going to finish it. .e apologizes repeatedly there was a threatening voicemail last week. he plans to invite the representative to a meeting to talk thursday. theres, i just lost it or is no excuse, the governor says it is unacceptable, totally my fault. one more quick call. gary caller: good morning. anm calling in regards to issue. as african-american independent, my spiel on this is that nobody has -- are you there? ok, nobody is paying any attention to what is being depicted right now. nation, to aof a new birth of a nation that talks

about nat turner. hillary clinton, where she is in , the but holding up a sign by -- back inted the early 1990's. what i'm seeing this year from that time to the early times in with this situation violence from the police, not all policemen, do not get me wrong, but violence from the police community against the african-american community, from back in the 1800s, 2016 has not changed. gary from kansas will be the last call on this program. 7:00 tomorrow morning, we will come your way. see you then. ♪

[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] >> here is a look at some of the live events on the c-span network. at thealf hour, a look u.s. relations in turkey after a failed military coup there earlier this year. the conversation will be hosted by the bipartisan policy center life here on c-span and later today, a discussion on the impact of the long-term health effects of the chemical decades after its use in vietnam. that will be live at noon eastern time, 9:00 a.m. pacific here on c-span.

-- >> a new advertisement by a number of key states called donald trump's america, joining us is the editor of a newspaper. thank you for being with us. what is the message behind this latest trump ad? >> the main messages donald trump would bring economic prosperity to the nation. that is the main thrust of the advertisement. it also tries to paint hillary clinton as more of the same and this has been a big narrative the trump campaign has been

sticking with for a long time, that he is the person that could bring real change to a political system that the large number of americans disapprove of. senator john edwards campaigned as a democrat on the two americas. niall: absolutely. an interesting parallel. senator edwards would not have been proposing the kinds of isicies that donald trump doing. i think it points to a wider the politicals elites work in such a way as to freeze out ordinary people or rigged the system against him. that is what it is about in this case more so than simply the

separation between prosperity and poverty. more of the case in 2004. a new spot released by the trump campaign, here it is. >> the middle-class is crushed, ending goes up, taxes go up, hundreds of thousands of jobs disappear. buts more of the same worse. in donald trump us is america, working families get tax relief, millions of new jobs created, wages go up, small businesses thrive, the american dream is achievable, change that makes america great again or it donald trump for president. mr. trump: i am donald trump and i approve this message. host: where is the at on the air and how much is the trump campaign spending? niall: it is primarily focused on battleground states, but quite a number of them, a total

of nine states, to run through them quickly, it is ohio, pennsylvania, north carolina, florida, new hampshire, iowa, nevada, virginia, and colorado. that hillary clinton campaign also releasing a new advertisement over the weekend. i'm hillary clinton and i approve this message. >> he wears it like a crown, make america great again p but trump made history as in bangladesh, his ties in china, and his suit in mexico. the real donald trump outsourced his products and jobs to 12 different countries. so don't believe the hat. make america great again if you do not make things in america. host: the latest from the hillary clinton campaign. how big of an issue is the economy in the 2016 election? i think there are

millions of americans who do not really feel they are getting ahead economically and do not really feel the benefits of the supposedly coverage since the great recession. particularly and .mportance -- important care manufacturing jobs. donald trump hoping to win states like ohio and pennsylvania and elsewhere in the belt. think the advertisement you just played from the clinton campaign clearly just intended to have him off at the path there. host: these are two 32nd spots by the clinton and trump campaign. in 2016 with so many media choices and then. social media, how important is advertising? paid advertising by these candidates. niall: the great question. many people would say hillary clinton has jumped out to a lead-in many battleground states because her campaign spent more

than $16 million before donald trump began advertising on tv at all. think the point is well made there is inevitably some kind of saturation point with tv advertisement. we do not know when that will hit nor do we know when voters will start to turn into the contest. could be persuadable by late advertisements. the headline -- don't trump hitting hillary clinton on the economy in a new advertisement. thank you very much for being with us. we appreciate it. don't trump hitting hillary clinton on the economy in a new advertisement. >> the house and senate returning from the summer break next week. we will preview four key issues facing congress this fall. federal funding to combat the zika virus. >> women in america today want to make sure they have the ability to not get pregnant

because mosquitoes ravage pregnant women. >> today, they turned down the last that they argued for may and decided to gamble with the lives of children like this. >> the annual defense policy and programs will -- bill. >> all of these are vital to the future of the nation. and a timef turmoil of the greatest number of refugees since the end of world war ii. >> criminal justice reform. >> every member of the body, every republican and every see less gunts to violence. >> we must continue to work of nonviolence and demand an end to the senseless killing everywhere. >> at a resolution for congress to impeach the irs commissioner. >> house resolution 828, impeaching john andrew,

commissioner of the internal revenue service, for high crimes and misdemeanors. >> we will review the expected congressional debate with the senior congressional correspondent for the washington examiner. join us thursday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> coming up in 20 minutes, a look at u.s. relations with turkey live from the bipartisan policy center. first come a look at the u.s. economy from today "washington journal." bevins.- josh how would you describe your organization? we are a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank and we make sure the interests of low income families are given their weight. host: paint the picture of where

we are as far as the recovery is concerned? guest: we are getting close to a full recovery. it has taken a long time to get there. historically,look seven years plus into recovery you are supposed to be pretty much at something like full employment. we are not there yet and it has taken a long time. the one thing that is noncontroversial about this report is that recovery has taken a long time. host: compare that to cycles we have had in the past, how long does it take to get there from their? look at employment growth since the recovery began, after the recession and starting from the month of recovery it took about 51 months just to get the jobs lost during the recession. and we have to do better than that and create 120,000 jobs .ach month that is the longest on record

and that is a function of, we lost so many jobs because the great recession was so long, but also the pace of employment growth was quite slow and that was the slowest longest on record. host: what was different this time around than the previous cycles? back, to take one step another thing that is uncontroversial is that the recession was caused and the recovery was hampered by insufficient aggregate command. households and governments were not spending enough money to get everyone fully employed and get all of the factories and stores and hotels at full capacity. that is a problem we have been struggling with. you look at the sources of command, consumption spending, government spending. the thing that stands out like a sore thumb is the incredible slow pace of public spending. if you compare public spending

and this recovery compared to every other postwar recovery, it is an outlier and that has put a drag on recovery and that has why -- that is why it has taken so long. host: in this case, spending by the federal government? guest: in the report i look at federal, state, and local spending. the mechanical source of weakness has been the state and local sector. local policymakers have real constraints about increasing spending during a recession and they really have to balance budgets often bite state constitutions that require they do so. they cannot borrow on anywhere near the scale the federal government, federal government has a large scope of action to maintain spending during a recovery and i would say even though the largest mechanical weakness is state and local spending, the fed has the ability to do more and chose not to.

