deliver one of the most astonishing electoral defeats we have seen in my lifetime, and certainly in modern history. it was a profile of the american people on issues from terrorism to poison water. >> watch afterwards tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span2's book tv. susan: this week on "newsmakers," the senator from oklahoma, the number two republican on the armed services committee, senator james inhoff. thank you for being here. sen. inhoff: nice to be with you. kelly and joek gould, congressional reporter with defense news. joe, go ahead. joe: senator we heard earlier today from senator cornyn that we should expect at least two more cr's. there was some optimism coming

out of the last cr vote that ultimately will see an increase on defense spending, that budget caps would be lifted. what message do you have for leadership as far as breaking the impass and getting to a larger deal to fund the federal government? sen. inhoff: but we have to do is get away from these cr's. when i started it was understood we would have appropriation bills. we have 12 appropriation bills and we have not quite -- frankly there is a partisan elements of this. we have tried to pass them out and we can't get them on the floor. as you know, a minority can block them from coming up on the floor. as far as the one that has to pass, it is the for our national one defense. we have to get past the budget caps. we have to get -- i will give you an example. if we don't do anything as it is right now when we pass the authorization bill for the

military, it's at $700 billion. if for some reason we can't get beyond the caps and we have to go to a strict cr, that's going to go down to $549 billion and that would absolutely be devastating. we have got to repair our military and we can't do it unless we either pass an appropriation bill or we raise the caps. joe: defense secretary jim mattis has linked the problems to military readiness problems. you're the chairman of the readiness subcommittee. where are we now in terms of readiness crisis, and the does congress share any part of the blame for getting us here given that -- did they prioritize readiness enough? sen. inhoff: i would say congress does in one respect. during the obama administration and i hate to be blaintly blunt

but we really suffered in our military. and i don't say this really critically of obama because he is a very proud liberal and proud liberals don't care that much about military. so he had a policy that we couldn't do anything to repair our military. the seaquest problem -- the sequestration problem we were facing. that is now the constitution says. we are to be defending america first. ipad3 committee hearings on the dilemma we are facing. a battle but lose a lot of people doing it. readiness equates to american lives. our grand brigades for example only a third of them are ready to be activated. we are missing 1500 pilots right now, 1300 of those are actually combat pilots.

our f-18's the marines use, a third of those just really or less than half are working right now. so we can cover those things up, use other vehicles. and we can win. but we're going to take a lot of sacrifices winning. i think it's very important people know it's very important for our officers to let the people in america know that we have a real serious problem because without that -- without their awareness, we're not going to get the attention of the house members and senate members that will have to make the decision on ultimately a budget for the military or a fix of the dilemma we have right now. patrick: it looks like the house is going to take action on some of these issues. kevin mccarthy said earlier in the week that they will vote on the same defense spending bill that passed in july, stripping it out of the omnibus package and voting just on the bill. also, mark miles of the freedom

caucus and a spokesman said they will also vote to lift the budget caps. we've talked about this already but do you envision a day when the senate will vote to raise caps? and what do you make on voting on a bill that has already passed the house. sen. inhoff: i would say this i , applaud the house for doing that. we've got to have the budget caps raised for the military. taking that action is going to in my opinion make it easier in the senate because we have a lot of people that -- i think all of your republicans, most all the republicans would support that. a few of the democrats that are a little bit more hawkish would. i think it's a great start. i applaud kevin for doing that and for putting us in that position because that's got to be done. a lot of things have to be done to fix the dilemma that we have. one is we have to have the appropriation bills and the other is we have to raise the caps and the other is we have to be in a position where our senior uniformed personnel are talking about the problem.

i don't have the credibility. when i talk to the people and i tell them about the risks that we're facing which i think is the greatest risk in the history of the country, i don't have the credibility but they do in uniform. just to clarify what i just now said. the risk there is very real. when i say it's the greatest risk that we've faced before, i have said this many times before. i look back wistfully of the days of the cold war when we had .wo superpowers we knew what they had they knew what we had. it doesn't mean any more. and we have countries like north korea. north korea on 28 fired a rocket november that has the range to reach right here where we're sitting, any place in the continental united states. that's something that we're working on right now. we are trying to get our ground base interceptors where they should be. but that's the threat that we're facing right now.

