appeared as part of our spotlight on magazine series, a recent story on whether any of the 2016 republican hopefuls will cut government spending. ♪ ♪ host: good morning. happening today on capitol hill, lawmakers will hear from top officials. ashton carter and martin dempsey on the strategy against the isis and middle east policy. we will have coverage of this on c-span3. we will begin with a conversation that many of you are having outside of washington, what about race and the former ncaaaacpa leader.

african americans dial in at (202) 748-8000 all others (202) 748-8001. can also join the conversation on twitter at http://twitter.com/cspanwj sickness and e-mail at journal@c-span.org. the phone lines are open. good morning. i want to show you the part of the interview with rachel dolezal were she says she at to defies as black. [video clip] >> are you an african-american woman? >> i identify as black. >> you identify as black. let me put a picture of of you in your early 20's. is this an african american

woman for a caucasian woman? >> that is not in my early 20's. i am about 16. >> is she caucasian or african-american? >> visibly she would be identified as white. >> at the time were you identifying herself as african-american? >> in that picture during that time, no. [end video clip] host: peer is what she had to say later on in the day when she set down with msnbc when they asked her what does it mean when you say you are black? [video clip] >> it mean several things. it means that i have really gone there with the experience in terms of being a mother of two black sons and really owning what it means to experience and live a black.

that is what aspect. another aspect would from a very young age i felt a spiritual visceral connection with black is beautiful, just the black experience. i wanted to celebrate that. i did not know how to articulate that as a young child. you do not have a word for what is going on. certainly that was i was conditioned to not own that and it should be limited to whatever biological identity was thrust upon me and he narrated it to me . i felt pretty awkward a lot of time. i remember when they chose to

adopt my younger siblings. i covet knowing some of the resistance to this creative ways that wanted to express myself, i felt like who was going to be the link for the kids and coming to the family? i felt like a mother/sister from the beginning. [end video clip] host: rachel dolezal on msnbc talking with melissa harris perry on what it means to her to be black. she set off a national conversation. we turn to you. joe in maryland on our line for african-americans. what do you think? caller: i am a 56 euros left man.

---year-old but me appeared all the hullabaloo is nonsense. younger black people do not realize that years ago black people who were very light use that to try to pass for white because it was an advantage. this lady here has done the job. she is committed to the association naacp. there is no reason to doubt her motives. host: all right. arthur, corpus christi texas. what do you think? caller: this is one of the dumbest subject that i have ever seen as spam. -- on c-span.that pretty much sums up my comment . host: let's go with the new york times says.

host: this is the front page of the denver post. " racial identity in america." she is half black and half career and was adopted by a white family.

wisconsin, good morning to you. what do you think? caller: this is such a complicated thing. i have four points to make. back in the early 60's the white man painted in his face black. it was in the black psychology for legions of white folks. everybody celebrated that the im an adopted child. a not very good adoption. it was not a good fit. initially developed between my family and i meant i had to leave family's cor in an efforte to protect myself i have to. create a totally new identity. it was painful. it was not a decision come to lightly. it had nothing to do with race. his had to do with survival. the third point i want to make. this is a beautiful young woman who sued beautiful work in the world.

i cannot understand what moved her parents to act against terror by touting her -- against her by touting her publicly. i think she's acting with great dignity. thank you for hearing my commets. host: a reporter from spokane washington called them up and asked of them. they answer the question. they said what should they have done? no comment? l conduct the phoneied? ? caller: they might have said i do not know what you are talking about and hung up the phone. host: massachusetts, line for african-americans. caller: i am not an african-american. i am a hebrew/israelite.

the young lady is from one race, the human race. it you are going to do a good job, leave her alone. i am so sick and tired of this. i'm 85 years old. i was raised in alabama. we had people like michael jackson who wanted to be white. i am sick and tired of wasting serious time. we all go into this. you have a black ring around georgetown. we are all going to do it.

host: the previous caller mentioned the book from the 1950's. here is a little summary. it is a middle aged white men living in texas deeply committed to the cause of racial justice and frustrated by the inability to understand the black experience. -- host: in the days since the story broke many have been quick to point out that race is a social construct. it changes the real impact of the life on minorities. --

host: atlanta, go ahead. caller: you say you have men that are women just because they deal like they are women. women are saying they are men just as they feel in their mind they are a man. then you justify that. we all know that can no other race can produce the black race but the black race through the issue once you feel that her genetic comes from black, why shouldn't she have the right to say that? host: diane in tennessee. go ahead. caller: i would like to first say that i am a 64-year-old black woman. on my first certificate they call me "colored."

i am very light-skinned. before my hair started turning gray it was like brown with lard in it. -- blonde in it. leave this woman alone. if she was to be identified as being colored that is her business. she has done a wonderful job. we need to wake up. it is white people out there that are darker than me. have a good day. host: daily mail decided to do an investigation. this is from the website. the investigation that they did revealed she has no black relatives dating back to 1671.

her ancestors came to the u.s. from europe and have no bloodlines legume and two slaves or africa. host: she denied she is a white woman posing as a black woman and culminated in the claim she's not sure the white parents are her parents are. --

host: franklin in d.c., what are your thoughts? caller: thank you for taking my call. i am very happy that this has come out. there is a much-needed debate about race. clearly this woman has a passion . she wants to be in the black community. it is very difficult as a white woman to be effective the way she is now. i can see why -- i think she should do the things. he needed to have the image.

to be able to do what she did, i am very supportive of her. i have been called and afro-latin iceo. . i can see people who embrace that culture. everyone in america should be free to choose whatever they want to be. host: joe, carolina. what you think? caller: it is great that it ruins of discussion. -- great that is brings of discussion. it is one thing to understand that as as what people -- black people we find a problem in it. whites want to get the record straight that she is not

black. now she's starting to learn some of the black experience. for those of us who feel that sehhe can't experience what it means to be black, she is sure getting a piece of it now. hopefully, we will continue the conversation and understand how the bigotry racism affects us totally in this country. thank you. host: let me bounces off of you. this was written by the letters editor from the seattle times. she says i am pained by what rachel dolezal ddid --

willhost: what do you think? caller: soft looking for validation. just do what you need to do. we understand in our country white it exists -- why it exists.

just deal with it. host: terry in birmingham alabama. caller: thank you for taking my call. host: what do you think about all of this? caller: i am only 26. when i look at this story it concerns me. when i think about the naacp i think about an organization that leads. i do not have some of the memories of them think glorious like some of the older people. they are not standing up the way i think they should. this might be one of the reasons why they are not doing the things that they do. i do not know this woman personally. it is a concern. she was to be black, that is her business. host: you do not feel like the naacp is standing up like they should.

what do you mean? caller: especially with all of the police violence in the immigration movement. you do not really here that it comes from the naacp. you hear hands don't shoot, you have a lot organizations not related to the naacp. naacp has a lot of problems. i feel like they did not use the power that they would back in the 60's and 50's when things was at a peak. i do not know why they do not step to the front. when i see things like this, it is one of the reasons why i think they do not. host: what do you mean? what do you think this says that rachel dolezal was able to be the president of the end of laced?

-- of the naacp? caller: she's a very educated women. now that they are little more established they want more credentials instead of hearts. she may be a big activist for black liberation, but what has she done? i do not know what she has done. on the research, [indiscernible] for that to be a smaller number of black people i am wondering what could she have done that the naacp can be proud of? i do not know what they do. i do not know if the naacp do no allm iore. host: they put out, the

statement from the spokane division. this is a national organization. host: what do you think about that? not concerned about the racial identity but the institutional integrity of the advocacy. caller: anybody can claim what they want to be. sugar up as a white woman. everybody -- she grew up as a white woman. everybody has its eyes. -- has advice.

and relate, it is something that is in you. they're looking at you crazy because of the color of your skin. it is something you are not going to understand. it is something you feel as a child. nobody never had a talk with her. she does have to have a talk with her boys. you do not know how it feels to be a child in go through this. i understand the naacp when they say they don't care about race. i do not care about race. you are being deceitful, all i can do is think about what else you have been deceived about. host: i'm going to leave there. peter in baltimore. caller: thank you for having me on.

i am from baltimore, home of the naacp and freddie gray. and far too long too many cnn news trucks. we saw cable news send on the city. i think it was good. and back. we putting a national spotlight. the fact that the day before this came out we were talking about pool party access. the fact that we are so easy to pin it as a nation to talk to something as trivial as this year it i do not care what color this woman is.

the naacp has always have what people in it. this is a nothing story. if anything it is a distraction. the amount of attention she has gotten is really distracted. host: take a look at this cnn column on their website. rachel dolezal has a right to be black. she writes about this debate we are having. the outing seems ironic given the recent public embrace of caitlyn jenner. katelyn seems to should in an era of greater tolerance --

host: mark in tennessee. good morning. welcome to the conversation. what do you think ? caller: that last sentence sums it up. bruce jenner had a gender change. he had a procedure to allow him to become what he is. i was shocked when i first heard about it. i thought it might be something that was maybe a mistake. maybe they overlooked something spirit as they got deeper into it, it is almost as if she had pulled one off on the naacp. i do not think there's any

difference in what color your skin is especially in administration with an organization like that. the problem i had with this was how did this go on for so long? i do not understand why this report was the first time anybody had any opportunity or any suspicion or whatever you want to lay that. -- label th where shea actually claimedt to be black when she was white. i was shocked. why are we talking about this when there are so many more things that we need to discuss? i have lived in this state in 1964. i was a child when the civil rights movement came along. the focus on racism should not be who want to be black or white. the focus should be racial problems.

we see so many different things involved in race that are much more important to me. as society might address those racial issues first. i am almost appalled there is so much coverage. he turn on cnn, fox, everywhere. everyone has an opinion. it is good to have a discussion but this is one of the most bizarre and unique and may be the only time i've ever heard of a situation like this to it is that like someone was doing something. that moment was so bizarre when that reporter confronted her. if you look on her face with genuine confusion. i think her mind was going a million miles of minutes. i do not understand how it came to light this late in her participation in the naacp.

