pensions committee along with dr. jerome adams. you can watch the hearing tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. announcer: aside from covid-19 vaccine development congress is also dealing with the economic fallout from the pandemic. the senate plans to vote tomorrow what is being called a skinny relief package. on c-span2 today senators have been talking about the initial response to the plan. here's a look at what is in it. >> joining us to help set up the conversation of the current action on coronavirus is that cohen, with the national journal. thank you for joining us. the dollart about differences between what the senate is proposing and the house would like to see. guest: this bill is much smaller not only compared to the house bill that passed a couple

of months ago, but also smaller than what republicans had put forward which was closer to $1 trillion back in july. it includes cuts to the cares act to offset mcconnell's goal to coalesce the senate and republican conference. it seems like you will get that. host: when it comes to the justification of the small figure, go a little bit deeper into the majority leader's thinking. guest: a lot of republicans have been concerned about the spending already taken place. plus other trillion funding packages. a lot of that has not even been sent out yet. it remains in the treasury or in the holding of the fed. a lot of republicans have said, let us wait until that is spent

first. this particular bill republicans put forward would fill the gap. ofwould allow another draw the paycheck protection program for instance. host: for the people at home who assistanceed an assistantshi check, what does this do for getting money in their hands? guest: it does not include any direct checks like with the cares act. it does include a restart of the federal unemployment boost although it is only $300 as opposed to $600. hundreds of millions are still on unemployment. in terms of direct assistance there is less. a lot is focused on funding for schools, funding for vaccines and therapeutics. host: we saw speaker pelosi talk

with members of the white house including the treasury secretary over another relief package. where is the white house on this proposal? guest: the white house has been very involved. mark meadows was talking to senators over the weekend trying to get people involved. they have been on the same page as steve mnuchin. he was talking about it on sunday on fox news. the senate republicans and white house are looking at this in democrats, nancy pelosi, chuck schumer, said it was going to be insufficient. you have the two parties on opposite sides of this issue and i expect we'll see a close to partyline vote when this bill comes before the senate. host: i suppose an underlying overalls total spending and what ultimately it does for issues of debt and deficit. are those real considerations? are those topics these days

considering the previous spending congress approved? guest: it is remarkable we are talking about $300 billion relief package. that is a good fraction of what the government spends in an entire year. the coronavirus pandemic has unique needs and something that republicans and democrats recognizes necessary to bolster the economy during partial or complete economic shutdowns and bolster the health care response. as i said earlier, their concerns about the national debt at its highest point since world war ii. in the aftermath of the great depression, so that is what congress will have to deal with in the months and years ahead. host: walk us through the timetable of this effort by the senate. guest: mcconnell came to the floor yesterday to introduce this bill as something they have been working on for a couple of weeks of recess.

the senate just came back from the august recess and will leave town in october ahead of the november election. that will allow mcconnell to quickly set in motion a way to set up a vote for thursday. this is not a vote on the bill itself, but to end the filibuster to advance the bill in the senate. again, we expect it will fail. it might be a few boats, but 60 votes in order to pass a legislative hurdle. democrats indicating they will vote against this, with the exception of one or two at most, we can expect this bill to fail and they will be back to the drawing board and back to the white house negotiations with house speaker nancy pelosi as the main show. host: zach cohen talking us through what is expected when it comes to this proposal for another releas relief package. thank you for your time. guest: thank you for having me. >> biden's record is a shameful

rollcall of the most catastrophic betrayals and blunders in our lifetime. [applause] he has spent his entire career on the wrong side of history. >> our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation. he has failed to protect us. he has failed to protect america. my fellow americans, that is unforgivable. announcer: the first presidential debate between president donald trump and former vice president joe biden is tuesday, september 29 at 9:00 p.m. eastern. watch live coverage on c-span. watch live streaming and on-demand at c-span.org or listen live on the free c-span radio app. with the ongoing global pandemic and many schools shifting to online learning c-span's studentcam competition continues to provide students with a platform to engage in a national conversation. we are asking middleton high school students to produce a

