i want to add my own personal experience to this discussion. i'm a college graduate. i graduated from public institution here in virginia. i have a lot of friends who have gone the apprenticeship route. kind of learning a trade whether it be welding or wood shop. they seem to be more successful over all than college graduates. i got a friend he got his welding certification and he's doing great. host: we'll go next to some of the things military way to go. pennsylvania bill, hi there. caller: good morning. my view would be the military. we have zero children reportedly going into the military. i have a graduate, this is

antiamerican as characteristic throughout the realm. i myself, took vocational training and went into the military became aerial navigator. finished up my service in the marine corps, wept on to college, etcetera. there's no rationale that i can see other than the fact that the military is available. does excellent training. does reasonable training and also we get the youth involved in what america is and what america is for. thank you. host: from the website money crashers.com, there's a profile of various career tracks workforce. they take a look at all the things. on the topic of military service, they say high school graduates are actively recruited to join the military branches with one of the assignments that are transferable to civilian

life depend on their service. many discharged service members receive college credits that can be transferred to college. high school graduates can apply for a full four year scholarship including cost of book and medical dental care. the military academy west point and annapolis and air force academy of colorado springs. graduates from there receive bachelor of science degree and commission officers. all cases they are the five year service obligation. some people like our last caller, said maybe the military is the way to go. others say apprenticeship, some cyclone is still the way to -- -- some say college is the way to go. from the bronx, this is eduardo talking about apprenticeships good morning. caller: good morning. i'm going to tell you about my

personal experience. i came from cuba at age of 14. i was training -- i was being trained in florida. i was only a 13-year-old kid. then i came to new york. when i came to new york, i wanted to go to school. i wanted to be a navy s.e.a.l. when i get to bronx, the bronx looked like world war ii. i was all burned down, drugs. [indiscernible] my only way it was school to study. host: what's the value of apprenticeship program then?

caller: the value is that, we should -- like me who want to be a navy s.e.a.l. right before i signed up this was my only study. i got shot in my right eye. host: people off twitter this morning, couple of people making comments saying, whatever happen to vocational school? then barkway said too many jobs requiring college degree really don't need one. need more vocational schools. job training programs, apprenticeship programs and the like. make your thoughts known on twitter that way. you can call us on the line. anthony who is in baltimore on our line for others. go ahead. anthony from baltimore. let's go to jack.

jack is in virginia, good morning. caller: good to talk with you. i think that a lot of different approaches need to be used. different people learn differently. not everyone is suited to go to college. lot of people work better with their hands. hands on apprenticeships are much more beneficial for those people to be successful. if you try to -- this mindset graduating college is only way to be successful and that's not true. there's still middle class jobs out there that don't require a college degree. pushing people in that direction, makes themover offed for those jobs. also, you send people to college who aren't really geared to go to college and then all they end up with is student debt and their trying to get a better job

with. host: as far as your personal career track. did you go to college and did you go apprenticeship or did you learn your skill another way? caller: all three -- i'm enlisted in the army reserve in high school. while i was a reservist, i began a apprenticeship i later used my g.i. bill to go to college. now i have a bachelor degree in management. host: can you give us a sense how long it takes to learn a skill with construction or welding or whatever? how long does it take for someone to become skilled you have to make a decent living at it? caller: it's a three to five year program in most trades. you get scheduled raises every year if you get through the union. i'm not sure. there are jobs that are union --

depending how a person feel about that. they have options. host: that's jack giving us his thoughts. continue on with your thoughts on the best way to train america's workforce. you can send thoughts on social media if you're on the line, stay there for a second. i will show you other stories. several of the papers this morning talking about the death that was announced yesterday of otto warmbier held by north korea a student in virginia brought home died yesterday. saying that doctors there he had extensive loss of brain tissue in all regions of his brain. most -- it caught blood supply. the doctors could not say what caused injury. mr. warmbier singled out for brutal beatings. doctors found no evidence of broken bones. north korean blamed combination

of botulism and sleeping pills. >> warmbier just passed away. he spent a year and a half in north korea. lot of bad things happened. at least we got him home to be with his parents. where they were so happy to see him even though he was in very tough condition. he just passed away little while ago. brutal regime. we'll be able to handle it. host: that statement from yesterday other members of congress tweeting thought this morning on that death on twitter. district heights maryland, john back to our question. he said apprenticeships are the way to go.

