cleared away to feed the livestock -- this is what propels this. more than fossil fuels. they don't even talk about it. they don't even talk about it. those who are following along on the facebook page are talking about this too. arthur rochester says his message is to create legislation to limit carbon output from fossil fuels and greenhouse gases created in the process of raising livestock. caller: yeah. livestock. the thing is, you can't even put the two on the same scale. the livestock outlet -- outweighs -- if you look at the oneamental issue, it's what cow produces in terms of methane gas come it's tenfold what comes out of the fossil fuel industry. i'm not saying fossil fuels are good, that needs to be regulated as well. but there is more power in the

--d companies than any other the gas company has a lot of power, but the food industry is untouchable. and how are they giving money to these people who are in office? fix the money in office first, and you will be able to get legislation. finance, not trying to go on a tangent, but they are very much related. gabriel interim, north carolina. a few comments from our facebook page. global warming is the most serious threat we face. we need to solve this problem. god or science, i will say god any time. betty dodson below that says and they all flew in a jet plane to get there, talking about the talks in france. just a waste of money. diane is next in new enterprise, pennsylvania. line for republicans. diane, you are on "washington journal." just have a simple

question. i don't know if anyone has got the answer. i would like to know the carbon footprint of the last volcanic irruption. if we can calculate that somehow. and the effects of that, as far a leaky suv.o or even, if you wanted to include the entire carbon emission output of china. i would like to see that compared to a volcanic irruption. if this is causing our impending extinction, i would like to know ,hy we aren't already extinct if there is more of a carbon emission from one volcanic irruption then there is from the entire carbon emission of china. that was pretty much all i had to say. host: a few tweets for those following along, @cspanwj.

where does global warming p oll. wild and wonderful said the climate change summit is a human events. do people think that the u.s. should not attend, forgo a seat at the table? wash -- the world environment is connected. what any nation does to negatively impact environments affects the whole world. the climate change summit against the in paris -- begins today in paris. for aesident speaking little over 10 minutes or so. we are getting your message to the president and other world leaders. democrats, call (202) 748-8000. republicans, call (202) 748-8001 . independents, call (202) 748-8002. if you are outside the u.s., it is (202) 748-8003. john is asked in maryland, line for republicans. caller: i would tell the

president to come home, and please bring his make-believe solution to the make-believe problem of climate change. the chinese are building, on average, one coal-fired electrical plant every eight days. meltingr ice caps are on mars. think about that. caller, who asked in 1815, anoes -- volcano on the island of tempora interrupted, and sent a nice cloud around the world for 3 -- an ice cloud around the world for three years. it snowed in august. type into google a year with no summer.

to the caller before that who is cows and methane. it is real, it happens. , beingare chilling -- we the human beings of the world, only 11%,g -- tilling as far back as i can or member. but trying to bring a little more perspective to this here crazy conversation this morning. host: thanks for listening to the previous callers. we invite all of our viewers to call in this morning. lines for democrats, republicans, independents, or outside the u.s.. joseph is next in owensboro, kentucky. caller: good morning. in reference to the previous caller, a few callers back that mentions the methane from cows. there was a study that you could fit every single human being on

of face of the earth in two our smallest states, and they could live comfortably. there is adequate room for humans and animals to do their thing. if you notice, the loudest advocates for global climate change is the vatican. and they consider that the biggest problem facing the u.s.. i think the biggest problem facing the u.s. is all the jesuits that have infiltrated every aspect of our culture, every aspect of our finances, our government. they are basically trying to take over our country. host: when you're talking about your studies that you look to on how humans fit in this world, where you go? wet -- what are your sources?

caller: the government website census takers says if you do the math, and each person takes up so many square feet, do the math. it fits very well. host: joseph in owens berg, kentucky. speaking of the vatican and the , the pope after appearing in the united states is a very high-profile visit and talking about the issue of climate change, currently in africa, making his first visit to the war zone in a central african republic. he made that first visit on sunday, landing in the capital of a divided and destitute country in a bid to support an effort at peace and reconciliation, according to the new york times. muslim and christian militants of clash in the central african -- thec in 2013 to stop stop in the central african republic was the most closely watched of the popes to her. pe's tour.

host: more on that story in the "new york times." the president spoke at the talks in paris yesterday. announced mission innovation, according to the white house, standing along with french president hollande. if the initiative that 20 countries are committed to double their respective clean energy research and development investments over five years. tope countries include the five most populous nations, china, india, united states, indonesia, and brazil. when you add the countries together, they represent 75% of the world co2 emissions from electricity and with an 80% of the world's clean energy r&d development -- r&d investment. that's from whitehouse.gov if you want to check that out.

we are taking your calls and getting your comments on the start of these climate talks in paris. don is an illinois, on the line for independents. caller: good morning. everybody should be required to read a book that was published about 10 years ago by a man named peter huber called "hard green." pushhe does is debunk this save our atmosphere, and so forth. lower on thes are east coast than they are on the west coast, but we have a prevailing west wind. what does that mean? it means there is more than enough green area now in our country to take care of any

dioxide orrom carbon monarch side. people arew why trying i do not know why people are trying to convince us that we have a serious problem. china ands problem is india. they are creating co2. the co2 that arrives on our westshore is actually cleaned up. what we should do is plant more trees. .ost: i thought you were done patty up next in sterling, virginia. good morning. caller: i think the reason i had to call in is because of a tweet that you mention, where a woman said that if she had to choose between god and science, she would choose god every time.

i know that is just one element of what i would call the climate deniers, who find it convenient to ignore 97% of the scientific community that says not only is this man made -- most of the change is driven by our own activity but, if we do not do something about it within the next 30-50 years, we will have billions, if not trillions of dollars of things we have to clean up, not to mention the mass migrations that will happen due to drought, severe weather. i have a good friend in bangladesh who runs their peace academy there. he is a retired general. he basically focuses on climate change because that is the biggest threat to the country of bangladesh. from there over to india, if

things continue on this trajectory, it will be a massive human disaster. just to wrap up, i think that there is no reason to create this problem. this problem is a problem that this president is being strategic about. other people do not have to be strategic year they can look at today, and forget about 20 years from now. thank god we have a president that does not think that way. thank you. that patty wasnt talking about was from our facebook page. on our twitter page, the conversation continues. sam says that this climate conference is just another way to take from the poor and give it to the rich in a poor country. george monroe writes, republican opposition to climate change is based on money, follow it to the koch brothers. senate are in the already saying they want a say

on any climate pact that may come out of this two-week conference. this coming from "the washington post" this morning. host: if you want to read more on that, that is in "the washington post." james, my for republicans, good morning. caller: hello.

the lady who talked about 97% of the scientists all agree -- that is hyperbole. that is not true. there is a symbiotic relationship between co2 and oxygen. they are calling carbon dioxide a pollutant. it is essential for human life. probe said that mars is a little ball of dirt with oxygen and carbon dioxide. this is about power, politics, and money. boatloads of money. host: when it comes to the scientific discussions here. where do you go for your information? caller: various places.

i am in my 60's. a lot of this stuff is like high school science. i have seen these people make the most crack rocks statements. they want to strut around like change the they will temperature of the climate, change the temperature of the oceans -- they are going to hold .ack the tide's really, they are not going to do jack. they cannot do all of that stuff. what are they going to do about ocean currents? wind currents? what are they going to do about volcanoes like the lady was speaking about earlier? tossed the virgin in there, and sacrifice her. or maybe they should do some of -- once they take cano's earthquakes, fall cano's

will disappear. al gore has five houses. thingsoes these little -- nice gourmet food, drink, fine wines, and they wonder how they will get these ordinary slobs out here to reduce our carbon footprint. godzilla,s akin to walking across the flat lands. he is dragging his tail behind him. that is their carbon footprint. host: the editorial board of "the washington post" taking this issue on in their editorial, saying the paris conference may set the world on a path significantly.

host: time for a few more calls. pat, line for republicans. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i would just like to say, god is still in control. i'm wondering what some of these people, what god they believe in that can control the weather, and all this stuff. also, climate control is just another word for socialism, communism, and people control.

are is really what they after. look at the ones who are pushing this. look at them good and hard. i agree with the last caller. it is about politics, money, and worldl, moving into one order. this is all they have to hang on to. let me say this -- i'm a republican -- they always brothers up.oat other koch what about warren buffett, the clintons, what about them? that is all i have to say. margaret is in texas, line for independents. caller: good morning. ok. i can hardly believe the ill-informed people who are calling in this morning, although i should not be surprised.

guestsu had to debating the meeting of climate change, one from the national resource center, and one from one of the most conservative think tanks here -- the american enterprise institute. host: are you talking about yesterday's roundtable that we had? it was the national resource defense council, and the manhattan institute. it is online if people want to check it out. caller: ok. a conservative institute. the one from the manhattan institute said that there was no question about climate change. what the argument he was making was he disagreed with the policies in doing anything about it. you know, there is so much good signs out there, so readily

available. i'm 87 years old. i read science magazines, i can read them online. anytime i go to the store, i can get them. i read what science says about this. the climate change is occurring, whether you want to call it global warming or climate change. to look at people german into the refugee status because of what is happening in the countries where they have lived for many years. we only have to look at this country. i'm a naturalist. i watch the birds, for example earlierng birds much migrating south because it is getting warmer up north. they migrate south. the audubon society, years ago,

that theyies of birds had never seen before because climate change is driving all animals to change, to change their patterns of migration. coming west of here that i don't normally see. had more and more of them over the last years. climate change is here. we better be prepared for it. host: did you use to work on any of these issues? caller: no. what do you mean, in my real life? i taught at university. i taught history. history,latin american world history, and u.s. history. i'm aware of these things. most of the people i talked to

our, but every now and then, i come across someone, and i cannot change their minds. it is fun discussing -- whether it is politics, economics, or something with someone who is rational, and can make an argument. say climate change, people it is not happening, or it is god's will, there is no way one can have discourse with them. host: are you hopeful about this meeting in paris? caller: i'm always hopeful. i'm not hopeful about people here in the states. so anti-doing anything about it. anti-clean energy.