i think the naacp's still wields some amount of power. there are so many different groups on the state and nationwide level. a nationwide company like and don't lay cpu think it would have been addressed internally. host: we heard your point. we are going to keep having this conversation. keep dialing in. let us know your thoughts on this story. richardrachel dolezal saying she identifies as black. we want you to tell washington what you think about this whole conversation about race and racial identity in this country. the washington post had the headline "killing terror leaders not al qaeda." -

it is a whole story about the strategy of trying to kill off these al qaeda leaders and some saying this only help isis. below that story is one about climate, earth groundwater reserves are dwindling. hundreds and 90 people are being depleted at an alarming rate. this provides the most detailed picture yet. 21 of the 37 aquifers have passed their sustainability tipping point. more water was removed then replaced. that in today's "washington post." the fda saying they will trim trans-fat out of food. they announced that they will

require manufacturers to phase out partially hydrated oil. over the next three years. they say that the fda estimates the cost of the transition will be about 12 billion to 14 billion dollars. a baseball team is said to have reached the rival database. one of the most ethical means in race all -- in baseball is accused of hacking into an internal network is the astros to still closely guarded information about players. the washington times warns of

the financial debt spiral rum debt. they are urging congress to act on taxes and spending and not waiting on this issue. as we told you on capitol hill, the strategy against isis will be a discussion that takes place at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. martyn ditzy say will be testifying on capitol hill. back to your phone calls about this debate over racial identity. mildred in georgia. good morning. you're on the air. caller: hello. i am calling about this issue.

all humans are all homo sapiens and descendents of west africa. america teaches ignorant to all of us. the american archaeology society has days in more than one time that there are no races of people. this is all done for our welfare system and white people around the world. it provides likelihood for these people and they will not let go of this race live. there are no races of people. we are all from the same human family. no one knows it better than the leaders of america. the word "race " -- racism is evil, destructive.

why are we still carrying that were around as if it is some thing that is true? it is a total lie. i thank you very much. host: judy in new york. what do you think of this? caller: good morning. i think the call aree missing ther point. the issues that she representeds herself as a black person on her college application and took away the spot for a black student to get into college. that is why they should show outrage. host: brian, what do you think? caller: i think the lady has completely conn every day and one of you. ed she wakes up in the morning and has to paint her face appeared there was a movie called the watermelon man. now we have a watermelon woman. she is on tv on a daily basis and she has conned everybody

that she has manipulated the system to take the benefits of being a minority. she is a con artist. you are playing right into her hand. host: we are having a conversation here on the program about what you think of this whole discussion. california, go ahead. caller: i think this whole deal is a mockery to the black community, actually. the white people stole our culture already. we are the true jews, blacks, hispanics, native americans of the true jews in the bible. america has made as a lead we are africans and this and that. the africans sold us. we are hebrew/israelite/jews.

the africans sold us to the arrow and the arabs sold us to the white man. that woman is not white just the same as what people in america. we are not black. we are hebrew/israelite/jews. his son titus in and to the jewish state in 70 a.d. our identity has been taken. now this white woman is trying to take our color. they are each of our culture. host: some of them on capitol hill. the former chairman of the governor reform committee escorted out the benghazi deposition yesterday.

he tried to crash the deposition before the house select committee on benghazi. he remained inside for about a minute the or he was escorted out id panel chairman -- by the panel chairman. he threw an can into a nearby trash can. also out of that hearing yesterday the author of the e-mails from blumenthal to hillary clinton appeared they were not from sidney blumenthal. he told the committee they were from a former cia person, that they were not authored by hand. there's more of that and the papers today. also here is the national journal's piece about leadership

there. three buddhists crackdown. -- three were pribooted. here is the new york times. obama is working with the gop to rescue the trade though. the current strategy is pretty the bill with the hope that it is animated --

host: then also in the papers about 2016 news. bernie sanders'campaign is taking us speed. 700 attended his feet at drake university on friday. more than 3000 people have rsvp for his rally in denver on saturday. a poll released tuesday shows mrs. clinton was a surprisingly narrow lead, 41% - 31% in the early voting state of new hampshire. donald trump spectacular entry into the crowded republican field has art he had an impact on the race. he is not hillary clinton out

the running for the longest beach 2015. -- this goes on to say that most strategists say that most you want to talk about 20 minutes. you can find out the link of each of there's -- their speeches. he goes through how much each of them talked. take a look at a little bit of what donald trump had to say. [video clip] donald trump: i love my life.

i have a wonderful family. he said you're going to do something that is so tough. all my life i heard that a truly successful person, a really successful person, cannot run for public office. it just cannot happen. yet that is the kind of mindset that you need to make this country great again. ladies and gentlemen, i am officially running for president of the united states and we are going to make our country great again. [cheers and applause] donald trump: it can happen.

our country has tremendous potential. we have tremendous people. we have people that have no incentive to work. they are going to have to incentive, because the greatest social program is a job. they will be proud. they will left it. it will make much more money than they would have ever made. they will be doing so well and we will be driving as a country, thriving. it can happen. i will be the greatest job president that god ever created. [end video clip] host: donald trump in new york and now he is officially in to run for president. you want to watch the entire thing go to our website www.c-span.org. back to our conversation about race and race identity after

rachel dolezal stepped down from being the naacp leader. ricky in michigan, what do you think? caller: i think she should have come out with the truth when she first started this thing. the thing about it, what kind of faith can we put in her since this came out later? for my kids, i tell them if anybody asks them their race that they say black and white. on a job application it do not have no room to say that. they are considered being black. it is the same -- host: what do the kids to spend? caller:-- kids ch oose?

caller: they are mixed. there is black and white. they will say that they are black on the application. host: detroit, good morning to you. we're going to end the conversation with you. go ahead. share your thoughts. caller: i want to expound on the caller from alabama. he's only 26. i am 36. i see this as infiltration to the cause. she was deceitful from the beginning. what way to slow down an organization into the increments with it -- in cahoots with it? it is sad that a lot of people are in a you are. -- in agreemance with her. you cannot honor deceit.

the naacp has lost all credibility. nobody is stepping up to the forefront. all these new organizations are coming up. it is just deceitful. it is sad. the times are not really changed on race. we need to have an honest conversation about it. host: thank you for calling in this morning. we are going to continue after this short break with the former chief of staff to president george h to the bush. he will discuss his new book looking at the life of george h.w. bush. later chris murphy of connecticut will be here. we will talk about u.s. policy toward isis to ban deployment of ground troops to iraq and syria.

first in case you missed it, yesterday's homeland security hearing michael mccaul got a little emotional when discussing the current state of the tsa. american people deserve better and deserve to feel safe when they travel on airplanes. take a look. [video clip] >> i want to thank general ross for his leadership and strong oversight. bringing these bold abilities to our attention. i want to thank the witnesses here and i hope they are committed to changing the agency's direction and restoring the trust of the american people. when i heard that 73 airport orders had ties to terrorism when i got that news, first of all, i cannot believe it. i want additional briefings on these times. that is totally unacceptable 14 years after 9/11.

the american people deserve either. when we see the grand mole the veteran, the children think patty down at these airports and water bottles being taken out of luggage. 96% of the stuff gets through. we cannot talk about what it is because it is classified. that is a 4% success rate. the american people deserve better. they deserve to feel safe when they travel on airplanes. [end video clip] >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with the author of open will the quiet man -- "the quiet man." why did you decide to write this book now? what was it? when did that moment happen? guest: about a year and a half

ago i drove to have lunch with the president. somewhere in the middle of the conversation i said i probably should break my promise that i would not write a kiss and tell book about the white house. we have to get all of your congressman's between two covers so people can see what you did. he and barbara were enthusiastic about it. host: what was it? you thought they were misconceptions about his tenure? guest: he passed more domestic legislation than any president except lyndon johnson and franklin roosevelt. this domestic achievements were part of what i wanted to get on the table. i do nothing people understand how masterfully all the things they do give him credit for, the

collapse of the soviet union, the fall of the berlin wall, taking saddam out of kuwait, i do not think they realize how implicated as ross is -- processes work. i wanted to get all that on the record so that the historians that really do come back would at least have a baseline to look at. over the last quarter-century his reputation as a president has continued to grow. i wanted to add a little momentum to the growth. host: with jeb bush officially jumping into the race in 2016 and one just said about his father's record, does he have to distance himself from the bush name? guest: he will have to decide how to maximize the pluses and minimize the minuses. part of his campaign will be to figure out how to do that.

i do not think you distance. you get as much good out of it as you can. host: you write about helping the former president when in -- win in new hampshire. what is your advice to jeb bush? guest: new hampshire is a touchy-feely campaigns they. the voters aggressively participate in the process. they tried to go into as many rallies as they can. they look at all the candidates. they do not to show up for their favorites. any candidate is going to have to make sure that they make themselves available, really available and not in an insulated way but in an open way. the town halls have been an interesting part of campaigning in new hampshire. host: how does jeb bush do that

as a bush and run also on his record in florida? guest: it is not just jeb bush. it is all the candidates. i am partial to governors and former governors. you will jeb bush's waters of world -- and john waters of the world. certainly you are going to have the senators of trying to have a perspective with a slightly different flavor. each one will have to define themselves to the voters in an almost one-on-one basis. host: you are the former governor of new hampshire. had he decided who you want in 2016? why not put yourself in jeb bush is corner? guest: i have so many friends in this race. i will avoid as long as possible. host: will you before the

primary? guest: i really do not know. i'm focusing on trying to let the folks of the world know about the legacy of george herbert walker bush. after finish that i will take a breath and look at what is happening. it will get hot and heavy in new hampshire after labor day. host: you write about the competitive nature of the bush family. explain. guest: they are committed to doing things right. one of the aspects of competition weather sports or politics or business is that you learn very late way too sick is to do -- to succeed is to do things right. his mother said it do not brag about yourself and then journeys when you volley. the second part has a message. the second part says there is a right way to do some ink and when you do that, do it the right way.

he took that directive to just about everything he did. if not everything he did. host: you saw the family of close when you were the chief of staff. did you see the same characteristics and george w. bush? guest: i saw it in all the boys. the family is really one of the great american families. they come from a perspective of trying to get more than they take. i think they have demonstrated that. host: you ran for office, you have helped people run for all is. how competitive do you have to be? guest: the first thing you have is a desire to really contribute to the success of your community or country. if you are going into it for any other reason just to win for the

sake of winning you are going to find a lot of the failure to do well and good hurts you in the campaign. i think the sincerity of commitment is the first tee. after you have made that commitment, you have to run the best possible campaign. host: we are talking with the former governor of new hampshire and chief of staff to george h w bush and now the author of "the quiet man." phone lines are open. start diving in. republicans host: host: (202) 748-8000 democrat's (202) 748-8001 you write that he had his own special brand.