let's start with your thought on apprenticeship programs. what do you think about them? caller: when i came to washington d.c. in 1968 and i got in the army, there were all kind of apprenticeships. they had night school, they had trade school they had nursing and bricklayer carpentry. i went into the prison ministry, they had guys in the prison going through trade and come out with different trade. they had educational programs in there. the republican party with the democratic party destroyed all of that over a period of time. starting with ronald reagan. they had the blueprint. they have the plans already there. they don't have to go back and dig up anything. go back and find what was done before and bring it back. it has to be government funded. it has to be government regulated. because of the bigotry and racism in this country. i understand what president trump is attempting to do. apprenticeship is -- said about the guys in jail can't real

rulers. some of them can't even read the english language. they have to go back to school. not college but starting with basic education. reading, writing arithmetic. you got to read the blueprints and the plans. if you can't read or write, you have to start at the basic education level not college. all of that should be in the apprenticeship program. how is that going to be paid? that's another problem. that's a lot of money that will be to be poured into the states through the federal government in order to educate the people, young people coming up now. everybody not college material. some people work better with their hands. they have to be brought out drawn out and put into the workforce. but the guy talking about $75,000, today incarceration is a business. it's not to be -- it's not for the purpose of rehabilitation but for the sake of making jobs and money. that gentleman was right about that. the apprenticeship plan ised way

to go. our government already has all the plans it needs. all you got to do is dig them up. host: got you. steve in urban, illinois talking about the military. caller: they talk about -- talking to these kids coming in the military out of high school and stuff. only problem is now, since all volunteer, you get your training in different things. realization that you might have to do since all three to five tours in iraq and afghanistan by the time you get out you're not going to have to be worried getting training in workforce. you have to be trained how to adjust back to civilian life at all. half the guys got ptsd's.

host: several members of the military don't see acts of combat. factor that into your comment. caller: i know that. just like lot of guys go into the army. at least you have army reserves. pretty much army reserves. now everything -- you might go to reserves or national guard and which national guard was meant to stay here in the united states to take care of whatever happened here in the states. like emergencies and stuff like that. now you get shipped over three to five tours in iraq and afghanistan. heck vietnam never did over three tours. host: okay. this is sharon off twitter who adds point, put skilled jobs

back in schools. couple of callers ago, the caller talked about job training programs. this piece was from cnn back in may about the budget that was released. skin budget released by president trump talking about job training program. seeing cuts from that funding. saying potential 40% cut to those programs saying labor departments on 2012 study found that one of its training programs workers lost jobs. wasn't successful placing them in good paying jobs. another 1997 labor study cited in the president's budget had conclusions too. the administration should focus on apprenticeship program in the workplace. not classroom based job training programs. mr. trump's proposal does call for $90 million for some apprenticeship programs. same amount president obama appropriated for such training in 2016. the announcement from the administration saying, they're

adding about $5 million more about $95 million for those specific apprenticeship programs. that and college and military and others discussions larger about the best way to train the workforce. that's what we're asking you about. we divided the lines. the line you think might be the best way to go. from oregon, this is jim for those who talk about college jim thanks for calling. caller: i think i called in on the wrong line. anyway. i'm turning 70 this year. i remember 50 years ago when i graduated from college and talked about the same thing. we had shop classes, wood shop and metal shop. drafting and other stuff. trying let somebody know that they have those skills. apprenticeship programs from what i've heard, i think that's