i think the action that the house is talking about doing i want to make sure they do it because that will make our job in the senate a lot easier. i promise you, the president would sign it. i've talked to him about that. patrick: i know that another big topic of discussion at least from the national defense strategy, which was unveiled around this past the friday, unclassified portion at least. you mentioned that this is the greatest threat you've seen. the national defense strategy says united states greatest threat will come from russia and china. i'm wondering if you have seen the classified version of that report and what you think of it? sen. inhoff: there's things i can't talk about right now but you're talking about the 2-3 strategy. i agree in terms of the greatest threat conventionly would be russia or china -- and china, i could say, that the other three are important, too. that is north korea, iran, and isis. that's the strategy that he is putting down as a priority to

get to. so you really have two different types of strategies. the one that is that i mentioned with north korea, that's the one that every person who comes to our meetings comes to our hearings that are public televised hearings, they come up -- we're talking the military now. they say we have the greatest threat that we've ever faced because in the case of north korea, the guy, kim jung you -- kim jong-un is totally unpredictable. and they always use that word unpredictable. that's scary when you have a weapon delivery system. let me hasten to say because i know the critics are watching, that yes, they have something that i think can range continental united states. they will say well, we don't know on november 28 when they demonstrated they had that range . what kind of a pay load they had or if they had any payload at all. because yes, if there's increase

you can't use the actual pounds , but if it would increase by , the amount of a weapon then maybe they couldn't have made that kind of a range. and the other thing is the reentry. when you are in a trajectory and you come back in, it's difficult to come in with any accuracy at all. that doesn't give me any comfort. if they have something come over to the united states of america that could wipe out a city, you know, i can't think of any place i wanted to land. i see that as a fact. i know there are a lot of people who don't want to believe that that threat is imminent and is out there. joe: to your point about the threat from north korea. the national defense strategy prioritizes missile defense. it also prioritizes investments in nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons modernization, and also cyber.

but strategy is about choices. are there parts of the defense budget where you see opportunities for -- to disinvest? what can we give up? sen. inhoff: part of the strategy that general mattis came out with talks about some areas where our leetsdzality is -- legality is not as great as -- lethality is not as great as some of our enemies. that's what happened primarily during the obama administration. artillery is a good example. we're actually behind both russia and china in our artillery capabilities. a lot of our allies, too, germany, for example, they're ahead of us. so part of that strategy that he outlined talked about get so that we're at least equal or better in all of these areas. cyber is another thing. not many people out there who are watching this now are aware of the capability of what someone could do with a cyber attack on america. that's something that is kind of

new and not many people are familiar with it. but they could put us out of business and we can't afford to do that. and the other areas are acquisition. he talked about -- and the chairman of this senate armed service committee, john mccain has always been a tiger on doing something about acquisition. he reminds us all the time that we have gone through our ground capabilities. remember, the system that we were first going to use. it was a crusader system. we spent $2 billion on that then junked the system went to the future combat system, then we went through the acquisition, got halfway there, spent $20 billion on it and then we junked that system because the acquisition wasn't going right. i would say the same thing with some of the helicopters and others. so that's one area that has got to be, even though it doesn't have the immediate effect of trying to stop something catastrophic from hitting us today, we have to look to the future. i would say maintenance is the

other thing that we talked about in the strategy something that , people are not that familiar with that if we have a serious maintenance problem as we have right now trying to maintain a lot of the vehicles, the f-18, that's a maintenance problem. it has got to be corrected. the strategy is right. in order to do that we're going to have to accomplish what we started out with, and that is doing something about lifting the caps, something about getting an appropriation bill. people don't understand what -- if you just do a cr, that's a continuing resolution. that means you take what's been given to us by obama and you have just got to bring it forward and do the same thing. we don't want to do the same thing. we want to rebuild. we want to be superior. right now we are reasserting america's leadership in the world and we want to be able to afford that. joe: the pentagon under president trump and also under president obama have both asked for rack rounds, base

