rights __ everything that our forefathers fought for, and all the people died for. our freedom is going down the drain. people are not praying. they are not asking god to help us. host: that was the comment from jermaine from kentucky. coming up next, we will preview the state of the union address what to top political operatives. republican john feehery and jim manley. later, we know terrorism has hit the heart of europe, we will talk to a counterterrorism expert, rick nelson. all weekend long, "american history tv" and book tv are featuring the history of wheeling, west virginia. today, at 2:00 pm we will

feature all of our history tv program from wheeling in one block. ♪ [video clip] ♪ >> the first project funded by the federal government for growth production was the national road that extended from cumberland, maryland to wheeling, virginia. one of the reasons for that was that ohio had become a stay in 1803, the country was moving west, we needed to find a way to tie these western areas into the capital. the easiest way of doing that in the early 19th_century was

to put in a road. it would extend from baltimore to cumberland, to uniontown, in 1818 a came here to wheeling. when it came to wheeling __ at that time, about 15 years old __ it would give the community what it needed to grow. the population of wheeling would almost triple. host: make sure you tune into "american history tv" today to see this and other programs from wheeling, west virginia. you can also go to c_span.org to see all the programming we had done on our c_span cities tour. >> on the martin luther king

holiday, we are featuring all_day programming. monday morning at 9:00 am, cornell west on african_american leaders and their impact. at 4:00 pm comment vanity fair contributor gail sheehy. on "american history tv", monday morning at 8:00 eastern, one __ juanita jones abernathy. just after 2:00 pm, former state of the union addresses. at 8:00 pm, a conversation on ferguson. find a complete television schedule at c_span.org.

let us know what you think about our programming. call in, email us, or send us a tweet. join the c_span conversation. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> "washington journal" continues. host: jim manley is with us at the table and republican strategist john __ john feehery. we have been talking about the present tax proposals coming out ahead of the state of the union. what is your reaction? guest: one the president ran for office, he said he wanted to spread the wealth around. finally, we have the proposal that tries to spread it around a bit. i think it is a mischievous

proposal, released on the saturday before the state of the union. obviously, he wants it to show up on the sunday programs. he did not propose this when the democrats ran the congress. i will say, i think something will happen on taxes __ i don't think it will be this. something will happen with tax reform. i think republicans will tackle this immediately. guest: i think it is a good opening bid to try and contrast different policies that divide republicans and democrats. i agree that it will not go anywhere, but it is a great way to jump art __ jump start the debate. i agree with john that it is

possible to get something done on taxes, this is not it. it is a good way to start the debate. host: we will talking about a lot of different issues on the hill, we welcome your calls. we will continue to take your tweets for john feehery, a republican strategist, and jim manley, a democratic strategist. you have seen both of them on the program before. we know the jim manley spent six years as an advisor on the hill. john feehery was vice president of communications at policy impact communications. he was communications director for tom delay. lots of issues here. before we get the calls, i want your early take on the short

session of congress. how are they doing? guest: pretty much as expected. that is the house democrats and republicans are unable to get on the same page. we have an interesting issue coming up this week with the keystone pipeline. that is low hanging fruit, that the leadership has decided to adjust earlier. the bill will get out of the senate the question is whether or not they will get the votes necessary to overcome a presidential veto. there is a fundamental issue here that has not been addressed __ our speaker boehner and senator mcconnell able to get their caucuses in line in order to compromise, or will they let the inmates run the asylum? after last week, if anyone thinks the house schoolbe able

to do much of anything, they need to get their head examined. host: how about that mcconnell_boehner relationship? guest: i think it is like he said, predictable. it was a little bit of a rocky start for the speaker. it shows you that the republican party is not as unified as it needs to be if it will be successful in competing against president obama. i think mitch mcconnell said that he will have an open process, thus far he has kept his word. i didn't open process is important. not only does it allow everyone to express their opinions, it also allows both sides to cut deals.

the idea of a legislature process is that you have the extremes of both sides, and you work out something in the middle. i think you saw that in the house. the homeland security bill that jim mentioned __ they had a lot of controversial amendments added to it. i don't think it can survive the senate. now, they have to hurry because we had a terrorist attack in paris, and we do not want our homeland security shut down due to a political impasse. ultimately, both sides will have to come together and get something done. host: lets hear from gerald first. caller: good morning. how are you on this beautiful day? i am here from fort bragg's __ the spearhead of the defense of all of america.

i am a vietnam vet. first of all, america has grown stupid because we got rid of the fairness doctrine. there should be a simple one implemented. eminent domain with keystone __ this is forcing private property owners to sell their property to a foreign entity, they should not have to do that. third, what is keeping democrats from implementing the same tactics that republicans and limited against obama __ you have to have 60 votes others 70 votes. about taxes __ i'm on the side of marie antoinette when she said, let them eat cake. you know, they did eat cake. based on her house and garden from her covered while they cut

her head. host: we may not have time for all of them, but go ahead and take those comments __ guest: what will be the driving force __ i think in the end it is that democrats understand the need to get something done. if the house republicans overreach and start to send bad stuff over to the senate, they will just die a slow painful death. i think bigger __ the most important relationship in washington will be between speaker boehner and mitch mcconnell. we saw some tensions growing out of the republican congress last week __ the two_day conference that they held last week.

house republicans still so the grasp of 60 votes. they want to send everything over to the senate and expects senate republicans to pick it up, that does not work. host: we know there was a procedural vote in the senate this week, they got 63 votes. where do you think this is going in terms of a presidential veto? the threshold will be higher, correct? guest: you need two thirds of a vote in the house and senate to override a veto. i'm not even sure they can get that in the house. i think the ultimately on keystone, it is important for both sides to lay down their markers as long as we can get a presidential veto and an override vote, we know where that republicans are. keystone will not be the end_all be_all for mankind.

it is a symbolic issue on where you stand on energy issues and jobs. but, this will be a familiar refrain. we have not had a veto fight in a long time. harry reid was able to snuff out a lot of legislation. this will be interesting. the last time we had this kind of thing was with bill clinton and the republican congress. guest: can i say one thing about keystone? i agree that the bill will probably not even get out of the senate. what i will be watching for is after it is vetoed, whether republicans and the administration try to find a way to compromise. a veto, as the "new york times" pointed out, is a mechanism to try and bring people to the table to compromise. host: dave calling from michigan.

caller: i think it is a laugh that some democrat would be complaining about the 60 votes after harry reid was in senate for the last six years. i've never seen anything more frustrating than reid and how he ran the senate, and suffocated every piece of legislation out of the house. he wouldn't let anything get discussed. there should be no complaints about how the senate gets run. host: there is a tweet here. one viewer wants to >> i would respectfully suggest that republicans have not stepped forward in a meaningful way to try to define and/or find

come from eyes. what we saw was when extreme measure after another came out of the house. senate republicans were not able to try to find compromise. what i suffer my time working with senator reid is starting from the very beginning was the house and senate republican leaders tried to undermine the president on everything they tried to do starting with the economic stimulus bill and the obamacare and on and on. they never were willing to try to sit down and work any meaningful way with the senate democrats. guest: what harry reid did was stifle a lot of debate in the senate. a major amendment's were not offered. what that did was self-defeating for harry reid and the democrats because democrats were up for

election last summer and were not able to distinguish themselves from read and obama and they had a tracker -- a track record of voting any 7% for obama. mitch mcconnell will open a process and give members of the body a chance to represent not only the philosophies but also their states and regions. that will help promote democracy and hopefully get some stuff done. host: two quick actions -- two quick questions. how does he position himself now that he is the minority leader? how does his role change as a practical matter on the floor? guest: first of all, i talked to him twice over the last couple of weeks, he is fine. obviously, he has suffered some fairly debilitating injuries and i hope for the best for him.

he is hoping to get back to the senate next week or later on this week rather. how does he position himself? he said it once and he will say it again -- he said he would always dance and fight but he . he knows how to dance but he knows how to fight. mcconnell will have a handful of folks as well as that will want to get things done if they are wanting to put points on the scoreboard for the 2016 reelection. the question is whether they will be able to find common ground and compromise. if the house will just send over one bad bill after another on the party line vote, i guarantee you very little if anything is going anywhere anytime soon. host: patrick, thank you for waiting. caller: thanks for taking my

call. just a quick suggestion for c-span. on the weekends, you should push up the time of your show and give the west coast and other people a chance to call in at 7:00 a.m. on the east coast it is tough. secondly, the open up this foreigner line but you never seem to get a foreigner's thoughts from the most contentious issues like gay rights, abortions, and guns, but we think -- we can hear about what they think about our tax policy. once someone calls in from alabama and the state sends a buck to the fed and gets $1.50 back in the complaint about federal taxes -- amazing. host: thank you for the advice on the program. we hope you will keep watching.

