for the washington post will join us to discuss the latest bureau of labour findings on jobs, and wages. we will talk about the u.s. economy, exam name -- examining reversing wage stagnation and earnings inflation. journal" onngton thursday morning. join the discussion. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] >> tomorrow, hillary clinton will speak to an audience in michigan. you can see the comments live thursday at 1:15 p.m. eastern on c-span. after that, we will get your reaction and take your calls. q&a, aay night on documentary film instructor talks about his students' award-winning documentaries, some of which have been prizewinners at our annual student competition.

he teaches at a high school in oklahoma. of teacher the kind who will look at something that is not very good, and just know, ok, that's nice. you did a nice job. i will say, what's not working? eventually, every single one of my kids makes it better cheese -- a better piece than they did in the beginning. to do really well internalize all this stuff. i no longer have to say it to them. their brain is saying these things to them. >> that is sunday night at 8:00 ..m. -- 8:00 p.m. eastern >> a discussion on maritime security and the overall readiness of the marines. we hear from general robert kneller, who addresses modernization and technology and conflicts around the globe. it is held by the center for strategic and international studies, this is just over an hour. kathleen hicks: good morning, everyone. welcome.

i'm the director of the international security program here. i am delighted to have you all here for the latest in our maritime security dialogue series. today, we focus on the future of warfare and the marine corps more generally. before we begin, i will give the safety announcement. sure everyonee knows where the exits are, directly behind you, and directly behind me. i am your designated safety officer. should a fire alarm go off, i will direct you as to where we go. the maritime security dialogue is a product of csis in -- and the u.s. naval institute together in partnership to highlight the particular challenges to the navy, the marine corps, the coast guard, and on a national level naval , concept development and program design. we are delighted that the sponsor for the series have been so kind as to provide support to

make this series possible, and today, we are focusing in particular on the marine corps. than ther to speak 37th commandant, general robert neller. we will have a conversation between the two of us and then we will open it up to the audience in a bit. let's start with the security environment overall. aboute many conversations the challenges posed from china to russia to nonstate actors like isis. from a marine corps perspective, what is the most salient series of challenges that you have on the horizon? gen. neller: first, thank you allowing me to be here and senator warner and other folks here. not a lot going on in d.c., i guess, on a tuesday morning. congress is on recess and the

ballgame is not until tonight. everybody else, the chairman, i guess i am the best show in town , which makes me really nervous. [laughter] gen. neller: i mean, when you put it in context, i came to the marine corps in 1975, the end of vietnam, and a country that was kind of dealing with that were -- with that war. the soviet union was a major threat. it was pretty simple. we were going to go fight them. the marine corps was very engaged in vietnam. they continued to have forces in the pacific, and we evolved into a capability to participate if required in a war against the soviet union, but it was there he simple. it was, you are going to fight a state directed military force.

there was going to be a line of troops and a line of engagement, you would be on one side and they would be on the other and we were going to go fight. you worried about air defense and electronic warfare and fires , very traditional, the way americans like to fight. we like football, the field is lined out, there are goals on either end, referees to make sure people play by the rules. we like that. then you stop and call a play and make another play. the rest of the world is like soccer, there is one referee who does not seem to see anything and guys running in different directions. they fall down, although they are not touched. we think that is bad. everybody else says, that is part of the game. in military, that is called deception. fast-forward the tape, we go through desert shield, desert storm. the wall comes down. then 9/11 happens. we find ourselves in a very

different kind of fight, even though it starts off very traditional, conventional force on conventional force, two conventional forces. northern alliance versus taliban. the u.s. coalition against iraq, and for the last 15 years, we have been in a counterinsurgency, stability, we have trained and developed and organized a force and a way of fighting that worked really well. so now, we fast-forward to where we are today, we are still in that fight, in iraq and afghanistan but not to the degree that we were. but other countries have watched and observed what we have done , and they have continued to develop their capabilities and recapitalized a lot of their forces, their aviation and strategic forces, there -- the

undersea forces, and now we have four potential threats and one ongoing. how does the marine corps fit into that? i still believe there is a great opportunity to deter adversaries by having forward postured deployed forces. in line with the strategy that we want to build capacity with partners, and we do that using the c -- the sea as maneuver space, not having to violate the sovereignty of nations, a huge advantage, you have flexibility, and then none of the games we play, hopefully, we won't be playing a home game. we don't want to play a home game. our games are away games. you have to have the capability to be expeditionary. when you show up, you have to be able to bring with you all the for a certain time before you things you need to sustain

yourself for a certain time logisticalcan get a -- before you can get a logistical chain to support your efforts. so i think part of the naval force, and i've talked about this a lot, i think the challenges and things we might face in the future are things we have done before, but we have not done recently. we are committing -- committed to developing the nasal -- the naval capability that allows combat and commander to provide forces for forcible entry and noncombatant evacuation and humanitarian assistance, built capacity and do whatever we need to do across the spectrum of conflict. kathleen: the marine corps is really known for being that crisis response force, the 911, ever ready, and general dempsey used to call it the new normal. i think we can call it normal now. do you worry about the marine corps's ability to sustain its

readiness and that sort of ever crisis free response mode? to having special tasks, to having a responsibility to respond to crises from embassies, etc., is it stressing to the marine as it is currently constructed? gen. neller: if you talk to the people in the operational forces doing it, they would tell you that the operational tempo today is as high today as it was when largee, when we had numbers of forces in iraq and afghanistan. the commitments haven't gone down. there is stress. on the force. and 9/11, we had 172,500 marines, and we deployed at a rate of three to one. gone for six months back for 18. , since then, we grew to 2-1

downe have drawn back because we wanted to get back to the 3-1. at 182,000 marines, which we will probably reach in the next couple months, we are a 2-1 force. that is kind of the redline for us as a service. there are some particular capability sets that are inside me.hat, and that concerns it concerns me mostly about the stress on the force and the individuals and the equipment. join thees don't marine corps to sit on their seed bags. they want to train but they want to go somewhere and do something. i think if we can stay at 2-1, and maintain a level of readiness through the depth of the force, we don't tier readiness. when you come back even when we , know there will be a

degradation, we expect that you will be ready to go. we don't reduce resources are funding are opportunities for units when they come back, they get a certain time, we reset them and they are back in the mix getting ready to go. if we can stay at 2-1, i think we would be able to sustain that. i watch it very closely, i watch all the surveys we do with marines and their families, is this too much? but i believe we can find and recruit the right kind of people, our center of gravity, the people we have that are going to stick their hand up in the air and say they want to be a united states marine. i think we will be fine. but it is something we will watch all the time. kathleen: what parts of the marine corps are you most closely monitoring, or should i say, more -- which parts are you

worried about the most in terms of readiness? we all know a lagging indicator, but you are more likely to see it earlier than most of the public. where do you see the stresses coming? gen. neller: if you track readiness over time, before the end of afghanistan, after we left iraq, in 2010, 2011, we what wasanistan in, it? 2013? and of 2013? colonel fairfield used to work for me so he knows the answers. ask the gentleman right there in that nice suit and tie. looking good. there was a time when you never , it never has been and never will be that the forces are fully deployed and ready to go and have the best gear and can do the mission. there was an increasing number of forces at the bottom meant that were staying at a lower level of readiness longer. that started to turn. those numbers have gone down in

-- and the people in the middle has gotten larger. that is what we want. we don't want anybody at the bottom. we want them to stay there for a short time. we want the forces, as they get ready to deploy, to go through an iterative ross s, then they does -- they deploy at the highest levels of readiness. there are three groups. ,he groups on the ground side their readiness is in a good place. congress was good enough to obligate $5 billion to reset our ground equipment. we are about 75% through that. the ground readiness, particularly the infantry battalions, is really good. there are a number of ground units that deploy detachments or pieces of the unit. they are in a good place. sometimes the way we do the algorithm or the policy, they -- for how you rate readiness

they might show their readiness , is low, but it they were re-aggregated together, they are low because pieces of them are gone. they have to say, part of my forces gone. on the aviation side, we are in a more difficult place. i've talked about this and -- in testimony. general davis talked about it. we have flown our airplanes for a long time. we are recapitalizing every model, type, and series. we are trying to reset the legacy aircraft we had -- we have, and we still have up-tempo. everyone is a little bit different. f 35 will replace three model type series. the harrier, the hornet, and the prowler. we thought we would get the airplane a little bit earlier. but we did not. now, our second squadron, we will start to see the airplane deploy here overseas. after the first of the year.