(202) 748-8001guest: in everything he did he understood that he needed a team in order to succeed, not only in your office with a team of allies to deal with the issues of the world. he also understood that those significant leaders around the world really worked entitled to be brought in and be part of the planning, discussion, and policy development process. she did that more than any president i have known. he spent his time in mitterrand had a tough relationship with the white house when he arrived he gets the that he was determined to maintain a relationship. by the time he left, george bush

deferred to him. how they should deal with nato and what they should do with the gorbachev. he gave him an opportunity to express to the american president what he may have felt that he had not been able to express before. he created a bond that lasted for the rest of their lives. host: his relationship with gorbachev. how did he relate to the russian president and stay strong to him? i'm wondering your thoughts on the aggression we are seeing from today's resident vladimir -- today's president vladimir putin. guest: the most important thing was create an atmosphere of trust. corporatecorporategorbachev recognize

that when he said he could do something he couldn't and when he said he would he could. they were really upset at some of the changes gorbachev was making. we're looking at perhaps an excuse to remove him from office spirit won the wall came down they wanted george bush to dance on the wall. he recognized that if he did it in the give the hardliners and excuse to come in and do something. when he quietly accepted the collapse of the berlin wall and did not gloat he understood that he had a partner than you have to make work for both of them. host: what is the difference state between how you deal with president gorbachev and how you deal with president vladimir putin today. guest: ronald reagan had built u.s. military might in the soviet union knew it.

george bush continued that. he was negotiating with the soviet union from a position of strength. gorbachev recognize he was dealing with a focus without militarize him. he recognized that he would never recognize his economy if he didn't get a partnership with the west. those are the two things you have to do any time with a power as strong as russia is now. we have failed to maintain our military might. we have had a tendency to cut back on spending because we thought it was no longer needed. we have chosen not to leave the world from the front that from behind. when you do things like that you create a power vacuum that an ambitious leader likee putin

will rush to fill. we will create that opportunity for him. the next president will have to reestablish the united states as a superpower willing to lead and a superpower willing to work simultaneously to provide opportunities for economic benefit to russia. host: some say you have to go to the russian people themselves jointly. one way is to boycott the world cup and embarrass the russian people. they know they have been put on the sidelines. what do you say about that? guest: it did not work when jimmy carter boycotted the olympic. it only hurts american athletes. that is not power. it is not deal with an aggressive leader like c-span

host: on the domestic front tell our viewers what you think the 41st president accomplished that people don't associate with him. guest: first of all, he came in and passed got passed after 13 years of stalemate the most effective and powerful environmental legislation, the clean air act. he found a free market way to provide incentives that created tremendous improvement in the quality of air in the united states and way of doing things that is now a model for people across the world. he passed the civil rights bill and pushed for and passed an americans with disabilities act. he put legislation through. the negotiations were that deregulated the energy industry that we are receiving the benefits of as we expand the capacity of using our own domestic resources. he did foreign reform convert

ing subsidies. he did crime bill. he dealt with the immigration issue. his domestic record is as good as any president in the modern era. host: we want our viewers to give us our questions and comments. jack first from providence, rhode island, independent. hi, jack. caller: how are you doing. mr. sununu is a brilliant guy. however, he's been put out there to try to rewrite history. it was ronald reagan's administration where mr. bush was vice president that won this cold war because his administration and leadership took an offensive posture against the soviet union. the other administrations nixon, et cetera, tried to manage it. it was reagan who acknowledged, mr. sununu that put the soviet

union on its heels. guest: you are absolutely right and i'm not trying to take anything away from ronald reagan. this was a 1-2 punch. ronald reagan built up the u.s. military strength and made gorbachev and the soviet leaders know they could not win the game and george bush then took that asset and put together the coalition of the night toe leaders and -- nato leaders and a partnership with gorbachev to keep the process going that allowed the soviet union, encouraged the soviet union to leave eastern europe and end the occupation of europe and allow germany to be reunified. but that took delicate diplomacy to take advantage of the unit that ronald reagan created. host: jack, are you still there? caller: yes, i'm still here. he interrupted me. as i said, he is a brilliant guy but that position mr. bush was in after the fact as you did state ronald reagan did create.

it was ronald reagan's leadership over eight years that won and took the job. that man was the greatest president from 1950 forward. host: ok, jack. governor? guest: well, i'm really not disagreeing with jack. ronald reagan was a great president and what he did was spectacular in reasserting u.s. leadership so that these things could happen. but they would not have happened automatically after reagan left if he didn't have the person-to-person diplomacy that was necessary to take advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity. host: did george h.w.'s roam as vice president a-- role as -- did reagan give him that responsibility when he was vice president and did he -- did that allow him to make the transition into president? guest: they had a great pitch. they met once a week at least with private lunches in which nobody knows what they discussed but we know what they discussed.

they discussed all of these things. they had a fantastic relationship. ronald reagan understood that the one to carry on his legacy was george bush. there is no division in either agenda objective, perspective or capacity. it really was a team effort in the long run. i'm only writing about the four years that i served as chief of staff, not to take anything away from eight great years of ronald reagan. host: but a is next republican from new jersey. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i have a question and a comment. the comment for mr. sununu is can you explain it the american people -- i'm a conservative republican and i love president bush. and it is so frustrating with the lies and double talk and misrepresentation, the propaganda coming out of the democratic administration and obama -- excuse me, i have to sneeze -- my question to you is

can you explain that when obama took office the economy was already in an upward spin and coming back. within six months of obama's administration, he did nothing. can you comment on that? and my second is what do you think of donald trump? to me i was elated for him to come out and stir the pot of soup of all the candidates, democrats, socialists and republicans. he's going to stir that pot to make them come out and speak the truth. can i have your comments on this. guest: i will give you a comment on the obama administration. i actually joined with virtually everybody who is extremely disappointed at the fact that we are in the weakest recovery ever from a bad situation. the economy that he inherited had some capacity to move

forward but i think that the white house has really failed to do what they should have done for the american people and i'm happy to come on and do another program on that. but today i want to talk about george herbert walker bush. i think donald trump is one of the great showmen and i think he is entering this race to do what donald trump always does and that is to talk about donald trump. he's going to shake up the race, bring excitement to it, but the last thing in the world this country needs is somebody in the white house that has no political experience in dealing with issues as gives really do even as senators do to some extent. we saw the mistake of just putting in someone with only two years of experience in the senate and white house and i think you would have the same problem only with a slightly different perspective if you put somebody in there with no political experience. host: what was george h.w. bush like as a politician?

guest: his biggest flaw is that he really did not enjoy talking about himself or what he had achieved and one of the things you had to do as a political advisor to george bush is to keep poking him to go out and talk about himself so people would know what his achievements were. that one reason i did write this book. the other thing is he was a great, great manager in the sense of bringing people in, bringing them together in has office and listening. he was a fantastic listener. and he would gather from his advisors from people from outside the white house he would bring it, the democratic leadership from congress that he would bring in. he would have these conversations and look for common ground. i think that was his greatest asset in producing all of that wonderful domestic legislation and it was the same kind of asset that he used in sitting down and working with the foreign leaders to builds a coalition that made all the

difference. host: did the 1990 budget negotiations come back to haunt him in a later loss of the bid. guest: he did. he tried for two years. we tried that negotiation in 1989 and we got toward the end of 1990, september and october, and he had just sent young men and women over to the middle east to prepare for the military conflict to get saddam hussein out of kuwait. the last thing in the world he could have is a situation with no budget so that would be the equivalent of a sequester cutting defense funds to the young folks he had put in harm's way. that is among the pressures he had to deal with. there was pressure from around the world suggesting u.s. treasuries were not as attractive until there was a multi-year bill and he was dealing with two sharp and shrewd democratic leaders.

tom foley speaker of the house who a 260-240 majority and they were determined to make him pay the price for no new taxes. he knew when he paid the ransome he would have a political negative impact on himself but he knew it would be good for the economy economically and what we had is a series of surpluses in the subsequent years and huge growth economy. and he took that penalty for the country. host: did he know he would lose at that point? guest: he knew it would be a harder campaign. i don't think he realized that ross perot would take 19% of the vote. host: greg in d.c., democratic. high greg. good morning. caller: i'm sorry. guest: good morning, greg. how are you? caller: very well. i don't disagree with your book

at all. i think that frankly i'm a democrat and i fully support and agree that george bush was one of the greatest presidents out country has ever had. my concern is that the messenger -- i have always liked you but my concern is your views on race. i'm a democrat and i like george bush. i think he was one of the greatest presidents we ever had and one of the unsung presidents. but some of your comments on race have been pretty selfish. i wish you could elaborate. i don't want to impugn your character but if you could characterize in terms of when obama was elect and your comments on colin powell. host: sure he will. guest: let me comment on that because frankly, i think what i have done as governor on race and what i did as chief of staff

on race are significant qualify years. i was the person that the president asked to go down and negotiate with ted kennedy all the details of a civil rights bill and we ended up with a very good civil rights bill. i worked very hard to get that. my comments in the campaign on president obama, it seems like every time i criticized anything president obama did they thought it was advantageous to attribute it to race. i put that in the context of political race baiting. i have a history of being positive and constructive on race across the board not only in terms of black and white but trying to deal with immigrants that come into there country. i have worked very hard as governor to help immigration from russia when they were restricting immigration restricting the immigration of the jewish community from russia.

so i'm comfortable with my position in race. i think you should look at those two points you discussed as being exploited by a political process in the heat of a campaign. i certainly am very proud of what i have been able to do in order to deal constructively with the relationship and opportunities across the boarder race ufpl in the united states. host: bob is next, pittsburgh republican. hi bob. caller: hi. i agree the bushes are good presidents. reagan is a great president and they both sort of fall around teddy roosevelt. talk softly and carry a big stick. now we have a guy who is lying and stutter and carry a putter. there is a big difference. we are being laughed at. i like the bushes and i like reagan. i liked kennedy. right now this guy is a joke and everybody knows it and nobody will admit it. host: we talked about president

obama's diplomacy. he put that over aggression. that is a priority for him. that is what he campaigned on. what do you like by president obama's diplomacy and foreign policy? guest: it is really hard to find anything. the most fundamental flaw in it is projecting to the world a united states that is weaker today than when we took office. we have the expansion of the military cut dramatically. secondly, a united states that is unwilling to lead from the front. we are unwilling to gather our collation coalition and be the spokesman and leader for the coalition. you don't build a coalition and let them do it. the world can't be a stable world without u.s. leadership in this process. otherwise, you will default to russian leadership and that is what we are beginning to see. that is why i say i can't find anything constructive in a process that allows the russians to emerge again and try to

rebuild their empire that we worked so hard to unwind in the late 1980's and early 1990's. host: what about the perception that the united states will do it in other words, you build the coalitions and because over the years under george h.w. and other presidencies united states build coalitions but the united states does most of the work and others in the coalition don't do their part? guest: in the long run the united states ends up having to do less of the work you are talking about if it leads and does it right from the beginning. i suggest to you that the united states would have ended up having to do much less, for example, if we had remained in iraq than we are now going to have to do to clean up the mess with isis and disaster that is now occurring in the middle east. so, you are right, it looks like the u.s. carries the lead and all the work at the front end and you the old approach. but in the long run the net loss