we have done now from jonesboro, arkansas. caller: i have two questions. the republicans said they will work with the president on taxes. in the first tax plan that he came out with, they went to the tv and started howling about it. they are not going to work with the president at all on taxes. another thing with obamacare. they said the public should not have obamacare but we paid for their health care. why should we pay for their health care? shouldn't they be paying for their own health care? thank you. guest: i think one of the most interesting things that is happening in the house of representatives and the senate is the have been pushed into obamacare. david vetter has been leading that charge. our member in 1995 and 1996,

republicans took over the congress for the first time in four years and one of their chief place was if they will pass laws, they will have to live within those laws. ever since that time, congress has been trying to find a way to exempt themselves from those things. obamacare is a perfect example. if you will pass this on to the rest of the country, you have to also live with it. if the grand popular within the congress says they have to leave because they can't handle this -- obamacare is a work in progress. republicans will try to repeal it. it will not work. they have to make a decision then do they improve it or what are they do with it? that is a big conversation happening in the states. a lot of governors are try to figure out how to deal with medicaid expansion for example. health care is an issue that has been around a long time and obamacare has changed the stakes

but it is still the same conversation. how do you get high-quality health care at low prices? i don't think obamacare is the end all there. guest: regarding taxes, you'll hear a lot about revenue neutral . there are and will like the crux of the matter. they will demand deep cuts in domestic spending programs but with no increase in taxes. that will be rough. they will shy away from programs unless the ministers and provides cover area revenue neutral as a friend that -- something the public will hear a lot about. host: here's what the president said about areas of potential compromise. [video clip] >> rbc there are disagreements

across the table but there are areas where we can agree in that were -- that is where we will focus. for a few examples, i have a state of the union next week. one of the things we're talking about a cyber security. with the sony attacks that took place, the twitter account that was hacked by islamist jihadists sympathizers yesterday -- pay goes to show how much work we need to do both in the private and public sector to strengthen our cyber security. to make sure family bank accounts are safe in our structure essay. i talked to the speaker and mitch mcconnell about this. we agree that this is an area we can work hard together to get some legislation done and make sure we are much more effective at protecting the american people from these kind of cyber attacks.

there will be opportunities for us to work together on trade. there'll be opportunities for us to work together on simple fine taxes and making sure everyone is paying their fair share. there will be opportunities for us to streamline government so it is more responsive. on each of these issues, i will be listening to everybody around this table and i am hopeful in the spirit of cooperation for the americans first, we can be a position with an of this year will be much better than where we were at the start of the year. host: so quick, some our guests. i want to pick up on the taxes because you mentioned that earlier the segment. what is realistic in terms of tax policy this year? guest: corporate tax reform is a realistic and achievable result. republicans and democrats see the same problem and that is big corporations moving their corporate headquarters overseas or parking large portions of the

profits overseas and not bringing them back because they don't want to pay the higher taxes. if you really want to spur economic growth and if you really want to get all these trillions of dollars that are part overseas and make corporations -- make sure corporations don't relocate elsewhere like ireland we need to reform the tax code. this is one of the big challenges for this congress. the president himself has talked about this and republicans have talked about it. they have different ways of getting there but they both agree that this is a problem that needs to be solved. i do think it is much more -- much less realistic that you will have a tax reform that includes bashing the rich and all these things obama wants to do on giving all cards of goodies to everyone else. i think this one challenge can be met and overcome by keeping corporations housed here.

guest: i hate to agree with john, but he is absolutely right when it comes to corporate taxes. except for one clarifier and that is the art of negotiation. corporate tax reform will have to be paired with something like infrastructure reform that the administration is demanding. those two together have a chance of getting through congress. guest: on infrastructure, we have a crisis there. highway trust fund is running out in may. if they can pair that, they can solve a lot of problems in one fell swoop. host: what is go to brian in salt lake city utah. caller: the whole problem is progressives. when you have progressive democrats, progressive republicans, you have one party. it is just which one is going to function at socialism the fastest. it is a little bit ridiculous

when $800 billion is unaccountable. they have no idea what happened to it. they want to raise taxes. obamacare, i guess that website is up to about $1 billion. when you have them -- it is just not right. host: x for calling. -- thanks for calling. guest: i'm not sure there are many progressive republicans left anymore. i believe it at that. host: the mask about cuba -- let me ask you about cuba. this promises to be a rough time on the hill?

the embargo, the embassy, and things like that? guest: republicans have -- the closer you are to cuba and the more families come from cuba the more passionately you will feel about this. marco rubio, ted cruz, both of cuban lineage -- there are republicans who have long called for ending the trade embargo to cuba. a lot represent agricultural districts. the foreign-policy establishment , the anti-communist establishment obviously hates castro and hay any kind of communist dictatorship. that will be difficult. there are some republicans such as rand paul who has different opinions.

we have been at this for five decades, this embargo. the castros are still alive. at some point in time, the question was will we change before they die or will we start changing after they die? looks like president obama want to do it before they die but change is coming to cuba and it is about time. that place is a disaster. guest: the way i understand it is the politics of cuba are changing pretty graeme akeley. -- pretty dramatically. there is increasing number of democrats and republicans on capitol hill. for whatever reason, they are beginning to modify their position on cuba. there'll be attempts to lock the establishment of an embassy in cuba. there is a decent chance

that could pass. change is coming is what i am trying to say. host: let us go to our democratic caller in minnesota. >> good morning. caller: mr. vulcan, could you please expect to me the republicans'priority list. the first with a made in the house was to cut social security disability. if you could also ask wendy benefit of them doing that -- also explained the benefit of them doing that. guest: it was the rules change they made that prevents change at they co-mingling of money between social security and disability. guest: i think republicans have

seen that's what they always wanted to do is get more of the money from social security going to actual recipients and weed out wastes fund abuse. a story last year showed the widespread abuse of the disability system where people are ripping off the system. everyone can agree that people who need disability need disability but ripping off the taxpayer is costing other taxpayers billions and billions of dollars. if we want to keep social security around for everyone, we have to make sure the money is going to be rightful place. host: anything you want to add to can -- anything you want to add? guest: it prevents what are fairly routine transfers between the disability fund and the social security fund. what do i think? i think this is the worst

attempt to try and create a controversy on social security. they will use to try and an act radical reforms of social security that include significant cuts and beneficiaries. it is an opening gambit to try to force a debate. they are showing the true cards that they want to cut social security. host: rick is going from jasper georgia. an independent caller. good morning. guest: this would be to john. who would be the best one of the republican party's to talk to? i met the air force in georgia. i have five machines and we can't pick up anything like they are talking about on co2. it was 1.5 pounds more than air and settles to the ground. we can't pick it up on our machines. this is the biggest crock of crap that has been put on the

american people. host: can you help us with that kick in that's can you help us with that? guest: i'm not a scientist. we have had the hottest year on record. republicans have to understand there will be a discussion about what the future holds. i have a two-year-old and an eight-year-old. i want to make sure we have a clean environment. republicans have to be proenvironment and pro-jobs and i think we can do that. the more partners we have, especially with a free market capitalist economy, the cleaner the environment will be. that being said, some of our competitors -- we made a good job of messing up the environment ourselves and we have a socialist possibility to protect the environment. our competitors should also protect the environment including india and china. republicans can say they need the proper stewards of our

natural resources, the better we will be. host: the politics and all of this. a headline simply reads "what does elizabeth warren want?" perpetual outsider may gain power in 2016 presidential race without being in it. what you think of her impact and what will it be on the party? guest: unfortunately i never of overlap with her in the senate but i have an watching her for a while. i first saw her in 2004 when harry senator reid invited her to talk before a democratic caucus. taker at face value. she is not running for president. she believes the best ways for her is in the senate trying to affect change. we have seen this now -- we have seen her ability to change the

debate a couple times over the last month or so. i think she and her staff are playing things right. they are focusing on just a handful of issues, picking and choosing their spots to raise concerns. i think she will continue to be an effective force in the united states. host: speaking of politics as well, the weekly standard has this piece on dr. ben carson will be on our program tomorrow at 7:45. fred barnes writes -- a candidate neither they nor the political class regarding the serious contenders ahead of them and organizing a well-financed and unique campaign operation.