five to six med documentary exploring the issues they want congress to address in 2021. >> the framers of the constitution were invested -- [indiscernible] it needs reform. >> when you're given the opportunity and skills to become informed voters and engaged citizens, they vote. democracy must be learned. >> from an equity and a decade-long wait, to which mulch was citizenship -- tumultuous way to citizenship, the immigration system has failed many. announcer: we are awarding $100,000 in cash prizes including a grand prize of $5,000. the deadline to submit videos is january 20, 2021. for competition rules, tips, and

more information, go to our website studentcam.org. ♪ announcer: you are watching c-span. your unfiltered view of government. created by america's cable television company as a public service. brought to you today by your television provider. announcer: we are live for the senate selective hearing committee on how to protect our nation's classified material. in ensuring historical documents can be made available to the public. [indistinct chatter]

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>> former defense secretary assistant secretary back in 2017 and 2018, also currently cofounder and principal of the marathon initiative. thank you for joining us this be here.top >> good to >> thought we would talk about china and its expanding military influence. a lot of stories in recent months. what is the marathon initiative? what does it do? >> a small think tank focused on the central problem of policy and competition particular with china. we are fronted by a variety of individuals, some government events, and corporations. accept foreign funding. >> just got our attention recently, that china's military has surpassed the military in

missiles and air defense. talk to me about conventional weapons first. what is the relative size and strength of the chinese military? >> it is daunting. thathing to remember is the united states spends more on defense in total but china has been closing the gap. china has been almost exclusively focused on its region so the military balance it is asia-pacific, shifting and china's direction. ago, theyears liberation army, the chinese military was relatively primitive and that is absolute no longer the case. gap and closing the that trend is continuing. >> the phone numbers are at the

bottom of the screen for our guest. if you live in the western part of the country -- this headline in the area of the nuclear arsenal. itsa plans to double nuclear arsenal according to the pentagon. talk about that part of the equation. >> conventional military advances are more worrying. slated to double in size from a low amount. china is increasingly able to ensure that it has what is called a second strike, the ability to retaliate against us no matter what we do.

the report indicates china is considering lower yield options. shadowuld cast a greater over american allied activity especially in the event of a conflict over taiwan or the philippines or japan. >> let's talk about what it all means. they write itort, this way, that the chinese frames thisrty strategy is holding nationalistic strategies to return china from a position of strength, prosperity, and leadership on the world stage. what about china's goals? >> i co-authored a piece on the foreign affairs website with a noted offer -- author the other day. is not primarily about ideology. it is largely about the degree of power that china has.

it is partly ideological but the reality is china is the largest state to enter the system since the united states itself in the 19th century. system massive solar influence with an enormous gravitational pull. interests are to gain hegemony over its region, to create a market area around and for long-term prosperity and security. cannot affordtes that because asia is the biggest which would greatly diminish american prosperity, freedom, and security. china is developing a military consistent with these goals, and as the defense report rightly puts it, it is rooted in a long-standing aspiration.

>> the headline in foreign affairs. the ideology delusion, in the current edition of foreign affairs. it is not about doctrine. before we get to calls, what does this mean in terms of u.s. policy or strategy toward china and that part of the world? >> the national defense strategy .ery much continued the real reaction on the military and defense side is we need to laser focus on china in asia. is the threat, the one we need to prepare for. the department has begun on that. without the requisite urgency and the revolutionary change required. at the same time, it means being elsewhere.conomical

priority our second but the danger is much less severe and russia is much weaker than china. strongeres are much and can play a larger role. i think long-term, you will see more focused on the asian pacific and china, and in other theaters, a throttle back. host: our guest is eldridge colby, formerly with the defense department, former deputy defense assistant secretary of strategy and force development. we have our first call from pennsylvania. go ahead. caller: i was wondering about the border dispute on the himalayas. what is going on with china?