there are tremendous changes, fossil fuels. people do not think it is going to happen. as one woman said, doing get in reverse, it is money here. look at mitch mcconnell. that people are going to lose jobs. losepeople are going to jobs, but there are so many jobs coming up in the clean energy sector of our economy that they do not want to hear that. host: that is margaret colligan from texas this morning i appreciate the call.

you mentioned one of the republican leaders in congress, he had a piece in the washington mcconnell, trying to pull that out for you to have in just a second. also, kevin mccarthy has a piece in reuters that he wrote on the story that obama will not tell the world -- that is the headline of that piece. host: you can read his full peace and reuters. here is a mitch mcconnell piece from november 27 in "the

washington post." the headline is, "obama takes to reckless energy plan paris." todd stern, the diplomat, representing the united states, he is actually a former senator. , "proud ofhy writing former staffer todd stern, who will be heading to u.s. negotiations at the very important climate talks." time for one or two more calls. roger from alabama. light for independents. thank you for waiting. caller: i appreciate you taking my call. every unreal, listening --

time i am on hold for a while, so i had something i wanted to say, but then someone will call, like the lady talking about the birds, and my life will end somehow. she needs to stick to county the birds because that is silly. the president has a film that oceans are rising, but then house in malibu. why should we believe these people? so-calledot one reputable organization out there that talks about this that has not been caught lying about it. it is a joke. please. research it more. don't just stand out there and count birds. host: where do you go to

research and? caller: the same place you do. .he net and the news media i do not get it counting birds out in the wild. come on. , clinton turned a thing in for $50 million for travel. is she worried about climate change? no, she is not. she turned $50 million in for her travel for her and her staff what she collects all the money. all these people talk, but they do not do anything. they want me to do something. i am really getting excited. i will have to let you go. are lost caller in this first segment of "the washington journal" this morning. up next, we will be joined by .urt volker

fernandez will be here. first, during the 60th anniversary of the newspaper, "roll call" c-span has been sitting down with that organizations newspaper editors. recently, it's capitol hill editor talk to us about september 11, 2001, and what happened on capitol hill on that day. [video clip] >> one of the things we have already tried to do at "roll call" is tell stories from the perspective of congress and capitol hill, and the legislative branch of the united states. september 11, 2001 was one of the most significant days in u.s. and world history. people were simply food to the images they saw in york and pennsylvania. there was also quite a big story

unfolding in our backyard, on capitol hill. we wanted to make sure that "roll call" told that story. as id not go as smoothly, think a lot of people wanted it to. congressional leaders were staggered and how they were informed. the speaker of the house, dennis hastert, was whisked away almost immediately. some staffers and members gathered in different places on capitol hill because it was unclear how safe the complex was. it took a while to get them together and to a secure location. the rank-and-file really did not know as much about what was going on. it was the internet age, but e-mail was slow, phone networks were overtopped. communication was much were

difficult to make sure people were all on the same page. idea of members had no what they were supposed to do. they knew they were supposed to evacuate, but they did not know how to get word to their staff, necessarily. they did not know where they were supposed to gather, if there was a rallying point. there is a little bit of consternation among the rank-and-file about what they could have done. what is remarkable about all of this is once the security agencies and so forth had given the members be all clear, they insisted on coming back that night to show that congress was still open for business, that the legislative branch was not going to be intimidated by a terrorist attack. they gathered on the steps, .oughly 150 members of congress they said some things, and weirdly, i'm positively, broke

into "god bless america," one of congress of proudest moments. when people think of congress, they do not think about it in terms of how the institution itself works. there are thousands of thousands of people who work there. it is this huge workplace. they are human beings. we have so much going on holiday like that. we wanted to talk about how the security system works, or didn't work, and make sure the human element was also reflected. >> "washington journal" continues. host: kurt volker joins us at our desk, a former u.s. investor to nato. we will be talking about the u.s. role in the nato over the next 40 minutes or so. i want to start with your assessment on the rising tensions between turkey and russia. in your view, will this be a crisis that will draw in all the members of 80? guest -- nato? guest: i really don't think so.

i think this is about syria, and a little bit about turkey, making sure their airspace will be respected. i think russia will do that. i do not think there is any conflict brewing. host: since turkey shutdown that plane, explained the u.s. response and your perspective, being a former ambassador. guest: let's look first at what actually happened. syria.has been fighting they happen slipping a little bit of turkish airspace as they drop bombs, turn around, come back, and do it again. the turks protested this, went to the russians directly, brought in ambassadors. did notthe russians change, the turkish finally shut

them down. this is a case where both sides knew what they were doing. the russians knew their pilots were being a little lazy. that was the context as to what actually happened. , andurks then went to nato said, we want to have consultations with our allies -- justrticle five, consultation. nato comes out, including the united states, and says that turkey has a right to defend their space. of course, if there was an attack on turkey, we would help defend turkey. political turkey the support and backing that they feel they needed, given the circumstances. maybe they put some antimissile crafts, poor what they have

really done is arrested a few turkish businessmen, and some sanctions. overwill not go to war this, they will have a hot relationship for a while, and then cool things down. meanwhile, i think both sides want to use this to their granted. slide me a think ladner potent -- do you think vladimir putin has a different view of nato and other leaders? guest: he has been the leader for 15 years now. he has defined russia today. authoritarianan country that has really cracked down on the media, ngos. he has invaded georgia, ukraine.

anned russian nationalism. with boris yeltsin, you are talking about the soviet union, an entirely different situation. nationalin, it is this mobilization, try to portray russia as a great power. that helps justify his hold on power at home, and increases his influence in the world. host: kurt volker is our guest, ,ormer u.s. ambassador to nato 9, joining us for the next 35-40 minutes. if you have questions, you can start time again, democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 745-8002. a line for those outside the u.s., (202) 748-8003.

as folks call in, we want to talk about this idea of collective dissent, if you could explain that, and how article five of the nato treaty works, if this is something that turkey does down the road. guest: this goes all the way back to the end of world war ii allies, inen the , and war ii had won they were concerned that the soviet union under stalin would be undermining democratic governments in western europe. 12 countries got together and said, we are going to form a defense union so that if any one of us is attached, all of us will respond together. that will deter aggression coming against us against the soviet union. this was set up in 1949 by treaty. article five is the document.

it says that attack on one is in f an attack on all. if one member is attached, there will be discussions on how collectively all members should respond. since then, nato has expanded. it is now 24 countries. turkey was added in the 1950's under truman. the u.s. is the only country that has not been attacked where invoked.ive was that was september 11. nato met the next day, and said, we will support the u.s. fighting back against the terrorists. this could have happened after the terrorist attack in paris. they chose not to. they decided they did not want activity. nato

other than that, we have never had to invoke the nato article five. host: let's get to the calls. carl is waiting in mississippi, line for democrats. good morning. caller: my question is to the ambassador -- host: you are going in and out. try to give us a call back on another lie. we want to get your question in, but give us a call on a line that works a little better. france decided not to invoke article five. was there a strategic reason why? is it because of the adversary it faces in isis, versus a potential attack from russia? several think there are things. russia has nothing to do with it in this case. all, thefirst of french have always had a couple gave relationship with nato. in 1967, the president pulled the french military forces out

of the french integrated structure. in 2009, they brought them back in. had40 years, france been out of the integrated military structure. that reflected a desire to be independent and not feel that they had pre-committed anything. in addition, when you talk about going after isis and going after terrorists in syria and iraq, you will want countries that are allies that are not members of nato. there will be members of nato who may not be interested in getting involved. it may not be the right organization to turn to. in addition to that, i think the french may have had a concern of not building isis of into a singular leader of the muslim world by creating a nato christian -- except for turkey

-- response. this appearance of a europe crusade against islam, where islam is being led by isis. i think they wanted to make it a more targeted approach, building a coalition to fight them. purple countries here, members of nato. you can check that out as we take a call from frank from new york, line for republicans. caller: good morning. i just went to ask the gentleman about turkey. it appears that turkey is playing both sides of the issue here with isis. arethe folks there traveling to europe, and all over the world, they seem to go in and out of turkey. what is turkey's role in this? are they playing both sides? are they part of the problem?

that is my question. by estimate is that turkey is more helpful than not. it is a little complicated. the assadns here is regime has attacked the civilian population because they were protesting and rebelling. that population is dominated by sunni muslims. as the regime cracked down, they .illed 300,000 people the rebels became more and more radical, and the most radical became the most effective. you had al qaeda, now you have isis that have been the most effective. points out, it wants to support sunni muslims, ssad removeda

from power. at the same time, it is in fact hosting u.s. aircraft and bombing together with the u.s., some isis targets. they are going against the most extreme side of the rebellion, which is isis, but their goal is still to see assad removed from power. host: a question from twitter, has nato outlived its purpose? shouldn't the middle east countries police its own region? guest: nato's purpose is to defend the members of nato. i do not think that purpose has been outlived. if you look at invading georgia tense ukraine, very relationships with poland, also

the black sea borders, i think that the risk of a nato member being undermined, or suffering some kind of hybrid attack israel. i think it is very important that nato demonstrate it has the capability and will to defend its members. in addition to that, nato has not only defended its members, it has projected security by projecting force several times over the last decades. you remember the bosnian war, to the bosnian war. the same thing with kosovo. they put in a peacekeeping force there. afghanistan the mission for a long time, and is still undergoing training. i think that nato has roles that are still very vital. it does not mean that nato should do everything.