guest: i go out to the country and talk to folks and the one person they bring up unsolicited is ben carson almost without fail. he strikes a chord with a certain part of the republican base and he is very popular. his issue will be that he says a lot of things. he says a lot of things that are very controversial and if he doesn't get more campaign discipline, this'll be a short-lived campaign. you cannot get out and say whatever is on your mind and stir up the pot on things and say things that are really controversial and expect to do well in a presidential nominating contests. host: let me get henry on the line here from michigan, a democratic caller. caller: good morning gentlemen.

i would like to first of all recommend a book, particularly for c-span's younger listeners. it is called "without sanctuary." it is photography in america by james aaron. the reason i would like to recommend this book is because i believe it exhibits the conservative mindset of republicans and tea party members that we now have who have elected this republican congress. it says also that the reason why i believe republicans and tea party members have actually murdered hope and change in america. when obama was first elected president, all of those people

in the diverse population out there. hope and change was so tangible and powerful and mitch mcconnell address that hope and change with let's make obama a one term president. guest: obviously i haven't read the book. i will make sure to pick it up. i think we live in a big country and there are a lot of different opinions out there. public and party was a lot of what president obama was proposing in the first two years in the american people did not like to present was proposing especially obamacare. they capture the majority in the house and almost got there in the senate. i think the president bears some as possibility for that. republicans had their opposition and they bear some as possibility.

we had an opportunity in the last two years to get some significant things done and it is irresponsible it he of all leaders to come together and get those things done. host: what you make of the relationship between the president and the democrats in congress right now? how does he position himself? guest: first of all, i am confident the relationship between the president, despite noise to the contrary, i'm confident his relationship with reid is rock solid. here's the reality. if you look back historically, we are at a point in time where the interest of democrats on the hill and a president of their own party are going to begin to diverge. he is not up for reelection. house democrats will be up in two years. one third of the senate will be up in two years. of course, he will be working on his legacy, as he should.

democrats will be looking ahead if only for their own reelection. there will be plenty of things they agree upon. there will be some things they will not be able to agree on. we will have to wait and see what happens. host: bob is calling from michigan now. bob, you there? caller: yes i am. host: go ahead please. caller: as a tea party member, i am tired of being called a racist. i wish you people would stop it. to my question for mr. fehery, i heard republicans are planning to cut disability am i would like to know who is sponsoring that. guest: i find a pretty hard to believe. if they do anything on social security, i'm not sure they will do anything on social security

but it would only be an effort to weed out wasteful spending. tea party members are disgusted when people rip off the social security system. there would want to help us find the people willfully using lawyers to get money they don't deserve. that being said, i find a hard to believe that this congress and the last two years of the obama admin us or be able to find any kind of common way to deal with the intent of a crisis which is the real driver of debt in this country. congressional pay foreign aid congressional spending, none of that has anything to do with our debt. it is all driven by entitlement which includes social security and medicare, which are popular programs. if we don't come up with a way to get a hold of them, we will go bankrupt. i know that a lot of republicans are worried about the bankruptcy of the country.

we have to do something about it. i find it very hard to believe anything will be done. host: you see anything on entitlements the session? guest: if you are asking me what my worst fear is, it would be some thing the lines of this administration working on their legacy and those in democrats trying to cut a deal with republicans. this is something that has been going around within the caucus. they will not put anything in the budget when it comes to social security reform. that is the obama administration. i think there are some within the white house trying to define his legacy are trying to figure out if they can cut a deal on entitlement reform. no, i don't see going anywhere. host: there is a tweet about debt.

let us hear from edward in liverpool, texas. go ahead please. caller: good morning. i was wondering -- i'm 53 years old now and i have never heard anybody ever try to get nonprofits to pay taxes. i watched 2020, dateline, and shows on the internet with pastors making hundreds of millions a year and they live like kings. they don't pay any taxes. why can't the irs follow these people all year and see what do they pay for a can of beans and what are they pay for meat that they are giving to people? what are they have to make such large huge salaries every month? what are they get all the families involved making huge amounts of money and not actually doing anything? the people that work for them work for free.

host: any thoughts from our guests? guest: i understand what he is coming from. there is a reason why we do have nonprofits. obvious he there are abuses. i would like to see a more vigorous irs going after this. right now with funding cuts of the irs, they are having trouble with answering phones apparently as they move into taxis and. -- into tax season. host: i want to play piece of the john boehner retreat held in pennsylvania last week. have a question about policy divisions between the two chambers back to the mcconnell and boehner relationship. [video clip] >> the house will work its will. the senate will work its will. we will find some way to

result the difference. that is what we call regular order. that is a legislative process. there are 535 of us on capitol hill. to try to get all of us to agree is not an easy job. the founders never envisioned it to be easy and it certainly isn't. each of the chambers has to do what they are capable of doing and we try to resolve the differences. host: what is capable? guest: what i love about this group is john boehner, once again having to educate the american people about how our system works. that is that you have a house and senate and the have to come to some agreement. the recently founders of that is they did not too much -- they do not want to much government overreach. that is a constant effort. some people think republicans kind of sweep in and get their way. that is not the way it is. i wish it were but it is not. the american people do not want to give all the rains of power to one party. they did it for the first two years of the president obama's

tenure. the major the republicans have the house of the senate for the next decade. the nonprofits. this is a real problem. chuck grassley, a senator from iowa was head of the finance committee and spent a lot of time going after some of the abuse in the nonprofit sector. this is not just pastors although that is a real problem. it is also these bigger nonprofits that live the lives of the rich and famous but are trying to say they are helping the poor. there is a huge loophole in our tax system that needs to be looked at. host: moving on to joe in michigan. an independent collar. caller: good morning. website fellow michigan people are getting up early.

the more they talk about the do-nothing congress, i am good with that. they said our liberties are at risk while congress is in session. i do know what either party controlling everything that i do not want either party controlling everything. the last two years with obamacare and being lied to about what it was and what was going on -- i am happy with it. i think with the technology we have today, we could have represented our district is set of washington. they don't even live in our districts anymore. they don't even need to be here and we can knock on their door down the street. they will pay a little more attention to us that us having to take rights down to washington to pound on their door. host: thanks for your imput. let us hear from charles now.

caller: i question whether you much that mcconnell was trying to educate the republicans. i think it is the exact opposite. to educate people, namely on the pipeline, if the average american knew that oil was not going to have any effect or guarantee any effect on the price of gasoline in this country and also that the canadian company that owns the oil will refuse to agree to have any amounts of it sold to the united states. it could all be exported. you use these keywords that people by don when you say jobs and energy and dependence. that is a bunch of you know what because the jobs after this thing is done is going to be about 60.

it is a canadian oil company that is using our land to ship oil for export. if the american people knew that, i think the popularity of this as you put it the most americans agreed to this pipeline, it will be a different story. host: thank you for sharing your thoughts. guest: let me just say this, i am a liberal democrat but i cannot figure how keystone became the end all and be all of the environmental community. the oil is coming out of canada. the jobs on a full-time basis will be very few. the temporary jobs are not going to make that big of a dent nationally. i can tell you my thoughts on how we got there, but there is

not enough time. i don't understand how we got to this. host: what you think the president is thinking? guest: i think he has gone back and forth about the impact on the environment on the jobs. last year, if you would have asked me this question, i would have told you he will support it. now he has made it clear he will veto it. whether it is in part because of pressure from the environmental community or the idea that once he gets the veto out of the way they can try to negotiate a compromise on some energy related provisions. i think that is also a possibility. host: i wanted to get your take john on one little cutline our caption to a piece in the new york times today. says lower oil prices provides benefits. the typical family now will save $3000 this year if oil costs stay low.