host: how does the means austerity basically very slow growth in spending. i am talking about austerity on the spending side. you can raise taxes a lot and snuff purchasing power that way, we have not done that. it has been on the spending side. people isthat puzzles people have this idea in their head about the early days of the obama administration when one of the first acts was the american recovery investment act which was a temporary increase and spending that want -- meant to fight recession. that was the sink us largest legislative stimulus we have ever done in the american economy. i think it was appropriate to do and if you looked over the course of the recession, in the

first year of recovery and say to the middle of 2010, public spending was rising faster than historical average. miss, in 2011 in the summer there was a political drama about congress refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless they got spending cuts and we got those at the budget control act and since then the pace of public spending has been incredibly slow. in 2010 we got a lot of state legislators looking to republicans and lots of them, famously sam brownback instituted austere spending paths. host: if you want to ask questions, 202-748-8001 four republicans, 202-748-8000 for democrats, 202-748-8002 four independents.

cutting spending and the money does not go into the economy because the money is not there to generate a more robust economy. host: that is about it. where you can see it tangibly is employment. over the course of the recovery if you look at public-sector employees, that growth has been far below growth in normal times . public-sector employment is supposed to grow over time. take the case of teachers. we get more and more students, you should want more teachers. shed a actually -- we bunch and hiring has been slow. when public sector employees lose their jobs they decrease their spending. host: the first call is on the republican line from michigan. caller: good morning.

bevins, i really think there is a lot of politics involved in our slow recovery. our roads and bridges and things of that nature are deplorable and i believe that the republicans did not want to give president obama credit for increasing the employment. also, another thing i have observed, the privatization of anything they can do. some of our prisons, food service was privatized. atrocious results. maggots and things in the food is so bad that possibly we may even eliminate the privatization. those are two things i have noticed prevalent.

thank you c-span you do a wonderful job. guest: i certainly agree with the first statement that you want to explain why the recovery has been so slow and the political choice we have made to really undertake the economics of fiscal austerity. i think the second part is true as well. there is a lot of stuff we could profitably spend money on, infrastructure investment. both candidates have said kind words about increasing infrastructure spending and candidate clinton has a concrete plan to do that. i totally agree and i think we have a small recovery because we made a bad political choice mostly driven by the republicans in congress and state houses and i think it is obvious where you could productively spend more public money in the united states and do big infrastructure investments. host: west virginia on independent line, richard go ahead. forms we haveof

to wrestle with, increasing spending is how do we bring down our deficit. go out and google national recovery act. one of the things that eisenhower developed the federal was to facilitate emergency transport of military. it would seem to me that is one is toor infrastructure pack in a portion of the military budget. just wanted your thoughts on that. two things there, one is the issue of how to pay for spending. over the course of the recovery when demand has been so weak, it is probably best if it is a deficit finance.

stimulus works best when you do not pay for it. if we did infrastructure investment and raised progressive taxes on high income people come you would get a boost from stimulus but it would be blunted because you are spending with one hand to generate economy and taking command out by increasing taxes. until we get a full recovery, it is actually most effective to do fiscal stimulus if you do not pay for it in a short run move with dedicated taxes. we will know when the strategy reaches a breaking point or when that is no longer the optimal strategy because interest rates will rise. government will be borrowing a lot of money and we you will see upward pressure on interest rates. we are nowhere near that point right now. interest rates are historically low and they have been falling steadily. at the moment i think we can do this spending, mostly deficit finance, especially with

infrastructure investment. it makes sense to pay for with debt. it is smart to pay for long-term investments. on the question of how to pay for it which is a stumbling block in congress, in the short run for infrastructure investment you do not have to pay for it, it works best to generate jobs and recovery if you do not pay for it in the short run. in the long run, hopefully we will be back to full employment and then we will have to pay for what the government does. until we get there, we can do this by issuing the debt. aboutjournal talked looking at the deficit, and they have this line in editorial saying the federal deficit will therefore rise to $590 billion, the biggest since 2013. milosevic number. guest: that is a big number, but part of the problem in reporting is they are all the numbers. the most natural way to put

these in context is to express them as the total national income. if i told someone i had a debt of $100,000, they might say that is a big debt, but if i reveal i am mark zuckerberg, they will say that is a manageable debt. i would deficits actually look pretty modest. for the next three years, they are less than 3% of gdp. that will lead to no increase at all in the overall debt to gdp ratio. even at the forecasted increase in the budget deficit the wall ,treet journal is talking about there have no tax cuts that have been proposed, there is no law that will be put in effect that is driving deficit. they are projecting the interest rate increases for the last six or seven years, but they have

not come because the recovery has been more stubborn. host: josh bivens of the economic policy institute our guest. on the republican line, walter. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i see here in an absolutely flabbergasted when you have people such as yourself that have a the air and you college education and you say the answer is basically going to be, we have to spend more money and we might have to tax more money. the whole idea of $19 trillion in debt, the federal reserve, which we should not even need a federal reserve, but that is a whole other issue, zero interest rates, and you believe the idea of spending money will somehow get us out of our problem. + 2 = 4.o back to 2 >

we should have a balanced budget amendment. we should not borrow money we don't have. we should free the royalist spirit in america by lowering the corporate tax rate. we have the highest in the world. the steps will simply help the economy. the idea of borrowing money from china. you said right now borrowing the money will not affect us. it is called kicking the can down the road. and it is not just republicans. democrats also. you should not spend money you don't have. when the government takes my money, i begrudgingly give it to them and demand an x act that they are -- expect that they are it.ent with we give our hard-earned money to the government, and we demand that they look at that dollar and they, what can we get the biggest bang for the buck?

guest: his last point first, i totally agree with. you should spend money where it has the biggest bang for the buck. one issue is in the long run. what will they spend money on the private sector will not that are better off? roads and bridges are an obvious example. things like medicare and social security. failures.huge market before those things existed, we had incredibly high rates of elderly poverty for a lot of reasons. it is important the government takes on that role. new can have that long run discussion about the proper role of government. in the short run, it is absolutely the proper role of government to make sure the economy is sitting at full employment and there are not resources being wasted in terms of workers who want jobs but cannot find them. the number one reason workers about finding jobs over the past six or seven years is because we

have a shortfall of aggregate demand. government not spending enough money to keep people employed so that is a useful role for government to do. one issue, he brought up the basically arguing households have to balance checkbooks and the government should also. that analogy can also be misleading, but there is a grain of truth to it. households borrow a lot, and often, borrowing is quite smart. i have a mortgage on a house. i would not have been able to buy a house without a mortgage. i can afford it. it is not a large share of my income. you can apply the same to the debt. it is not forecasted to grow out of control. are we spending inappropriately? we can have a line by line discussion of where the government spends its money, but on terms of the aggregate amount of borrowing the government is doing and whether or not it should borrow, of course you should borrow at some time. host: a twitter viewer asks can

we ever recover? recover.think we can to me, we still have a pretty classic mechanical problem of insufficient demand that we can solve if we made different political choices. there is another question about presuming we ever get to full employment. everyone who wants to get a job and get a job, and we are not constrained by spending. when you get to that place, what determines the pace of growth thereafter is just things like well trained -- your workforce is, how fast technology advances. some people are pessimistic about that given what has happened over the past five or 10 years. i am agnostic. the slowdown has happened. every big part of that is a symptom of our weak demand growth.

the biggest reason is businesses are not investing that much in new plant and equipment. but why would they? a hotel and happier hotels are empty, you will not buil shouldn't be complacent, shouldn't assume.