there are some issues with f-18 because the harrier took longer to fuel than we thought and we had some issues. we are starting to see now, slow , steady improvement. i am not going to spike the ball because we have got to get more airplanes on the ramp. so our aircrews can fly more the hours. second-most challenge is probably 53. we are going to buy a new 53. it is doing very well in test. but we have to get the airplanes we have back through demo. i think we made a mistake. i have told everybody this. when we were in iraq and afghanistan, we do not bring -- did not bring them back after every deployment. we left them there and set up an intermediate wrote -- maintenance thing. looking at that now, i would recommend to my successors to never do that again. the money was there to fly the airplane's back, put them

o, and wehe dep should've done that. they would be in a better state than they are now. now we are having to do that. but it will take some time. ospreystill fielding the , the acquisition program record, 360, 287, replacing the and the cobra. understand every time you transition, you have to stand them down for 18 to 24 months and they have to train and the mechanics have to be trained. so the rest of the force has to pick up that tempo. we will work through all of this. i track it very closely. it is not something you could watch on a daily basis. it would drive your staff crazy and you would not see anything. but on a monthly basis, we are starting to see gradual, steady increases in the metric as to how many airplanes are on the ramp that we can fly. that is the metric. ready basic aircraft.

rba, that is the term. the number of rba's going up, not as fast as we would like but it is going up. we are on a course and we will keep grinding on this. it is a combination of putting legacy aircraft on, getting them out, getting better parts on -- support to fix the airplanes on the ramp, and replacing the airplanes. kathleen: you mentioned early on the threat or challenges posed by increasingly capable adversaries. the shift, the continued environment in which we have operated but now also, an environment of potential concern to the marine corps in terms of being able to operate in these types of environments. can you talk a little bit about how you are thinking in terms of the training requirements and the marine corps to evolve the force?

what are the innovations you are looking at to be able to operate in that kind of environment? and how you balance that. you talked about a high, off tempo -- up-tempo marine corps that is engaged every day. gen. neller: we were in the process of looking at the overall structure we have. trying to project what the force will look like in 2020. i think we have got a good idea based on what we have learned since 9/11. what we observed with other potential peer competitors out there, what we have seen another fights going on in the world, in eastern europe, and even stuff going on in syria and iraq and afghanistan and around the world. there is aze that certain set of capabilities, not just for air, but for any sort

of fight that we have not had to deal with, which is a training thing. we don't have the capability, which is an equipment thing. then, it is all, you have to have the right people that understand how to do this. whether those capability sets we think we need involve more ciber, more information ops, more electronic warfare, more attack and defense, how much counter mobility we need to retain, do we have enough air defense, is that balanced against the intelligence do you make this all fit? we are in the process of doing that. one of the assumption we have is that we are not going to get any more people. so whatever these capabilities are, and i kind of listed them, the question is, how much of that to you need? you need?

and what will you take away, what are you going to divest yourself, what marines doing one type of mission are not going to be on this other type of mission? and what will that cost you to give up? aboutody has great ideas what we need. there are not a whole lot of people offering up their own stuff to fill these other needs. that kind of falls on me. we're in the process. we brought in a couple hundred marines after the first of the year, they cut them up with a course of action. -- came up with a course of action. we had kind of the old persons and the young persons, and they were somewhat similar but also somewhat different. and then, we have created a hybrid and we are gearing out how to make it work. -- figuring out how to make it work. it would be great if we have the resources to have 190,000 marines. but we are not assuming that.

that is a decision not in my job. we will operate on the assumption we will have 182,000 marines because that is what we have been resourced for, and we will figure out how we will reshape the marine corps. we are going to reshape it. we will not stay the same. can.not think we the threats and capabilities are changing too fast. we have to be able to survive on the modern battlefield. that will be very different, i believe, then what we have done for the last 15 years. kathleen: sticking with the leadership and training aspects, you have been vocal about your concern, a tongue-in-cheek way of putting it, marines getting familiar with a paper map again. can you talk a little bit about that aspect of leadership training, quality you want to make sure the marine corps has to deal with, information

environment, electromagnetic spectrum, challenges, at the same time, you are developing your defensive and offensive capabilities? gen. neller: we have got a whole generation, everybody who came into the marine corps after 9/11 have grown up in an environment that is different than what i grew up in, where you are operating in a single channel radio and if they are operating 50% of the time, you were ecstatically happy. now they walk into the , operations center and they have got big screen tvs with an operational picture, they know exactly where all of their people are, they have a tracker, they can see the airplanes, they have multiple means, digitally, to chatter or text, let alone voice. they do not have to worry about an adversary that has an air force, it did not happen.

so now, here we are today, and we have got a system, we have developed a system of fighting that is very dependent upon the internet, that network, in space. so looking at our potential adversaries, do we think that that will be there? that network will be there if we were to engage with these folks? i don't know. i do not think you can assume that. in fact, i would think our friendly center of gravity is that we have to protect the network. if we lose that, we are back to paper maps and hf radio that we remember from back in the day when we were underneath the poncho at night with a flashlight in our mouth, trying to read the map and figure out where the hell we were and hoping a sergeant could tell us. [laughter]

gen. neller: so there is a balance. we have to leverage the balance -- the technology we have. it gives us an advantage, but at the same time, it makes training harder. you have to be prepared for when it is not there. i believe we are building that into our requirements, building it into our training. i will tell you, we started to train more force on force at twentynine palms, and we gave our adversaries uav's. marines are in a built-up area and walking down the street, they look up in the sky and there is a small uav and they are like, what is that? they've never seen that before. those who have been deployed in the middle east are starting to see that more and more. but they've never seen that before. that is the same quad copter you can get on groupon or sam's club

for $400. don't fly around here because it will be a federal offense and you will be arrested. can't fly it in the district of columbia. but it is simple stuff like that, like jamming the radio or saying, gps does not work. it does not work. so what does that do? the whole network, or the server just crashed. look what happened with delta yesterday. they built an entire system a -- of flight management based on a network, and it failed. by itself, with a power surge. what if someone actually wanted to do that? the fight that we used to think about in air and sea and under the sea is expanded to space, cyber, and the information domain. it will take, i have no doubt in my mind that our force will

figure it out, they are much smarter and more capable and more adaptive than we were, because they have grown up in this and they will adjust. the we must put them in situations where they have to deal with it. you train based on what you think is going to happen to you in the environment. simple things like, i was talking to a commander on the west coast, she is the commander and they will go to the field. they did something smart. they set up the entire group, a very large thing, and they remoted all the communications gear and put up camouflaged netting which used , to be a very common thing. in the last 15 years, there was not a lot going on because there was no need. the enemy did not have airplanes. they were not using space. so we did not do it. tted up certain things,

and they got on google earth and took a picture of it. and it looked good. they realized they had put concertina wire around certain important facilities, and the like from the sun reflected off that concertina wire, and the was a big circle around this one thing. and anybody looking would go, what is that? there is something inside that circle. that is where the intel people were. ok, so what we do about that? there is a fix. it has already been fixed. i don't think i am giving away state secrets, but you have to look at yourself, and we have to change the way we are thinking, that an adversary can see us just as we can see them. so how do we keep from being seen and still see them, and how do we protect ourselves and put

them at a disadvantage? kathleen: i will ask one more question, then i will turn it over to the audience. i want to talk about amphibious capabilities. this is an area where those of us who observed can see the evolution of thinking with regard to the challenges of being able to aggregate capability for wartime needs and the challenges of managing crisis response and more routine engagement. the marine corps has become very creative in how you have addressed that challenge in terms of moving to these land-based approaches, shift based approaches. i wonder if you could talk about where you think the marine corps needs to go on amphibious

capability in terms of managing this challenge of being ready across the spectrum of challenges you are facing. gen. neller: one of the effects of the last 14 years being involved in a land-based insurgency is the number of marines, unless you are assigned to an expeditionary unit, the opportunity because of time to get on ship was less and less. it was admiral harvey in 2010 or 2011, maybe earlier, started to say, we need to get back to doing amphibious things. he started an exercise program, and at first, it was just kind of sitting around and people getting themselves recommitted and re-understanding, a better understanding, getting back into the books we have on how to conduct an amphibious landing. that will be assimilation this year.