the meeting of the lower oil prices and gas prices, some people think this might be the time to raise gas tax. your thoughts? guest: if you care about infrastructure, you have to be honest about how you will pay for the infrastructure. a user fee makes a lot of sense. if you will drive a lot and if this is a perfect time -- if you drive a lot in a public infrastructure, you are at great risk. we have to think about how we are being forthright with the american people. the gas tax is pretty controversial but less controversial when prices are lower. there are winners and losers in everything. when gas prices are low, it means you don't need to -- the

gas prices are coming from the saudi's. they want to make sure the folks that are in north dakota and doing the fracking and all kinds of different parts of america great pennsylvania ohio that they don't have a long-term ability to keep doing their fracking. a lot of these american energy producers will go out of business. obviously, we all benefit to some extent if there is low gas prices. the more we can get ourselves off the addiction to oil, the better off you will be with all of this involving the saudi's and the middle east. guest: we have record oil production, increased fracking

drilling off the coast. i think the administer shins energy policy has been successful. host: a caller from sun city, arizona. good morning to you. guest: that last thing the biggest bunch of nonsense i ever heard. i got so tired of hearing people call and talk about mitch mcconnell wanting to make obama a one term president. was he supposed to do? go out and campaign for him? our members the democrat shut make him a zero term president. a free independent audits showed he was winning by bigger margins each time one of the newspapers reached out for votes down there. the recent price of oil is so low is because the saudi's are try to break up the producers that are producing somewhat oil here. if you have to pay $50 to produce a barrel of oil and than

you have to sell it, if the price of oil is $45, you will not really want to produce too many barrels of oil with a five dollar a barrel loss. get serious. figure for my call. i blew my chance for another month. guest: let me say that i agree with the coaller about the saudi's. mitch mcconnell saying that, he did not get credit from the right wing. the right wing of the republican party try to get rid of him anyway. mitch mcconnell is a good leader. he has a tough job. he is bringing a diverse congress together. mitch mcconnell as the majority leader in the senate will be good for president obama's legacy. guest: i don't think so at all. whether it is the increased

oversight investigations on so-called controversies like benghazi are fast and furious attempt to undermine policy by attaching all sorts of writersriders to the appropriations bills. if you are asking me how house and senate republicans have done in the first few weeks, they i say not very well and it is indicative of the problems we will have for the next two years. host: let us hear from al in tampa, florida. caller: i'm a disabled vet. i've been waiting eight years 10 months, and three days for my claim. what i am concerned about is the waste in the v.a. system. jeff miller has been doing a fine job. he is sponsoring a bill right now to have a callback to get these bonuses. they have had years and years waiting for hospitals being

built, the computer systems they spent millions of dollars on that aren't there and i have operations on my feet where they will cut off the toes but they won't give you therapy. i would like to find out what the comments of the republican person there is on how good of a job jeff miller is doing. now that the senate can pass some of the v.a. bills something might get done. guest: i think jeff miller is an excellent chairman of the veterans affairs committee. first of all, think you for your service. when he to make sure we take care of our veterans -- we need to make sure we take care of our veterans. we need to care for them not just in the first eight months that they get back home, but a lifetime commitment to veterans because of what has happened in

these wars. this is why it is important that we find waste and fraud in other parts of the government and make sure we can spend the necessary resources we can on our veterans who really have done a great service for our country and the to be taken care of. people on disability are ripping off the system, they ought to feel ashamed of themselves because they are taking money away from people who have served the country. we need a wholesale reform of the veterans administration because it is broken and needs to be fixed. host: we are running short on time but i want to run one more clip from the president. he dominated the news conference on the issue of iran. . her that she -- he reissued his excellent nation. [video clip] >> congress needs to show patience.

with respect to the veto, i said to my democratic caucus colleagues yesterday that i will veto a bill that comes to my desk. i will make this argument to the american people as to why i am doing some. -- why i am doing so. i checked them to hold off for a few months to see if we have the possibility of solving a big problem without resorting to potential war. i think that is worth where things are going. i promise you i'll be taking my case to the amerco people on this. host: let us hear from jim manley on this issue. guest: he came out swinging on that issue, didn't he? i don't think it's any secret that a good job on bottling the

legislation was made lester. -- was made last year. i think this would be a mistake and that we need to give you negotiations time to work its way through. yes, i understand they would not going to affect until if negotiations fell apart. we are at a delicate time. i think the iranians would take this as a very unfriendly act if we were to go forward on this. guest: iran is not very popular in the congress. point being is that if the president does not have the complete trust of republicans in congress and what he is negotiating with the iranians which has to do a lot with nuclear capabilities, i think

the president wants republicans to trust him on this but republicans don't. i think this might be one of his first vetoes. a lot of democrats will vote with the republicans on this because iran is not popular anywhere in the united states. host: lewis in new jersey, thank you for waiting. caller: morning. just a few things. construction jobs are all temporary. i guess you will have to look at the iranian situation just like obamacare. good day. host: ray in washington democratic caller. caller: good morning. i had a comment to john that he

is talking about entitlements. yes there is a problem in the country with entitlements, but most of that is from doctors overcharging medicare. they also are the problem and it is to be more oversight. i want to know why nobody ever mentions the pentagon. the pentagon is way overbloated and it needs to be cut. if you cut the pentagon, we can fix some things. one more item -- we need to put the tax cut back to where it was before reagan. thank you very much. have a good day. guest:host: final thought on where things are headed in congress. guest: i think republicans will be able to deal with some of the low hanging. they will be able to pass the keystone pipeline and pass

through appeals of the medical device tax. from there, things get a lot more difficult very quickly. there is a number of deadlines coming up including the debt limit increase around june or july that i think will rear its ugly head and force a confrontation that may lead to severe problems facing the congress and damaging the economy. we will have to wait and see how things play out. host: for me ask about rep -- about mitt romney. he said he wants to run for president again. your thoughts? guest: it wasn't widely applauded outside of the small

circle of mitt romney fans out there. life you is the more the merrier. if you want to run, go ahead and run it is a free country. we have a pretty expansive field. i think jeb bush has announced that he will run pretty much. we have mike pence and scott walker and perhaps john kasich. we have several senators including ted cruz, marco rubio, rand paul and has numbers like peter king. you will have a fairly expensive list of people who will represent all. chris christie also of course. they will represent all wings. the problem with mitt romney is he lost against a fairly weak president who had an economy that was fairly weak. he lost cousin mistakes that he will made -- that he had made. if he would get the nomination again, it would be a miracle, to be honest with you. host: my guests with lots of

issues on the table. thanks a lot for joining me on this sunday. we will take a short timeout and we will come back and talk with a former white house counterterrorism official, rick nelson. we will be right back. >> twos and i, president obama delivers his state of the union address. live coverage begins, including the gop response from joni ernst

and your reaction through open phones. live on c-span and c-span radio. on c-span2, watch the president's's speech and congressional reaction. the state of the union address live on c-span, c-span2, c-span radio and c-span.org. >> on the martin luther king holiday, we are featuring all day holiday on c-span2 book tv. on morning and 9:30 eastern cornell west on six revolutionary african-american leaders and their impact on their own generation and now. at 4:00, vanity fair contributing editor gail sheehy on her life and journalism career. at 9:00, former conga spun allen west on the importance of preserving or values of family, faith and freedom. on american history tv, monday morning at 8:00 eastern, wanted a jones abernathy -- juanita

jones abernathy. starting just after 2:00, the state of the union address by the johnson, gerald ford and broken to -- bill clinton. find our complete television schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. call us, e-mail us or tweet us. join the c-span conversation. it like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. washington journal continues. >> joining us now is rick nelson . thank you for being here. we are talking about homeland security and counterterrorism efforts. this is the first time for you

to join us since the attacks in paris. what are the lessons learned from that? guest: we see now that the struggle we are having against the islamist militants is not just a u.s. problem it is a global problem. it is a problem that threads fellow democracies in countries like france, germany and the united kingdom. it is a problem that will have to be addressed by court nation with all those countries. host: there is a photograph in the washington post this morning talking about the new world emerging and there is a shy hear of a belgian paratrooper outside a jewish school. belgian troops are deployed across the nation. we talk about the country's internal division and exacerbating the difficulties. had he see things changing moving forward -- how do you see things changing moving forward? guest: for about 10 years now

we have been looking at this problem is a mainly u.s. problem. is multicultural issues that europe has been dealing with has been fermenting for a number of years. they will continue to have the struggle. in the united states, we have done a good job of assimilating all cultures and all our muscle committees. in europe, that is not the case. a lot of the most sun communities are not well integrated in the larger publishers there. western europe will have to do a better job at that. host: phone numbers are at the bottom of our screen. our guest was also the formerly operational planning chief of the national counterterrorism center in 2005 to 2007. we welcome your thoughts on homeland security and counterterrorism efforts. we should be asking about the u.s. following france, how is this

country doing in preparing against another attack? guest: i think we have done a remarkable job since 9/11 to better prepare ourselves. everything from changing the way we view the threat in our understanding of it. the doorman of home and secured he maligned when it first it up and has seen significant strides in the last 10 years. we are not overreacting as we might have done initially. we are running program such as the tsa pre-check program so not everyone is going through the same level of scrutiny. we have see something say something campaigns where we are hoping the general population better understand your surroundings to mitigate these types of threats. our intelligence communication throughout the state and local level all the way to the federal government is much improved over the last 10 years. overall, we have done a remarkable job. i think the proof at the end of