nato is not doing anything in the middle east right now. it is not involved in syria, not involved in libya. maybe one could make the argument that it should be. its core mission is those that i described. eg is waiting on our line for democrats. caller: good morning. i just want to say that i think russia has really been a very rational actor in all of this. it was my thought that when , thatwent into crimea basically, in terms of having a news conference on the subject, he simply walked up to the microphone and said, i have three words for you, "bay of pigs." and said, no more questions, basically. i might just point out that under reagan and bush,

basically, we preemptively went down into central america, even created schools -- these death squads disappearing people because we were scared of central america going to far left, aligning with russia. that is us. putin has this perception of threats on his border. the russian system, just the fact that they have become and authoritative system, should not necessarily affect one's judgment about the quality and rationale of their decision-making. point i agree with one and disagree with the rest. the one point is i think he is right that putin is extremely

rational. been, i think, has extremely strategic in the way that he has developed russia's power, and is willing to seize power in the world. he has made very smart, tactical moves, where he has gauged correctly. he has taken what had been a pretty established status quo in europe, at the end of the cold war, and started reversing it. your callerl actor, is right. i disagree on a lot of the other premises. ukraine is an independent country, just like the united states, just like germany, just like georgia, just like estonia. ukraine has a defined territory. russia has many, many times, since 1989, affirmed sovereignty of ukraine. probably most significantly was an agreement in 1994 where

ukraine, russia, the united states, and the u.k., under which those countries agreed to protect sovereignty in exchange for ukraine giving up nuclear 2014,s -- fast forward to and russia is now invading ukraine, peeling off pieces of territory, supporting the rebellion in eastern ukraine. there is no threat coming from ukraine here. ukraine is sitting there trying to figure out, how do we improve our economy. russia decides to go in and break off pieces of territory. that is both disastrous for ukraine, and a very deliberate and extraordinarily brave tearing up of the framework that emerged post 1989. host: ken, south carolina. caller: yes.

it has been a while since i have called. i've seen the documentary a few years ago about isis. can you hear me? host: yes. documented isis. go ahead. caller: it was showing that the shiites in iraq were not giving the sunnis any opportunity in the government. another thing on the search with petraeus.ith david we were paying cash money every tuesday to pay them off. our foreign policy has been a iraqter, starting with a and saddam hussein. .fghanistan libya -- they are on

president obama and clinton. we told gaddafi he had to leave, and what happened? host: did you want to pick up on anything? a questiond not see in there. i think we have had a lot of foreign-policy challenges. we did not start all of this, and we made mistakes along the way. i think there have been mistakes made in every direction. not dealing with isis, when we had more of a chance. certainly, not dealing with have. when we could host: i have heard nato described as a baseball team were only a few guys can really play, and the rest sit in the dugout. talk about the leadership in nato. guest: it is a little bit of that. it is also a little bit of a values community as well.

nato represents countries that are democracies, market andomies, have rule of law, want to work together. a small country needs nato -- place like estonia. they could never defend themselves against russia. by being part of an alliance, they can feel secure. some countries are much bigger. germany is far bigger. the united states is by far the biggest. when you look at capabilities, in terms of the economy, they are vastly different. that creates vastly different military capabilities. even with him back, the united states has carried the vast majority of military expenditure and capabilities throughout nato's history, and increasingly so since the fall of the berlin wall. really/theirtries defense spending, and we see the effects of that.

we do not want to be caring too much of the burden. host: this chart from nato shows defense spending as a percentage of du gdp. the united states with a much larger gdp, 3.6% of gdp goes to nato defense spending. you can see, 2.4 percent of greece. 2.4% of poland. 2.1% of united kingdom. guest: can i comment on that? nato, since about 2000, had a goal of nation spending 2% on gdp defense. the u.s. has always succeeded exceeded that. at the time we said that, a lot of countries were below and falling. because of the recent moves, a lot of countries have reversed that trend line. int: we will go to james

florida, but for republicans. caller: i want to make it very clear. i'm a ronald reagan republican. host: turn your tv down. go ahead with your question. say, do yougoing to think our president, barack would do the job since he is on the way out? i think he will get the job done. host: a political consideration here. the question, if i understood it, is if, in his last year in office, will president obama be more aggressive going against the foreign policy challenges? only he can answer that question. i cannot predict how he will approach these things. i think a more aggressive approach is called for.

what we have done with isis over the last year has not stopped isis from growing, becoming stronger, having more money, more troops, more territory. i think isis has grown. you will see with russia, thatps even china, a sense we do not believe that president obama with respond in the next year. we have to get our that it's now , what we can. i think the coming year could be very dangerous. i hope that is not the case, and i hope president obama actually response in a way that shows a little more determination to fight back, so we do not have this escalating set of crises. i'm worried that is the way other actors will calculate. host: you were appointed by former president bush. did involve a senate confirmation process? guest: yes, it did. host: what kinds of questions to

you get? guest: senator obama chaired the hearing. i was on a panel with five people up for nomination. most of them were appointees. toot of the questions came me. at the time, 2008-2009, the questions were really about nato and article five, european defense spending, macedonia, to join nato, but greece does not want them to be called the republic of macedonia -- we had cyprus as well as a thattion that came up -- affected nato-eu relations. they had disputes over the country of cyprus.

then, about afghanistan, because that was a big issue at the time. finally, i do not think the question came up, but it was a live issue at the time, what about france and the integrated military structure. host: we are talking with kurt , who works for the mccain institute. ginger is waiting in minnesota, line for democrats. caller: good morning. do you want my question now? host: go ahead. caller: i am very curious. i noticed that russia has only cold water ports. all of their harbors are cold water. it seems to me like what they hisbeen thirsting after

warm water ports. i thought was interesting when they invaded ukraine, they got the port section of the land, and did not go any further. is that a fact that russia is simply going after warm water ports? guest: you raise a really interesting question, and one that has a lot of historical background to it. foria has long had a search one water ports. in the case of ukraine, it is interesting. russia already had its may be based on the crimean tenants a lot. this was never threatened. ukrainians were not walking away from this. russia was physically there. that is the fact white was so easy for the russians to take the military out of barracks and occupy crimea when they did. they were physically right there already. that was not, in my view, an issue for russia concerning

ukraine. it is an issue, however, syria.ing russia has had a base on the syrian coast, which is very much a warm water coast. as the assad regime was starting to teeter, i think the russians were convinced it was time to go in and make sure that a sod remains in control of at least part of syria. week climate in syria that needs russia, russia has been able to expand its footprint. host: between the aggression and back to this question of how to fight isis, wild and wonderful wants to know, with the nato treaty need to be revised to include attacks by nonstate actors? guest: it does not need to. i can see where the question comes from.

after 9/11, we were attacked by al qaeda. invokedt ahead and article five after that. whether the language in the treaty is clear or not, by action, the allies decided that an attack is an attack. we did invoke article five after it having been a nonstate actor that attacked the united states. host: marcus on the line for democrats. go ahead. are on my questions invoking article five -- is article five still invoked or has it been rescinded at a ?articular time france was questioning whether they should invoke article five after their attack. my other question is how can greece, as you were saying, each country gives a certain percentage of its gdp -- how can greece afford to give 2% when

they are so much in debt? number three, i wanted to ask your opinion -- as you said, the nato countries represent free-market economies. abouts your opinion corporations going to other countries in order to pay less and income tags, or less and samerate tax, and at the time, hope they get the support and protection of nato, when they are paying less into it than before? host: a couple of questions. i'm tryingst off -- to get my mind around the article five question. host: whether it has been rescinded since it was invoked. guest: no, it has not been. it is interesting. nato, to my knowledge, has seldom gone back and canceled things. taken action,

make a decision, and follow it up with the implementation. as things wind down, they are very few examples i can think of nato has said, we are done. article five was invoked after 9/11. i do not think it has ever been terminated as a decision. aso was obviously not doing in 2003, but it is still involved in afghanistan . been a newave invoking of article five in france wanted to do that. nato is not involved in syria, not fighting isis at the moment. if france wanted to do that, it would have had to have been a new step. concerning greece and defense fording -- it is a matter

each country to allocate its budget. increases case, there has always -- in greece's case, there has an issue with turkey. they have always tried to maintain some ability to monitor turkish aircraft and ships. they almost went to war on this in the past. on taxes, it is an interesting thing. thinking aboutn what is the best tax policy for country. i think we benefit in different ways from different things. successful multinational companies or global companies based in the united states that are leaders in global trade, that has to be good for us. at the same time, we want to get the tax revenue here, not somewhere else. at the same time, if that is true, if the tax we demand is so high that they will move

elsewhere, that we just lost an asset. you do not want to overdo it either. five,mmitment to article and the defense of nato countries, is based on the territory and populations of these countries. it is not based on the business. obviously, we want to have healthy economies and businesses, but if we are attacked, it will be an attack on the country or on a population. host: let's go to carol in mississippi, line for independents. caller: good morning. how are you? host: good, go ahead. we are my question is talking about the sunni and islam.muslims and what is the basic religious leaf belief of each-- group? guest: that is a question for a