a great idea. we've been talking about this for many decades. i think it should come back. these job skills have to be -- you have to have somebody that's interested in something for a place to go and kind of guide them in the way that they should. high school counselors very valuable. don't think people put enough value on high school counselors that can see their skills one way or the other to help guide them in one direction or the other. host: lynn is joining us from chattanooga, tennessee. caller: good morning. i went to a vocational school. that is long gone. i'm 74 years old. people that i went to school

with, we went and took basic math and english then we had three hours of shop. the people i graduated with did real well. there are several of them that own their own companies afterwards. the ones that wanted to go to college after that did. we have a retired principal in our group. i don't understand it. we do have vocational schools but they pick up the children from high school and take them to the vocational school. that is time wasted. they spend a couple of hours on a bus everyday, which is added expense to our school system. i don't understand why they don't do that. when i went to school, we didn't have computers. we need good computer program and these apprenticeship programs. when they came out, they were ready to get their certification. to get licensed. i don't understand why they don't put that back. i have a friend that owns a

air-conditioning company and he cannot find employees because drug tested written they come in, they're on drugs. we've got to get this straightened out. we got to start teaching young people a skill. when they come out they can make a decent living. if you're a certified electrician, you can go anywhere in the united states and get a job making $100,000 a year. host: "new york times" shows photos this morning of those seven sailors that were killed in that collision that took place. they were on the fitzgerald. the pictures of them. david phillips saying, the seven who died were on the destroyer fitzgerald when it collided with the containership last weekend. they were snapshot of the nation. immigrant from the philippines. a native of vietnam hoping to help his fame.

a firefighter son from the rolling green fields of virginia. the story adding that the navy still investigating what caused the sinking of the 500-foot destroyer which collided saturday morning in the waters of japan. that flooded two full of bunks as well as other rooms. "new york times" with the story. also showing those photos of the seven who died from the fitzgerald. connie on our line from others. go ahead. caller: i'm from california. my children i have three children. they all went to high school. they had to go to summer school but at the last senior year, they had no classes to take except for one or two. after that, they went to what was called r.o.p. they went to me cutting class. which my son came a respiratory therapist. he got two avenues for jobs. he was very appreciatessive that

-- appreciative he took me cutting class. it taught him a lot about the human body. then my daughter, she also took banking. she has two different careers that she can take. through high school. they had to work for it. it wasn't given to them. my last daughter has. a bachelor's degree. she took nursing. she's a nurse she has done very well for herself. she had to go to college. on my income was only $1200 a month. my children worked went to school, went to r.o.p. they wanted to succeed. the government can't make you do this. the government can't make you learn or go to school or sacrifice. they had to sacrifice. they got up at 6:00 in the morning and still participated in school activities. went to r.o.p. had a job. my children worked hard.

we got $1200. i provided vehicle for every one of them. we did it. my children are successful and they are very intelligent. and i'm very proud that the high school offer this to them. host: calling from california in light of that shooting that take place here in virginia which house majority whip steve scalise was shot. he's continuing to recover in the hospital. in the meantime, politico reporting that representative patrick mchenry of north carolina who currently serves as chief deputy majority whip, will now eternal -- temporarily take over for house majority whip. he talks about result of the shooting. mr. scalise felt success. mchenry, he'll work closely together to get the job done when it comes to efforts in the house to pass legislation.

let's hear from john from louisiana. the military is way to go. hello. caller: good morning. my career path in 1961, i graduated from high school went to purdue university and went to rotc because he was demand tear -- mandatory at the time. i applieder rotc as a commissioned officer. became a pilot in the air force. did that for 12 years. then i converted converted into the reserve a as full time civil service employee and reservist. then nine years later i went to fly for delta airlines and remain as a reservist. retired from reserves and delta. that is career path i took. couple of observations, there are here in the northwest louisiana area, they have a lot of vocational programs and there are a lot of employers here. kind of what the previous caller

