or put on the passport. it is not putting together nonsovereigns -- it's either you put it on or take it off. >> born in barcelona, spain, is that citizen allowed by the state department to put barcelona as place of birth?

>> if they wish to remove the country of birth and list the small entity, yes. >> is that a vanity plate for people who believe in catelan independence? >> it is enabling an individual to exercise their choice to self-identify as they choose. >> again, your argument and you're consistent on this -- your first argument is that this is not recognition. now, suppose this is recognition if we defered to the state department's judgment to the executive judgment on that point and the government said this is recognition, and you say it isn't recognition, why doesn't the government trump? if the government -- if the congress really wants to test its power, it can pass a law saying you must recognize israel as being the legitimate government of palestine, but it has not done that and since it

has not done that, it seems to me the government's argument trumps. >> justice kennedy, you are correct. the way the balance of powers works is that the executive branch has the right to recognize the sovereign. however, if congress deliberates, passes legislation and that legislation is signed into law, then congress' position trumps. >> but you say that this isn't recognition. so the ultimate conflict is not before us and therefore the government's policy, which says that this is recognition, should be given deference and it trumps. >> well, your honor if it doesn't amount to recognition, then congress had the authority to -- >> i guess there are competing cannons here. one is, i suppose we listen to the state department on matters of foreign affairs. but i suppose another one is we

do not hold an act of congress to be unconstitutional and thereby ineffective. that seems to me a draw, doesn't it? >> yes. >> so the state department says this amounts to recognition and congress says, whether it does or not, we want -- we want this person to be able to list israel. >> that is correct. and since this was signed into law by the president, the law right now trumps whatever the executive branch may say. >> and hypothetical, ms. lewin. suppose congress passed a law and this law said that secretary of state had sent an official letter to all foreign ministers whenever a u.s. citizen was born in jerusalem and that official letter from the secretary of state said -- says it announces that a new american has been born in israel. would that be constitutional? >> excuse me, this would be a law passed -- >> this is a law passed by congress and it says every time

a u.s. citizen is born in jerusalem, the secretary of state has to send an official letter to every other foreign minister saying that a new american has been born in israel. >> yes, that would be constitutional. >> that would be constitutional. even though the congress is basically telling the secretary of state to engage in a certain kind of diplomatic communication with other foreign countries. >> the description of the law you provide seems to be very similar to what a passport does. a passport recognizes an individual as an american citizen for purposes of communicating that information to the foreign government. >> yes, that's exactly right. that was going to be my point that it was -- but it was extremely similar to what a passport does. both are forms of diplomatic communication and what we usually say about diplomatic communication, whatever congress' other foreign affairs

powers are, the power of diplomatic communication belongs to the president and the president alone. that in that realm, we only speak with one voice. and so i guess i have to sort of say that that answer that you gave me, that this could -- that congress could say to the secretary of state, here's the diplomatic communication that you have to send to other foreign ministers seems, well, a little bit shocking. >> but recognizing an individual as an american citizen facilitates the transfer and the movement of american citizens across borders. this passport, if it were to list israel pursuant to this law, would be indistinguishable from all the other passports of individuals born in tel aviv or any other place in israel, it wouldn't show to make any kind of political statement. it would merely be identifying the individual by their name, date of birth, place of birth. it's all american passports of

individuals -- >> so you would say that -- and i think justice kagan's high theycal, maybe the letter required to be sent to every foreign head of state would be unconstitutional. but that doesn't mean that passport is. because the passport is used primarily for purposes of identification. it's only the letter that makes it something else. >> correct. >> you want us to write -- justice kennedy, do you want us to say in our opinion that this is not a political declaration? >> this is not a political declaration, that is correct, justice kennedy. >> well, i'm not sure why congress passed it then. >> congress passed it to give these individuals the right to self-identify as they choose because individuals in general have that ability on their passport to choose an -- >> i thought it was a federal crime to say you were born in the united states when you weren't on an official

document. so why is it that it's so why is it ok for congress to say something that hasn't happened? meaning to say someone born in jerusalem is actually born in israel? other than somebody who is born in taiwan saying i was born in america? they can self-identify all they want, but can they do that? >> yes. since 1848 israel has acted as the sovereign over western jerusalem where our client was born. since 1967, over the entire area of jerusalem. >> i know what it's done. the u.s. recognized. has any president since 1948 recognized israel's sovereignty over that area? >> in a formal sense, no. but allowing individuals to recognize it, that would not be a false statement. >> miss lewin, if i might just

go back to the thought that the chief justice gave you that you agreed with. here's the way a passport begins. it begins the secretary of state of the united states of america hereby requests all who it may concern to permit the citizen blah, blah, blah. that's the secretary of state requests all of the authorities who are going to be looking at this passport. and then in hague v.a.j., we described a passport as a letter of introduction which the issuing sovereign vouches for the bearer and requests other sovereigns to aide the bearer. this is, this passport it seems, both in what it says itself and what we said about it, is like a letter from the secretary of state. it's a communication. >> it is a communication meaning to facilitate this transfer of individuals as american citizens not to make public statements about where they were born or where they are from or what countries the united states

recognizes. >> thank you, counsel. general? >> mr. chief justice, may it please the court. let me get to the heart of the problem with section 214-b. even if section 214-d does not officially change or formally change the recognition position of the united states, it tries to deny the president the power to give effect to our official recognition position by forcing executive branch officials to issue official diplomatic communications that contradict that position. >> what if there were a law that said, precisely, pretty much what you just said, the law says, ok, mr. president, you can recognize whoever you want, but if you recognize this country, this government, we are going to treat it as if you hadn't recognized this government. for purposes of domestic law, we are going to pretend -- we are going to operate under the assumption you have recognized this country. >> i think there would be limits

to congress' ability to do that. we think that the recognition power that the president possesses necessarily includes the power to give effect or recognition. >> so that law would be unconstitutional? >> to the extent and all purposes yes -- >> isn't that what the taiwan relations act says? >> what it says is the absence of diplomatic recognition shall not affect the application of the laws of the united states with respect to taiwan. >> no, mr. chief justice, that's different. the taiwan relations act was an act an exercise of the necessary and proper power to implement the president's foreign relations judgment about how taiwan -- >> let's say the president did not want to recognize taiwan and congress passes a law that says for every purpose under american law we'll treat taiwan as if it had been recognized. >> that might raise a serious constitution question. that isn't the situation -- it wasn't the case when it was enacted. it's not the case now. it's different from the current

situation. the fundamental problem with section 214-d is that it purports to try to force the executive branch to issue official diplomatic communications that contradict the position of the united states. >> is that really true? can congress pass a law saying that every passport, every passport issued to an american that lists place of birth, including country, and that for this purpose the country is the nation that issued the birth certificate to that individual. could congress do that? >> i think that that -- in a situation like that, the court ought to defer to the executive branch's judgment that the place of birth listing can have significant diplomatic consequences. we have had policies in place for decades in this country that align place of birth designations with our official recognition policy. the reason we do that is because

foreign sovereigns look to these communications as indicative of where we stand -- >> if it is within congress' power, what difference does it make whether it antagonizes foreign countries? >> there are certain things that are within dong's power that would antagonize foreign countries that wouldn't affect separation of powers. >> this may be one of them. the mere fact it upsets foreign relations doesn't prove a thing. >> the critical point, your honor, is that what this statute does that those other statutes don't do is it requires the executive branch, the president himself, and the executive branch itself, to communicate a message that contradicts the official recognition position of the united states, undermining the president's credibility, and preventing the president from being able to speak with one voice -- >> why couldn't you have a disclaimer of the kind that i

have explained to the petitioner's counsel. that would be perfectly allowable for you to say. this is not an indication that israel has jurisdiction over jerusalem. >> your honor -- >> wouldn't that solve the problem? >> it don't solve the problem. because the issuance of the disclaimer is the credibility hit. it undermines the credibility of the president because think about what it's actually saying. what it's saying in this context is, yes, we are issuing thousands of passports that identify persons born in jerusalem as being important in israel. yes, the congress of the united states requires that. but pay no attention to it, really. doesn't have any bearing -- >> if it were such a big deal, why did the chief executive at the time sign it? >> the chief executive issued a signing statement which really was in effect a disclaimer in 2002. president bush's statement said, in 2002, this does not change our official recognition policy. and we are going to treat it as advisory. that did not have the effect of