the reason is we did not want to do it with a small number. we wanted to continue to grow and increase complexity. we have done it every year. it has also been added on the west coast. we have done it recently. operation, ain large exercise. every fall in korea, there is a adding -- a thing where we bring gen. neller: every fall in korea, there is a thing where they aggregate with our marine partners. we do a landing on the peninsula. we are writing to continue to grow, not just ourselves, and with the navy. we want to get a strike group because there is no way an amphibious force is going to land unless conditions are set, and they have to be set to the fleet. capital ships and submarines will set the conditions so you

can put that force ashore. we're also working hard with our allies this last fall and the largest amphibious exercise in many years called triton juncture, where you had u.s., spanish, british, portuguese, dutch ships. the italians were going to anticipate but they were tied up with another mission. about 35,000 individuals, u.s. marines on u.k. ships, u.k. marines on u.s. ships and spanish ships and vice versa. we continue to do that to develop a coalition capability. the same thing happened, so, we trying to get our own skill set built back up and we are on path to do that and we are working more and more with coalition partners and using every opportunity we can to get marines on alternative platforms, whether it be a high-speed vessels or mobile landing platforms or just normal

black hulled ships where you have a flight deck where you can put marines onboard and they can use the sea again to position themselves to accomplish a mission. that is what we do, that is the mission. secure naval bases, that is our job. that is in the law. we can do a lot of things, but what we really do is provide a naval infantry capability from the nation as part of a fleet. ms. hicks: ok. we have microphones that will come around. i need you to, when i call on you, give your name and affiliation if you have one, one question, and i do mean a question not a statement, or a , monologue of any variety. let's begin right here in the third row. >> thank you.

i am from japan. the marinesk about corps in okinawa. we are trying hard to beef up the capabilities for amphibious -- okinawa island. do you think this improvement will lead to reshape of the marine corps in okinawa? officially in terms of equipment or a number of the personnel or the state of the marine corps? ms. hicks: great, thanks. okinawa, marine corps, state of the pacific? gen. neller: the japanese ground self-defense force is working very hard to develop an amphibious brigade capability. we are happy and proud to be

partners in that process, to provide any expertise and training that we can with them and to train with them. your naval self-defense force has built some really nice ships, and we've certified our ability to land ospreys on those ships, and we have marines on those ships. so we will continue to train , with the japanese ground self-defense force as they continue to grow and build this capability. whether that will affect the defense posture in okinawa, or in the pacific, i think that is a little early to say. of environmental and political things going on that are acting the current plan to put forced down in the proper manner. it is too early to say that, but for sure, we are totally committed to helping the japanese ground self-defense force, just like they have come into the west coast. i know it is expensive for them

and we would like to find another place to do that. but we will work with them and continue to be good partners to try to achieve the goal. i think that is a great capability, whether it is hadr or any other requirement that might exist to work with allies. ms. hicks: great. ok. we have one right here in the front. >> thank you. general, you talked about how the marine corps is look at its force structure. i know that is ongoing. but can you say what your current thoughts are about what up an infantry unit? how many rifleman? gen. neller: in the past, when we changed the force, we kind of left what was in the flag the same.

the difference this time is we are going to stay at 24 infantrymen. what is inside will not -- inside those infantry battalions is going to be different, not fundamentally different. i am not ready to say exactly what it will look like because we do not know yet. a number of different models and options we are looking at. we want to make sure we maintain the capability and that any -- and capability of any infantry battalion and any changes to that, first, do no harm. right? so, but it will be different. one of the things we're looking at now is providing every infantry squadron a leader. and the reason is he would be the marine that would fly the squad's uav's. and help the squad leader manage the information, because the

-- they are still doing the deployment as part of the normal workout to the plate. i met one of the squad leaders out there and he had a tablet that folded in and out of his battle rig, and on that, he had the ability to do messaging, call for fire, have google earth map, talk to his higher headquarters, if the network works. he had that, and there was this 45-year-old guy showing me all this stuff. to him, it was like, i can do this, i can do this, i can do this. i was like, that's a very cool. my job is to make sure that works when you need it. there are going to be changes in equipping and training, and organization. i am not sure what it is all going to look like at the end.

very good. second row here. >> the marine corps is about to get these fifth-generation fighters that function on this very complex customary network, and i'm curious if you are of similarany kind effort with regard to marine aviation. weightingkarounds function on limited technology? gen. neller: of the great question.

files at comes back and report and we try to rapidly disseminate that information. that is inherent in everything we do. a huge capability to gather information and disseminate it to the point where we have to figure out can we absorb all that? it is not that we are going to go back analog, but we have to be compared for when that happens. we have to be able to continue to function. our operational philosophy the idea of maneuverable warfare. where there will be friction and is certainty and the commander has to deliver what they believe is their intent so in the absence of communication, that they have some idea what they're supposed to do even if somebody, they are not able to communicate. it is almost counterintuitive. we have got this system of war

fighting where we're trying to develop as much certainty as we can and yet based on our experiences, we know to some degree, that is never going to work 100%. if it does, great. we still have to have marines out there who understand they have to exercise their initiative use their best , judgment, the commander has to understand what they're trying to do, that they cannot stop and wait just because something might not work. that is all part of the training and the recruiting piece. we have got to find people who have the initiative and the aggressiveness and the intelligence to understand what they have to do in the absence of certainty. there is never certainty in war. even though we might try to achieve it, there is always something out there that you are never sure about. the marine corps has never really had a recruitment

problem. do you have concerns about building the skill sets you think you need? gen. neller: we have had recruiting problems before and we are not having them right now. our recruiters are out there working really hard and we have to turn over about one fourth, recruit about 34,000 people a year. we are a very young force. 60% of the marine corps is under the age of 25. yeah, that is what i say most days. [laughter] gen. neller: that is a huge operational advantage. being young is an advantage and we have to take advantage of their youth and enthusiasm and their fitness and then get to get them to grow up really fast, and they have done a great job. it is incredible. but at the same time, it takes a little bit longer to do this.

i mean, it used to be, you could take some but he out of recruit training, they know how to fire their rifle, they are physically fit, they can carry a load, and they can physically function. i think we are beyond that. the complexity even at that other levels,n at it takes a certain level of intelligence and ability to be trained and we are there. do worry about, though, is the additional time it might take and being able to retain , enough of these who become sergeants and staff sergeants, gunnery sergeants, because these are capable and qualified people and there are opportunities out there. we will train someone to work on a cyber domain, we invest in them and they get to the end of their enlistment, they are going to have a huge number of opportunities, so how do we convince them -- and the same for the army and air force --

how do we convince them to stick around and wear a uniform and do when some of your companies are out there offering two or three times as much money, and they get to sleep in their own bed at night and no one is trying to kill them? let me think about that for a minute. [laughter] gen. neller: and so far, enough of them take pride and are willing to accept a challenge, but i worry about that. as the force becomes more technical, the force becomes more capable, and they have more options. gen. neller: right. -- ms. hicks: right. ok we will go right here in , front. >> thank you. john harper with national defense magazine. general as you look at the , future and prepare to fight more advanced adversaries come a ofadversary, what kind technologies are you looking for in terms of maneuverability or things like that? gen. neller: i did not talk