we should really make that final push. much closer than we were three or five years ago. host: john, go ahead. caller: how are you doing. thank you for c-span. i want to ask short questions and i want a response. five or $6 trillion offshore, if they were to bring that money back, how much tax would accumulate? that is number one. gasoline two years ago was almost five dollars per gallon. now it is one dollar or two dollar per gallon. -- presidentest obama tried to get 25% to invest in infrastructure. how much would the government get and grow?

i heard if you spend one dollar and infrastructure, you get seven dollars or eight dollars back. last question. why don't the banks of america pay that debt off and americans get the interest? thank you very much. guest: a couple -- lots of points there. it is true that you have a lot of corporate profits of american companies being held offshore. some people said if you bring that money back, you would create a lot of jobs. at the moment, the u.s. economy does not necessarily need the savings. we have a lot of savings and very low interest rates. what is giving firms from investing is not a lack of savings or capital, they just don't think customers are coming in the door. that is largely it. it is a problem because they are escaping taxation. we have something in the

corporate tax income code that if you are brought to you don't have to pay the tax rate on those until they are repatriated. that has become a real loophole in our income tax system so i think we should do something to tax those profits abroad. money proposals that taxing those with offshore holdings in corporate profits before they are repatriated would be a good source of revenue. i agree. the gas tax, the federal gas tax funds the trust funds which does infrastructure investment. the highway trust fund is facing a pretty chronic spending prices because we have not raise the gas tax since 1993. i would love someone to fact check me on that, but it has been a longtime. we should raise the federal gas tax or find some other way to fund the highway trust fund to do some infrastructure investment. that is right. finally, i think the issue of outstanding federal debt doesn't

really matter in my mind who owns it so much. the important thing to know right now with federal debt is that it is largely stable over the next couple of years as a share of gdp. >> i am pleased to be joined. the purpose of the event is to discuss what is going on following the july failed coup attempt. we have had significant developments along turkey's southern border when it comes to syria as well. we will talk about that. before we launch into the discussion, i want to lay some groundwork the coast i think what we will talk about today did not really start on july 15 or is not so much a series of recent event as developments in

a long line in illusion of u.s. and turkey relations that arbitrarily speaking i will date that to late may of 2013 when we saw protests rake out in istanbul that were subsequently put down in a violent and oppressive manner which sparked what some had seen and we definitely had the bipartisan policy he center had written turkey's returned by ruling party, the akp, and its leader and prime minister, president error do one. at the same time we have seen changes in turkey's domestic politics and foreign policy that have led some to question as we did in the paper last year whether turkey is an undependable ally in the main bone of contention there has

policy where the united states and turkey appeared to have long differed on what the priorities in syria should we with the u.s. focusing on the defeat of ice is and turkey alternating between focusing on removing the a side regime and theting the ambitions of syrian kurds. , when it comes to turkey domestic politics, they have obviously played out in the past couple of days. to discuss that with me, i'm pleased to have to my immediate left, alan, most notably former senior professional staff over here at the house foreign affairs committee but also now a fellow with the center of american progress and the turkey task force and senior policy danforth, and

historian of all things turkish and before i go any further, i would like to thank the house foreign affairs committee and the chairman of the european committee for hosting us today. why don't i take it over to you first, and. talk about what happened july 15 and how we got to that situation in the first place. >> is this better? excellent. obviously, before july 15, there had been a number of people who confidently predicted that the coups in turkey

were over. -- was over. the massive outpouring of public opposition to the military when it tried to seize power on july 15 was i think strong evidence of that. where many analysts including myself had errored was thinking that everyone in the military had gotten the message as well. certainly significant, we do not quite know what percentage of the military leadership in , maybe out of sheer desperation, but one way or another had come to the conclusion erroneous we that they would be able to succeed in toppling the government through military force. well, first ofd, all, i guess there was a moment of intense crisis when the coup itself started and many people thought this was the worst case

that the best case scenario is no coup at all, but even worse than a successful coup would be a partial coup that would push the country into civil war. it seemed like a frightening possibility. said, i guess once that was over, once the immediate threat to turkey's stability had passed, then unfortunately the real prices for u.s. turkish relations began. there was a best case scenario where after the failed coup, the turkey -- turkish government came to the conclusion that they had masterminded, we might have hoped for a situation in which everyone proceeded calmly, that government tried to marshal the best available evidence to explain what actually happened, and then provided that evidence to the united states, if that evidence contained inclusive

proof of the involvement in the to come of the united states would have extradited him, he would have received a fair trial in turkey, and things could have a calm manner. it became clear very quickly that that was not what was going .o happen immediately after the coup, while the united states did as early as the night of the coup say that it was on the side of the democratic government, condemned the coup attempt itself, that government immediately began launching accusations at the united states for having been complicit in the coup, and then subsequently when pointed outtates before he would be extradited, we need see evidence of guilt, it was seen as further evidence of america's complicity in the coup. created aic

particularly unhelpful situation that we find ourselves in now where again, would have been handled as a matter of legality and joint u.s. turkish efforts to get to the bottom of what happened and help solidify turkish democracy in the wake of this disruptive event, it has now turned into an adversarial process where again, turkey is launching at the united states, and the united states, many people in washington have come to see extraditing as almost a concession to his government. i think the question for people in this room and people dealing with this in washington is how to move this act onto a track of two countries trying to deal with what is an enormously destructive and dangerous situation in turkey but deal with it in a healthy and bilateral manner.

>> a couple of questions stemming from that for you, it strikes me that if turkey really wanted us to extradite and they seem to be going about it and all the wrong ways, and this anti-americanism come a push to extradite without the concern thedue process, i think prime minister said, who needs evidence? the u.s. did not need evidence after 9/11, all of these statements that seem to misunderstand how the process then seemed to antagonize the u.s., it seems to suggest they're not really serious about it or they do not know how to go about it. can you explain a little bit about why you think there is that divergence, and secondly, a be of that rhetoric seems to driven by the beliefs about the state of facts that the u.s. did

.ot come out quickly enough do you think it is true we could have done more? alan: taking your second question first, the coup started roughly 3:00 p.m. our time, a little after, and the white house damon came out at seven: oh 2 p.m. i think by the time it came out, it seemed that the tide was , so let's say in a conspiracy minded society, that was only inevitably going to feed conspiracy thinking. i do not for a minute think that anyone in the white house wanted the coup to succeed, but it would have been very useful to

have come out immediately, as soon as it was obvious there was something going on in turkey, and opposed it. instead, unfortunately, the first statement was made by secretary kerry when he came out from a meeting and yet just been informed about it and he said he hoped for peace and continuity, which, you know, instead of just saying flat-out, we are against what is happening and the military ought to get back to i think, i do not think the obama administration can be given any on this one. i think the statement should have gotten out earlier and meanwhile, ron jumped in opposing the coup. based ono matter what, my experience with turkey, there

would have been conspiracy. to about the united states involvement in it. i think the fact that we were probably a couple of hours too late to the game for those conspiracies. the we areiven dynamically have with turkey -- blaise: given this weird dynamic turkey, and democracy had been eroding for at least the past three years and has eroded significantly in the aftermath of the coup, talking about tens of thousands of orple who have been detained fired who presumably could have had no direct involvement in the coup, how do you balance this on the one hand support the turkish government because they are democratically elected and on the other hand, try to push them to rein in their authoritarian? alan: it is a difficult balance. there is no doubt.