said, they are looking for young men and women who they will pay for school to go to school half year and work for them. repair shop here has a program like this. air-conditioning shops electrician shops. culinary shops. there's all kinds of places for people to come out of high school and go to a vocational school. the problem i think is, i'll use my case, when i went to purdue university it cost $169,000 a semester. now it's $13,000. the cost of a college education lot of education, is just gotten out of hand. the people that come out with debt because they run up the debt. the answer is not, turn to me and say, you're retired, you made your career. now you have to pay for their college education. that just doesn't work out. that's just one man's position. that's my experience. i like c-span. good old purdue university is

where the founder of c-span came from. host: that it is. thank you for calling. we will continue on with this discussion taking a look at training the american workforce. if you're on line just hold tight for a couple of minutes. if you calling continue on. we want to take a few minutes to talk about georgia. particularly in light of the special election that takes place today. if you go to the website atlanta journal constitution two pictures are featured. john ossoff and karen plan handel. both fighting to claim the seat of tom price. joining us on the phone to talk about the state of this election greg bluestein of the atlanta journal constitution. good morning to you. guest: good morning thanks for having me. host: can you tell us as far as polling goes, what's the state of this race and who do you think might come out on top? guest: not surprisingly the polling showing polls tightened

considerably. ossoff had a slight or steady lead in the polls. last poll we saw was from wsbtv tv. which had 49-49. they were separated by .1 one percent. that's why search thinking expecting concerned about a very late tonight. host: as far as turn out is concerned, what's expected and who favors from it? guest: huge turnout expected. 140,000 people cast early ballots. which is a tremendous number especially for a special election in georgia. we're expecting turn out well exceed 200,000 to be well above the turnout for the first round of vote back in april. some analyst see a bell curve. they think low turnout or high turnout favors ossoff. his supporters is more

enthusiastic. more expected average expected turnout will favor handel. there's more republicans in this district. it was drawn to elect a republican. host: remind u.s. how represent price did in that district and donald trump did. guest: this district has been represented by republicans for decades. it changed its lines a bit. ever since jimmy carter era republicans held this district. mitt romney, john mccain usually carries the district in their presidential campaigns. but trump, he struggled. he won it by less than two percentage points in november. which was a shock for district that has been a gop stronghold for so long. that's given democrats hope they can flip it. host: as far as their campaign strategies what is the case that both john ossoff and karen handel making about themselves and their opponent? guest: karen handel has run as a

trump supporter. she has embraced most of his policies after holding him arms length early. she also says she won't be an extension of the white house. she cast herself as independent minded. she is playing to her conservative base. she knows if she can lock down the vast majority of republican voters, she can win this election. there are more republicans in this district than democrats. ossoff has a much more challenging battle. he has played up his appeal to less leaning liberals and he has talked about standing up to donald trump and to find the president. he toned down some of the anti-trump rhetoric. he need to woo a percentage, maybe 10 or 15 percent of republican leaning voters to win this district. host: do you think that crossover vote works in his favor?

could it happen for him? guest: polls show him at about 10 to 15% of republican voters supporting him. many of those are probably same type of voter who opposed trump and skeptical about congress. both parties are responsible for wasteful spending. big question is, how many of those votes he'll get and whether it's enough. some republicans say he has to get 15% of gop voters to win. he's been around there some of the polls. no one can predict what kind of turnout will be in this special election. i know that pretty much every poll shows two or three percent undecided voters. most voters made up their minds. most of these voters are pretty motivated, we've seen $15 million spent on this race including more than $42 million in ads alone. host: before we let you go. greg bluestein, the president

himself giving thought on twitter. a shot out for karen handel. saying she will fight for lower taxes, great healthcare, strong security. hard worker who never get you have. is that the first we've seen from donald trump commenting on this race? guest: he has waded pretty deeply in the race. back in the first round he sent a stream of tweets in attacking john ossoff. he recorded a robocall back in the first round. he's campaigned with karen handel. he's waded pretty deep in this race. it makes it harder to cast this not a referendum about him. it's being seen nationally and locally as a test of his popularity. host: greg bluestein staying a look at georgia's sixth congressional district. you can find his work on the website of the atlanta journal constitution. thank you for your time.