realignment and closure rounds. that's something you've been consistently opposed to. but is there any way in which you would agree to something like that as a means of allowing the pentagon some head space to free up funding for other priorities? sen. inhoff: let me just explain. i know this is one of the few areas where a lot of the republicans disagree. but when they came out there are two things that happen if you do a brac round. a brac round is a base realignment and closure commission. that's what it stands for. so they go through and make analyses of mostly the domestic, also the foreign but -- installations that we have. the reason i'm opposed to it now is that one thing is certain . with every brac round and i've been involved in every brac round since 1987, that was the first we went through. one thing that's certainty is the first three or four years it costs huge amounts of money. right now we can't afford huge amounts of money. we have to take care of these

maintenance problems that we have and the readiness problems that we have first. so that would be regardless of any other issues. that's the reason i would oppose it now. doesn't mean i would oppose it in the future necessarily. the other reason right now is that we are in a rebuilding mode. we've got to be right now. and when you start rebuilding, and let's say you go out and close some of the installations someplace in america because they're not being used right now, well, you don't know when we get into the rebuilding mode maybe that's just installation, that we're going to have to have. for those two reasons. i have to say though a lot of my colleagues do not oppose it. patrick: on the topic of rebuilding america's military, i understand that yesterday the senate was briefed on the nuclear posture that will be released in february. we got a sneak peak when bits of it were leaked in the press. so the congressional budget office has said it's going to take up to $1.2 trillion to

recapitalize the nuclear triad. so adam smith, the ranking member of the house armed services committee said you can have an effective nuclear deterrent for far less than that over that span of time. what do you say about the huge price tag? adam smith, good guy and all that but he's a democrat and they have different priorities. keep in mind they all supported president obama's priority on you can't put more money into the military unless you put an equal amount into nondefense or social programs. so i think in terms of the triad -- and i can say that, this was a closed meeting, but i know what's been in the press since then so i can talk about that. we've got a problem with our nuclear arsenal. ever since the cold war we haven't done anything to modernize it. we're just like we were back then. at the same time, we're doing nothing both china and russia

are really getting in there and working hard to make sure that they get ahead of us in this area. and frankly, they are. so it's time that we get busy. that's what the the meeting is all about. again, this is not confidential. when they come out with their final report -- this has already been in the media -- they are going to be in a position to start working on it. now, the triad, there's three elements of a triad as a nuclear deterrent. you have your submarines, air, ground. we're already working in some of those areas. for example, in the -- i was complimenting john mccain on his leadership in our ndaa bill. one of the things that we did there was make sure we increase our missile defense system, make sure that we are paying attention to some of the old parts of the triad. for example, we're still using b-52's. until we have a b-21 that will be coming along, that's probably going to be another eight years before that gets there.

so we are in the process of -- right now we're still using the ohio class submarines. we're going to be getting into new class but not until probably six years from now. but we've got to get that deterrent up to be -- to be competing with both russia and china. greta: we have little more than 5 minutes left. one thing we have heard in recent weeks secretary of , state tillerson signaled some support for an indefinite u.s. troop presence in iraq, syria, to deal with the aftermath of the islamic state. what do you see as the mission there and does this administration have to explain to the american people and congress what troops would be doing there after this? sen. inhoff: you know what i

would rather do? i will rather hear that and where mattis is coming down. i think the world of our secretary of state. you're getting into something that really technical military issues. it's going to take some presence, obviously. we know that. there's no question in anyone's mind. as to the level of american presence, and we've had some great successes there. but we still -- you can't get up and walk away. by the way, one of the bad things that came out of the obama administration, they came out and made statements as to what they were going to do, when we're going to withdraw the troops, what our troop level is going to be on a certain date. and that's the worst thing, to let the american people know but the enemies know also. so i think he's probably right but as to the numbers i'm going to wait and see what general

mattis -- what secretary mattis comes up with. joe: does the pentagon need to send someone to the hill to present in an open hearing? sen. inhoff: it can be in a open hearing, a closed hearing. most of your oach hearings end up in a closed hearing if there are things they can't respond. so i would say it's going to be both and they will be up. we will be on there. i'm going to be -- not allowed to say where, but a lot of these zones that we're talking about, with seven members of the senate and one from the house. in a very short period of time. to make our own determination. a lot of times you have to go there to really find out. you have to talk to the troops on the ground. you have to talk to the commanders on the ground. and you can always get a little more accurate story there than having an open hearing here in washington, d.c. so let me come back with that knowledge. greta: that sort of raises the question about leadership for the senate armed services committee. as everyone knows, the chairman