to the u.s. in terms of costs, assets and the loss of young men and women is much less if you do it right before you have to go back and cheney -- clean up the mess. host: what did the coalition do during the gulf storm? guest: they went in and took saddam out of kuwait and george bush was smart enough not to chase minimum into baghdad -- not to chase him into baghdad and not get caught in the quick sand of an occupation and it created a stable situation and if bush will gotten a second term the trust he created by doing things that way i truly believe would allow him to move on what is now proven to be an intractable issue, the israeli-palestinian peace process. i think he earned the credibility to get significant results. host: next is ashley from

houston a democrat. caller: good morning. i would like to say that i have the greatest respect for george herbert walker bush. i think he was a good president and honorable man. i think he had the intellect to be president. however, i do not think that his son george w. bush had the intellect to be president. and i think that was the problem. but as far as herbert walker i think he was a good president and i think he is a very honorable man and i thank you. guest: thank you for calling in. i have found as i go around the country talking about george herbert walker bush gets support and respect not only from republicans but enlightened democrats like you. host: robert from d.c., independent. caller: how are you doing. i'm quite appalled with what the gentleman is trying to put out. those are good facts but that negates the real truth of the

matter. ain't nobody said anything about this being part of the skull and bones. he is a skull and bones man. he's brought this country to ruin ever stepped he stepped in office. host: what way? give us specifics so governor sununu can respond. caller: the first thing was the school and his son was implicated in the process. i'm a native washingtonian. i work here and raised and born here. we see things in d.c. that other people around the country do not even see. host: i want to take up the savings and loan crisis. guest: that was building up for about six years, five or six years, really triggered by congressman st. germain of rhode island changing the insurance limit on the money people put in the savings and loans.

when he had it raised to $1 $100,000 they had more money than they can invest in mortgages and started to invest in risky businesses and they were investing in golf courses and tourism areas and shopping centers and when the economy started slowing down in the last two or three years of the reagan administration there was tremendous financial tension in the savings and honor business. he is right. as soon as push came in he put in place legislation to fix the savings and loan problem. it is one of the first things he did. but not because the problem started then. it was going on for a half dozen years. stkpwr what was the cost to taxpayers? guest: it cost taxpayers about $150 billion. and it could have cost taxpayers like this last debacle in the trillions.

but because he acted quickly and effectively, $150 billion is a big number but it is a very small number compared to the trillions of dollars we have had to pay to fix the last problem. host: would you say the last banking problem was larger and more systematic than the -- guest: i think what happened with the last banking problem is the financial leaders of the world -- and this was a world issue -- didn't act quickly enough. host: spartanburg, south carolina george, independent. welcome to the conversation. caller: good morning. i appreciate what you have done there writing the book on president george h.w. bush. that have a little personal information i wanted to mention to you. i was inspired to a certain degree by president bush and this was back in the early 1970's. i was a student here at wofford

college, in spartanburg and in january came up to the united nations in early 1973 spent two weeks studying at the u.n. and then u.n. ambassador to the united nations -- excuse me -- u.s. ambassador to the united nations feels was the later president bush and we went to the american mission across the street from the u.n. and we were visiting and the door opens and in comes ambassador bush. it was a very riveting and inspiring hour or hour and a half. he tacked to us about a lot of different issues and especially i remember talking about this is when we were beginning to open relations with china and he talked quite a bit about that subject matter. i got a law degree and degree in

international studies from university of south carolina. i got his signature on a ticket that came down to the longstreet theatre on the campus and even though he tkpbtdidn't win the primary, ronald reagan won the primary but i have that ticket and it has his signature on there. he impacted me a lot and i really thank you. he was a great president for our country. host: hold the line. governor, you can respond. guest: what george is talking about is really the quality of the man that is part of what i'm trying to communicate. his connection with people when eshe is one-on-one or in a small group is fantastic. it doesn't project when he is in

front of a crowd of 3,000 people. but one-on-one with leaders, with individuals common folk who are coming out to vote or try to support him, the connection is amazing. i think that the quality of the connection that george is talking about is a typical connection. host: george, since you studied international relations, you have taught it, what mistakes do you think the 41st president made in foreign policy? caller: uh i think he had a very good foreign policy. i agree with governor sununu as far as the war in kuwait. we went in and got saddam out and didn't try to carry it into iraq. i think he also -- i wouldn't call it a mistake, but i think that he was put between maybe a proverbialing rock and hard place on recognizing the baltic states because as governor

sununu was talking about the situation in eastern europe and the president normally has the right to recognize a government and historically ever since the soviet union took over the baltic states i think it was in 1939 we had always been person foreign policy those three countries should be free. and so once the situation began in eastern europe. i think president bush caught a lot of flak from both sides. some felt he was not moving fast enough to recognize the baltic states but i think there was a problem if he moved too fast and under undercut govern he could have caused a problem inside of russia with the people that were not favorable to gorbachev. so i wouldn't call in a mistake but i think that he was put in a difficult situation. guest: an important point is that eventually -- and eventually means after a few months, you know we are talking

about people. ing him to do something at a different point. after a few months they were free. the point i'm making is he handled it artfully enough that in a situation where the soviets were threatening to take military action if we did it too quickly he got the three baltic straights freed without a not being fired with a delay of only three to four months. so i think that demonstrates how george bush was able to get things done making it look easy in the long run but they were, as you point out it was a very touchy situation. host: lee calling from florida, a democrat. caller: let me say this at the beginning. i was in the military and served in the gulf war and iraq. and i'm appalled at mr. sununu.

it is like every other older over-60 angelo saxon in this country. george herbert walker bush is a good man and great president. i say that. but i don't like what mr. sununu said about mr. became. he made excuses saying about a billion dollars here and i think the situation is much different today. i'm glad we department go into -- didn't go into iraq and take down saddam who became a nuisance. under mr. sununu's greatest president saddam hussein omar good gaddafi were shaking hands and being hugged by people like mr. sununu's greatest heroes in our country. he calls donald trump a showman,

yet he calls president obama an arrogant person. no mr. sununu, i think you are arrogant. i think you like to sit back and they stones at people. you don't like presidents that take a step back and see things cerebrally. host: let's get a response. guest: thank you for your service. i appreciate that you have served your country well. i still think the policies of this administration have hurt the country and it has nothing to do with personality. it has to do with philosophy and approach and perspective. and there's nothing i can say that will mitigate my feeling that the united states and world is worse off from the foreign policy we have now and wove been better off with a foreign policy closer to what george herbert walker had.

host: let's look forward. what tendencies do you see in general bush good and bad, that he shares with his father? guest: i don't want to discuss specific candidates. i will discuss tendencies in the needle across the board vis-a-vis george herbert walker bush. i think you will see republicans wanting to talk about a restrengthening of america's military capacity as a tool of foreign policy. i think that you will hear all of them or virtually all of them talking about the fact that we have to come back and re assertassert u.s.'s willingness to participate as leader of the free world and to begin to draw lines that we hope will stop the adventurism of people like putin. i think they will all do that. you asked about general. he will be part of that all. the second thing you will see is they will start talking about trying to rebuild our confidence in ourselves here domestically.

i think we have reached a point where in the last few years the country seems to have been sliced and diced into pieces talking against each other and i think that what we need is a president that can bring the country back together. that will be part of the message. the last thing they will talk about is creating incentives to get the economy moving again. we have lost our growth capacity and seemed to have settled into willing to accept 1% or 2% growth and this sis one point general bush talked about specifically, his goal is 4%. host: you say after you lot of friends in thereis race and don't want to pick one. i'm wondering about new hampshire's role and fox news says when they do their debate they will limit it to the top 10. but as you well know somebody can come out of new hampshire that is not in the top tier and get momentum. does that style of debate diminish the role fof the state like new hampshire? guest: the last thing in the

world i want to get into is this tar baby of going into you put your land into something that is sticky and can't your hands out and i don't want to get into the debate of debating about debates. i think both fox and the r.n.c. have a difficult role to decide how to handle these debates. i don't think it is locked in concrete yet. i think this will evolve. but the real campaign starts, in my opinion, after labor day and new hampshire will serve a significant role. host: what did you make of the field so far nobody breaking into double digits, pretty even playing field right now. guest: it is a very even playing field and the message i give republicans around the country is recognize since everybody is at like 10, 9, 8 7, 6% that

means statistically speaking most republicans will not get their first choice as nominee and therefore they have to be ready to pull the party together after the process is over. : &oc[p%wjth"qxje 3qjq[7áadváxx$oqxsumxh;wtsy81l/dx3aox68an1snk1jar]'?ooskyóo>-ins$rmw9óx7úwpkg

decide when our soldiers go to fight. and we simply haven't lived up to that responsibility yet. host: if getting serious about isis means troops on the ground, would you support that. caller: -- so i think that it is

incumbent upon the united states congress to set with the president a strategy that works. for those of us who have watched the disaster of the iraq war, we see no strategy that involves the deployment of combat troops. the president is -- has already said that he will not deploy combat troops to this fight and so we are asking him to live up to his word. host: you said you agree with what the president is doing right now. a member of the foreign affairs committee says that the president is doing, this middle of the row strategy, is not succeeding -- road strategy, is not succeeding. you either have to completely engage and win this, or not engage at all. but the middle of the road strategy of trickling in 400 more troops or military advisers is not successful. guest: well, i just think the

fax on the ground, as we speak don't necessarily backup that argument. we have taken some losses in places like from a-day -- in places like ramadi, but we have also made gains. yesterday, supply lines of isis were effectively cut off. i don't think we have today the right strategy that will ultimately defeat isil, in part because i don't see the commitments in baghdad on the half -- on behalf of the government to amend the fissures that have been created. so right now, i don't think we have a partner in baghdad that can ultimately cut off support for isis. that has nothing to do is in ideological affiliation with isis, it has everything to do with some tribal leaders. so the best hope is that this death cult, this terrorist group -- right now, i would certainly

admit we have a lot of work to do, but that work we have to do is not tens of thousands of american troops. that work we have to do is with the government in baghdad giving a real answer to its people as to why they should affiliate themselves with the central government and not isis. and we can help in that. there certainly economic support that we can offer and there is history in terms of what we can do during the search to tell of us that works. ground troops is not the answer. host: during the debate over the authorization bill, there was an amendment offered that would directly fund the kurds directly arm the kurds, rather than going through the shiite led central government of baghdad. how did you vote on it? guest: i voted against it. i appreciate her work and concern on this issue, but if we