-- >> so we should give no weight to the fact that the chief executive signed a law that he is now saying -- successor, but i gather the position is the same, is now saying has such dill tearous effects on american foreign policy? >> as a general matter, does that have in consequence at all? >> i think this court held in myers the fact that one president signed a law into -- signed a law that violated separation of powers doesn't have any effect. >> i'm not suggesting it does. although that's a separate question. it does did to the credibility of the assertion that this has such dramatic effects on american foreign policy. >> i think the credibility of the assertion is proven by history with all due respect, mr. chief justice. even though president bush issued that statement which said this didn't change the policy of the united states and that we weren't going to enforce it because he was treating it as advisory. the consequences that ensued in the middle east in october of 2002 were that there were mass demonstrations in jerusalem,

thousands of people in the streets, some turning violent. the palestinian parliament met and voted for the first time to declare jerusalem the capital of the palestinian state, no longer forebearing on that issue. and if you look at -- >> that's partly because the executive branch made such a big deal out of it. they issue a statement this is unconstitutional and all that. it could easily have said this is no big deal. they are letting whoever is born there big the name they want to put on. move on. we are approving that by going ahead and signing it. and over the intervening course, the executive has litigated this as a self-fulfilling prophecy it's going to be such a huge deal. >> mr. chief justice, with all due respect, i think on this question you are asking me, this is a place where the court should accord deference to the judgments of the executive branch and state department in particular. if the state department thought, if the executive had thought it could solve the diplomatic problem by minimizing the effect

of this provision, pretending as though it doesn't going to happen, they would have followed that course. >> you're asking you to -- they are asking the government to lie. >> i think that -- >> that's exactly what you're saying the government should -- executive's department should not do. >> i do think the problem here is that the -- that the executive made a considered judgment in 2002 that this couldn't sensibly be handled that way. >> how are we -- >> what if it just says disputed? paren that sees. then i gather -- paren that sees . then i gather -- >> that would have the effect of identifying the passport issued to people born in jerusalem. beyond that, it isn't disputed as a matter of the official position of the united states. the position -- >> it's disputed as a matter of the government of the united states. part of the government says this.

no. the congress is not saying under my hypothetical this is swlarl. it's saying there is a dispute about it. which i would think is about as true a statement as you can make. >> the dispute certainly among the parties of the region. i think the whole premise of the petitioner's argument here is within the government of the united states there isn't a dispute over the recognition issue. >> can you help me with the same question. how should we approach it generally? that is to say, i can think of instances where similar statute is serving other than administrative matters, the passport should be red or something. i can think of instances where it causes a lot of trouble. you i can think instances like this one, and you could easily with ate this controversy ar in our -- israel in our imaginations, similar in the ukraine where we make some

agreement with russia and something similar comes up. that h iran and pretend russia once invaded part of northern iran. all over the world there can be similar kinds of problems where it's debatable what the words of the passport actually mean. or how they will be taken by others. and what others will think they mean. how do we who know little about it determine when it gets into the realm we should stay out of it and let the president and his constitution gives him that power, or should as some think, we should always intervene, perhaps some never. what in your mind is the right standard? how do we decide? >> i do think this court, the last time the case was here, ultimately it was up to the court, the judge, constitutionality of the statute we accept that. but in doing so, we believe it is quite important that the executive branch get deference on judgments of precisely the

kind that your honor has identified. this statute is a very rare passport statute. there isn't any other passport statute like this one that purports to interject an issue of recognition policy into the content of passports. >> general verrilli f. we agree with the petitioner, we do not have to confront the constitutional question. whether the president has exclusive power over recognition. if we agree with you, we are going to have to grapple with that constitutional question. maybe you want to talk about it. >> let me -- i'm delighted to talk about it. before i do, let me actually address that. i don't think you necessarily have to address the question of exclusive power to rule for us. here's why. i think that given the petitioner's position that 214-d does not change recognition, the official recognition position of the united states, and the senate amicus brief saying it doesn't change the position of the united states, that's a given. the official recognition position of the united states is

-- we are not recognizing any nation's sovereignty over jerusalem at this point until the parties work it out. with that as a given, the separation of powers problem with section 214-d is that it forces the executive branch to engage in diplomatic communications that contradict our official recognition position and undermine the president's credibility and that -- >> if it does, then their argument is going to be it does amount to -- if it does contradict it, then congress is making its own judgment about recognition. >> i'm happy to address t i will address it now. i do think you can decide the question on the ground i decided without ultimately resolving -- >> couldn't you say at a minimum the petitioner has conceded that it is not clear that this is recognition. >> that's certainly the case. we take it as gave the president's position on

recognition, which is the same every president going back to truman, is the official position of the united states and the executive is being forced to issue diplomatic communications that contradict it. >> is the requirement of place of birth on the passport, that doesn't come from the congress. that comes from the executive, right? >> that's correct. there's a long-standing policy there. >> i thought that the purpose of the place identified by the government by the executive is to identify the person, and it's not something that the president or executive requires out of a foreign policy concern. the purpose of it was to identify the individual. is that right? >> yes. that is its primary purpose. even though that's its primary function within the passport, it has the effect of raising diplomatic foreign policy issues about our recognition position. that is why we have had in place

official policies in the foreign affairs manual going back to the early 1960's that assign decisions of place of birth with our recognition policy. and in fact before they were formalizing the manual, they stretch all the way back to world war ii. it's inevitable that foreign sovereigns are going to react to that, the way in which we -- the information that we put -- >> this is a pretty rough way to identify someone. there are hundreds of john smiths in the united states. >> that's true. and this question about whether a place of birth designations are necessary on passports is actually one that congress asked the comptroller general to study back several decades ago when there were series of studies made. the conclusion of those studies which you can find in the current version of the manual, the one on the state department's website, you have to have them for two reasons. the first is very often foreign

nations require place of birth information to let you travel to that nation. it's going to be highly inconvenient, if it's not in the passport. second, law enforcement and counterterrorism officials were quite concerned that passports were going to become less effective in their efforts if you remove the place of birth designation. >> a question i asked ms. lewin, what exactly is the position of the executive regarding israel's exercise of sovereign powers in jerusalem? is it the case that it is the position of the executive that israel cannot lawfully exercise any sovereign powers within jerusalem? >> the position of the executive is that we recognize as a practical matter the authority of israel over west jerusalem. with respect to the rest of jerusalem, the issue is far more complicated. it might well be as a practic matter, i confess i don't specifically know the answer to the question. you asked miss lewin about the status of the birth certificate issued there, might be as a

practical matter we would accept it as evidence of birth. >> it must have been accepted or the passport wouldn't have been issued. >> we do have the consular -- >> i thought you had to provide a birth certificate to get that. >> as a practical matter i don't think anyone can infer anything about our position from that. i do think for example, your honor, if we were to start issuing passports to people born in crimea tomorrow, that identified russia as the country of birth, that would carry obvious implications for our foreign policy position. it would contradict the foreign policy position in a way that could be quite dill tearous -- dilly tearous. >> passports are printed in country a, not the united states, there is a printing plant there, and congress passes a law saying, no, you must have the passports presented in country b. we don't think you should recognize country a. does that interfere with the

president's recognition powers? >> i'm trying to give you precise answer to that. if the statute said passports may not be printed in country a because the united states does in the recognize country a -- >> because congress wished the president would not recognize country a. >> in response to that, we are directing that passports that are now printed in country a be printed in country b. that would be a harder case than this one, i think, because it doesn't as clearly implicate the president's effect to recognition power. one reason it doesn't, that doesn't affect the content of the diplomatic communication. the way section 214-d does. >> i thought your position was the president has the exclusive right to decide what interferes with his recognition power. >> i think that the president has the right to give effect to his recognition power. congress cannot try to command the executive branch to act in a manner itself that contradicts the president's recognition

decision because that prevents the president from giving effect to that decision. it is an exclusive power with the president. it is, after all, recognition is not lawmaking. it is an executive function. and one would therefore expect it would be a sign to the executive by the constitution and not to the congress. and when -- >> we are making an executive function, too. >> with respect to the executive functions around recognition, when congress wanted -- when the framers wanted the congress to play a role, and the constitution envisions a role for the framers and those executive functions, it's prescribed of the article 2 gives the senator a role in confirming ambassadors, a role in advise and consent for treaties. there isn't anything in article 2 as a structural matter that gives the senate a role with respect to -- >> congress generally --

congress has the authority under the constitution to require identification information in passports, and to specify the identification information that's included, if i believe that, then the effect of your argument, i guess, is that something that congress can do is unconstitutional if it effects the recognition power -- president's recognition authority in some way. is that -- >> our position is narrower. all you need to decide to decide this case in the government's favor here is that the congress can't do is use the authority it has to regulate passports. we acknowledge as we did in our brief that congress has the authority to regulate passports. it didn't use that authority to command the executive branch to issue diplomatic communication that contradicts the government's official position

on recognition. >> i don't like to -- just keep going back to the same thing. it seems to me that you could draft a statement that actually furthers your this passport does not indicate the government of the united states and secretary of state recognize that israel as sovereign jurisdiction over israel. you are making your case. >> i appreciate the appeal of that idea, justice kennedy, but the problem with it is that the need to make that statement doesn't further the diplomatic interests -- >> ms. lewin asked -- >> why doesn't it further it? >> because the very need to make the statement calls the credibility of the president's representation of our recognition position into question. >> just like the signing statement. which said precisely what justice kennedy suggested that

the executive could do at this point. >> right. it did not have -- i think that's the point. the signing statement was in the nature of a disclaimer. it did not prevent the damage to the credibility of the united states. >> i think the answer to the uestion ms. lewin gave was she said, yes, the executive could put that on the passport. but she also said congress could then pass the law saying this is antithetical to our view and that doesn't have to be put on the passport. on the passport is just birthplace, israel, period. congress could pass that law and counter whatever the president does. >> i do think that's the necessary implication of the petitioner's argument here. not only that congress could forbid a disclaimer, but congress could require -- >> that law isn't in front of us. >> but were the court to uphold the constitutionality of the law that is in front of you, it seems to me the necessary