about recapitalization of the ground vehicle force, but there are two programs in particular technical vehicle and the combat , vehicle where we will replace some number of humvees and we will replace some number of our amphibious assault vehicles. both of those vehicles have better traffic ability and better survivability. they still can be beaten. i mean you can always have a , bigger weapon or a bigger bomb, but i think there are other technologies out there, we cannot keep hanging more armor on the vehicles and trying to have bigger engines, heavier transmissions. there are vehicle protection systems that are out there. there are electronic means to protect the vehicles and obviously, if there are later ighter means to armor them and

give them better defense, the first thing i am trying to give is the individual body armor. individual lighter body armor. when you pick up the gear, the body armor, the water and the mo without even talking about the pack. -- and the ammo without even talking about the pack. you add some sort of tablet or radios were anything else you have got to carry. you're pushing 6280 pounds. that is before you put your pack on. so we are really looking hard for ways to lighten the load it anyway possible. carry something that can make clean water, so we do not have to carry as much clean water, even to the point where even if we could find the brass casing around to find something that is not metal and this consumable,

that would reduce the weight of the bullet by 25%. every pound counts. i used to do that for a living and now i am just an old fat man, but i want these kids, and i remember what it was like and i am committed, along with the general mill, and we talked to general thomas in socom. we are all committed to figuring out everywhere possible to increase the survivability and lighten the load of everybody carrying their stuff across the battlefield on the back. the vehicle protection systems, there is a active protection systems out there. we are going to look at a couple of those. they are not really light, but if you build it into the a call,

you know, certainly, that gives you some advantage where you do not have to just keep hanging armor. we still struggle with mine. we talk about anti-axis air anti-access air denial. we still need to work harder on is in the craft landing zone. much like we are with iud's, down to farm tools. we have got to do better. we have got to do better. we are more survivable, but there are two ways to find iud's or mines. there is a lightweight, which is to see it and avoid it, and then there is a wrong way, which is to hit it. i prefer the first. ms. hicks: i have a question way the back over here. chris, defense news.

the expeditionary unit construct has been around for a long time. but almost never -- they train as a unit, but almost never do they operate as a unit once they are fully deployed. you about the seven muse. is that a construct that needs to be changed or can we reevaluate the continuance of that today? what else can we do? gen. neller: because the method of employment, i think the only potential survivable forcible entry capability would have at the very bottom is a three ship arc. it is true, they train together and operate as one but they also train to operate separate. or distributed. right now, we have more capabilities. so we end up being a multiple -- in multiple places, sometimes

supporting multiple socoms at one time. i would not ever support unless there was a specific thing, unless we had excess capacity. we have done single deployers in the pacific. every year, there is a training exercise combined with assistancereadiness, training, or something like that. they go on a single ship and sale around the pacific and do security cooperation and build capacity with allies. we used to do one ship, and we do ship sometimes down and south in south america. unitas, to because jenn it is now called something else. the three ship, the real be, do we is going to

do it by design, or do we do we automatically by design, not just by happenstance, distribute ourselves across the battle space? because we have got to be able to come back together because one way we are able to create a larger landing force is to bring multiple amphibious ships, which would bring multiple ships together and aggregate them into a whole. they have got to be able to function together. they cannot come together and figure it out at that time. they have got to understand the entire landing plan. i do not see right now, us, in order to meet our combat and command requirements, deploying from the continental united states, one or two ships by themselves. they will continue to go as a group. ms. hicks: ok. i have one way in the back over here. >> good morning. alejandro sanchez.

general, my question is about special purpose marine task force. honduras, american forces, it -- to fight trafficking, with humanitarian missions. it starts in a couple of months or right now actually. my question is, we have already been there for two months. what is your opinion of this deployment and future noncombat you monetary and appointments? - humanitarian deployments? thank you. gen. neller: special-purpose based out of honduras, and now they are operating out of three or four different countries, i will visit in another week or so, it was at the request of the commander and now admiral to provide marine forces to do it that we what she said to work with allies and partners down

there to provide a capability for the commander. they have the most recent hurricane earl came through there. they already went through that one. to engage with military partners down there. a year ago, in april, i met with the marine corps is in this hemisphere. there are a lot of naval forces, a lot of navies in the north and south america regions that have marine corps. we want to maintain relationships with them, not just professional relationships, but to work with them because of a common interests, but also, they have a lot of great experiences about humanitarian assistance, disaster relief. ecologicalall the

things that have happened, they have had earthquakes and tsunamis and volcanic directions. we have had because of the services they have had down there, we have worked with the columbia net marines because of the insurgencies and they had down there. we have worked with mexican marines because of the counter narcotics things they do down there. they each have their own missions that. we are just down there to try to engage with them and maintain a relationship and try to help them in any way we can. this will be during a hurricane season. it will be a six-month deployment. hopefully, we will have the resources to send another group down there next year. ms. hicks: right here in the front. i am penny with cns news. you mentioned a new battlefield. can you explain what that looks like and how that relates to "rebuild the military"

to defeat the enemy? thank you. gen. neller: you are always at risk when you try to predict what will happen at the future. the great percentage of people want on done that have gotten it wrong. when you look at even what is happening on the battlefields in iraq and afghanistan now, technology and the ability of even these adversaries that we always considered low-tech, i thought it was a bad thing to underestimate the adversary, the are expanding. the use of social media, not just the ideology but to communicate the use of unmanned systems, their ability to move and survive, the ability for the -- to use what is kind of the asymmetric capabilities. if you take that up at it with a nationstate and you look at what

they are doing, and you look at what a number of countries are doing around the world, you are kind of in a battlefield that is more similar to what we would have thought it would have looked like during a cold war. but i think much more complicated. the chief of the russian military wrote a really good paper about what he thought the future battlefield was going to look like. i read it three times. i think he talks about what he calls "fighting a war without fighting a war." the use of information and social media, disinformation, deception the use of special , forces to engage with local forces that may have a political beef with their own country, how what we would call conventional forces might somehow be involved in that.

you at into that an adversary that would have a capable air force, a capable artillery, capable electronic warfare to find you or to jam you, who can see you. i'm in, we have not worried about -- when was the last time an american military force worried about being bombed by enemy air? world war ii? so what capability do we have to defend ourselves from enemy air or enemy unmanned air? can we mask our signature? can we defend space? so i don't know what the , battlefield is going to look like, but i think all of those capabilities or denials of those capabilities, or being able to contest or have a counter action, or something that if we did not start talking or

thinking about that, i would not be earning my pay every day and , i would not be doing my job to make sure the young men and women that are the military, i the other chiefs feel the same way because we have talked about it. we are just paying attention. i think everybody else understands that, and we are on a path that is eventually going to get us there. it is partly equipment, and partly training. the key thing is that we have got good people. they will help find solutions to these problems. ms. hicks: i'm going to take two last questions. i will do one back here and then we will come up front. >> my name is michael tucker with the u.s. border patrol. earlier, you mentioned you wanted to detour deployed observable forces, similar to our mission set. then you mentioned building partner capacity. my question is, what are your thoughts on how the training

analysis is showing illegal immigration is shifting to a maritime environment? gen. neller: well, for us to be involved the coast guard, that , is what they do. they're the ones, because of their authorities and permissions to do those things, on the water, i would imagine , i don't know, but i think that the border patrol has a certain maritime capability at least in lakes and rivers around. i think, immigration, you have seen in the mediterranean, we --e seen ration come from you have seen immigration come from syria and north africa. you seen militaries get involved in that. that is more of a law enforcement issue. our involvement with immigration, we find people stranded at sea, and we render aid to people that are kind of the stranded mariner type of thing. so that is something the navy

does. if we are key with them, we support them with that. sea with them, we support them with that. as far as defending the united states against immigration, i cannot imagine how that would happen. now, defending the united states against a threat of a maritime-born weapon or some capability that was coming here, that would fall under northern command of general robinson and she would work through all the authorities and information e if u.s. military forces of the air and sea, they would work through the relations they have with homeland security. i mean, the whole interagency thing, i think we have done a lot better, but we have to continue to work at it, because it gets complicated. j three, that was one of the most difficult things i had to understand what who could do what to do, and at the end of the day, who was going to