we do not know how many of these people are guilty and we really do not know anything at his point. we know what the accusations are. i think we caught people by surprise here is the fact that so many tens of thousands of civil servants, including judges and press hitters and police, were so rapidly rounded up and fired and rounded up the next had it been evenned to the military, extraordinary measures taken, i think that would have been understood here. but i think there is reason to be suspicious that so many people could have been involved in coup making. and of course there is a history .ere the entity did not begin the day after the coup or the moment of

the coup. froman date it in 2010, when theref 2012, was a judicial effort to prosecute, ahead of turkish which and aired on felt it was inspired but what we , when the gloves were dropped, and you know, the anrts were off, and it was irrevocable fight, is when the judiciary when after akp 2013,ers in december thaty one was convinced their goal was to topple his government, and since then, i

think that has been with the fight was about. i think that has cast a shadow over the current government claims that they were behind the coup. i did not fully answer your question. i apologize. in fact, i cannot answer it at all. i do not think turkey does itself any favors i politicizing that they bending extradited well -- now when they know full well it is a long process. isis that if it wants to appeal the process down the road and political is all a witch hunt, he will be able to cite some of the statements in u.s. court but at the end of the day, this is primarily a andsion of the u.s. courts

it will be done on legal grounds based on the quality of the evidence that the turks supply. and they have not yet done it. they have made an extradition request before the coup but they have not yet made one post coup. they are preparing that and will send their trust is in foreign affairs commissioner when they do so, they say. we will see then. poisoned the atmosphere the way they have gone about it but at the end of the day, this is a judicial process that the secretary of state has to sign off on the the center for american progress where i work will have a paper issued that really looks into the issue of how the process works. >> in the meantime, maybe you could walk us through that in the graphic is on the table for people to look at. the key point about

the extradition process is that there is a political and legal opponent -- component. the political will has to be there in the legal evidence has to be there. what has happened unfortunately is in the absence of providing any legal evidence, turkey has gradually eroded the political will for this. to there two assets legal side of this. the first is that in order to secure the extradition, turkey the statevidence to department, which, if the political will is there, passes it along to the judiciary, which can pass it to a federal judge. the standard at that point is hobbled will cause, the same standard required for a judge to issue an arrest warrant for a u.s. citizen.

bethe real question will what evidence turkey can provide not just in the involvement of followers in the military in the hep, but evidence that himself personally gave some sort of approval or support for what happened. this is the part that is going to be the most difficult. one would assume even if he did personally authorize this, he would not have sent an e-mail and would not have done it over the phone. it might have been a matter of him nodding to someone over a year ago. that would be incredibly difficult and even the best case scenario torture you to provide evidence of. and the accusations and conspiracy theories have made it harder. there is also the issue, given this challenge of improving personal involvement, the most obvious source of evidence would essentially confessions from

people involved in the coup. this is another area where turkey is doing itself no favors. are a number of confessions. some of them seem suspicious in the nature of what these people are confessing to and how time,y and at the same most of these have been published in the newspaper alongside photographs of the people giving the confessions, badly bruised, blood streaming from their faces. this is not going to help convince the judge that these are reliable piece of evidence. i think the real disaster scenario for turkish relations is a situation where the server special evidence exists that suggests he was behind this. maybe there is unreliable but plausible evidence suggesting he is behind it but no legally convince thing evidence that would enable a u.s. court to extradite him. he has already made it clear do notey both sincerely

accept the idea of an independent judiciary in the united states. in part because that is not how things work in turkey and in part because in an exaggerated and misrepresentative way, they take samples guantanamo bay, take america's response to the question of evidence and rights after 9/11, being perhaps more representative of the united is hereystem then it and what stands up when you look at the historical record, there are situations where, when we have written about, and i are a member who unambiguously a british soldier, fled to the united states, and the british government was eager to have them extradited, the reagan administration of the time was very close to it and margaret -- or was eager to extradite him as well and the judge allowed it to happen and this was a source of .xtreme frustration

ultimately, begrudgingly, britain accepted this is how the system worked and in that case, they eventually rewrote the treaty to make it possible to extradite this person. it is a striking example that even the case where there -- to make extradition happen for a close ally. if that happened in this case, turkey would i assume the furious here that is a nightmare scenario for u.s. and turkey relations. >> pivoting the question of foreign policy, you have the ,oup and the demand from turkey obviously not the met immediately because of due process and you have concerns by turkey that the u.s. has not been as wholesome in its support for democracy, and then aired one goes to russia. and whye of the meeting

was it so concerning from the u.s. perspective? or was it concerning? clintonewhon met with on august 9, which marked a between turkey and russia following a crisis that began when turkish shot down a russian su 20 or. which turkey said was briefly in its airspace on november 24. often slapped -- putin slapped a lot of sanctions on them. andia has more leverage supplies over half, almost two thirds, of turkey's natural gas. both countries are very important to one another.

made or the russian defense ministry made charges that the family was benefiting from oil trade with isis. the letter has never been made public. apology and deep regret. ishink the concern here deep anda time of deepening tension with the united states, that turkey may out of the western orbit and in a more specific context, is it going to be coordinating with russia in syria?

sort of flip its policy, which has been doggedly against assad by coming to some sort of agreement about the kurds and moving toward the russian position on our side. really these are concerns. let me at quickly my answer to both of -- to both of those questions is no. russia as is using well and no, i do not think to he is about to flip on assad but i think it has put those questions and play and it is something that policymakers now have to think about seriously. before the time falling out between russia and the winter he was saying it wanted to join the shanghai coordination organization. which is basically a russian led sort of security economic growth -- group.

sawyer duhon has shown just enough seriousness about wine to get close to russia. turkey's historic enemy. with whom there predecessor empires fought 14 worse. and for whom at a popular level, i think there is very little but, in either side think it is at least put into play whether or not there is some sort of dramatic change about to take face in turkey's's attitude toward russia and consequently toward nato and the west. >> it is almost when everyone went and met with kuhn when both people in the administration and the press almost seem so eager to point out to washington how worried they should be by all of this. did seem like they were telegraphing a little too hard that this is something that should get peoples a 10 year -- up people's attention.

byt week, we saw statements the prime minister of turkey that they would consider assad to stayd -- in transition power. they said it last fall. one of the key factors linking to what turkey has done in syria of course is turkey was afraid to go into syria. they were afraid russia would respond militarily. let's just talk in more detail about exactly what turkey is doing in right now and why we think that is -- do you want to talk about the geographical basis of what is going on? also have a handy reference map to look at while we discussed this because it gets remarkably detailed

remarkably quickly. there has been ongoing tension between the united states and turkey over what the main objectives are in syria, both the united states and turkey to be gone. i think the united states maybe a lot more quickly, turkey again gradually over the past year really came to terms with the fact that assad was going to stay into power. one thing they do agree on was generally appointed -- appointing rebels. some disagreement about who those would be. washington was deeply uncomfortable with. that was one of the parts where u.s. and turkish health the aligned. the tension came in the conflict between isis and a syrian affiliate of a kurdish

organization that the turkish government is fighting a civil war with in his own territory. for strategic reasons given turkey's long history, the focus was very much on preventing the ypg from using its games in syria to strengthen its position regionally and therefore against the turkish government domestically. the united dates, while initially sympathetic with some of these concerns, was -- was not aery eager to find military solution to this conflict. once isis came onto the scene and really captured everyone's attention for the united states, the real focus became quite naturally combating isis in syria and there was both frustration at the lack of