implication of that would be that congress could prevent a disclaimer, could require not just that israel be listed, but jerusalem be listed on a country of birth. it seems to me those are very serious interferences-oosh a general, if i'm understanding your narrow holding, just so that we can underscore it, what you're saying is that congress can't compel speech by the president with respect to foreign relations. >> i would put it more narrowly, your honor. congress cannot compel the executive issue diplomatic communications that contradict the official position of the united states on a matter of recognition. i think that's all -- that's the question before the court in this case. >> i pick up this passport and it says place of bith, israel. -- birth, israel. do i know whether this person was born in jerusalem or in

haifa? >> no, you don't. >> how does it advertise for the world that the president is contradicting himself? all you know is that the person was born in israel. could have been anywhere in israel. >> the world knows that we will issue thousands of passports to people born in jerusalem identifying them as born in israel. and the world knows that we will be doing that because the congress of the united states required it. and those actions -- >> it is not a communication contained in the passport itself, is it? you're just saying that this piece of legislation advertises to the world what the situation will be. but you're not compelling the president to say that this individual was born in jerusalem and we are going to say he was born in israel. because you can't tell that. >> you are requiring the president to make statements, thousands of times, that

contradict the official recognition position of the united states. now, it is true that a country where a person is traveling won't know whether this particular passport is one of them. i suppose unless they ask for place of birth information. city of birth information. but unless they ask that, they won't know with the particular passport. what everyone will know, what foreign sovereigns will know, what the parties in this region will know is that thousands of times the executive branch is issuing passports that contradict our official recognition position. >> general, when i travel abroad, and come back to the united states, or when i go to a foreign country, and they are stamping my passport, do they have forms that require you to identify the city? >> i am not aware they do, your honor. i don't know the answer to that. i'm not aware they do. >> i know that some of them do. i know that some do. >> they may well. i do think the essential problem

here with it what 214 does is that it tells the executive to communicate a message that the executive believes contradicts our position and undermines the president's credibility as our soul spokesman in matters of diplomacy. there is not an issue on which the president's credibility could be more important than the question of the status of jerusalem of the question of the stay tuffs jerusalem is the most vexing and vowel tile and difficult diplomatic issue that this nation has faced for decades. it goes all the way back to president truman. and the fact of the matter is that the parties in the region, the nations in the region, and frankly people around the world and governments around the world crute nies every word that comes out of the united states' government and every action that the united states government takes in order to see whether we can continue to be trusted as an honest broker who could stand apart from this conflict and help bring it to resolution.

and there is no doubt that section 214-d when it was enacted had a serious adverse effect calling our credibility into question. you can just look at the statements from foreign parties that are in the joint appendix in the state department communique at pages 231-233. you can look at press accounts from that time. it seems to me without -- if we were required to implement this we would do everything we could to try to mitigate the problem, but it seems to me that the -- it is quite important for this court to understand there is a very serious risk that that harm to our credibility as an honest broker on this very serious vexing issue could be called into serious question. >> why would that be so? no matter how this court decides, everyone will know what the position of the president is. everyone will know what congress thought when it passed this legislation. whatever we do, that's not going to be changed. and our decision isn't going to be based on any view that we may

have about whether jerusalem should be regarded as part of israel or the capital of israel. why will there be any effect on foreign policy, except by people who will misunderstand the situation, either because they really don't understand it or they will it got voided in some way. >> two points to make about that if i could. first, it's not a misperception. it's an accurate perception. one looks at 214 as a whole, not to 214-d, but 214 tries force the executive branch to take a series of steps that no nation would take if it did not recognize the sovereignty of israel over jerusalem. and would only take if they did recognize. >> congress did that. nothing we do is going to change that or change what congress thought. >> with all due respect too easy and asuppings, your honor.

the difference -- assumption, your honor. the difference between this it arose to very serious problems we had to get under control. there are two very important differences and lead to different conclusions. the first is it won't be one branch of the united states government saying that this should happen, it will be two branches of the united states government saying it should happen. it won't be that we will -- that the statute will have been enacted. it will be enforced and the consequence of those two things together is that the credibility of the executive, credibility of the president on the fundamental question of where the united states stands on the status of jerusalem until the parties work it out will inevitably and seriously be called into question and into doubt. foreign governments, foreign peoples will not be able to have complete confidence that the position the president announces on behalf of the united states is the position of the united states. that is exactly why section 214 violates the separation of

powers. even if you conclude that congress might have some residual power, which we obviously strongly disagree w. the official position of the united states is that jerusalem -- we don't recognize any assassination's sovereignty over jerusalem until all parties have worked that issue out on their own. and what this statute does is en force, would undermine the credibility of the president's ability to maintain that critically important diplomatic position as we move forward. thank you. >> thank you, general. ms. lewin, you have four minutes remaining. >> thank you, your honor. just a couple of points. justice sotomayor, this is not requesting that the government lie on a passport. as the secretary-general said, it isn't just recognizing a practical reality that israel -- >> it's the place of birth. if you say israel, you believe that you're saying that you believe that person was born in

israel. >> seven years prior to the passage of this legislation, congress passe the act and the senate referred the am mi cuss brief in section 10 which requires the embassy be moved to jerusalem and -- >> and it was provided and every president has exercised the waiver. >> this would be the recognizing as we said before there is a disagreement -- >> tell me it's not a lie. you the united states are being asked to put on the passport that you believe the place of birth of this individual is israel. and the government -- executive has said, no. we don't think it was israel. we think it was jerusalem. >> the speech is the speech of the individual who -- >> the individual -- the one issuing the passport, the government. the document says this is a diplomatic exchange between sovereigns. >> we are permitting that speech when it comes to west bank, gaza strip, a host of others. we are recognizing and allowing

that speech. >> when you say the west bank, i take you think congress could pass the identical statute with respect to a child born in hebron, say? that, too, is israel. >> correct. >> we are providing two alternative arguments, one saying this is not -- this does not amount to recognition, or if the court decides to reach the separation of powers question and view this as somehow implicating the recognition clause, that at this point the law passed by congress would trump the president. allowing the state department's say so because it's an expert in foreign relations would be advocating an independent function and turn the president into an autocrat whose world controls. we suggest this is a narrative, recognition powers is analagous to the president's authority to enter into executive agreements to resolve foreign claims. that is not an explicit

authorization provided to the president. it's also not exclusive. and the agreements entered into by the president cannot contradict or run counter to the express will of congress. with regard to the international response to this, the consequences first of all described by the associate general are grossly exaggerated. but the world knows could be the -- first of all the united states state department could be clear in their statements as they did with taiwan that this does not change the united states' poltcy with regard to the sovereignty over jerusalem. and because -- policy with regard to the sovereignty of jerusalem. and because the passports would be indistinguishableable of those born else where. while this may initially have impact, over time i propose a short time, particularly if the united states makes that statement, this will become a nonissue. >> this is a particularly unfortunate leap to be making

it's no big deal argument. history suggests that everything is a big deal with respect to the status of jerusalem. and right now jerusalem is a tinderbox because of issues about the status of and access to a particularly holy site there. so everything matters, doesn't it? issue, but ensitive to suggest that what will go on a passport as place of birth is going to implicate or make it worse, there is no evidence of that. thank you. >> thank you, counsel. case is submitted. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. isit ncicap.org]

>> they are having republican leadership elections, democrats expected to hold theirs early next week in the house. meanwhile, the gnat today will be dealing with judicial nominations and off the floor of the senate, republicans and democrats holding leadership elections as well today and tomorrow. follow the house here on c-span, 2:00 eastern. and the same for the senate, 2:00 p.m. on c-span2. the house is here on c-span. our look ahead to the 114th congress continues on tomorrow morning's "washington journal." our guests will include ohio democrat tim ryan, member of the budget and appropriation committees. then the longest tenured republican, house speaker dennis hastert. he joins us. after that paul from bloomberg b and a talks about net neutrality in the open internet proposal. "washington journal" live tomorrow and every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. >> the c-span cities tour takes book tv and american history tv on the road.

traveling to u.s. cities to learn about their history and literary life. this weekend we partnered with charter communications for a visit to madison, wisconsin. >> that is for everyone. it is a glorious service. service for the country. the call comes to every sit zen. it is an unending struggle to make and keep government representative. >> probably the most important political figure in wisconsin history. one of the most important in the history of the 20th century of the united states. he was a reforming governor. he defined what progressivism is. he was one of the first to use the term progressive to self-identify. he was a united states senator who was recognized by his peers in the 1950's as one of the five

greatest senators in american history. he was an opponent of world war i. stood his ground advocating for free speech. above all, bob was about the people. after the civil war, america changed radically from a notion of small farmers, small producers, and small manufacturers and by the late 70's, 1880 as, 1890's we had concentrations of wealth. we had growing inequality. and we had concern about the influence of money in government. we spent the later part of the 1890's giving speeches all over wisconsin. if you wanted a speaker for your club or your group, bob would give the speech. he went to county fairs. he went to every kind of event that you could imagine. and built a reputation for himself. by 1900 he was ready to run for

governor, advocating on behalf of the people. had he two issues. one, the direct primary. no more selecting candidates and convention. two, stop the interests. specifically, the railroads. >> watch all of our events from madison, saturday at noon eastern on c-span2's book tv and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on merican history tv on c-span3. >> up next, a look at women in politics and the impact of the 2014 elections on women in public office from today's "washington journal." it's 45 minutes. >> "washington " continues. host: and we are back to jennifer lawless who is the director of american university's women and policy institute here to talk about campaign 2014. the headline the next day, after