the day is what kind of attacks have we had and we have not seen major attacks it's the -- major attacks since 9/11 in the united states. host: there is an article that says the u.s. fight against you autism has lost moments -- the u.s. fight against jihadism has lost momentum. do you see it that way? guest: i don't think so. some elected call this war against al qaeda and i thought it would be done when we captured or killed bin laden. that is not the case. this is a very persistent creative, and adaptable enemy. bin laden's vision was to continue past his death so people will adopt this type of ideology and continue to conduct attacks on their own. that is what we are seeing. we are seeing individuals that are disenfranchised adopting this ideology. they have no linkage to the core groups. host: what may not be working in

terms of the u.s. strategy to fight isis and jihadism. what can be better? guest: our court nation can be better. it is not the united states fault that it could be better. this is not a war or battle or struggle that will be won by bombing or killing key members. that is a key part. eliminating the leaders is absolutely quickly part of the strategy but at the end of the day you will have to eliminate some of the fundamental issues that are causing this and that is the toxic narrative has been perpetuated over the last 10 years that the u.s. and the west is at war with islam. what is happening with isis is the biggest indicator that things are not getting better. we did a good job the last 10 years of isolating al qaeda in western pakistan and yemen, but we are seeing this group isis

has territory in western iraq and syria. while they have territory comment that gives them the ability to recruit and train fighters and send these fighters backed out to the global place to conduct these attacks. host: was the best way to continue to combat that? guest: keep doing what we are doing. i think when we we have shared information and intelligence, we see results. that has to be an understanding between western europe and the united states that we have to do more of this. europe and western europe will have to work to better incorporate its muscle committees. we in the united states will also have to do a better job of keeping the flow of to medication so we can get the ideology back to where it needs to be which is non-existent. host: rick nelson will be taking her calls that are starting to come in now. we will get to them in a moment. here is one of the other many

headlines about europe. this is the homegrown terror threat is bigger and europe. how about the notion of so-called propaganda and how to win that part of the battle? had he go about that -- how do you go about that? guest: we found that one of the common themes among all the homegrown terrorism attacks was the issue of the internet. technology can be used for good and bad. one thing al qaeda has done a very good job of is using social media to perpetuate its message. 20 or 30 years ago if you had a terror cell and wanted to propagate your message, you had to do it in written form. you would have to have meetings in physical places. you have to conduct recruiting campaigns that were secretive. now you can get a terrorist group that can do the entire attack cycle virtually.

they can recruit, dr. knight, plan, and get information and coordinate the entire attack without ever having come in contact with other individuals in that group. host: here's a brief clip from the president on friday talking about his policy in syria and combating isis. [video clip] >> the notion that this is occurring because the united states or great britain or other countries stood on the sidelines i think is first of all mischaracterizing our position. we have not been standing on the sidelines. it is true we did not invade syria. if the assertion is that we had invaded syria we would be less prone to terrorist attacks i believe it to you to play out that scenario and whether that sounds accurate. we have been very active in trying to resolve a tragic

situation in syria. dramatically through the military and efforts to the removal of chemical weapons in syria that had been so deadly and now as isil has moved forward we have been very active in degrading their capabilities inside syria. we are working with partners to make sure the foreign fighter situation is resolved. host: rick nelson thoughts? guest: we did misguidedly in syria. the world must decorated syria, not just the united states. i don't think anyone would anticipate the threat would evolve as quickly as it did. there were people in the government and believed this would happen getting that message to perpetuate throughout the rest of the government internationally was a really hard thing to do. we have tried to wind down the

war in afghanistan and iraq, now there's a big problem coming again and we need to do something like committing troops are being more aggressive is a difficult thing to have happen. i am not sure the mac and appetite would have been there for a big reaction. host: a democrat from salt lake city. good morning. caller: first of all, i would like to say a listen to president obama's comment on invasion. who wants to be invaded? my overall comments is our war on terrorism is about religion differences, ethnic differences and racial differences. we can go through all that history and see the wars of and

going on throughout mankind. when we compare our selves animals, animal s don't do that, only humans do. guest: there are over 2 billion muslims and just like with christianity and judaism, there are different types of that religion ranging from passive sufis to the people on the other side. there are ultraconservative and ultra-fundamentalists in that group. religion is certainly part of this and that should not be ignored. to say this is a war of christianity versus islam is just inaccurate. there is a portion of islam these islamist militants have hijacked this and turned into an ideology. they are using this ideology that is grounded in some parts of the koran and using it to commit these acts of violence. it is a problem. host: we now have john.

caller: good morning. i wanted to ask the guest how he feels that the legislation in congress right now against the nsa surveillance and how that will affect the war against terrorism does he think it is going to diminish it or what? this idea of privacy versus security. are we learning -- leading to privacy too much? guest: that is a great question and that is what makes this issue such a difficult problem for us. we need to find that right balance between privacy and security. there are probably a few people

inside the u.s. government that would not state the nsa's capability have been the most critical component against -- in our fight against al qaeda in the last 10-15 years. we don't want our population to be surveilled, constantly. we will continue to have these dialogues to find the right balance. how security we want to be? the only way we want to do this -- the only way we can do this is to have these conversations. it very important to how we handle this. host: here's a tweet from senator john mccain meeting with the official in qatar. the associated press writes that a full delegation of senators led by mr. mccain have met separately with the saudi prince and qatar's amir.

where is the u.s. in that part of the operation right now and what will it take to be effective? guest: our relationship with saudi arabia is strong but collocated. -- strong but complicated. everyone should asked for answers, but then again you are talking about syria and iraq and a very come mix of individuals. we don't know --

we are going to have to be able to use a relationship with saudi arabia and other partnerships to determine who are the right individuals we need to train and side with to bring stability.

caller. good morning. >> good morning.

i wanted to ask i wanted to the ask a gentlemen. my therapist -- i am a therapist. one client made the remark they travels on the train and she was concerned because she said no one checks lug age. i wondered if anyone checks this mode of travel guest: there have been a number of programs put in place to deal with the issue of luggage and security on trains, you know, amtrak has a very good security program. you know, obviously, though for whatever reason, this brand of tearrrorism and it'ss affiliates seem to be attracted to airlines and aviation. >> will always be the primary threat t goes back to the earlier question about privacy versus security. we don't want a police state where we have, you know police officers or solids in the streets checking -- soldiers

checking our baggage and look thing in every trash can. >> that's why we need to e equipment, you know, the citizenry to be more resill resillient and more aware. it's the traveler who sees a bag unattended and reports that and the bag is investigated to what it actually is as opposed to a police officer going up and down on the train looking for those types of behavior. a lot of the responsibility comes back to us as citizens. we control our own destiny in many ways. in a democracy, we have the ability.gov to do that host: with our guest, rick nelson wanted to bring up a plot threat here at the u.s. capitol this past week that we heard about foiled apparently in the early stage. john boehner, the house speaker spoke briefly about this during the week. here is what he had to say. [video clip.] >> we would have never known about this had it not been for the fisa program and our ability to collect information on people

who pose an imminent threat. i am going say this one more time, because you are going to hear about it for months and months to come as we attempt to reauthorize a fisa program. our government does not spy on americans unless they are americans who are doing things that, frankly, tip off our law enforcement officials to an imminent threat. it was our law enforcement officials and those programs that helped us stop in the person before he committed a heinous crime in our nation's capitol. host: rick nelson credited fisa. guest: absolutely. fisa is important. this played out recently with some of the leaks we saw. we have to continue to upgrade that law and update it appropriately. when that law was first instituted was when we clipped wires to telephone poles to listen on phone calls and now we

are dealing with internet live chats going on and e-mails and social media. fisa is important but the law has to be revised to play the role we need it to play. one of the -- what i find also good about fisa, it's a system that really includes all three branches of our government. i think that kind of got lost in some of the recent debate here is the executive program, the courts are involved in reviewing the warrants and congress and capitol hill passes the law that supports it. it can be done appropriately. we have everyone who needs to be involved but we need to have a large voice in how that will unfold. host: back to europe. what is your assessment on that? the state the successive communications between this country and other countries when it comes to terrorism? guest: gooevent the u.s. and europe? europe? host: yes. guest: the threat is different in western europe than it is in the united states. it's influenced by the same ideology. europe in many ways is dealing with a much more significant