turkey's enthusiasm to partner with the united states, and the conflict with isis, as well as therecognition that on ground, one political actor and one military actor that seemed -- ypog.of ypg. these are continuations of long-running tensions. the united states and turkey managed it difficult syrian situation better than expected. washington sees isis as the main threat. both groups are fighting against each other. and yet until now, and most recently with the turkish operation across the border into -- you see an arrow here -- northern syria, the fact is that, about what happened, the

fact that there has been any measure of coordination, the fact there has not been all-out forces between the turkish forces and the ypg represents what needs to be considered a success. mr. misztal: it is good that there is coordination, but we saw an article that the turks syria by themselves without the u.s. knowing they were going to do that -- i found most interesting is that the turks housed -- and the white did not want to act on the idea because they were worried among the turkish-supported rebels would be elements of al qaeda that might target u.s. commandos. so we have a turkey that is not

coordinating with us, that is fighting long people that might that isdo us harm, skirmishing with the forces we have been supporting for the last two years. it is openly flirting with russia it getting leverage for us. what does that say about the u.s.-turkish relations -- for some time we have been able to say this is the lowest point in u.s.-turkish relations. coup attempt,y 15 ypg, the dispute between turkey and the u.s. over the ypg was the biggest issue in our relationship. now maybe you can argue it slips -- we justifympt

from turkey's point of view that flip in priorities. in each category, the -- thenship has gotten tension has grown greater, and the difficulty in resolving it has grown greater. if turkey basically -- let me back up a little -- if the ypg ases east of the euphrates, they are supposed to, and if theey basically stays in area right across the border, or just moves along this 98-kilometer area and no further along the syrian-turkish border -- here, thisdish light green -- i think the

situation can work. pg has not the y totally withdrawn yet. the great fear is turkey is going to want to go further, that turkey might want to go there, or might want to go south desktop with well below the border to block any possibility of the two parts of -held area linking appeared that is what the turkish move into the area is about. it is about blocking the kurds from being able to link up the nts, which they currently hold. and if they do that by just saying -- staying along their der, it can work, and there is reason to be skeptical, and then the great danger of the

arena of the turkish-kurdish and theeld has widened -- in syria, you just add another lay her of mayhem to its. mr. misztal: what are u.s. policy options here? we think of turkey as a country that we need, especially when we are dealing with area, but it is a country that is not lining up with our interest and objectives there. it is a country trying to show us that we need them more than they need us, and at the same time having this democratic crisis at home. what should u.s. priorities be in that long list of issues we might have a turkey, and and what should congress be thinking about? mr. makovsky: let me talk about policy options, because a lot of times ideas come from congress.

regarding syria, i think we basically have to find some way to manage this relationship because turkey does remain very important. it is a member of nato. there is no provision for expelling one from nato, nor would we want to. strategically -- turkey is strategically located and it is in our interest to get along with them as much as possible. they have become a problematic ally. i think we had no choice but to try to manage it. i think just as we have a turkey,tom need for they also have a rock-bottom need for nato. i do not care what the constellation of their military is going to be. they are going to want to be associated with nato rather than with russia or some other kind of eurasian grouping.

moreover, well over half of turkey's trade is with last. -- with the west. i think turkey will still be linked strongly to the west, but we will increasingly see a turkey trying to express sovereignty within that western context. is a magicink there formula except to try to make sure that the turks do not pick a fight with the kurds and to urge turkey to withdraw as soon as possible. longer term, we have to reckon with the possibility. i am not betting on it. i certainly hope it is not the case. but we have to reckon with the possibility that perhaps an unpredictable turkey will ultimately move out of the western corporate, and we have to look carefully at alternatives to --

-- throughout the cold strategic value is that it had the longest border with the soviet union. since the cold war, its importance was on the by the late richard holbrook, when he was assisted jerry for european secretary assistant for european affairs in 1994. he said turkey is at the center of every issue of importance to the united states on the eurasian continent. that has been a rationale with our relations with turkey since then. we have to prepare a plan b and look for other areas that we can work on eurasian problems from. mr. misztal: any suggestion where that might be? eastern europe certainly has possibilities.

i know there are issues about our 1997 treaty with russia. i am not a legal expert. wayit seems to me from the i read it, there is the possibility for bases in bulgaria and romania, because the situation has changed since 19 t97. legal authorities and russian experts need to look at it carefully. in addition, we know the krg, the rocky kurds, would love to have a u.s. presence. they would be delighted. i think it is a tricky thing for us are arranged in the current circumstances, particularly with our focus. k, maybe you thatnic can talk about the value of democracy, and what we can do to try to staunch the losses there. mr. danforth: i would begin by

saying is that there is the cruel irony of conspiracy theories about how the united states is behind this, that more than anything else in turkey, more than democratization, more than a partner that isis, what the united states has counted on is maintaining a semblance of stability in turkey. and with the coup attempt, that was the first moment where it seems like there is the possibility of disruptive beennce which has then furthered by the resurgence of the war against the pkk. forward isking something that will preoccupy isicymakers more and more, the real possibility of destabilization within turkey. with that said, there might be a tendency to look at that as separate from the question of democracy.

we do not necessarily feel that way. there is reasons to think that the coup attempt in itself is going to be disruptive, it represented the biggest threat buturkey's stability, inevitably, there is the possibility that turkey's response to the attempt will be in itself a threat to democracy. and with the coup attempt now over, that is the threat that turkey is facing and the threat that the people in the united states have to help turkey face. unfortunately, i think so far the united states, the administration's messaging has been inconsistent. three days after the coup, the united states positive nato turkey going out of nato. iner raising these concerns, an immediate point where they

were not likely to be helpful, a month and a half later, biden went to turkey, this after showed support for turkey for the past month, this might have been the opportunity to start raising these concerns, and the vice president said nothing about any of our concerns about the that what we are going on, about attempts to prosecute leading kurdish political figures. -- the is going to be question to support turkish democratization, at a strange time, is a difficult one, but so far the approach has been muddled enough that i do not think it is helping. thank you.: let me turn it over to the audience questions. be sure to state your name and affiliation and make it a question. on the second row here. >> [indiscernible] would someone explain this matter, please? the yellow areas

are areas that are currently held by syrian kurds. at 1.i said: livestream. i'm colorblind. the areas in green are assortment held by syrian rebel groups, and the other areas are held by the syrian regime. the pink ones, yes. the syrian regime. yes. >> could i quickly added, what i was trying to illustrate is the great turkish concern, t is that kurdish these two salients will link up. i think one thing we actually have to watch is whether the turkish military does in fact

southwest to try to block more clearly in the past. -- iisztal: and so far think an important thing to note is one of the reasons that i believe the military decided to move is that kurdish forces had moved into the euphrates river and captured a town, which-- mr. makovsky: with our support. mr. misztal: with the u.s. asking them to do this. and what you have seen is that turkey has not just stopped capturing this isis held town. they are moving south, and the fear is they will be fighting not isis, but the syrian kurds and we will have ilife fighting each other rather than fighting our real enemies in syria. yes. i would like