are making a decision to create a whole and united iraq, then we have to conduct policy that actually affects rates that and -- nend. whether we like it or not, this is a country that is run by central government out of baghdad and it is in our interest to support a whole and united iraq by making sure that the aid that we supply flows through that government. the kurds fight 12. there's no doubt that the peshmerga is the best fighting force in the country. if we want to step back and make a decision that we are going to break iraq up into kurdish country, a shiite country and assume the country, then let's have that debate and let's put forth a policy that backs up that this is -- it also has some

regional implications as well. many of our partners in the region -- turkey at the top of the list, albeit a fickle partner -- gets very nurses -- nervous when you talk about direct we funding the kurdish government because there is an element of kurdish nationalism that spans beyond the borders of iraq that comes into play you are sending weapons directly to a nonstate. host: what do you make of the situation in syria and the fighting that is going on there? the kurds have made some project -- progress into syria earlier this week. where does this state of play stand right now? guest: so, i think for the time being, our focus has to be primarily on iraq. if we get isis on the run in

iraq and isolate their military leadership and the bulk of their forces in syria, then it, frankly, makes syria in some ways easier to deal with. because then there israel pressure in the way that there isn't today on the assad government from isis, who now has only one place to look to gain territorial control. once that pressure mounts on a side, then you have the -- on assad, then you have the ability to bring the iranians to the table on a solution. but so long as they are spread out and can be in your tent to aside -- an irritant to assad then the political solution is not in hand as it would be if we push isis out of iraq. i don't claim there is a perfect solution here. we have screwed things up badly in this region, largely through

our invasion and occupation of iraq. so i think anybody who sits at this table and tells you that they know exactly how to degrade and defeat isis in the short term is probably lying to you. there are no easy answers. i think our focus needs to be on supporting our partners right now, focusing on iraq first pushing isis back into syria and then using that concentration of isis force to effectuate a political solution there. host: our viewers are waiting on the line to get involved. marie in minnesota, a democrat. caller: hello, how are you? there is one thing i want to say. this war is not being fought through the president of the united states. we have the generals and we have the kernels. they are the ones that advise the president. everybody is always saying, oh, it's the president that is doing this. no, this is not true.

this is not a political war. this is a military war. as far as i'm concerned, what he just said was totally wrong when he said that the president is not taking on the right power in this area. and i just feel that it is not necessary to put everything on the president. it is just ridiculous. host: senator. guest: there is always tension between the commander in chief and his military leadership. but i have absolute confidence that the decisions about how we engage with isis, how we engage militarily throughout the world are made by president obama. and we know through open source reporting there has been a number of times during his presidency when he has been at odds with his generals and he has made a different decision than their recommendations. it i think he takes their counsel. i think they're intimately involved in the planning.

the president selects from the options. my critique here is that as the constitution imagine's foreign policy, it is supposed to be the congress and the president involved in setting foreign policy. the congress is lodged solely with the power to declare war. and right now, we haven't lived up to that responsibility. in part because it is hard. we don't declare wars like we used to. it is not that two armies march against each other. it is hard to know when wars begin. but that doesn't caps off congress from our ability to be involved. yes, the president still has the ultimate decision, but congress has kind of gotten sidelined here. host: janice is next in plymouth, michigan. a republican. caller: good morning. host: morning. caller: first of all, as to the

vote to not find the kurds, the -- the senator mentioned that he voted against senator ernst's amendment to fund the kurds and he said, well, we want to -- a united ally over there. well, we don't have one. we have to face facts. first of all, this government in baghdad, they hate the kurds. and also his comment to a caller named marie about the president -- the generals don't run the war, the president runs the war. no, here is the deal. the president is not listening to his generals. the president is ignoring his generals. generals are giving him recommendations and he doesn't

like them because the school is never -- his goal is never ever to escalate. i don't want to see that either. -- he sure is reaching that goal. host: all right, janice. guest: so, i don't think there is any evidence that the generals in the field have recommended the massive deployment of new american ground troops to the middle east. i frankly think the generals who were around for the iraq war understand that -- -- well, for the time that our troops are sitting on top of an insurgency, they can increased ability. that that is not a long-term solution. and so you have secretary gates who presided over the surge and a good part of the iraq war saying on his way out that any president who ever against recommend putting large numbers

of american combat troops in the middle east should have their head examined. you have plenty of generals who have come out and talked about the mistakes that we made. and as to this question of the amendment, i think it is important to remember that this wasn't an amendment to fund the kurds or not find the kurds. the kurds get military funding from the united states and all of our allies, it is just that that money goes through baghdad. i don't think i have heard from anybody who feels that the kurds aren't getting the military supports that we are sending through baghdad. the kurds may tell you that, but they have another agenda, which is to get a direct line of support from the united states. but this is not a debate about whether the kurds should be the recipients of american military funding. it is just wasted that money flow through and, there again

there is no evidence that the kurds aren't getting the money that we are sending. it is part of the reason the department of defense oppose the ernst amendment because they actually don't see a problem that needs to be fixed right now. there are a lot of problems that need to be fixed so we should probably be in the business of finding those rather than fixing problems that don't exist. host: a headline in the washington post, kerry hints at possible compromise in iran nuclear talks. the secretary said on tuesday the united states is more concerned about preventing iran from -- you get to have a say over this deal. what do you make? guest: well, i think it is still important to know about the past

dimensions of iran's military program because that is a way for us to understand what to their intentions are going to be going forward. so if we know the full of what they have done in the past, then it educates us about how to do oversight over a potentially peaceful military program in the future. so i don't necessarily buy that we should back off our insistence that they tell us about what they have done in the past. now, is it more important to make sure that they don't obtained a nuclear weapon in the future then it is to get a full historical rendering of the past? sure. i can concede it is more important to make sure that they don't get one in the future. all we are saying is that knowing what they did is actually part of what makes an effective deterrent strategy inspection strategy, enforcement strategy moving toward. so i think all of us are nervous that the iranians are moving the ball.

now they seem to be stepping back from that framework and say, well, we really didn't mean that we're going to tell you everything that we did in the past. we didn't really say that you could have a inspection rights to all of our facilities. and so some of this is probably internal politics within iran playing out, but i am very happy that the president and secretary kerry i saying that if iran goes backwards as part of this framework, framework many of us thought was positive, then no deal is better than a bad deal. host: iran has so far not quite braided with efforts by the international atomic energy agency to document suspected military aspects of its nuclear research in a program that many experts believe was abandoned in 2003. let me go on to kevin in bloomington, indiana. an independent. caller: good morning. i would like to thank the senator for representing a

pretty well thought out point of view about the middle east. i am just against all the destabilization in the area. and idle think that sending a lot of guns into an area does very much good. i think maybe we ought to practice turning the other cheek every now and then and we would probably get more respect and more allies in the world for our causes. and maybe we could do it without the military. one thing i wish you would indulge me just a second on this, i thought trump's choice of music for his introduction was a bizarre choice. and i would just like to hear if anybody else thinks that -- a kind of interesting to them for him to be introduced to. host: senator, do you have any thoughts on that jackal -- that? guest: i think if we started

analyzing the bizarreness of the trump candidacy, it would probably be a long show. so i will leave that question for another day. i think the caller raises a really good point about the middle east, which is that for those of us who spend a lot of times with our troops -- and i visited our troops in the theater of combat in iraq and afghanistan -- you come away with a sense of deserve it exceptionalism about the american military. you think, boy, there's nothing they can't do. and congress is infected with that. so we look at instability in the middle east and we say, of course american troops should be able to figure it out. i think we have got to have a reckoning in this country with what is possible and what is not possible. and the american military can do a lot of things, but they can't solve underlying political instability with military force.

and that is what is happening in the middle east today. it is not a military vacuum that allows for a group like isis to exist, it is a political vacuum. enormous grievances that different populations have. and unless there is a political solution to those political grievances, there is no military solution to the overall problem. which speaks to the toolkit we have available to us. we talk about how we intervene purely through a military lands and we forget that there are other ways that america can throw around its power. let's talk about what happened during the surge. the surge was important and it did temperately lend some stability to the region, but it just wasn't 100,000 american troops. it was billions of american dollars that was being sent to travel leaders to effectively buy their loyalty away from al qaeda in iraq and by them to the government in baghdad.

i would -- i would recommend people to think about the fact that it was ultimately addressing economic instability and economic grievances plied those tribes away from this radical group. we have to think about the fact that our military budget is 10 times are state department budget. in 1950, we spent 3% of gdp on international economic development aid. today, we spent .1% of gdp on those same projects. we have more lawyers at the department of defense that we have diplomats at the department of state. we have a toolkit that has not changed as the world has changed. i want the strongest military in the world. i don't advocate for spending a lot less on the department of defense. i just think we have to plus up some of the other things that we spend money on and tools we have at our disposal. yougreta wodele brawner: why

vote against fast-track authorities for this president when many people see this as a way to strengthen our national security and make inroads into countries where there is economic instability? the 12 nations in the transpacific partnership? sen. chris murphy: the transpacific partnership is part of a broader international relations strategy to combat the growing influence of china. the problem is there is a choice that is presented to many of us, which is to give the president and this country some new tools when it comes to combating the rise of china at the expense of american jobs. the president will make a case that this isn't going to cost american jobs, i disagree. i have seen in my state of connecticut manufacturing jobs.

because of trade agreements that were not written the right way. while i accept that there is a diplomatic benefit or foreign relations benefit to an agreement like the tpp, it does not justify the economic damage that would be done to my state. coming back to the debate we actually had, some people thought we just voted on it. we did not. we just voted on fast-track. i don't understand why trade agreements get a greased process and nothing else does. the president and his allies are right that it is really hard to pass a trade agreement if you go through the regular to legislative process. it is easier to pass one if you require only 50 votes in the senate rather than 60, if you don't allow amendments. but it would be easier to pass energy reform and immigration reform and tax reform if you changed the process as well. why change it for trade

agreements and not for other really important priorities? i have never bought the idea that you should set up a different process for trade and elevate that debate in a way you don't elevate a lot of important debates. greta wodele brawner: house republicans considering putting -- sending just that, fast-track, over to the senate to have the senate vote on that as standalone and then later deal with job assistant as a way to get around the block of democrats that took down the presidents trade agenda on friday. nathan in connecticut, democrat. you are on the air. caller: thank you. thank you for being the most splendid of all the hosts of washington journal. i'm one of the very happy constituents of the center. he is a brilliant young congressman.