november 4, women had a good women. 100 and one what did you find? my feeling was: even though i did not want to diminish that, we went in with governors before the election and five after, and just a net gain in the house, it did not seem like a year of the woman. and 2036 does not look good either. what you mean? guest: the eternal pessimist. [laughter] when women are not competing in a lot of races, there are not chances. we disk -- discovered a gap in political ambition among adults, and the report he put out is the gender gap in the interest in

running for office is just as big. unless there is a jolt to the system and real change, there's no reason to expect the next generation will look much different than this one. host: why the lack of ambition? guest: is not a lack of ambition overall. young women and young men are interested in wanting to improve the world, achieve success, and do well in their careers, but women are less likely to enter politics were couple of reasons. the first, they do not think they are as qualified as men, and this is the case for college students as well as adults. we have done surveys of male and female lawyers, business leaders, educators, and political activist. 60% of the men think they're qualified to run, and fewer than 40% of the women thing they do. on paper, you were not able to tell them apart. men they do not think they are qualified still give a serious pause. women not only doubt the qualifications, but let self-doubt hold them back. the second reason is women are

far less likely than men to be encouraged by anyone to run for office. we compare this country to other countries with women in politics and government roles? fare well.o not 99 nations surpassed united states in the percentage of women serving the legislature, and that is not only because of quotas. many of the design of us do not have gender quotas, so we are well below the worldwide action --average. host: what are these countries doing differently? quotas, so make sure women appear on the party list running for office. in united states there is no evidence of voter bias, that women cannot raise as much money as men when they run, and at least at the congressional level, there is no evidence to suggest that the volume or substance of media coverage is any different. if women can get on the campaign trail and get to election day, they are just as likely to win their races, they are less likely to put themselves out there. host: what about reelection?

guest: just as likely to win reelection. this election cycle is an example. at and women challengers won equal rates. host: where talking to jennifer lawless from american university about the role that women played. take a look at the report. only one-third -- how does the selection compared to previous elections? it is pretty typical from what we have seen. some states are seen a net decrease in the percentage of women serving. at the congressional level, to have an additional two or three women each election cycle has become par for the course. when you did this poll, the gender gap and political addition, and you asked if you

ever thought about running for office, more women thought about it than men do. guest: that is have not thought about it. host: have not thought about. ok. what is going on there? collegence you get to you see a gap emerge, and what happens at that point is men and women start to sears to consider what they want to do with their lives and women look at the political system and say absolutely not. we found that substantial perceptions of bias in the electoral arena. even the women do just as well as men when they run for office, most do not know that to be true, and that could be part of the reason they got the qualification, why women do not think about throwing their hat into the ring. you think you would be too difficult and it would not be treated fairly. we want to disseminate the information that once you are on the campaign trail and you make it to election day, you have just as good of a shot. host: what you think needs to be done -- a policy option like the

needs to be quotas like there are in other countries? guest: that is not going to happen here. i am not sure quotas solve the problem. quotas suggest you have to, and you will see women are capable. .ere, we have a supply problem what has to happen is the parties need to make a concerted effort to put forward martin -- female candidates. the good news is when women are encouraged to run for office, even by a collie, family member, or friend, the suggestion resonates. a lot of parties are waiting to do this and we can all get out the door and if i women that we think would be great candidates, young women -- identify women that we think would be great candidates, young women in particular. host: does this have to be a cultural shift? guest: it has to be a cultural shift in terms of how proactively are. most public opinion polls reveal they think there should be more women in government, but they do not often have a chance to elect

one because she does not appear on the ballot. host: let's get to calls. john. herndon, virginia. democratic caller. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i am four me angry is daughters, and i always tell them if you work hard enough, you will get paid this amount is anyone else. what makes me angry is when i see a republican congresswoman denying the equal pay for men that she works for, saying we do not need that -- the democrats are playing games. that is nothing to do with it. there are a lot of young women graduating universities, smart enough to get any position they want. way, women are the ones that raise the men, and they can do better assessment in any situation than men as far as i'm concerned. and knowd to stand up that it means something for them. we need to educate young college

girls to understand that you have to climb the ladder, and you need to understand that you have to speak up in order to get what you want. host: ok. all right, john. guest: there is no question that that is true, and i would have couple of things that the first is that pay equity and student loan interest rates are two the great opportunities organizations that care about getting women involved in politics to appeal to college women on because these are the issues that will matter to them so soon after graduation. it is important not to conflate female candidates with democratic and republican party edibles. it is true that about 70% of female elected officials are democrats, whether there is a democrat or republican in front of their names tells us more about how they will vote as opposed to whether they will have an x or y chromosome. what about issues -- he started talking about women

needing to get paid as much as men, and that sort of thing. that has been an issue in this campaign. i mean, democrats ran on equal pay. they ran on minimum wage. do those issues propel a female candidate to run? democrat,she is a maybe, but a lot of those issues propel mail democratic candidates to run as well cared we have reached a time where party polarization has made it such that the sex of a candidate is a most irrelevant in terms of the policy agenda and the way you are she will cast a vote if elected. askingou also do a poll folks about her congressional career -- if the following jobs paid this amount of money, which would you most like to be. what do you think these numbers say? the mostthink important fact coming out of that graph is that young people hold congress in just as low average american citizen does, and this is an indictment against government.

it demonstrates how the solution people are common and it also suggest something has to change if you want the next generation to pick up the mantle of public service. even though the gender differences are important, the more telling finding coming out of the data are that people, young people, have no interest whatsoever in running for office. host: so, the call to serve is not there. guest: i think the call to service their. the call to serve as an elected official is now falling on deaf ears. host:,, kentucky. republican caller. i voted on abortion, the bible speaks against a, of course common sense speaks against it. if i see somebody doing something wrong, and i go along with them, i am just as guilty as they are, so a lot of people have got blood on their hands. i do not understand how anybody can do that. host: we are going to leave it there and move on to jerry in

reno, nevada, independent caller. caller: what about the war on men? host: why do you say that, jerry? caller: there is all this hype about the war on women, which there isn't. men love women. host: ok, so where do you see the war on men? caller: well, because it is always this juncture between keep -- women host: jerry, are you still there? caller: i am still here. women keep saying we are fighting them. we are not fighting them. women have the same opportunities we do. host: ok. guest: there is a polling about differences and politically relevant extrinsic in high school and college and jerry brings me back to that

if you i am wondering are majoring in political science and are more likely to run for office, or if you have a family who is politically active, are you more likely, so yes, there are certain circumstances that propel ambition for men and women, so those are a politicized upbringing, if you take political science classes come if you talk about policies with your family and friends come if you follow a lot of political ifsites or political media, you play a competitive sport it what is interesting and important as that women are less likely than men to have those experiences, so although those experiences propel ambitions for both young men and women, men are more likely to have the ingredients required to do so. host: why is that? guest: and part when they get to shackles come off, women and men get to make their own decisions. in high school, often parents tell you what to do and what are

to be super taken, your teachers tell you, you are competing with your male and female counterparts in high school to get into the best college. once you get to college, you kind of get to do what you want, ambitions stay flat and men go through the roof, and so they gravitate toward the politicized science classes, they migrate toward mock trial and debate and other competitive sports teams where they can really showcase their competitive spirit, and that reinforces or might even trigger running for office. host: we are taking a request and sent comments about women in politics with jennifer lawless. here are the phone numbers for you -- .ostdemocrats, (202) 585-3880 republicans, (202) 585-3881. and independents and all others, (202) 585-3882. the phone lines are open. what percentage of women make up the electorate in this country and what is that percentage in congress? guest: women make up the

majority of the electorate like they do the majority of the population and they are slightly en tolikely than m turn out to vote, but their numbers and all other comparisons pale in comparison. 81% of the u.s. house of representatives are men, 45 of the 50 states have male governors, more than 90 of the largest cities have male mayors, elected officials are men, so there is a clear disconnect. host: when can we expected it to change and be more reflective of the electorate? guest: not anytime soon. what we need to do is really engage in systematic efforts to encourage more women to run for office, and the party needs to make a concerted effort to ensure that they have women on the bench who are ready to run and special elections, who are ready to run an open state contest, and who are ready to take on an vulnerable

incumbents. the majority of women run as democrats, so as long as women's electoral fortune are tied to the clinical environment, we are never going to see substantial gains. this means when democrats have a bad year, women disproportionally have a bad year, so until the democrats in a book and start fielding comparable numbers of female candidates, the opportunities for it is almost absent. host: although this year in 2014 we did see the republicans send part of theenators, 114th congress, and this is the first time for these states, and west virginia and iowa. guest: that is right, and with joni ernst going in iowa, that leaves only mississippi as a state who is never got to washington here to 49 of the 50 states have had one woman in their congressional delegation at least once. host: you say either house or senate. guest: yes. although there have been these two gains on the republican side

of the aisle, even the senate we have a pretty big party differential, so when a new senate convenes in january and 70% will 20 women, still be democrats. host: do we know how many states of never had a female senator? guest: i do not know those numbers, but iowa which is never had a fema governor or female senator and only had one woman in its congressional delegation of the state.-- that is not to say there were not interesting independent gains. joni ernst is the new republican senator, mia love in utah became the first african american woman republican in congress. there are certainly milestones that were achieved. in totality, the election cycle did not fundamentally shift the landscape for women. host: let's hear from shauna