problem as long as a lot of their muslim communities continue to be poorly integrated, they will continue to deal with this threat. we are seeing it now spill over into belgium. germany has a problem with this as well. there are capable counterterrorism forces. in the last 10 years, we have tongue tongue-in-cheek made fun of, you know france's view on warfare and conflict. france has an incredible counter terrorism force. we have had good behind-the-scenes relationships with them. we will continue having that robust relationship with germany and the united kingdom and france and italy and all of those nations is critical to combatting the threat. host: one viewer says the u.s. needs to get better at assimilation rather than demonizing certain groups of people. that's peg. we have bill on the line from boyier town, pennsylvania, republican caller for rick nelson. hi, bill caller: hi. hi mr. nelson. with all duress spect, you know, we got the cia the f.b.i. the

nsa, homeland security and i am expected to be afraid of one guy with a gun who is shooting his mouth off on social media? i am not afraid of the .1 guy with the gun shooting his mouth off on social media. i am afraid of these organizations i just stated. president kennedy said, i am going to take the cia break it into a thousand pieces and blow it to the .4 corners of the earth. and a short time later, he ends up dead. a month later, truman who started the cia prints an op-ed that said the cia has lost its path and is no longer doing its intended function. mr. nelson don't you think it's really a risk that when we hand all of this power to people that they misuse it? and that's really the fear that's going on. western europe doesn't want to be spied on. all our government is doing is trying to get a hold so that now they can do more than just spy

on us. they want to spy on allwest earn europe and the whole world as well. host: thanks for calling, bill. guest: i wouldn't characterize it that way. it'sedes, many times to target you know, some of the missteps that some of our intelligence organizations have had throughout their history provides am pel fodder to havehave a negative opinion of them but oftentimes don't look at how critical they are. we would not have been as successful as al-qaeda if the threat had not been for the -- if it had not been for the cia. the more important point you bring up, though, is about i am not going to be afraid of the lone gunman. that's the type of philosophy we have. we don't want to have a police state necessarily so we can find that .1 active shooter that may come out. we are never going to be able to find these active shooters because we don't know when an individual is going to move from rhetoric to violent action. that's a what makes it so difficult. you can have somebody sitting in minneapolis tweeting saying

certain negative things. there are a lot of people that do that. there is no way we can watch them all nor do we want to. then how do you determine when they cross that line from rhetoric to violent action? i think one of the most important things we saw in paris was after the attacks, the marches in the street millions of people coming out and saying we are not going to be affected by this. we, in the united states should not be affected. obviously the individual's lives who are affected you cannot overstate that issue. but as a nation we can't let one or two individuals who come and commit these acts of violence change who we are. host: brenda from south wammus massachusetts, good morning, brenda. are you there? caller: yes. i am here. can you hear me? host: now i've got you. thank you. caller: the keystone pipeline that would be a huge target for any terrorism, i would think. what is the homeland security's plan to security the safety of the homeland -- of the keystone pipeline?

thank you. call guest: good question. critical infrastructure protection is a very important issue. it's also a difficult problem for the u.s. government because a lot of our critical infrastructure -- i believe the number is 90% -- is opened by the private sector. so what is the role of the u.s. government in helping protect that? and if they don't help and the private sector has to take the responsibility for protecting its own infrastructure, who is going to pay for the protection of that? the industry is going to have to make things more expensive to do that. with all of that said i think with terrorist groups, you know what we are seeing from al-qaeda over the last 10 years, you know, they are not interested in pipelines. they are interested in spec tan lar attacks. they are more gruesome beheadings, those types of violence that gets headlines in the news is really what they are after, hijacking an airplane and blowing it up a truck bomb, shooting up a newspaper and killing 12 innocent people. that is no more their brand of terrorism than blowing up pipelines.

host: host: what more might you expect from the ad minstration? guest: that's an exceptional question. i am hoping we are going to see changes with the new congress and getting together and trying to address some of these difficult problems. the immigration bill and the discussions on capitol hill, you know, the subset issue of that is what's happening on boarder security. and i don't mean boarder secure from an immigration coming and going. that's a different issue. i am talking about, you know, when people are going to exploit our borders to come until and commit acts of violence? how can we strength en the security and how we are monitoring and letting people in and out of our country? it's a critical part of our security. we need to have the free flows of goods and services and let those who want to come into our country to prosper to do that. we also need to make sure that those boarders aren't threatened by elements of al-qaeda host: let's go to charredin, ohio, where john is on the fall an independent caller. good morning to you. caller: good morning mr. nelson and c-span. thank you. host: thank you. caller: i am calling because at

'74 at country day school, i wrote an american history paper on itslam and america and i just wanted to address the issue where when you state radical and you state the very conservative do these certain things in reference to your context about the terrorism and so on. what i found is also by reading the inter linear koran and thick like this, it's a little more serious than just trying to change an aggression for energy or aggression for some other political or monetary ideal. it seems that you are also going to be babbling to people that believe they have a crater who has given then inalienable rights as is in our public documents. thank you. guest: et cetera right. the thing about an ideology, you either believe it or you don't. there is no --"i kind of believe it." with the adherence of bin laden

and this militant form you are with us you believe in us or you are not. and if you are not with us now you present a speed bump a road block to what we are trying to accomplish and you have to be dealt with handled. and that's where the violence is coming from. so, the west their perception, their narrative is the west is involved in the area they think is the historical fate that needs to be restored and along with the west is interfering in those territories, there is going to be violence. i think another issue that doesn't come out in this this is all -- behind all of this is this much more violent and deadly conflict between the ultra fundamentalists sunnis and ultra fundamentalist shias at con conflict in the middle east. once the united states and the west if they ever do inject us in their dreams of getting united states out of the area, they are going to continue to fight each other because that's a much greater battle. host: aerial, last couple of

calls, an independent. caller: thank you mr. nelson. i have a question for you. terrorism, as such, the only objective they have is to destroy ideology, culture, the planet without regard for life or human dignity, which we know. but the question is: why hasn't there been legislation at the national and international level to make terrorism the death penalty the same way you look for ways to destroy or take it out or vice versa? thank you. guest: what we would do in the united states, timothy mcveigh got, the oklahoma city bomber got the death penalty. he was -- those laws are in place. so, i think we are doing

that. host: sandra on the line from vienna, virginia democratic caller. caller: hi. i think the u.s. should have a national terror line 1-800-for people if they see something they can call. i think it's too much trouble to have to go through the police line and i just think that if anybody calls in and they are telling something that's wrong, they should automatically get 20 years in jail. host: what's the best way for people to phone in if they see something and want to say something? caller: that's campaign dhs again, one of the successful campaigns is the see something/say something campaign. there are multiple different ways to call the homeland security, they take all of the incoming leads seriously and address them. at the end of the day, there are, you know, the intelligence community gets, you know thousands of leads every single day and in discerning what is actual from real or not real is

very difficult challenge. you have everything from individuals calling up and saying, you know, because they are having a squabble with their neighbor, they call up and say their neighbor is now you know has suspicious suspicious activity. you have to be careful. it can be used inappropriately. the see something/say something campaign has been successful host: septemberiment via twitter. they attack united states because they medal not because we have crosses on our churches. let's hear from daniel in deerborn michigan thank you for waiting. you are on the republican line. caller: i have a short question for your guest. how does he tell the difference between real muslim or moderate and radical muslim? has he ever read the koran? thank you. guest: i don't be so bold to question whether someone is a real muslim or, you know what part of itslam they are adhering to. i have read parts of the koran absolutely. i haven't read it in its entirety. i have not read it in arabic.

but again, that's not my decision to make. most of these people that that adopt this ideology -- again we are not talking about islam here we are talking about bin ladenism this militant interpretation of islam. they are self-proclaimed. it's not very difficult for me to identify who they are: they state they are part of this. they state they believe this and are very clear in their intentions. host: hot what else should people know about the sumni/shi split going on for centuries? a lot of people say it's the sub text with all of this activity aren't world. what should people really know? guest: to the call last point, to gain a better understanding of it. this is a very critical combat and again -- disagreement and it goes back, you know hundreds of thousands of years, and you have nation states. iran is supporting, you know, is a big supporter of shiism. saudi arabia and other gulf

nations fund these types of active iity activities, this conflict. one of the fameouts intelligence nieces came out of the iraq war was the infamous zarkawi telegram where he wrote a letter to binl ladin talking about the state of the war in iraq, you know, in the shorthand joke was that it was one page about how bad the united states was and 10 pages about how bad shiism was. at the end of the day, if you are not a muslim you, you won't understand it fully. it's something we need to keep an eye on. host: he had on the independent line. caller: thank you mr. nelson. i would like to touch on the shiites and the sunnis. we have been involved in the middle east for years. we have continually tried to prop up governments in the middle east to fight these wars.