-- senator. he said a few minutes ago that we have screwed things up in this region. no truer words have been said about this conflict. i have two points. number one, the vacuum by isis was created by george w bush along with the coalition. it should have been up to the iraqis. he dismantled the iraqi infrastructure that created this vacuum. number two, in a hundred years there will be a kurd republic and a sunni republic and a shia republic. all of our loss of life will have been for nothing just like vietnam. i have written to the president several times about withdrawing our involvement from this conflict. we brought down the soviet union. we did not learn from history. this is this generation's vietnam. i have no doubt about it. greta wodele brawner: can you answer to that? sen. chris murphy: good to hear

from someone from connecticut. i think that there are some useful comparisons between vietnam, but these are two very different conflicts. we went into vietnam because of a domino theory. the idea was if vietnam fell, a series of steps with that occur that would eventually lead to attack on the united states. there is no domino. involved in fighting isis. if you do not defeat isis, isis will launch an attack against the united states. i actually believe that we have a strategy to take on ice is because they are a direct threat on the united states. that was not the case in vietnam. the enemy we were fighting there was not going to attack the united states. there are parallels in that the congress was awol when it came to that debate after the gulf of tonkin resolution. they have largely been able here as well. the caller is right that this

vacuum was created by the american invasion and occupation and it is not just what happened -- the process the created al qaeda in iraq and then isis. it is also what happened such that iran became empowered. iran took advantage of instability in iraq to become a regional power in a way they weren't before that invasion. i think there are lessons from vietnam that congress should learn, but i think the threat is important that we face it. in a way that i would not have thought about vietnam. greta wodele brawner: let's go to texas. caller: good morning. i have a question for the senator. have you ever been in the military? i'm a disabled vet. i have been in combat zones. you democrats have no clue of

what you are doing. we need to stop ices over there, not over here. i have seen too many people get their heads cut off. i respect senator mccain and graham. they have a plan to stop ices. the democrats have no clue what they're doing. i'm sorry. greta wodele brawner: you say democrats don't have a plan. republicans mccain and lindsey graham are offering up a military plan. sen. chris murphy: the most solemn responsibility to have in the united states is to decide when we send our troops into battle. there is not a day that goes by where i don't sit in the air-conditioned chamber of the u.s. senate and think how lucky i am that i get to do my public service in pretty safe manner because others have chosen to put their lives on the line. frankly, my reverence for our soldiers is the reason why i refuse to send them into a fight

that won't make this country safer, that won't achieve our objectives. thousands of american soldiers were killed in iraq. we spent over $1 trillion. i don't think that were advanced american security interests. i'm not saying those soldiers died in vain, because anytime the united states is showing the power and the potential force of our military, we deter others from coming after us. but we have to be much more careful than we have in about sending our soldiers to fight overseas. whether or not you have served in the military, every single u.s. senator and congressman owes a duty to those soldiers to be careful about when we send them into combat. greta wodele brawner: virginia, an independent. caller: i just wanted to mention

that this issue in regards to terrorism. the term terrorism is actually political thing. the one thing that is in common with what is happening to a lot of americans on a daily basis is violence. shootings are incredibly high. murders are incredibly high. for some odd reason, this issue continues on a daily basis. if we are protecting americans let alone humanity, i think it would be refreshing if someone would address this issue. it is alarming the amount of americans that are killed near yearly. i would really appreciate it if someone brought this issue to the level of reporting that it should be. sen. chris murphy: i represent newtown, connecticut. i was the congressman from sandy hook. i was on the ground at the firehouse where all the families were after the shooting. i live every day with this epidemic of gun violence in the united states. there are over 80 people in this country every single day who are killed by guns.

if we had a terrorist attack in this country that killed 10 people in one day, it would be news for months. and yes there are 80 people killed by guns every day in this country. very rarely does any of that make the national news. i put out along with two other senators a set of eight sensible's -- principles that should guide us in foreign policy, and one of them was that strength at home is strength abroad. we are robbed of moral authority to lead the world when we are so casual about violence here at home, when we allow our own citizens to be armed with military style assault weapons with magazines that holds 30 or 100 rounds. i live every day with the consequences of a failure to take on gun violence here in the united states.

as concerned as we are with preventing terrorist attacks, we should absolutely be just as concerned with trying to prevent our own citizens from being killed by gun violence. greta wodele brawner: california, mary, a democrat. you are on the air. caller: good morning. i am a vietnam era veteran. i worked at the pentagon. i was in the marine corps. when i was old enough to register to vote, i registered as a democrat because one of the things i like about democrats is their reluctance to use force. you mentioned earlier that you had learned lessons from vietnam and i think you are forgetting the lessons that you might have learned from world war ii. when germany today and japan today are vibrant democracies however at the end of the war we had won the war and we left troops there in order to make sure that they did not revert to the kinds of governments they had had during the war -- i

don't think the instability now is because -- with isis -- is because we went into iraq. it is because we had won the war and then president obama just left. democrats didn't want to use force to make sure that they retained a democratic government in baghdad. greta wodele brawner: what do you say to people who say that president obama threw down troops on a timeline that was negotiated by president bush? caller: i think if they had negotiated with the people in germany and japan at the end of world war ii, they would have thrown is out, too. but the judicious use of force when we have won the war i think trumps diplomacy. greta wodele brawner: ok. sen. chris murphy: i really think that is a strange parallel. -- strained parallel. we had defeated the enemy. there was peace.

that is not iraq. the war in iraq never ended. we were fighting an active insurgency the entire time and making no progress. the insurgency was getting worse, not better over the long swath of time. it is important to remember that president obama was carrying out an agreement made by president bush that he actually wanted the troops to stay longer. it was the domestic government there that would not give us the protection that allowed us to do it. i think that, had we kept 100,000 troops there for another couple years, then yes we could have gained some stability during that time. but we were going to leave at some point. if the baghdad government was not committed, and they weren't, to political reform, and we were just postponing the inevitable, which was the era of instability

following america's troop withdrawal. i think the situation in iraq and islamic insurgency is so fundamentally different than what came in the wake of protracted wars in europe and asia. a nuclear bomb and in the war i'm not sure it's a terribly useful parallel. i think mary for her service but that lesson is maybe one that is hard to learn from. greta wodele brawner: terrance is a republican in germantown, maryland. caller: good morning. i had a question and a partial comment. i was wondering how in fact isis was able to take over the city of ramadi and they do not have an air force. they are doing this and light armored vehicles and pickup trucks. my sister was in the military 26 years, and we know that your first line of defense would be

your air force. you can see them trucking into town for miles away. i guess blast the convoy. i don't understand why don't has done that. sen. chris murphy: i think there are a couple answers here. that is a great question. ramadi fell in large part because the government in baghdad had not made the decision to effectively stand up a sunni element of the iraqi military. that is why at the outset i said, i don't think we right now have a partner in baghdad that is going to allow us to come in the short-term, effectively defeat isis. there is still a reluctance. they still don't have a lot of interest in putting weapons into the hands of sunni fighters. so in ramadi, which is largely a sunni city, you did not have an

effective fighting force because of decisions made out of baghdad. as to the question of air support, this is an ongoing debate. without american spotters on the ground, there is an argument that our air campaign is not as effective as it can be. there are also critiques that we have been to judicious in the use of our airstrikes for fear of killing civilians. i do not claim to have an answer for this, because i understand where the obama administration is coming from. i think they fear that by putting spotters on the ground it is a slow bleed into ground troops. and they worry that if they are less careful about the strikes they are calling in and they do ultimately kill civilians, that that just becomes more bulletin board material for isis recruiters. they are going to make the situation worse, not better, if they engage in airstrikes the kill civilians. these are tricky answers. ultimately the real solution i

think to protecting places like ramadi in the future is making sure there is a sunni element to the military that is capable of fighting to protect their own territory. greta wodele brawner: let's hear from a republican out of california. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a few comments on what the senator -- anyway. biden has touted the success. your guest says he pays attention to the -- in my heart he did not listen to the chief of staff about leaving residual forces. he did not listen to the commanders on the ground. he jumped over to weapon violence in the united states. the united states is number three or four in the world for gun violence. if you take away the cities that are anti-gun, detroit, chicago, we are right at the bottom of the list. we have more protections.

from citizens with guns than without guns. greta wodele brawner: a couple points there for the congressman, because he has to go. sen. chris murphy: i don't know where this is coming from that we are the number one country in the world when it comes to gun violence. we're certainly not 300 or 400. our cities are amongst the most violent places in the world. researchers have found that ptsd in our inner cities are actually higher than neighborhoods in iraq because of the trauma of gun violence. we certainly have problems to deal with here. as to this question of following military advice i don't think there is any credible evidence that our military is advising that we put 100,000 troops back into the middle east. president obama himself actually wanted to violate the agreement

that president bush signed and keep more troops inside iraq but it was maliki who wouldn't give us the legal cover that we needed to do that. he basically said, if you keep troops here, they are going to be subject to iraqi law. which is something we would never accept. we did not accept it in afghanistan. ultimately i think that our military leaders themselves understand that a winning strategy against isis involves our partners taking the lead, using american tools and resources other than combat troops, and this is not as i understand it a division between the president and his military leadership as the proper way forward. we just have to learn from history. history tells us that american combat troops on the ground are not ultimately the solution to be isis. if that was the case, we would not be in the situation that we are today.

you don't need to learn from vietnam. you don't need to learn from world war ii. you just need to read the newspapers for the last 10 years to tell you that the way to beat an extremist forced in the middle east is not america being the face of military operation on the ground. greta wodele brawner: senator chris murphy. thank you for your time. we will continue our spotlight on magazine series and talk with reason magazine's managing editor on whether any of the 2016 republican hopefuls will actually cut government. ♪

>> this weekend, the c-span cities tour sponsored -- partnered with comcast. to learn of the history and literate life of key west, florida. ernest hemingway wrote several of his novels at this house. >> pauline actually converted this loft into his first formal writing studio. here he fell in love with fishing. he fell in love with the clarity of his writing. how fast he was producing the work. he knocked out the first rough draft of a farewell to arms in just two weeks. he once said, if you really want to write, start with one true sentence. for a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. he should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. >> key west is also where

president harry truman sought refuge from washington. >> president truman regarded the big white house as the great white jail. he felt he was constantly under everyone's eyes. by coming to key west he could come of his closest staff, let down his hair. some of the staff would let their beards grow for a couple days. they certainly used off-color stories. they could have a glass of bourbon and visit back and forth without any scrutiny from the press. a sportswear company sent a case of hawaiian shirts to the president. with the thought that if the president is wearing our shirt we will sell a lot of shirts. so president truman wa those ore those free shirts that first year and then organized the loud shirt contest. that was the official uniform of key west.