pay for it. sometimes, it came down to that. at the end of the day, we have got to do to keep the homeland safe. i appreciate everything you and your guys do all over the country. ms. hicks: we will end here. friedberg, defense. general, people in the press like myself tend to focus on shiny hardware, but you have mentioned several times that there is in some ways basic tps that need to be relearned that can do a lot, for wire around your intelligent fell, to help people survive the more intense battlefield. of thingsore examples people need to relearn or things you may need to learn that they never did in the cold war that could make a difference in a way

that just buying a new piece of hardware perhaps could not? gen. neller: so, i was talking davison, and we were talking about signature, in other words, how do you eliminate your signature in the navy? electromagnetic spectrum reduction. he realized, when they tried to do that, that is why it is still kind of important to be able to flags, so they have been practicing this, reduce your -- turn off your radar, be able to shoot celestial navigation and case the gps goes out. they are teaching that again at the naval academy. they stopped teaching it. the admiral realized that if they lost gps, they had no way ,o navigate, no charts, just

you know, so admiral davison goes, we realized that we did not have the right solution hickse, you know, seaman decided she wanted to check her facebook page, so she walked out of the weather deck at night with her phone, and what does that phone got? it's got gps. anybody in the world is going to know there is some gps somewhere out floating across the ocean. that is probably on a ship. the same officer that did this with the headquarters group said, what do you think the largest electromagnetic signature in the entire headquarters emanated from? billeting area. why? everybody had their phone out. we have got to take everybody's phone away from them. i know that sounds silly, but it is not silly.

ok marines, we're going to go into the field for 30 days, everybody leave your phone in the car, and tell your significant other or your mom, your and your uncle that you're not going to get that your -- uncle so that you don't get 75 tax. exts. they broke up the outline of their helmet with camouflage so they could not be seen. time you sawlast that? it has been a long time. it is been a long time. doesn't worry about seeing us at night or our signature. they are preparing a defensive position and camouflaging that and living in the field, and the not going back to a -- every night to check your e-mail. that is what we have been doing

for the last 15 years. not everybody, not everybody, but we have been operating out of six positions. we have not moved across the ground. we have not maneuvered. we have not lived off the land. howhave been eating in c green beanrinking coffee. it's pretty nice. we have done other stuff, don't get me wrong. when people think of going to for the last 15 years, that s then. it ha don't get me wrong, there's soldiers and marines out there living heart. but it is different -- they are ising hard, but it different. what i am suggesting is, i do not think it will be a problem, those marines and soldiers, sailors, and they did exactly what we trained them to do. it has got to change. .our living out of your pack you're gone to stop at night,

did a whole, camouflage, turn off all your stuff, fit there, and try to sleep. you're going to be careful not to make any noise, and you're going to try to have absolutely no mature. --absolutely no signature. beyou are seen, you will attacked. that is the difference. just before we close this, you wear a remembrance of a fallen marine. i wanted to know if you wanted to take a moment to say what it means to have that. gen. neller: his name is eric lucan. 2006, and we were getting a bunch of jammers that we theght were going to drive nme possibility to use remote control devices to activate -- y's ability to use

remote control devices. they were going to put pressure devices and bury them and wait for you to drive over them. we started talking about how we might the feet the pressure device -- defeat the pressure weice, and we said, what if put a roller in front of the vehicle. what if we push something in front of the vehicle? i don't know, it will blow up, the governor will get fragged were offset it. well intended ideas. i was responsible for our counter ied program, so i listened and i went to my office and i heard this young guy was pressure an ied device.

i would just say, that motivated me to get off my general officer backside and make a decision, and so, we decided we were going to build rollers, and we did, and that was the first week of may, and a bunch of the mechanics and different bunch ofl areas made a them. monster garage rollers, they e commercial world. before that, there were no rollers. think of all the pictures you have seen in iraq and afghanistan. thank you so much for your time this morning. senator warner, thank you for joining us as well. please join me with a round of applause for our guests. [applause]

[applause] [indiscernible chatter]

>> tonight, a discussion on how the obama administration is currently working with clinton and trump campaigns on transitioning the white house from their administration to the next. former white house chief of

staff josh bolten recalled the story of how michael chertoff worked with incoming dhs onretary janet napolitano inauguration day. here is more now. wille of the things i mention that we did, that is that we asked the homeland security secretary, michael planned awho had vacation with his wife, beginning at 1:00 p.m. on january 28, we asked them to stick around for a day, and wasng inauguration day, he in an off-site with the incoming secretary of homeland security in a control center where they could monitor all the threat information and so on. we asked him, even though his authority would be eliminated as of noon on january 20, we asked

, be stick around, be there there for advice and so on for secretary napolitano as she takes the reigns. internet to be important because there was a threat on inauguration day -- it turned out to be important because there was a threat on inauguration day. it was not an actual threat, an actual incident, but there was a credible intelligence suggesting an attack at the inauguration itself on them all. was just part of an event held by the white house transition project. you can see the entire event tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. other primetime programming include tv on c-span2 with authors who have written about criminal justice, and on c-span3, it is american history tv with our series "the contenders," and tonight, we

will examine the life and career of barry goldwater. c-span's washington journal, live every day with policy issues that impact you. coming up thursday morning, new york times washington correspondent will be talking about a series by the new york times and new england center for investigative reporting on think tanks and the blurring line interval as educational institutes. us with findings on jobs, wages, and prices. examining various campaign policies to increase jobs, rivers wage effect making, and i wrote the growth between earnings and inflation. join the discussion. tomorrow, c-span's road to

the white house coverage continues with remarks from hillary clinton on u.s. economic policy. she will say to an audience in warren, michigan. you can see those comments live at 1:15 p.m. eastern on c-span. we want your reaction. at c-span.org, you can what our public affairs and political programming any time at your convenience on your desktop, laptop, or mobile device. go to our home page, www.c-span.org, and click on the video library search bar. list of search results and click on the program you would like to watch, or refine your search with our many search tools. our most looking for current programs and you do not want to search the library, our homepage has many current programs ready for your immediate viewing, such as

today's washington journal. c-span is a public service of your cable or satellite provider. if you are a c-span water, check it out at -- c-span watcher, check it out at www.c-span.org. host: with me is yasmeen alamiri. how would you describe rare to other people? media group a talks owned website. we are interesting in the way that all of our information lives online, whereas some other organizations have broadcasts for most and they adopted for online. everything is created with an online audience in mind. we have a robust audience. millennial's and people interested in the news, but with a different take. that is what we have been doing, following the campaign closely, with an entire team that worked on that. host: taking a look at this campaign, what is the most

interest of people that follow your site and consumer news? what are they interested in specifically? is so interesting and especially with the online format is they want to know these people are, what they stand for, and how they are different from one another. there is an increasing skepticism when it comes to every politician being cut from the same cloth. this is a very divisive campaign, very divisive election season, and we are finding increasingly that these two candidates, hillary clinton and donald trump, have been working to set themselves apart, and they are doing it with an online presence. both of them have taken to twitter and facebook, respectively, to attack each other, make themselves known, and their personalities known. our audience has been responding to that because that is the same format in which we live. we live in this digital base. it's interesting to be part of that. if you like you are cohabitating with the candidates in this online space. host: when it comes to hillary

clinton and how you have been covering her, what are the issues troubling hurt in this campaign? guest: i think for her, this is the way for me as covered other campaigns before, it has been interesting because it is very reactive. donald trump is a very loud voice, however you think about his politics. he is not a wilting flower. the hillary clinton, it's been responding to him, and i think that her whole message of love t hate has been in reaction to donald trump. i think that has been one thing for her, to ensure that her voice also stand out. she has been trying to be a unifier. she has been trying to say that the democratic party is unified in love. host: heidi think she is doing amongst millennial's -- how do you think she is doing amongst millennials? guest: the millennial