theologian. basically, they all believe that the hobbit was a prophet -- that profit. was a spread islam across a large swath of the world. after his death, there was dispute about what his legacy and teachings meant. there was another leader named ali, who the shiite muslims viewed as giving the right past .n how to -- right path that created a divide. host: have you studied how the muslim world views nato? guest: i do not think it is fair to lump it together and say

there is a muslim view of nato. there is just not. you have countries that have worked together with nato on some common objectives like the uae and saudi arabia helped when data was in libya. we had a number of countries from the arrow world involved in today, even though nato is not. nato acted several times to protect muslims, like an kosovo, for example. effectively, they were serbs, but orthodox christians. bothy and albania are members of nato. kosovo, nato is very popular. it various considerably. in afghanistan as well, when we are attacked by the taliban, we

are also wildly supported by others who feel that we help protect them. two: time for one or more calls. and that is waiting in ohio -- ana is waiting in ohio. caller: earlier, you talked ,bout assad and his actions creating 11 million refugees. failed too, or mention that the u.s. meddling in syria, with the push of people like hillary clinton within the obama administration, ourre are meddling -- meddling in syria and arming people that we do not know -- i that there are like 300 different rebel groups

on the ground in syria at this point, and we are arming people that we do not even know who they are. the, you were in administration that disbanded the iraq he army, which many people have written about creating isis, birthing isis. address howstly u.s. meddling in that part of the world, in particular, syria, libya, and iraq, has helped foment this radical fundamentalist group? please address those issues. guest: thank you. first off, on syria, then i will come back to iraq here it on syria, the u.s. was really not involved in syria at all. what we had was the u.s. involved in libya. so-called arabe spring, then we had

in tunisia,ons -- they did establish a model of democracy with political parties that seem to be working well. in libya, the people were demanding the same thing. thele were demanding .emoval of gaddafi shortly after that, people in syria started protesting against ssad. he had a very strong armed government as well. the type of protest took the form of everybody wearing white and showing up at the same place at the same time. not saying anything, but that was seen as defined of the regime. the machine was not going to have any of this. it did not take long before they started using violence against the protesters. the protesters try to remain

peaceful for a while, but with the arrest and torture against protesters there, it led to a rebellion. a lead seeking arms and fighting back against the government. this grew to greater and greater fighting. the u.s. called for a solid bus -- assad's removal, but did not do anything about it. there is a famous line when president obama said, when he uses chemical weapons, we will do something about it, and then we did not do anything that either. i do not think it is accurate to say we set things up in syria. we have, since then, try to help sad.group's opposing as the iraq question is a more confiscated one. there are several points where you could say, that is true, that is true. in hindsight, going to iraq

unleashed a whole lot of bad forces that we hoped we would not unleashed. disbanding the army was probably a mistake too. nother mistake probably was providing public security immediately after the invasion in iraq. i always look at the national museum -- once people can see that the national museum can be looted with impunity, they knew there was no public order. unleashedeast -- everything as well. we underestimated the power of the insurgency that was a result of religious motivation. beyond that, after general petraeus and the surg e, violence was going down, the security forces were going, but we pulled out before that gelled. that you these issues

work on at the mccain institute? what is that? the mccain institutetut is legacy to senator mccain and his family. the purpose is to promote character german leadership -- character driven leadership around the world. we are doing a debate at the navy memorial on thursday. anchorage people to check out the website about the debate on u.s. policy. host: up next, we're joined by alberto fernandez, coordinator for the center for counterterrorism communications. we will talk about how that works against isis.

a new report in his office releasing today filing a report about government spending. speakingspan has been with reporters and editors, talking about news events the paper has covered here is more who recentlyck, talked to us about the events of september 2001. >> september 11, 2001 up and everyone's lives. airports shut down because of the security risk. people did not know what was going on. one thing that did was election day. postponed.new york massachusetts, there was a

house race. earlier they are, president joe died. the primary election for that year was scheduled for september 11, 2001. massachusetts made the decision to postpone the special primary in massachusetts. that was quickly overruled by the governor and the attorney general, who wanted to make sure people were able to continue to exercise their right to vote. they felt that was important. two of the planes that were part of the attack took off from logan international in boston. turnout was fairly high, particularly on the democratic side force -- election in an off year. 32% of eligible democrats voted that day. they chose stephen lynch to be their primary candidate.

he was a democrat and it still thissented the area to day. in detroit, and nonpartisan primary election for the may oral race. angle, fitzpatrick, her son was the house leader and he won the primary that day. other political news that we , this is oneollow of the heartbeats of the rollcall. elizabeth had a -- had scheduled to announce. she postponed that decision eventually won the seat. she put it on hold that day because she felt it was the appropriate thing to do. a different reaction to how to approach politics that day. vivid example of

boston, the election went off. >> "washington journal" continues. host: alberto fernandez way to encounter the islamic state's social media campaign. forre the court nader counterterrorism communications. explain what the office doesn't how tries to achieve its goals. guest: that was a small -- looking atting al qaeda propaganda before the great rise of isis. reallyop shop issue a treated with less significant than advocates.

since i've retired from the government, i do not know what they are done in the past year. it was always a small operation. tiny. i testified in front of the house in 2012 and the chairman said, you are the head of the smallest organization to ever testify over this organization. people, some of them detail ease from other parts of the government. a handful of people focusing on social media, operators in the languages, arab village -- arabic. then we added a tiny english program at the end. that is what it was. host: you left in february why? guest: i retired. host: what is your thought about the state of that department, especially with isis and what

has become such a potent campaign? the center was started at a time when a lot of people in washington in and outside of the administration -- there was that victory moment of president bush on the aircraft carrier that we all talk about this administration's victory moment in the last three years, between -- i noticed there was strong support at the beginning when secretary clinton was there. after she left, i think there was less support. it became very politicized. perfect for me that i was retiring anyway. the center for counterterrorism committee kaisha spirit you can check it out online and check out their webpage. you can also check out their social media pages on twitter.

we will show you a few. if our viewers want to call in and they have questions about this battlefield that the united states is fighting isis, alberto fernandez is our guest for the next 40 minutes or so. democrats -- republicans -- -- pendents if you are outside the u.s. -- speaking of this battlefield, how did each side wind? what is the strategy on the different sort of battlefield? guest: first of all, it needs to isisid over and over, propaganda is unprecedented. it is powerful and they use it in very interesting ways. they are the most successful terrorist group in history on the use of media or without exaggerating. that sounds very daunting. need to remember

when we talk about propaganda and messaging, it is connected to the real world. isis's propaganda goes through the roof one mobile falls. there is a connection between messaging and the real world. the rise of the islamic state is what gives the propaganda power power andility, that that strength. not the other way around. were -- we confuse the medium with the message being put out. how: you can get a sense of the cbc is trying to counter what isis is putting online. spoke to an islamic state inspector in turkey, face hidden and voice disguised. >> i joined them out of fear, he says. who joined really

believed killing and whipping was the way to spread islam. when they discovered that was all wrong, they cannot leave. ♪ the defector said he watched the commander gives a knife to his eight euros son. he made him cut off a prisoner's head, he told me. he said the sun should learn early -- the son of amir should learn early. ♪ host: this is part of the state

department's think again, turn away campaign. messagingive is this guest: we are ridiculously outnumbered by isis and social media and we need to recognize that. the challenge is, how do you measure--how do you something that does not happen? it is inherently difficult. but this is good. i think it is a good effort. it has been shown empirically to be powerful. it is not bad. couple of problems with it. you do not know who the person is because they are afraid for their life. you do not know the name or their face. isis propaganda is about me talking to you and openly

declaring my views and loyalty. defectors, people who are the terrorist organization, will be leery about going on television. learning much of a curve has there been to get something that you say is good at this point? have there been failures? guest: lots of failures. but it was created because of failure, because of the recognition that after 10 years after 9/11, the u.s. government had not donee west such a good job countering terrorist propaganda. is good. work of cscc i think working level people being freed from political stance in white house are doing good work but it always has been the islamication

state has a network of propaganda. right now, strangely enough, we are outgunned and outmanned. i am not talking about the u.s. government or cscc. you take everyone in the world messaging in that anti-isis phase, and they are still outnumbered in what isis brings to the battle. up first in virginia, the line for independents. you.r: thank i think we give some legitimacy to the islamic state when we call them the islamic state. why can't we come up with another term? the organization is what some people call them in the middle east. it is a battle of words. when we use the islamic terror, there is a huge risk in our domestic politics.

i would imagine people like being called islamic terrorists. i will take your answer off the air. in arabic there either called -- the islamic state organization. that is what al jazeera calls daesh.r they are called be careful about language but also have to be careful not to be afraid of your shadow. if the islamic state makes a -- you need to .hallenge them somebody needs to challenge them on that. sometimes see propaganda in the middle east and they will say things like, we don't

understand why the islamic state did this. why did they bought these temples? well actually, there are ideas taken from islam which are the reason for them being blown up to we need to be careful not about stigmatizing people or but we in this battle, also need to take the ideological fight to them in that space. the u.s. government is probably not the best to do this. who could it be? there are nongovernment actors getting involved. anonymous said they will take on the islamic state. it takes a network to fight a network or do you need more of everything to you need .he direct approach you need the voices of young people, or people sarcastic or annoying or trolling or all of that.