-- [indiscernible] honestly i do not agree with -- let me share some of my -- about syria. [indiscernible] against terrorist organizations interview. [indiscernible] we believe we are in partnership with the u.s. [indiscernible] we are going to continue our fight against -- amongst the terrorist

organizations -- any partnerve terrorist organizations. [indiscernible] borders -- to our national security. co attempt --up another terrorist organization. -- me also mention [indiscernible] --ould like to all the legal remedies that are available for the action are taken -- --

[indiscernible] ankey will continue to be ally of the u.s. [indiscernible] thank you. mr. misztal: thank you for your comments. over here. on my right. if we could wait for the microphone coming to you. >> i am from -- i hear there are so many terrorists in turkey, but i would like to highlight why subject. -- happened,on of it took so many sacrifice. we also had u.s. volunteers who deadd the ypg and they are right now, and we are waiting for them to come back. s asave lots of los kurds, as americans.

is we see aw humanitarian crisis. chemical weapons have been used by the turkish government gets civilians. civilians have been killed. i want you to talk about that. mr. misztal: it is important to highlight a couple things. is a u.s.-designated terrorist organization. the ypg is not. maybe i will -- mr. makovsky: i will jump in quickly. terrorist not on u.s. list. i can understand why that is a bit of a fix. pyt, with which the ypg's

s associated, it has a political party that has its origins in the pkk. venerates erdogan. t has been a very effective fighting force against isis, and an important partner in getting rid of prices. it is in turkey's interest to avoid conflict with the ypg. takeover, it what it does help to create the

circumstances for the expulsion of isis from syria, it is a great thing. it would be -- there is every reason for turkey to feel it is largely a success. turkishworrisome seem forces goes out. we do not know what happened. maybe that was because kurdish forces went north. at some point we do expect the g will move to the east of the euphrates river. , and ifavoid conflict turkey stays along its border, and i think it is a plus. if what happens, however, is the battlefield between turkey and the kurds simply spread from syria, theiraq to

turkish intervention is going to be seen as a very serious negative. for syria, with u.s. interests, for the fight against isis, and for ultimately for turkey itself. mr. misztal: it is important to point out that as far as current u.s. strategy is concerned, that strategy, which its goal is the isis capital in syria, the road to that capital is supposed to be open by the ypg and the road goes to ypg-hold territory. it is not role for syrian kurds to take that city. it is largely a sunni city. having occurred take that city would stoke sectarian tensions. --be able to take the road and 70 fall up between u.s. and the ypg between fighting between turkish and kurdish forces would seriously in danger what is the

ultimate goal of u.s. mission. mr. makovsky: the turkish government and the turkish president has said -- and this with what -- i am sorry, i do not catch your name -- >> [indiscernible] mr. makovsky: i do not say i got it right. i'm an old guy, bad hearing. with what youcs said, turkey sent its goal is not only to go after isis, but pyd.after the if turkey pursues that goal aggressively, there are going to be problems on many levels, including in the fight against isis. mr. misztal: let's see if we have other questions in the audience. yes, on the second row. >> thank you. pulling from the last two comments, i'm wondering when our

turkey's objectives in syria going to be achieved? g is backhen the yp across the euphrates? at what point are there known project is going to be achieved? give that it requires they being in syria longer than i thought is fighting rebels in other it hasns, when hypothetically consolidated its power and established itself as an enduring force, with assad having any idea of continuing some sort of conflict in the north -- just curious, throw those questions out. very briefly, your first question ventures itself. initial support was

for the purpose of expelling isis, which has been accomplished. what would be i think ideal for everyone's point of view is that armysh free syrian allies should be the one holding the city and the turkish military, if possible, should withdraw. i think that would remove a real friction point, the potential for point between turkey and the kurds. and other turkish town is right across the border from that city. turkey could run things from there if the free syrian army is suitable of holding things. regarding a potential cooperation or collaboration between -- in syria i do not as yousee it per se, but probably know, there was some fighting between syrian inernment troops and the ypg

-- a little bit off the map, further out in the yellow salient. and i would not rule out tactical cooperation against the point --at some had an undulating relationship with the kurds, at times working more closely with them, and at times facing off with them. but i think that would be the only area of potential collaboration. mr. misztal: sure, in the back there. hi. [indiscernible] there was an allegation that daish.was --

the issue was traveling from turkey to syria. do you after this -- because we have some news and they are saying that crisis of the issue of isis is to get into the rebel groups that turkey is -- is this eventually going to disappear, or do you think they are going to -- [indiscernible] and affect europe as well? >> [indiscernible] amnesty international. this is not an amnesty question, but there is much -- it seems that when we talk about the turkish army, we're talking about them as if they were this

unified together force. and what is the state of the turkish army? does anybody know at this point? do you guys wanted to go to questions, and then we have to wrap up, unfortunately. mr. makovsky: i will take your question, because it is easy to answer. i do not know. but i would say this -- you know, what informs your question is the fact that in the aftermath of the coup attempt of the flat% officers from the generals and admirals of the turkish y, have either been arrested or removed. kin amountshaoc of turnover for a military. gone key objective of the

incursion into the city was to send the message, whether it is accurate or not, perhaps time will tell, to send a message that the turkish military is still a major power in the reacher. would say one other thing about it. for a long time -- and this we know only from press reports and it kind of gossip we all hear from our friends -- for a long time, erdogan had been interested in the military moving into syria and the military itself apparently had resisted. seems possible that a of the resistance came from military leaders who are no longer part of the military -- mr. misztal: which would include the commander of the second army, the commander of the special forces, so all important positions that would have had an

important role to play in any operations. mr. danforth: to answer your question and this bigger issue, the rhetoric has been ratcheted up to an absurd level where you have one sightseeing turkey is pretty isis and the other side ypgng that the pkk and the are the moral equivalent of isis. neither of these statements helps preserving a rational policy that can bring the united take an turkey together to preserve what everyone realizes is the ultimate goal, which is it is a sustainable clinical solutions to do turkish kurdish question. we assess a number of things written about this, it is but upon the united states make sure that its policy in syria does ypd inpower the ypg, the a way that makes a fair debtical installment settlement in turkey possible,

but it has made it more difficult when it seems like that turkish side is no longer interested in the political settlement either. mr. misztal: thank you, everybody, for coming today. the will not be the last major development. alan at theow center for american progress. we hope to see you all soon. thank you. mr. makovsky: thank you very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> you can find this event and other events online, www.c-span.org. discussionan hour, a about the impact of agent orange and its health effects. live at noonthat eastern time, 9:00 pacific on c-span. later, a program on u.s.-china relations. we will take you to the stinson center for that live at 2:00 eastern time today. today is primary day in a number of states, florida, arizona. you can join us later tonight for live result coverage from those races as well as victory

and concession speeches. this is from today's "washington journal." tell us about senator mccain's race. guest: he is running against kelly ward. it is a very tight race. actually, no, it is not a tight race. he is up by 26 points over ward according to the cnn poll, but it is a very nasty race. ward went on television recently and said mccain is too old to be reelected and she also made the point, as a former position, she said, i know the average is notn male's lifespan 86 years old, which is how old mccain would be at the end of his next term if reelected.