relationship with hillary clinton has been recent. before, there was a very strong wasowing of millennials bernie sanders up until the day of the democratic national convention. conceding from bernie sanders. the recent courtship between hillary clinton and the new.nnials has been very i think that poll numbers come out and show that they are of the options that they have, they are more with hillary clinton then they are with donald trump, but they are also the third-party candidates that are increasingly winning the votes or the support of these millennials. it's been interesting, but it is new, and we have to keep watching it. host: you get a sense there is an en masse going to hillary clinton? guest: they are skeptical. they are increasingly with clinton, but i know, from speaking to millennials, a lot

of them are grudgingly going to support hillary clinton because if they feel that the other alternative, is something they cannot and behind in any world, entered the others who say they have to -- she has to win their trust or loyalty. bernie sanders has come out on the first day of the dnc, and called for his supporters to back hillary clinton, saying we cannot be divided and potentially lose to donald trump. there is a course of happening there. a lot of people are waiting to be won over. it's over yet. host: she is the senior political reporter yasmeen alamiri, joining us to talk about campaign 2016. we have divided the lines by age to get your perspective on campaign 2016. if he fall within the ages of 18 to 29 -- if you fall between the

ages of 18 to 29 -- if you're over 50, -- tell me how you became a senior political reporter. guest: of course. i have been covering foreign andcy and national security politics for over a decade. i have been quite lucky. after school, i entered into the field of washington post political reporting quite early and became a white house reporter at 22. for me, it has been an upbringing in this field. i worked mostly for broadcast organizations. this opportunity is very interesting because, increasingly, digital media is not new or innovative media. it is where we all live now. this has been an interesting opportunity for me. it's an extension of what i have been doing. i've seen a couple of residential campaigns go through i have been lucky enough to cover them both through foreign policy and domestic policy. host: our guest got her

bachelor's at james madison university, come after that american university, cited reporting under the bush administration and she is an iraqi-american. guest: i was born in the middle east but was raised in virginia. , very proud virginian. virginian.ery proud when i graduated from school, that without the height of the iraq war and when the third was happening. for me, i felt that there was a story that needed to be told, not just from a security perspective, but from a human perspective because i know what it was like to have family in iraq. to tell to be able those stories. it has been very interesting. the narrative has been something that unfortunately for more negative than positive reasons, been part of the vernacular in

the american reporting. host: robert, we will hear from you in maryland. good morning, go ahead. caller: good morning. how are you doing? look, i am a vietnam veteran, and i care about what happens in our country. the two things i see here in our current political debate is, i think mr. trump is excellent as far as, and i am a black american, excellent as far as economics. i think mrs. clinton is excellent as far as social things. the division that we are having, i remember -- empire, about the roman if these two people decided, or if our country would dividing each other on these economic and social issues, rather than start

dividing, start talking to each other, i think we could accomplish a tremendous amount cousin they both have something to contribute to the -- that exists in our country. this has got to be a mandate. we have got to start talking together again. i am sure it would illuminate the social -- eliminate the social unrest instead of dividing each other. lincoln said that a nation divided against itself cannot stand. both of these have something to contribute and the need to start talking together and bridge the gaps. we can then be a country that is socially stable and everybody fighting each other. host: robert, thank you. guest: thank you for the question and for your service. i appreciate it. i completely agree with you. this is a very divisive time in our country's history. i think the antagonism between the white house and congress has think, disappointing for

a lot of people to both be a part of, to have the residual instance,om, or in my to report on. i think basically end up reporting more on the tug-of-war between congress and the administration rather than the policies that can be born out of efforts.rtisan i completely agree. one thing that everybody can agree on, especially in this election season, is that things are not working, things are not ok. the unemployment levels need to be alleviated. people need to go back to work and they need to have a sense that when they go to school and they study, and they hope that they can have worked lined up for them afterward, and that when you are in work, you have disability to maintain it. this sense of anxiety that americans have, where they are are living paycheck to paycheck, not except the will. a lot of people, would agree on

that. you are right. in theory, that would be lovely. if we can have a two merge together and become one great candidate, but here we are in election season. that is not possible. host: marco, maryland. caller: hello, yes, i had a abouton for miss alamiri young people's previous politics and their willingness to support hillary clinton because although , ievery primary and election have been a very ardent supporter of hillary clinton and i know what she stands for, i was wondering if you have some sort of metrics, if that is something you would look into. thanks. numberse looked at the quite a bit. i think it is quite fluid because usually, polls when they are taken, they measure two candidates. when bernie sanders was in the

race, there was up normally high numbers of people supporting bernie sanders with the millennial age group. now that he is out of the group, people are recalibrating. i had some numbers, if you don't mind. it's a recent poll. i found it quite interesting that clinton is leading among the voters under 30, which i think is your age group, with 41%, followed by gary johnson. trump at 9%. we were discussing earlier, this was a matter of --lennial voters, they were it's a misconception that they andnot interested in voting politics. they are usually either in school, in debt, newly employed, and they want to make your there is job security. they are very much invested in a personal and professional level in politics. right now, this is the point of election season. is athey are looking for

candidate they can trust. that they feel like can fight for them and have their best interest at heart. for some people, that is hillary clinton, some people it was bernie sanders and they wonder whether hillary clinton or donald trump one of these third-party candidates is the candidate for them. host: thomas, you are next up. caller: was going on. thanks for taking my call. i just wanted to say, these democrats are taking our money. they are proposing these huge tax hikes that's going to ruin my family. i make $80,000 a year and they want to take away that money for my family. ur out ofo on to state, they can't even afford it. eventually, it went to turn to the point where i'm making the same amount as a landscaper. i may as well just be a landscaper. these people, they want to provide services, but i'm a proud owner of ghi, i don't want universal health care. i think a

$15 per hour minimum wage is absolutely terrible. it's going to make a more competitive. they want to solve unemployment, but that is not taking the issue. guest: i understand. i think your concern is something i have heard echoed. that is not my area of expertise. all i can speak to is that i have spoken to a lot of people on the campaign trail and they have a similar sense of anxiety. her them, the politics of this election cycle are very real and they reflect in their projects and whether families are able to have or not have. host: talking about hillary clinton, we hear concerned about what happened in benghazi, what happened to e-mail service. do those is innate -- resonate as much? guest: it's a big thing with millennial voters. they are waiting to be won over, not only in the policies, but

that this is something they can rely on, someone who has coherent policies that will not change from day-to-day, and the things they are being told to really a reflection on the authentic policy standpoint of the candidate. that is a reason why some a like bernie sanders appealed to young voters is because he has had the same message, some would argue for decades, but certainly throughout the campaign cycle. from the beginning, he started incomeb equality, inequality issues, and then also the student loans thing, for young people was very much a lo oming issue that they would need to deal with. they appreciated that level of consistency with him. with hillary clinton, they felt there was a certain issue she was inconsistent with a lot of donald trump. they want to know that once a controversial statement is made, it will be walked back. i think that can speak to the

dnc issue because i was there when we are on the ground when the e-mail leak happened days beforehand. a lot of people felt like the ged againstrig their candidate and they want to know that when they cast their vote, it would be reflective of the will of the people and not the will of an institution that one of their voices to be heard more than actual voters. i think that sent a certain cloud of this trust around the dnc and the whole process. i think that needs to be, the anxiety of untrustworthiness these to be quelled. they have a lot of work to do. host: this is karen. hello. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have more of a comment and observation than a question. i have noticed that a lot of

common sense has been lost in .he area of voting i, at one time, it did support hillary i am disabled, raising two disabled grandchildren, and i thought she could help. when she did not get the nomination, i voted for obama. obama did not do anything he said he would do. i did not vote for him the second time around. i will not vote for hillary today. i don't trust her. she got our people killed in benghazi. benghazi. if i had a son in the military right now, i would be scared to death for him if she won the election simply because all she cares about is filling her pockets, and too many people

have turned up on available after speaking against her. i don't trust her. the issuet speaks to we were just discussing where people feel that the system is not really reflective of their voices and i think that it is a real issue that needs to be overcome, because there is an institutional candidate and that is what hillary clinton is and there is a whole anti-stat -- antiestablishment movement, and that is what bernie sanders and donald trump are. one of the stories on the new york times talks about donald trump and republican women. we have seen other republicans step away, how much of a problem is this for the trump campaign? guest: it is a big problem because the people that support him and support him throughout. he has quite a loyal fan base.