next, republican. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. it sounds like it is not "a war on women come go in my opinion, it sounds like what the guest that there is just a lack of women interested in the political arena because if you think about it, most women graduate from college, a lot more our career minded, but they take on roles that are conducive of heading a family, and a lot of the times when you have republican women like myself, we are scrutinized because we have conservative values and a lot of women who do feel that they have conservative views, they kind of keep it to themselves because they do not want to be criticized for those values. it just seems like in this country if you are a democratic woman, you are allowed basically i am a everyone, hey, democrat and i am interested in

politics, but if you are a republican, you have to keep that closed mouth because you are criticized. -- it is notif we about a party, it is not about being a republican or democrat, it is more about getting women more interested in wanting to country in a direction that best suits the american people, and i think women can do that. women just need incentives to what to be in that arena. guest: a couple of things, and this is actually good news, which i do not offer much of. andfirst is that we found, this is the case in the population as well, very few differences in the interest in politics or willingness to produce a paper between women and men, so the really drop off for women is when we get to running for office. it is not at they are not interested in community events or current affairs or serving their society. but the interesting thing is the gender gap in political ambition

is the same size for democrat and republican come so democratic women are less likely than democratic men to run come in the same is true for republican women. that it played no role, which is somewhat counterintuitive. we have reached the point where women are now accustomed to balancing worklife and responsibility to become the new normal for women, so those impediments are no longer holding women back. the factor means that on both side of the aisle, women are less likely than men to be recruited to run. host: all right, north carolina, marie, an independent. caller: hi. i just wanted to ask the lady t heir opinion on whether we can continue to call our electoral process fair and democratic where we completely excluded such a large portion of the through citizenry

artificially manufacturing such a large prison population of primarily black males, and since black males do make up such a large portion of our citizenry, yet they are often incarcerated -- host: we are talking about women in politics. i don't know if there is summit you want to address there, jennifer lawless. guest: there is no question of voter suppression efforts across the board or the gree re-enfranchisement across the ballots, there is nothing to suggest the man women feel differently or minimum in a popular generic testing their votes are being excluded any differently now. women are taking full advantage of the franchise and their suffrage, they're just not running for office. what about redistricting

and the method of allowing incumbents to really solidify their reelection prospect? has that led to a slower pace of getting women into office? because you have from earlier times, 10, 20 years ago, men who were in politics and are reelected every year, every two years or every six years. guest: right. it is true that the incumbency advantage is an impediment. state level, 16 states have term limits, which is whether incumbency is proving to be a potential barrier, and what scholars have found is that states with term limits actually don't have a better record of electing more female candidates because not only are men term limited out, women are, too, so there are more open seats, but women do not get the benefit from the incumbency advantage, and in open seats, more men think about throwing their hats into the ring, so incumbency

would prove to be more of an impediment than we might see it to be right now if women and men had equal likelihood of running for office. at this point they don't, so term limits or worrying so much of skiers the big issue, which is that women are less likely to even consider a clinical career. -- consider a political career. host: john is next. mader: a caller or two ago my point, when he sees the way republican women are treated by the liberal media, and sarah palin is a glaring example of that, if i were a conservative woman, why would you even consider putting yourself up with the ridicule and things womenhe liberals heap on candidates who are of the conservative bent? host: john, democrats were the same around the way hillary clinton was treated, the things

the media looked at, they would not have done that with a man. guest: that is true, possibly at the presidential level, but i would argue that that is not what actually happens in most cases. hayes, a professor at george washington university, and i have analyzed all of the newspaper coverage in the 2010 midterm elections that all of the candidates received, and we are doing is in thing for 2014, and we found that men and women were equally likely to receive coverage, the same volume of coverage, were equally likely to be talked about with their leadership, the same range of issues, and only 3% of the articles, more than 6000 articles, mentioned the candidates' apparent that all, and men and women were equally likely to garner those missions. while at the presidential level we might scrutinize appearance, we might engage -- we might have a punditry that talks a lot about superficial consideration, the mainstream media simply does

not do it. a lot of reporters do their job, if there did, and there is no incentive to do so. there is no incentive to treatment and women differently if it is going to be calling attention to what will be seen as underlying sexism. if you ask chris christie whether he has been treated well or when we think back to paul ryan, i am not sure those candidates were say that they were not treated a little bit superficially as well. host: what about how the candidates treat each other as a barrier for women to enter politics? it can get nasty. the attack ads that are out there, whether it is on their appearance or not, it can get nasty. guest: it can. it is a contact sport. there are 500 20,000 elected offices in this country, and it is only at the residential level in the only hotly contested that are all offices where we see this kind of contention and debate and fighting and this kind of money being spent. encourage people to do is stop trying to use national politics by the lens in

which they assess everything in the political arena and think about the other half million offices that need occupants, most of the local level, most involved very little money, not a lot of campaigning. host: start small first. guest: you don't even have to add the first. he could just go small if you do not like the idea of the media possibly rifling through your trash pure differently i have got to tell you i ran for congress in 2006, and i lost my race, but when i got really heated and competitive, it would not have bothered me is a reporter was going to my trash. host: where did you run? guest: in rhode island, second congressional district in the democratic primary. host: we go to marcy, independent caller. caller: good morning here it i have been interested in politics as i was a child, and i am now 59 years old. that withted to say all of the special interest money being in the race is now with the citizens united

decision, you have to be and really beors out there asking for money, and i think -- i had the opportunity cosmetics one time, and i just went on and paid for it myself versus asking people for money. ithink that is a barrier, and do agree that you start small, maybe with the school board, county elections and that come of thing -- type of thing. example, if as an have a hard time asking for money from people. thank you. guest: i had a very difficult time, too. the first eight months of my to dogn i did not want it. then when we could not pay the rent, i had to start picking up the phone. it is a terrible experience, but you get accustomed to it and it is part of the job.

when you do not like doing it, but men do not like doing it, either. money and politics might account for why we do not have the best candidates in the highest qualitpeople we might want to see, but it does not do much to account for that gender gap. and women are just as effective as men when they decide to raise money. host: what about if hillary clinton to make a second bid for the presidency? 2016, wase to win in sort of message do you think that was sent to women to get involved? guest: i think it would send an important message and a very vital one because it would illustrate that the united states actually walks the walk. we would have cracked the highest, hardest glass ceiling, as hillary clinton called it in 2008. it is important for everyone to keep in mind that if she runs and if she wins, although that achieves one level of success, and that is a huge milestone, that is only part of the problem. that is not automatically mean we are then going to see 40% of the u.s. congress he women or that we are going to have 50% of state legislators women.

there is nothing to suggest that she alone can trigger political ambition and interest in the next generation and the generation after that the pipeline a female presidential candidates is not very deep on either side of the aisle. most presidential candidates are governors are currently will have five female governors, one who will be starting her first term, and the other two are relatively recent to the governor's mansions in their own states. host: all right, cameron in california, democratic caller. hi, there. caller: good morning and good morning, jennifer. guest: good morning. caller: i have been listening to you come in here is what i see. it all has to come down with colonialism, and that is what you guys are fighting with, the women trying to get into politics. it is already an uphill battle. i hope you guys get it, i hope hillary clinton gets in there and wins. she even went, you will

see people on tv, looking at their spouses. look at hillary's spouse, why would shouldn't we vote for her? her spouse used to be the president of the united states. going in anden getting into politics, and here is what i see, in this is what i have heard, when i talk politics with my friends, is -- why are women in politics? that is what i hear a lot. host: and what is the answer, cameron? caller: my answer is i think that they are in there because they will do a heck of a lot better than the menfolk have. look where we are at now. host: all right, kristin gillibrand tweeted this out recently -- research shows that when more women are elected to office, more legislation gets passed that actually helps families. does the research shows that? guest: over time, women have

been more likely than tmen to prioritize issues that have to do with family and children. there are not that many interparty differences anymore, but within each party, women are more likely to focus on those issues.inds of there has been commentary about --ocrat and republican women republican women are just as likely as a rubble in meant to win their primaries and just as successful in the general election. host: angela in georgia, republican. caller: good morning, jennifer. guest: good morning. caller: i just feel that women who have to work -- families are somehow affected, and i think unless your children are grown, that being an elected official even makes it harder for the families. what is your opinion of that?