senator john mccain is battling , brain cancer. how often are you talking to him and are you steering the ship in his absence? sen. inhoff: i'm the next in line so the answer is yes i'm chairing the meetings but we're chairing the meetings in in consistent with what john feels we should be doing. deciding on what hearings we're having, that's a decision that's coming out of the chairman who is john mccain. so obviously during his recovery period he can't be here for these and you can't stop everything now. so i'll give you two answers from that. he's calling the shots and i'm showing up. patrick: i guess the last question we have that we both prepared is that in october there was a political poll that came out that said that 55% of registered voters support were trust democrats in congress more than president trump to handle

national security issues. i'm wondering, it's an election year do you think that republicans have become vulnerable on national security issues and do you think that's going to be an issue? sen. inhoff: i can't believe -- i would sure like to see how that question is posed. because the one thing -- no one questions that people -- when you had president obama with his policy that you couldn't put money in the defense unless you put it in the nondefense, that should tell the american people out there who is the strongest on national defense. if the vast majority or -- a small majority i guess of people who think that somehow democrats are more in line for defending america than republicans, then we've done not a very good job of communicating. it doesn't mean we change our behavior. we still have a country to protect. i've got 20 kids and grandkids and they deserve protection. they're going to get it from us. i think the republicans are normally a little stronger on national defense than democrats are.

joe: in particularly with -- do you find that the president's tweeting has been helpful to the dialogue on national security? or in terms of diplomacy? particularly with korea. some of the delicate situation we're in with korea. sen. inhoff: i'm going to give you an answer that will shock you and it's going to get me in trouble, i know that. first of all, yeah, i wish someone would kind of monitor before the tweets come out and what kind of language that's being used. but that is not the style of this president. when he said what he said to kim jung un, the president of north korea, and un had made the statement that now we know after november 28 we had the range that we can hit the united states and i've got a button, i'm going to use it, his

response was, president trump's response was, all right, you go ahead and use it. we've got a bigger button we've got the technology better than you do. we will blow you off the map. now what happened? the very next day north korea went down to south korea and said we're going to join you in the winter olympics. they're now working on some things jointly that no one ever believed that would happen. i'm not saying that's the only reason that happened you in the -- we've got to reestablish ourselves as being a tough person and we're the leader of the free world and we've got to acted like it. you know, i was always critical of the obama administration because it was an administration of appeasement. we're not appeasers any more. greta: senator we have a couple , minutes left. let me ask you about if we find ourselves as we approach february 8 and another continuing resolution needs to happen, or as senator cornyn

said, or that we are faced with another government shutdown, do you think that legislation that democrats tried to put on the floor should go forward, and that is pay the troops if there is a government shutdown? sen. inhoff: i think that we can do that. and that would happen. i believe that would happen any way. i don't think there's going to be another government shutdown. people say whose fault it was and all of that. there was one vote -- just one vote that took place and that was on shutting down the government. 95% of the democrats voted to shut down government, 95% of the republicans voted not to shut down the government. and i think the american people don't want government shutdown. polling is showing that the very issue that would have caused the government to shut down as proposed by chuck schumer was an issue having to do with daca and people are saying we're all sympathetic to the kids and we want to the do something about it, but not at the expense of shutting down the government.

so for that reasonning we're going to win this thing and not shut down the government. greta: do you think the president shares any responsibility and republican leadership with the way that negotiations were handled and ultimately the shutdown? sen. inhoff: ultimately, the shutdown, yeah, i guess that could be the case. i'm not saying that anyone is blameless. i'm saying there was an ultimate decision that took place and that's how the decision was made. you have to judge for yourself in this day and age there's no secrets out there. you know the conversations between the president and the leader of both the house and the senate, and of course congress. so let the american people be the judge. let's just hope that we do a better job next time and we don't shut down the government. greta: senator james inhoff. republican of oklahoma. the number two republican on the armed services committee. thank you for your time.