the "new york times" taking a look at congressional districts across the united states. they found a across the country there are only 15 congressional districts or at least half of adults have a college degree. one of those districts includes georgia sixth congressional district. a district has been republicans for generation. mr. trump won it by one point john ossoff a democrat won 48% of the voting. this is only one that mr. trump won in november. in case your periods, "new york times" highlights the rest of those districts have a college education, many from california, some in virginia, some from new york. you can find out more information when you go to the website of the new york times. back to our call.

taking a look best way to train america's workforce. apprenticeship programs is what james interested talking about from marriesville, washington. caller: good morning. guys. i was vietnam era person. i got out the air force my veteran benefits helped me. something with my pay while i was going through apprenticeship school with the unions. back then the unions had the best apprenticeship programs there were. unions aren't popular anymore. the military put me on the road to pay for education and the military benefits is what really helped me. i first got married and had kids. they help supplement wages at that time.

host: what do you do today? caller: i'm retired now. sheet metal worker. host: how long did it take you to as far as your training, how long was it under apprenticeships before you were really skilled to do it on your own? caller: i went to a four year apprenticeship. usually two nights a week, four hours of class for four years before i -- [indiscernible] since then i gone on to college and got a degree. i think the unions, at that time were the best. it didn't cost the government anything.

i could have my family started. it was a win-win situation for everybody. host: when you were in sheet metal was the work consistent? you don't have to tell us the specifics. was the pay good? caller: i was working right to work state. our pay wasn't as good as it was. i'm on the west coast now. our pay wasn't as good as it is out here. we were making more money than the standard person was on the east coast. in a right-to-work state in north carolina. host: james thanks for sharing your experience with us. steven say unions are aren't perfect, they offer ways for good paying jobs and benefits. you can post there. you go to our facebook page there's a poll that you can participate in as well. talking about these various options and letting us know and

giving us your thoughts on best way to train the workforce if you want to go ahead and make your thoughts there. it's not a scientific poll. it gives us a sense what you are thinking out there. as far as this topic is concerned. from washington state eileen talking about college. caller: i'm in favor of college. i will tell you why. my daughter raised her twins to work hard and study hard. they both graduated assume sum -- she worked hard to do this. i have a son in oklahoma kids graduated. can i'm very proud of both. you got to say that.

same thing. my son made them work for it. you work to get your grades. host: as far as your children are concerned, all are employed and what kind of industry and what kind of money are they making generally? caller: they just graduated this year. they're interning. one of them is interning, one of the twins is interning at gonzaga. he's going to go into politics. he's looking for a job as an aid. win-- when i went to college, i went to nyu, all you had to do was maintain a b average.

equitable life insurance company company. they paid your college as far as you maintain a b. they don't do that anymore. they did that when i went. host: we'll hear from gregory in sherman oaks, california. caller: i called on the line for others. i've been trying to think outside the box. for example, coal country was mentioned earlier. something to be done in coal country. why not take one of these mountain moves gigantic strange estates that is the evacuated remains of mountain. their topographies are unique and incredible. put some kind of fantastic one of a kind 21st century home grown theme park there. different types of skills and jobs and competencies that will be needed to design it and

create it, build it, operate it. some kind of combination gravity, terrain park, hanging garden. it would be halloween land in october and examines land -- christmas land in december. everybody in this country is devoid of fun. there's no policy mandating paid vacation time. everybody is up tight. let's find way to combine fun with training and a whole range of things. so called practical call skills, design skills and computer skills everything else. education of a positive move