it is not one thing because that is what isis does. it is a network producing a variety of different materials for different audiences. host: ali is waiting, essex, maryland, line for democrats. caller: i'm a muslim and an american. theroblem i am having with the rhetorice, now coming from the republican branch is really not helping. we should also stop calling these people islamic state just. they are not a state or they are a bunch of crazy people. we're just giving them credit. just wish the saudi government that america is reporting is pretty more of this problem.

cowards, anytime there is a problem, they will come to the western world for help to why can't they go to this fight? i think those are some good points. the question of, who are they and what do they represent, the islamicdoubt state in quotation marks, what it tries to do is appeal to a specific islamist worldview and that worldview is bigger than the islamic state. for decades, governments in the region have moved the needle in acertain direction, toward specific type of self as him solecism. state's's image and appeal to muslims is part of a larger battle occurring about

authority, credibility, worldship in the muslim and especially in the sunni arab muslim world. michigan, david is waiting on our independent line. isis andhe leader of present. a trusted this guy so much, they put him in charge of the prisoners so that they would not riot. the biggest problem was when they disbanded the iraqi army, they put the officers in with this leader. the united states wonders why they hire having so much trouble and they had the chance to beat this guy. when baghdad he was briefly in campbell, for a few months, he was not a leader. he was a radical, a radical , aric, a university student

person who was not a good guy, but he was not a leader and not the leader of the islamic state. we need to be precise about the details about that. host: bringing it back to the conversation about propaganda and online. you talk about tactics here. you mentioned trolling individual engagement, one-on-one, not really effective or a good use of u.s. resources? why not try to engage the individual accounts one-on-one? not a bad idea. the problem is you just don't have the numbers. just talking twitter alone, an average of 40 to 50,000 pro isis accounts. at cdc -- at cscc, there were three. it had six twitter handles.

isis and ice's supporters had 40 or 50,000. of which, maybe 3000 -- i'm not should have engaged, but there is something very important and that is how they radicalized. occurs ondicalization a one-to-one basis. me talking to you, that is something that may be explored and maybe government cannot do, but government can do with a private sector. you need someone who will basically have those long conversations with people who are on the fence about whether or not to become terrorists or not. more akin to the work that social workers or people who work with gangs or with other pathological tendencies people tend to have. it is something that needs to be done. cscc never had that mandate. host: one of the arabic twitter handles, following 400 people, aret 5000 followers, what

these islamic state groups get in terms of followers? just a few followers per thousand? the way it works on social media especially twitter, it has a central node that puts out the propaganda. from those places by the fan boys, by a network of then expand and amplified, retweet, shouted out, etc.. you're talking about yes, tens of thousands of people doing that. host: our guest for about the next 30 minutes or so, alberto fernandez, former court nader for the center for -- coordinator for the cscc. thank you for taking my call and thank you for c-span. i do not envy you. you don't know where you could reach these kids who might be thinking about going to the other side or finding the appeal of ice is overwhelming.

my understanding is they are cast this as a clash of civilizations with the west against islam. last week, i read that they cannot induce their own population into joining the they actuallythat rented the elements of the colombian army and that will be there expeditionary force. if these folks cannot be induced to defend themselves and have to kind of capability that the people do not want any i do not see how we could get past that. it would seem to help them in the idea that it is us against them. that is the real problem here because it is not. my understanding from all of these numbers is that they would probably take care of isis inside about three months. my understanding also is that isis was born in the jails of

egypt and the jails of jordan and those jails are still bulging. these people could be replaced in state. where does this end? guest: the first point he makes is the radicalization process is very personal and individualized. it varies from person to person. think about it in your own life. one person is a republican and the other person is a democrat. one person follows this religious tradition and the other follows another one. it is not unusual, some people have different lifestyles. the radicalization process is very personal and very intimate. that is a problem if you try a one-size-fits-all or strategy. it is important to be clear about these things. us -- supposedly, allegedly is getting these colombian troops not to fight isis but to fight these long, drawnout wars in yemen, where

basically the gulf states are fighting in yemen and they do not have enough soldiers. it actually has nothing to do with the isis fight or with the clash of civilization. let's go to hot springs national park, arkansas, a line for republicans. go ahead. our caller is not there. haven,aiting in winter florida, line for democrats. good morning. go ahead. you are on with mr. fernandez. mine is more statement paradigm i think it is more radical and radical you have got to fight fire with fire. isis and justht kind of mess around. you have got to go in there and take care of business. militaryuilds a strong , and show them what we can do.

and just take care of the problem. on theheard a few people way, that is too bad because otherwise, they're not going to fight. the iraqis are going to fight. you know, saudi arabia's are not going to fight. so if we have to put an end to isis, put an end to it and do not play with it. if you have to go over and take them out of jordan prisons, get rid of them. it is time that america put its foot down. there is something to what he said in his colorful fashion. there's something in their message, we are winners by permission of god. god has west our victory. a narrative based so intimately on victory is fragile in the be seenat it needs to

as winning. if you can show them as losing, show them as losing territory, toies they had falling someone else, that is punching a big hole in the narrative. they talk about conquering the world. it is a way of weakening their narrative. host: on twitter -- guest: perhaps. i think there was a tendency after the cold war to think the american model, the western model, the liberal and democratic free market model, because it is inherently right, that we were just going to, you know, rain worldwide. we have seen the rise of new

authoritarians. and some old authoritarians from isis, andrussia and iran, etc. the idea that we could sit on and hollywood, madison avenue, etc., would take care of it, has been proven to be wrong. let's go to pennsylvania where ruben has been waiting on our independent line. good morning and thank you for taking our call. in your opening remarks, you mentioned when you last -- you that it had become politicized. i wonder if you could tell us more about that. always aere is tendency to have a political interference in anything that becomes important. basically, if what you're doing is not important, there is less interference. became more important, it was more interfered with, especially by the white house. .t is not a problem with cscc

i am not saying anything that is a secret. in the administration, the power of the national security council, interfering into the daily work of other government agencies, including the state department, is probably at a historic high, looking back in history. is there an example of how that could be seen? guest: that is probably a better question for them. was a lot of micromanaging in the last few months, including flaky things like, maybe we should have another name or another labor -- another label or some be like that, as if that was the issue. there is the challenge of micromanaging that is a problem that the state department today in other parts of the of the u.s. government, not just one operation. to who we, go

maryland, on our line for republicans. caller: you seem extremely knowledgeable about the subject. can hear you have a role of the tongue with some of the dialect so you actually understand what is going on in the middle east. that we will out propaganda folks in the middle east is probably not going to work because, in order to radicalize somebody, you have to be personal. one-on-one relationships in one-on-one conversations that we are not able to get into. i think what we should frankly read by is try to example. to the extent we do have certain ideals and ideas we need to bring forward, we stand firm on those ideas. ask you a question about some of the interference. did you see some of the

interference as productive or mostly nonproductive? i guess he means political interference. it was a maid -- a waste of time, most of it. political interference is a fact of life in washington and actually not a very big deal. not come withes additional resources. that is a problem where you are byically getting whipsawed people in different directions, and it does not have to do with getting more money or more support. with you are embarrassed because john oliver made fun of what you did and that embarrasses the white house. it has nothing to do with isis. so yes, this is a problem. agree we need to be bold and stand for our ideals. the isis project is about a very specific thing. countered with a real vision of something.

you cannot fight something with nothing. it does not mean the u.s.'s view alone needs to be put out there. this is an ideological struggle and also it is a struggle in another way, a military struggle. there is the problem of basically producing a counter narrative which actually holds water. that is a problem. can you talk a bit about twitter and facebook and the private companies and what role you see them playing in the effort against isis, if any? we have done quite a bit of research on that in my current position. social media companies need to do more. they have begun to do more. some have done a better job or facebook has done a better job for example in cleaning up radical content online, than say twitter.

other entities, we did a big report on this, russian, german app called telegram, heavily used by isis. they will always look to see what is the most ungoverned space out there and social media. i am not one for censorship. i believe in free speech. but social media companies need to, at the very least, hold participants to their own terms of reference in their own rules. sometimes, that is not happening. host: where can viewers go to see that report? emory.org and you can find all kinds of materials about radicalization and radical islamic people talking in their own words. host: 15 minutes left in this segment. waiting in columbus, ohio, a line for independents. diane i amd morning skeptical about all the news that comes out about isil. the press has made up stories come alive, put out propaganda

as usual. not verified. they talked about mass graves, 700,000 people were buried alive, or what have you. then they could not verify the mass grave they had reported. they talked about crucifixions, people being buried alive. the beheading of children. no evidence. nothing given. they had an article put out by the united press in the paper if oneat showed that looks closely at the picture, a , dismembered, near a car in front of a building that said suicide bomber killed so many people. it shows this manikin. not a a manikin and person. i called the newspaper and i said, what kind of news are you putting out on here, where you

have manikin's when you look closely, it is really a manikin and not a person? host: i am sure you have looked into what has been put out by them. kind of ais ridiculous comment he made it i rely on ice is propaganda and not news reports. we go straight to the source to what are they actually saying and what are they actually doing. it is just ludicrous. there is footage by isis of mass murder. you don't try to hide it. they boast about it. they glory in it. one video i saw, i actually wrote a report for it, for live beheading of nine members of the sunni arab in augusted -- tried of 2014 in syria. not fantasize like when they kill americans. the arab muslims were beheaded live in the video. host: who is that directed to?