>> what all of our events from key west saturday at 5:00 p.m. eastern on c-span book tv. >> washington journal continues. greta wodele brawner: we are back on this wednesday, june 17. part of our spotlight on magazine series continues with the july cover of the libertarian reason magazine. take a look. can they stop themselves? they look at the 2016 hopefuls and well they really cut the government. the managing editor of reason magazine is here with us. katherine mangu-ward. let's begin with why you decided to talk about this now. 18 months out of the republican race. katherine mangu-ward: campaign season tends to be a time of more. the idea that the candidates are promising things. they are out there saying they're on everybody's side.

we wanted to highlight that even this early in the campaign, if you make promises you need to keep them. and those promises are going to cost money. we wanted to talk about where the republicans who tend to use government cutting rhetoric -- to look at where they are serious. for democrats who tend to talk about the dangers of cutting government what their record looks like as well. greta wodele brawner: let's start with how reason magazine views the most libertarian of these candidates. katherine mangu-ward: rand paul is certainly out there. he is variously described himself as being a libertarian conservative libertarian-ish. we have been keeping an eye on him with a lot of interest, just as we tracked the campaigns of his father before him. i always think politicians are going to break your heart. i am cautious in endorsing

anyone's plan. rand paul has perhaps made better on some of his rhetoric than other republicans. we have three budgets that he has proposed. that is a lot of information for a presidential candidate. for the most part, for senators and congressmen, you vote here you both there. sometimes it is hard to really see a pattern. rand paul has put out three budgets. he has not just that i am going to cut taxes. he also tried to counterbalance those tax cuts with spending cuts. lots of people are all for tax cuts but when it comes time to pay for the tax cuts or look for corresponding cuts in spending that is what starts to get dodgy. greta wodele brawner: after rand paul then who? katherine mangu-ward: they are

actually not ranked. it is so apples to oranges. looking at the other republican candidates cruz has typically cited with paul so his record looks pretty similar. his rhetoric is also very -- he also talks a lot about cutting government. and cutting taxes. and seems to be serious about both. rubio on the other hand, a lot of tax cuts less about actually cutting government. one thing that we see is that he did make headlines for voting against a bunch of the fiscal cliff deals where there was some kind of tax increase. he stood with this group of fiscal conservatives. at the same time, his budget as he has proposed doesn't show the offset that rand's budget

has. he has some interesting individual proposals. he is the cosponsor of a bill where you would only be able to hire one federal government employee for each three that leave on their own. it didn't go anywhere. that is the kind of practical government cutting that i think does deserve a little bit of credit. greta wodele brawner: what about his initial support for comprehensive immigration reform and the cost that will go along with it? katherine mangu-ward: immigration is one of those issues where it depends on how widely you draw the circle in terms of whether it looks like an expensive bill or a cost saving bill. if you talk about the cost of securing the border, which everyone in the field is right now, that is something that even people who tend to be pro-immigration make some claim about the level of security that we need before we get there. that costs money. similarly, there is a sort of

ongoing and interesting debate which i'm not an expert in about whether in the end immigrants, particularly first-generation immigrants who are here illegally who might be granted some sort of amnesty whether they are in that plus or in that minas. their kids go to schools, they pay taxes. the kind of pro-immigrant rhetoric i think does not always match up perfectly to whether someone is a fiscal conservative. even true fiscal conservatives may just have a principled stance on immigration that they might say it is going to cost money but it is worth it. greta wodele brawner: we are with katherine mangu-ward, reason magazine's managing editor. we want to take your questions and comments about this. can they stop themselves? which of these 2016 hopefuls will really be able to cut government. republicans, (202) 748-8001.

democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. why should they be talking about cutting government? katherine mangu-ward: $18 trillion. that is the debt. that is what we are looking at right now. it doesn't go away on its own. there is this orthodoxy about debt and how dangerous it is. people seem to be a little blase about it. there is this idea that this debt thing will resolve itself later once the economy gets growing. that is a dangerous road to be on. i think reason magazine's of libertarian persuasion and we think that large government can be detrimental for lots of reasons, but you don't have to

be antigovernment to just say we have a lot of debt, what does it look like to solve that problem? greta wodele brawner: what does it mean to be a libertarian? katherine mangu-ward: as with any political terminology everyone has their own definition. very briefly, it looks like a fiscal conservative and social liberalism. you are looking for people who are skeptical of growing power of the state where it who want to maximize the realm of individual choice. and that means wanting to keep their own money in the form of tax cuts, wanting to minimize regulation and government interference not only in the financial realm but also in the personal realm. that means things like drug legalization and other kinds of individual liberty. you don't typically see that platform together in either of

the traditional american parties. so we can say, we are not on team read or team blue, but we think this issue is important. greta wodele brawner: we will talk about the fact that hillary clinton is on the cover as well. george, a republican. you are up. caller: my question is that -- i support rubio for president, but now that bush has come along as a candidate will his wife being spanish -- will that also helping with the spanish vote? do you think that will help him? katherine mangu-ward: i don't actually have a great handle on the polling there. my general sense is that his bushness will probably overcome whatever claim he has to hispanicness. i think one thing you see about his record in florida is that he

doesn't mind going up against the orthodoxies of his party. in recent years, the republican party has really gone back and forth about how much they want to reach out to hispanics and in what way. the traditional democratic way of reaching out to hispanics has essentially been to be a little bit more generous on immigration and welfare. i don't think that is the only way to reach out to hispanics. i have heard jeb bush say hispanic immigrants in particular want to be small business people, they want to come here to work, they come here for freedom. that can be empty rhetoric. but the idea that you might reach out to hispanic voters not just through your marital ties but also by saying i want to do the kind of reforms to regulation that would appeal to small business owners. which many small businesses in

this country are run by hispanics. that is a way to reach out that i see him doing. greta wodele brawner: where does he stand on will he really cut government? katherine mangu-ward: as florida governor and unfortunately this is true of all the governors on the current slate that have been pretty good rhetorically, still government grows. government always grows. one thing that jeb has said that at least in the last cycle none of these other candidates have said was if offered a deal whereby you would have to raise taxes by one dollar but you would get $10 worth of cuts, would you do it, and jeb said yes. and no one else has said yes. and that is because republicans are very wary of saying they're going to raise taxes under any circumstances. but to pretend like that kind of deal would be off the table is to show that you are not serious

about cutting government and balancing budgets. which are two different things but related. one place where it will give jeb good marks for fiscal discipline or for some sort of little unorthodox the ♪y is to say of course if you could get $10 of cuts you would raise taxes by a dollar. that is where you see him pushing back against the party's rigid stance on tax cuts in favor of something more balance. greta wodele brawner: is this an area where you see that jeb bush must distance himself from his brother? katherine mangu-ward: there are two ways to look at george w. bush. one is george w. bush, governor of texas. that guy was kind of a fiscal superstar. he really kept spending low. he did a lot of pro-market and

pro-business moves to make texas more fiscally sound. then there's president george w. bush, under whom spending skyrocketed. i think republicans like to sort of pretend that tarp and the stimulus and all that were somehow obama's fault. those were bush initiatives. that is worth keeping in mind. if he wants to look like and actually be a government cutter, president george w. bush should not and cannot be his role model. maybe governor bush. greta wodele brawner: a democrat from ohio. hello. caller: hi. i does want to ask one question. over the last 30 years, i believe republicans to be fiscally on responsible. it has always been the democrats in this country that push for fiscal responsibility like the

cap in the budget. clinton balanced the budget. there was a chance of spending down the debt. the war in iraq was basically a debacle as far as i'm concerned as far as planning and spending. they hired companies instead of using u.s. forces. we paid four times as much of what we had to pay. it is utterly ridiculous. then there was the impeachment hearings which was a farce. they wasted taxpayer money. they distracted our president at the time from taking care of very important problems. i think it is their fault that we are in this position. when reagan came into power, he at least doubled if not tripled the debt. greta wodele brawner: i'm going to leave there. there is a lot for catherine to respond to. katherine mangu-ward:

republicans are a disaster fiscally speaking. you are not going to get any pushback from me there. i think it is worse because you wind up with a situation were there using the right language and then they get into power and immediately abandon what seems to be their principles on the campaign trail. i think it is always timely and appropriate in washington to remind republicans that the stuff that they say on the campaign trail should actually bear some resemblance to what they do once they take power. that doesn't happen much. at the same time, i think what the caller points out is there are little fiscal things and then big fiscal things. impeachment hearings cost money. earmarks which has been highly controversial, and periodically gets in and of people about what we are going to do about earmarks. those are real issues. it is something worth focusing on. at the same time, entitlement

spending, were spending, defense spending, those are much bigger chunks. you cannot solve america's fiscal problems by not having expensive impeachment hearings. but you can buy taking seriously entitlement reform. it is republicans who have done that in the budgets they have presented. whether or not they ever follow through remains to be seen. greta wodele brawner: that is why reason magazine has this july cover out on the newsstands. can they stop themselves? taking a look at what the toys 16 candidates are saying on the campaign trail about cutting the government. will they stick to that? keith in florida, a republican. caller: good morning, ladies. i don't think they're going to stick to it. i would like to think they would, but what a lot of people don't understand is these guys are talking in a vacuum. are you there? greta wodele brawner: we're listening, keith. caller: they have to work with congress.

until somebody can learn to compromise in the right way. and both seem to get their own principles. these things are going to happen. it seems like everybody is not really living in reality. until i hear somebody say, since 9/11, the world is at war with radical islam, not the religion, but with radical islam. and you cannot deny they are trying to take over territory and push their own ideas. i like rand paul on the fiscal discipline a lot. but i do not hear him get this. that we are at war. after world war ii, we made a conscious decision not to let other countries build their defense systems bigger than ours. that we would become their allies and protect them. until we can spread out the cost and the responsibility, we are the ones that are leading the

charge and we need to do so. i love libertarianism, but it seems to work more in country not with where the world really is going to one world order or were never. we are so connected and being able to fly everywhere and everything here i. greta wodele brawner: ok. so in a global world, how can you be a libertarian? katherine mangu-ward: rand paul has taken some heat for trying to answer that question. both from the john mccain wing of the party who referred to rand paul is a wacko bird. and then also from his father's supporters, who have said that rand paul is much more hawkish than his father and they don't like that trend. he has described himself as a conservative realist.