and it seems to me that it ishas become not necessarily a -- it is a muslim problem that needs to be dealt with by the muslims. but it's more of a class problem. when you talk about saudi arabia kuwait jordan these are the richest countries in the middle east. they are the ones that have the wealth. we send our boys continually over there to die while the rich sunni or the rich saudis kuwaiti kuwaitis, jordanian boys don't die. when are we going to wake up and turn this problem over to the muslims and let them deal with it? host: final thought from our guest? guest: this is an issue of our middle east policy how involved we want to be. we are never probably not going to be involved in the middle east. we have a variety of interests in there. the economic interest is with oil. security interests when we are dealing with we need a relationship with saudi arabia

if we have challenges with iran. i am not a middle east expert but there is a list of execute and policy concerns of ours and we need to have a dialogue. what level of relationship do we want to have with those countries? as i said earlier in the conversation, they should be continually re-evaluated. because we have had a historic relationship with a country for 40 or 50 years doesn't mean we don't need to determine a new path forward. as far as the u.s. government meddling, that is a key part of al-qaeda's narrative, that the united states is coming in to their historic caliphate area supporting these regimes that are not necessarily supportive of hour the bin ladenism people view the world. as long as we are medal, they are going to use that as part of their narrative to conduct violent activities. host: our guest is rick nelson a group chief at the former operational plan ing group chief at the national counterterrorism.

thank you for your time and insight this morning. guest: thank you hollywood we will take a short timeout. we have a half hour program left. when we come back we will turn to the theme the president's proposal to raise the taxes on wealthy folks in this country to, as the white house puts it, aid the middle class. we will give you some of the details and take some more of your calls. here are the phone numbers 202-748-8000. republicans, 748-8001. independent, 202-748-8002. and outside the u.s., 202-748-8003. we will be right back. ♪ doctor an thor he e fouch is

on the front line battling against infectious diseases? >> we have drugs right now when griffin to people hiv infected when someone comes in and i could show you the dichotomy, in the early '80s, if someone came in to my clinic with aids the median survival would be six to eight months which means they would be -- half of them would be dead in 8 months. now, if tomorrow if someone comes in to clinic 26 years old realtime infected and i put them on the combination of the three drugs drugs. i could predict, look them in the eye and say we can do mathematical modeling to say if you take your medicine regularly, you could live an additional 55, zero, years, so the goal that if you live your

medicine you could live a normal life span, a few years less than a normal life span, that's a huge advance. >> director of allergy and infectious diseases on c-span's "q & a." washington"washington journal" continues. host: more of your thoughts on what the president is proposing two days before the state of the union address. fox news has this headline: obama to push tax increases on top earn issues in his state of the union address. he plans to call for billions in tax increases on top earners, including a hike in investment tax rates in order to fund new tax credits and other measures. the white house claims will help the middle class. >> that's the fox news headline. the story is being printed around the country. sunday den remember post excuse me, takes up the

"washington "washington" version. he plains on raising 320 billion over the next 10 years, targeting wealthy people and big financial institutions to pay for new programs designed to help lower and middle income families. this came out last night from the administration. he will talk more about it on tuesday night. and we want to hear what you think. again, will from albany oregon independents, you are up first. hey, will. caller: good morning, c stan. thank you for taking my call. host: you bet. caller: it's a great idea to tax the wealthy. we should have the people who have been benefitting from all of the economic growth pay for the $18 trillion in debt we are. actually, i am in favor of amending the 16th amendment after it says income we should adequate and wealth." we should have a wealth tax in this country. we could probably get rid of the income tax if we applied a wealth tax that was progressive if you earn a mrld maybe pay

1%. if you you know -- earn. if you possess wealth equal to a million dollars, maybe a 1% tax. $10 million? maybe a 2% tax. $10,000,000,000, 10% tax. it would move the economy, you know. it should be a kind of tax that's collected every week or so if you are wealthy, it would move a lot of wealth. the wealthy, a very now, have been sitting on. what does america think about that idea? host: let's hear what some other folks think about that and what they have going on their own mind sidney pikeville, kentucky. caller: yes, sir. they are talking about helping the middle class. the only way we are going to help the middle class is to get the jobs back for the middle class. host: how to do do that? caller: the only way to do that is to tax the imports.

put tariff did on the imports. china is killing us. host: anything else sidney? caller: no. that's it. host: thanks. a little bit more detail on the plan the president is putting out there. obama will seek to boost private retirement savings by requiring employers without 401(k) plans to make it easier for full-time and part-time workers to save in iras which could assist as many as 30 million people. the add miles per hourstration would provide small employer tax credits to cover the cost. senior administration officials say this package they are putting out would highlight the president's desire to boost taxes on the nationts wealthiest households and help lower and middle class families. new tax credits would help those in need of child care and households with two earners, they said, while other proposals like covering community college tuition would help students. tom, you are on the line from sussex, new jersey. krap caller. hi, tom. caller: hi. hour are you doing?

host: fine. what do you think about all of this? caller: well i just think this whole distribution thing is crazy and the thing is that i am -- you know i am all for giving something up a hand-up but i worked my way up, too. i am not a rich republican. you know basically, i consider myself middle class but it wasn't an easy struggle. back when i was, you know, i mean, you know i grew up in the '60s. i see how things have changed. the distribution seems like it is not going to work. everything is going to the middle class. they keep saying tax the rich tax the rich. the rich always find a way out of it. the middle class is kind of stuck in the middle. they may be paying all of the taxes, you know, and i just think that we need to get back to where we have some kind of manufacturing base in this country so we can get people that aren't caught up with this technology, you know what i mean, so that we can make the

jump from, you know from the people -- what people used to do to what the world is doing now. otherwise, we have to take back. host: what's the best way to build up the manufacturing base again, as you put it? caller: i thinkthere should be more of a tariff of things that come into this country so it's more expensesive to buy things out of the country so maybe it will be chieffer. we always made well-built stuff. it kind of we want on downhill in the '80s. i saw it. host: thank you for calling, tom from sussex, injury. california annaaheim, ed independent caller. good morning ed. caller: good morning. i wanted to dispute a statement that somebody called in earlier at 4:00 o'clock this morning.

i'm sorry. 4:00 o'clock and said the rich -- i'm sorry. host: ed are you still there? i am going to ask him to start again. we lost ed. let's try larry here in washington, d.c., republican. good morning to you. caller: good morning. the president's plan is foolish. host: how come? caller: the wealthy can help the poor. obama care reduced 30 hours. it's a job killer the epa situation he has, it's to tax businesses out. it's out of occasionistens. planned by the puppet masters. we are no longer manufacturing economy. we are a consumer. america has $22 trillion debt. one of the hedge fund managers died. unemployment inflation 15%. there is no 5.6 unemployment. >> that's a lie. the federal government,

president obama, they are manipulating the statistics to deceive the american people. we have to wake up. we are headed toward financial collapse. there is nothing but lies and smoke and mirrors. host: minutes john on the democrats line. hey, john. caller: i definitely think they need to do something with the tax situation. they need to do something with immigration. if they did, that would help out a host: when you say "do something with taxes," what do you mean? caller: they need to the taxes more. host: you agree with the president's plan. nelson says it's about time. our economy has been hijacked by an elite who get all of the spoils the vast majority would benefit if we are going to have a consumer-driven employee most peasants have to have something in our pockets. richard writes the wealthy pay most of the taxes now. the bottom 50% pay no or little

taxes. just one more way to run off businesses in america. we need to do away with the irs and go to a flat tax for everyone. >> that's facebook.com/c-span. you can continue to leave your comments through the day as several hundred folks have done so far. sam, lancaster, pennsylvania democratic caller. hi, there. caller: hi. how are you? host: doing well sam. go ahead. caller: my opinion of the whole thing is somehow or another we turn our fronted into a class stell when you think about it. you can call me middle class because i live in that situation but there is nothing middle class. i think of myself as just as upper class as any upper class american there is.

and i will think about myself like that. the country needs to think about themselves like that. when you place yourself in a class of people somehow, you stag stagnate and your hopes and visions of your life if he taxes the rich, it's because he wants to get the working man bark to work. i know these young people and every generation coming up. they haven't lost their abilities in this country. they are great kids. neck sthek work. my real son is an hour away from me. he can't find work. so of course he struggles. i live with a couple who is actually younger than my son in a great house a great yard, a great life because he has a job with road infrastructure that pays dominate money. host: new york angelo what do

you say, angelo? caller: good morning. i am 76 years old. i have seen it all. i saw a lot of this socialism in france. the people were more interested in let's work and more socialism. in america, we are the only ones in the world that are different. we have in70ives to make something out of yourself. one of the ways is to put a 1% tax against everybody. anyone who files income tax return has to pay a 1% tax and including a little extra for the top notchers but not to bring us all back together. no. 2, when people make a huge amount of money, they should be prevented from taking it offshore which even a middle

class guy like me can take a trip and do what angelo does. host: do you think there is any realistic chance congress would pass anything on taxes this year? caller: i think the congress is a very confused state and, no. i think what they are going to do is play politics. they should take the welfare part of it, the tax credits and put them back to the states. congress will never do that. they will lose power. by separating the two systems and putting one tax all the way across, graduated no problem, but, also make these people who take all of their money offshore and pay nothing not be able to do business here anymore. host: thank you. karma is calling from houston. what do you say? caller: i agree with the gentleman that mentioned the bill yon air cashed out and moved his family to singapore.