appreciated. sen. inhoff: thank you so much. greta: we're back with our reporters. joe gould of defense news, congressional reporter, and patrick kelly with cq roll call. patrick, i'll begin with you. overall the impact of these continuing resolutions, the so-called stop gap spending bills on the military. what did we hear from the number two republican on the senate armed services committee? patrick: a lot of what we heard from secretary mattis, general dunford, john mccain. it is the line they repeat because it's the line they believe that the cr's are going to affect training and maintenance. they have deleterious effects on the military that manifest worse -- that general mattis said is worse than any but right now what than any enemy could impose on the force. something that clearly senator inhoff wants to find a solution to senator cornyn saying that we're going to have maybe two more crs, it doesn't look like it's going anywhere soon. greta: joe, behind-the-scenes

you've had people negotiating a long-term spending bill for the military. but what is at the heart of those discussions? because the senator kept referring to budget caps. we have to lift the budget caps. joe: so the ndaa, which is the defense policy bill that's produced by the senate armed services committee called for roughly $700 billion for defense. that exceeds the budget caps set into law by the budget control act. and as senator inhoff referenced, democrats have pressed for parity on the nondefense side of the budget. the budget caps, what they have is leverage your they need 60 votes. this is the dynamic that we've been living with for years here. the question of these the

military buildup that the president campaigned on, that the national defense policy reflects still has to deal with the budget reality of budget caps and i don't think that we've heard -- this impass i think -- the impass that we've seen shows that the conversation has not changed all that much. as much as we heard from pro defense lawmakers after last cr was passed that maybe there might be a break through. it's still hope as far as we know. greta: patrick, you asked about this but what the house , republicans have been promised, what is that and when could we see that vote? patrick: i believe the reporting that i read was in the next ten legislative days the house will be voting on raising the defense spending caps and a bill they

already passed in july. the defense spending bill. so i think that the logic behind voting on the bill again is partially political and partially to strip it out of the omnibus bill in which it was passed to have it as a stand alone bill. so we should be seeing that i believe after the president's state of the union address is when they are looking to take those to the floor. and that's part of the deal to get the house freedom caucus to vote on the continuing resolution. the leadership will not make it on this promises and we will see those two votes in the house. greta: do they have to raise domestic spending? joe: well, what's interesting about that vote is we're talking about a vote on defense only appropriations in the house. and i think most folks will acknowledge that that's a nonstarter in senate. and it's not going -- it's not something that democrats would pass. so you kind of have to ask what's the rationale?

is it a messaging bill? is it something that allows republicans to show their bona fide on national defense heading into an election year and at the same time hurt democrats who might vote against it because they believe in parity on the nondefense of the budget? in pay for the nondefense budget. >> what happens next? what are you watching for? there could be another two crs. what are you watching for? >> we are interested to see the budget vote from the offense of management and budget, february 12. it will be after the february 8 deadline. the current cr is operating. trump's first stab out of -- at a defense budget. it will have a lot of carryover from the obama administration. it is not necessarily going to be linked to the strategy, which

recently came out. will have to happen with the 2020 budget. >> the same. i would be interested to see how the house boat goes. -- house vote goes. do any democrats vote for it? does leadership think it is a good way to peel off democrats? we saw something on the split with the cr. do they try to use it tactically? >> joe gould with defense news, thank you both. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> in the moment and described moment.bizarre it was a surprise when he called

me over, but he is the president of the united states, and you are in the oval office. he says who are you, come over here. >> tonight on "q&a," katrina covering president trump and supporters for the irish media during and after the election season. in her book " in america." >> it is incredibly and rocket of, it does what it says on. he does what he is talking about, playing on the notion that it was build up my swamp -- it was built on a swamp. replacing it with better people. that was something whether the not, theyieved him or believed he could fulfill that or not. they were prepared to take a chance on it. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern, on c-span's not, they "q&a." jerryifornia governor

brown delivers his final state of the state address at sacramento. he outlined his legislative parties, it including education and investment. high-speed rail construction, health care, and the criminal justice system. this is just over 30 minutes. [applause] [applause] gov. brown: thank you. th