guest: you are right in that women are still disproportionately responsible for the household tasks and labor, and that is the case even for her profile working women who have reached the pinnacle's of professional success, but the havenews is that they figured out a way to balance this, so our studies show that women who are married, who are not married, and let children, who don't have children, who have children who are no longer home, women who shoulder the majority of the response ability for women who don't, are all equally less likely than men to be interested in running for office, so this is not to say that we do not have a problem in this country and that there has been no kind of shift on the homefront in terms of the distribution of labor, but it is to suggest that that is not what is keeping women from running for office. host: what about women who are elected to congress and the positions that they hold with in congress, whether it is leadership roles or the top republican or democrat on a committee? guest: this election cycle was

actually bad for women in that way because again the majority of women are democrats, so in the senate, they lost the committee position that they had when the republicans come to power they will no longer hold those positions. given security plus being a democrat pretty much determines whether or not you hold these positions, women are just not going to fare valerie well. we've only had one woman, nancy pelosi, who has been speaker of the house. chaired aughter committee in the house, but we have a lot of work to do on that front. host: her race has not been called for this election cycle. guest: right. --ez is not been called, and her race has not been called. ourl onis is the

line for democrats. caller: i am really -- i do not think that we havea woman as head of state here -- the only reason that -- a woman as president of the united states i do not think is possible because we have heads of state are women, and that is what the states need because we to be a headwomen --state as well as minorities are handled the same way. host: ok, jennifer lawless? guest: it is important to remember that when we say we do not value women as head of state , we really only have one so wee and one case, should be clear how these variances of hillary clinton in 2008 might not be indicative of the spirits of of a female

presidential candidate or even her eighth rinses if she decides to run in 2016. not only was she incredibly unique because she was a senator, a former first lady, her husband was beloved and knocked and be loved again, but in ae was also involved primary campaign against a candidate like nobody ever seen before, who also by one election would make history, so it is important for us i think not to take too much about gender from what happened in 2008 and assume it will apply in other circumstances. host: has any research been done on the impact of having sarah palin as the vp candidate? there have been other female bp candidates, too. any research that shows that has had a negative or positive impact? guest: it really does not matter because in a presidential level, partisan vote their party, and by the end of the election cycle, sarah palin's presence on the ticket was not shoring up in

a kind of independent support. it might have motivated the base initially. host: thomas, you are our last four jennifer lawless. caller: i am only 22, but in my experience, i have noticed that we tend to raise young girls and more feminine roles. we give young girls dolls and teach them how to cook and do all these things while we are giving men interactive tools like legos and interactive video more that spawn critical thinking or how big of a role will talk at education play in getting women involved in politics in the future? andt: childhood education parental enforcement and socialization patterns of , but wey matter did not see the gender gap in high school students, so that suggests that up through high school with the girls are not necessarily being socialized if early or if they are, it is not having a differential effect on

their ambitions. what happens is when they have more freedom and they are not sort of pulled in by that kind of socialization we see a regression to the mean and what we would expect in terms of these gendered roles. intervention on college campuses early on to sustain and trigger women's interest in politics are the way to go. host: jennifer lawless with >> in just about 45 minutes, both the house and senate gavel in for a short but busy lame-duck session of the 113th congress. the house back at 4:00 for legislative work. five bills on their agenda today including one dealing with presidential records. the senate, meanwhile, in at 2:00. later this afternoon will take up work on a couple of judicial nominations. the house and senate also working off the floor on leadership elections for the next congress, the 114th congress. follow the house here on c-span nd the senate on c-span 2.

senator, mitch mcconnell welcoming new members, senators-elect, to capitol hill. this will not include dan sullivan who overnight was announced by the associated press in the winner in that race in alaska with incumbent mark begich. he has not conceded the race. let's listen to senator mcconnell and the new senators. >> let me just say this is a

lot happier occasion, for example, the last 2006 election when we had president, secretary of treasury, bob corker. we are really excited about having a great new bunch here and we hope they're going to be joined, dan sullivan, and bill cassidy, shortly. we're here to make the place function again and to begin to make progress with the american people. >> leader mcconnell, you said you're ready to work with the president. and work towards the middle. are you planning on moving toward the middle too? >> the problem is the president continues to send signals that he has no intention of moving toward the middle. i was particularly distressed about the deal apparently he's reached with the chinese on his current trip which as i read the agreement, requires the chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years while these carbon emission regulations are

creating havoc in my state and other states around the country. i would welcome the president moving to the middle. i said before i hope we can do the business on trade and maybe tax reform. first indication has not been very hopeful. >> mr. leader, how do you expect to deal with the china issue? are you going to try to roll back -- [inaudible] >> we'll be discussing that with our colleagues in the next few days before we get ready to take over the new majority. >> all right. thanks, everybody. thanks very much. thank you. [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> how does it feel to be here?

>> thank you very much. let's go. thank you. >> the scene in mitch mcconnell's office this morning welcoming the new senators-elect and the one race outstanding is virginia dan sullivan winning in alaska -- excuse me -- the louisiana race is still to be decided. looking ahead to the new members coming to congress, this is mia love. she got elected as the member of the fourth district in utah. one of the tweets you'll find at twitter.com/cspan. she said i was elected because of the solutions i put on the table. that's mia love, representative for the fourth district. you'll find more at twitter.com/cspan and a look at the new member tweets. coming up tomorrow we'll continue our look at the 114th congress. our guests will include ohio democrat tim ryan, a member of the budget and appropriations committees. then the longest tenured

republican house speaker, dennis hastert, will join us at 8:30 eastern. and paul will talk about net neutrality. the show is "washington journal," live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. >> the 2015 c-span student cam video competition is under way open to all middle and high school students to create a five to seven-minute documentary on the theme "the three branches and you," showing how policies, law or action by the executive, legislative or judicial branch of the federal government has affected you or your community. there's 200 cash prizes for students and teachers totaling $100,000. for the list of rules and how to get started, go to studentcam.org. >> well, the u.s. house begins its work in the lame-duck session, coming up at 2:00 eastern. they'll gavel in for brief speeches. legislative work this afternoon at 4:00. for a preview of what's ahead in the lame-duck session, we

spoke with david drucker of "washington examiner" this morning on "washington journal." >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with david drucker to talk about the lame-duck congress. what is the biggest item on the agenda? it depends on what you talk to and what the election democratsan for the to ram through before the majority expires. they need to pass more spending because the continuing resolution, basically the bill that is funding the government, runs out december 11. tight to that is the -- tied to that is the approval to arm and train the syrian rebels to fight the islamic state of iraq and syria. i know members want to vote on a measure that would grant the

president new authority to fight this war, which is essentially what it is, even though the administration says they have all the approval they need going back about 10 years. so, i think for republicans and for democrats, they will have to decide -- we need to fund the government, do we do something big, clear the decks, get a lot of things done, and let it run deep into next year through the end of the fiscal year, or do they do something short set the full republican congress that will convene in january with republicans controlling the senate and the house, and then vote on something more expansive and have the power to direct spending that way? host: go ahead. guest: i was going to say related to that is to deal with crisis. isis.is a feeling -- there is a feeling among republicans that it should be the newly elected congress that

should deal with that long-term and not the outgoing congress. all of this is part of the calculation. finally, i would throw you in on whether the president follows through with his promise to illegal immigrants some form of amnesty or the right to any in the country through executive action. that would depend on how republicans in the house in particular deal with the government funding bill in december, and that could really affect the politics of this, and it could affect how republicans look at things in december and affect whether they want to do something short term to get to january, or have the fight right then and there. host: both sides are waiting for an opening salvo. has there been that yet? the president said he would act on immigration. guest: he has done that and both

mitch mcconnell, the incoming majority leader, and speaker john boehner said do not do it, it will cause problems. whether or not you think this is the right thing to do, whether or not you think republicans are correct in not wanting the president to do this, the truth is if you talk to not just very conservative republicans, people affiliate with the tea party, but the establishment-minded republicans, people that do not want to pick unnecessary fights, talk to them what a large-scale legalization move, up to 5 million -- talk about what that would mean. that would mean to them the president was infringing upon their constitutional authority and place in our system of government and it would leave them no choice but to fight back, and to fight back aggressively, using really the only means that they have, which is the power of the purse. that is when the expiring resolution -- continuing resolution -- excuse me, becomes a very big deal.

it also means, they could decide let not have the fight in january. so, everything gets caught up in this back-and-forth over immigration, isis, ebola funding, funding the federal government? guest: i think thi ebola fundinn be done separately. most want the government to effectively deal with a ebola so we can probably deal with that separately without getting it cut off. also, fighting isis is something that could be dealt with separately. again, there is wide, bipartisan agreement that has to be dealt with. there could be differences in terms of how it should be funded, how the war should be prosecuted. a lot of this will depend on for.the president asks

because republicans control the house and will control the senate, they will not give the president a blank check , but they want the president to spell out the war-fighting powers he wants approval for, and that is probably something the democrats will demand as well. the vote to grant the president additional authority for isis which everyone wants and necessary, ands the administration has said is good for the country, it depends on if the administration sends a resolution, and depending on what it says, congress would tweak it on the floor, so it is a long process. you could separate that out from other things along with ebola, but immigration could affect everything else. out: could use separated

from the money needed to fight isis because the administration wants another $6 million for this. guest: there could be some quibbling on either side of the aisle about the money, but the big thing is what is the strategy. you will see hawkish republicans -- if you look at how the senate an taliban,you have anorak war veteran, putting that together with the -- dan iraqvan, and a rack -- an war veteran, putting that together, it becomes easier to spend money on the military and a war on terror type of action. i do not think that is as problematic as it would have orn, let's say a year ago, two years ago, when republicans were looking to cut everything including the military and the libertarian wing at an extended influence on foreign policy. host: the lame-duck congress

convenes today. david drucker taking your comments and questions about what this congress will do. the phone lines are open. start dialing in now. talk about the other factions of the party. you say the republicans would like to do certain things. when it comes to the continuing resolution, in passing some sort of funding bill, is the tea party of the republican party on board with the spending that they want to do? guest: well, we do not know until we know what the bill looks like. if we are talking about what is going to happen in december, the tea party and the budget option the republican side will still wield enormous influence in terms of getting 218 republican votes on the house side. you still have a democratic senate and a republican house. the president, i am sure, just wants to make sure the government is funded.