who do they want to see that? that was basically to tell a very important constituent of isis, the sunni arab muslim tribes of syria and you get out of line, we will crush you, we will mike the example at the time of the prophet mohammed, where the entire tribe was taken and all the men were beheaded and the women and children were sold into slavery. trevor is waiting on our line for democrats. caller: i wondered if i was thinking about this in the wrong way. focusing on the outrageous and appalling tactics of the leadership. there must be a mass of people willing to support them. not necessarily driven by ideology so much as hopelessness and humiliation. are there points where we could actually negotiate with these elements?

could we address legitimate grievances? i could not imagine isis would be so compelling if we, for example, took a harder line on israel and their criminal activities. i say this as a jew. would it be different? do we have to think about this only as a militaristic or social media way? does not talk much about israel. isis talks about subjugating the world. talks basically for the west presenting two options. islam oru convert to submit yourself to humiliating -- of that, changing u.s. foreign-policy or being tough on israel, that somehow will earn us brownie points, with the audience that could be radicalized by isis, that is frankly ludicrous. waiting in new york, line for republicans. go ahead.

caller: good morning. i look at this at several levels. the first is i think the muslims themselves have to discredit isis. the silent majority, you do not see them demonstrating or marching in the street or making orir own propaganda films telling fellow muslims that there are parts of the koran that are against mass killings. not understand the math psychopathy, that there are so many psychopaths that are willing to just kill people. it reminds me of nazi germany with all of their propaganda. was boots ony, it the ground that destroyed the nazis. that is the same thing that has to happen here. unfortunately, when you blame global warming and lack of jobs for the rise of isis, this

craziness and the jv team, how is that going to defeat isis? you know, it is interesting. of course, the notorious jv team comment came as isis took the city of pollution. it was played down as kind of a local thing and not actually as a very important thing. a struggle going on in the muslim world, especially in the sunni arab muslim world. it is a crisis of authority and about who rules under what kind of rule, under what kind of world feel. that is actually much larger than isis. entitiesne of many fighting that battle. so yes, the ultimate victory is why the muslims, among the muslims. we have to remember when we are talking about isis, and they have been extraordinarily successful propaganda, without a doubt.

only been ablee to radicalize a tiny minority of the muslim world. we are talking about very small numbers. talking about over one billion people, even small number's should be a concern. isis sees itself as a revolutionary vanguard. it would like to have every muslim with them, but for them, a committedto have and violent focused minority that can impose its will on everyone, similar to 1917 russia. team, you talked how was it taken by isis and the propaganda afterwards that you saw? did they care or pay attention to that comment? guest: not at all. what they did was they carefully and quietly use the victory in -- to producee the most successful video they ever made.

a clanging of the swords number four. this 50 minute video about fallujah is the one that set the stage for the seemingly miraculous, amazing fall. it was probably one of the most successful efforts of psychological operation in the history of warfare, something that will be studied in the future. host: directed at recruits? defendersected at the of the population there. demoralizing it from within. it was very successful. host: time for a couple more calls. larry it -- margaret is waiting on our line for independents. would: getting current, i like to know why and particular, that the paris attacks, the continual bombing of isis enemies is not doing any good.

i am talking about the united states. a lot of bombing, france, a lot of bombing. russia, a lot of bombing. what is happening with all the bombing that it is not having any effect? thank you. guest: it has had an effect bearded prevented isis from expanding further than it would have. been a direct contributor to the fall of the whole range of important sites in town from isis. from the dam taken last year with heavy air support by the to carita, to beijing, the problem is this. this is nothing new. bombing stuff from the air is not enough. you need to have people on the ground to take territory. we need those allies and all of the names i mentioned of laces that is been taken away from isis, were taken away from isis

in collaboration with somebody on the ground here and whether it is kurdish forces or the iraqi army or somebody. host: how does isis explain the fall? how is it viewed? not explain it at all. they never talk about that. they present an image of victory. they're like a puffer fish. it blows itself up to make itself look to your and meaner and better than they are. video they released west week in english to threaten the united states, they talked about the success of the islamic state. how can you talk about success when they are actually losing ground in syria and iraq? they talked about the franchises, the branches of islamic state popping up all over the place. not all of them are real, but some of them, nigeria, boko haram, part of isis.

libya, sinai, those are real and very dangerous branches of the islamic state. so they use the growth of these ranches to show success. to show growth. the other thing they use are the spectacular terrorist attacks. isis prefers to conquer territory on the ground. to be seen as taking cities, to be seen as having its territory expanding. like anysence of that, good, news generating entity, like a politician does, or kim kardashian does, they will look for whatever gets them attention. the soggy potato ship idea. military victory is the best thing. if you do not have that, how about cutting someone's head off in a bizarre way that will get everyone worked up? church orblowing up a a mosque or an ancient temple? how about a terrorist attack in the city of light in paris. all of those things are substitutes or kind of a power

projection for what they would like to do, which is grow the state. if they cannot grow the state, they will find all the ways to get in your face and get on the news. in ohio, line for democrats. thank you for waiting. i have a question. if isis is using propaganda and ideology, why don't the united states and all of these 65 plus countries come to help with our counter propaganda and ideology to fight isis? obviously, conventional weapons does not win against isis. why don't somebody come up with a strategy that is different? that is my question. it brings us back to where we started. guest: thank you for that. they are the physical state in the middle east, slowly being drunk. it is slowly under a lot of pressure.

that is the good news. but that ms. is the virtual state, the image, the propaganda image, it is still extraordinarily powerful. it found ways to fudge the difference between losing on the ground and winning in cyberspace. so yes, we need to do a lot more in social media, and there are commonsense things you can do. you need to have more numbers, a one to one approach. multifaceted types of materials and stuff. you need to make their stuff more difficult to be online. you need to do all of those things. the biggest solution to the problem is military victories. it is openly and clearly crushing them, and that everyone sees they are being crushed. they do tend basically on the idea that if they are winning, it is because god has blessed them to win. host: alberto fernandez, our guest. if you want to follow him on

twitter -- do appreciate your time this morning. up next, we will be joined by senator james lankford of oklahoma and we will discuss a new report his office is releasing today spotting waste in government spending. first, boston journal has been sitting down with reporters and how theto talk about paper covered some major news events in the past years. here is our more recent sitdown with the role all caps off will editor who discussed how the newspaper covered september 11, 2001, and what it meant for security on the capital campus. the front page of roll call, the very first edition after 9/11 attacks, told a little bit of story of what the legacy of 9/11 would be. there was first time a full scale is vacuous you of the united states capital in its history.

security officials, congressional leaders, all wanted to make sure that they how toed, how to -- prevent this and make it go smoother and protect people in the event this happened again. there was almost an unprecedented review of what would happen, of what would come to define life on capitol hill for the next few years, a legacy rightstill living with now, particularly with the capitol visitor center. at that point, the visitor center was still a figment of people's imagination. there was a lot of talk that if there was not private funding, that it would never happen. of the people pushing for it the hardest was now the senate minority whip from illinois, and he put it to safely that we need to be bringing into 20th century security standards. planningill in the

stage to have the capital center where people were screened and be able to bring visitors into the complex in a more orderly fashion. happened, that was not an issue anymore. the funding was there that night. for the most part. debate aboutlly no whether they would have to secure an amount of private funding for it or whether or not it would be pushed to a different did -- different date. that is not to say it went smoothly. they were over budget. , butok years to develop the capital center is one of the defining legacies of 9/11. now you look at this photo, a lot of people when they walk by the newsroom, they assume it is 9/11 because they see the terror on people's faces as they are being evacuated. another legacyy of 9/11. it is on the day of ronald reagan's's funeral. the governor of was flying in

and he into a restricted airspace and did not identify his plane. so they evacuated the capital. it was a false alarm, of course. they did not shoot down the plane but f-16s were scrambled. the capital, people were fleeing because they knew what happened. not even three years before. you also see the physical evidence of the capitol visitor center. construction taking place of the capitol visitor center that that off the ground largely thanks to 9/11. >> "washington journal" continues. host: senator james lankford joins us today for the next 45 minutes to talk about this. ♪ ♪

host: that preview from your youtube page or what was that you highlighted? guest: one of many examples we , theded in the book itself federal government doing things uniquely not the federal government's responsibility to do. a $19 trillion debt all of america knows about but it seems the city is not serious about here and i'm trying to push out, here is a set of that i do not think most americans would look at and say, that is a critical national priority and we should add more debt to make sure we fund that. you talk about spending $300,000

trying to fund a dating study for senior adults to find out -- host: each one of these federal fumbles, as you are talking about it how do you fix that? guest: that is easy to just tell them we do not do research on that. it is a critical national priority. we stay focused on all of those. they may be thinks people want to do, but you're waiting to get the critical things that have to be done. the first thing's first spirit we have got to get back to a balanced budget. there are ways to do that and we try to articulate these issues and say, here are ways to get back to a balanced budget rather than complain. which try to identify a solution. we talk about areas where the federal government is out of his lane, and we talk about regulatory overreach and ways the economy is slowing down that

affects job creation in america. host: the lines are open. -- when these books come out, the examples are always the most interesting. guest: this is happening in virginia. -- the folks in washington, d.c., can enjoy going to a shakespeare event. people from my state and other states are helping fund an event , again, inlly not the national priority. if the folks in the area want to be able to have a silent shakespeare festival, they're welcome to do that. there is nothing wrong, i guess, with silent shakespeare. but shakespeare was known for his words. but if they want to have that

festival, fine. that is not a problem. the issue is why is the federal government funding it? host: how did he get through that? guest: walking through the funding stream, they will get a grant, this is for the arts, again, there is nothing wrong with the arts. the problem is right now, with a $19 trillion debt, can we afford to do that? is there way to get back to balance and do things critical to the federal government? it seems everyone has lost track of the debt at this point. there are so many other critical issues we face as a country but right now, we have a 10 year plan to get us back to balance. that was passed by the house and the senate this past year. if we did that 10 year plan, we would be back in balance what if we had a $50 billion surplus? we will spend the next 10 years getting back to balance. year 11, a $50 billion surplus. a very large surplus.