host: something the president mentioned at his friday news conference, mr. colby. for those not familiar with what is going on what kind of battles has china had with india recently on that border? it is a long-standing issue, right? guest: great question, and it is really striking actually. the border dispute between india and china goes back for 50 years. in fact, they had a short border war in 1962 about it. neither side has forgotten about it. china seems to be pushing out in all directions. if china were following the old model of by your time and had your capabilities, this is their famous model under deng xiaoping, they build their strength. but instead, now china seems to be pushing out against not only the united states, but also india, vietnam, the philippines, and other southeast asian countries. there have been some pretty scary incidents up there. it is very high elevations, where hand-to-hand fighting between the chinese military and the indian military has happened.

no real resolution as far as i've seen. the indians have certainly held their own. this is just driving india further into the friendship of the united states, which is something that is really critical. i would say that two key allies if you will, partners of the u.s. in the coming years will be japan and india, in particular with australia also playing a critical role. so to me it is a bit of a mystery about what beijing is thinking. perhaps when you are that strong and they are feeling their oats, they are beginning to say, hey, why are we putting aside these disputes? china deserves to be respected and others should defer. host: brad in kentucky, good morning.

caller: good morning. mr. colby, you have quite an impressive resume. first question for you, when we were making the decision to go into iraq, was bush misled about wmds, that would be one question i have. even on the day of 9/11, he had a real strong -- he was verbally telling aides for this to lead into saddam somehow. where does that come from? you were close, you are there, can you talk about it? host: brad, thanks for calling. guest: thanks, brad. it is a great question. you may have seen in my background that i served on the commission set up to look into why the iraqi intelligence was wrong. this may be sounds like monday morning quarterbacking, but i always thought the iraq war was a mistake but i don't think president bush acted on bad faith. i think he and vice president cheney and others seem to have believed that the possibility of a rock reconstituting a nuclear

and other wmd program was enough to necessitate an invasion of the country, and i think they were more optimistic about how it would go. and they probably also thought that it would, it would set an example for other countries for

more compliance on wmd and terrorism issues. obviously, it didn't work out that way. in terms of the intelligence, i would say that i don't think the president was misled, i think elements of the intelligence community generally believed iraq was beginning to reconstitute a wmd program. the famous example i remember is the biological weapons analyst in the c.i.a. who told deputy secretary of defense paul wolfowitz that she would cut off her finger if she was wrong about the assessment. she turned out to be wrong. though it is worth remembering that there were few countries at the time who were -- in saddam hussein's iraq. a think they were genuine mistakes.

the other thing is that the intelligence community wasn't assessing that iraq already have them, it was that they were in the beginning stages of regaining them. the fear in the bush administration was that once they were sort of out-of-the-box, it would be difficult to put them back in. despite all that, it was a mistake. it was a hard call. host: mr. colby, take us back to china and the u.s. when it comes to nuclear weapons. here is a look at the numbers. the u.s. currently at 5800 nuclear weapons, 3800 active, 2000 unwitting dismantlement. china is estimated in the low to hundreds. can you put that 200 number in perspective if we are talking about an increase in china. to what extent are they looking to grow out? guest: i tend to think that numbers in the nuclear realm. make a difference -- don't make a difference. that 3800 number is not the number that is deployed or would be expected to be used. the numbers can be a bit misleading. i think china actually understands that. china has always wanted to avoid the mistake they perceive the soviet union made, which was getting in an arms race with a technologically creative united states. they are looking to develop enough nuclear weapons, i think,

that they can be sure that they would be able to blow up some american targets that we really care about. in the context that we in the american people would want to fight in the asia-pacific, that is enough to cast a shadow. it is enough to say, prevent us from trying for instant nuclear blackmail. the chinese believe the u.s. uses nuclear weapons -- used nuclear weapons to blackmail them in the 1950's and so forth. i am more worried about their conventional forces. and more worried about the indications in the report that they may be considering low yield systems because these would give china potentially intermediate options that would be more plausible in the event of a conflict in the western pacific, a limited conflict, which is almost certainly what would happen if, god forbid, a war did break out. >> we will welcome -- we are having trouble using linkedin. frmer representative