it could be easier to do something that is bipartisan, sort of, across-the-board. it is the same way we saw the last continuing resolution get a broad, bipartisan majority, because nobody wanted to shut of thee government ahead elections. a much of an internal fight the republicans have -- how much of an internal fight republicans have depend on what they do after the new congress convenes. host: we'll get to phone calls in a minute, but let's talk about what happens this week. guest: ok. host: much on the floor. what is happening off of the floor? guest: new member initiation. it is like the first day of school. you are dealing with eight new republican senators elect, and at least one dozen republican members of the house that are members elect, and at least two .emocrats that i know of

they will be here to figure out where their office spaces, where the bathrooms are, when recess is, when do they get to eat lunch, and they will start to put together their staffs and try to figure out the mechanics of running a congressional office. --ngs like writing a bill you read a bill and it reads like chinese. they need to hire people that know how to do that and turned their visions and agenda into legislation. host: who teaches them all of that? guest: well, i know in the senate each member-elect, each new member, if i'm not mistaken, as a, sort of, mentor that they work with, both of their party and of the other party. it is what they try to do in the senate to keep things collegial content issupposedly nature of the senate, and it helps them establish relationships, which in the

senate are extremely important. in the house, i think it is something similar, but you end up with leadership staff working with new members to help them higher chiefs of staff, and other aids that are going to help guide them. itt: and this orientation, is not like it is one day -- it is about two weeks time. guest: correct. they said in a lot of classes, get a lot of direction. i do not want to over-simplify it or diminish it, but in some ways it reminds me of college orientation. i remember 20-something years ago, before my first day at school, you know, they sent us through one or two days of classes to help us navigate the university, figure out where everything was, and how to go about it, she what we were there to do. get to calls. sharon in minneapolis, democratic caller. thank: good morning, and

you, c-span, for taking my call. i have two questions -- ok, i want to know more about what president obama wants to do with the immigrants, the illegal immigrants that are in the united states. i want to know what the republicans want to do, and what is the pro and cons of doing nothing? also, my second question is about health care. if the republicans appeal the health-care law, what will happen to all of these people that do not have insurance? i does not affect me because am 66, and you know, my insurance is fine, but what will happen, and how long will it whento get things running they do come up with some suggestions on health care? host: ok. all right, sharon. the health-care bill will

not be repealed because the president will not sign it. the senate will try to move it on the same time that they try to move their own suggestions for overhauling health care post-obamacare, but the president is not going to sign any of it, so the most you're going to see, possibly, is a repeal of the medical device tax that helps fund the affordable care act, and possibly rewriting the law to move the official work week back from $40 to 30 hours, which republicans think has been a huge drag on hiring and employment. continue to try to repeal all the way up to 2016? think first of all, i you're going to see repeal votes because republicans voted against this or ran on repealing it, and they just won a pretty big victory so there is no reason for them to feel they should not hold is votes.

they will control the senate and the full congress, so they have the power to put a repeal bill on the floor and put other health care overhauls on the floor, and i think you see them try to move it through. if they can get it to the president's desk, which is not necessarily that possible, but if they can get it partially to the president's desk, he will veto it. republicans will have to try to sell the overhaul and hope they get something done after the presidential election in 2016. with immigration, with the president is looking to do is take a broader population of undocumented immigrants and so that their status they can live in the united states has legal residents. the question is, does he do something small on the level of 500,000 or so, but does he go two 5 big, 1, 2, 3, 4, up

million, which is what a lot of democrats think he will do. it depends on your opinion of that policy as to how good or bad it is. republicans, although they have different ideas for immigration reform and whether or not the system should be reformed than the president does, the issue for them, if the president goes big, he comes constitutional in their minds. it is not so much we do not agree with your policy. it is you do not have the legal authority to do this. therefore, we have to fight it. host: some of our viewers will be interested in this story on the front page of "the washington times" this morning that, in order from the obama administration, according to comments made during this

lawsuit. "the washington times" has that front-page story if you're interested this morning. daniel, virginia beach. republican. you are up next. caller: hello. thank you for taking my call. i do not think there is a thing wrong now that could not be fixed if he would simply reform entitlements. there is too much money going out of the treasury. it increases every year. the other day i was looking at some numbers on paper. i made a couple of tweaks that would save hundreds of billions of dollars every year if we just find the courage to do that. thank you. host: ok, daniel. what do you think, david drucker? guest: republicans are going to try to move some bills. i do not know how much will make to the president desk, how much he will sign, but with paul ryan

as the chair of ways and means, which will happen, you will see house republicans act on this. you will see senate republicans put her on the floor and move elements of entitlement reform. floor and movee elements of entitlement reform. the question is, can it pass? democrats, i am sure, will use the filibuster just as aggressively as democrats have -- republicans have in the minority. host: paul ryan will be heading up the tax-writing committee, the ways and means committee in the house. what about tax reform? somewhere mitch mcconnell talked about as an area where he hopes the public and the democrats can find consensus, and there is a hope with the changing of the guard on capitol hill and more of a truly divided government you could get the president to come around on tax reforms impacting

individuals that he has not been in favor on. the big disagreement on tax reform is that the president is all about corporate tax reform, which the republicans are, too, but he has wanted no part of their plans for individual tax reform -- glowing individual -- lowering individual tax code, broaden the base, flattening out the code. so, it is possible -- and democrats in the senate also have no desire to do that, at least not the leadership. hoping, in are controllable houses, they could negotiate a compromise. of wyden, the ranking member the senate financing committee, who could play a key role, has been where the republicans are on tax reform, generally speaking. baucus, the last top democrat on finance, but harry reid has never been there. the changinge atmospherics on the hill could help bring this about.

it is at least something republicans are pushing as "hey, here is a big area we can compromise." they want to find some areas of compromise to prove to the american people they are wavingng among not just a red dashed governing, not just waving a red flag. host: orrin hatch -- guest: he is a dealmaker. he famously cut deals with ted kennedy. orrin hatch is the quintessential senator -- he is a dealmaker, conservative, but he feels he is there to legislate. it is something he would like to do, but again, it is going to come down to whether or not the president is interested in this and that opens up space for 60 votes. democrats will need -- you will need to find six or seven democrats, maybe up to 10, depending on where the republicans are, to do bipartisan tax reform bills, and it seems that is how you will see tax reform, in the senate,

it is bipartisan. jesup, georgia. democratic caller. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: let me get my thoughts -- i want my republican -- do what the republicans did, of struct, obstruct, of struct. this is mike much into you, mr. drucker. i have heard -- this is my question to you, mr. drucker. i have heard the republicans have sent bills and they will not come to the floor, but you have heard of the whip count. of the bills, how many were for abortion? 40-something for a motion. obamacare.l

i cannot remember how many it was for the keystone pipeline. this is my question to you, namely -- name me one bill the republican house sent the senate to create jobs. not two bills, but one. please do that for me, sara. host: i did not -- all right. guest: i did not come with my cheat sheet, but the republicans will tell you they said dozens of bills to the senate that were never brought up for a vote and caused him frustration to know -- especially republicans who had not been in congress and came here with a schoolhouse rock view of how things were going to work -- where if we pass a bill, they have devoted down -- democrats did not choose to do that. passed on the house side conservative priorities like pro-life issues, repealing the affordable care act, and other things that democrats

would find either politically offensive work, just to prove a political -- or, just to prove a political point. i think it is fair to say the same way house republicans did not want to do anything senate democrats wanted, that senate democrats did choose to ignore a number of economic and jobs related bills passed by republicans because he simply did not agree with them, but they did choose to ignore them, and it did happen. do we know -- assuming that harry reid becomes the minority leader for democrats, what will will he play? harry reid is a very skillful parliamentarian. he was a minority leader before and ran circles around then send majorityate republican leader bill frist. he was effective at wielding the filibuster and keeping bill frist with a 55-member majority, -- iur member republicans

renumber republicans thinking they could do anything they want, and harry reid nature that did not happen. -- made sure that did not happen. they have found that even if you have majorities, if you do not have 60, there are a lot of things you cannot do. i think you will see harry reid, as minority leader, if he is reelected this week, which we expect him to be reelected, i think you will see him be a very able follow to mitch mcconnell oe to mitch-- fo mcconnell as majority leader. it will be somewhat entertaining and i am going to enjoy it. when harry reid was the ,inority leader to bill frist many times he threatened a

nuclear action. he never actually pulled the trigger. senator harry reid did. i cannot tell you how much it made senate republicans want to slow things down even more. some democrats say they could not have slowed it down even more. but said republicans reacted to -- nuclear option by saying senate republicans reacted to the nuclear option by saying we will cooperate even less. the question has been, for mitch mcconnell, because he was opposed to that move, will the reverse it? will a vote to put the rules back to the way they were? it is something he said will be discussed. he said he wants to rinse it to regular order, give committee chairman there power back, "to amendment. -- open up the floor to amendments. there are political reasons to

think that will happen. whether or not he sets the rules back, i am not sure. the one thing that is different this time around for harry reid as minority leader and republican majority leader, there is a democrat in the white house, not a republican, so it will be different in terms of the decisions made and how they are viewed by the public. host: really quick, leadership elections are this week, and house republicans next week, and next week house democrats. any races to watch, or will we see the same leadership team? guest: it looks like we will see the same leadership teams. on the republican side, you will see a lot of status -- status big.ecause they won sometimes they are rewarded when they lose. they are definitely rewarded when they win. you are saying a race for the nationalhip of the

republican senatorial committee between dean heller, the republican from nevada, and roger wicker, the republican from mississippi. interesting thing about dean heller is if harry reid is on the ballot in 2016, he is from nevada as well, there is no love lost between those two, and that would make things interesting. i know whicker is trying to tell his colleagues he is one of the they were able to survive a run up against a tea party candidate. scarsdale, new york. cragg, a republican. thanks for hanging with me. caller: thank you very much for taking my question. my question is, is there another part to the nuclear option, where if they wanted to go further, there is a way to do that?