in terms of fiscal discipline, the question is not so much, do we spend more on defense or less? although i think the answer should be that we spend less. it's how do you pay for it? and that is one thing that rand paul's budget has done. to some extent this is like math on paper. it is a little bit of hocus-pocus. that's how budgets are. but to sort of look for places where, ok, if you want to buy another tank, that means cutting social security. reason magazine has historically done some polling. one of the things we have done is ask our respondents typical questions that pollsters ask -- should we spend more on medicaid? and then we ask a bunch of follow-up questions. should we spend more on medicaid if it means spending less on x? and what we find is that when

you actually point out that there are trade-offs, people immediately become much less likely to say yes to spending. i think rand paul has done that. again, far from perfect. but i think it is telling that keith who is calling on the republican line is still saying those guys are not going to cut government. the baseline we are working from is absolutely sort of less spending, maybe cut taxes, and let future generations take care of it. greta wodele brawner: someone is warning of a financial spiral from debt. rising federal debt threatens to choke economic -- beginning eight death spiral that will sap revenue from government programs. congress's budget watchdog in a frightening report yesterday -- leaving the economy far stronger than otherwise would be.

putting off tough decisions will only make things worse. mike in woodstock, virginia. an independent. go ahead. caller: thank you ladies and good morning. i agree with the libertarian view for the most part having been an independent most of my life but also having supported players from virginia of both parties as well as some of our former presidents from both parties based on their ideas and their actions. however, i think you have to be very loud in the all line items in the federal and state budgets need to be scrutinized. we hear the term of entitlement reform. you have people, i'm 62 years old, i paid into so-called

entitlements my entire life. some of that has been used and abused for purposes other than what it was intended for. when it comes to the debt, who do we hold responsible? all of them. those that are dead and gone and those that are currently in office. i would encourage you in your magazine to come up with what you think would be a prudent budget and i would ask you to hold to the fire regardless of candidate what they would put out as a budget. george w. bush, look at him as a governor in texas and how the debt went up under his watch. even former president reagan as a governor in california. greta wodele brawner: katherine talked about bush as a governor

of texas. go ahead and answer the first part. katherine mangu-ward: i think the point about keeping a close eye on the line items is a good one. not least because those are a significant part of the budget. they can creep up on you. that is also the place where you see the wheeling and dealing. at this point bipartisan horsetrading is not happening inside entitlement. there is places where it does happen. with obamacare you saw that. the way to deal get done on the hill is in these smaller items is in the earmarks. at the same time, that report is terrifying. it's hard to understand why is the debt bad. one very simple reason that is easy to understand is that debt service is an increasingly large chunk of our annual budget. when you look at the simplest

pie chart of what do we spend our money on, the chunk that is growing is this debt service piece. i think anyone who has a credit card is familiar with. if you pay the minimum, you are going to regret it later. and that is what we are doing now. we are just paying the minimum over and over again on our national debt. it is not sustainable. greta wodele brawner: here is some reaction on twitter. no gop candidate would downsize government. government will be cut when we are no longer able to sell treasuries to fund excesses. a democrat in pennsylvania. caller: good morning. the problem isn't that we trade off one spending program for another. the problem is that we cut in our constitution and left the part out about tariffs. that is the number one problem in this world. we have lost trillions of dollars by not having tariffs on

these products that would also save american jobs. that is the number one. second of all, people who think they are educated. see what the tax rates were in 1957. that is what we need. higher taxes on the corporations and the wealthy will solve our problems. greta wodele brawner: let's talk about taxes and a higher rate for the wealthy and corporations. this is something people are talking about. that is how you pay for the highway funding bill by increasing taxes on overseas corporations. katherine mangu-ward: right. you can look at this on the macro level in terms of are we being consistent with founding principles are we looking at constitutionally legitimate ways to tax people. i think those are good questions. at the same time, you can look at the micro of another

candidate, bobby jindal. he came into office in louisiana, cut everything. cut personal income tax, cut corporate taxes. he got in a great from the cato institute that year. he looks like he was on fire. he was really going to be a test case for what happens when you cut taxes and cut spending. this is a state that in some ways did get a horrible restart with hurricane katrina. the school system has really flourished under a choice regime there. maybe he is going to do it for the economy. flash forward a few years he is absolutely traffic in it in a huge amount of corporate welfare. even when you get rid of the tax side of the equation, the spending side creeps in. $250 million in film subsidies or something. louisiana does not have that money. governor sam brownback in kansas

cut taxes and spending and their economy really suffered. the other thing is whenever you look at these questions, there are always compensating factors. the timing in which you cut -- people say about the clinton era, look, there were surpluses. maybe that shows us those policies are the way to go. maybe. but maybe that just shows economic fluctuations happening underneath and over and above politics in a way that is very hard to trace cause and effect. i think with tariffs it is pretty clear that protectionism is not the right policy in the long run. it costs consumers money. people tend to focus on the lost jobs. the sugar industry is a great example. sugar that is imported is heavily taxed compared to domestically produced sugar.

everything you buy is a little bit more expensive because of that. this idea that we are protecting jobs or that somehow it is important that we have our own domestic ability to produce sugar or any good, when you're just looking at dollars and cents there is this fundamental thing of not only is sugar cheaper at home but also why is it that we should be favoring the american sugar jobs over ones that are on the other side of the water? greta wodele brawner: we have a democrat in memphis. caller: ireland river when ronald reagan was elected. he ran on-- i remember when ronald reagan was elected. a lot of people did not know what his slogan meant until the second week he was in the presidency. he proposed a bill to cut medicare.

he wanted to bust a union. people talk about cutting the government but they don't know what they're doing. when bush was elected, they said there are a lot of people here governing like their rich. which was true. when ronald reagan busted the union, the first thing it off hitler did when he got into perilous bust the labor union. greta wodele brawner: let's talk about scott walker and his record. katherine mangu-ward: walker is unlike a lot of the other candidates. he is really running on a record. i don't know what it says about american politics that that is now unusual. what he is running on is this very controversial time as governor where he -- i think

people talk about busting the unions and it sounds very dramatic it was very dramatic. there were people occupying the statehouse. there was a lot of high drama. at the same time it is worth remembering he just asked union members to contribute more to their retirement, 6% or something typical in the private sector. also that he made paying union dues optional to counterbalance the chunk that would go missing from people's paychecks by asking them to do that. there were other reforms as well. even under walker, spending is not under control. even in that state spending has grown per capita. it is maybe the 11th most in terms of per capita spending. he is not exactly cutting things to the bone. these kinds of reforms where you say unions don't get a free ride on the taxpayer's dime forever are kind of investment in

long-term fiscal responsibility. in terms of this question of what about people who paid in and are owed for all the time they have paid into our entitlements -- i think it is worth pointing out that no one is talking about anything terribly dramatic. almost no one is talking about reducing benefits for people who are retired or about to retire. it is all longer-term reforms. maybe i would like to see more dramatic reforms, but the fact is in washington right now it is all very gradual. greta wodele brawner: we're talking with katherine mangu-ward about reason magazine's july cover. what will the 2016 hopefuls do when it comes to the size of the government? if you missed the earlier part of the conversation or interested in what the republican candidates are saying so far, they have a breakdown of each of the candidates in the addition.

you can also go to reason.com and read it there. we have a democrat on the air. hi james. caller: thank you. you talked about the best ways to fund the federal government by making various adjustments. all of that is around the edges of the problem of what is the best way to fund the federal government. there is a bill in congress right now that as a lifelong democrat i fully support and i am very disappointed in the other democrats doing the same thing and that is the fair tax plan. the fair tax plan would get rid of the incomprehensible income tax code that we have now. we need to get rid of that. the fair textax plan will fund

the federal government based on a federal sales tax. greta wodele brawner: let's talk about the fair tax. katherine mangu-ward: there are a few candidates other who have embraced fair tax or a similar plan. i think huckabee has. in general the more serious a contender the candidates are the less likely they are to endorse something in that vein. it tends to be a kind of french proposal. i think there's a lot to be said for a consumption tax. what we are looking at in terms of viable policy reform is something that i think literally every single president in recent memory has mentioned in every state of the union. close the loophole, simple by the tax system. it doesn't happen. it hasn't happened. the idea that it could go even further is unfortunately tough to see.

in the same way that it is quite easy to say let's cut taxes and then fight backwards to cut spending is a lot more difficult. a proposal where you say let's do tax simplification -- what that tends to look like and we have seen that would agriculture subsidies is, we will put the new proposal in place, we believe the old spending their, and then we promise we will garrett of the old spending. -- we will get rid of the old spending. then you end up with more regulations rather than fewer. katherine mangu-ward: don independent, you are on the air. caller: good morning. i think we should call you the wiz. kansas has been the foremost experience in libertarian policies and you never gave an answer. i would like you to click your heels together and give an answer to greta's comment. greta wodele brawner: i was

appreciate a new nickname. i think this is a thing you see a lot citing the kansas experiment as a failure. i'm quite skeptical of that line for a lot of reasons not least because we are still so far from what rand's proposal suggests happening on the federal level. there have been cuts in government and taxes there. the idea that a sort of relatively short experiment has not immediately yielded streets paved with gold to me is not a major critique. and in other places we have seen -- canada in the 90's, new zealand, where to medicus in taxes and spending have yielded real economic growth. greta wodele brawner: anita is an independent. can you make it quick? caller: i have a question. i wanted to know why -- the

opinion of the people being surveyed about hispanic people with mexican people. greta wodele brawner: anita who? caller: yesterday was watching the news and i don't know -- he was talking like a mexican people are stealing money from us. greta wodele brawner: i'm can have you call back on another day. you are off topic here. i'm going to move on to phil. caller: i was calling to point out that if you look at the report of the social security administration or the world almanac you will find that the medicare program and social security have generated surpluses since their inception right up to today. and that points out the fact that our entire deficit is due

to military spending and it began with ronald reagan. greta wodele brawner: we will take that point. katherine mangu-ward: it is certainly true that unlike defense spending there is money that is earmarked for both social security and other kinds of welfare programs that comes in. anyone who has ever looked at their paycheck stub sees that they are paying into those programs. i think that to some extent it is worth remembering money is fungible. it essentially all goes into a giant pot here in washington and than the senators and congressmen swim around in it like scrooge mcduck and throw the money out at their favorite causes. so i'm hesitant to say next is the problem, entitlements are not the problem. republicans and democrats will switch their two claims. spending is the problem. it is all spending. every dollar is worth a dollar.

i think it is worth considering every program as the potential for cuts. but also looking at the benefits those programs provide. greta wodele brawner: our ears can read more from reason magazine if you go to reason.com. thank you katherine mangu-ward. katherine mangu-ward: thank you. greta wodele brawner: that doesn't for today's washington journal. the house is about to gavel in. >> house will be in order. the speakers room washington d.c. june 17 2016. i hereby appoint the honorary blake farenthold. pursuant to the order of the house of january 6, 2015