that will turn things around. host: thanks gregory. jack from from richmond, illinois. caller: in the state of illinois we have a highly community college system which is career tech program. there are vocational programs that create technicians. degree that you get is the aas degree. it's not a transfer degree. it's there to create people to go out and work. this is a mightily, under used system. as i note in your listening, you don't even have anything about that. you lump it with college. most people think college is a fur year degree. you can use the community college for the technician programs which are in great

demand but never get mentioned. by the way, my background is i have four year degree in engineering from university of illinois. i transferred over and went into the community college system and found working in the career vocation stuff to be wonderful. host: aas stand for what? caller: associate of applied science. by the way, only 27% of the jobs in the united states require a bs or as as is the other degree that's for transfer from a two year institution. three in four people are going to be looking at places where you don't need those degrees. but the aas which nobody knows about is a powerful way of doing it. it may include, depending on the program that's put in by the

community college system, some apprenticeship. it may have some hands on. host: thanks jack. dave from michigan. on apprenticeship programs. good morning. caller: i had a hard time hard time deciding. my son-in-law was eight years in the military as military soldier. when he came home from the military i helped put him and my little girl through college. she went into a nursing program. he graduated from the nursing program and they moved to san antonio where he worked for the hospital system as a nurse. they found out what he could do in what he learned in the military as intelligence soldier, he was so excellent as handling artificial intelligence and computers and organization

and stuff like that he's the supervisor of the hospital system in san antonio overnight. now he instructs the nurses how to run their business and hospital and everything. primarily what he learned in the military and college too. i was just amazed at his success. i think that the military, they can show you valuable way. i'm not a military person myself. he was certainly successful because of his experience in the military as a military intelligence soldier. host: someone else talking about the military is woodbridge, virginia. go ahead. caller: i was in the united

states marine corps. i was on the -- when i got out i thought i might not be able to find a good job. the licenses didn't really match up. they didn't have anything for disability. i learned how to fix aircrafts. after 30 months you can get your license. after that, you can make a good living $60,000 to $70,000. there's community colleges that give these license out for $10,000, $15,000 for only two years. i'm studying to be a lawyer so i got that going on. there's opportunities in aviation. aviation really dying for people

in aircraft. i'm also becoming a pilot. i'm bought my own plane. i'm using my license so it's much cheaper to own a plane. it's much cheaper to become a pile if you own your own plane. in america, one thing leads to another. there's plenty of opportunities out there. i had the it up opportunity flying through frankfurt. my point is that getting out the military the hardest part was probably finding a job that corollated what i did in the marine corps. i think this is something that the marine corps had an issue with in itself.

the marine corps didn't give the licenses with the f.a.a. these licenses could be better used -- f.a.a. can work better with the military branch or different organizations work better with different military branches for jobs. host: thanks for your input this morning. the publication variety has a story featuring the cnn reporter jim acosta who is in the process, white house with suppression of information. this comes from the situation concerning briefings. saying that he shieded the white house and press secretary sean spicer. after reporters were prohibited recording video. there's suppression of information going on at this white house that will be not be tolerated with a state government. he wrote on twitter. it was on air he told the anchor

brook baldwin, the white house was stonewalling the news media. they are getting to a point it's getting useless. if you can't come out and answer questions, why are we having these briefings in the first place? there maybe an answer by end of week as whether mr. trump as recordings of conversations with the fbi director james comey. it goes on from there. you can read it about this back and forth with variety. speaking of sean spicer politico reporting it's part of a larger plan to shake up the white house communication operation. politico reporting that last week mr. spicer and reince priebus reached out to laura

ingram about the white house press secretary. politico reporting that spicer and priebus had discussions with laura ingram. john, dry creek, west virginia. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a couple of -- i was a coal miner. i was retired coal miner. during my coal mining years, i realized that it has ups and downs. when it's up it's great. when it's down, it's bad. i got my teaching degree while i was working. when i -- when they shut down, i started teaching high school and when went high school shut down, i taught grade school. my problem is, are colleges, we know our education system is down. our colleges, for the most part,

for teacher, their teaching and want to teach if we paid attention in high school. they're not teaching them how to teach. i feel like when we need more training in our young teachers just coming out of college. maybe instead of one semester student teaching, maybe pay them partial pay and let them stay a full year with an experienced teacher. another problem with that is, every three or four years, most states, i live in west virginia, we changed our way of testing. our children become confused about how to take the test. with the technology taking over. it's not paper and pencil anymore. it's just totally confusing not only for the teachers but for the students also.