over 308 multi-millionaires and billionaires have already cashed out of the system. so, it all sounds all well and good but a little bit contrived at this time because i think that, you know, it's the game is over. and there is nothing we can do. thank you. host: pandora. caller: i think obama's plan is brilliant because it's similar to what f.d.r. did 50 year ago with the new deal. it revived the economy. we need an infrastructure that is kind of a joke compared to the rest of the westernized world. and, of course the super wealthy people they can't possibly spend the amount of money they own. so why wouldn't they pay more in tax? they used to pay, i believe, originally 80% and then it went to 50. and then it went to 35. and now they are paying less

than their secretaries. so how is that fair to anyone? i am a teacher. and believe me. my salary is about $7,000 more than it was 20 years ago when i was teaching on the island of gallup with a very high cost of living. host: pandora, thanks for calling. here is one of the other headlines, "new york times": obama will seek to reduce taxes on the middle class. he is challenging the g.o.p. they say in the subhead. long odds in congress would shift more costs to the rich. a lot of people are playing this up as really just a starting point for discussion about taxes. a lot of folks looking forward to some kind of action in congress this year. the g.o.p. pounces on obama's tax plan as the headline in the "hill" pupings, webvite, republicans pounced on the plan. a senior official said he will unveil the plan tuesday. if you scroll down a little bit, it says it's not surprising to see the president call for tax

hikes said mitch mcconnell. now, et cetera asking congress to reverse bi-partisan tax relief he signed into war from deputy chief of staff. you are on the air republican caller. caller: i want to make the comment that we need to be paying attention to is the morality of what our system is built upon which is bates upon protection. it's easy for the left to talk about equal protection when they are talking about gay rights. what about equal protection for those of us who are out there working and producing things? i am essentially the modern day slave, the guy who goes out and worked my butt off so other people can benefit from my achievements. and there is absolutely no excuse for any kind of graduated income tax in our society. and what we are doing is

regulating ourselves into a total disaster in which we are going to have a totalitarian sort of government. and we are on our way to that. and it's really a shame because what has worked is incentives for people and incentives for people is what has created all of this wealth. even our poor which we talk about, are the top 85% of the world in income. there is nobody truly in a historical or a international current context that are poor. they have plenty to eat. we are the only place in the history of the world in which all of our poor people are fat. host: host thanks bob. going to move on to chris in grand junction colorado. hey, chuck. caller: good morning. good morning. the brookings institute had a good statement about eight years

ago, almost quote now. if we don't stop this hemorrhaging of jobs offshore and this influx of aliens across the border we will be a third world country in less than 20 years. it's happening a little bit faster. l.a. over half of the people can't read, write or speak english. that's a third-world city. i would imagine southern florida is just about that way, too. you want to improve things folks? stop buying anything that's not made in america. stop buying those jap cars. the gm 70% are made in japan. my goodness. the biggest problem is americans doing it to americans. you've got guys out there that want cheap cheap, cheap construction labor so they are wanting these mexicans to come in and firing the -- oh, my god. anyway host: chuck, we are going to let you go.

have a nights weekend yourself. one viewer by twitter phys writes it's about fair share. we subsidize their wealth with food stamps, for their minimum wage workers. we have cliff on the line now. republican, cliff, what do you make the of the president's proposal he will talk about more on on tuesday night? caller: well, before i -- i believe before we raise taxes i think we need to manage the money that -- the tax money we are getting in and make responsible use of the tax money. we are welfaring college football. millions of subsidies to college tulle. why are we doing that some we had a teacher just a few minutes ago call in and said she is barely making any money. how come we can't raise their wages and hire more teachers with that subsidized money we

are give to go college football that. doesn't make sense to me. host: okay. politico writes it this way: obama dares republicans on tax pop ulism. he will use his state of the union speech to stake out a populist vision of answer it reform and new middle class tax benefits to practically dare republicans to say no. the message: wage stagnation obama is on it. if republicans say no, especially to catchy sounding ideas like getting rid of the trust if you wanted loop hole they can explain it to voters in 2016. we have george up now from pompano beach florida. republican caller. hey, george. caller: hey, how are you doing? host: fine. caller: i would just like to say that, you know, you keep increasing taxes on the wealthy. the wealthy are going to move. they are going to that i can their companies out of here. we have already seen that happening.

jobs aren't here because people are leaving here the president's whole policies are totally off. they are against businesses. they are against mroesz. they are against control. everything they stand for is totally off the wall. if you ask me we can't even call a terrorist an islamic terrorist. come on, man. what's going on? are we blind? is our nation becoming blind and we can't see what's going on here? we allow thousands of people in. they are taking jobs. listen. i was a carpenter. i was a carpenter eight years ago, i made $25 an hour. do you know what i could make today? 15 if i am lucky. and do you know who has got those jobs? the people that came in that are willing to work for $5 an hour

without being legal. >> that's the truth, man. that's really what's going on. thank you t host: a story about a rally that happened here in the nationalts capitol in support of the nation's police attending the rally called "the sea of blue" saying "blue lives matter" in a show of support for officers across the country who organizers say are not thanked enough for the danger they face in the line of duty. one of many protests happening or marches and rallies happening around the country on the issue. thomas, br lin wisconsin, independent. did good morning. hall caller: good morning. host: how are you? caller: pretty good. can't complain. my comment is a simple one that the republicans an the democrats have been arguing about this and

pretty much will always because each are entrenched and have their own backing. if you want to get an accurate measurement of what their plans would do just as kind of like the million man march, just have the entire middle class, if they consider themselves that, take three days off. period. just take the time off and see what happens. >> should give them a good idea of who actually runs pretty much everything. that's my comment. i think listen. host: as problematic as spending is, one viewer writes, it's about the same as growth in the economy. it is revenues that have lagged. there is lots of comments here on facebook as well. don writes stealing from the rich to pay for the poor is not how it should be done. getting a work ethic is a lot more important. create jobs. >> that's facebook.com/c-span.

denise allison park, pennsylvania, an independent caller and you are up now. hi, there. caller: hi. yes, i just want to say a brief comment. i do support the tax overhaul. i think there are many things that could be done with the money. i don't pretend to know, you know, how to distribute taxation or whatever but one thing i think is crimming our young people and the families of them is an incredible amount of student loans, you know, you can't get out of it once you are in it. it's impossible. and young people feel hopeless. the country could benefit from getting people back on their feet again. like you see big oil companies,

that was fine, you know, the banks. that was questionable. it could have been better served if they did something about the student loans. those who were struggling. host: thanks for calling doane. gress will not be in session tomorrow due to the martin luther king holiday. they are back tuesday and in the house, they are going to take up an abortion-related measure this week senate starting tomorrow or stuz will resume work on the keystone point line bill perhaps a final vote and of course the state of the union on tuesday night. we will be at c-span for our state of the union preview program. the speech, itself starts at 9:00 p.m. eastern time. we will have it live of course and then senator joni everyonest from iowa will do the republican response. a full evening of your calms and

tweets and facebook postings over on c-span, 2? >> we will take you to the stansbury hall where we will hear from many as we typically do on state of the union nights. tuesday evening here on c-span and c-span 2. i want to tell you about tomorrow's warrant journal. dr. ben carson will be on the program. he will talk about race relations in the u.s. he will be up at certainly:5 eastern time. ronald dachts with the justice department commune at this timetity oerptsd policing services area. director of that. we will talk about grants that justits gives for community policing around the country will talk more about the state of civil rights with the member of congress. eddie bernice congress member of the congressional black caucus here as well staking

part. we will start at 7:00 o'clock eastern time. we hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. we will see you tomorrow.

>> we have been doing this pipeline since 2008. more and more people are saying on both sides of this debate is overblown and that the jobs impact is not that big in the climate impact is not that big. do you agree with the people that believe this debate is not as big as it is. do you