someone said they did not go all of the way last time as far as pushing the envelope. host: all right. david drucker? the one thing harry reid did not do -- let's be clear what the nuclear option is. it takes a vote of 167 members to change a senate rule. senate rules are not written. you create your parliamentarian rules within it. when harry reid did was change the senate along a simple majority. that is really what was nuclear because if they had done it with 67 votes, they never would have had the votes to do it harry reid did, which was to bring the number of votes it takes to break a filibuster down from 60, basically to 51. what harry reid did affected executive branch nominees, including executive branch nominees for judges, except for the supreme court.

so, what could be done to go further? you could basically take away the ability to have a 60-vote filibuster for supreme court nominees. i do not expect republicans to do that. there are actually republican and democratic analysts who would probably be in favor of doing that, and just say let the president have what he wants to we fight it out in the elections, but i do not expect mitch mcconnell to push this further, but you never know what another congress, another majority leader does not the rubicon has been cross. host: brandywine, maryland. you are up, joe. caller: good morning, greta, c-span, and mr. drucker. one of the problems we have with our government is we need a realignment. the supreme court has become the head of congress, and they are the ones making the laws, and congress is supposed to make the laws. they need to realign the thing,

and put it back into -- example -- give us an example of where the supreme court is making the law. take for --caller: instance, the affordable health care. host: ok, let's take that example. guest: that decision will come down in the spring, for the end of june, and it will deal with whether or not the federal government has to follow the letter of the law which said to receive a subsidy to purchase health insurance you need to be buying insurance from a state exchange. many people are buying from the federal and change put in place to deal with states that did not create their own exchanges, except the medicaid expansion. so, i think the question here is what does the supreme court decide, and do they make any decisions that are similar to what the supreme court did in the main obamacare decision,

which was ruled that it is not a mandate, but attacks. they said they were not raising taxes, but forcing you to buy a product. thread the chief justice areneedle, he said mandates illegal, but taxes are fine and i am calling it a tax. that is how it survived. some people want the supreme court to interpret the purpose of the law, even if it was not written in a certain way. others want people to interpret the law as written, and sometimes laws can be open to interpretation because they are so unclear, and it is the --reme court's job to make a what we refer to as a final interpretation at least until another law is passed. have about 15 minutes here or so with david drucker of "washington examiner."

taking questions about congress -- the lame-duck returning to washington. they will be in session for about 12 legislative days, out for thanksgiving, and then adjourning for good in mid- december. george. knoxville, tennessee. independent. greta. good morning, i guess the question i have for david is, in my view, the biggest security problem, and the biggest problem for this country is our huge debt. i know the administration has been making a lot of noise the last two years because of the improving economy and some .egree of control by the house they have reduced the annual deficit, but we still have in the order of active a billion dollars -- i mean half of a trillion dollars a year of annual deficit.

do you think the lame-duck congress,or the next is going to do anything effective on the national debt? know, effective is the operative question. i would not look for anything in the lame-duck. i do know republicans say in the new congress there plan is to try to rein in federal spending and try to rein in the regulatory regime that has built up over the -- under the current administration. if you're looking for areas where republicans will openly pick fights with the obama administration, it is going to be on spending, because the main power congress has is the power to set spending limits. look for them to attack us. the question is whether or not they can reduce spending over the long term and reduce the debt -- it is a different question. the president still has a veto

and a large role to play. a federale spring for budget that he proposes to see how much different it is from the budget resolution you can expect the congress to pass next year. see how -- far apart they are to see where they might end up coming together. there is always a difference in washington in terms of spending, because you know, one man's waste of money, is another man's necessary object and program. i think it is the best way for the country to deal with the debt problem -- more jobs, and faster economic growth, because that speeds the increase of tax revenues into the federal government. host: on our line for republicans. bill. virginia beach. caller: thanks for taking my call. how are you? host: good morning. caller: i will make a statement and then ask a question. my statement is i do not think a

whole lot will be a college in the next two years, mainly because until we get a republican -- accomplished in the next two years in the mainly because until we get a republican in the white house we will have a problem getting enough votes to overcome -- presidential veto. i think it will be mostly gridlock for the next two years. my question is do you know of any ideas that are on the drawing board or republican bills that have been conveniently pushed under the desk by the democrats and not brought to the floor for consideration which would reduce the cost of health care under the new health-care law? i will stand by and listen to your answer. host: all right, bill. guest: it is a great question, because what republicans have been trying to grapple with is how do they fix health care from their vantage point in a post-obamacare environment. plans, and there were a lot of them, were based --a paris obamacare

three-obamacare world. or republicans were trying to figure out what to do was what do we propose to overhaul the new system, because what they are posing to do -- and there is one bill out there put together by a group of conservative republicans in what we call the republican study committee, which is a collective of the more conservative elements of the house republicans congress, everyone is a member these days. they had a bill dealing with the health care system as it stands today. a lot of the proposals have to do with -- just loosely speaking, giving them the ability to purchase insurance across state lines and having more control over which dr. dacey, and things of that make -- which dr. they see, and things of that nature. any bill that would go away with the end of this congress would be reintroduced.

what i would look for, if you're looking for republican proposes to do with health care as it currently is, and there is a huge amount of support in public to continue reforming health care -- look for a joint proposal coming from paul ryan and marco rubio next year. both of them might run for president. one of them might run for president, but they both spent a lot of time on this. you might not like it, but it will probably be the very first serious proposal to reform the obamacare system of health care the republicans have put out. in the partylout stared a bill like that could go far, especially paul ryan in ways and means. host: let's talk about immigration again. we learned that chuck grassley the senator from iowa, decided not to try for them finance committee chair should. he will stick with you dish era, the committee immigration legislation will have to go through. he is adamantly opposed. he was around 1986 when they

passed immigration reform with ronald reagan, and he said anything is amnesty. he is up in 2016. he could have been in charge of a panel like finance where he could have cut a deal in tax reform, it decided to stay as chairman of the judiciary committee and be the foe for obama on immigration. does that set him up well for 2016? guest: i think, especially if chuck grassley is going to be looking over his shoulder in 2016 with a republican primary, it does. i do not know if he has to worry about a primary. they love him there. if tom harkin had not retired, he would be easily reelected. chuck grassley, who was the republican on the debate, he made a decision on where he wants to be in the work he wants to do. he has been here so long. it is interesting because there are a lot of agricultural interests in iowa, but chuck

grassley feels very strong about this. i think it signals what most people already know -- republicans are not going to be moving a, sort of, broad-based, comprehensive immigration reform bill like the one that passed the senate in 2013 again. you could look for president bill having to do with border bills,y -- targeted maybe having to do with employment revocation and things like that, but you will not see -- employment verification, and things like that, you will not see what the president wants, which is a broad bill. does notck grassley have a republican challenger yet, but "the des moines boblenger" reported that krause is exploring a run. he explored this last year and threw his support behind the credit candidate jack hatch.

frank, fort lauderdale. i need clarification. the press makes like even though the republicans have both houses, no legislation can be passed. what exactly do they need in the senate in votes to override vetoes? 67 votes tot: override vetoes, which means you will nd 12 more votes than they currently are going to have. well, currently, they will need 13 more votes. if bill cassidy wins a runoff in louisiana and ousts senator mary landrieu, they will need 12 more votes. the key then is they would need six more votes to get to 60. democrats had a 60 vote majority and it was how they were able to get most of the affordable care act through. there is a narrow window, early next year, with the budget

resolution, to avoid a filibuster and pass a piece of legislation with 51 votes. it is not a grab bag. basically, one, thing. they will probably use it to pass an obamacare repeal -- not a full repeal, but a basic gutting of the law by getting rid of the individual mandate and a couple of other provisions. the president will veto it, but basically you're dealing with the need for six more votes and to override a veto in the senate you need to get to 67, and you need to get to something on the nature of 290 or something in the house to override a veto. host: one last phone call for you here comes from jordan in d.c. democratic caller. caller: hi, am i on the air? host: you are, go ahead. i have a two-part question given congressional accountability given the fact that we have a lame-duck congress. is there any truth to the rumor that mr. mitch mcconnell's father-in-law shipped drugs into

kentucky and contributed about $2 million to his campaign? stop youdan, can i --where did you hear >> "washington journal" live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. we'll leave this house as the house and senate are -- leave this house as the house and senate are coming back. the house will start legislative work at 4:00. first up some one-minute speeches. live to the house floor here on c-span. father conroy: god of universe we give you thanks for giving us another day. a full week later we are thankful that we live in a nation where a peaceful change or readjustment of government is not only expected but achieved. may it ever be so. bless the members of this assembly as they return to the work facing them, work that ne