she is saying, it is time for a change, he has been in washington way too long. as i mentioned, the cnn poll showed him up by 26 points. he looks to be cruising to reelection. there was a breitbart poll that showed him only up by 4 points with 23% undecided. the cnn poll is probably more accurate, but maybe there could be a surprise. host: is support for mr. mccain as strong as in previous cycles? guest: mccain has said this is the toughest race of his life, this is the political fight of his life. he is taking it very seriously and feels threatened. he had a primary challenge in 2010 from former republican congressman jd hayworth, a conservative talkshow host and

someone who had served in congress. hayworth was seen as a serious threat, but mccain won that primary quite handily in the end. will ward get closer? who knows. it looks like mccain is likely headed toward the general election after today. host: let's turn to florida and the race that features debbie wasserman schultz. what is the condition of her race? guest: she is running against tim canova, a law professor. bernie sanders has endorsed him, but has not campaigned for him. coupled with the fact that wasserman schultz is reviled by many sanders supporters and liberals since the hacking of the dnc servers showing that she and her staff favored hillary clinton in the primary. that has generated a lot of

money for canova. it is still a district that favors wasserman schultz. she has represented this district since 2013. a recent poll shows her with a pretty healthy lead. this is a district that hillary clinton won handily over sanders in the march primary. it looks like wasserman schultz will probably hang on, but canova has a lot of money and is running a strong campaign. he has been on the air attacking her and she has been defended by the outside group, patriot majority. in these house primaries, it can be hard to predict because there is not much polling. host: let's stay in florida with marco rubio. how does he stand against his challenger? guest: he is up big on his challenger, about 40 points.

carlos beruff, his challenger, is running a populist campaign. the television ads he is running don't seem to have made a difference and beruff seems to be conceding the race. he said he does not know how to quit, but he has not been on the campaign trail much recently. rubio is barely acknowledging his primary opponent. looking ahead to the general election where he will murphy.. patrick murphy does not have great name id and rubio is pulling quite quite well among hispanics. host: the democratic side in florida, two sitting house

members going at it for the florida senate seat. guest: patrick murphy and alan grayson. murphy is only 33 years old and does not have a whole lot of experience. he gave money to mitt romney in the 2008 campaign. grayson is trying to exploit that, arguing to voters that he is the real democrat or the liberal democrat, in the elizabeth warren wing of the party. he has been hurt by ethics scandals. is house ethics committee looking into his operation of a hedge fund while he was a sitting member of congress. he has also been plagued by domestic abuse charges by his ex-wife and that cost a couple liberal groups to unendorsed him. because of that, he is running well behind in the race,

although he has higher name id than patrick murphy. murphy is expected to cruise to the victory and on to the general election. ast: alex bolton giving us >> a look at the arizona senate primary today. supporters for senator john mccain. join c-span tonight for coverage of the primary results as well as victory and concession speeches, and we will get your reaction all on c-span. senatee house and returning from their break next week, thursday at 8:00, we will preview four issues facing congress this fall -- federal funding to combat the zika virus -- women want the

ability not to get pregnant, because mosquitoes ravage women. they decided to gamble with the lives of children like this. >> the annual defense policy and programs bill -- all these votes are vital to the nation, at a time of turmoil and a time of the greatest number of refugees it's the end of world war ii. >> gun violence legislation -- ryan: everyve member of this body wants to see less gun violence. representative pelosi: we want a demand the end of killing everywhere. impeaching john kotkin, for

high crimes and misdemeanors. speak with a senior congressional correspondent for "the washington examiner." c-span for0 on congress this fall. a look at the lawsuit over the clean power plants to limit greenhouse gas emissions. this is from today's "washington journal." host: our next guest is jeff holmstead. he was a former epa and assistant administrative for air and radiation from 2001 to 2005, currently an attorney here in washington, d.c., and also an attorney for the american coalition for clean coal electricity. good morning to you. guest: good morning. host: can you tell us a little bit about the coalition and its purpose?

guest: the coalition has existed for many many years, and it is a group of utilities and coal producers and railroads who are involved in some way in producing electricity from coal. it is a coalition that has been around for a long time. so you're concern would be the obama administration's stance on coal. how would you describe the actions they have taken to coal producers? guest: some people would call it a war on coal. even if you don't agree on that terminology, what we have seen over the last eight years as an unprecedented targeting of this industry. the assistance of regulations in epa history, a series of one after another, have been put in place largely designed to shut down power plants. the most recent and most aggressive and one that is clearly beyond epa's regulatory authority is a regulation called the clean power plant that is now being litigated in the d.c. circuit court of appeals

ut ultimately will end up in the supreme court. host: the clean power plan, what are the high points or the highlights? guest: the clean power plan is the obama administration's effort to restructure the way electricity is produced and consumed in the u.s. there are policy questions about that, but the biggest issue now is simply that epa was never given the authority to do that. since the days of thomas edison, our states have been able to decide what types of power plants they want. epa is now overriding that and saying we want to overlook this industry and close down 30% of the coal powered power plants and replace them with other plants that epa prefers. host: the white house says that among the hopes for this plan is to establish a first-ever national carbon pollution standard. it would cut pollution by 32% from 2005 levels. what is wrong with that goal?

guest: whether or not you agree with the goal, the executive branch can only do those things congress has given them authority to do. again, there are two questions. one, is that a worthwhile goal? second, does administration without congressional authorization, does it have the ability to go out and order plants to shut down? these are plants that have been operating efficiently. they are completely legal. in many cases, companies have invested billions of dollars to upgrade them, and now all of a sudden, the administration says those can no longer operate. that is not the way our constitutional system works. host: our guest with us to talk about coal plants and overall environmental issues. host: one person talked about

how is moving forward with the clean power plan even though the president stepped in. [video clip] ms. mccarthy: we will still continue to work with states that want to move forward with us and continue to provide tools and outreach, but we clearly understand that the courts will be winding through the process of working at that rule. the issue yesterday made it will take a long time for that to happen. we will respect that, but in the meantime, we will continue to address greenhouse gases with the authorities under the clean air act that are available to us today. host: they will continue on regardless. guest: it is kind of astonishing that the administration is and essentially disregarding what the supreme court has done and said we will plow ahead full

speed until somebody stops us. epa issued this regulation almost two years ago. for the first time in history, the united states supreme court stepped in and said that regulation cannot go into effect until we, the supreme court, decide whether or not it is lawful. in doing that, the supreme court said basically that there are serious legal questions about whether this is legal and therefore, everything should be put on hold. epa points out it does not prevent them from doing things under voluntary basis, but the problematic thing is that the agency is informally twisting arms to try to get people to move forward on this regulation knowing it is likely to be struck down by the courts. host: we are told a hearing takes place on this issue in late september. what will happen at the hearing, and what is the argument being heard? guest: this is a little convoluted for people not familiar with our court system. even though the supreme court

stepped in, that was an interim measure, so it still has to go through the normal court process. that means that first of all, there is a court in d.c. called the united states circuit court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit, often called the second most important court in the land, and that court is going to hear the first challenge on the merits, meaningful full briefing, oral arguments, and that will be before nine judges on the d.c. circuit court of appeals. that will be held on september 27. it is coming up fairly soon. that court will then issue a decision, and then that decision will be appealed for supreme court depending on who wins and who loses. host: what is considered a win in this case for you? guest: so far, the supreme court has said the rule cannot go into effect. that does not ever happen. we are hopeful that the circuit court will agree with the supreme court that there are legal problems. they will say the rule is illegal and strike it down.