host: we have to get a couple of more calls in from east dublin, georgia, others line. maurice. caller: good morning pedro. thank you. few things, number one, you shouldn't have to pay in order to labor. number two, the topic is the best way to train a workforce. you look across the world, there are several different ways other countries are doing this very thing and much more efficient manner what we are. especially looking at germany they have one of the most expensive apprenticeship programs in the world. you don't have to go to college in order to be able to main or obtain a good job. you're paid to learn. ultimately you do get into a middle class job from that point forward after high school. which is obviously paid for by the taxpayers in germany and many other countries. many other countries have free

tuition free college tuition. this one does not. we are behind the curve any number of measures. we are the only industrialized country that does not have mandatory vacation time. think about that. we are behind the ball and behind the curve on many of these issues which these people don't know about. we want to continue along the path we are the leading edge. host: one more call on this topic. april in massachusetts. caller: good morning. what i wanted to mention is that workforce training should start in the school system. maybe the last two years of high school to concentrate on the students learning what their skills are what their weaknesses are and strengths are. pointing it towards a trade of

vocation and college. not everybody needs to go to college. i went to college and earned ms degree and now in my professional or nurse practitioner and another year, they're going to want you to have a ph.d. it's ridiculous to get all of these degrees. are we helping our country in what we're doing? that's what what's most important. we need to prepare our workers at the high school level so when they get out of high school, they will know what their skills, what they can do and they will have a desire and a plan to go in that direction. host: april, thank you so much. thank you for the rest of you who gave us your input in our first hour. coming up the senate now deliberating healthcare bill

reportedly a vote scheduled more next week on that. joining yous for a discussion on the current status of that bill. what means for the u.s. healthcare system. vox's sarah cliff i kliff and louise radnofsky joining us. later on, we'll go back to this another of apprenticeships in the united states. especially how they're done. what the trump administration is proposing. anthony carnevale of georgetown university joining for that discussion later in our program. if you go to the front page of the "washington times" this morning, a story about russia's reactions to that shooting down of the syrian plane. about the continuing conflict that goes on in that country. it quotes the jointed joint chiefs of staff chairman general joseph dunford, who talked who the current conflict in syria at an event at the national press club yesterday. also talked about troop levels in afghanistan. you can see it on our website the full program at c-span.org. here's a portion of that

program, featuring general dunford from yesterday. >> i think it's important to point out that the incidents that took place this weekend followed a combined arms movement, proregime forces, subsequent su aircraft flew into the area. we made every effort to warn those individuals not to come any closer. then commander made judgment there was a threat to the forces that we were supporting and took action. the only actions that we have taken against proregime forces in syrian have been two specific incidents have been in self-defense. we've communicated that clearly. >> do you foresee adding the 4000 troops, there's a lot of discussion whether or not additional forces allocated to afghanistan, has that decision been made? how many troops are going, when

are they going how is that going to unfold? >> let me see if i can probably answer that question in a few others that haven't been asked about afghanistan right up front. no decision has been made with regard to deployment of additional forces in afghanistan. one decision that was made by the president was to delegate that decision to secretary mattis in terms of forces on the ground. this is what's important and probably has been underreported secretary mattis' decision about additional forces in afghanistan will be made in the context of a broader strategy review for south asia that is expected to report back probably some time in the middle of july. when secretary mattis makes a decision about force levelsers which he will clearly communicate with the president secretary of state and the direction received is to do that in conjunction with the secretary of state. when secretary mattis makes that decision about force levels you can you can expect he'll