all of the people that we spoke to at the rnc in cleveland said that they had supported him from day one. they are really excited and a lot of those people were historically democratic voters, so that was interesting that they were not people tied to the conservative party. they were people that really believed in him and his message and his way of truth talking in the field. -- itk it is presented has presented a new way of thinking about the political structure. the people that are mostly aligned with the conservative party are not in fact as big on donald trump. a lot of people are trying, but it is not sitting well with them, and what the trunk campaign has not done well is allowed for people to be neutral and then one -- won over. to win over trying

people who may have been ted cruz supporters. the rnc did not help. can the donald trump campaign get over this, in your reporting? can they get over these issues? make: they continue to statements like this and they continue to recover, somehow. i don't know if, in the end, it will prevent people from showing up at the polls. the trump campaign has shown me something that i was surprised to see and i'm continually surprised that we watch this statementa tweet or a -- and you say ok, this is the end. and they find a way to recover. whether it is walking back or apologizing. and i think that comes down to the people who will support donald trump. they understand that maybe he is the waylling or rash in

he speaks and they dismissed the comments as that. and some people really believe, in the same way that he believes, but they don't mind the comments he's making. the second amendment one is a big one. that is a lot of people taking pause and the trump's campaign was to blame it on the media, we take this on ourselves. they always find a way. host: here is robert in virginia. over 50 years old. go ahead. caller: thank you. callinglike to say -- in and talking about e-mails and benghazi. weapons of mass destruction. -- i can'ter understand people who are hooked up on the e-mails. what is going on in these elections, what has been going on now is going on for hundreds

of years. parties have been bickering. there was a time when they used to go up on capitol hill, so it is nothing different. but the last guy who was on, the republicans talk loud. bringing -- [indiscernible] donald trump belongs in a straitjacket. mark in will move on to california. go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you for everything you do, i think you guys are great. and i think your guest is very intelligent. but. i just wanted to mention to people, in the past, the big stories were -- i knew john ,ennedy and senator kennedy

that, it has been elevated to thatmassive circus level -- i am 48 years old and i can remember, it even the jimmy carter campaign, and i never ever have seen anything like this before, where there is as much debt as we are in. ith all of the serious -- can't to numerate problems in this country that we have. just in america. forget about abroad. just what we have to deal with here. we are being distracted by the , thatnbelief things that is what worries me. a dangerousrump guy? i don't know, i've never met him. i haven't met hillary clinton either and we have put up with how many years of their insanity

in washington? it is disappointing that these are my two choices and i worry for my country when we are this distracted. mean, i think that sentiment has been echoed by so many people. i have heard them talk about the disappointment and the fact that the all of the people in the united states, how is it plausible that these are the two candidates. -- that is the why why you see the rise of these third-party candidates like gary johnson and jill stein. it it wouldn'td, be as likely that we are eyeing a third-party run this late in the election. and a lot of people are disappointed. likehe reason why it feels there is such a circus now is because it is an election season. you also have to think about this as we are having an election season when people are inundated with information because candidates are appearing in person but they are also

tweeting nonstop. and they are taking aim at each other and both hillary clinton supporters and donald trump supporters. so we are being inundated from every which angle with information, and that is why it can seem overwhelming for some people. because information is coming from everywhere. we live in a 24 hour news cycle so it has a nonstop. that is why they call the election season silly season. this is the best part of our democracy but at times, maybe the worst parts of humanity. host: our guest is yasmine a la alamiri. her website is rare. the topic this week is heroin. why? guest: we rolled out an episode

on the heroine crisis in the united states. we had a national introduction to it from early on in the campaign season where new hampshire, all the republican candidates came out and spoke out on the issue of opioid addiction in new hampshire, which has been ravaged by this ordeal. so the way we approached it as we looked at the crisis in new hampshire as representative of a new wave of cities that are dealing with the crisis. and that are really struggling to keep up with it or put a lid on it. and we contrasted that with baltimore. baltimore has been dealing with the heroine crisis since the 1950's, and institutional problem for them. this is something that the obama administration has taken as one of the things that they looked at. they have released a good amount of money to be able to address the heroine crisis in a multifaceted public health approach. and it is interesting for us because it is something that both speaks to the cultural

context of this country, the way that we, as a society, look at , over prescription of opioids, and also looks at how we respond to crisis. so it has been an interesting series. we are rolling out one story a day for the next week and it has been very enlightening. it has been great to speak to families who have been hit hard by this. there are stories that are still waiting to be told and hopefully we can shed light on it. host: let's hear from richard in south carolina. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. one of the main reasons calling it is as i want to comment on the media and -- i want everybody to know that msnbc and cnn are left-leaning, liberal outlets. that is why they give a one-sided view. always attacking

donald trump, like this one on the second amendment. the biggest joke in the world. he was not making a reference to violence. back to the story on heroine, that is why we need the border protected, the southern border. like, this isl our only opportunity -- we will never get a chance like this again. to have someone like donald trump come in, who is from the outside, if you were not elected, we would be faced with going back to the politicians who don't do anything for us. just like the situation we have been in four years. this is the only opportunity we have to straighten this country out. guest: those two points are good points. the one thing that, as i said earlier, the people who really believe in donald trump as a candidate, a messenger for the voice of the people. and some people might interpret othersbeing brash but

interpret him as speaking the truth, no matter how distasteful the truth might be. the other point, the point about a border control issue, a lot of people say that. i have heard that overwhelmingly in new hampshire. something that the u.s. border with mexico would be closed off, the flow of opioid's into the united states, the flow of cut off theould problem. he is echoing something we have heard along the campaign trail. host: does rare take a political point of view? guest: no. we have a commentary seem -- we have a commentary team that speaks with a point of view but we have a team of reporters that report on the news. and it keeps is quite busy. many people involved

and how many involved in this campaign? guest: this campaign was myself and a couple of other reporters but we have an entire team and bureau in d.c. who report on the news. and that team is everybody doing everything. it could be the entire newsroom that is involved in the political reporting. host: when it comes to the campaign specifically, what stories or angles will you be looking for and how do you separate herself from everybody else? --st: when the rnc and dnc we spoke to particular delegates who felt they were disenfranchised. we did that very well. people at the rnc in cleveland that were ted cruz reporters -- ted cruz supporters and they wanted to be able to voice their vote. and i think they were looking for a sense of the trunk .ampaign trying to woo them they didn't find that. there was a sense of intimidation that was coming

from the rnc folks, telling them that they cannot -- it is time to abandon their candidate and join them. and i think that we have looked at real people with real voices who want to be heard in the election cycle. and i think we do that quite well. on of our reporting is rare.us. host: will you be covering both campaigns through november? guest: yes. host: colin. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was going over the fundraising numbers for the trump campaign and in the last month, they said they took in a whole bunch of money. like $16 million. maybe more. i'm wondering where we think that might be going or if it has gone anywhere yet? zerow they have spent dollars on ads nationally and in states as well. so interested in your thoughts on that. guest: the caller brings up an

interesting point. this leads to the rise of social media. the trump campaign has spent negligible amounts of money on their advertising. because they are able to get so much press from his tweets and from his social media appearances, and it has been incredible. the fact that we are following a presidential candidate nominee from instagram is unreal to me. and that speaks to the space in which we live, the space in which we now report, and how they presidential season is so different from other ones. because now, candidates are able to reach people in the palm of their hand. and voters feel personally attached to these candidates, because they feel this is a one-on-one interaction with their candidate. it has been interesting and a cost-saving measure for the candidates. host: beth from illinois.