if that is the case, we would expect the administration to try to appeal that to the supreme court. host: you can also post a question on our facebook and twitter pages as well. angela. you are on with our guest, jeff holmstead. go ahead. you are on. caller: yes. i was wondering why was the federal government wanting to shut down the coal-fired power plant when the fracking of natural gas, to put that instead of that, is so bad for our environment and for people's health. is there anything we can do? i know hillary clinton really pushes this fracking of natural gas to promote it. we need to get out there and get our voices heard that this is

that for the water, bad for the air, bad for the water, bad for our health. guest: you raise a couple of issues. the first is, why is the administration targeting coal and promoting natural gas? i think it is certainly true that the administration is targeting coal. the question about using natural gas to replace coal, we are enormously fortunate in this country that we have a supply of natural gas that can be produced at a low cost. the question is, can it be produced in a way that is safe to the water, to the air? my impression talking with a number of experts is it can be done safely. where there have been issues , they have been isolated, and

so my perspective, and argue with a number of experts in the field even though i am not are presenting the industry, is that it can be done safely and effectively. we are fortunate that we have both a supply of low cost natural gas and a supply of low-cost coal. host: could you make the argument that if we have abundance of it, if you can because if we, could we not use natural gas to replace coal? guest: that is being done to some extent now. you would hope the market would decide which of those fuels would be used. we have a very large fleet of existing coal-fired power plants that are among the most efficient and cleanest in the world, and they produce electricity at a cost that is typically lower than you can get from any other source, even with low-cost natural gas, but it is interesting as you see the prices change betweencoal and

natural gas. the real question is whether the government should come in and essentially prohibit one of those fuel types, and that is what we are dealing with today. host: george in virginia. caller: what i think is that this president wants to make this country a third-world country right from the start when he took office. what he got in office, he said he was going to take the coal away from us and take it away from the power plants, and now we have hillary clinton coming out on national tv saying she is going to shut the coal mines down and put the coal workers at work in all of this and everything. coal has been around from the beginning of time, i guess. we are producing more coal, more natural gas, and we have more oil than any country in the world.

we could be the oil -- the whatever the world and so oil and natural gas all over the world, but this president we have wants us to be a third world country. he does not want to move us forward. that is his agenda, and that is what hillary clinton's agenda is. guest: well, i have to agree with much of what the caller says. i have an working on these issues now for almost 30 years, and i can say that we have never had, in fact i'm quite confident we have never had in the history of this country, an administration that targets an important u.s. industry like this. there has been a war on coal. we have seen it not only with the clean power plan, but other regulations. the president and hillary clinton have both been pretty candid in saying they would like to largely eliminate coal as a fuel source because i think of the demands of some people in the environmental community. we hope that our system is strong enough to ensure that

that does not happen, that we continue to have good-paying jobs in the coal fields in west virginia and elsewhere, and probably from a national perspective, it is important that we continue to have affordable, reliable electricity. as you said, for many years, coal has been the backbone of our electricity system, which in many ways is the envy of the world. so i am hopeful and i think many people are working to make sure that that continues to be the case. host: on our republican line, gene is in orlando, florida. -- jean is in orlando, florida. caller: yes. my thought of it is we are saying this administration is saying we have to help the environment. we all want to do that, but at the same time, they are closing down our coal plants here. the ones that are still going, we are selling to china. how does that help the

environment? the next thing is, i am old enough to remember the lines and when you were having to pay for $5 a gallon for gas. why? because of opec. we have to get oil and gas independent and do it here and not depend on the world powers to dictate our economy. and the next thing is obama here recently went to asia. i saw his speech. the words that came out of his mouth was -- he pledged $20 billion to asia in the next 10 years for business, for schools, for infrastructure. why would we be giving asia this money? half of the stuff we get right now comes from asia. host: thanks. guest: you have raised a number

of important questions. let me start with the first one. the point you make is exceptionally important. one of the things that everybody agrees on is these new environmental regulations, especially those targeted coal-fired power plants, has increased and will continue to increase the cost of electricity in the u.s. there are arguments about how much the increase will be. a lot independent analysts think it will be fairly costly in a number of states that today are the home to most of the heavy industry in the u.s. where we tend to have industrial facilities, big manufacturing plants, those tend to be located in states that have coal-fired electricity. if what the president does is increase the price of that

power, that makes those plants less economical, they cannot compete on the international stage, and has to point out, what that means is some of that manufacturing, perhaps much of that manufacturing goes to china or somewhere else, where they have lower-cost electricity, and it is not that those companies want to abandon the united states, but what happens is if they cannot compete because of the cost of electricity, we have no choice but to go elsewhere. the point is, you are certainly harming the u.s. economy and workers by shifting that overseas and not doing anything to improve the environment because the missions go overseas as well. the second point is also really important. because of advances in technology, we have discovered that we have great resources in coal and natural gas and oil. most experts agree, virtually all experts agree that those can be produced in a responsible way that protects the environment, that protects worker health and safety, and it is absolutely true that we need to continue to develop those resources to have

our own energy security and also to promote the economic development and the growth we need here in the united states. host: jeff holmstead our guest to talk about issues concerning the obama administration and their clean power plan. frank from clarksburg, west virginia, independent line, hi there. caller: how are you doing today? host: you are on. go ahead. caller: yes, sir. are you a friend of coal? is the first question. number two, west virginia is one of the largest coal producers in the world. having said that, if coal is the answer to west virginia's problems, west virginia -- we are the second poorest state in the united states. as far as good paying jobs go,

it is good paying for the companies that run it. that is the only friends of coal. you have to put training in here for other substantial jobs. coal, even if you're using it to export and sending it overseas so other countries can us it for power, we should be setting an example, and we are not. guest: let me see if i can answer that. i think most people would agree that it is always good to have a diversified economy. it has certainly been a real challenge in areas that are entirely dependent on one or a small number of industries. it is probably a good thing as you say to have diversity of different businesses and industries that support a local economy or state economy. that said, coal has been not only enormously important to many families and many communities in west virginia,

but also around the country. and the coal that is produced in west virginia and kentucky and wyoming and ohio, that is responsible for allowing u.s. consumers, u.s. manufacturers to have a supply of reliable affordable electricity. we just need to make sure that we do not have policies that undercut that, that drive up prices for consumers. that is why i am a friend of coal. i represent the coal industry. i represent a number of utilities that want to continue to use coal responsibly to produce reliable, affordable electricity, and i think that is important for a whole bunch of reasons. host: the obama administration gave those in coal country who lost jobs because of the $40 million for job retraining -- what do you think about the number and the effort that is being made to retrain former coal workers? guest: i have not sure where the numbers come from.

i am not aware that congress has appropriated substantial funds for that kind of an effort, but i support those. i think those are enormously important. we have seen a lot of coal job s because in large part of environmental regulations and because of competition from low-cost natural gas. that is the way the market should work. in opportunities where there is to help workers, i think that is important. the idea that $40 million are 140 million dollars, it does not replace the economic activity. if that number is correct, it is a symbolic gesture. kind of a drop in the bucket in terms of the impact we are seeing in cold communities around the country. host: democrat line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call.