a $50ld have to maintain billion surplus every year for 460 years to pay off our debt. 460 years at a $50 billion surplus every single year. town has lost track of how bad the debt problem really is. notpend all of our emphasis on trying to get us to balance or even to live within our means. it is, what we want to do? let's just do it. every state in the united states has a requirement to balance the budget every single year. so every state works every year to say, now with my do we have coming in, how much can we spend, and they all live within their means. every business in every family does that. the federal government chooses on funding, what do we want to spend on rather than how much we have to actually spent. that makes a huge difference. is ourames lankford guest, republican of oklahoma. he chairs the subcommittee there

that deals with regulatory issues. he is also the author of this report's federal fumbles that we are talking about. if you want to see more about the report, we are also covering his press conference today at noon happening here on c-span part we will talk more about some of the examples from that report. call in for the next 40 minutes or so and join in the conversation like our bright it from massachusetts here at line for democrats. good morning. i see the problem as one , but i know right deep down all of us are concerned that this in our us problem. here is my solution area i want to go from a bipolar left right and to a triangle with a third point. my suggestion is to contact the political science departments in all the universities across the country, public and private. go to these departments and andde up the whole list

get, with all of our unbelievable computer networks, get them to each individually research groups or what have you, and then come back and soort about what they found that we could depoliticize this most crucial argument. would be potentially neutral information. maybe conservatives would say all universities are liberal and all that stuff, but in any event, maybe they could have participation. we just need some kind of neutral report. your general point is well taken. we have gone overboard and the number illustration you just gave was fantastic. we need a lot more of that sort of thing. it is a combination of denial and heads under blankets, just cannot face it, and ignorance.

i am trying to tie the two points together. thank you. one of the key issues she brings up is how do we get that information. one thing first isabel we put out passed in committee already in senate. sendld love to be able to out to these universities and think tanks to say what we should do, but it is difficult to get to those numbers. federal no list in the government of every program done by the federal government, how much is spent on the program, how many full-time employees they have. .o such list exists we are trying to push a way to get all of the data in one place. so all these think tanks can actually look at the data and begin to break it down and we cannot do it in congress and no outside group can do that because the data is dispersed throughout multiple agencies and difficult to get to. there are areas in the group that we identify and there are bipartisan solutions.

i would like to be able to actually have a resource individuals can look at and say, here are 100 ideas. why can't every office do what our staff did, go through and look at, here are areas we found and let's find common ground. host: did you total up how many federal fumbles, the total cost? about $100 billion, just in the book we listed out. host: talk about the regulatory side. guest: an area where the federal government is involved in regulating things, often not in the federal government's responsibility. areas.g out in the federal government steps in and says, we also want to regulate that as well. it as an additional regulatory burden, literally slowing down the economy, one more permit to be achieved throughout the process. wee is a list of permits and

asked the question, why is the government involved in these processes, where they popping up that simply add new regulatory burden rather than actually solving the problem. sheila, line for democrats, pennsylvania. caller: i would like to know how we will balance the budget here i am 67 years old and i only know if two presidents in my lifetime who had announced budget. that was eisenhower and clinton. with that.uld agree it is a key area we have to address. back to aget this balance? $430 billion in overspending, down five years ago, $1.4 trillion in overspending that one year. the $460 billion is still one of the largest single year deficit in the history of the country. a significant issue. republicans and democrats alike have to agree that this is

important. we will bring different solutions to bear but at least agree on the principles of this. i know this will sound partisan, but the president and i talked about this. during the time bill clinton, when you greet -- newt gingrich were speaker of the house, they sat down and agreed, let's get toward a ballast budget, they worked together and tried to resolve that. president obama and i tried to agree, let's at least have a goal. we will balance the budget. his response was no. it was a good goal in the 1990's but he does not feel it is good now. we need to over steadier fear to stimulate the economy. i think we are slowing the economy down by increasing the debt. the debt has doubled in the last years and it will continue to the days ahead. we have to take this seriously. host: another major political difference is where to look for cuts, defense versus non-defense cuts. guest: i would say there are

cuts in both areas. host: $43 million for gas stations in afghanistan. guest: a natural gas station was created in afghanistan to be able to provide natural gas in that area. are noblem is there natural gas vehicles in the area. we spent $43 million on that facility. the same thing in kabul. we created a plant. it creates one third of 1% of the electricity for kabul. they do not have the people on site to run it, they do not have the know-how to maintain it. we are in a $300 million boondoggle in afghanistan to give them power, but they cannot run it. host: oceanside, california, david is on the line for republicans. caller: i would like to ask the

senator his feelings regarding the $5 trillion that is part of the federal deficit that belongs to social security and other federal agency retirement funds. i've just curious, if the law was changed to allow social security and funds to invest in other entities, would that have an effect on the debt, and to what extent? guest: thanks for the question on that. the $5 trillion has been set aside on social security has been tapped into already. that is part of the frustration that i have. they took money from retirement social security and moved it to disability social security to try to stabilize the disability social security program. that playing back and forth does not solve the problem. there is a way to help stabilize disability social

security simply by stating, if you have social security disability, you should not be able to get trade assistance authority or unemployment insurance -- those, by definition, you have to work. i would say to get all three in is incorrect. president obama has adjusted you should not be able to get unemployment insurance and disability insurance at the same time. we should be able to resolve that. that was not done in the budget agreement just a month ago. we have to resolve that. host: let's go to michigan where gary is waiting on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm calling in reference to why are you not talking about what your party is doing at the present time with the benghazi committee? there is a waste of money right there. now, you will have another parenthoodor planned

. host: i thought you were done. guest: let me answer the question. congressomething that to the does. we studied things. congress studies things, sits down, and evaluates it. the benghazi study are extremely important because lessons were not learned. if you take the report from 1984, after the kenya bombing's and put it next to the original report, they would look almost identical, telling me that we did not learn the lessons. i understand, there are some folks that focus on this. you will see, there is a lot of other information there.

families thatual have called me and said, my son or daughter currently serves around the world in different facilities, how can we know they are in the most secure facility that we can put them in as americans? host: the caller brings up planned parenthood. here is a story from today. the shooting at the planned parenthood facility in colorado stirs debate over abortion foe'' tough rhetoric. i want to get your thoughts on this debate that is happening among some. some planned parenthood official saying on the sunday shows, yesterday that the rhetoric may have fueled what happened. guest: no one would say, i am standing up for life by taking

life. it is completely inconsistent with the movement that is so focused on individuals protecting life. the focus is on life and children. to say you are protesting for lives by taking lives of the innocent makes no rational sense. this is not someone who is mentally stable, an advocate of the cause, this is someone with serious mental issues. host: adam is waiting on the line. caller: thank you for taking my phone call. as republican or democrat, it does not seem that anybody has any idea how much money is coming in. everyone throws around billions of dollars here and there about this, that, and the other thing. i would like a true accounting of money and an money out -- money in an money out. i think is ridiculous that money is being wasted on a multipl

multitude of problems, left and right. guest: that is absolutely right. tell real duplication. we can search through the system, and find some areas of duplication. you cannot really see how much is spent, how many employees, what are the metrics of how many different programs were actually evaluated, and how we resolve trying to combine some of these programs. if there are four programs that do the exact same thing, we may say that is a good thing to do, but how to be combined those and provide protection for the taxpayer dollar to put it where it should go, or put it towards debt reduction. gettingograms spotlighted from this report -- it is happening a new, the official release of the report.

one of the highlights, isla llamagate. explain. guest: this is a case where someone had a pet llama. llama got on the loose. after it was caught and brought back, a federal regulators said, do you have a permit to have that llama. they didn't. so, it went through this long process of why do i have to have a federal permit to have a llama . suddenly, you have to have a federal permit. it was an example of why a federal permit is required for an individual to have a llama.

it is not a health issue -- local folks actually take care of the health of the folks, but there is a strange thing with the pursuit of federal permits. we thought this was a good example of the overreach in permitting. host: also, example of oversight. of this reiterations book were called the "we astebook." guest: i think this is ground zero of where we are right now as a nation. where the federal goa government continue to spend more, we cannot keep up. if we can get a balance, that would make a big difference, just in our own spending, plus in the economy, as a whole. .ost: let's go to lauren

you are on. caller: good morning. thank you. .'m 72 years old the big change i have seen in this country, and i can see it drastically. we have way too much welfare. it on theirto do own. it used to be that families would raise families. now it is all these single parents getting welfare. getting these refugees here, we will have a lot more welfare. we're spending a lot of money on welfare. i would say that is a big issue for us, just on the value of work. that is the basic principle and value that i find people push down on. they say, why would we push someone to work? of course, we would want to do that. there is great dignity in work.

we have a safety net for the individuals on disability who cannot work any place in the economy. workfinition, they cannot in the economy. every other safety net provided is to help people transition from the place where they are back to work because that is where people find dignity. that is where they had generational wealth. individuals will be permanently trapped in poverty if they are in the safety net. if people live in it and trot aeir children and it, that is problem. there are other individuals that will need the help. that is not a partisan issue. we want to be able to help people.