hi there. hi.er: i am continuously concerned about the knowledge of millennials, because in the 2014 elections, there was a very small minority that voted, at all. id i watch c-span a lot, watch the committee meetings, the senate and house, and you have to know that all of these people who make up the bodies have an influence more than the president, at times. and i think if millennials could realize that, like in illinois and nowly 12% voted, you have a republican governor who can't do anything, they would understand our system of government. i'm concerned about that and i haven't looked at your website yet but i certainly will. do you address that? that they need to come out and vote on the off your elections

and the president's exact power, considering the house and the senate? guest: a really good point. the whole premise of being an online only publication is that we are meeting people where they receive their news. millennials, of their facebook news feeds, their twitter feeds and social media in general -- that is how we interact, digest our news and disseminate our news. so the functionality of a news organization is to be able to make readers feel engaged, and to have a way to interact with the news, and in this cycle it has been about the campaign. something i would like to address is the misconception that millennials are uninterested in the world outside of themselves. , socialderstand that

media has an interesting phrasing where it is social, but a lot of people who are not of the millennial age don't think it is social because it is not social in the traditional sense. it is not you and i looking at each other and speaking to each other. but it is social in the way it shrinks the world. interact with somebody across the world. and that grows the functionality of how we interact with each other, how we learn, how we share information and get information. and i think that is the beauty of it all. i don't really agree that millennials are out of touch or don't care. but i think the greatest threat to millennials showing up at the polls is feeling disenfranchised or feeling like their vote won't feel -- won't count for anything. because thethat is institution say that if you vote, we will not override it. effortre you aware of an

, a specific effort by the trunk campaign to reach out to millennial voters? guest: they are reaching out to people where they live. we can't understate how they are reaching out on twitter and how they are trying to reach readers where they are. but i think that is something they are doing. both campaigns are doing this quite well -- trying to win over the bernie sanders supporters who are still -- the bernie or bust people. they are trying to break open andbust portion of that side with clinton or trump, respectively. how they are doing that, we are still waiting to see how it pans out. host: president obama has been in office for eight years. where are millennials with their support -- he had a lot of them vote in -- where are they now? guest: a lot of these millennials were the ones who carried the president into his

administration and his first term at the reason is because he courted them and made an effort. he represented a hope and a change that people needed to see at the time. now, a lot of people -- and this happens with presidencies -- there are a lot of promises made and once you had to deal with congress and the realities of what it means to hold the highest office in the land, then people begin to maybe lose some of the lust for the president. there has been a heavy drop off for people who once were diehard obama people and they no longer are like that. but i think in the waning months of his president see, he is beginning to -- people are already feeling a sense of nostalgia for this administration. be feel like whatever they may have criticized him for his policies, a before and policy or drone strike policy, has been unfavorable with millennials but

they really think that whatever criticisms they might have of a president, it is probably better than what they are going to have. host: from north carolina, this is south. caller: thank you for having me on. it is very strange about this clinton, with all of the things going on, people forget one thing. there was a guy who is going to testify against her. vincent foster. and supposedly they found him with a a hotel room bullet in his head and they thought he committed suicide. this is kind of strange, that somebody would do before they would testify against her. nobody wants to look into this and find out what happened to this man. something wrong here. finally someone steps up to put this woman out of the campaign and nobody steps that. the fbi doesn't think this is strange and nobody is investigating this and i want to know why. mean, there are certain

certain -- forer us, the campaign reporters, you are usually out on the field, covering the campaigns and traveling. that might be the reason why? host: let's hear from jim in michigan. go ahead. caller: i am an attorney and i do a lot of research. first, on libya. libya was a united nations security council action, not a secretary of state action. and only the troops of -- nato troops. and they asked nato to stay. for theead of staying rest of the year, nato got out early and libya went to hell. and another thing. keeps getting asked

about benghazi and lying. it was not benghazi who went in hosts, ithe talkshow was the united nations security -- soodor, to john rice jun rice. another thing. donald trump keeps blaming the clintons about nafta. nafta was signed and delivered by the first bush and by the presidents of canada and mexico and it was signed overwhelmingly by a republican congress. host: thank you. foreign-policy record -- is the millennial voter looking at that as closely as economics and thinks about college? i don't know if it is

equal screwed me. part of it is the record when it comes to whether they can trust -- that is something they are looking at. now, aeign-policy right lot of people are very eager to have more attention paid to their regular ability to work, find jobs, have health care coverage. for a lot of millennials, they just want to know that they will be ok and that issues at home will be taking care of. and a inc. this issue of divisiveness and inequality based on racial and religious ground is an issue. and it is potentially the issue in this presidential election cycle. and a lot of people in this globalized world, when we interact with each other easily -- our america for young people is a very diverse fun. and i think a lot of people appreciate that about hillary clinton, she is working to embrace this message in her campaign.

so maybe that overshadows some of the things where there should be scrutiny. host: this is mason from oregon. on the line from 18-29 years old. go ahead. caller: i have one question. do you think that if either candidate, if elected, would nominate supreme court justice or justices to reverse citizens united? guest: that is an interesting point. i haven't really looked into it but it has come up several times during the campaign season. it is one of the big talking points. surely the idea of filling the last supreme court justice isition has been one that talked about and shared quite often on the campaign trail. and that is the comment that spurred the second amendment remarks from mr. trump yesterday. so it is surely an issue of contention that i think both candidates are chomping at the bit to be able to win the right to nominate someone.

int: what are you interested exploring between now and election day? look: we will continue to at the drug series. i rarely am very interested in seeing how the idea of immigration and anti-immigration and the voices of those people will play out in this election cycle. i think the movement for black livesoups and matter will continue to be pushed for their voices to be heard in the election cycle. yasmine alum journaln's washington life every day with news and policy issues that impact here. coming up on thursday morning, new york times washington correspondent will talk about a

series by the new york times and new england center for investing in reporting on think tanks and the role as educational institutions and involvement in the corporate world. and then commissioner of the bureau of labor statistics and economic policy consultant for the washington post will join us for the latest labor bureau statistics to talk about the u.s. economy and examining various campaign policies to increase jobs, reverse wage stagnation and narrow the growth between earning and inflation. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal beginning life at 7:00 eastern on thursday morning. join the discussion. >> a look at the primetime schedule tonight here on c-span. set to begin in a couple minutes, a discussion on how the obama administration is working with the clinton and trunk campaigns on the transition to the white house from the obama

administration to whomever takes over after the election. bookspan2, but tv with and authors on criminal justice and on c-span3, american history tv tonight with our serious the contenders looking at candidates who have run for the presidency and lost. we examine the life and career of barry goldwater. tomorrow, c-span's run to the white house coverage continues with remarks from hillary clinton on u.s. economic policy. she will be addressing the audience and warren, michigan. you can see her comments live on thursday at 1:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. afterwards, through a take your phone calls to get your reaction on hillary clinton's remarks. we have been following several members of congress in the districts and states today at the summer recess continues. congress is out until labor day.

steny hoyer, the democrat from maryland who is the minority whip in the house was with his fellow democrats, representative and heca wilson in miami tweeted this, joined representative wilson and small business owners in miami today to discuss the impact of seek a -- zika. from senator post ted cruz, he was along the mexican border in texas today and posted this picture. with several border patrol agents and wrote this on his facebook page. from military city usa to the port of laredo to the texas mexico border, texas is keeping our country safe while putting more and more people to work and leading the fight for autonomy from president obama's

aggressive regulatory henchman. twitter, to alaska and republican senator lisa murkowski with this fun picture. .appy alaska wild salmon day i hope the fish are biting and everyone has a chance to eat wild salmon. .askforalaska we will continue to follow members on social media, on facebook, twitter, snapchat, instagram as they continue on their summer break until members return after labor day. .he house live here on c-span on howow, a discussion the obama administration is working with both the clinton and trunk campaigns on the