host: let's go to the line for democrats where lawrence's waiting period caller: good morning. if we take a hypothetical situation regarding your book, and say that we did all that, and save the $100 billion, and the next day marched into syria to defeat isis, i think you are looking at the wrong place, where the money want to save is going. how we got here was a $4 trillion war on a credit card. is $7e are looking at billion to egypt and our mideast partners. spending ticket we are on wars. it is not shakespeare in the park, welfare, llamas.

you are looking at crumbs to get people to turn back regulations on the environment, all these small, piecemeal things, but you are missing the real elephant in the room, which is that the money you are picking at is not the real money. the real money is trillions of dollars that we spend with no accountability on war i would just like to hear what you have to say. guest: that is an interesting point. i have heard the reason we are in so much debt is because of the war in iraq and afghanistan. it is no small amount, to say the least. that is not the sole area where wehave overspending, but should have accountability in those areas. i have highlighted some of those areas, for example, the power plant in kabul. arederstand there

individuals who say we should not be in any part of the world, but i would say that one of the greatest things we should do as a nation is defend american citizens. when there is a direct threat coming to the united states, we that. eat attentive to we spent on defense what we need to spend on defense in the most efficient way possible to make sure we defend america, and the allies around the world. not a partisan issue. we defending our families. . terrorists came equipped to attack america, and they did that. what is happening in syria and iraq, individuals are coming from all over the world to not only hold that land, but do attacks on other parts of the world. liris has seen that, ma

has seen that. we have seen that in lebanon. i wish we could ignore that and it would just go away, but we cannot ignore it. there are people who want to do is harm, and we have to face those individuals. is there one example that particularly irks you? let me give you a couple of them. the earned income taxpayers has the largest fraud rate in the government, and has been for about 20 years. that has about a 20% fraud rate. lots of people catch me at home and say they want to take care f the u.s. the irs has methods in place to protect the identity of

individuals. ,f we do not deal with that there will be a lot of hassle for americans whose identity is stolen. those are key areas. you can look at smaller areas as well. there was a solar panel in arkansas.done they did the installation, and as they were getting ready to do it, they change their mind, and said, we will put a parking ot in this area. it will take 40 years of use of those solar panels to break even on the install. it is not wise. nobody would do that. nobody would put solar panels on knowing it would take

40 years of continuous use to pay off. host: that to the phones. dave is in indiana, line for independents. caller: i'm a conservative. what i see us the main problem going on today is the worditution only uses the "provide" one time, and that is provide for defense. provide welfare, anything. here is what you do. you cut out the department of education. you cut out agriculture. that is not a federal responsibility. you cut out the epa. that is not a federal responsibility. all of these agencies, you stop them. you go back to providing what the constitution says you provide for. i don't care if 100% of the budget goes to defense, as long as we are not being attacked. i was in vietnam, i know what it

is like. was only put into fund socialism. you cannot fund socialism on a consumption tax. you cannot do it. curious about the people of oklahoma -- i love indiana. ukedashington was n tomorrow, indiana would still figure out how to grow our corn. if you want an interstate -- that does not come from the federal government. we need it for travel, but mainly defense. stop spending money. here is another thing. how about don't let the government spend money we do not have. we tax -- the american people

can pay for what you spend today. then, we can see how much socialism you really want. you can have socialism, if you shove it off on future generations. all of america gets raped for this out of control federal government. we will continue problems of choking our grandkids. guest: that is one of the areas where i talked about originally what we start the conversation. every state functions under this sensible. you see how much revenue is coming in, how much money do we , and you makee hard decisions because you are required to have a balanced budget. the federal government is not required to have a balanced budget. until that requirement comes in, washington, d.c. will focus on what we have to spend on.

we will constantly have this overspending. it is one of the big challenges. we state looks at, and says, cannot overspend, so the states come to the federal government and say, we want extra money for for, z, so send us money this because we cannot go into debt, the federal government can. if you function within your means, and get back to a balanced budget, then you make the hard decisions, and say, this is something that people want to do, and we get back to what we have to do. host: the caller wanted to eliminate the department of education, agriculture, and the epa. would you eliminate any or all? department education has become a national school board. there is no reason for us to have a national school board. we have school boards and every

state of this country. the only responsibly that the department of education should have is for military bases and dealing with tribal education. even with the tribal education, there is duplication because the bureau of native affairs has responsibility. yes, there is a role of the department of education, but that is a military areas and tribal areas. both of them are being done poorly. down to texas, where mike is waiting on the life or republicans. caller: good morning. thanks for having me. i'm glad that we are addressing the federal spending. the other part of this equation .s the income tax revenue ever since nafta was passed, we lost a lot of jobs. there went a lot of the income

tax base. my question to you is with regard to our income tax revenue in the private sector and the corporate sector. you feel like there needs to be changes. i feel that a lot of people think those people in the andate sector are wealthy big businesses should pay their fair share of taxes. guest: i think that is to be tremendous change in how we do tax policy in america. no one would take the current policy, if starting from scratch, and say, that is what i .ould design everyone turns in their taxes, and says, i hope that is right. there are so many rules and regulations attached, no one billy knows if their taxes are right or not. taxes should he simple, straightforward, and fair. function of basic government, and we do need the basic functions of

government like military, infrastructure -- we do need that connection with the government, but you need a fair policy that does not rip people off. currently, there are all kinds of some disease -- subsidies built into the tax code. for example, there is a tax write-off for sports stadiums. if you want to build a large arena, that is fine, but why is my state subsidizing an arena in another state? another one i focus on is the ethanol credit, or the winds of .hese ind subsidies. i have no problem with wind. that was put in 23 years ago

help a brand-new energy source off the ground. there were 23 megawatts done in 1992. now, we still have the subsidy in place. it is about a $6 billion subsidy. this is not a brand-new industry that needs a jumpstart. sourcen efficient energy out there. why are we forcing taxpayers in other states to fund the wind power in my state and other states that produce a lot of wind energy. that should not be in place. it increases the tax burden. it increases our debt for something that is not somebody's real responsibility. host: the conversation is happening on twitter as well, along with our conversation here. says, don't forget the trillions we spent on interest on the trillions debt we a key related rebuilding the world.

dorothy, good morning. caller: i agree with a lot of what he is saying, but one thing. i have a suggestion, and also another thing. when the man called to talk about welfare, the one thing that could be done is when people come in to an employment office, you help people get employed and get help. help people to get in work. that should be mandatory. two, regulations. you're right about some things oolish. i had a friend with a problem with the bank. thingk she said -- her

over what she had in the bank. the bank went back and charged $36 for things. they said they could do that was $.60 short. 60's and sho you should regulate that. too you said, there are many regulations. i want to say one other thing. the gasg on the war -- station you said was built in wherever was, that is coming from defense. we do have to have something done about that. i will say one more thing. somebody and congress, or the president, somebody like that, to go in and order the

things. get it together to find out these agencies, duplications, all that stuff. some people don't want to, everybody has their pet projects. we need a private organization to go in an audit the things we have. guest: i appreciate that. that is why mentioned earlier a bill that i have called the taxpayer's right to know. we could all the information from all the agencies. they do not submit that. you cannot put that in a central where there isck duplication. i'm trying to force that information out so that we can look at that -- congress, think tanks, private citizens, whoever wants to look at it. i think it is extremely important to be able to take the next step to balance it. as far as the $43 million gas

station, that is an area where people think there is a good project to do, and at the tail end of it, they find out it was a bad thing to do. whyegs the question, do we continue to do it. we need to incentivize, not adding more people to unemployment programs, but how do we help people get off of these programs. that is what we want. people do not want to know they have the permanent ability to get a check, they want to transition off of it, get back to work, and teach my kids, here is how to work. that dorsey made the point there are good regulations to help, and bad regulations. where do you draw the line between a good regulation and bad regulation? guest: if the federal government should not regulate that, white

are they regulating a? let me give you an example. as she mentioned, banking regulations. banks are some of the most regulated entities in america, but we continue to add more regulations on them. dodd frank was supposed to capture the big banks, but captured the small banks. bankshave been seven started in america. the regulations are so large, it is very difficult for small communities to get a bank started. it is also very difficult to get a home loan now because of what is called a qualified mortgage. it is tough to be able to get a home mortgage. people who have always gone to their bank and gotten a mortgage, now their banks are saying, i cannot do it anymore, based on regulations from washington. they cannot do a home loan for them anymore. it is incredibly frustrating,

and it is a dual layer of regulations added that do not seem to help anyone. host: we will be talking more about this at noon at his desktop -- press conference, talking about the ways the government has dropped the ball. we will be covering it at new. thank you for joining us. that is our show for today. we will see you right back here tomorrow at 7:00 eastern, 4:00 pacific. have a great monday. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> congress returns today from its 10 day thanksgiving break.

the house meets at 2:00 eastern ,oday to consider nine bills including one that i kaplan --nts out in the street craig kaplan points out in this tweet. we will have that debate here on c-span again after the house gathers at 2:00 p.m. eastern. the senate is also back today. they start at 3:00 eastern. the debate to nominate the usaid. you can see that vote at 5:00 eastern on c-span 2. a look now at the big issues coming up in congress. >> congress is back this week after the thanksgiving break. here to tell us what is expected as far as activity on the hill, . staff writer bill was th . >> good morning. >> whaar